Date: 05/15/2024

Reading time: 11 minutes, 2384 words

🪖 Military

The ceremony of withdrawal of peacekeepers from Nagorno-Karabakh took place

Russian peacekeepers were in Nagorno Karabakh based on a statement of November 9, 2020. The military group was supposed to stay in the region until 2025, which could be extended for another five years. The population of Artsakh was subjected to forced displacement, more than 100 thousand people moved from Artsakh to Armenia.

CivilNet

Armenia and Slovakia discuss issues of military-technical cooperation

Armenia participated in the IDEB-2024 defense exhibition in Bratislava, Slovakia, at the invitation of the Slovak Ministry of Defense. A number of agreements have been reached between Armenia and Slovakia.

Armenpress, Armenia, Slovakia discuss expanding defence cooperation

Armenia and India plan to create a working group on defense issues

The first defense consultations between the Ministries of Defense of Armenia and India took place under the chairmanship of Levon Ayvazyan. The progress and development prospects of Armenia-India cooperation in the field of defense were discussed, including military-technical, personnel military education and tactical training, exchange of experience and other fields.

CivilNet, Armenian and Indian Defense Ministries hold first defense consultations in Yerevan, Armenia, India hold first defense consultations

🏛️ Politics & Government

Over 52% of respondents in Armenia support Tavush for Homeland movement to certain extent, Gallup phone poll shows

A total of 35.1% of respondents in Armenia said they “fully support” the Tavush for Homeland movement, Aram Navasardyan, head of the Armenian office of GALLUP International Association, said at a press conference on Wednesday. 17.8% said they feel “more than positively” about the movement, 10% - ‘more than negatively’, 10.5% “absolutely negatively”; 13.6% found it difficult to answer the question.

ArkaAm

Civil disobedience campaigns continue in Yerevan

People demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation again blocked streets in Yerevan on May 15.

PanArmenian

The Baku court has extended the terms of detention of Artsakh officials for five months

Former presidents Bako Sahakyan, Arayik Harutyunyan, Davit Babayan and Davit Ishkhanyan are speaking. The detention period of the former President of Artsakh Arkady Ghukasyan was also extended by five months. 23 Armenian servicemen and civilians were arrested in September 2023, after a one-day war against Artsakh.

CivilNet

Political consultations held between foreign ministries of Armenia, Georgia

The Republic of Armenia and Georgia held a round of political consultations in Tbilisi on May 13-14. It is noted that the participants of the meeting reviewed the existing relations between the two countries.

Armenpress, Political consultations held between Foreign Ministries of Armenia and Georgia

Education reforms, institutional development, peace agenda implementation: PM delivers speech at EBRD annual meeting

Nikol Pashinyan attended the opening ceremony of the annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the Republic of Armenia. Armenia's economy has grown by almost 30 percent since the People's Nonviolent Velvet Revolution of 2018.

Armenpress, Prime Minister highly values the partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Armenian PM and EBRD President discuss joint projects and perspectives, EBRD plans to invest up to 500 million Euros in Armenia in 2024, EBRD and InecoBank bolster science innovation hub in Yerevan

Border delimitation between Armenia, Azerbaijan should become a key tool for learning peaceful coexistence - PM

Armenia and Azerbaijan lack experience and knowledge of peaceful co-existence, says Prime Minister. Pashinyan: "What you don't know brings uncertainties, concerns, tensions, which you understandably formulate and perceive based on your experience"

Armenpress, Moscow welcomes Armenia-Azerbaijan foreign ministers' negotiations in Almaty, Demarcation should become one of the tools that will teach Armenia and Azerbaijan to live peacefully – PM Pashinyan

PM Pashinyan sends congratulatory message to the Prime Minister of Serbia

Nikol Pashinyan congratulates Miloš Vučević on occasion of his election to the post of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia. The message reads as follows: "Armenia values friendly relations with Serbia based on mutual respect and trust"

Armenpress

Armenia and EBRD sign €236 million agreement for Sisian-Kajaran road construction

The EBRD signed a loan agreement worth €236 million for the construction of the 24.2 km southern section of the Sisian-Kajaran North-South Road. The project is a strategic priority for Armenia, ensuring its connectivity and access to Europe and beyond.

Armenpress, EBRD plans to invest up to 500 million Euros in Armenia in 2024, EBRD grants Armenia 12 million euros for the construction of a logistics center in Syunik, EBRD funds largest road project in Armenia

Armenia and France expand cooperation in civil aviation sector

Meeting was held between the Director General, Mihran Khachatryan, and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to the Republic of Armenia, Olivier Decottignies. Issues of strengthening and expanding cooperation between Armenia and France in the field of civil aviation were discussed.

Armenpress, French Development Agency to extend cooperation with Armenia’s government, Armenia, France extend partnership in civil aviation, Armenia and France are expanding cooperation in the field of civil aviation, Armenia, French Development Agency to expand cooperation

The delegation led by Tigran Avinyan leaves for Paris

The Yerevan delegation will visit Paris from May 15 to 19. They will meet with the president of the regional council of Île-de-France.

Armenpress, Yerevan Mayor to travel to Paris on May 15-19

Moscow sees the need to resume the work of the tripartite group on the issue of de-blockade

Moscow considers it necessary to resume work of tripartite working group co-chaired by deputy prime ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on blockade issue. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said about it in an interview with the News.ru website: "We do not use the term Zangezur Corridor, but in favor of the complete unblocking of economic and transport communications in the South Caucasus. He also spoke about the role of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh.

CivilNet

Armenia is waiting for the decision to join the European Peace Foundation. Pashinyan

Pashinyan: We are waiting for the decision to include Armenia in the European Peace Fund. The fund was established in 2021 to promote world peace, prevent conflicts and supply non-lethal weapons to countries in need. In mid-April, the media wrote that a preliminary agreement was reached in Brussels to provide 10 million euros to Armenia from this fund, but Hungary blocked the decision.

CivilNet

Mirzoyan to take part in Council of Europe ministers’ Committee session in Strasbourg

Ararat Mirzoyan will travel to French city of Strasbourg for a working visit on 16-17 May. He will take part in the 133rd session of the Committee of Ministers, devoted to the celebration of 75 years since the foundation of the Council of Europe.

ArkaAm, Armenian FM to participate in the session of CoE Committee of Ministers

High-Tech Minister: Armenia considers creating investment fund

Armenia’s Minister of High-Tech Industry Mkhitar Hayrapetyan discussed a potential creation of an investment fund in the country with Noubar Afeyan, the founder of venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering. Fund is expected to improve cooperation between Armenian authorities and the private sector.

ArkaAm

Armenia's policy is to diversify its foreign relations - Pashinyan

Armenia's policy is to diversify its foreign relations in all areas, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at Copenhagen Democracy Summit. "We are happy about the deployment of the EU Civilian Monitoring Mission on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan," he said. The prime minister said that the EU decision on Armenia's inclusion in the European Peace Facility is now awaited.

ArkaAm

Moscow slams EU mission in Armenia for “provocative activity”

The EU mission is doing more and more against Armenia’s neighbors Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, Mikhail Galuzin said.

PanArmenian

Uruguay Chamber of Representatives votes to submit draft law on the Armenian Genocide Memorial Day to executive branch

Chamber of Representatives of Uruguay on May 14 unanimously passed the draft law declaring April 24 as Armenian Genocide Memorial Day in Uruguay, 74 votes in favor by the 74 MPs present. After the executive's approval within 10 days, the law will come into force immediately, the Armenian Embassy in Uruguay said in a post on Facebook.

Armenpress, Uruguay House of Representatives approves billdeclaring April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

Slovak PM in ‘life-threatening condition’ after being shot

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico is fighting for his life after he was shot multiple times following a government meeting. Fico's condition is life-threatening and he’s being flown by helicopter to hospital for emergency treatment.

Armenpress, Slovak PM Fico in hospital after being shot, Violence has no place in politics: Armenian PM wishes speedy recovery to Slovakia’s Robert Fico, Slovak PM in life-threatening condition after assassination attempt, Slovak PM Fico in hospital after being shot

Zelenskiy cancels visit to Spain and Portugal

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has cancelled a visit to Spain and Portugal, authorities said on Wednesday. CNN Portugal and other media reported it was because of renewed fighting in his country. Spain's King Felipe of Spain had been due to hold a reception and host a meal in his honour. He had also been expected to sign a bilateral security cooperation agreement.

Armenpress

The Power of One Dram Sums up the Two-Year Program with Teach for Armenia

During November and December 2021, AMD 9,328,753 was transferred to the “Teach for Armenia” educational foundation. The amount gathered within the framework of “The Power of One Dram” initiative of IDBank and Idram. As a result, two schools of Aragatsotn Region have been conducting an education program based on change for two years.

Armenpress, Power of One Dram sums up two-year program with Teach for Armenia

Blinken, guitar in hand, sings ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ in Kyiv bar

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plays guitar and sings Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" with a local band. Blinken assured Ukrainians they are not alone and that billions of dollars in American military aid on its way will make a "real difference" on the battlefield.

Armenpress

Armenia’s ruling party frames anti-government protesters as ‘Russia-backed’ on social media: DEMOCRACY WATCH #4

A CivilNet investigation has found that the campaigns, mostly on Facebook, are generated by the country’s ruling party. Among the main targets is the leader of the protest movement Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the Primate of the Tavush Diocese. They circulate videos and photos suggesting his involvement in a “Russian plan to destabilize Armenia”

CivilNet, Echoes of Déjà Vu: Reviving Resistance in Armenia, Archbishop Bagrat: This is our first victory

India and Iran have announced the launch of the Chabahar port development project

India and Iran signed a ten-year agreement on the development and operation of Iran's Chabahar port. The agreement aims to expand regional communication and facilitate trade, particularly between India, Iran and Afghanistan. India has invested in the infrastructure and modernization of the port, making it a viable transit route for Indian goods to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

CivilNet

U.S. warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west

Georgia has been warned by the U.S. not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow.

PanArmenian

💵 Economy

EBRD predicts Armenia’s economy to grow by 6.2% in 2024

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development expects Armenia’s economy to grow by 6.2% in 2024 and 4,8% in 2025. The EBRD forecasted a 4.5% economic growth in 2024 for Armenia in its previous report, published in September 2023. The World Bank expects the Armenian economy to. grow by 5.5%, the IMF predicts 5% growth for the country's economy in 2024.

ArkaAm

VTB (Armenia) expands opportunities for cross-border money transfers by phone number

Retail customers of VTB Bank (Armenia) can receive money transfers from Russia by phone number. Funds are credited instantly to the recipient's account or card in national currency. In 2023, the bank's retail customers received more than 94 thousand money transfers.

ArkaAm, VTB-Armenia Bank has expanded the possibilities of international transfers by telephone

EBRD has significantly improved the forecast of the growth of the Armenian economy in 2024 to 6.2%

The EBRD predicts 6.2 percent economic growth in Armenia in 2024, and 4.8 percent in 2025. The World Bank expects that Armenia's economy will grow by 5.5 percent in 2024. The IMF predicts a 5 percent growth for the country's economy in 2024 and 2025.

ArkaAm

Donations to Armenia:

Himnadram
ServicemenFund
Armenian Wounded Heroes
ArmeniaFund

Hey everyone!
I recently dove deep into the fascinating world of web unblockers and thought I'd share some insights that might just change how you see internet restrictions and web scraping. You might already know that web unblockers are like secret passageways that let you sneak past internet censorship or geofencing. Think of them as VPNs on steroids, allowing not just encrypted data transfer for privacy but also unrestricted browsing freedom.
But here's where it gets really interesting, especially for folks in the web scraping arena. Web unblockers serve as these powerful APIs designed to outsmart anti-bot protections. They’re like the ninjas of the internet, using tactics such as IP rotation, browser fingerprinting, CAPTCHA solving, and even Javascript rendering to access the data we need.
Now, you might think a proxy does the job by changing your IP address. But web unblockers? They're the whole package, offering a bunch more than just a disguise. Yet, it's not all smooth sailing. No single web unblocker can claim victory over every anti-bot mechanism out there. Tech giants like Cloudflare are in constant evolution, crafting more complex defenses to keep bots at bay.
This is exactly why I conducted the Great Web Unblocker Benchmark. It's a showdown to see how different web unblockers stack up against the toughest anti-bot solutions in the wild. Sure, there's a price tag attached to these unblockers, but picking the right one isn't just about spending money—it's about investing in seamless data access for our projects.
In the end, the key takeaway is weighing the cost against the potential to maintain an uninterrupted data flow for our customers. Let's keep pushing the envelope and finding the best tools to navigate these challenges together.
Cheers to an open and accessible web for all our scraping needs!
Linkt to the full article: https://substack.thewebscraping.club/p/what-is-a-web-unblocker

14-minute read.

average monthly nominal salaries and YoY change in Q1 2024

Yerevan +8% to ֏324K/$836
Syunik +7% to ֏295K/$760
Shirak +7% to ֏142K/$366
Yerevan had the highest wages. Syunik had the highest wages among provinces, while Shirak had the lowest.
REPORT: While the average nominal monthly salary does not always show the level of economic prosperity in a region, its rise has made a tangible difference in Syunik.
SUREN PARSYAN (economist): Syunik has higher wages and strong employment. It is the most prosperous province with the lowest unemployment poverty rate in Armenia: 24% in Armenia, 15% in Yerevan, and 2% in Syunik.
REPORT: Over the last 5 years, the average monthly nominal salaries have risen by 40% while the inflation was 21%.
source,

Armenian army launches command staff exercises

They will exercise the practical implementation of deployment and combat plans, evaluate the commanders' skills, improve the synchronized work between various groups, develop the officers' moral characteristics and practical skills during preparation and combat operations, etc.
They will use automated control systems and modern technologies during the exercises.
source,

Armenia and India will form a new working group for defense cooperation

Defense ministries of AM and IN held a meeting on Tuesday. They discussed the 2024-2025 cooperation plan and the creation of a new working group to coordinate the cooperation.
source,

from PM Pashinyan's speech at Copenhagen Democracy Summit:

PASHINYAN: Democracy has indeed become a reality in Armenia. Before the 2018 Velvet Revolution, massive electoral frauds were the usual companion of elections in Armenia. There was no trust among the citizens that there was a real chance for them to elect the government.
Now the situation is totally different; citizens know that they are powerful enough to decide. The two general elections that were held in Armenia after the Velvet Revolution have been acknowledged as democratic, free, and competitive both by the Armenian society and the international community.
Armenia made huge progress in strengthening the democratic institutions, an achievement reflected in reputable democracy indexes:
(a) Now we are the 43rd in the Reporters Without Borders’ Freedom of Speech index, compared to 79th place in 2017.
(b) Categorized as having partially free internet in 2017 by Freedom House, now we enjoy the status of a country with free internet.
(c) In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Armenia is now 62nd instead of 107th in 2017.
(d) In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index we are 84th compared to 111th in 2017.
In order to assess this progress, it's essential to note that alongside democratic reforms, Armenia has been contending with external security challenges: the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia in 2021 and 2022 and the occupation of over 200 km² amid inaction by [Russia's] CSTO, the forced displacement of over 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, have cast doubts among Armenian citizens weather democracy is the right choice. So, democracy needs to prove its efficiency while dealing with security, economic and humanitarian challenges.
We are pleased with the deployment of EU monitoring mission alongside the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and we welcome EU’s decision to expand its capacity. On the other hand, we hope for the inclusion of Armenia into the European Peace Facility and in this regard, we rely on the support of all EU member states [Hungary].
A new set of commitments aimed at strengthening Armenia’s economic resilience, state institutions, and addressing the humanitarian needs of refugees has been taken on by the European Union and United States during the high-level meeting on April 5 in Brussels. The rapid and effective implementation of those commitments is of utmost importance.
Despite all the challenges, we believe that the real and most aspiring companion for democracy is lasting and sustainable peace. My government took the share of its responsibility for this. Recently we reached an agreement with Azerbaijan to launch the delimitation of our interstate borders on the basis of the Almaty Declaration of 1991. That means that during the delimitation we should simply reproduce the Soviet-era administrative borders. This is the implementation of the agreement reached in Prague in 2022. Now it is time to incorporate and reflect those agreements in the peace treaty and have it signed.
Another key point for our regional stability is the «Crossroads of Peace», project, initiated by my government. This project implies that Armenia and Azerbaijan restore and open transport and other communications in accordance with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass, and comply with the principles of equality and reciprocity. These elements of the concept were agreed upon during the July 2023 meeting with Ilham Aliyev and Charles Michel. //

... Politico reporter's Q&A with Pashinyan

REPORTER: [Ex-NATO leader] Anders Fogh Rasmussen called your neighbor an autocracy. You are in a very difficult geopolitical and geographical position. How do you solve the security problem in that environment?
PASHINYAN: I would not like to comment on the internal situation of our neighboring countries. Democracy fully corresponds to the mentality of our people. It is a strategy for our government, it is our political belief, it is also our political identity. The members of our political team have spent most of their lives fighting for democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of speech. Now we have the opportunity to realize all these values in our country.
The security situation was complicated because of the regional and global situation; the world order is collapsing at the moment. My assessment is, and I have had occasion to say this publicly, that the 2020 war was a prelude to further developments. And now the main issue is security.
What is our strategic point of view, how are we going to guarantee the security of our country? Recently, I gave a speech in our parliament, where I said that the most important tool for ensuring security is a foreign policy based on legitimacy. This is the reason why we so often speak about the 1991 Almaty Declaration.
It is very important that during the 2022 Prague meeting, two very important agreements were reached. Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty on the basis of the Almaty Declaration and will use it as the basis for the border demarcation. This is the reason why I said that we are not drawing a new border, we just need to reproduce the existing one on the ground. This process is happening right now, and I hope that we will continue it steadfastly.
REPORTER: The border conflict that has occurred in recent years has had a negative impact on relations with Russia and Russia's role for Armenia. What would you say about this?
PASHINYAN: Armenia is a member of CSTO. We are officially a CSTO member, but I have announced that we have frozen our participation.
REPORTER: So are you still a member or...?
PASHINYAN: It is a matter for further discussion, but it is very important to record the current situation. A crisis arose in our relations after Azerbaijani troops invaded Armenia, and according to CSTO procedures, the Organization and its member states had to support Armenia in this situation. But even after the formal application, the CSTO refused to take any concrete steps, and in fact, that is the main reason for freezing our participation in the CSTO at all levels.
REPORTER: Do you expect the West to occupy the current vacuum and ensure your security?
PASHINYAN: We are diversifying our foreign relations in all spheres. Now we are developing defense cooperation with India, France, and other countries. We have a certain cooperation with the European Union because as I mentioned, we are happy about the deployment of the EU Civilian Observation Mission on the border. It is a civilian mission but in a way, it is a new factor for the security of our region. This is the first time that the European Union participates in the security agenda of Armenia.
REPORTER: Would you like to become an EU member?
PASHINYAN: We are waiting for the EU's decision to include Armenia in the European Peace Facility. We also hope to start visa liberalization negotiations, and last year I announced in the European Parliament that Armenia is ready to be as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible. This is our position.
REPORTER: Can you elaborate on what initiatives Armenia is taking in the fight against corruption?
PASHINYAN: We have made huge progress but have not eradicated corruption from Armenia. We must continue to be persistent in the agenda of democratic reforms. This is the reason why cooperation with the European Union is of utmost importance for us because today the European Union is our main partner in the implementation of our democratic reform agenda. We hope that the European Union, as well as the USA, will increase their support to Armenia in the implementation of democratic reforms, because, as I said, democracy is a strategy for us.
By the way, in 2019 we started a Strategic Dialogue with the USA, and today we see the strengthening of our cooperation with the European Union. We recently had a tripartite meeting with the participation of the USA, EU, and Armenia. It was an unprecedented format, where we adopted a huge agenda of institutional and economic reforms. It is also very important that we receive more tangible support from the EU and the US to address the humanitarian needs of the Nagorno Karabakh refugees because it is a very sensitive and emotional issue for us.
REPORTER: In which year would you like Armenia to become a member of the EU?
PASHINYAN: This year [as soon as possible]. //
Pashinyan met Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The latter emphasized the importance of the “Crossroads of Peace” project in the context of unblocking the regional infrastructure.
Pashinyan discussed various topics with the PM of Denmark. The latter accepted his invitation to visit Armenia.
full video, source, video, other, other, source, video,

former regime continues to hold protests and briefly shut down roads in Yerevan with demands for PM Pashinyan's resignation

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Dozens of participants were detained and released the same day for blocking roads. The detentions decreased from 170 on Monday to ~63 on Tuesday. They want Pashinyan to resign or to be impeached. The protest organizers visited universities to gather student supporters, some of whom joined them with a dance. The organizers also stopped by at a bakery where they were given free food.
A felony investigation was launched after a police vehicle, "with the sirens on", struck a reporter on the street. In another instance, an investigation was launched against a protester who brought a long sword. One other case was launched over alleged threats made on Facebook by a Galstanyan fan who wants scores of people to be beaten in dalans and exiled from Armenia, "մենակ էտ դեպքում էս սրբազան հողը կմաքրվի էս տեսակ շան ծնունդներից, ուրիշ ձև չկա!!!!"
ԳԼՈՒԽ 2
A ruling faction member of Yerevan City Council complained about "harassment" by opposition figures who are attempting to convince ruling party members to join the protests and the impeachment.
RULING MEMBER: That is not how it works. No one will join you with that conduct. People will join if they see you have a legitimate agenda with trustworthy leaders. Instead, you are "ethnically cleansing" the citizens of Armenia [referring to one opposition speaker telling non-Armenians to leave] և հեռու չէ են օրը երբ դուք գուցե ասեք որ հայ լինելու համար պետք է Հայկ նահապետից տեղեկանք բերել: //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 3
Yesterday the protest co-organizer Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan said he received a report suggesting that the Deputy Rector of Yerevan State University supposedly urged deans and others to retaliate against students who joined the protests. Galstanyan said he was unsure whether the report was true, but decided to read it out loud anyway. On Tuesday he rallied his supporters to the backyard of the University where he demanded to speak with the Deputy Rector for clarification.
The Deputy Rector went downstairs and greeted Galstanyan, who shook her hand but wouldn't let it go for an uncomfortably long period, prompting her to ask him to let go of her hand. The Deputy Rector declared that whatever Galstanyan read about her was a defamatory lie.
GALSTANYAN: I never believed it myself.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Then you should not have said out loud something you did not believe.
GALSTANYAN: Listen, there is a recorded fact...
DEPUTY RECTOR: Where is that "recorded fact"?
GALSTANYAN: It was on the media. As I said yesterday, I had no verification that it was true, which is why we came here to clarify it. If it's false, then I apologize.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Thank you. //
The Deputy Rector urged the protest organizers not to enter the building or disrupt the classes, and that "anyone who wants to follow you can follow you, anyone who wants to stay in classrooms should stay in classrooms".
The angry Deputy Rector left. Another university official criticized Galstanyan for not checking the information before reading it to his followers. Galstanyan said he stands behind his words, and that he was "just reading what was on the media", but reiterated that he had no intention to insult the Deputy Rector.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 4
Galstanyan and his supporters visited the monument dedicated to Operation Nemesis. He praised the figures behind Nemesis for "assuming personal responsibility". In front of the crowd, Galstanyan introduced Hambig Sassounian who recently joined his movement. He pointed to the Nemesis monument and said Sassounian is "one of the successors, one of the brightest people." In related news, on Sunday a ruling faction MP complained about receiving death threats with reference to Operation Nemesis.
ԳԼՈՒԽ 5
DANIEL IOANNESIAN (NGO chief): When this protest dies down, we need to discuss the following: (1) The transparency of political and media funding. There are some regulations in place, but they are incomplete and easily bypassed. For example, I'd like to know who paid for Archbishop Galstanyan's giant stage in Republic Square. In 2018 Pashinyan organized a fundraising for it and disclosed a detailed report. (2) Should the media organizations that do not respect the rules of financial transparency enjoy all the mechanisms for the protection of journalists? (3) Are the customs authorities confident that the church is not facilitating the business activities of certain figures disguised as donations? (4) Is it fair for the church and clergy members not to pay taxes? Should they be able to have a Bently and LX570 without paying taxes? [The "Bentley" is based on a true story.]
ԳԼՈՒԽ 6
Archbishop's fans spotted Miss Armenia 2003 and a H1 host Lusine Tovmasyan drinking a coffee at a Yerevan café and approached her.
PROTESTER: (unintelligable)
LUSINE: I was here drinking coffee yesterday, and a year before that.
PROTESTER: Why have you not joined the holy struggle?
LUSINE: Լավ եկեք թարգեք, շատ զզվելի ա, էնքան զզվելի ա․ //
ԳԼՈՒԽ 7
Pro-Kremlin propagandist Alexander Dugin praised the pro-Russian forces' protests in Armenia and criticized the pro-EU protests in Georgia.
Pro-Kremlin Russian politician Semyon Baghdasarov praised Archbishop Bagrat and the ongoing "uprising" in Armenia against the "traitor" [Nikol] who "rigged" the elections with the help of "Turkey, UK, and US". Nikol is a Turkish MI6 agent. video,
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Video of a protest recorded from above: video
source, video, video, video, video, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, video,

Armenian government has upgraded other diplomatic channels to reduce reliance on ARF's diaspora structures in the US, says pro-West NGO chief

KHURSHUDYAN: The status of the Armenian Ambassador to the U.S. [Lilith Makunts] has been significantly upgraded. I won't go into specifics because it's tied to our neighbors, but she plays an interesting role there. We have great conditions for the U.S. Congress to pressure Azerbaijan. This is outside of ARF's lobbyist groups in the U.S.
REPORTER: ARF Hay Dat's recent conduct has been shameful.
KHURSHUDYAN: And its influence on the Lemkin Institute was obvious. //
Yesterday Kurshudyan accused the Lemkin Institute of caving to ARF's pressure and meddling into Armenia's internal affairs to assist the protests by the pro-Russian former regime.
KHURSHUDYAN: Lemkin Institute accused Pashinyan's April 24 genocide remembrance day statement of containing "victim blaming". Lemkin did not comment on Pashinyan's statement for several weeks, waited 15 days, and as soon as these pro-Russian protests began in Armenia, they gave them a պաս:
source,

Armenia's four most prominent pro-West opposition parties announce the formation of a unified platform

Republic Party, led by ex-PM Aram Sargsyan.
Hanun Republic Party, led by Arman Babajanyan.
European Party of Armenia, led by Tigran Khzmalyan.
Christian-Democratic Party, led by Levon Shirinyan.
Have the following agenda...
(1) Promotion of Western values in Armenia and Armenia's membership in EU and NATO.
(2) United front against threats and risks of destabilization coming from Russia.
(3) Vetting judges to clean up the courts, and resolution of issues left unaddressed by the Pashinyan administration.
(4) Continuation of border demarcation based on 1991 Almaty.
(5) The use of international law to achieve a fair resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh residents.
The platform is open for like-minded forces to join.
source,

Armenian army chief denies being a Russian citizen

A statement released by the defense ministry denies media reports that CoGS LtGen Edward Asryan is a dual citizen of Russia. His wife is an ethnic Russian with Armenian citizenship and his kids are dual citizens, but Asryan only has citizenship in Armenia. The whole family has resided in Armenia since 2006, said the statement.
source,

Georgia passes controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill despite widespread opposition

The law will require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or face crippling fines.
The bill will be sent to the President who is expected to veto it, but her veto is expected to be overruled by the parliamentary majority later.
Georgian PM Kobakhidze had an "honest conversation" with U.S. deputy foreign minister James O'Brien, telling him that the Georgian government is interested in deepening the partnership with the U.S., "which requires mutual efforts and relations based on fairness."
James O'Brien demanded to speak with the manager - Bidza Ivanishvili. The latter refused to meet O'Brien, saying he won't hold any meetings under "blackmail".
The White House said the U.S. will review its relations with Georgia if the bill becomes law.
source, source, source,

how many of the 101,000 Nagorno-Karabakh refugees have left Armenia and haven't returned yet?

As of...
Dec: 6.6K
Jan: 6.9K
Mar: 8.0K
Apr: 9.1K
May: 9.9K
The former Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said many of them have family members and friends in Russia who invite them to move.
source,

temperatures are rising rapidly in Armenia

REPORTER: The rainy May is not going to be enough to alleviate the negative consequences of the rapidly rising temperatures in Armenia. With a ~3 Celsius anomaly, Armenia had the second-highest increase in temperature over the last 6 months among a group of monitored countries.
WEATHER CENTER: High temperatures increase the evaporation of water and reduce the amount of snow in the winter. In December and January, we recorded rain instead of snow in certain mountainous regions, which is bad for water resources.
REPORTER: A conference was recently held in Yerevan within the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
UN official: Around 40% of global soils are degraded. Millions of people will be forced to migrate from their communities by 2050 as a result of climate problems. Emergency action is needed to reduce the rate of rising temperatures. //
Armenia joined the Convention three decades ago and has assumed the responsibility to restore degraded soil by 2030. The government is promoting drip irrigation systems for farming and wants to plant more trees.
video,

is the decline of Lake Sevan levels finally slowing down?

see the YoY chart

Yerevan Municipality to receive a €25 million loan from European Investment Bank to raise energy efficiency

It's part of the implementation of Eastern Partnership programs. The Armenian government and the EU are co-financing it.
The goal is to raise energy efficiency and carry out seismic retrofitting in 6 medical clinics and 32 kindergartens run by the municipality. The length of the program is 4 years.
video, video,

Gagik Tsarukyan is inside you

there is a bit of Tsarukyan inside all of you
see it to believe it

Gagik Tsarukyan says the new Jesus statue is ready and will be installed by the end of 2025

It will be a tourist attraction site. There will be a ropeway. Also, Tsarukyan needs you to know that he is a man of God and an avid believer.
video,

Armenia and Slovakia discussed AM-EU visa liberalization

source,

Lithuania will help retrain Armenian law enforcement agents to combat cybercrime, analyze crimes, etc.

source,

Armenia's Economy Minister Papoyan met the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt

In a Washington meeting participated by the Armenian Ministry delegation and Armenia's Ambassador, they spoke about the Crossroads of Peace logistics project proposed by Armenia, several topics relating to Armenia's energy and economic security, and the Armenian government's ongoing efforts to classify Armenia as a "market economy".
source,

Armenia and Iran discussed the construction of a second bridge over the River Araks

The first bridge began operating in 1996. It came to replace the floating bridges on the river.
Iran says the AM-IR traffic through the Meghri checkpoint significantly increased last year. Coupled with the fact that Armenia is building a modern North-South highway, they believe it's necessary to have a second AM-IR bridge to handle the rising traffic.
The parties are currently discussing the formation of a working group consisting of experts to discuss the topic.
source,

a new study on mice indicates that more exercise might be better than more sleep for clearing brain of toxins

They injected a dye into a brain and tracked the speed of its movement during sleep and exercise.
The findings show that the clearance of the dye was reduced by 30% in sleeping mice compared with mice that were kept awake. This has not been confirmed on humans yet.
Previous research has suggested that sleep is important for preventing dementia as it is during this time that toxic proteins are cleared from the brain.
source, source,

This is not meant to be a negative post, but rather a feedback one from someone who stopped playing Singularity for this very reason.
For those who didn't know, Vecna has four powers: Fly (more of a dash), Blocking pallets (for 4 seconds), Sphere orb thingy (reveals survivors & disables items in its path), and Entity attack (flying skeletons that travel similar to Artist's crows). Pretty cool, right? Good variety, not too strong but fun.
The problem lies in the magic items. Similar to Singularity's EMP boxes, Vecna comes with magic chests that carry magic items. These items do not take up an item slot, and you can have up to 2 (or even 3) equipped at the same time, even if you're already carrying a normal item such as a flashlight or a medkit.
What's the problem? Well, these magic items pretty much hard counter Vecna. For example, one of the items makes it so you can see the aura of the Entity Attack thing as soon as it's placed down, so you'll know where to expect it. Not only that, but this attack can also be countered by... crouching. If you crouch at the right time, they simply cannot hit you.
His other powers are also pretty underwhelming at the moment. He blocks pallets, but by doing so, you're slowed down to a halt and the survivor can just hold W, and at long loops, the 4-second block is not enough to loop even once before it unblocks. His fly is similar; once you stop flying, you're slowed down to crawling speed for a few seconds. And his Entity attack is so spread out, it's extremely easy to dodge or just crouch. This, of course, on top of items that already counter each and every one of his powers.
Again, this isn't meant to be a negative post. He's an extremely fun killer to play as, he has a damn power wheel! Feels like I'm playing Dishonored all over again, but if his powers were just a tiny bit better, it would be more viable once the hype dies down and everyone goes back to playing sweaty.
From all the matches I've played as him today, I've gotta say, Vecna is the most enjoyable PTB killer I've played. He's hands down the most fun killer in the whole game. I LOVE the power wheel! Choosing your ability on the fly adds a whole new level of excitement (seriously, Knight could learn a thing or two from this). I'm genuinely pumped for the final release and really hoping they give Vecna the buffs he needs!

Bitcoin

• Ok-Affect2924

PSA: I lost nearly all my bitcoin by mining bitcoin
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• GuncelKriptoCom

El Salvador is now in a $58m profit on their #Bitcoin investment strategy! 🚀
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• GuncelKriptoCom

#Bitcoin whales are accumulating at a pace never seen before.
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ethereum

• edmundedgar

Netherlands Tornado Cash judgement (Google Translate)
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• GloopBloopan

MetaMask Optimism Ethereum transaction fails instantly
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• Otherwise_Donkey_375

Georgia Tech's CyFI Lab connected $2 billion of illicit profits to 91 digital wallets on the Ethereum blockchain
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CryptoCurrency

• kirtash93

Is Bitcoin A 90% Surge Incoming? Analyst Sees Bottom As Inflation Data In Focus
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• kirtash93

Bitcoin Regains $63K as Japan Public Firm Migrates to BTC-only Reserve
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• jawanda

Coinbase is heckin' down
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btc

• GeneralProtocols

*Now you can long or hedge BCH against the Euro on BCH Bull! *
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• MikedEACONYURMOUTH

Are these fees for real.
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• JonathanSilverblood

bitcoin cash podcast episode, direclty from bliss
Comments Link

SatoshiStreetBets

• Historical_Drink_486

Why $Kendu will take over. Dev and early investors are shib ogs. Shytoshi the head dev of shib is watching and supporting the project. We have a 100% organic community with 0$ money spent on influencers or marketing. We don't gamble, we work. A new floor is created at 40m mc after we just did a 20x!
Comments Link

• HumblestofBears

What does it mean to be the next SHIB?
Comments Link

• Token_Broker

VoteDoge's $1 Challenge Update and Expansion Plans!
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CryptoMarkets

• 0xJonnyDee

Biden blocks Chinese crypto miner's land purchase near US base in Wyoming
Comments Link

• coinmonks

$71 Million WBTC Hacker Returns the Entirety of Funds Back to Victim
Comments Link

• Salonicryptotimes

Hong Kong's Bitcoin & Ethereum ETFs facing rough waters.
Comments Link

CryptoCurrencies

• AutoModerator

Weekly General Discussion - May 13, 2024
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CoinBase

• LatinumGirlOnRisa

Planned Coinbase Maintenance Suddenly? Everything Worked UNTIL I Tried To Sell To CASH OUT
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• AggravatingLaw5523

After 2 months of trying to unblock my account i get this. WTF
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• Monstercock_roach

Withdrawals not available at this time?!?
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binance

• AutoModerator

Binance Support Thread
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FantomFoundation

• Defiant-Horse-7368

Fantom - Multichain bridge
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• Afrandnia

BTC (Fantom) to USDT
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solana

• red5600

What's your tactic to make money with meme coins on Solana?
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• don911

Do you earn staking interest on the interest too, or only on the principal?
Comments Link

• 0euy

how’s ur strat for pump.fun?
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cosmosnetwork

• Bupefiend

Saga entries?
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• zapppelphilippp

I just clicked a scam link and connected my metamask and keplr. please help.
Comments Link

• ZoltanAtom

"XRPL goes interchain" Powered by evmOS
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algorand

• GhostOfMcAfee

Babe. Wake up. New Algorand BetaNet just dropped.
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• GhostOfMcAfee

TDR and NFTR proposals are up on the Forum for review/comment ahead of voting
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• AdministrativeChef47

Algo Hour today at 1pm EST!!
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cardano

• BCHTOMOON

Cardano Foundation CEO Hints at CNT Listing on Gemini
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• cardano_content_bot

Cardano's Biggest News and Updates Live with Paul, Farid and Josh
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• cardano_content_bot

Combining Cardano & Ethereum! APEX Fusion Tokenomics & Airdrop Reveal!
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Monero

• Dopenxans

Haveno situation
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• Dopenxans

*HardenedSteel Haveno published, binaries available *
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• sunchakr

Privacy is Pro-National Security w/ J.W. Verret (MT 310)
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NFT

• jay_pu

I finally completed a collection of JennifeKoyangi mint condition Reddit Collectible NFTs!
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• Noonesees_

Minting soon. Check this out!
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• Melodic-Raspberry-80

*Pollinated *
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We had this board state yesterday on my friends board. We have been wondering if Challenger Troll and Graf Harvest create a glitch that makes Maalfeld Twins and other Zombies with Power 4 or greater unblockable? Or how would those two effects be stacked or replaced by each other?

"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and welcome to my Letsplay! Today I am back from my medically mandated break from playing human videogames after a rather... cathartic experience with a game called Teardown. Subnautica, even among humans, is labeled as a notorious experience with... mixed reception for its sequel. A survival crafting game apparently. I have experience with those so presumably the gameplay loop should be predictable enough. So... Let's go in!"
Spiffle starts the game, going for standard Survival Mode, with aspects of food and water mechanics alongside health and oxygen. The game loads very, very fast with Spiffles overpowered computer, and the introduction sequence begins. The camera pans to the panicked sight of the payer character moving down a ladder followed by a sight of a starship above exploding.
"Oh dear... oh dear! They weren't kidding about survival! Do I even survive this or am I a ghost or something..."
The pod rattles, the screen shakes, a fire extinguisher falls from its mounting. Velocity causes the pod to dislodge a panel from a wall and it flies around the cabin. The panel flies into the player's screen, making it go black.
"Oh... well okay then. I uh... well."
Spiffles' character awakens and panics at the buttons securing him to the seat. Spiffle quickly figures out that fire in this game is in fact bad, and grabs the fire extinguisher, putting the fire out. The game's introduction plays, showing his PDA, the game's inventory UI.
"Oh! I have seen these things in real life when visiting human stations! Do all humans have these?"
Spiffle starts exploring the escape pod, noting all of the damage to the radio beacon and the wiring panel.
"Hmm... craft the repair tool... Well... For later I suppose. Now how do i-AH, the ladder!"
Spiffle clicks on the ladder and goes through the animation. The character exits and dramatically stands. Spiffle looks around. His face visibly pales as he looks in every direction, finding the only thing nearby that looks 'safe’ or like 'land' is the destroyed ship in the distance.
"Water... it's... water... everywhere! How big is this game's map!? Structural hull failure... zero human lifesigns detected. That's.. not nice. Well... Here we go!"
Spiffle jumps into the water. His mood changes, the underwater environment significantly different than above ground. The water is absolutely teeming with life and color, as Spiff swims towards a reef to stare at some coral. Spiff gets distracted and starts chasing a fish, specifically a Peeper, and grabs it.
"Oh! Good god! THAT'S how humans catch fish!? That's very... inefficient! What is this thing? Can I eat it? I know I'm supposed to take care of my food and water, so how do I eat it?"
Spiffle wanders about for a while, gathering resources and exploring his general location, eventually getting back to the pod. He had gathered up a decent amount of stuff while he was swimming around and accessed the Fabricator to see what was available.
"Ah! I see, the fabricator cooks things too. Uhm... cooked fish thing and... these transparent fish give me water bottles? Okay then! Well. Sorted for food anyway. Let's see. Copper wire, batteries. A Scanner? Does that mean I can like, scan things and tell what they are? And... Oxygen tank? Oh hell yes. I'll build that then."
Spiffle goes through the process of building a few things, checking out how the game's crafting system works, and spending more time collecting resources. He quickly realizes how much work he has to do and finally finishes making a Scanner.
"Okay then well... I can see how much time is going to be spent collecting resources so i'm going to edit all of that out and keep you all in the loop on all the fun parts instead."
Spiffle continues playing, inserting a creative, albeit mildly annoying fanciful scene transition in between resource loops. He comes to a cave looking for salt to make more equipment, when he encounters the first hostile enemy of the game: The Crashfish. He does not notice it at first, the strange sloppy noise it makes as its pod opens, the beast makes a terrible gurgly noise and charges straight at him.
"What is that noi-AH! OY! OI! OIIII what are you what are-!"
Spiffle is cut off as the fish explodes, causing him to lose half his health. He quickly surfaces and takes a breath.
"Okay then... OKAY... THAT... makes absolutely no sense from an evolutionary perspective... but okay then. Avoid those. What even was that? I can't even scan it because it was moving so fast! Gods... exploding fish."
Spiffle shakes his head and resumes his hunt for resources, eventually finding enough for a repair tool. He makes the repair of the pods' broken wiring and looks around a bit more, noting some of the details in the game.
"Hard to believe these games are over eight hundred years old! I keep getting requests to play 'them gud ol' gamez' instead of any new releases. Maybe I'll get to those eventually. I have quite the backlog though."
Spiffle quickly tabs out and shows the huge list of human made games on his list that he has been gifted or purchased himself. The list includes Space Marine, Starship Troopers, Spyro Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot, and so... so many more.
"I am also told about this thing called 'anime', whatever that is. Maybe I should look into that. Anyway..."
Spiffle shrugs for now and resumes playing, swimming around for a bit before finally deciding to use his scanner. He gets the first scan - the Acid Mushroom - and painstakingly reads the supplied article. He then goes on a scanning frenzy, scanning each thing he can find, comically chasing after various fish and objects, trying to scan them then taking an irritatingly long time to read the article aloud.
He gets to the point where he encounters his first real hostile enemy and tries to scan it. The stalker, of course, doesn't appreciate that, and attacks.
"Oooh what's this thing? Oh lovely, it's a big one. Can I scan it? The... Stalker? Oh okay is it friend-OW! NONONONO go away!"
Spiffle panics and scans it while running away from it, trying to swim backwards. He's so focused on scanning it he can't run far enough away that he gets ambushed by another Stalker nearby and manages to scan it just as he gets hit with his first Death in the game.
"Oh.... o...kay. Well... it seems things aren't as friendly as expected. I'm going to guess there's more things like that around. So... I'm just going to finish working on repairs and equipment then I'll take those things on."
Spiffle reads the article on the Stalker he scanned and spends more time collecting resources, scanning local entities and building the rest of the gear he has. Fins, high capacity O2 tank, rebreather and some more food and water which he stores in floating containers for later. He starts to explore a bit farther in search of fragments to scan and finds a Sand Shark, as well as a biome resembling a desert-like area. He encounters his first piece of the wrecked ship here.
"Oh! Hello! Pieces of wreckage! What are these for now do you suppose? Can I disassemble these for resources or-Oh! Is that a door? Oh! I'm supposed to go in here and look for things? How do I get in? Oh I can't. I need a laser cutter. Is one of those here? Need more fragments I guess..."
Spiffle gives up trying to enter and goes up for air, then returns to the floor to hunt for fragments. He eventually unlocks the Bioreactor, pieces of the Scanner room, a couple fragments of the Seaglide and Seamoth. He comes across the first cave entrance to the Mushroom Caves Biome.
"Oh... oh my. That's... deep. Good thing I unlocked the Seamoth thing. Its a miniature submarine I think. I can use that. But that's... kinda scary. I can't see the bottom. I kinda see just... purple. Mostly purple. But it scares me that I can't see the bottom."
Spiffle hangs around the cave entrance for a bit before a call for Oxygen forces him to the surface. He swims back down to the cave entrance and then hangs around a bit longer before once again resurfacing, heading for some new things to scan. It is however at this point that Spiffles exploration is cut short.
"EMERGENCY - SEISMIC READINGS SUGGEST A QUANTUM DETONATION HAS OCCURRED IN THE AURORA'S DRIVE CORE. THE CENTRAL DARK MATTER REACTOR WILL REACH A SUPERCRITICAL STATE IN -"
The computer aboard the PDA shakes Spiff out of his daze and he quickly rushes to the surface and looks at the ship.
"Wait wait wait what's that!? What's going on!? I see the ship? The Aurora! That's what its name is? Whats a Dark Matter reactor and wha-"
The computer continues its countdown muffled by Spiffs panicked squealing and he has a front-row seat to one of the most spectacular explosions in the history of gaming - the Aurora's Reactor Detonation.
It happens. The world goes dead silent for a short moment, and one can see Spiffles heart visibly stop beating. Then explosion as the Aurora lets out its magnificent blast. As the shockwave expands outwards, Spiffs skin visibly turns a paler shade of blue, and his eyes go wide. The sound of a geiger counter follows, leaving him breathless and pale as the world suddenly goes dead quiet again. The sound of the geiger counter ominously leaving him shaken even more than he already is.
"FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE - THE RADIATION SUIT HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR BLUEPRINTS."
Spiffle stays completely silent, bobbing in the water for a solid few minutes, staring in shocked wonder at what he just witnessed. He regains his composure for a few short moments and returns to his scanning venture, but one can easily see he isn't in the right mind after that. He returns to the seabed, at the entrance to the mushroom caves and dives again. He does this several more times, popping up to the surface, looking at the shipwreck, then diving at the entrance again. Finally, after much hesitation, he dives one last time.
"Screw it. it's just a game right?"
He smiles at the camera with a shrug and swims far below the surface, into one of the caves. As he enters the cavern his jaw drops at the sight of a massive underwater cavern filled with gigantic glowing pink mushrooms. The Mushroom caves as they are known. He spots something in the distance, entranced, forgetting his oxygen situation. He cant get far however and a terrifying shriek of some unknown entity shakes him out of his stupor.
"What in the red dawn was that noise!?"
Spiff can't finish asking his invisible audience what's going on as he strays too close to a mushroom, occupied by a Crab Snake, a gigantic sea worm. He is grabbed from behind, spun around and he visibly panics as the giant worm digs its enormous tusks into Spiffles character. Spiffle immediately freaks out, a combination of both the terrifying shriek emitted by the creature and the shock of being attacked makes poor Spiffle jump out of his seat and duck under the table.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
The worm comes back and finishes Spiff off before his oxygen runs out. Spiff's character respawns but the footage continues, a slight whimper can be heard in the background as Spiff hides under the desk. This carries on for a few minutes, and his head very slowly appears above the desk. He gingerly puts himself back in his seat and breathes heavily for a bit. When he finally gains control, he tabs out of the game and takes a look at the wiki for Subnautica. He returns a few moments later and stares at the camera in that strange haunting glare he's become so famous for.
"WHY DO YOU STUPID DEVELOPERS NOT PUT GUNS IN THE GAME IF YOU HAVE SHIT LIKE THAT!? ARE YOU INSANE!?"
He grabs the camera and shakes it violently as he rants at it, questioning why there are guns in every other human game he has played and not THIS specific game, especially considering how there are 'giant water snake monsters that eat your face' in a game with no guns. He rants for a good minute or two then plays his outro.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you absolutely sure after Teardown, Factorio and Project ZOMBOID, you should be playing Subnautica? I mean seriously, try something less... psychologically terrifying. It's known as Thalassophobia Simulator for a reason."
_______________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and I still don't understand why we have giant worm monsters but we have no guns!"
Spiffle stares at the camera with an expression that can only be summarized as 'Seriously bruh?' and resumes his last playthrough. He becomes confused at the lack of stuff in his inventory.
"Why is my... Why do I not ha-Oh right... I was eaten. When you die your inventory is wiped... I need to build more tools then."
Spiffle starts some silly music, an alien version of Benny Hill to a montage of him collecting resources, occasionally ranting at various oddities and questioning game logic. He restores all of his tools then goes hunting for a Vehicle Bay fragment so he can build the Seamoth. He continues to scan what he can, developing something of an obsession with the task, then painstakingly reading every word about it to try and understand it. It is at this point Spiffle, during his explorations finds another derelict chunk of ship near the desert region, encountering his first Sand Shark.
"What... What is this? Oh... careful Spiff. This one looks angrier than the last one you found. Wh-What in oblivion!?"
Spiffles attention is once again diverted by the appearance of a Reefback Leviathan and its signature low drone. This one appears to be a fully grown adult.
"You-you... You've got to be... You gotta be fucking kidding me. A Juhara Eelfish!? WHAT IS THAT DOING IN A HUMAN VIDEOGAME!!!??"
Spiffle squeaks in shock as he sees a creature that is an absolute spitting image of a large oceanic dwelling sea creature, which is both the games and his native homeworlds version of a Whale. The Reefback has some dissimilarities, but its close enough to the real thing that Spiffle is genuinely shocked. He quickly pauses the game, opening various wikipedia articles, then displays a full picture of both Subnautica in game Reefback, and the Juhara-Kal-Rehar, colloquially known as a Juhara Eelfish, a shockingly similar creature that lives in his homeworlds oceans.
The only difference between them is the color of the exterior chitin shell. The Reefback has a blue/purple shell, the Juhara Eelfish's chitin has a red/green shell.
"WHEN was this game made!?"
Spiff checks, the current Earth-date is the year 2886. Humanity only entered the galactic community in 2752. Subnautica was released in 2018.
"HOW.... How is that even possible!? You didn't even know the galaxy existed until only a few decades ago, yet you almost PERFECTLY matched the appearance of one of our homeworlds native species! How is this even possible!? Okay. If the name matches then I have to call bullshit."
Spiffle approaches and scans it, then reads the data article.
"A... Reefback Leviathan? Oh thank God... Now let's see... A herbivorous creature that... that likely got so large due to the fact that its predators went extinct. Well... that's... okay... A hard chitinous shell of multiple layers, a microcosm of different creatures and flora growing from its back, hence the name. Hmmm..."
Spiffle gets that cold, empty stare on his face and glares menacingly at the camera. The screen goes black, then returns, seeing Spiffle nursing a beverage of some kind while wrapped in a blanket.
"I realized something... Call it a message from the Ancestors or a Divine revelation. But I have a funny feeling this isn't going to be the last time I see a creature from the galaxy represented in human media. I hope to the Gods that doesn't happen... the concept of this situation is nothing short of terrifying. In any case, I'm sorry about that. Lets.... let's continue."
Spiffle resumes where he left off, doing his usual routine of scanning, then obsessively reading. Eventually he unlocks the Vehicle Bay, and returns home to his pod where the situation with resources is growing obscene with at least fifty floating resource containers hovering around the area.
"Alright... A Vehicle Bay... This means I can build things like the Seamoth now. This will be nice. Right, I shall for the sake of my audience skip the resource collection mechanic that's here and focus on the actual result. I shan't waste my time either though. MONTAGE!"
Spiff yells excitedly and a montage to that same odd Benny Hill type music plays out, with him collecting the resources he needs to build both machines. Most of it is already in the floating containers strewn about. With a few visits to the fabricator, he compiles the Power Cell, Titanium Ingot and Lubricant he needs to make the Vehicle Bay. He deploys it and chases it to the surface just away from the pod in the deeper end of the shallows.
"Right... Not too hard. Let's see then, how do-Ah. Get on it and... The Seamoth. Cost of two glass, one titanium ingot, a powercell, lead and lubricant. Right."
He quickly gathers and makes everything he needs for the Seamoth, then stands on the platform ready to go. He chooses the Seamoths recipe and the sequence starts. His eyes light up as drones start flying around the platform, then begin assembling atom by atom, the small, adorable minisub known as the Seamoth. It finishes the process and flops into the water with a splash.
"My gods look at this thing! It's so cute!"
Spiffle explores the sub for a little while and hops inside it, testing the controls and playing around with it a bit to see what it can do.
"Hm... Maximum Depth, 200 meters? So if I go below that does it implode or something? I need to be careful of that. OH dammit I remember! I have to make that Radiation Suit don't I? I shall do so now!"
Spiffle seems to have found a new resolve, quickly gathering resources together and making both a Seaglide and radiation suit in short order.
"Does this thing have any weapons? How do I repair-Oh... Repair tool? That makes it easier I suppose. Now... Where do I go now? Is there anything I can do?"
Spiffle stumbles about in the blind for a few minutes, trying to figure out his next course of action beyond simply wandering aimlessly while scanning things. He gets back in the pod and fixes the radio beacon. His face visibly contorts into an expression of irritation when he hears his rescue is in 9999 hours. He resolves to come back every now and then to check the radio. He decides to gather more resources to make up for building the seamoth and comes back a bit later. He finds a radio transmission when he returns.
"RADIO: ▀▖┗▛Nine new biological subjects designated. Mode ▄▖▜▚┣: hunting/analyzing.
Sharing subject locations with other agents."
"What... in the Nine Hells was THAT!? Why was it in such an odd voice? What was that language? What were those letters!? Somethings going on here... SO now what? I have the radiation suit. i guess... go into the Aurora? Oh no, I'm not going in there unprepared! Lemme make some tools and spare batteries, then i'll go in. I need... Oh... I need more fragments is what I need."
Spiffle resumes his fragment hunt, looking around for fragments of various tools. He uses the Seamoth to traverse around.
"WHEEE!!!"
Spiff seems more than just a bit happy as he trundles around in the Seamoth, using his speed to launch himself out of the water. He splashes about a bit, testing the limits of the craft and trying to see what holes he can squeeze himself into or out of and how deep he can go.
"Okay okay. time to get to serious work. Now... I need to find... A Laser Cutter and a... STASIS RIFLE?! Wait... rifle? That means GUN! I NEED A GUN!!"
Spiffle charges forward towards the desert biome where he found the Reefback and resumes his search for things to scan. It is now he comes across a Reginald.
"What... IS this fish? Wait, let me just..."
He gets out of the Seamoth and scans it.
"Huh... Reginald. That's a... fish? It's so cute! Wait, come back friend!"
Spiffle spends an unreasonable amount of time trying to catch a Reginald. When he finally catches one he gets back in the Seamoth and heads towards the aurora, new friend in tow. He trundles over to the side of the crashed ship and scans some random stuff here and there, finding fragments to a few small items, including a few he needs such as a Powercell Charger for the Seamoth’s battery. He gets close to the front of the ship and the haunting, evil noise of Subnautica's most iconic killer suddenly echoes through the gloomy water.
"What... Was that? Is it another worm thing? Please don't let it be one of those..."
Spiffle wanders around the side for a bit longer. An ominous shadow looms in the background, catching his eye. He ignores it for the moment and simply carries on, eventually arriving at the entrance to the ship. Through the mangled steel and fire he squeezes into the front of the ship and looks around. The environment ominously rattles and his screen shakes as the ships structure isn't exactly stable. The howl of the creature in the shadows makes Spiff even more uncomfortable.
"I... Do NOT like this. I really dont."
Spiff parks the Seamoth where he can see a ramp leading up, and gets out. He is immediately accosted by Cave Crawlers and uses his knife to defend himself, poorly, but he gets rid of the three or four around him.
"WARNING: SCANS SHOW THE DIGESTIVE TRACTS OF INDIGENOUS LIFE FORMS CONTAIN HUMAN TISSUE."
Spiffs face turns an even paler shade of blue and he swallows visibly as if he's trying not to vomit.
"Yeuch... I can scan this thing and read it later. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to."
Spiff scans and follows the path to the interior, uses his fire extinguisher to put out some fires in the area and gets inside. The ship rumbles as he wanders around and gets into one of the rooms. He finds the poster of the P.R.A.W.N. Suit.
"Ooh! A poster thing? Can I take it or? I can! PRAWN Suit eh? Can I actually use that thing?"
Spiff takes the poster, scans some furniture and collects a PDA. Spiff continues down the corridor and retrieves his Propulsion Cannon from his inventory and uses it to pick up some furniture in the way.
"I am SO glad I got this thing from scanning the area before I came here. This is super useful! I wonder if it has other uses..."
He gets to the door and looks at his databank.
"Hmm... Here it is! Code for the door is 1454. Right."
Spiff moves through, repairing a door to get the Seamoth Depth Upgrade Module. He continues and clears a fire to enter the main reactor. His inner loot goblin shines through and grabs the Cyclops engine efficiency module before he starts work on repairs, scanning the breach and starting work. It doesn't take him long, but he gets issues with a Bleeder that lives in the waters. He scans one then finishes repairs. Foolishly, he uses the propulsion cannon and shoots the bleeder at one of the reactors, undoing his work. He looks at the damage he caused and repairs it.
"Well... what was I expecting... Why did I do that? It's a CANNON... why did I aim it at the reactor exactly? So stupid..."
Spiff finishes and heads to the PRAWN Bay, and looks around at the damage. He spots the prawn suits and starts scanning, grabbing a storage module upgrade from a console and starts extinguishing flames so he can scan. He runs out of fire extinguisher juice though.
"Blast! Can I still scan these if they're on fire?"
Spiff walks around, finding cheeky angles he can use and scans the debris, finding all four fragments he needs. He heads upstairs and goes through the rooms and everything he can find. He gets into the Galley and sees the Kitty in a Space Helmet Poster.
"What the- 'Keep Calm'? What in the blue balls is this? It's.... cute! What is this creature!? Can I keep this? I can!"
Spiffle excitedly grabs the poster and moves on. He goes through cabins, picks up PDAs and collects the Natural Selection 2 poster, the Prawn suit in the sea poster and the collectible arcade toy in the locked cabin. Lacking the code to the Captain's cabin, he returns to the prawn bay and tries swimming around, eventually finding a passage in the hull debris to the rest of the ship. He moves through in silence, recovers the black box data and exits the ship. He removes debris, grabs the local wildlife with the cannon and tosses them into fires or the water with glee.
"BEGONE BEAST!!! Ha! Right... uhh... where did i park? Oh, there it is. Should I go home? I wonder if there are any fragments I can use around here?"
Spiff exits, finding Liefpod 4 floating upside down on the surface of the water. He collects the PDA data and a new blueprint. Then, as he gets in the seamoth, the horrifying roar of the Reaper Leviathan suddenly sounds. Spiff is thrown into a panic, screams in terror and tries desperately to get away. The beast appears with jaw chomping and claws clawing at the poor Seamoth. The entire time Spiffle is screeching like a bird with a broken leg, his entire body now an almost ghostly white out of absolute terror.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGODNONNONOGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
Spiffle manages to get out of its grip and in a panic charges away towards his lifepod and continues to scream, breathing hard between screams. He gets to the pod and then hides under his desk, continuing to scream. His channel outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: (This has been translated from Eridani) "I am starting to believe this whole sojourn was a very BAD idea. Do you humans have those kinds of beasts on your homeworld? How did you ever survive them?!"
RESPONSE: LOL no we never had Reapers. The only Leviathan Class creatures we have on our planet are Whales. And they're mostly peaceful plankton eaters. Mostly.
RESPONSE: (Translated from Eridani) "Seriously? I think I find it more terrifying that these creatures are made up in your minds. What kind of nightmares do you people have to be able to create this level of fiction!?"
RESPONSE: Do. Not. Ask. This is only Subnautica - we have FAR worse.
Spiffles response: "You're going to make me play these 'far worse', aren't you?"
RESPONSE: "Damn right we are! :)"
________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemnonk and welcome back to Subnautica!"
Spiffle looks visibly stronger, his usual lanky appearance now looking like he's been working out like a Gym Bro. One can see muscles on muscles and Spiff seems to have an abnormal amount of energy.
"I am now relaxed. It is now time to get eaten by giant scary sea monsters. And yes, before you ask, I have successfully finished fully soundproofing my office. And also yes, I am indeed expecting a new addition to the brood... THANKS DAMN HUMANS! You and your damn musical magic nonsense..."
Spiffle starts the game and is swimming outside the pod next to the Seamoth. The first thing he does is repair the seamoth from the damage incurred by the Reaper, and recounts what hes been up to, checking inventory and equipment. He heads to the radio and gets a new transmission.
RADIO - "This is Avery Quinn of trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Over.'
'Nothing but vacuum. These Alterra ships. They run low on engine grease, they send an SOS; you offer to help, they don't pick up.'
'Aurora, we're out on the far side of the system, it's going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over.'
'I'll try them again tomorrow. Damn charter's going to have us wasting our profit margin running errands for Alterra.'
'See what the long-range scanner picks up in the meantime."
"Oh? Oh lovely! There ARE people in this game! I wonder when they will be here? Meh, I have things to build, so I'll keep an eye."
Spiffle resolves himself to start building a base, trying to find a good spot. He finds the Mushroom Forest Biome and starts gathering resources to ferry them around. He installs the Depth Module and the Storage module to the Seamoth, then builds the Moon Pool. The Mushroom Biome becomes one of his favorite spots and a close encounter with a JellyRay cements it.
"Those creatures are beautiful! Look! JellyRay! Its glowing blue and pretty! I love that! Oh... I have a new radio message. I need to listen to that then."
Spiff returns to the pod and listens to the message.
RADIO - "Aurora, this is Sunbeam again. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location.'
'I didn't know how bad... How many of you... I didn't know.'
'We are now en route to your location. We're going to bring you home. Sunbeam out.'
'What else can I say? The only time I parked a rig this big on a rock that small was in VR, and I blew it'
'Oh, it's a bad option alright, but so are all the others."
Spiff smiles and carries on working, parking the Seamoth inside after powering everything up.
"So lovely! But... Is that a win condition? I know human games by now I have played enough of them. Is that a win condition? Get rescued? I dunno..."
Spiffle carries on building for a little and gets a storage system up, spending a few in-game days transporting resources to his new base. He returned to the pod and played a new radio message, again from the Sunbeam.
RADIO - "This is Sunbeam. Y'know, Aurora, we're from a little trans-gov on the far side of Andromeda, and we have a saying there.'
'There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad.'
'Sounds like you tasted a bunch of the former, but that only means you're overdue a whole lot of the latter.'
'Might just be we're it.'
'We're scanning for somewhere to park, we'll be in touch when we find it. Sunbeam out."
"Ohh... That... that's a lovely saying! What was that uh... There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad. I like that! I think i'll have that framed on my wall! Now lets see.. i ca- I CAN GIVE THE SEAMOTH A NAME? OOHHHhh okay, okay.. I can customize the color too! I think I'll just do this..."
Spiff leaves the name as 'Seamoth' for now, changing the color to a mix of purple for the main, and blue for the trim and name color. His two favorite colors. Spiffle does a little more work, acquiring the last fragments for the Cyclops and starts gathering together the resources necessary to build it.
"Hmmm.. Cyclops... Personal large scale submarine capable of carrying other vehicles! Ooohhh I want to build that! I need to fetch the Vehicle Bay though. Im almost done moving house!"
Spiff returns and packs up the last of his resources, then gets another radio message.
RADIO - "Aurora, we're approaching the planet now, and we have a landing site for you that's... well, it's better than the alternatives.'
'We've sent you the coordinates.'
'It'll take us a couple of days to align our orbit, we should be able to establish direct contact with you during that time, then we're coming in to get you.'
'Cross your fingers the weather holds, and don't leave us waiting. Sunbeam out."
Spiffle gets a new beacon on his HUD. Sunbeam Landing Site.
"What!? Is this game over If I'm there!? Okay... well. At least it's no longer terrifying! I'll get the Seamoth and go for the beacon then. I hope it's okay... Strange... this... doesn't feel like the end, you know? But if it is then it is."
Spiff heads home, deploys the Vehicle Bay and deposits his gear and resources. He heads towards the location, occasionally squealing 'WHEEE!!' as he uses the Seamoth to jump out of the water like a dolphin. However, he miscalculates and the Seamoth jumps up, out and sustains a bit of damage as it hits a rock formation close to the surface. He gets out, repairs it and looks at the camera.
"Why no I didn't just damage my Seamoth by having too much fun. I don't know what you are talking about. Hehe."
Spiffle smirks at the camera with a glare and carries on. Eventually, he encounters the largest of the Islands in the world.
"Wh... WHAT. This has been here the whole time!? Is this an island? Who cares! LAND! Sweet land!"
Spiffle now notices the timer and hops onto the island from his Seamoth. He walks up to the landing zone and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the massive al;ien structure known as the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. In essence, a giant alien cannon.
"What... the *beep* is THAT?"
Spiffles' editing has gotten better, his editor learning how to censor Spiffles foul language, in both English AND Eridani. He moves closer to the building, scanning the broken tablet and the Forcefield Controls.
"What is this? I mean it's clearly alien... What do the codex entries say... 'possible to reconstruct the device' Oh... hmm.. I can make more of these then. 'Matches no known technologies... functions like a lock'. Okay then so... Standard video game logic I guess. That's nice! So A purple tablet will unlock the gate there. What are those?"
Spiff moves towards the Cairns marking the way into the island, pathways leading up the mountainside. He follows them, finding a Purple Tablet in the process on one of the pathways.
"Oh! Lovely! That saves me resources and a trip I guess. This pathway keeps going though. hmm... Welp, we still have thirty minutes, so let's go."
Spiff explores the pathway, getting lost a bit before finally figuring that following the large cables is a good idea. He comes across the Teleportation Arch and scans it, in between dodging the Cave Crawlers.
"Right, let's see... Alien Arch... not much to speak of here. Maybe this thing will be useful later I guess. Likely.... Hmmm..."
Spiffle continues exploring and eventually finds himself back at the forcefield with another twenty minutes to go.
"Screw it, let's go."
Spiff activates the forcefield platform and the animation of the key being placed plays out. He moves into the building, activating both data platforms and acquiring two Ion Cubes for later, scanning everything he thinks he can scan. He enters the Moonpool in the bay and gets two more Ion Cubes, plus data on a rifle and a Doomsday Device. He ignores it for now, acquiring one more purple tablet and accessing the control room.
"Right... what's in here? Hmm... Energy Core, right. I shall scan that and... press button?"
Spiff presses the button. An animation plays where a device locks his characters hand in place, viciously stabs it with a pointy metal bit and then releases it.
"OH GODS what the hell! Why is that?! That's just nasty!"
"THE TERMINAL IS BROADCASTING A MESSAGE. TRANSLATION READS: 'Warning, infected individuals may not disable the weapon. This planet is under quarantine.'"
"Quarantine! What? Infected? I-Hold on...."
Spiffle gets his scanner out and performs a self-scan. It is only now he notices something very bad has happened.
"I-infected!? Wait, what!?"
"SELF-SCAN COMPLETE - DETECTING STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT BACTERIAL LEVELS. NO ADVERSE EFFECTS DETECTED. BE VIGILANT FOR SYMPTOMS."
"Oh brilliant! Does that mean I can't leave? I KNEW IT! Wait... weapon!? This is a weapon!?"
Spiffle panics and runs out of the facility as fast as he can and waits the last few minutes for the Sunbeam to arrive. Sure enough, it does. In the last 30 seconds, the Sunbeam plays a message.
RADIO - "Survivor, we see you!
'Man, I don't know how you held out down there.'
The sunbeams message plays, and Spiffle gasps in terror from the sound of the gun platform starting up and starting to move around.
RADIO - "We've broken atmosphere and we're descending towards the landing site.'
'Is that a building down there?! What do you mean you can't identify it?"
The weapon powers up and turns, aiming itself high at the sky.
RADIO - "Hold on, no turning back now.'
'Positions everyone, touching down in 10, 9, 8-'
The weapon charges up and a loud vicious hum can be heard echoing through the valley.
RADIO - "It's coming from the building?! Change course, set thrusters to (full)-"
The radio goes to static, the weapon fires and the Sunbeam is vaporized instantly by a massive blast of bright green light. The sunbeam disappears, its hull structure completely disintegrated. Spiffle sits in stunned silence as the platform returns to a stable position, shuts down, and everything goes quiet.
"Well... Okay then... That was... horrifying. I guess thats all we have time for! Hehe! Oh dear..."
Spiffle looks a bit defeated as he sits back in his seat.
"S-see you next time! I guess... Holy shit..."
Channel Outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you okay? You seem a little bit too disturbed by that. Its fine though, compared to what happens in the Rise Of The Ancients Mod, this is tame! Lol! I love that mod!"
Spiffles Response: "Please don't make me play that mod..."
((Authors note - due to how bastardingly huge Subnautica is, this will be a multi part series. Other Spiff stories will come inbetween. Hope you enjoy!))

TL;DR - I love most of Hades 2 and want it to be the best it can, but gameplay feels less responsive or purely skill-based than 1.
​
Let me preface this by saying Hades is one of my all-time favorite games. So far, overall, I’m enjoying Hades 2 quite a bit. I already have 67 hours in 2, have beaten every area and unlocked all aspects, and will likely play for countless more over early access and after release. That being said, in its current state, I don’t think the gameplay compares to 1. I love so much about 2 and it has a lot of potential I want it to realize, but it’s a ways off for me in ways not just pertaining to it being incomplete.
​
Hades 1 has some of the best arpg gameplay I’ve ever experienced. It’s smooth, crisp, responsive, and just feels great. So far I can only describe 2 as clunky. In Hades 1, once I’d learned the gameplay, I felt like theoretically, if I played well, I could beat any challenge without even being hit. I could start a new game on Hell mode and succeed on my first run. I didn’t need mirror perks and Boons were great but never felt necessary to my success; it simply took longer and was more difficult with a bad build. This made for many intense boss fights where I won with but a hit remaining as my heart pounded. As hard as it might be to play perfectly with ever increasing enemies and projectiles, I always knew that if I failed a run, I could have simply played better. This is what compelled me to keep pushing myself to higher and higher difficulty.
​
Hades 2, for as much as I’m enjoying it, doesn’t give me these feelings. It feels very much like I’m dependent on the tarot cards, alchemy, and a good build for success, and I imagine that’ll only be more true in higher pact levels, especially with instances of largely unavoidable damage in later levels. Regardless, in 1, my character always just did what I wanted it to do at any point. I can understand and respect if they wanted to do something different for gameplay in 2, but I feel like I’m fighting the character just as much as my foes and never do I feel like I have complete control of her. To be clear, my complaint is not about the game being difficult because, aside from the Chronos fight perhaps, once you have the tarots and such, I don’t necessarily think it’s harder than 1. My complaint is about less skill expression and it being less responsive; with truly skill-based gameplay you could scale up the difficulty near endlessly.
​
I think the issue is largely, but not entirely in the movement. For example while a double dash would be great, I think it’s more of a band-aid and I never NEEDED it in Hades 1. It seems to me like they gave us these powerful abilities like slow time and ensnare and hexes but then designed the gameplay around all of it existing and being mandatory. Also, the game tried to force the run mechanic, but run just feels fundamentally worse than dash imo, especially in its current state. Feel free to skip or disagree with me on these points (or add your own productive ones), but here’s a non-exhaustive laundry list of critiques I’ve developed after extensive play that I feel are contributing to this.
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*Delay on dash start up - the slow nature of the dash means that with many enemies, if you don’t anticipate and you try to reactively dash to an attack, you’ve effectively already been hit
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*Only one dash - most run boons meh
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*Dash range inconsistent - sometimes I can dash over gaps or terrain that other times I get caught on
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*Lack of animation cancels - getting stuck in long animations when circumstances can change on the fly
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*Actions finishing after dash and vice versa - No, I don’t want to still execute a giant axe smash in the opposite direction
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*Run feels floaty, like I’m drifting around.
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*Running sometimes registering dash on controller - This issue has been consistent between three different controllers, if I don’t hold the button with FULL force, I’ll get a dash sometimes when I want to run.
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*Lack of good or any telegraphs on some enemies
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*Ultimates being interrupted/moves not registering
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*Movement feels slidey, especially so with certain weapons like torches
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*Aim assist on controller feels off, active for some abilities and others not
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*Unblockable attacks - I don’t remember anything being unblockable in 1 aside from traps and such? But furthermore, which moves are or aren’t unblockable is poorly communicated. In a particular boss fight, two different red waves that look nearly identical, one can be blocked other can’t
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*Dash attack well after I’ve stopped holding run - nearly half a second after, especially annoying for axe
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*Some enemies attacking where you are instead of where you were when they started telegraph/windup
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*Daggers sometimes dashing behind enemies, sometimes not, regardless of positioning

Having been on the otherside now, I want to encourage you all it gets better! Peace and freedom wait for you when you disengage and take the power back in your life.
Like so many of you, I really hated mother's day. It was that day two years ago, after years of low contact, I decided I was done. I didn't want to receive no guilt trip text message on Mother's Day, so I blocked the number and got on with it. The fallout wasn't easy though. A therapist helped unravel all the whys but after that mother's day two years ago, I never decided to unblock the number. I never decided to break no contact.
My parting lessons: the first year of no contact was the worst. I understand why so many people break in the first year. It took several attempts in years before I fully cut off the relationship. Everytime I went back, I regretted it. It never got better. They only get worse with age. You will always be blamed for everything, in their mind they were the perfect parent and did everything they could for you and take no accountability. I couldn't listen to my experience continue to be invalidated anymore.
The first year of holidays and Mother's Day I felt a lot of anger toward other families. Then I realized, I can make new traditions. And that I'm not worthless because this narc relationship with a parent ended. I decided to celebrate my chosen family and community. I chose to celebrate people like my mother in law or a caring neighbor. People in my life currently that show up more than my narc mom ever did.
I no longer feel sad on holidays because I know the people I surround myself with now do not put me down like my mother did. I no longer wait hours by the phone to see if my mother will call or send a message. I no longer have to play these games of manipulation, power and control!
But maybe the most important message I have for you is: I no longer let that relationship define my self worth. I can continue to celebrate my life with the people that deserve to be in it, even on a day like Mother's Day.
Wishing you all peace and healing, cheers to 2 years no contact!

I was doing quest to rescue esbern and i just had constant bugs whith this particular npc ,first when i entered sky temple Delpine wouldnt walk throgh the staircase and so she wasnt starting conversation with Esbern ,i went put waited 24 hours went back and quest went as normal ,than i have to find an elder scroll and optionally i could speak with Esbern or Arngeir and here it goes when i approached Esbern he would just say "you need to speak up im a little bit deaf" and no dilogue would pop up than i fast traveled to high hothgar (as i tryied Esbern multiple times) ,the whole screen whent black ,
this is not only issue with the dialouges i got another was when i couldnt buy vigilance becouse option wasnt showing ,and a lot of times i have to restart game if i want my followers to "wait here" becouse the dialoug3s not showing ,i can drop my LO ,but i got around 270 mods the next mod i install will swich off mod at the bottom of my LO ,
im thinking could this be caused by gdo and skyrim reputation ? I got both of them (skyrim reputation 40 mb version i belive thats the updated one) honestly i done that quest it took couple restarts and i wasnt able to do it through Esbern bur what is the couse of it ? I havent had many problems before i started quests with the blades
Edit: here is my LO
USSEP
SIMPLE WORKAROUND FRAMEWORK
REALISTIC EQUIPMENT - AE
JUST SHIELDS (ON BACK) - AE
EXTRA RANKS FOR AUGUMENTED DESTRUCTION PERKS
COMBAT REGEN TWEAKS
QOL AND BUG FIX COMPILATION
GUARD DIALOGUE OVERHAUL (XB1)
SKYRIM REPUTATION - MYSTERIOUSLY FIXED, PATCHED & IMPROVED
SKYRIN REPUTATION MFP& COMFIGURATION MENU
TK INTERFACE OVERHAUL - BETA
ELDEN SCROLLS UI
TAOS: THE ART OF SMITHING (XBOX ONE)
SMITHING XP
INCREASED MINING
DISPLAY ENHANCEMENTS (XB1)
[XB1] DYNAMIC CAMERA
[XB1] RICH MERCHANTS OF SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION
SMART NPC 0OTIONS - ENEMIES USE POTIONS AND POISONS
HAND PLACED ENEMIES - MORE POPULATED SPAWNS DUNGEONS AND POIS
ENEMY REINFORCEMENTS (FIXED)
ARCH ENEMIES - DIFFICULT BOSSES AND UNIQUE ENCHANTMENTS
REAL BOSSES
REAL BOSSES - HARDCORE
THE SWORD OF THE DAM***
BLEACH ZENGETSU ALL FORMS 1K
TAOS: EXTRA CRAFTABLES (XBOX ONE)
CRAFTABLE UNENCHANTED DAEDRIC ARTIFACTS
CRAFTABLE CROSSBOWS AND BOLTS - STANDARD VER
CRAFTABLE CHARACTER GEAR XB1
SICARIUS ARMOR - BLACK VARIANT
REINFORCED EBONY ARMOR
CONTRACTOR ARMOR 1K
ELEMENTAL VISION OF SKYRIM - CRAFTABLE
DAEDRIC CLOAKS
WEIGHTLESS
WEIGHTLESS DRAGONBORN
WEIGHTLESS HEARTFIRE
TRUE MASTER TRAINERS
[XB1]TRAINING LEVEL LIMIT
TRAINING DUMMIES AND TARGETS [XB1]
MAGIC SCALES WITH LEVEL
VORTIKAIS DRAGON ASPECT TOGGLE - MAGIC AND SHOUT BUFFS
GRAPPLING SHOUT
KAIOKEN SHOUT (GOKU VOICE)
UNLIMITED WEREWOLF
WEREWOLF - POWER
[XBOX ONE] WEREWOLF PERKS EXPANDED
SIMPLE WEREWOLF ABILITY BOOST [XB1]
VAMPIRE LORD OVERHAUL: 1K KYNREEVE RED GLOW ARMOR NEW HAIR RED RUNES
ARCANE ACCESSORIES ABSORB & VAMPIRE TWEAKS [XB1]
VAMPIRE LORD - INVENTORY, FLIGHT, AND 60 PERKS
TREEBALANCE - COMBO PACK [XB1]
SHOUT PERKS
EXTRA POWERFUL MARKSMAN PERKS XB1
[XB1] FISTS OF STEEL - ADDITIONAL RANKS FOR THE SISTS OF STEEL PERK
IMPROVED MAGIC [XB1]
POWERED DESTRUCTION [XB1]
AUGMENTED DESTRUCTION
PHENDRIX MAGIC EVOLVED
YS SPELL TWEAKS
ENHANCED NIGH VISIIN SPELL TOME (XBOX1)
VAMPIRE SPELLS
[XO] VAMPIRIC DRAIN RANGE
BETTER VAMPIRIC DRAIN
PHENDRIX DEAD THRALL
GROUND DRAGON - DRAGONREND SPELL
LEVITATE SPELL - SKYRIM
DECAPITATION SPEL
WOOD'S SPARK OF DESTRUCTION
ONE HANDED MASTER SPELLCASTING SE
DRAGONBALL TRANSFORMATIONS PACK
DRAGONBALL SPELL PACK
[XO][VO]VAMPIRIC DRAIN DESTRUCTION NOVICE AND XP FIX
HOLY WARDS BY BANJO BUNNY
DRAKONS WARD ENCHANTMENT
BATTLE WARDS - WARD WHEN YOU BLOCK!
SKYLAND BITS AND BOBS - CLUTTER OVERHAUL
SKYLAND AIO
DAVES UFHD MOINTAINS
SMIM CHAIN MESHES ONLY
NORTHERN ROADS 1K
NORTHERN ROADS & BLENDED ROADS PATCH
DIVINE TEXTURE PACK - TREES
DIVINE FORESTS
DIVERGENCE - LUXURIANT 2 - PLANTS - PERFORMANCE
VEYDOSEBROM - GRASSES AND GROUNDCOVER - NORMAL VERSION
LANDSCAPE FIXES FOR GRASS MODS
NORTHERN ROADS & LANDSCAPE FIXES FOR GRASS MODS PATCH
JUST ICE - 1K
BETTER DYNAMIC SNOW V2.11(SMIM)
NORTHERN ROADS & BETTER DYNAMIC SNOW PATCH
IA92'S REALISTIC RAIN (XBOX1)
REALISTIC CLOUDS - IMMERSIVE EDITION
SUPREME AND VOLUMETRIC FOG [XB1]
SKYLAND ENCHANTING TABLES
DIVERGENCE - BLACKSMITH - 1K
DIVERGENCE - THE PHILOSOPHERS PROPERTY - SPELL TOMES - 512
RABBIT AND DEAD HANGING RABIT REPLACER WITH FEED RABITS
ANIMATED FORGE WATER ( NORMAL VERSION) BY WSKSKEEVER
NO SUNLIGHT THROUGHT MOUNTAINS
SPARKLING TORCHBUGS
NARUTO ULTIMATE OVERHAUL
CBBE (CURVY)
BETTER MALE PRESETS [XB1]
LOVERBOY DEFAULT 1K
(BLACK) EYEBROWS BY DDSWORKSHOP
SUPERIOR LORE FRIENDLY HAIR
NINETIETHTRAINS KS HAIR PICKS
AFT AE
REMOVE FOLLOWER LEVEL CAP
DIVERGENCE - VANILLA + CREATION CLUB - AIO - 1K-512
DIVERGENCE CUBE MAPS
BLACK AND GOLD EBONY ARMOR RETEXTURE (XB1)
BLACK AND GOLD EBONY WEAPOS (XB1)
COIN POUCH RETEXTURE - BLACK
LANDLORD [XB1]
WEARAVLE LANTERNS [XB1]
IMPROVED UNIQUE ARTIFACRS [XB1]
IMPROVED DAEDRIC ARTIFACRS [XB1]
EBONY BLADE USELESS NO MORE
DIVINE DAEDRIC DAWNBREAKER (RED GLOSSY WORDING)[XB1] BY LUPUS HEGEMONIA
IMPROVED DIVINE AMULET AND BLESSING
DIVERSE DIVIBE AMULET AND ENCHANMENTS
BLACK LEATHER SEATH - A LEATHER SEATH REPLACER
GENUINE GIANTS
DIVERGENCE - COMPENDUM OF BEATS - ANIMUCULI - 1K
LUMINOUS ATRONACHS
TOUGHER NAMED DRAGONS
ERSO ENHANCED MIGHTY DRAGONS - NIGHTMARE VERSIKN
GAME OF THRONES AND HOUSE OF THE DRAGON - VANILLA DRAGONS REPLACER - 1K -512
GOT HOTD - DIVERSE DRAGONS 512
[XB1] GOT HOTD - OPTIONAL FILE "BLOOD MESHES HIDDEN"
GOT HOTD - SKELETAL DRAGON AND UNDERSKIN 1K
[XB1] HOTD - GOT SKELETON EDIT VERSION 2 ( BIGGER HEAD)
[XB1] DRAGON ANIMATION REPLACE SE - WITH STANDING BREATH OPTION
HOTKEY CONTROLLR - UPDATED (BY DADDYMCHUGENUTS)
A QUALITY WORLD MAP - CLEAR MAP SKIES [XB1]
PASTEL MAP MARKERS [XB1]
SUMMER MYST - ENCHANTMENTS OF SKYRIM [XB1]
SUMMERMYST ENCHANTMENTS CHESTS
[PATCH] SUMMERMYST (ON BACK AND ON LEFT)
FORTIFY DESTRUCTION ENCHANTMENT
SUMMERMYST - LEVELED LIST FIXES
SUMMERMYST ENCHANTMENTS - GUARANTEED LOCATIONS
VAE3 - VISUAL ANIMATED ENCHANTS 2-023
VAE2SUMMERMYST PATCH
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3D CASTING FX - FIRE AND FROST HAND FX REPLACER BY ARCTAL
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STRANGE RUNES LITE
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SEKIRO SOULS SFX
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GDB ANIMATION PACK (VIKINGS)
GDB ANIMATION PACK (SEKIRO)
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CINEMATIC DRAGON SOUL ABSORPTION -(NO SCREAM/FLOATING ANIMATION)
NEW ANIMATION FOR MAGIC CASTING SSE
SMOOTH SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER (UNARMED)
SMOOTH JUMP ANIMATION REPLACER
SMOOTH SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER (DUAL WIELD)
SMOOTH BOW SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER
SMOOTH BLOCK ANIMATION REPLACER
SMOOTH SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER (GREATSWORD)
SMOOTH SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER (WARHAMMEBATTLEAXE)
SMOOTH SPRINT ANIMATION REPLACER (1H)
VIOLENS - A KILLMOVE MOD SE [XB1]
AMAZING RACE TWEAKS! NORD [XB1]
THE UNKNOWN
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[XB1] SUPER SIMPLE LOCK BASH
REALISTIC CONVERSATIONS ( XB1 )
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NO PLAYER FALL DAMAGE
NO STAGGER WHILE CASTING
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10 HEALTH PER LEVEL (XB1)
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ACTIKN BASED PROJECRILES + AE PATCHES
[XB1] PROPER AIMING
NORMAL MAGICA REGEN IN COMBAT
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FAIR DRAUGIR SHOUTS
DRAGONS USE THUUM
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BIJIN AIO
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ELEMENTAL FURY FIX
DBZ TELEPORT
[XB1]UNLIMITED RINGS AND AMULETS
UNLIMITED SHOUTING (XB1)
UNLIMITED SUMMONS
ENLIMITED ENCHANTMENTS
ALL ARMOR LOOTABLE
NO HELMET REQUUIRED(XB1)
FASTER WEAPONS
FASTER GRATSWORDS:ANNIVERSARY EDITION (XBOX)
FATSER TWOHANDED WEAPONS AND WAR AXES AND MACES
[XB1] RING OF UNBLOCKING
HATS HELMETS HOODS AND HOODED ROBES WITB CIRCLETS
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IMPROVED CLOSEFACED HELMETS - USSEP PATCG
IA92S ENCHANTING WITHOUT RESTRICTION (XBOX1)
FROST SLOW TWEAKS BY RAFEAR
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DRAGON SOULS HEAL YOU
POPPYLORS INI TWEAKS FOR SERIES X
TEMPER EBONY BLADESKYLAND LODS
[XB] GOT DRAGON MAON MENU REPLACER
LOOKS DONT CHANGE FOR A VAMPIRE
CHEAT ROOM (XB1)
CHEAT ROOM -ANNIVERSARY PATCH
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NO CAMERA FADE
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EMBERS XB BY MINDFLUX 1K
CC CAMPING - EMBERS XD PATCH
ANIMATED WATER FORGE (NORMAL VERSION) - EMBERS XD PATCH
EMBERS XD V 3.0.1-CC GOLDENHILLS PATCH
ALTERNATE START - LIVE ANOTHER LIFE
NORTHERN ROADS & ALTERNATE START PATCH
OPEN CITIES SKYRIM
NORTHERN ROADS & OPEN CITIES PATCH
REALISTIC WATER TWO BY ISOKU, SPARROWPRICE, &TECHANGEL185
REALISTIC WATER TWO & SAINTS AND SEDUCERS PATCH
NATURAL WATERFALLS
CUMULATIVE BLESSINGS
COLORED.MAGIC AURAS

Hey 🐞 it’s been a couple months. I’m sorry if It was awkward when we ran into eachother at GoodLife yesterday. I tried making sure u weren’t there when we went as to not start anything. Scott and Liam wanted me to do it because fuck it right. I feel like it’s been long enough. I know ur done with me and u said u wouldn’t care if I texted u so who cares right. The guys were sayin u were being petty by like hovering near us and like talkin to zach and laughin n shit but it is what is dude. Im tired of all this bullshit, blocking me or deleting ur tiktok or whatever u did was the Cherry on top. After months of thinking and ruminating and talking with my therapist lol I’ve like realized most of our relationship I was the one showing u more love than I was getting back. I was the one initiating texts or kisses or cuddling.I know we have different ways of showing love but you can’t tell me I stopped loving you or stopped showing you love.idk I feel like it was an issue and you even brought it up and asked and I said yeah maybe I’m not feeling enough love from you but after a week or two it would go back to normal. Towards the end of our relationship when things started going downhill that’s when I fell into the routine of playing games eating like shit and seeing you everyday. It wasn’t healthy for myself or our relationship and I really truly can’t tell you how sorry I am. How sorry I am for ruining the relationship with a girl who I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. I understand I’m an anxious person and ur more avoidant so I feel like for the first couple months I’m the one who’s really felt the crushing weight of everything whereas you’ve been goin out with friends forgetting.Why should you deserve this message. Why should I give any more of my fucking time or brain power to this shit. You’ve done nothing but lie to me since we broke up. You’ve done nothing but talk shit to my friends about me. You fucking hate me. And I get it. That’s how I got over 👹. But 👹 is a different story dude. What did I seriously do to deserve to be treated like fucking dog shit. I know how much love I’m capable of giving and you have no roll in it. I know my worth. And I know that I can only love somebody as much as I love myself, you have no idea how hard I’ve been working. Working on myself. You didn’t wanna be there for me when I was going through shit 🐞, it’s not fair. I was there for you through everything that happened last year. And when I lose my job and stop trying you pack ur bags and block me on everything. Then lie and say ur gunna unblock me. Then text me on TikTok a month later and lie again. And about zach dude like i saw the way u were talking to him. You 100% wanted me to see and make me jealous but like dude, that just proves so much abt u as a person. I knew he was ur backup. You knew he was ur backup. It’s just so fucking disappointing. Anyways I’ve emotionally detached from you. That’s why I feel like going to GoodLife manning is no issue at all. See you tmr

I (23M) have been with my girlfriend (25F) for 5 years.
This was my first proper relationship, but she has had multiple relationships before me, the longest lasting 3 years.
I dont know if there's a way to write this post in a non biased way without writing a whole book explaining our life stories.. nor do I know what the purpose of writing this even is, I guess I'm just trying to get some stuff off my chest during a rough time...
I like to think I'm emotionally mature, in reality I don't think I could be labeled as that as I do have ADHD and a good amount of emotional dysregulation and anger issues. But I like to 'think' I am or at least strive to be, because regardless of my issues I do know how a normal person should behave even if I struggle to behave like that, I always strive to be better and only do things with good intentions. I try not to make excuses for myself, I know when I do things that are wrong, I just sometimes don't know how to do the right thing in a way that doesn't come across as wrong.
Ever since me and my girlfriend met I've been telling her - lets be honest to each other, if there are any problems, you can tell me and we can talk about it, communication is key. I always believed all problems can be solved through talking.
But, even after 5 years it's as if she never understood what any of that meant..
We started arguing quite a lot a few months after we started dating, mostly because of petty little things. She'd be dishonest about something, I'd find out she wasn't honest and it'd set me off on a rant complaining about honesty for way too long. For example a common theme at the start was her talking to her ex she dated for 3 years. I didn't really have a problem with that as long as it wasn't cheating, and what she spoke to her ex about was certainly not cheating, her ex was in a commited relationship as well. I knew an emotionally mature person would say that's fine and it was fine to me, I let her know it's fine, but she'd still go and hide that she was talking to them and would lie saying she isn't... Like why? I told you its okay multiple times, you don't have to be dishonest about it, what's the worst that could happen, we talk about it like adults and that's it?
Most of our arguments she'd shut down as well and not say a single thing, it'd be like me complaining to a wall, she would never say she has any issues about me, nothing at all which set me on a tunnel visioned path of even more complaining and failing to comprehend how hard it could be to just talk. A lot of the time I'd say and beg "if you could just talk to me we wouldn't be in this mess", sometimes even begging her to tell me something I did wrong and I'd want her to get upset at me for once so it wasnt so one sided, but that never happened.
I never wanted to be in those arguments, looking back yes it was toxic behaviour from both of us, especially me, and if we argued about such stupid stuff why were we even together?
We stayed together because the times that we didn't argue which were the majority of the time everything felt perfect, so many times we said how great the other person is, it was everything we could've asked for. She was and still is the kindest person I know deep down. We had so many common interests, so many happy memories, so whilst the bad things were blown out of proportion, in the end it was all mostly okay.
Things got better throughout the years, we'd still argue about some of the same issues but we seemed to argue less.
She struggled with mental health just like me, not diagnosed with anything, but she strongly believed she might have autism and was on a waiting list for diagnosis. She's had a lot of trauma in her childhood from bullying at school and even at home because of an alcoholic step dad, she struggled to keep a job for longer than a few months and got diagnosed with some physical problems too like IIH migraines. I tried my best to support her, I researched what we could do to relieve her stress and migraines, how we could get a job for her that she would be happy in, etc.
I saw myself in her as I know how big of a struggle it is to achieve stuff in life when you have problems setting you back. I myself didn't get a proper job until 3 years into the relationship. Then she finally got a job she has been in for about a year now too.
Things were starting to look good, we fought so hard throughout the years to live a better life together and we were finally starting to achieve that, we had money we could spend to go and do things, etc.
Except.. we still had our petty arguments and whilst they did get better for some time, they got worse again. It was exhausting for both of us, I was still mostly the same complaining about the same stuff, she was mostly the same shutting down and making me feel like I'm not being listened to.
Now this is the part which I regret the most that I'm very conflicted by and embarrassed of.. during some arguments things would get heated and I'd end up raising my voice and saying nasty things to get a reaction out of her because it was always so one sided.. I also did things to control her
I don't know if I'm abusive, I don't really understand my actions, I never wanted to be like this, I've questioned myself and read posts online to try and understand what the hell am I, but I just don't know
For example something controlling and abusive I did was only a few weeks ago.. she had plans to go out with her work friends after work, which I truly didn't have a problem with, I was happy for her to go out, she hasn't been going out much and I always thought it would help us having some time away from each other.
I said to her okay, but please don't get home too late and don't drink much. I've had bad experiences with alcohol and drugs in the past, nothing to do with the relationship, just personally it would make me feel terrible so I quit it altogether 3 years ago and haven't been drunk since. Because of her physical problems and mental problems she has to take quite a few medications throughout the day and we always agreed she wouldn't drink much because of it, in case the alcohol triggers any flare ups or interacts with her medication.
She agreed to this, but when the day came she left work at 6pm and only got home at 12am, I could immediately tell she was drunk so I asked her how much she drank. This time she was more honest with me (she was genuinely trying to improve in being honest, this wasnt just the alcohol making her more open) and said she had multiple vodkas, plus a few other drinks, as well as at least 6+ shots, or in her words "so many I can't remember, my friends were just handing them to me and I didnt refuse".
I don't know if I was being unreasonable, but to me getting home around 12am is late and drinking that much alcohol is a lot... which is the opposite of what we agreed on.. now I regret what happened next because she was fine, the alcohol didn't interact with her and she was okay even the next day, but I felt like she didn't listen to something so simple again which set me off on another blown out of proportion rant towards her
But this time it escalated and I blew up at her saying no more going out, she either doesn't go out anymore as she is clearly irresponsible with alcohol or we can break up, I regretted saying it in the moment as I knew immediately that sort of shit is toxic, but in the moment my judgment was clouded by my anger and I just wanted the best for her. I was thinking "but what if the alcohol did react poorly and you didnt listen to me?" I didnt want anything bad happening to her... I felt like I was being disrespected
This wasn't the first time I did something like this when I felt like I wasn't being listened to. Another example would be her playing online games with her friends, which was fine, I'm a gamer myself, but a lot of the time I felt like gaming for her was a higher priority than our relationship.
Multiple times we argued about it and I tried to tell her how I felt, but things didn't really change, which led to me blowing up and telling her she can't use the PS5 which I bought with my own money, I then went and deleted her account and games off of it as a punishment
None of this lasted very long though which is where I'm conflicted as to who I truly am and what my intentions are.. I never enjoyed doing any of this, I hated seeing her cry, immediately after this happened, every time I'd regret it. I'd try and remain stern though hoping it would bring a needed change to our relationship, maybe I'd finally be listened to.. I'd always give in in a few days as I couldn't stand acting like that and things would go back to normal. I'd say things like "PS5 I bought with my money" but that was just to get a reaction, I never tried to control her money, she had her own bank and I had mine, if she needed money I'd give her it every time she asked, I never refused or took anything rightfully hers away from her
Even with the going out with her work friends thing a few weeks ago.. she told me she was invited to go out again this Thursday and whilst at first I reminded her what I said would happen, she said fine she won't go out, within a few minutes I gave in and said "okay I'm not being serious, you can go out, but please please just don't drink too much".
She went out again, I had no problem with it, she got home a lot earlier and said she didn't drink alcohol, I could tell she didn't, but even if she was lying I believed her and said "thank you, I'm glad you had a great day". That's all I ever wanted.. there was no argument, no miscommunication, I was truly happy
I don't know if I'm an abuser trying to justify my actions or if deep down I'm a good person that does things that come across the wrong way like I try to make myself believe..
Now I'm writing this because she acted like everything was fine, we woke up yesterday like we normally do, watched some funny videos, she had plans to go out to see her friend at 12pm and she would stay there overnight. Fine by me, I'm slightly ill and didn't want to go out and we needed groceries so decided to order some before she left, she picked something she wanted, we watched more funny videos and as 12pm came round I hugged her, kissed her goodbye, did our little bye bye ritual, and she left..
Everything was fine, or so it seemed.. until I received a text about half an hour after she left saying she cannot do this anymore and is breaking up with me.. I tried talking to her but she said "I'll be back with my friends at 8pm to get some of my stuff and then I'll be gone forever" and blocked me. Now this sent me into a panic, this felt so unreal, I tried texting her family and friends to see if it was indeed real and to make sure nothing bad actually happened to her.. yes it was real
After talking to some of her friends she unblocked me and I tried talking to her, but she was just refusing it completely this time. She said we would talk in a few days.. 8pm came around, I packed some stuff she requested and put it outside her door for her to grab, she said she didnt want to see me so I respected it and stayed inside.. and now I'm here stuck in this situation
Normally during our arguments she only ever talks through text, if we are arguing in person she rarely ever says anything or voices any issues. This time she didn't want to talk through text either.
I honestly don't know how to feel. It's clear she has been talking to her friends, instead of me about all our issues, she's always screenshoted our arguments and "aired the dirty laundry" to her friends which I mentioned is a problem, but I never tried to control who she's friends and most of the time we made up and tried to move on...
I don't know if I have the right to feel hurt, my emotions are all over the place right now and this feels like betrayal. I feel like she has done a lot of things that were wrong, especially how she decided to end things by acting like everything is fine then leaving and breaking up over text instead of simply talking to me. I feel upset she would talk to her friends and let her know such personal details, but then again maybe it was justified because of my controlling actions.. even though she did a lot of these things way before I did anything controlling..
I feel like she is a good person but has painted a bad picture of me to her friends which has led her friends to influence her decisions based on a one sided story...
None of this makes much sense to me right now, I never tried to control her so I could have power over her, I never forced her to stay with me, regardless of all the things that happened between us I tried my best to improve and do things differently and see her for the good person she is. I made it clear if we ever break up I want to break up in a calm way, I just want to talk and communicate, I said how I believe most things don't last forever and that it's okay if things go wrong, but we need to at least try if we want to make this work..
I want to believe that everything I've done I did because I loved the person she is 90% of the time, I just wanted her to reciprocate and try to improve how she is during the other 10% as I've been trying to improve myself. I feel like I've sacrificed a lot for her but she hasn't done much for me.. no one is perfect and I had good hopes for both of us.
And now the past 5 years feel like a waste. I don't know why we couldnt avoid this mess.. mostly everything was great apart from our petty arguments
I now just wish I could go back in time and not argue, I wish I could've just let her be who she is and ignore all of those stupid little things because I was genuinely happy. I don't want us to split apart without trying one last time.. I know I can't force her and I don't want to, it just hurts so much seeing the potential and have it be destroyed just like that.
She wants some space right now but said we can talk in a few days. I really don't want us to split over this, I believe there is so much potential. How could I get her to see this? In the end I can't change what she wants, but I don't want to just say "okay" and be done with it without giving it a really really good proper attempt. I still love her more than anything else..
How could I stop thinking about her and calm down whilst I wait for her to talk to me and how could we improve things?
TL;DR; : girlfriend seems to have given up on our relationship without a proper attempt to salvage it in my eyes, how do I calm down whilst I wait for her to talk to me and how could we improve things?

I (23M) have been with my girlfriend (25F) for 5 years.
This was my first proper relationship, but she has had multiple relationships before me, the longest lasting 3 years.
I dont know if there's a way to write this post in a non biased way without writing a whole book explaining our life stories.. nor do I know what the purpose of writing this even is, I guess I'm just trying to get some stuff off my chest during a rough time...
I like to think I'm emotionally mature, in reality I don't think I could be labeled as that as I do have ADHD and a good amount of emotional dysregulation and anger issues. But I like to 'think' I am or at least strive to be, because regardless of my issues I do know how a normal person should behave even if I struggle to behave like that, I always strive to be better and only do things with good intentions. I try not to make excuses for myself, I know when I do things that are wrong, I just sometimes don't know how to do the right thing in a way that doesn't come across as wrong.
Ever since me and my girlfriend met I've been telling her - lets be honest to each other, if there are any problems, you can tell me and we can talk about it, communication is key. I always believed all problems can be solved through talking.
But, even after 5 years it's as if she never understood what any of that meant..
We started arguing quite a lot a few months after we started dating, mostly because of petty little things. She'd be dishonest about something, I'd find out she wasn't honest and it'd set me off on a rant complaining about honesty for way too long. For example a common theme at the start was her talking to her ex she dated for 3 years. I didn't really have a problem with that as long as it wasn't cheating, and what she spoke to her ex about was certainly not cheating, her ex was in a commited relationship as well. I knew an emotionally mature person would say that's fine and it was fine to me, I let her know it's fine, but she'd still go and hide that she was talking to them and would lie saying she isn't... Like why? I told you its okay multiple times, you don't have to be dishonest about it, what's the worst that could happen, we talk about it like adults and that's it?
Most of our arguments she'd shut down as well and not say a single thing, it'd be like me complaining to a wall, she would never say she has any issues about me, nothing at all which set me on a tunnel visioned path of even more complaining and failing to comprehend how hard it could be to just talk. A lot of the time I'd say and beg "if you could just talk to me we wouldn't be in this mess", sometimes even begging her to tell me something I did wrong and I'd want her to get upset at me for once so it wasnt so one sided, but that never happened.
I never wanted to be in those arguments, looking back yes it was toxic behaviour from both of us, especially me, and if we argued about such stupid stuff why were we even together?
We stayed together because the times that we didn't argue which were the majority of the time everything felt perfect, so many times we said how great the other person is, it was everything we could've asked for. She was and still is the kindest person I know deep down. We had so many common interests, so many happy memories, so whilst the bad things were blown out of proportion, in the end it was all mostly okay.
Things got better throughout the years, we'd still argue about some of the same issues but we seemed to argue less.
She struggled with mental health just like me, not diagnosed with anything, but she strongly believed she might have autism and was on a waiting list for diagnosis. She's had a lot of trauma in her childhood from bullying at school and even at home because of an alcoholic step dad, she struggled to keep a job for longer than a few months and got diagnosed with some physical problems too like IIH migraines. I tried my best to support her, I researched what we could do to relieve her stress and migraines, how we could get a job for her that she would be happy in, etc.
I saw myself in her as I know how big of a struggle it is to achieve stuff in life when you have problems setting you back. I myself didn't get a proper job until 3 years into the relationship. Then she finally got a job she has been in for about a year now too.
Things were starting to look good, we fought so hard throughout the years to live a better life together and we were finally starting to achieve that, we had money we could spend to go and do things, etc.
Except.. we still had our petty arguments and whilst they did get better for some time, they got worse again. It was exhausting for both of us, I was still mostly the same complaining about the same stuff, she was mostly the same shutting down and making me feel like I'm not being listened to.
Now this is the part which I regret the most that I'm very conflicted by and embarrassed of.. during some arguments things would get heated and I'd end up raising my voice and saying nasty things to get a reaction out of her because it was always so one sided.. I also did things to control her
I don't know if I'm abusive, I don't really understand my actions, I never wanted to be like this, I've questioned myself and read posts online to try and understand what the hell am I, but I just don't know
For example something controlling and abusive I did was only a few weeks ago.. she had plans to go out with her work friends after work, which I truly didn't have a problem with, I was happy for her to go out, she hasn't been going out much and I always thought it would help us having some time away from each other.
I said to her okay, but please don't get home too late and don't drink much. I've had bad experiences with alcohol and drugs in the past, nothing to do with the relationship, just personally it would make me feel terrible so I quit it altogether 3 years ago and haven't been drunk since. Because of her physical problems and mental problems she has to take quite a few medications throughout the day and we always agreed she wouldn't drink much because of it, in case the alcohol triggers any flare ups or interacts with her medication.
She agreed to this, but when the day came she left work at 6pm and only got home at 12am, I could immediately tell she was drunk so I asked her how much she drank. This time she was more honest with me (she was genuinely trying to improve in being honest, this wasnt just the alcohol making her more open) and said she had multiple vodkas, plus a few other drinks, as well as at least 6+ shots, or in her words "so many I can't remember, my friends were just handing them to me and I didnt refuse".
I don't know if I was being unreasonable, but to me getting home around 12am is late and drinking that much alcohol is a lot... which is the opposite of what we agreed on.. now I regret what happened next because she was fine, the alcohol didn't interact with her and she was okay even the next day, but I felt like she didn't listen to something so simple again which set me off on another blown out of proportion rant towards her
But this time it escalated and I blew up at her saying no more going out, she either doesn't go out anymore as she is clearly irresponsible with alcohol or we can break up, I regretted saying it in the moment as I knew immediately that sort of shit is toxic, but in the moment my judgment was clouded by my anger and I just wanted the best for her. I was thinking "but what if the alcohol did react poorly and you didnt listen to me?" I didnt want anything bad happening to her... I felt like I was being disrespected
This wasn't the first time I did something like this when I felt like I wasn't being listened to. Another example would be her playing online games with her friends, which was fine, I'm a gamer myself, but a lot of the time I felt like gaming for her was a higher priority than our relationship.
Multiple times we argued about it and I tried to tell her how I felt, but things didn't really change, which led to me blowing up and telling her she can't use the PS5 which I bought with my own money, I then went and deleted her account and games off of it as a punishment
None of this lasted very long though which is where I'm conflicted as to who I truly am and what my intentions are.. I never enjoyed doing any of this, I hated seeing her cry, immediately after this happened, every time I'd regret it. I'd try and remain stern though hoping it would bring a needed change to our relationship, maybe I'd finally be listened to.. I'd always give in in a few days as I couldn't stand acting like that and things would go back to normal. I'd say things like "PS5 I bought with my money" but that was just to get a reaction, I never tried to control her money, she had her own bank and I had mine, if she needed money I'd give her it every time she asked, I never refused or took anything rightfully hers away from her
Even with the going out with her work friends thing a few weeks ago.. she told me she was invited to go out again this Thursday and whilst at first I reminded her what I said would happen, she said fine she won't go out, within a few minutes I gave in and said "okay I'm not being serious, you can go out, but please please just don't drink too much".
She went out again, I had no problem with it, she got home a lot earlier and said she didn't drink alcohol, I could tell she didn't, but even if she was lying I believed her and said "thank you, I'm glad you had a great day". That's all I ever wanted.. there was no argument, no miscommunication, I was truly happy
I don't know if I'm an abuser trying to justify my actions or if deep down I'm a good person that does things that come across the wrong way like I try to make myself believe..
Now I'm writing this because she acted like everything was fine, we woke up yesterday like we normally do, watched some funny videos, she had plans to go out to see her friend at 12pm and she would stay there overnight. Fine by me, I'm slightly ill and didn't want to go out and we needed groceries so decided to order some before she left, she picked something she wanted, we watched more funny videos and as 12pm came round I hugged her, kissed her goodbye, did our little bye bye ritual, and she left..
Everything was fine, or so it seemed.. until I received a text about half an hour after she left saying she cannot do this anymore and is breaking up with me.. I tried talking to her but she said "I'll be back with my friends at 8pm to get some of my stuff and then I'll be gone forever" and blocked me. Now this sent me into a panic, this felt so unreal, I tried texting her family and friends to see if it was indeed real and to make sure nothing bad actually happened to her.. yes it was real
After talking to some of her friends she unblocked me and I tried talking to her, but she was just refusing it completely this time. She said we would talk in a few days.. 8pm came around, I packed some stuff she requested and put it outside her door for her to grab, she said she didnt want to see me so I respected it and stayed inside.. and now I'm here stuck in this situation
Normally during our arguments she only ever talks through text, if we are arguing in person she rarely ever says anything or voices any issues. This time she didn't want to talk through text either.
I honestly don't know how to feel. It's clear she has been talking to her friends, instead of me about all our issues, she's always screenshoted our arguments and "aired the dirty laundry" to her friends which I mentioned is a problem, but I never tried to control who she's friends and most of the time we made up and tried to move on...
I don't know if I have the right to feel hurt, my emotions are all over the place right now and this feels like betrayal. I feel like she has done a lot of things that were wrong, especially how she decided to end things by acting like everything is fine then leaving and breaking up over text instead of simply talking to me. I feel upset she would talk to her friends and let her know such personal details, but then again maybe it was justified because of my controlling actions.. even though she did a lot of these things way before I did anything controlling..
I feel like she is a good person but has painted a bad picture of me to her friends which has led her friends to influence her decisions based on a one sided story...
None of this makes much sense to me right now, I never tried to control her so I could have power over her, I never forced her to stay with me, regardless of all the things that happened between us I tried my best to improve and do things differently and see her for the good person she is. I made it clear if we ever break up I want to break up in a calm way, I just want to talk and communicate, I said how I believe most things don't last forever and that it's okay if things go wrong, but we need to at least try if we want to make this work..
I want to believe that everything I've done I did because I loved the person she is 90% of the time, I just wanted her to reciprocate and try to improve how she is during the other 10% as I've been trying to improve myself. I feel like I've sacrificed a lot for her but she hasn't done much for me.. no one is perfect and I had good hopes for both of us.
And now the past 5 years feel like a waste. I don't know why we couldnt avoid this mess.. mostly everything was great apart from our petty arguments
I now just wish I could go back in time and not argue, I wish I could've just let her be who she is and ignore all of those stupid little things because I was genuinely happy. I don't want us to split apart without trying one last time.. I know I can't force her and I don't want to, it just hurts so much seeing the potential and have it be destroyed just like that.
Is there any way to salvage this..

7-minute read.

defense ministry will soon launch an automated management system to track the location of military-age citizens and more accurately deliver summons to reservists during peace or war

The Parliamentary Defense Committee held a meeting on Friday to discuss a new system. Context in April 12 news. Several issues were uncovered during the 2020 war: many notices were sent out to people who did not reside in Armenia, while in other instances they were unable to reach out to people located in Armenia. The government has decided to create an automated system for the defense ministry to "know the location" of potential recipients. The system will be shared with the passport service and other departments.
video, source,

the head of the Armenian military academy visited Washington for a NATO meeting

Vazgen Sargsyan Academy chief Arsen Mangasaryan was in the U.S. to take part in a meeting between the heads of other military academies of NATO members and NATO partner states.
They discussed current and future challenges and a strategy for addressing them, modern tutoring methods, etc.
source,

EU Ambassador and Armenia's Deputy FM met on Friday as part of monthlong "Europe Day" events

AMB. MARAGOS: Armenia and the EU are intensively discussing a new ambitious Partnership Agenda. It will be based on CEPA and Armenia's active participation in Eastern Partnership. It will help us overcome the challenges facing Armenia now and in the future.
The AM-EU cooperation continues. The implementation of €350 million in programs is underway. It will help the economy, connectivity, and reforms.
[About Hungary blocking $10 million in European Peace Facility aid to Armenia]. The Council is still discussing it. It's still too early to talk about details. We hope it will conclude soon.
REPORTER: About a month ago the U.S. Ambassador gave an interview to Azatutyun saying the U.S. does not advise Armenia to end the relations with any country [context was Russia], and that the more partners Armenia has, the more powerful Armenia will be. Do you share this view? What is your formula for increasing Armenia's resilience?
AMB. MARAGOS: I won't comment on the statements of the U.S. Ambassador. There are various goals, various approaches for raising resilience. Our formula is to strengthen institutions and democracy, and Armenia's ability to make independent decisions. In this context, establishing peace in the region is important. //
Ambassador Maragos and High-Tech Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetyan discussed the conditions necessary for the installation of fiber-optic cable to connect Armenia and the EU through the Black Sea.
video, source,

Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a 4-hour-long meeting in Kazakhstan

The U.S. State Department welcomed the meeting in Kazakhstan, describing the AM-AZ peace process developments of recent weeks as "exciting".
The FMs made remarks ahead of the meeting.
FM MIRZOYAN: We are very constructively involved in the negotiation process. We should not limit ourselves to signing a peace treaty. We can go further and unblock all transportation communications in the region.
FM BAYRAMOV: I hope that in the next two days, we will be able to do positive work to find a solution to the issues that are still open.
source, source, source, source, Armenia is not the only country that lacks microphone skills, source,

Day 2 of former regime-led protests & road closures

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan urged his followers to group up and "paralyze" the whole country to force Pashinyan's removal. Together with ARF MPs and its "youth wing" activists, he visited several universities and urged students to join. Some did, others did not. After a claim that the Yerevan State University was "empty", Armenpress sent a crew of reporters and found the claim to be false. Videos were uploaded showing professors urging the activists to stop disrupting the classes. Polytechnik spokeswoman said the students did not join the protests and that the protesters did not attempt to enter the campus.
ARF MPs entered the Bryusov University to gather students.
RECTOR: Why are you here? Go do your duties.
ARF MP Gegham Manukyan: This is my duty.
VICE RECTOR: Yesterday you called for anyone who wishes to join you to come, and not to attend classes. Those who wanted to join you, have joined your strikes. Now leave this building and do not disrupt the exams. You have no right to interrupt the state exams of those who didn't wish to join you.
ARF MP: You can't lock the doors.
RECTOR: The doors are currently open. You can leave now. //
The activists traveled to the Conservatory where a group of students joined them. No general student strike was announced, said Azatutyun.
ARCHBISHOP: I don't want to be the prime minister but if that's the wish of the people, the wish of God, and if I have the blessing of Catholicos Garegin B, then who am I to refuse it? //
Galstanyan also said he is a dual citizen of Canada so he would not be allowed to be a PM under this constitution. He said the constitution could be changed to allow dual citizens to become PMs.
A group of protesters shut down the Meghri-Yerevan road in Vayots Dzor. A participant was arrested after allegedly punching a police officer in the head after being told to open the road.
12 participants were arrested in various locations. Two of them, with lengthy rap sheets, allegedly possessed knives. The others were arrested for not following police orders.
There were reportedly fewer people in Republic Square today. As of 7:20 pm, the same organization that counted 31,700 yesterday spotted only 11,300 today. That's for "trend". The peak number is expected to be higher.
The Archbishop urged young protesters: "Stretch your muscles well, young people, we will soon take action. Don't worry." There was apparently a dispute between the organizers and the bored students that he gathered from universities. He promised them with more action soon.
ARCHBISHOP (later): You want action? Now let me put YOU to work instead. Since some of you complain that the protest is "dying down", I have a task to keep you busy: (1) Close the streets, (2) hold peaceful talks with members of the ruling QP party to impeach Pashinyan. Will you do this or not? This is very important. We need to meet and convince the MPs. //
ARF MP GARNIK: Don't get tired, people! None of us have the right to abandon these trenches. This is our last chance. We are not deserters. We will go until the end! Lav exeq. //
The ARF MP boasted about shutting down the Armenia-Georgia interstate road on Friday and thanked the activists for that.
Pashinyan's deputy chief of staff Taron Chakoyan mocked the organizers, urging them to nominate "the candidate of all times - Vazgen Manukyan" to "keep his political memory alive".
There will be no rally tomorrow. The organizers intend to redraw their plans. They want to involve "expert groups" [is that Ishkhan Saghatelyan's list of 70 or so experts he couldn't use in 2022?] and also come up with concrete plans on border delimitation. The next meeting is at 6 o'clock Sunday.
In other news. The California-based Western Diocese Armenian Church will pray for the Armenian government to stay strong and for Armenia to be resilient. Context: President Khachaturyan visited the church during his US trip. They prayed together. "Consider this your home." In turn, the President reassured that the Armenian government has no problem with the Armenian Apostolic Church as an institution. He said the Armenian government has chosen a peace agenda "because we have to be able to live next to our neighbors regardless of historical problems". Video.
source, video, source, video, video, video, video, source, video, video, source, source, source, source, source, source, video, video,

the 8th Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was awarded to Congolese gynecological surgeon and human rights activist Denis Mukwege

NOUBAR AFEYAN (Aurora co-founder): Dr. Mukwege has dedicated his life not only to caring for women and girls suffering from the brutality of sexual violence, but also fiercely advocating for their rights. Dr. Mukwege and his staff have helped to care for more than 80,000 survivors. //
The other co-founder, Ruben Vardanyan, sent a message from Baku prison: "I wish you every success in your mission, and I am sending my warm congratulations to this year’s laureates."
source, source,

All Armenia Fund gifted houses to tens of Nagorno-Karabakh refugee families in two villages: VIDEO

Several 2-story 3-bedroom houses were built for families. More houses are underway.
video,

the first group of Azerbaijani settlers were given houses in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh's Shushi

source,

Armenia and the Kingdom of Spain sign an agreement to cooperate in sports

Anti-doping, healthcare in sports, organization of large events, retraining of experts, making sports more attractive to youth and developing their careers, etc.
source,

authorities arrested another "vor v zakone", a figure with the highest status in the criminal subculture

A few years ago Armenia criminalized participation/membership in such circles/gangs. This one is accused of racketeering in computer game zones [son of a bitch!] and taking illegal actions to "resolve" disputes between conflicting parties.
source,

another village is being connected to the gas network as part of a state-municipality joint program

Lernamerdz will hit the gas when the construction is complete.
source,

World Bank helps Armenia strengthen management of forests, wetlands, and protected areas

The WB has approved the program called RESILAND Armenia to help the government strengthen community engagement and improve the management of nature.
The $9.1 million project is supported by Sweden and the Global Environment Facility.
WORLD BANK: Armenia’s beautiful landscapes are one of the country’s biggest assets. This asset has been threatened by man-made deforestation and landscape degradation, fueled by unsustainable practices of communities and weak environmental oversight. The RESILAND project addresses forest degradation by providing alternative livelihoods for communities and by strengthening oversight mechanisms through improvements to the policy framework.
source,

economic stats from Q1 2024

services +5%
(+) financial & insurance +19%
(-) info & comm -3%
(+) transportation +17%
(+) catering +7%
(+) health & social +9%
construction +12%
domestic trade +26%
(+) retail trade, stores +11%
(+) wholesale trade +40%
(+) automobile trade -8%

... economic growth projections

Govt on 2024: 7%
CB on 2024: 5.3%-6.4%
IMF on 2024: 6%
IMF on 2025: 5.2%
source, source, source, source,

Georgia will require tourists to have medical insurance starting June

It must provide a €5,000 emergency and €30,000 hospitalization coverage. Terrorists Tourists without insurance will be fined $112. Armenian insurance agencies are currently preparing packages for Armenian travelers.
source,

If you are new to the game or have questions about features and functions, check out this Beginner's guide/FAQ first. Last updated 5/15/2024: includes information on the new artist lootbox Quests introduced in version 1.22. See also my Full list of all artists with badges post for a listing of artists you can acquire a badge for in the game.
This is the first FAQ I've ever written for a game, although I have greatly benefitted from Reddit guides over the years. I'm not a developer (though I think they're doing a great job!) or gaming expert, just a fan of the game. Thanks to the subreddit's moderators for pinning this post and to the Soundmap community for contributing your knowledge and insights. Hope this helps!
u/TheStylesReport

What is Soundmap?

Soundmap is a location-based mobile music collection game. Think Pokemon Go, but with songs. You collect the songs and then can trade them for other songs or “coins”, the in-game currency.

What kind of device do I need to play this?

This is an iPhone only app for now. Dev notes that an Android version is coming in the summer sometime.

Is Premium worth it?

Short answer: Yes. (if you intend to play the game long term)
Think of the standard edition as a demo. Reminds me of the shareware model from back-in-the-day (dating myself here). Premium unlocks so many features that make the game truly playable in the long run – expanded collection range, level, etc.
I’d say the lifetime license is a really good deal. (The cost ranges from $15-30 dollars/pounds/euros depending on your region and if you catch a sale). You’re supporting the developers’ hard work so that the game can continue to grow and prosper. And believe me, I’m normally a person that doesn’t pay for ANYTHING on the App Store, but the hours I’ve put in to this game made it worth it. I’ve been neglecting Tears of the Kingdom in favor of this.
You can also get premium if you invite 8 friends to join but I haven’t tested that functionality. I’ve heard mixed reports of it being bugged, but the game purports to have 4500+ users go premium via this route.

What are song rarities?

Each song is labeled with an associated rarity under the artist and title.

• Common
• Uncommon
• RARE
• Epic

You'll notice some Common/Uncommon/RARE songs are glowing in a "hologram" style fashion. These are "Shiny" songs and are worth more than the conventional type of song.

Where are the best places to go to get songs/drops?

I don’t know how they determine where things drop but I'm guessing it’s some combination of cell phone signals and users who have the app installed. As such, places like open fields and parks are pretty sparse, but where I’ve found the most drops are:

• College campuses
• Malls/shopping centers
• Tourist attractions

Also remember to regularly “scan this area” when going to new places to refresh.

How can I tell if something is a rare, shiny, and/or epic on the map? Do they have their own drops?

Rares are easy to spot because they are darker and glowing, and they stand out against the yellow perimeter.
Shinies have their own drops (looks like a shiny mixed with a regular drop) but, if you’re lucky, can also be pulled from other common, uncommon and rare drops (this is very infrequent, however).
The developers initially created standalone epic drops but took them out of the game because of spoofing/cheating. As of now, the only way to pull an epic is from other drops, but they appear at an even lower probability than shinies.

I was going to pick up a drop and it’s greyed out now. Did someone get to it first?

Yes. Drops are shared with other players so someone might have gotten to it first! On the discord people have complained that in popular areas people camp out to wait for the timers to reset and then pick up the drops right away. So if you’re in an area where you don’t see a lot of grey drops enjoy it while you can :-)

Can you own multiple of the same song?

While the game doesn’t allow duplicates of the exact same song, you can have multiples in certain circumstances, such as:
• There are different album covers (ie the regular album edition vs a greatest hits version)
• There is a sped up or radio edited version
• The regular version, the shiny version and/or the epic version are all distinct versions and you can own all three

What do the numbers on the epics mean?

The lower the number, the more valuable it is. #1 means it’s the first copy someone found from a drop. Think of it like collecting comic books or trading cards. Numbers over #25 just read #25+ and over #100 read 100+.

How does the trade economy work? What is X worth? How much can I get for X?

The game’s trade economy generally follows basic rules of supply and demand with commons being worth the least, uncommons more, then rares. What’s “fair” is subjective but in my experience the general range has been this, hard-to-find artists being more:
· Commons: 100 - 500 coins
· Uncommons: 300 - 1500 coins
· RARES: 500 – 3000 coins
· Common Shiny: 500 – 1500 coins
· Uncommon Shinies: 1000 – 10000 coins
If a track is really popular and/or new, expect to pay more (for example, the Kendrick/Drake beef tracks were at premium for a while).
RARE shinies and Epics are all over the place though, with people asking for literally a million+ for a #1 Kanye West epic. I don’t know if they get it but certainly 6 figure trades for the most popular shinies and epics are not out of the ordinary.
Hip-hop seems to be the most universally popular genre, with artists like Travis Scott and Playboi Carti fetching the highest trade prices. Female pop stars like Taylor, Lana, Billie, Olivia, etc. have trading power. K-Pop (StrayKids, NewJeans, BTS, etc.) are also very popular, but a bit more niche.

How do I earn coins?

· Buy via in-app purchases. This ranges from 2 bucks for 1000, to 100 bucks for 100,000.
· Invite friends. Get 1000 coins for each person that signs up.
· Through trade by offering songs.
· Get your free daily drops.
· Converting unwanted songs to coins.
I’m usually free to play on everything (aside from buying the premium license) so I ended up doing the latter three to earn. You can really stock up with some good rares or a couple of lucky shiny or epic pulls.
Converting commons is a good way to earn some coin quickly in the early game, and your pull to earn ratio is usually pretty good, especially if you’re able to farm drops in your area. However, as you get more coins, try to keep and sell commons via trade instead as you’ll be able to earn some coins and get a common back in the process.
Try to avoid converting uncommons or rares whenever possible. Even if you offer them cheaply for a few hundred coins it’s better than burning them outright. Also, you never know what people might be interested in – one person’s trash truly is another’s treasure. Conversely you can get some really great songs that someone is just looking to be rid of.

How do I convert songs to coins?

Long press (hold down) on an individual song to convert to coins. If you hit the … next to “Your Collection” it will give you the option to “Select to Sell” and you can convert songs to coins in bulk.

How do I offer coins in a trade?

When you “request to trade” you’ll see that there’s an “add coins” option. Click on that and add the desired amount of coins. If you are aiming to trade coins only, just use any throwaway common to facilitate the trade (no way to trade without using at least one song.)

How do I hide songs I don't want to trade?

If you add songs to a playlist you can click on settings (cogwheel in top right) and switch "Available for trading" to "Hidden from trading".
Unfortunately, this is only one-way - it will hide those songs so you don't see them when you "Make A New Offer" for trade, but it does NOT hide the songs from people who visit your profile or keep them from offering things to you.
As a workaround, you can create "for trade" playlists and ask people to only look in there for things they'd like to trade for, but not everyone abides by that. Hopefully they fix this in a future update.

What is the benefit of setting favorite artist(s)? Does it actually work?

The favorite artists does work to help you increase probability of picking up your favorites, moreso if the artist has a deep discography. I set Taylor Swift as a favorite and I picked up a bunch of her tracks. (I love classic hip-hop and R&B but I’m a Swiftie nonetheless lol). It does take time as the overall drop rate is still low even at 10x. The favorite artists you set also impact starting suggestions for quests (see Quests below).
I would recommend setting one unique artist for each genre if you’re trying to accumulate. (I.e Taylor for pop, Kanye for hip-hop, SZA for R&B, etc). This can help with badge collection as you’ll see next.

What are artist badges and what are they used for?

When you collect a certain amount of songs by a particular artist, you earn a badge. This badge is a picture of the artists’ face (or a full body shot of the band), and you can designate a favorite artist badge to appear next to your username throughout the game. You can own multiple badges per artist. Badges are categorized as follows, depending on how many songs you collect:
· Bronze – 5 songs
· Silver – 20 songs
· Gold – 50 songs
· Platinum – entire discography (song count varies by artist)
· Diamond – entire discography plus 5 shiny songs
A full list of artists with badges can be found here on my other post about the topic. So far the badges themselves seem cosmetic but they are a great way to keep track of which artists are most popular (and thus fetch the highest trade prices).

How do I know how many songs are in a specific artist’s discography?

After you collect the gold badge for an artist, the game will provide you with the count of the remaining songs to collect for a platinum. As far as I know this is the only way (and thus only works for badge artists).

What are lootboxes and should I buy them?

Lootboxes are basically a way to purchase drops with coins. They can be very, very useful if used correctly and at the right phase(s) of the game.
~Daily Drop – free: You can select a free drop of the genre of your choice (or randomly). It resets everyday at midnight. Always pull this everyday. Most of the time it’s common, but I’ve pulled some really good uncommons and rares from this. And it’s free!
~Daily Free Coins – free: Self explanatory. Always pull this everyday. The reward gets larger and larger as your streak gets longer. For example, my next reward after 42 days of playing will be 1040 coins.
~Best of the Best – 2000: You can pick your genre here and it gives you a pull from a random popular artist in that genre. Note: "best" doesn't mean "rare" necessarily. I've pulled rares but other folks have pulled uncommons. Also, "popular" artist doesn’t necessarily mean badge artist, so be mindful.
~Super Rare – 1000: This is the absolute best drop for beginners aiming to build a collection for trading. As it says, you get a guaranteed rare, though it’s a blind drop (can’t pick genre). With 10,000 coins you can get 10 rares and in conjunction with stuff you collect around town that’s a great platform to start building from.
~Today’s Top Hits – 1000: If you love the most popular songs you can try your luck here. I just tried this to see what I’d get and I got a Taylor Swift rare. Most of the time you should get a rare but not sure if it’s guaranteed.
~RapCaviar – 1000: This is for the hip-hop fans. As it’s curated you’ll get a currently popular artist, but rarity is not guaranteed. I pulled an Uncommon Yeat most recently.
-New Music Friday - This is a new one offering new music that comes out on Fridays. I think it's free but it's a little bugged right now so more to come on that.

What are Quests?

Quests are a feature added in 1.22 where you merge songs based on certain requirements in order to create artist-specific lootboxes. The Quest screen highlights artists you've designated in your favorites but you can click the search (hourglass) and create for any artist in the game.
Quests will ask you to merge songs from different genre, rarity, and initial letters. Example quest requirements (but these can vary widely) are:

• Merge 28 songs
• Merge 7 songs with artist names beginning with the letter "M"
• Merge 11 uncommon Pop songs

Quest costs range from 1-2k per dev. Quests scale in difficulties as you progress through an artist’s discog. It’ll be easier at first and gradually increase in difficulties. If a quest is too difficult, you have 3 re-roll options per day across all artist quests.
Quests are also easier for artists who don’t spawn in map drops.
Once you merge you get a cool animation that spins all the specific songs from that specific artist (reminds me of the Marvel Studios logo, but for music) and then lands on a common, uncommon or RARE song from that artist. You then get a new requirement if you want to unlock another lootbox from that artist.
This replaces the old Favorite Artist Drop lootbox in previous editions (used to cost 2000 coins). You can still open this with coins but now it costs 3000. Open the drop and instead of merging, go to the top right corner and you'll see the option to buy with coins.
I would recommend reserving this function for when you have built up a sizable discography, you’re trying to get artists that don’t seem to spawn from drops, and/or you're trying to go for Platinum. If you're bronze, silver, etc. you may find it more cost effective to trade for songs you need.
You can do as many quests as you want in a day.

What is the point of exp and levels?

Every time you level up you get a 2000+ coin bonus (more at higher levels), which is a nice incentive to stay active. The higher your exp, the higher your worldwide rank, which so far looks to be just bragging rights. The higher your level, the more exp it takes to level up.
How to earn XP:
· Common song: 20 XP
· Uncommon song: 50 XP
· Rare song: 100 XP
· Shiny song: 300 XP
· Epic song: 800 XP
· New drop visited: 20 XP
· New artist seen: 20 XP
· New person traded with: 20 XP
· Daily check in: 100 XP
However – the exp you gain in a week does have an impact on your league position.

What are leagues?

Leagues are another way to compete with other Soundmappers and earn a little bit of coins as well.
Each user is assigned to a league that consists of 30 random participants of a common rank. Like the artists, there are Bronze/SilveGold/Platinum/Diamond Tiers. You advance (or maintain your rank) by earning XP. Top players in each tier get some coins. If you rank highly enough you get promoted, if you are too low, you get demoted to a previous rank.
Check out the in-game League FAQ for more info. (I tried to link it here but it keeps trying to post some huge goofy Notion ad alongside the link so I'll not do that).

What is Discord and why does everyone keep talking about it?

From Wikipedia: Discord is an instant messaging and VoIP social platform which allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media and files.
There is no in-game messaging system (yet) so Discord is the platform you can use to communicate with other gamers to negotiate trades, advertise things you’re selling, contact the developers about desired features. The devs are active and you can often get very good insights from the help and announcement channels.
However, as with any social chat community there is always the danger of people getting toxic/abusive in the general rooms. Generally I stick to direct messages about trades, and everyone I’ve spoken to in DMs is nice and polite, but your own experience may vary.
If you click on the “chat” icon in app it will automatically invite you to the discord.

Why am I banned?

If you’re unlucky you’ll find yourself locked out of login with an error that your account has been banned. Generally, if you’ve violated the terms of service (we all read those, right?).
From what I’ve seen, the following things can get you banned:
· Location spoofing (using apps/tools to pretend you’re in a different place than you actually are)
· Scamming (trying to trick people into giving up high value tracks for nothing, etc.)
· Invite spoofing (using fake emails to sign up for multiple accounts and then using those to get free premium
If you think you’ve been falsely/mistakenly banned, send a help ticket and plead your case.

Speaking of ban, how do I block people who are bothering me, spamming the trade channel, or who are throwing me terrible trades?

Hit the ... in the top right next to a username and Block and/or Report. Use this carefully as there is currently no option to unblock someone after you block them. Once they're gone, they're gone.

Someone offered me a bunch of coins for a trade, but I traded them a bunch of valuable things and now I don't see the coins!

This is a (in)famous scam floating around in the game, usually marked by something to the effect of:
"I'm quitting the game! Trade me for all these coins!"
"I'm offering X amount of coins, best offer takes them!"
What most of these people are hoping you do is click on the individual song instead of clicking "trade" for the entire lot (and that you offer a bunch of valuable rares, shinies, epics, etc enticed by the coin amount).
In other words, when you do this you are telling the game, "nah, I don't want the coins." Next thing you know, they accept the trade and you only get the song.
Unfortunately, you can't reverse the trade but you can report those individuals. Next time, before you finalize the trade (the screen where the game asks "are you SURE you want to do this?", make sure the confirmation says explicitly "You'll receive X coins."
That's all I've got for now. Good luck and have fun! I hope both this subreddit and the Soundmap community grows and prospers.

So many of the complaints that we have about weapon balance, block/unblock, match making, friends lists, PSN, enemy characteristics, shitty environments, etc., would have likely been addressed by now if the devs and CEO actually played this game regularly.
Remember halo 3? You’d see the flaming skulls in game and you’d know, that’s a dev, they’re an active member of our community and they’re playing the same game that we are playing. They knew a gun was too powerful or too weak because they had to make tough choices on the battlefield every single day, because they played every single day. We could even look up to see how many games they had played and what their KD was, just like any other player.
This game would get so much better if the top brass mandated that their team play a few hours a week at each difficulty level and slowly test most of the weapons/strategems as they do so. They’d feel the frustrations we feel and they’d know how to fix it.

This is my first hand account as the youngest of 3 daughters, with a loving, hardworking mom but lazy, narcissistic dad with anger management issues. It's going to be a long story, basically my whole life story, because I feel that sharing some of my experiences growing up, may help bring more context to the situation I'm in today. I'm also a certified banana (non-Chinese speaking Chinese), and do identify as a ABC: American Born Chinese.
Growing up, I wasn't really allowed to go out from my house except for friends' birthday parties, and to go to school (obviously). My dad was a sales manager, and my mom ran a retail shop selling bags up till I was in secondary school, after which she stopped to be a full time housewife. Honestly, I don't even know how she juggled all the responsibilities while I was in primary school, because she did all the cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and even took time to dress my sisters and me and help us with homework and studying, and spend time with us on weekends (which I now understand how precious weekends are as a working adult). Basically, my freedom was heavily restricted, and I learnt at a young age how to keep myself entertained and appreciate my own company (which did make me depressed sometimes to be honest, until I learnt to accept, appreciate, and love myself for me when I got much older).
My parents were always yelling when I was home from school, especially at night. I used to try to ignore it by focusing on studying, thinking that if I worked hard enough, I would be able to make a living on my own and things would be better then (yes, I was only in primary school when I thought these things). I recall now that I used to think that no one loved me, that I was so much younger than my sisters (8 years from the oldest, and 6 years from the second) because I was an accident and unwanted. I was a naughty child, used to run around the house and draw on the table legs with color pencils. My mom used to cane me to discipline me when I misbehaved, but I still loved her. Looking back, I realise I honestly have a lot to thank her for - that it does feel like she single-handedly raised me and my sisters.
I was never given any allowance, never bought any new toys or clothes or shoes, because everything I needed would be handed down from my sisters. I would resent this for most of my childhood of course, until I got old enough to understand this was to be frugal. But looking back, it went deeper than that - my mom wasn't really able to spend money without my dad's consent. So everything went through him - and he would never allow us to spend money unless it was really a necessity, or unless it was something HE wanted. And what he was most interested in at the time I was growing up, was tech stuff. TVs, surround sound speakers with subwoofers, iMacs and all. Now this, he would spend money on. But my mom, I don't recall seeing her buy things for herself much to be honest. He did buy us a lot of pirated computer games - but usually he'd try to pick something that was more educational - and I think he only did it because he was buying pirated VCDs anyway.
Side question: How common is it to get your first handphone at 18yo (Nokia, the model you could drop from the roof and still would work), if you were born in the 1990s? I feel like it was definitely earlier than my older sisters, but the reason for this is because I was selected for National Service, and my parents wanted to stay in contact with me so they got me a handphone (which ironically was confiscated at the camp and only returned to you on weekends, and signal at my camp was almost non-existent). I feel like in comparison with many of my friends, I was super late in getting a handphone and had a lot to make up for to catch up in understanding.
Fast-forwarding to secondary school - my dad would usually always be angry about something at home. Maybe he woke up late for work and blamed my mom for it. Maybe I didn't get good enough grades - even if I got 100, he'd somehow always find a way to say that I could have gotten higher (yes I know that sounds stupid but he honestly used to say these things, because I would almost consistently get 100 for English and Maths - yes I am a nerd). Or maybe it would just be the way we answered his questions. He has this pattern where if he asked you a question, and he didn't like your answer, he'd pretend he didn't hear it, and ask you again, almost in the exact same phrasing he did the first time. And he'd do it again. And again. And eventually when you run out of patience and answer him shortly, he'd burst out in anger, with his default phrase: "You don't know how to talk to people.". "You talk nicer to strangers, better than your own father.". For a long time, hearing these words being repeatedly yelled, screamed at you, by a loud, angry, male voice, did two things to me. One, I used to almost believe that I didn't know how to talk to people, that I WAS the problem, and not him. Two, till today, hearing raised male voices still scares and distresses me, I get nervous and really tense - which doesn't help because that's how Hokkien and Hakka sounds to me when people are just saying hello! (yea it doesn't sound like anything to me because I'm a banana).
I recall a time on a weekend, when I had woken up early to watch morning cartoons, and my dad was angry about something - my sister had been busy applying for university, and I think he didn't like that she didn't want to be a medical doctor - she was more interested in math or vet sciences. He had been yelling at her, and then proceeded to walk over to where I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, stand over in front of me, bend down, and scream at my face saying "get out, get out of this house now!" - I swear I saw spit fly when he yelled at me. I was so afraid, so freaked out, that I later asked my mom if she thought one of the nice aunties from church would take me in if he really kicked me out.
How did I survive all this? I didn't even realise I was doing it, but I would try to spend as much free time as I could with friends - we'd talk on the phone for HOURS after school (mind you this was before we had cordless landline phones, so I would sit at the stairs, with my ear glued to the phone), and when I finally got to Form 6, I'd hang out after school with friends with cars, to malls, to the movies, to lunch, and my mom would sneak me some spare cash from her groceries budget so I could have a good time with friends. I had some really good friends that would sponsor me food/snacks too, whom I'll forever be indebted to, because no matter how cheap it was back then, it was still their allowance they were spending on a friend that couldn't pay them back.
Around this time, my dad lost his job - the management had changed, but if I recall how he was about his job, I don't think he was meeting his work KPIs as a sales manager either to be honest - and he was sacked. He fought it in court, and won money from it. This will become significant later on, but let's move on first.
Fast-forward to my turn to enter university, and I couldn't get in to medicine. I had tried, believe me - thinking that I liked biology enough, and that if I didn't, I could learn to love it - that my dad would love me more and treat me better if I did what he wanted, and go into medicine. But I couldn't make it - no scholarships wouldn't take me with my STPM 3.75 CGPA, not even for dentistry, because the competition was too tough with limited placements. I recall, my dad had opened a Maybank Yippie account under my name, and he applied to earn the rewards the bank offered for getting certain grades from PMR, SPM and STPM. When we got it, it went promptly into his own bank account under the justification that I didn't have my own bank account and he'd keep it for me until I did. Bro, you were controlling my Yippie account, and you had to close it once I finished STPM. You could have just opened an account immediately after that for me, but you didn't. That makes no sense, but ok, take it if that makes you happy.
I recall when I was applying to university through the UPU platform, I asked him for his advice, and he yelled at me to figure it out on my own. I wasn't sure what I could do honestly, because the whole time in secondary school, I only knew that he wanted me to go into medicine - I had no other frame of reference. My mom asked around among the neighbors, and found out that engineering was also a good field, and I did enjoy physics a lot more than biology, so I went into that. And my dad? Never did he once check on me - on what I was applying for, about school fees, nothing. My mom suggested I apply for PTPTN, that if I graduated with first class honors, I could convert it into a full scholarship, so I did that after exhausting all the other available scholarship options.
I think it was only in 2nd year of university that he found out I took Biomedical Engineering, and then he took an interest because there was some correlation to medicine - more on rehab science, but hey, I was taking classes in the attached hospital, so he was interested. Then he started to "show off" to relatives whenever they asked about it during CNY gatherings.
Anyway I think I've completely lost focus, so I'm gonna fast-forward. Today, I'm working a stable full-time job at a company I love working at - the people here are great and so supportive, and most of my social circle is from here today, with the exception of some close school friends I still keep in contact with.
Full lockdown in MCO was super tough for me. Being at home with my dad's constant yelling and anger issues, I seriously considered many times once lockdown was lifted, about moving out. I mentioned it to my mom, but she would always advise me not to, that it was too much financial strain on me and it wasn't safe to live by myself (you know, single girl, alone). Eventually, I realised, with lockdown lifted, I could escape our home, by going to the office. So I did. And I realised, that my mom was the more pitiful one because she couldn't escape as a full time housewife because my dad would restrict her freedom too - both inside and outside of the house. And for some reason, she accepted it. She clearly wasn't happy about it, but whenever I'd complain about my issues at home with her, her advice would be to not let it affect me and go out when I could. Honestly, I always wanted to ask her why she didn't just divorce my dad, but I was always too afraid to ask. So I let it be.
There were times when work was stressful, and because I had made work my escape from home, it was a toxic cycle for me, so much so that I had a few mental breakdowns at work, and did consider ending my life. But I got through it eventually after seeking counseling and talking to friends about my issues.
Have I mentioned my dad is a hoarder? He still has old VCRs of shows recorded from laser discs and satellite TV which we haven't touched in 20+ years, and probably will never use again. He still has an old Amiga computer in the storeroom that he never intends to set up, and also doesn't intend to sell - he just doesn't want to throw it away. Old pill boxes, old batteries - he insists to keep because he thinks he'll either need them again, or be able to use them somehow. Basically, the old house is so full of his junk that he's collected since I was young, that there's no space for the rest of us to really live. We're just, guests in his house, that have beds, places to put our clothes, and have to cook, clean, grocery shop, and pay for all the utilities, his car insurance, medical insurance, house insurance, and also give him an allowance. He complains about our cleaning too, even though he wouldn't ever clean himself. I found out from my sisters recently that he actually did complain about us not paying rent some time back, and this was AFTER they were already giving him a generous allowance every month (I had only just finished uni or started working? so they didn't tell me this). And he would continue to complain about this even after we started to pay for utilities and groceries. So eventually, they stopped giving him an allowance.
Another incident I want to share is about the family car. So we used to have a really old Proton Wira that we used as the family car since I was in primary school. About 20 years later, we still used it and it was the only available car I could take to drive to work. It wasn't very well maintained, but it got you from A to B, so for my first car, I wasn't complaining. Until, the gearbox started to have problems. I would send it to service many times, change the gearbox many times, and still, the gears would slip while driving - could be on a flat road while accelerating, and what especially worried me was when I was going up ramps or slopes, like when exiting basement parking, I had to have my hand on the handbrake at all times incase I started to fall backwards because I wasn't sure I could switch from accelerator to brake pedal quick enough. I told my dad about it every time, but he would just tell me off, saying I wasn't driving properly, and that there was nothing wrong with the car. I endured it for a couple years, until finally one day, I realised just how dangerous it was when I was leaving the parking with cars behind me, and I DID have to use pull the handbrake. So one day, I had enough, and I bought myself my own car with my own money. And guess what? When I went back home with it, what did my dad do? He yelled at me. Like on a scale of 1 to 10, he was 15. And then he yelled at my cousin who helped me to buy the car. He wasn't upset that I had gotten one without his consent, or that maybe I hadn't gotten the best deal on the car, no nothing like that. He was only upset, because I had spent my own money on myself, and that he insisted the old family car was perfectly fine. Well guess what? Eventually, he gave up on the car too, and asked *cough*forced*cough my cousin to buy it off from him, and apparently en route to the shop on the highway, the car broke down and had to be towed. And my dad never said a THING about it, ever. Makes me so mad just thinking about how selfish and irresponsible he was being, and how lucky I was that I had decided to get a car on my own. He was only curious about one thing - he asked me if I had gotten a bank loan for the car. I told him I borrowed money from my boss - when actually I had gotten a loan from my sister.
We're getting closer to present day, bear with me.
Last month, my house was being painted, with some other fixes being done like changing the roof gutters and house gate which were severely rusted over the 30+ years we lived in the house, never having been maintained ever since we moved in. It was actually my oldest sister's idea, being the "bread-winner" ever since my dad entered "forced retirement". She felt like it was a nice gesture and she had saved money to do it. She let my dad to pick the contractor so he'd be satisfied with the quality of the work, and that's when all hell broke loose.
From the day we agreed to the quotation (which was a really hefty sum), my dad wasn't happy about anything. He was always criticising the price, the quality of the materials, the workmanship of the painter and workmen, and even nitpicked that the contractor had "daddy issues". Funnily enough, it's my dad that has "daddy issues" himself because he likes to play the victim card after all these years saying that his father abandoning his family when he was young screwed him up. I'm sorry he went through that, but seriously, you're doing well now, and you're 66 fucking years old, could you grow up? Sorry, I digress. Honestly, my dad would just find ANYTHING to complain about, and he'd be angry and loud about it. Worse one I think was when he kept having the idea that the contractor should throw in some freebies for him, like hey, could you also paint this window for me, or fix this door for me, for free. Like as if materials are free and workmanship doesn't cost time and effort? I swear it's almost as if he's never worked a hard day's work in his life... Which I find contradicting considering how stingy he is with money...
The painting and house fixes took around 3 weeks in total - including power washing all the old paint off the walls, putting a few coats of primer, painting, and all the metal work. Also considering this was during puasa which was tough for the workers, and the weather was blistering hot in the afternoon and then heavy rain in the evenings. Through the whole thing, my sisters and I were busy at work, so who was left to manage at home were my parents. Or rather I should say, my mom. Because all my dad did, from day 1, is yell at the contractor. Saying he's not doing a good job, that he's so calculative because he wouldn't throw in some freebies like painting the window when we didn't ask for it in the quotation, or changing the color when he didn't like it, etc etc. Lies, they were all lies. The contractor knew exactly what he was doing, and it was really good work. We were all really happy with it. So my mom had to be peacemaker, try to calm down my dad, and apologize to the contractor on the side. Which is exhausting, because my dad was literally yelling in his face all the time! And he would eventually take it out on my mom because obviously it was no secret she was defending the contractor. I'm honestly super shocked he would act this way to a stranger. All my life he's always been so careful to only show his nasty side to us at home, and be charming outside to strangers. I guess being the "customer" went to his head?
All this took a really heavy toll on my mom. She's 64yo, and it was stressing her out so much to have my dad throwing his temper around all the time. If he didn't get his way with the contractor, he'd take it out on her. When I was home on weekends or before going to work in the mornings, she'd tell me how things were going, and they were just getting from bad to worse. She was getting more and more frail, more tired, losing her appetite, and not being able to sleep too.
Around 1-2 weeks in, realising things were getting way way out of control (who am I kidding, when was anything in my life with my dad ever in control? lol) - more importantly, my mom was suffering horribly from it - I reminded her that I considered a few times before about moving out. And that in the end, I decided not to only because she advised me not to. That I could escape to my office, but she couldn't, and that with my working hours and escapism, I hardly spent any time at home except to sleep (sometimes even choosing to shower at the office). So what was the point if she wasn't going to move out with me? So I stayed. But I told her this time, forget about financial worries, about anything else - and consider if she needs to get out of this situation. It's not worth being stuck in this at the cost of her own mental well being. I told her all this, to know these are options she could consider for herself, and left it at that. A couple days later, I went for an overseas trip with friends, and honestly, didn't think much of it.
A week later, I came back, and things felt the same. The painting was done, the gate was being installed, and the end of the hell seemed to be really close, like 1-2 days before everything would be completed. Another week later, I'm having lunch with my sisters and mom at home (dad not there because he had the habit of sleeping till 2pm ever since he "retired"). And I did NOT expect them to tell me they had all decided to move out, to leave my dad.
I was surprised, happy (like really happy), and also confused. So they explained that the turning point had come during the week that I was away, my dad's temper had gotten so bad, that he had almost hit my mom when he was yelling at her and the contractor outside the house. Luckily the contractor stepped in to stop him, and he snapped out of it, but it was enough to make my mom realise that after all these years, he is really never going to change, and that he could one day hurt her when no one else was around. Apparently, there were times before that she had mentioned his attitude & anger problems to him and threatened to leave him, and he promised to change, but then he would quickly forget it and go back to his usual ways. And other times, when he couldn't get the response he wanted from her, he would take it out on my sisters and I by yelling at us. She would always tell me when I was growing up that people don't change unless they want to, and don't ever get into a relationship with a guy thinking I can fix or change him. Funny that she would give me that advice, but herself still be hoping for my dad to change.
So, after telling them I fully supported the idea (basically I said I had been waiting a long time for them to decide to move out lols), we started looking for places to rent. And this is where I really have to thank God, because everything just fell into place. I mean there were some hiccups along the way, but within 2 weeks we managed to find a great place to move to within our rental budget with an awesome landlord. Then my dad announced he was going on an overseas trip around the time we would get the keys to move in. Honestly, we had considered trying to pack everything while he was sleeping and moving it under his nose, or considering the possibility of asking the police for help to move out in case my dad tried to stop us physically. But none of that had to happen, because he went for a trip, and we had basically a week to pack and move out. And with the help of many friends, we did it. We moved out, for the first time after 30+ years (40 for my mom).
Living apart from my dad, able to control our own lives and living space... We have never been happier as a family. I don't have my own room, I still share with my sister, but it honestly doesn't matter, because we can wake up every morning without worrying about the next temper tantrum or yelling match, or accidentally upsetting my dad about anything. It's so peaceful, and I look forward to going home after work now, rather than staying longer at the office. I no longer have to live under constant threat of being blamed from something wrong in the house. Yes, this is also something my dad does a lot, blame all of us for things getting spoiled in the house, even if it's obviously from wear and tear over the years. Like, the air-conditioner leaking, he would say was because we were folding clothes in the room which created a lot of fluff and clogged up air vents causing it to leak. Or, a power bank not working so well anymore, according to him was because I used it wrongly, and not because the charge just doesn't hold so well after degrading over the years.
The simplest things - being able to have a desk to work at when I want to work from home or play computer games, and having a cabinet in the kitchen to put my coffee gear instead of having to always wash, dry, and pack them up into paper bags. Or something even simpler - being able to accidentally leave a light on in a room and not be scolded for it like I had just killed someone... These are joys I get to experience now because we no longer live under the control of my dad.
Now, it's been 2 weeks since my dad returned from his trip to find an empty house (we only took our stuff, his stuff is still all there), and a letter explaining we had moved out because we couldn't stand to stay there anymore, and not to contact us because we need our space. He tried calling us but frankly, I think we were all either afraid to pick up just to be yelled at, or just not willing to be subjected to his manipulation anymore after experiencing peace of mind without him, so none of us picked up. He tried texting the family group then, and it surprised me he didn't act angry, but rather said he was shocked and expected to be able to live the rest of his life with us, that we would take care of him in his old age, that we should have pity on him because he's not young and came back unwell from his trip, that he had to sleep on the floor at the airport in Dubai. He said he wanted another chance to improve on his 'flaws', saying he loves us and would never do anything to hurt us, asking my mom to come back, that he knows he made a lot of mistakes, but that he's always lived his life for the benefit of us. Then, he asks us to continue paying for the utilities. Followed by saying "he knows we don't talk about it, but he never recovered from the suffering he endured at church" - which is total bullshit by the way, because he never suffered at church... what happens is what he always does - he alienates people or doesn't like it when people do things differently from him, and is super sensitive when people don't compliment or praise him for his works. So what he does eventually, is he leaves that church, and then finds another one. Anyway, he then continues in his messages with even more sappy words like he misses us, he's so lost without us, when he wakes up he's so full of fear, that that's why he's so unhappy and angry all the time, he needs us, that he's never had to be independent all his life, he's not eating well, not sleeping well, don't block him, please just let him meet us one more time, just let him hear our voices, just to say hello... OMG I wanna puke just reading all this... So much of it is so cringe, like he's NEVER spoken like that to us ever, and in the middle of it asks for money? And for the past, I don't know, 15 years at least, he's either always yelling at us that we don't know how to talk to people properly, or that we shouldn't talk to him. And now, he says he misses our voices? GAG.
Then this week... he pays me a visit to my office. Shows up at lunch time, and asks to see me. It was a really big shock to see him just standing there, smiling at me like as if I should be happy to see him? Honestly, I did expect it to happen, because my office is the nearest to his house, and probably the easiest to get to compared to my sisters' workplaces. But still, thinking it and seeing it were two different things, and I was just praying that he wouldn't be desperate enough to really do it and that I was just being paranoid. So seeing him in my office, I was instantly on edge, thinking he was going to make a scene at my office, and asked some colleagues to help keep an eye out for me while I went to talk to him. And he basically repeated the same things he's been sending in text to me. He started crying, and trying to show me how frail he was because he wasn't eating well, said he hoped I could take him out for a meal, saying he's only been eating all the leftovers - which honestly, is kind of suspicious because we didn't have that many leftovers to begin with, and we had purposely restocked the house with bread, biscuits, tuna which we knew he knew how to eat on his own - so maybe he was referring to that... Said he was worried about his finances, that his eyesight wasn't good, his knees weren't good, how was he going to clean the house on his own. Then he tries to change the topic for some reason, by saying he was surprised he was allowed into the office building and that the guard had given him some package to bring up as well when he said he was coming to my floor... It was weird and creepy and gave me a really unsettled, disturbed feeling throughout the whole experience. I was so tense and nervous that I couldn't bear to talk to him without crossing my arms in front of me the whole time. And I kept explaining to him, that there was no point in him trying to justify and explain himself to me - that it all just sounded like excuses to me, that 30 years of doing the same damn thing over and over to us was enough and that we were never ever going back to his house, whether it was to visit or moving back in - none of that was going to happen. But with his constant crying and pleading, I did start to feel really sorry for him.
I mean, even in the week when we were moving out, I felt guilty about it, knowing he wasn't going to be happy and was going to have a hard time once we left him. But the alternative was to do nothing about our situation, which wasn't a viable option either. Continuing to live with him was basically just saying, this is it, this is our lives, we're going to die with this being the extent of our lives. And I was NOT going to let that happen. My mom did NOT deserve to die in that house with that tyrant controlling every aspect of her life, sucking the joy and energy from her like a leech, like a freaking Dementor from Harry Potter. But anyway, yea, his pleading got to me, I did pity him and felt sorry for him, so I told him, please leave, I'll unblock him on my phone so he can call and message me, but I won't promise anything else except to pass on what he has said to my sisters and mom. He kept saying please, he can't wait too long, please just come to the house to talk to him, he needs us, etc. Took me a few times to convince him he's not going to get anything else out of me and eventually he left.
I was so on edge after that, I realised my hands were cold and shaking, and I didn't have much appetite for lunch by then. Thankfully I have many caring and supportive colleague who knew about the situation and they helped talk to me about it and it calmed me down. I talked to my sisters and mom that night after work, and they shared with me some of their experiences that I wasn't aware of from when I was a baby or when I wasn't at home. Which made me realise... he may have been trying to manipulate me earlier. Apparently, he has on several occasions, told my mom he regretted marrying her, that he would have been better off letting his mom to find him a wife instead. He had told my sister (the middle child) that he regretted having us as children. Told her to get out of the house too. And always told us that he had lots of money, that money was no object, whenever we told him we didn't want to spend on something he was asking for because we couldn't afford it. Which is conflicting isn't it, because if YOU have the money, then why not buy it yourself instead of trying to convince us to buy it for you? My sister had also asked him before why he was so angry, why he was yelling, and he would respond that he wasn't angry and that he was just like that, and he wouldn't change. I think the one story that really hit me though, was when my oldest sister said, she remembered when she was younger, maybe around kindergarten or primary school - she was holding me as a baby, and I was crying, and she was trying to comfort me. And my dad was playing really loud music at the time, and mom was busy with house chores, and she said she just remembered feeling like something wasn't right, and thinking why was it like this. It hit me then... that this had been going on for YEARS, like from before I was born, probably from the moment my mom had married him, and everything he had been saying were lies. Maybe he meant some of it, because he knew now that we weren't afraid to leave, that we could and would and did leave, that for that he was probably sorry for yelling at us. That all his threats to tell us to get out, while he probably thought would give him control over us at the time, had eventually now come back to bite him in the ass now that we were older and didn't depend on him anymore.
So, today, at this moment, I am sitting at my new desk, in my nice new home, writing this out because, my logical brain KNOWS that we have done the right thing. That my dad, the whole situation with him and how he treats the people around him, his entire behavior, is a classic red flag, textbook case. But despite knowing this, in my heart, in my emotional brain, I feel bad about it. Not enough to want to reach out to him and respond to his requests. But enough that I feel guilt when I'm happy about our new life, like I shouldn't feel this great when he's feeling bad. That my happiness now has come as his expense now. And yes, although I have been angry at him enough to wish him dead many many times over in the past, I think my compassion somehow makes me feel like it's not right to inflict suffering on others for my own sake. But logically, am I really "inflicting" suffering on him? Is it my fault he doesn't know how to be happy with his own life? Just because I was born as his child, doesn't mean I owe him anything, that I'm responsible to make him feel good, does it? Yes, I'm Asian, and Christian, and both of these teach us to respect our elders and take care of our parents. But it can't be at the expense of my own happiness and emotional well-being.
I don't know if I'll ever get into a relationship with someone. I'm 31 years old this year, and I have never been in a romantic relationship. I've had crushes, gone out a couple times for movies or meals, but it's never gone beyond just being casual acquaintances or friends. And I have zero interest in putting myself out there on online dating platforms, or going out to meet new people for the purpose of finding someone. I don't know if it's because of my experience with my dad, that deep down I'm so traumatised that I don't even want to consider putting myself in a situation that could become how it was with my mom and dad. I've seen other people have healthy marriages with loving family bonds, where the father is useful, caring, stable, dependable, and supportive. But I think I'm really afraid that I'm that person that attracts the wrong sort, you know? There's a saying right? That you marry men who are like our fathers? Yes, good relationships exist, but they're what other people get, and since I'm not a good judge of character and easily gullible, it can't possibly happen for me. And while thinking that does make me sad, I also know that maybe it's just better to stay single, so that I'll never be hurt again. Like, the risk isn't worth the potential reward.
Anyway, I hope someone does read this in the entirety, and lets me know what they think about the whole situation that is my life, and also especially my current situation. If there's any advice you could share with me, do you think I'm being too harsh? I do get triggered by my message tones, call tones, and even the office door bell these days, because every time, I'm just reminded that my dad is trying to plead with us to come back, and I'm just so tired of his manipulation and gaslighting and general emotional abuse. And I feel like this is probably more common than I think, and if you can relate to this while you're reading it, I hope you find the courage get out of the bad situation you're in and find your happiness too. If you're in a similar situation, although I have guilty feelings about it, I know it's important to take care of your own well-being, and I hope this helps you to know that you're not alone.

I have chevrolet volt 2013, me and family stopped middle of a road to get food, we got back in the car and the whole power went off, it wouldnt start, i thought it was because of acumilator so i changed it and got a new one, electricity was fixed, but car wouldnt start anyway, it was blocked, i unblocked it by using a key and quickly closing and opening doors, car still woudlnt start, it now has yellow wrench thingy with a block sign on it and i think if that wrench wont go away car wont start, how do i unblock the car fully? How do i remove yellow wrench block? Please DM, i have no idea with these electric cars, i only know the normal cars...

Hello all,
I have two decks: an old school Golgari deck and a rat swarm deck. I sometimes make them fight each other to see what scenarios could come up and a few have confused me in terms of order.
Situation 1:
-The rat deck is the active player and attacks with two [[Typhoid Rats]] and a [[Skullsnatcher]]. -Golgari has two untapped creatures: [[Shambling Shell]] and [[Savra Queen of the Golgari]]. Savra has three +1/+1 counters. Golgari announces that Shambling Shell will block one Typhoid Rats (with the intention of sacrificing the Shambling Shell for the ability) and Savra will block the Skullsnatcher and says the player will take the one damage from the other Typhoid Rats. -The rat deck then plays [[Nezumi Prowler]] via ninjitsu and returns the unblocked Typhoid Rats to hand and places the Nezumi Prowler on the battlefield tapped and attacking. -By entering play, Nezumi Prowler's ability activates and assigns lifelink and deathtouch to the blocked Skullsnatcher. -Now that blockers are assigned, Golgari sacrifices the Shambling shell to put +1/+1 counters on a creature. -Savra's ability kicks in and since Shambling Shell is both a green and a black creature, the Golgari player gains 2 life and then pays 2 life and has the defending players sac a creature. -Rats just sac the blocked Typhoid Rats. -Savra dies from Deathtouch, Skullsnatcher dies from Savra's power damage, Golgari player takes 3 damage from Nezumi Prowler.
....does this play out this way? Or does deathtouch take out Savra before her ability can even happen? What would be on the board at the end of the combat phase?
Situation 2:
-The rat deck is the active player and attacks with [[Patron of Nezumi]], [[Typhoid Rats]], and [[Throatslitter]]. -Golgari selects [[Vulturous Zombie]] with three +1/+1 counters on it to block the patron, [[Slitherhead]] to block typhoid rats, and Shambling Shell to block Throatslitter. Savra is in play as well but does not defend. -Shambling shell is once again sacrificed and activates its ability and puts another +1/+1 counter on Vulturous Zombie. Player loses 1 life to Patron's ability. -Savra's ability activates and the gain 2, pay 2 life happens. Rats sacrifice Throatslitter. -Vulturous Zombie's ability kicks in because throatslitter hits the graveyard and it gets yet another +1/+1 counter. It is now an 8/8. Now applying combat damage, Patron vs Vulturous Zombie is a 7/7 vs an 8/8 and Vulturous Zombie wins and stays in play. Patron dies; Slitherhead and Typhoid rats knock each other out. Vulturous Zombie gets another two +1/+1 counters.
....does this also play out this way? Does the Golgari player still take 1 life damage for Slitherhead dying?
I had a weird one with [[Pack rat]] but I can't remember how it went down. I think rats were dying and it was a blocker and I was confused with how strong it was when it was actually blocking...
Thank you to whoever can help clear things up. I've been trying to read https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules and I'm just confused at this point.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Exciting-Turnip7126. She posted in MarkNarrations and TrueOffMyChest.
Thanks to u/Literally_Taken for finding this and recommending it.

Read the trigger warnings. A reminder to not comment on Original Posts. See rule 7.

Trigger Warning: graphic descriptions of child abuse; infidelity; verbal abuse; financial abuse;
Mood Spoiler: surprisingly happy ending
Background Post: January 21, 2024
Editor's note: This post is tangentially related to the main post as it discusses some of OOP's background.
I feel so lost. I don't know what to do and I feel sick. I (41F) have been no contact my with my mother for the past 11 years following years of physical, financial, and emotional abuse as well as years of parentification.
To give everyone an idea, my mother started abusing me physically and emotionally from the age of 6 , which is when we both moved out of the extended family home. I never knew my father so until I was 6 I grew up in a home with my mother, her 3 siblings and her parents (my grandparents).
Her physical abuse consisted of pinching and twisting until my skin blistered or tore. Grabbing me by the arm or leg so hard she'd leave a bruise in the shape of her hand. Throwing things at me like drinking glasses. A few times I couldn't go to school because the bruises were in places that were visible.
Her emotional abuse was just as bad. Telling me she'd throw me outside and lock the door so the boogeyman would take me if I didn't do exactly what she said. This was all when I was under the age of 10.
The parentification started when I was 11 when my first half brother was born. He was my sole responsibility. Same when my second half brother was born when I was 18.
The financial abuse started when I was 12 when I had my first tutoring job. She's take my money to buy alcohol. I would hide my money so I could buy food for me and brother or my cat since she'd forget and just say to "eat whatever".
Financially, she wrecked my credit. I lent her my credit card when I was 21 (stupid I know) to help her with her business. She said, as my mother, I owed it to her. Back then I was still in the mindset I was taught growing up. That family was what was most important. Now I know better and have worked hard for years to build my credit back up.
Back to my dilemma. We (me and my bf 45M) have been invited to a friend's wedding. There's a chance my mother may be there.
What makes me anxious is we have a 9.5 month old baby girl. Yes I had my baby late. There's a long tradition of the women in my family being abusive. I didn't want children for the longest time. I don't regret having my daughter. She's my world and I love her more than anything and I know my mother would demand to see her if given the chance. The thought of my mother seeing her and just seeing my mother in general makes me feel sick with anxiety and on the verge of sobbing.
These emotions come up because I think of my daughter being exposed to her and I can do is cry.
On the other hand I want to go to the wedding. My friends who are getting married know my history with my mother. I have a feeling they'd invite her to be polite.
How can I get through this?
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: I'm sorry you had to deal with all that. While I can't tell friends who they should invite to their wedding, I would think good friends would be aware of the friction. I'd certainly ask if my mother had been invited. If they answer yes, then I would skip the wedding. If your mother is still drinking and abusive, there's no way I'd risk running into her again. Just not worth it.

OOP: Thank you. Exactly. I don't want to be that person who dictates who they can/can't invite.
That's a good idea. I will ask if she was invited/ RSVPed yes. She drinks less now. Her heavy drinking resulted in her getting type 2 diabetes. Even with less alcohol, she apparently is still very manipulative and abusive according to my youngest half brother.

Commenter: Wishing you luck. Don’t blame you at all! My mother’s father (grandfather is too familial for him) was a narcissist, abuser too. Had to control every and all situations. Refused to give him any leeway and never spoke to him for the last 10 or so years of his life. If I had kids, I would not have allowed him to be apart of their lives either. There is no need to have another generation subjected to the vitriol and physical violence. Go to the party, support your brother. You don’t have to say a word to her. Make Her look stupid by ignoring her.

OOP: Thank you so much for your comment! I'm so sorry you had to go through that too and you're absolutely right when you said
"There is no need to have another generation subjected to the vitriol and physical violence."
My mother is the way she is because of her mother who was so much worse. That's why I had my daughter later in life. I was child Free out of fear of being like them but my step-dad and boyfriend both told me the same thing: I know how not to parent.

Mini update (Same Post, Next Day)
I don't know if this is how we update but I'm going to do it anyway lol. Thank you to everyone who commented and you all had the same advice. So I contacted the bride last night. She wrote me back this morning. She did not invite my mother. She knows a little bit of my history with my mother and said she rarely speaks to her. She wants me and my step-father there. He too would not want my mother there (he went through a lot of abuse too at my mother's hand). So my friend wanted us to have a good time and is not inviting my mother.
Thank you all again so very much for reading my post. I was so afraid of being that person who causes drama over who is/isn't invited and didn't want to cause my friend stress that I started imagining all possible scenarios of what could happen if she was that and spiraled into an emotional crying mess.
After all your comments, some ginger ale a hug from my husband and baby, I was able to get some sleep.
Thank you all again very much
Original Post: April 16, 2024 (4 months later)
Title: I had to end my 11 yr NC with my mother and her siblings for a family event. I will see her for the first time this Saturday. I'm overthinking everything...
I (41F) went NC with my entitled narcissistic mother and her siblings 11 years ago after years of physical, emotional and financial abuse as well as years of parentification starting when I was 11 yrs old. None of her siblings said or did anything. They just looked the other way and told me I was too emotional and exaggerate everything.
My brother (30M) and his girlfriend (22F) are having a baby shower for their first baby this Saturday, my mother is organizing it and sent out invites and created a Facebook event. This is why I went stopped my NC, so I could see the event and mark myself as going.
I refuse to let a POS human being prevent me from being there for brother and his girlfriend, even if that person is my mother. I'm not going to lie, I spiralled when I first saw my mother's invite. All the years of abuse, days of missed elementary school because the bruises were in visible places, all came back. My step-dad (54M) talked me down and we're going together. He was abused by her just as bad as I was, if not worse.
My mother is organizing the baby shower because my brother is close with her. Yes he knows what she did but thinks I should just forgive and forget, which I have multiple times but that never stopped the abuse.
My biggest concern is my boyfriend and I have a child (1F) and when my brother found out, he started again with how I should forgive and forget. I told him I don't expect him to not tell my mother about my child but to respect that she will not be in my child's life. Since my daughter was born there were some not so subtle attempts from her to like pictures of my daughter. She even sent me a friend request once, which I deleted right away. She's the jealous vindictive type so it wouldn't surprise me if she pressured my brother to get his girlfriend pregnant so she'd have a grand-child too (She's jealous of my step-dad for being a grand dad).
For those wondering why I didn't block her, I did but unblocked every now and then because I was paranoid she'd try something with grand-parents rights, even though I know she doesn't have a leg to stand on for that or try to get sympathy for not seeing my daughter. This still bothers me to this day sometimes. The nightmares and hormones have me paralyzed in fear. All this to say my mother would be the type of person to post about this on social media and if she does, I want to be able to get screenshots of it and address it right away because she's a master manipulator.
I decided to take a big step and started therapy for the first time last week. Therapy was always something ridiculed and seen as something for weak people by my family. My boyfriend (44M) agreed with the therapy and even asked me how I felt afterwards. He's my rock and my everything. We've been together for 20 years. For those wondering, why we aren't married because we don't really don't care. We love each other and for us that's enough. Therapy helped a lot. I have another session this week, two days before I see her again. My therapist called me brave, which honestly surprised me. I never thought of myself as being brave.
Anyway, I'll update after the baby shower.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: Your brother deems his deference for your mother above the abuse thar he knows you suffered. However much you care for him, your feelings are secondary as far as he's concerned... Why stress? Spend the day with someone who loves you.

OOP: thank you for your comment. I do agree with you that my feelings are completely secondary to him. Unfortunately, he's very much like her personality wise but his girlfriend is a gem and keeps him level headed (even he admits its lol). My dad and I have an agreement that if either of us are uncomfortable we'll leave right away. We're going as each other's support. Plus I worked really hard on a crocheted baby blanket, hats and mitts lol.

Why are you putting yourself in this situation?

Thank you so much for your concern. Yes it's going to be stressful but after having lost my entire family when going NC, I went a few years with no contact with anyone, including my step-dad and brothers. She had turned everyone against me which destroyed me. I felt so abandoned. Once her lies, cheating and abuse were exposed is when my step-dad and one of my two brothers came back in my life. The one brother who came back (23M) isn't the one who's baby shower I'm going to (30M). Yes there's a massive age difference between us (I'm 41F). I raised the two of them alone. I felt like I had lost everything when they went NC. Them coming back felt like a second chance. Brother 30M came back a few years after. He's very easily manipulated and has the same kind of personality as my mother: vain, narcissistic and selfish but he's a watered down version without the abuse.
Basically I'm putting myself in this situation for my second chance little family I was able to form after the fallout. Seems ridiculous but I'd feel terrible to not try.

Commenter: I too, think it is a bad idea. I cannot imagine spending time around someone that was abusive to me for years just to appease my brother who didn't even care that I was abused, still maintains a close relationship with my abuser and on top of it has the audacity to tell me to forgive and forget. That part is throwing me. I cannot for the life of me imagine my mom hurting my sister who I love, yet still wanting to be cool with my mom, my mom would be dead to me. And I get Op is fond of her brother's gf but like someone else suggested take her out to lunch or do something else nice with her, like a spa day and give her the gift.

OOP: As much as I would love to do all the above, it's really hard with how far my brother and his girlfriend live and their job. They both work really long shifts. I know it's confusing and even I wonder sometimes, especially that he plays off my trauma like I'm exaggerating, but the best way I can put it is in a way we have a way to start over. After the year did abuse, not just to me but my step-dad also, we want to try and make our little family of chosen people work. We never got a chance to do that, ever. I would have to do a post by itself about my family and all the bullshit that lead to the NC. That would be a massive post in itself. So much to unpack but therapy is helping.
Lastly, I was happy to hear my brother's girlfriend put her foot down with certain things with my mother. My brother will get to see our mother's real personality with his baby. I hope he steps up for his girlfriend and their baby.

Commenter: It's ok to prioritize your self and your family. You cannot thrive and be bountiful if you don't. If not going is best for you. That is ok. What is best for you is ok. It took me a long time to say that! It's not selfish to do what's best for you and your LO (Editor's note- little one)

OOP: I've really been leveraging "No" as a full sentence and have been using that as a filter for people I want to keep in my life. If people can't respect me when I say no, then what else are they going to disrespect me on.
At first I did not want to go. I had a full blown crying, shaking, dry heaving meltdown. After composing myself, I called my dad and he talked me through it and said he was going. He was heavily abused too so I know it's just as hard for him. That's why we're going as each other's support. As for my daughter, she's staying home with my boyfriend having a daddy daughter day.

Commenter: Eh, I would suggest just using her first name, not "mother." Deny the relationship. Twist that knife.

OOP: I have. I use mother here because I've used "egg donor" in the past and people were super confused. Even to my step-dad and brothers I call her by her first name.

Commenter: I'm a cross stitcher and knitter, I feel your pain. (Editor's note- OOP commented at one point that she had a handmade gift for the new baby) As for the shower, have you considered that by going you are letting her win? She gets to show everyone how mean you are to her, she gets to create drama and blame it on you. Think on this, a narcissist thrives on attention any attention, even bad, is a balm to their soul.
She will do everything in her power to make you look bad. There is no way to win, except by ignoring her existence.

OOP: Thank you! I have considered that side too. I'm going by my dad's experience. He had to see her a month ago or so for the gender reveal and he said she looked resigned. Almost emotionless. She's already painted me in a bad light to the entire family (her sisters, her brother and their kids) who will also be there by the way. But they're all so non-confrontational and fake.
I know my mother is throwing the baby shower for exactly that reason. She wants attention. My dad and I agreed to leave right away if either of us feels uncomfortable.

Commenter: You want to be there for a grown ass man who doesn’t care about you being abused. Why do you still care about him? When has he ever cared about you??

OOP: Thank you for your comment. We used to be close a long ago. We've gotten a lot better in the past 2 years. He was really badly manipulated by my mother for many years. He took for granted that what she was telling him was true because she's our mother and she wouldn't lie, which is so dumb, I know. He's learning that more and more. I think he's seeing it more now that she keeps trying to ask him for money, like I warned him she would.

Commenter: Brother will change his mind about mother once she starts abusing his kid. These kinds of things don't just stop. Good luck to you!

OOP: Thank you! I really hope it doesn't come to that but it wouldn't surprise me. I think it'll be more my brother's girlfriend putting her foot down with my mother's involvement (she'll probably try to involve herself in everything). My brother will be forced to choose and in general does what his girlfriend says since she's the most down to earth, realistic and normal out of the two. She keeps him level, his words exactly.

Commenter: You DON’T have to go. Just because your brother has poor taste in people doesn’t mean you have to be around your abuser. You can see him other times.

OOP: Thank you for your comment. I know I don't. I'm choosing to go. I feel like I'm letting my mother get under my skin and win by not going and that makes me even angrier. That's where I'm at at the moment.

Editor's note: All edits take place on the same post.
EDIT: I'm sorry if I'm, confusing anyone by saying "my dad" when referring to my step-dad. To me he is my dad. He and I have gone through hell and back together in regards to my mom. Our experience has brought us closer than ever.
EDIT 2: I am NOT bringing my daughter. She's staying home and having a daddy daughter day with my boyfriend.
EDIT 3: April 16 or 17, 2024 (Same day/day after)
Holy cow I did not expect this many comments! Thank you all so much! You have no idea how much I appreciate it. That's what I love at MarkNarrations. I love this sub. It's such a tightly knit community. My daughter knows the sound of his voice now and comes running to see when I play his videos on my tablet lol.
One thing I want to tell everyone, you don't need to worry about me breaking down, crying, or having a meltdown. I'm at a point in my life where I don't get sad. I get angry and my worry is if she tries anything, my step-dad will have to jump him and pull me back. And I have no problems calling her out on her abuse. Many years ago she made him nearly homeless where he only had enough money to pay his mortgage but had to go to the food bank for food. He didn't tell me because he knew I probably would have done something I'd regret later. He only told me after the fact and I cried tears of anger and disbelief at being related to someone so vile. When I get overwhelmed I cry, which I find so embarrassing.
I am seeing therapist this Thursday, two days before the shower and I'm really looking forward to it. I will keep you all updated. Thank you all again so much. I really love this sub <3
EDIT 4: April 18, 2024 (two days later)
Thank you all again so much for all the love and support. I'm sorry I didn't clarify this before. I have 2 brothers 30M and 23M. My brothers are my half-brothers (We share the same mother. Their father is my step-dad). Just like how I call my step-dad "dad", I call my half-brothers, "brothers".All the comments, advise and suggestions have been amazing and some really really funny. I'm feeling so much better after reading all the support and am started to look forward to the baby shower, especially that my step-dad texted me saying he met my mother's husband this week and that the man's face was priceless after my step-dad introduced himself to him. I asked for more details but he said we'll talk about it on the drive over.
After that, I wanted to give you all a full scope of who my mother is and what kind of a piece of shit human being she really is. I put it in point form instead of a giant block of text:

• Her physical abuse started at 6-7 years old. It was pinching and twisting until my skin tore. Grabbing me by the arm or leg so hard she'd leave hand shaped bruises. Slapping me across the face so hard, I'd have the imprint of her hand on my face. Throwing objects at me. She almost broke my orbital bone when I was 8 after throwing a glass at my face after I said a swear word in public for the first time. A few times I couldn't go to school because the bruises were in visible places.
• Telling me she'd throw me outside and lock the door so the boogeyman would take me if I didn't do exactly what she said. This was all when I was under the age of 10.
• The parentification started when I was 11 when my first brother was born. He was my sole responsibility. Same when my second brother was born when I was 18.
• The financial abuse started when I was 12 when I had my first job tutoring the neighbour's son. She'd take my money to buy alcohol. I would hide my money so I could buy food for me and brother or my cat since she'd forget and just say to "eat whatever".
• Financially speaking, she wrecked my credit. I lent her my credit card when I was 21 (stupid I know) to help her with her business. She said, as my mother, I owed it to her. Back then I was still in the mindset I was taught growing up. That family was what was most important. Now I know better and have worked hard for years to build my credit back up.
• She tried to get back in contact with me 8 years ago by wishing me happy birthday on facebook under my brother's comment (they're facebook friends). This was 2 weeks after we were contacted about inheritance following my grandfather's death a few months before. She hadn't contacted me for anything the 3 years previous. So gross, especially since she inherited way more than I or my brothers did.
• As for my step-dad - she cheated on him for 6 years with some guy she met down in the Caribbean. So not only is she abusive, she's also a cheating piece of shit. She would fly out down there 6 to 7 times a year by herself for her "me" time and would lose it when my step-dad asked to join her. All the money he gave her to pay the mortgage, hydro, and other utilities, she'd send to her boy toy, now her husband. My step-dad almost lost his house and she ruined his credit too by racking up credit card and cell phone bills. Her credit was so bad, she couldn't get a phone. I had had enough and confronted her. They split up not long after and that's when all my mother's lies and manipulation came to light.
• They owned a company together that my mother's brother bought from them. My step-dad and mom had each taken out a loan with the bank to start the company together and were still making payments to it after they split. My step-dad paid his loan off first and that made my mother so angry and jealous she had her brother help her take my step-dad to court to sue him and have him pay her loan. She won. He had to go to the food bank for a while because he couldn't afford anything else but the mortgage and hydro.

I have therapy this afternoon and can't wait. I felt so much better last week after just 1 session. You all have made me feel so much stronger and confident. Let me know if you have any questions or need clarification on anything I wrote above.
Update (Same Post): April 20, 2024 (4 days from OG post)
UPDATE! Today was the baby shower and omg! I'm putting everything in point form because there's a lot to update you all on. I'm typing from my cellphone as I'm rocking my daughter to sleep. I missed her so much today.
1 - my dad invited his female best friend to come with us to the baby shower. We'll call her Sally. She's a wonderful woman with a big heart and very protective of my dad, especially since she knows my mother fairly well and works at the same place as her. The first time she and I met we were talking about each other's work and she was going on about this awful co-worker who was so bossy, blamed everyone else for her mistakes and took the praise for other people's work. Turns out it was my mother lol. Basically my mother was not happy Sally was coming.
2 - Both my dad and Sally said my mother texted them to say the baby shower started at 1:30. It didn't. The invite clearly said 1pm. I told them we're getting there for 1pm and was 99% sure my mother was trying to make them look bad out of jealousy. I was right. We arrived at 12:55 pm and my mother's deer in the headlights look on her face said it all.
Guys I stayed composed. I did it! My hands were shaking but I kept them in my pockets. Sally saw this and squeezed my arm.
My mother came out of her daze and came over "oh OP! You came!? It's nice to see you!"
I smirked at her obvious lie and discomfort at being caught, said "Nice to see you too. Where do I put my gift?" She took my gift and put it on the table with the other gifts.
3 - My mother's two siblings showed up with their daughters. One sister greeted me like an acquaintance, which I appreciated. The other pretended I wasn't even there.
4 - my dad, Sally and I sat at a table with one of my dad's former work buddies. We had a blast. My mother was not impressed. Shooting us dirty looks. So much so my dad's friend turned to me and said "uh oh. I think we might need to keep it down". Everyone else was talking loudly, we weren't the only ones. She just didn't like that we were having fun.Me "forget her. She always looks like that." My dad spit out his drink laughing. I didn't say it loud enough for her to hear (at least I don't think so and didn't care in the moment to be honest) but we did get more dirty looks lol.
4 - my mother whipped out a headset with a microphone hooked to a tiny speaker that she hooked to the back of her pants, like she was some sort of talk show host. I shit you not. I didn't notice until my dad said "what the fuck..." I looked over and couldn't help but laugh. Did I mention my mother thrives on being the center of attention, even at her own son's baby shower.
5 - she had us play games and whatnot which was fun. I participated and had fun, until my mother handed diapers with melted chocolate bars on them and gave them out to my two brothers my dad and another guy at the shower. She wanted them to taste what was in the diaper and guess the chocolate bar. The way the chocolate was melted you could tell some of the crotch of the diaper had turned gelatinous (which is what it's supposed to do when a baby pees. I doubt that gel is for human consumption). Me in my now very comfortable seat at the shower blurted "that's disgusting". I got a few responses agreeing with " uh yeah... That's gross".
6 - then there was the bottle drinking game. My mother dropped the bottle full of grape juice in front of my dad like he was a bug she was trying to squish with the bottle. It was so obvious that the girl at the table next to us tapped my shoulder and asked why "the woman with the microphone just pitched the bottle to the poor guy in the blue shirt". I told her the guy was my dad and the woman was his ex, my mother. The girl apologized profusely. I told her not to, that she said nothing wrong and that my mother was just like that.
7 - my dad and I went out for supper afterwards and what I found out over guys... OMG! Turns out my mother was upset with my dad because she asked my other brother (not the one having the baby shower) to try and put in a good word for her to my dad because she wanted to get back together with him and he just laughed. He didn't know what else to say. Need I remind you all that she's currently married to the man she cheated on my dad with for 6 years!
She married and sponsored this man from the Caribbeans to come to Canada. According to my brother, this poor man is treated like a tenant and is forced to live in her basement. WTF
My dad laughed when he saw my face and told me not to worry, that there's no way in hell he would ever consider getting back with her. I told him good because I'd have to smack some sense into him if he did.
He's 99% positive she's trying to get back with my dad to try and reconcile with me to have access to my daughter. He said he'd rather die than let that happen.
So there you have it. What a shit show, but it was a fun shit show that I did not expect in the least. Thank you all again for all your comments and support. It was so very appreciated.
Relevant Comment:
Commenter: You handled that well. Now just go back to pretending she doesn’t exist. She doesn’t deserve anything different. The best revenge is living well.

OOP: That's exactly the plan! Thank you again for your comments.

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