What is something funny i can post on my facebook wall

Welcome to our fifth discussion of Leviathan Wakes. Hold onto your cool detective hats or your environment suits, because we finally get some answers to our mystery! This week, we will discuss Chapters 34-40. The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here.
The discussion questions are below. One note - this is a very popular book series and TV show, but please keep in mind that not everyone has read or watched already, so be mindful not to include anything that could be a hint or a spoiler! Please mark spoilers not related to this section of the book using the format > ! Spoiler text here !< (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words).
Now brace yourselves: here comes the juice!
Chapter Summaries:
Chapter 34 - Miller: Detective Miller and the crew of the Roci board the hidden ship (the one that captured the crew of the Scopuli before destroying it), wearing environment suits because the ship has no atmosphere - someone left the doors open. They stick together at first as they move through the ship, discovering signs of a struggle, zombie vomit, and twelve torpedo tubes big enough to destroy capital ships like the Donnager or the Canterbury. Miller uses his detective skills to determine that everyone but Julie retreated to engineering. Once there, they discover a truly grisly sight: layers of human flesh and bones are sort of fused around the reactor, which has been shut down. Naomi and Holden gasp in shock and disgust, Miller turns on his cop brain to suppress emotion and view it as a crime scene, and Amos seems… calm and able to ignore the gore. The team splits up to look for more clues.
Amos stays in engineering to start up the computers and get the reactor back online. Naomi works on the ops deck to run diagnostics. Miller and Holden head to the bridge, which wasn’t affected by the fighting onboard. Miller reviews the internal feeds and finds footage showing the captured Scopuli crew being led onto the ship, stripped, and put in restraints. Julie fights back viciously but is knocked unconscious and stuffed in a locker with a jumpsuit (which is where we met her in the prologue). The crew is left in the galley for 132 hours before they decide to make a stand, but it is quickly suppressed. One of the crew is thrown out an airlock and the others are heavily restrained as they scream and cry. Just as Miller gets to the first appearance of a vomit zombie (at hour 160 of footage), Amos yells that he’s been exposed to some radiation because the human flesh blob had damaged the reactor shielding. He decides to keep working while Alex monitors his health status from the Roci.
Then Holden calls Miller over to view one of the last feeds Julie accessed. It’s a corporate presentation video created for a man named Dresden and the board of Protogen. It features a man Miller dubs “the sociopath” because of his cold, practiced smile…and because of the content. The sociopath tells the board (and us) the history of scientific discovery on Phoebe, which was thought to just be a moon and a source of water, but became a research station when a survey found complex silicon structures in the ice. Protogen was tasked with investigating and discovered that Phoebe is not a moon but evidence of a galactic biosphere: it is an alien weapon sent towards Earth 2 ⅓ billion years ago, which never made it because of orbital mechanics. Protogen has discovered that this weapon is not alive per se; rather, it is something they’ve termed the “protomolecule” which has the ability to maintain structure while replicating other systems and manipulating them at scalable rates. Of course, they alerted the proper authorities and made sure… just kidding, they’ve secretly been doing tests. The sociopath believes that whoever controls the protomolecule will gain control of all political and economic power going forward. Chillingly, the sociopath urges them to pursue large-scale testing to understand the protomolecule and its human applications. That large-scale testing is Eros.
TL;DR - Julie found evidence that Protogen (her dad’s company) has discovered an alien weapon, branded it the “protomolecule”, and secretly tested it on the people of Eros (and probably other smaller tests). The entire war has just been a distraction.
Chapter 35 - Holden: Naomi explains that most of the messages on the comm logs have been coded, but the last one is in plain text: the captain informed Thoth Station that the ship was contaminated, everyone was about to die, and the “materials” had been secured. He also planned to send vector data so they could find the ship. The Roci crew put two and alien-symbol-for-two together: they figure out that the captain has locked protomolecule samples in his safe. They also decide that the tightbeam messages were being sent to a secret research station Protogen was using to monitor the Eros experiment. Even though the fact “Naomi is the best” is a proven concept on par with “space is cold”, she is NOT able to open the captain’s safe, so they decide to cut it out of the wall and bring it with them on the Roci. They also scuttle the ship so no one can a) recover the stealth technology and alien weapons, or b) get exposed to the protomolecule-human soup inside. (Amos would have preferred to hack the frozen dead body goo off the reactor with a chainsaw and salvage such an impressive and expensive ship, which is… another way to go.)
It’s clear that someone else with stealth tech is searching actively for this ship, but the Roci won’t see them coming so they decide to get the hell out of Dodge. Naomi jokes that their options include turning the safe over to the OPA (they’d be heroes), selling out to Mars (they’d be rich), or starting their own biotech firm (just kidding, that’s evil). When Miller checks in with Holden about a decision on where to go next, he drops a figurative bomb on him regarding actual bombs in the news. Since Holden did his best Edward Snowden impersonation and leaked the data that the mystery ships are from Earth, Mars asked a few too many questions and in response, Earth has blown up a whole bunch of Martian ships and destroyed the Deimos deep radar station. Miller ruefully gives Holden credit for sticking to his guns about his belief in “free information”. He also points out that Holden’s principles make him responsible for all those deaths and the destruction of the Earth-Mars Coalition… and possibly the universe as they know it.
Chapter 36 - Miller: The war between Mars and the Belt seems like no big deal now that Earth and Mars are fighting. Miller watches the news feeds as the conflict turns into a blockade, and he realizes he is steeling himself for an announcement of a planetary attack on Earth or Mars, but it never comes. He and Amos deal with the stress by having beer for breakfast.
Miller meets up with Holden in the med bay for their routine blood flushes and cancer treatments, and they reopen their debate about what to do with the data files and who is to blame for the war(s).

• Holden’s position: Broadcast everything to everyone! (I know, I know, so out of character, right?) People will understand that they’ve been set up and will turn their wrath on Protogen instead of each other. Also, these are ancient conflicts. The Belt has always hated Mars and the inner planets in general. Mars and Earth have always had animosities secretly brewing and they do military training for the inevitable showdown. Or as Miller puts it, “Not my powder keg; I just brought the match.”
• Miller’s position: Stop and consider what people will do if they hear an Earth company did this. Every other data leak has been used as an excuse to shoot at someone the other side doesn’t like. Also, people suck. They aren’t going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya just because Protogen is the bad guy. They’ll move on to shooting each other so they can be the ones to control the protomolecule. Or as Holden puts it, “Maybe Protogen is a little right. People are too dumb to be trusted with big information so we should keep hard, scary stuff a big secret. That’ll totally work out.”

Holden’s idealism starts to fade as he takes in Miller’s hard truths about humanity. To be fair, Miller loses a little idealism over his perceptions of the inner planets’ relationship which, to the Belt, seemed stable and friendly enough (and united against them). Miller encourages Holden to use Naomi’s judgment as a measuring stick for whether something is right (similar to how he uses illusion-Julie as his conscience and sounding board) and then he goes back to the news feeds to watch Ceres slowly collapse into chaos. Holden decides the only person and place he trusts - or at least doesn’t completely distrust - is Fred Johnson on Tycho Station, so they head there. Holden also wonders why they don’t just destroy the safe and make sure everyone stays away from Eros and Phoebe; Miller admits it’s because the protomolecule might just be the holy grail.
Chapter 37 - Holden: The crew of the Roci is taking a break from doom scrolling to cook fake space lasagna for dinner and bond over the food and conversation. As Holden watches the crew laugh at Amos’s belches and Miller’s wild story about cheese smuggling, he reflects that they represent all three prongs of the conflict: Naomi and Miller are Belters, Amos and he are from Earth, and Alex is from Mars. Yet they’re friends, and Holden knows this is what they have to fight for. The cheese smuggling makes no sense to Amos (why cheese and not drugs?), and Naomi points out that this illustrates how little people from the inner planets understand Belters. Earthers have free air and easy access to resources, while Belters know everything that sustains life is rare and their access to it is fragile. And this is why Protogen didn’t blink an eye before killing 1.5 million Belters on Eros: they’re “other”. Then Alex points out that this doesn’t make sense; it's a risky and unnecessarily complicated way to kill people just to satisfy prejudices. It becomes clear that Eros isn’t a hate crime, it’s a vacuum-sealed test tube to let the protomolecule learn how to do its job better by giving it access to a huge amount of biomass. The early transformations looked incomplete, as if it didn’t know how to work with human flesh yet, so Protogen was giving it a chance to train. Holden wants to know where they would even find enough people who would support an evil operation like this, and Miller promises to ask Dresden (the Protogen board member mentioned in the video) when they meet him. Something tells me that conversation won’t go well.
As the Roci approaches Tycho station, Holden and Miller take in the view of the Nauvoo, the partially constructed Mormon generation ship. When Miller says the Mormans may be in for a long and lonely death if they don’t find a habitable planet, Holden notes that this is the good kind of galactic exploration humans can accomplish (the protomolecule being the bad kind). Miller then asks Holden why he trusts Fred, and Holden explains that in addition to being the only person who hasn’t tried to jail them or blow them up since all this began, Fred is “real OPA”: he’s a politician and not part of the war-mongering factions who think they can survive indefinitely without the inner planets. When Miller points out that there isn’t a political solution to Protogen, Holden insists Fred has other skills, too. Later, Fred reads through all the information on the protomolecule and is incredulous that anyone could think to do this. Miller assures him that genocide is an old-school crime and it’s important that they stop it. Holden offers up the location of the observation station in exchange for enough OPA fighters to take down Protogen, and the right to retain custody of the safe and its contents. Fred agrees only after Holden points out that no one else can be trusted to do the right thing with a secret this big. Plus, he says Fred already knows what Holden will do with it.
Chapter 38 - Miller: It feels strange to Miller to explore the wide open spaces of Tycho Station, the fanciest place he has ever set foot on. He notices Naomi working on her hand terminal and letting her food get cold; she is too preoccupied with trying to figure out the location of the station to enjoy the amenities. As they talk, Miller is reminded of Havelock’s advice to just let go when he got pulled off a case, which jogs his memory that Havelock actually works for Protogen! (I’m surprised he didn’t get there faster; maybe everyone had a point that he was sort of a washed up detective.) He rushes off to make contact with his old buddy - probably his last real partner ever - in an encrypted drop site of a Ganymede server cluster. As he waits for a response, Miller is amused to realize he has started thinking like Holden: he feels like someone should warn the Mormans that they could potentially run into the alien creators of the protomolecule who may want to kill them. Havelock comes through, passing along the coordinates to a “very scary deep research and development lab” and asking Miller to be discreet never contact him again so he doesn’t get killed for betraying his employer. Miller sends him an encrypted warning to quit his job ASAP and not take postings at any black ops sites, before saying goodbye for the last time to the only person that still respected him as a cop. (I may or may not be sniffling a bit at this.)
Miller rounds up Naomi and Holden so they can bring Fred the coordinates. In Fred’s office, Miller starts lecturing him about the serious nature of the mission and the need to have a solid plan with adequate firepower, not the usual OPA shenanigans. Everyone’s a little confused until they realize that Miller doesn’t know that Fred is “the butcher of Anderson Station” and a former Colonel in the Earth Navy. Fred assures Miller he’s no amateur and will plan ahead. Miller then insists that he get to come along for the assault on Thoth Station. Eight days later, the plan is set in motion and Miller begins packing his meager belongings into a very small bag, figuring he’ll never see the Roci again. Even if he makes it off Thoth alive, he’ll have to figure out a way to make money and improvise a life plan of some sort. He tries to thank Holden and say goodbye, but the Roci’s captain interrupts Miller to ask where they’ll all meet up after the mission is complete. Miller is confused at first, then overcome with emotion when he realizes Holden considers Miller part of the crew! I’m not crying, you’re crying. Actually, it’s Miller who is weeping. But he pulls himself together so he can head to the assault ship.
Chapter 39 - Holden: The Rocinante needs to sneak up on Thoth Station, so they are pretending to be a loose cargo container that broke off the Guy Molinari (the Belter ship carrying the assault team, which is pretending to be a cargo ship). They fly with everything shut down so that it’s more convincing, hoping they can get close enough to the station to do some damage before Thoth starts firing back. As they approach and are able to reboot everything needed for battle, a stealth ship is spied hanging out near Thoth Station. Then, suddenly it becomes clear that there are two small stealth ships, which will be much harder to fight off. Everyone does their jobs efficiently on the Roci, but in the ensuing battle with the stealth ships, they start to take some damage. First, the Roci is hit by a gauss cannon that goes straight through the machine shop and galley. Holden mourns his coffee maker. Amos notices a leak in the maneuvering thrusters and heads to fix it between the inner and outer hulls, which isn’t an ideal place to be floating around during a battle. This stresses Naomi out, but Holden orders everyone to stay focused. They are able to take out one of the stealth ships, but the other gets close enough to do some impressive damage to the Roci. There is major hull damage as well as loss of four maneuvering thrusters, a PDC, their O2 storage, and the crew airlock. Alex is about to destroy the second stealth ship when the Roci’s point defense cannons (PDCs) detonate an enemy warhead up close. It knocks everyone out, punches holes throughout the Roci (narrowly missing Naomi), dislodges equipment, and fills the ship with debris. Holden marvels that they are alive at all, and Alex points out that is only because the ship’s anti-spalling webbing eliminates shrapnel. They make contact with Fred, who says he’ll find them a place to land, and the Guy Molinari prepares for the assault on Thoth Station. It’s Miller’s turn to shine!
Chapter 40 - Miller: On the Guy Molinari, Miller is talking to a Belter kid named Diogo as they wait for the assault to start. Miller realizes that while he has fancy Martian armor from the Roci and experience with gunfights in station corridors, he is surrounded by inexperienced young Belters with borrowed gear, and he will likely have to watch dozens of them die during the battle. But Diogo isn’t worried; he is confident and eager to get started. Fred announces that they are ready to start boarding since the Roci gave them the “all clear”, and Miller is happy to hear his friends have survived. The assault on the station starts off rough, with Protogen soldiers fighting them in the corridors and automatic defense lasers taking out some of the Belters in the first wave. But Fred knows how to command his OPA “troops” and keep them in line, and things start to go more smoothly as they slow down and maneuver carefully. Miller and Diogo are part of a group taking shelter at Fred’s direction and fending off Protogen counterattacks, and they start to talk during a lull. When two Protogen soldiers sneak up on them from behind, Diogo is hit and Miller chastises himself for chatting during a battle and not staying alert. He thinks Diogo is dead, but he pops up laughing and streaked with white goo from crowd suppression rounds, which Miller finds an odd choice of weapon. It’s the first sign that Thoth Station may not totally understand what’s happening. The OPA soldiers cut their way through the blast doors to get to the operations center, where they find Dresden (the dude mentioned in the sociopath’s Protogen video). Fred arrives to take command of the station, and Dresden offers to negotiate, clearly misunderstanding the reason for the assault. He offers to give the OPA whatever resources they need to go back to fighting their war (money, medical supplies, weapons, ordnance) if they’ll just leave and let the station get back to their very important work. Fred points out that they know about Eros, but Dresden insists no one knows what they did there, and there won’t be a better bargaining position for Fred when Earth sends its battleships. Fred basically calls Dresden Satan, but Dresden doesn’t understand the reference.

It’s a long one but it’s a must read ..
I want to say this all started beginning of this year. Let’s get right into it. I’m going to give a backstory of the house I live in for context. I live in a very spacious home in CT with my boyfriend and his family. I’ve been there for 3 years. My boyfriend and I live in the basement which is fully finished, basically our own apartment. The house was built in 2000.
One of the first things that was weird about this property to me was the fact that it comes up on maps as a church cemetery. When you google that cemetery though, it is set about a mile or so down the road on the other end. Weird little coincidence I think. Anyways, I started noticing out of the corner of my eye a grayish/white shadow in my kitchen area at night. I chalked it up to seeing something only because I had drank that night and I let it go. Well I kept seeing this figure a few times a week and when no drinks were involved, I started to think it was weird. The figure was tall but I couldn’t really see any facial features, it was more so a side profile and then it would disappear.
*Now it’s March and I see a post on Facebook from my boyfriend’s mother. She and I work at hospitals and she had asked if anyone else in healthcare had brought a spirit home. She felt like she was being “watched”. I ran to my messages to let her know about that figure I saw in the basement. This was on March 6th of this year. I believe she saged the house after I told her this. Honestly, everything was good for about a month. I wasn’t seeing the shadow and life resumed.
*Here comes April 24 2024, my boyfriend’s mother made another post saying that she needed a house cleansing, and that things were good for a little bit and then started up again. Hearing knocking and the dogs going crazy at weird hours. And once again I tell her about my experience I had before she even made her post. I was getting up in the night to pee, I swing my legs over and as soon as my feet touch the floor, my printer in the corner of the room near my kitchen completely illuminates and I can see every inch of the basement. It creeped me out but I did my thing and went back to bed.
*A week later I am in bed again and my boyfriend is asleep and I have been having trouble sleeping so I was barely asleep. All of the sudden I’m woken up from the feeling of the edge of my bed being hit and I feel the hair near my face move. That one definitely scared me. I just pulled the covers up to my head and went back to bed.
*May 10th 2024, she posted that she saw a dark black/grey mass floating in the house. That specific night my boyfriend and I were in Maine for the weekend and came home the following day. I had not seen her post until two days later after my experience on Mother’s Day
*May 12th 2024. On this day, it was the one year anniversary of having my baby removed after a second trimester miscarriage. It was also Mother’s Day. I was enjoying the day with my boyfriend’s family and I went in the house to get food. As I’m standing at the island I see something move, it was a black floating shadow somewhat low to the ground not tall at all. I looked at it as it moved down the hallway that is right in front of my basement door. When I asked my MIL about her experience and where she saw the shadow, she said it was in the EXACT spot I just saw it. As we stand there talking about it, the smoke alarms go off. I want to say that so far, my boyfriend’s mother, his sister and I have all seen and experienced things in the past months. My boyfriend and his father have not seen/heard anything. I am terrified to be in the house alone, I just get this awful feeling when I’m there alone.
**A woman at my work is a paranormal investigator and I was telling her my story when she interrupted me and asked “do you light candles?” I said yes but not recently. She said “ I have something telling me, “Go ahead, light that candle” so please do not light any candles” We just found out that there was a previous house on the property, which had burnt down. I am beyond freaked out.

I use messenger a lot but I am not very active on facebook. I sent a friend a message through messenger and discovered the message posted on their facebook wall visible to all their friends?? Did I do something wrong or is it in something in my settings or their settings? Any help appreciated., i need to figure out what went wrong... thanks

Throwaway... warning - long'ish post:
How do you keep a marriage alive with an autistic child? Those of you who have managed to do this, salute!
My wife and I have been married for 16 years and have an 8 year ND child with global development delay, as well as 2 older neurotypicals.
Autism is complex and you have to get into the mental universe of the child to understand and meet their needs.
This is something that my wife has never wanted to do, insisting that somehow treating him as a neurotypical would gradually induce more NT behaviours. This backfires and leads to meltdowns and general atrophying of behaviour even further.
OTOH, I've developed a deep, psychological bond and trust with my son, where he understands that I understand him and is therefore naturally much more strongly bonded to me than his mother.
This has meant that all of my spare time goes to him as I have to fit the bill of care for both parents.
This has led to resentment on my part and frustration on her part.
She's just not the type to have the patience to deal with an autistic child, and has had her own, deep seated trauma in childhood that has left her 'not all there' emotionally, in many ways.
Our marriage wasn't strong to begin with and she had the third child against my wishes initially. This hasn't helped.
We're at a point where we're constantly fighting and its impacting the older teenagers as well.
I'm at my wits end as to what to do. I read that the divorce rates for parents with autistic children is 80% plus and I'm not surprised. Given how little attachment my son has with his mother, I anticipate the impact from a separation to be cushioned. However, it will take its psychological toll on me as then I will be truly alone. It was also impact the teenagers somewhat- although I can sense that they've had it with all the drama, disagreement and conflicts.
(Therapy is not an option because she's perfect and all fault lies with me; therapy also brings up deeper, aforementioned trauma for her - that she can't deal with).
Looking to hear from folks who've been in same or similar situations and how you handled it. I've tried to inculcate a high degree of mental fortitude and emotional awareness in life - and while I can probably 'deal' with this, I'm not sure what hands there are to play.
Thanks for reading!

My wife’s best friend who I will call Sarah moved in with us about 1 month ago after her husband had her arrested for getting physical with him and scratching his face. I have been a mutual friend with both Sarah and her husband that I will John. Our kids are friends and we would often get the families together. We have been put in the middle of the feud. John has a restraining order out on Sarah and the only way she gets to see the kids is supervised visitation. John listed my wife as the person that has to be present while her kids visit in 3 hour time blocks. I thought it was weird that John only listed my wife on there considering I am the only one (between my wife and I) that directly communicates with him (text and calls). John and my wife were always cordial to one another but between all 4 of us, they are the only two that had no real friendship. My wife is prettier than Sarah, and I have caught John staring at my wife’s chest and ass in the past. It never bothered me. During one of John and Sarah’s last fights, he said that Sarah’s face looked much older than my wife’s (both are very into skincare and anti-aging, so this really pissed Sarah off). John is an incredibly controlling husband that treated Sarah very poorly and my wife has always said that he is such an asshole and that she can’t stand him.
This is where things began to get weird…
After Sarah moved in, John continued to call me to discuss his wife. My wife told me that I was being too kind to him after the way he has treated her so poorly over the years, and having her arrested. My wife told me that it was time to choose a side (Sarah’s) and to stop talking with John. She told me I was two faced for continuing to speak with him. She called him Satan because he was already running around with a few different women and their kids, all while taunting her in various ways and trying to destroy her life. Suddenly John starts reaching out to my wife to schedule visitations with their kids based on my wife’s schedule. He could’ve listed both of us on the supervision list but he only put my wife. I suspect that he felt like it would lead to an open line of communication between the two of them(previously my wife didn’t even have his number in her phone) My wife acted very annoyed that she was put in that position because he never asked beforehand.. basically if Sarah wanted to see her kids, my wife would need to be involved. Here is where things got weird…
We had a birthday party for one of our daughters and we invited his kids to her party. He brought the kids and oddly stayed in the area with his youngest and waited around, but didn’t join the party. Later that day I sent him a text thanking him for the gifts they got. The next morning(Mother’s Day), one of the first things my wife does is send him a thank you text that I felt was a “gushing” thank you. It was weird to me that he was not only the first thank you text that she sent, but she only sent 3 out of the 8-9 parents that were there.
Is this thank you a bit much?
“We had the gifts mixed up but Sarah later clarified the gifts with the flower wrapping paper were from y'all! But as you can see, she loved them. Thank you very much for going out of your way to get them and for bringing the kids out to celebrate with Tara(our daughter) and waiting so patiently with jane(his youngest daughter). It meant so much to us!”
Here was my thank you the night before …
“Thanks a lot for all the stuff for Tara. She loved it all. You got much more than you should’ve”
John’s reply to my wife’s thank you text and then wishing her happy Mother’s Day.
“You are so welcome, a bit sad we were not able to be there as a complete family. Praying next year is different.”
“Happy Mothers Day, the kids and Dave are so blessed to have you.” (Clearly a compliment to her and a dig at his wife)
My wife’s reply…
Sunday 1:56 PM Thank you! I am sorry for leaving you hanging about today. Would you like to plan for around 430-730? We are getting a slow start and I just hoped to go to the beach for a little bit.
(She just says thank you? I would’ve thought she would’ve also said that their kids are blessed to have her best friend as a mom as well)
-John’s reply- That sounds perfect. See you then. Sunday 2:58 PM
(Sarah then sent a screenshot of the family app that they are legally allowed to communicate on. She told him that he was intruding on my wife’s Mother’s Day, and it was stressing my wife out, which was true. After seeing what Sarah told John, my wife felt compelled to reach back out to John with the following…
“Hey John. I'm not stressed. It just took forever to get the kids ready and out”
Keep in mind that he has repeatedly verbally abused her friend, has been hanging out with other woman, kicked her out of her house without her belongings, reported her to the state licensing board for her “arrest” and caused her license to be suspended, told her that he hope she died during an upcoming surgery she was supposed to have, and insulted her by implying that she was a harm to her kids and her best friend needed supervision during the time she spent with her kids… I was called “two faced” and told I was betraying Sarah, simply because I would answer John’s calls and texts.
We get home and John brings his kids over with a Mother’s Day plant and card (same ones, for my wife and Sarah). I thought this was weird and another way of slighting at Sarah, putting the two of them on the same level. The next day, my wife (who doesn’t garden) was watering the plants and walking around with the plants looking for a place to plant them. (I mentioned to Sarah that my wife watered the plants and she seems very surprised and upset that she did that, considering it was intended to be a slight to her.). I was very surprised considering our 9-year-old got her a plant from Lowe’s a year or two ago and she simply let it dry out and die on the counter (never watering it) which really hurt our daughters feelings….
Two days later I looked at my wife’s messages with John and was very surprised. My wife knew I had looked at her phone and sent me a nasty text to stay off of it. I told her that I was surprised that she was being so chummy with John considering how he has been treating Sarah, and had previously called me “two faced” for continuing to talk to John. I told her that her thank you to John was “gushing” and clearly made him feel good as he gave her a compliment about how blessed we were to have her immediately after that. I told her I was also surprised that she didn’t just have me tell him thank you considering she knows we talk and are friends. My wife got really mad and said she did nothing wrong and called me a jealous psycho. She said she would show the thread to Sarah because she had nothing to hide and did nothing wrong. I told her that I would strongly advise against it because I think it would hurt Sarah’s feelings and cause her to be upset with my wife. My wife continued to call me a lot of mean names and told me I needed professional mental help. She then changed the password on her phone. She then told Sarah that it would prob be best for her and John to coordinate through the app because I was acting very bothered by her talking to John (implying jealousy).
My wife and I began talking about the situation again yesterday and I told her that I wasn’t dwelling on it but wish she would acknowledge the inappropriateness of the conversation, considering the circumstances. She refused and again began calling me a psycho that is destroying her life. I told her that if she felt like it was a completely appropriate conversation, then she should show Sarah. She refused. She then sends me the following :
“I deleted his thread and his contact information. Accidentally called his number while I was trying to figure out how and immediately hung up. I’m sure you’ll say I called him on purpose. I have a screenshot of the thread so you won’t accuse me of trying to get rid of evidence.”
As it turned out, she didn’t have a screenshot of the thread. I found it very odd that she deleted the conversation (she did it during this last argument we were having about the appropriateness of it and telling her to show Sarah..
The other things that bothered me was that I wrote a kind Mother’s Day message on her Facebook, which she saw but never acknowledged on Facebook or said anything to me, and she completely ignored my happy birthday post to our daughter on Facebook. She was so quick to acknowledge the person she called “Satan” but not to her husband. I am considering the possibility that I am overly sensitive these days. My wife just went through a real bad case of postpartum rage where she was verbally abusive toward me and I genuinely felt like she hated me. It has left me with what she believes to be ptsd and says she feels very badly about it. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced and it nearly ended our family. Am I over-reacting or was my wife out of line?
Why did she delete the thread when I pressed her to show Sarah?
Was her thank you “gushing” and a bit much, considering the circumstances?
Is my wife really the one that’s two faced?
What should I make of John’s actions with my wife? Should it rub me the wrong way!?
Was telling my wife that we were so lucky to have her flirtatious and should she have replied that they were blessed to have Sarah!?
Would Sarah be hurt by my wife’s conversation with her husband?
Why did my wife feel so anxious to be the one to thank him for the gifts directly and praise him for coming and telling him it meant so much that he brought the kids and waited around?
Thanks in advance

I've entered into what seems like the beginning of a relationship with a friend I work with. We've been hanging out regularly for months, however only a few weeks ago did we start going on one on one dates. Now, I know it's quite the age difference, and I understand the risks and stigma against such a relationship.
There are some other things that add some complications, but they're definitely workable:
• We're both in the military and work at the same small work center (~20 people).
• I'm two ranks his superior, however I am in no way within his chain of command.
My current observations have been that he does enjoy time spent with me (we've gone on about 5 or 6 dates now), but he is an extremely quiet person. When he does speak, to anyone (to include his family), he usually gives one word or very short statements in response. I feel like it's an achievement to find a topic that he's willing to share his opinion on in detail.
Texting is the same, typically he will only use thumbs up emojis, or again, very short sentences in response to my messages (and messages others send him). Sometimes his responses can take days, but he will always say he's down to come over and paint or watch something with me at my house.
Now, we've shared some intimate moments, no blatant sexual activity (I'm not trying to rush this, I am very much interested in a long term relationship), but we've slept together and shared a very short kiss once. He didn't seem interested in kissing much after the first time, but was still interested in dates.
I don't know what to make of this. I want to believe he's interested, but it's extremely hard to interpret his actions... I also don't want to flood him with text or requests to hang out, but there's usually not a lot of reciprocating dialogue otherwise.
I really like this guy; he's funny, honest, patient, enjoys the same hobbies as me, understanding, adorable, and he also confides in me a lot. I need some advice...

I created a new FB page yesterday. Since then, I wrote 2 posts on it, but when my friends access the site from their accounts they can see only profile picture and the background photo. No posts. I tried from my sexond account and don't see the posts as well.
I tried to google the issue, but everything that came up was questions why postas gets to less likes assuming that they are not visible in the other's feed. And it is not the issue - my posts are not visible for anyone when they enter my profile there is only prodile picture and background photo there visible for them.
I guess that there is something wrong with the privacy settings, but what? I made everything public in the privacy settings, but the problem still appears. What can I do? How to fix that?

Hello. I don't usually frequent this sub, and I've only skimmed the rules so I hope I don't make any mistakes in formatting.
tl;dr: 5 years ago, I (now 22F) broke up with a long time friend (now 23M) who I was very close with, almost romantically involved. In the meantime, he became diagnosed with schizotypal disorder, was institutionalized by his parents, refused to go to treatment, and began starving himself (eating about once per 1-2 days, regularly not sleeping for 30-40 hours). More than half a year ago, I was contacted by his mother, who said that he was really not doing well, and that he told her I was his closest and most trusted friend. She asked me to help him, but I'm close to giving up. The only reason I haven't is because I feel bad about his mother and that he says he's always in pain.
Just to quickly summarise, the reason we broke up initially was because we had many many arguments over the years -- he had issues obeying boundaries set by others (he claimed that he wanted to hear facts and logic rather than emotions), and I had been insecure, emotionally unstable, and often did not express myself clearly. The breaking point came when he tried to obliquely pressure me into participating in a furry petplay bsdm roleplay with him as a 'dominant' (without using any of the words -- he claimed it was just about ownership, which is really a type of companionship). We argued about it for days before I said okay, fine. (For context, I was neither a furry nor had any knowledge of bdsm, also I was 16.) Incidentally, he has informed me recently that apparently he had already been roleplaying as a submissive for years online at that point, objected to my characterisation of that as grooming, and claimed that he was trying to be subtle about it because it was taboo.
Now to the present. What I've been doing is mostly ignoring him until I'm mentally ready to say something to him, because it causes me some stress to talk to him. However, he has a plan where he'll reveal the root cause of his pain to me, and that'll allow him to finally work on other things I've been asking him to work on (namely, actually eating, sleeping, keeping a diary, and generally taking care of himself). For this reason, the entire week he has been spamming my dms or even calling my phone. Furthermore, he has started calling me on the telegram app whenever he requires my attention and I don't respond. It frustrates me because often he either calls at past midnight hours, where I'm almost asleep, or in late evenings when I'm either doing work or having fun with my actual friends. Once I was drawing with a friend and he insisted I drop what I was doing to tend to him. Even though I always decline the calls, it serves to draw my attention and force me to engage his chat.
This came to a head yesterday night, because it was 2am, and I was about to fall asleep when he called again. He insisted that he needed to call me now, that it was a life or death situation, a once in a lifetime chance for him to "open his muzzle" and reveal truths. I told him no, and he continued asking/begging, either by saying that he was in a lot of pain, or by asking me if I could hide in the washroom for a 5 minute call or type while he talks (I said that it was bloody 2am, I wanted to sleep, and I didn't want to disturb my family). I maintained a flat no and managed to go to bed again after an hour of this silly back and forth.
The next morning he complains that he hasn't slept, feels immense pain, and that he's extremely upset that I did not pick up his call the night before. We argued even further, and when I returned from lunch he had spammed my dm with upwards of 50 messages. I told him to go to sleep if he was in pain, and when he said he couldnt because he was hungry, to get some food. We argued further and he complained that I wasn't supposed to answer to those messages, and that I knew food was a trigger for him.
After even more arguments, I said that if he cannot stop sending messages to me by himself, I can block him and unblock him for a few hours so he can actually sleep. When I blocked him, he called my actual phone, and told me that it's not the correct method to deal with him (because 'denying curiosity is fueling it', and that 'I should tell him to relax and go to sleep'. I told him to screw off and stop calling my phone without permission, and he told me that he wanted me to delete all the messages since the 50 message spam. So now I've told him I've blocked him until a few hours later, and that I will block him if he calls me thrice today (which he did and I promptly blocked his phone number).
The thing is that I know he is deeply sick, but I don't think I can continue helping him if he continues to repeatedly overstep clearly stated boundaries and continuously making excuses for his behavior. Furthermore, he claims he has been trying hard, but I learnt from his mother that he lied about quite a few things prevent his image from being damaged in my eyes. He also never discusses actual steps he takes to improve his problems (namely, starvation??) but would repeatedly write messages about being in pain, about being a feral animal, and about his paranoia about institutions being out to catch him.
Apologies for the long post. Appreciate if anyone has any input. I understand that being in pain makes self-control difficult, but sometimes I feel like he's just using it as an excuse to act on the first impulse that pops into his head.

Me (21M) and my best friend “I will call him Jason in this post” (20M) have been friends for almost a decade. And for the last few years, he’s mostly been my only friend. He’s not the most social person either so we spent a lot of time together. We always had mostly similar passions and interests, we have the same humour and therefore had a lot of great times. I experienced a lot of great things together with him, like some really cool trips, or experimenting a little with drugs etc.. Therefore I hold a lot of value to this friendship.
But now for why I’m making this post. For the past few months or maybe even for the last year and a half, things haven’t been the same. When I graduated from school and started at university I tried to use the chance and tried to socialise more. This isn’t easy for me but I found some friends at university that are really cool and I think they find me cool as well. Of course we’re meeting up sometimes, and sometimes I brought Jason along because I thought it’ll be funny and we would have a good time. But it wasn’t, he was quite for almost the whole duration of the meet ups. Even when trying my best to include him it didn’t work out and that made things a bit awkward tbh and I regretted bringing him with me. After multiple times of him not saying anything to anyone i just stopped inviting him, which maybe is uncool from me but no way he actually enjoyed being there. I of course still spend most of the time with him, just for when others are involved I don’t bring him with me. He didn’t say anything to me about wanting to come to such meet ups so that’s just how it is now. My Problem with this is that like I said I mostly didn’t have many friends as a teenager, it was just him. But now I’m a bit older and I don’t want sitting on a bench and smoking weed alone with him be the only thing I do when going out anymore. And he just doesn’t seem to be wanting the same. This of course is really far away from quitting a friendship that lasted a decade, but there has been something else that combined with what I described right now makes me doubt the future of this friendship.
The second Problem is his Attitude in the last one and a half years. In some Moments he is annoyingly sensitive. I’m not a bad guy, I don’t say stuff that may hurt other people just for my own amusement. But of course I, like everybody else, like to do some banter, normal things in a friendship I would say. But for quite some time he can’t take a fucking joke and it’s really unbearable. Like for example last week we wanted to play a shooter game which we played a lot a few years ago, yk for the good old times and stuff. We talked about it the whole week and organised when we would do it. We both are really busy with university right now so time for hour long gaming sessions is spare, we said let’s do it on friday and I was really excited the whole week. Then Friday comes and I was ready for gaming with my bro for the whole night, the first round starts and I die very soon, my skills were a bit rusty. He was still alive and when he got approached by enemies he missed his whole magazine without one hitting one bullet. In my opinion this was a funny situation and I laughed a bit and said something along the lines of "damn not even one hit", after that he didn’t say anything and after a few minutes he said that he wants to go off. We wanted to play for the whole night but finished after 20 minutes because he didn’t like my comment I guess? I personally think this is silly behaviour and this didn’t happen for the first time, I could give you even more examples but don’t want this to get too long. This change in attitude btw happened before I started having some other friends so I think there’s no connection. And I know for a fact that everything’s going fine at home, so no extra stress or something that bothers him. Therefore I have to assume that this is just the person he developed into and I’m going to be honest I personally can’t really stand it. I of course asked him if everything’s right when such things happened but he always said that everything’s fine and pointed to blame to me.
So this is the situation and like I said in the title, I don’t know if this is worth it anymore. I without a doubt wouldn’t wanna be friends with a person that behaves like this but we’ve been best friends for a long time and I feel bad for maybe ending this. Therefore I’m asking you for help, is there maybe something I can do or what would you do in this situation? Or should I just accept that it’s over?
Thanks in Regards.
tl;dr : Best friend makes it hard to be friends with him and I don’t know if the friendship is worth it anymore

I had a roof leak in my home. Insurance sent out a "preferred contractor" who instantly said that the drywall that was damage by the roof leak was possibly asbestos and needed to be tested. Came back positive. Insurance proceeded to pay to gut two rooms in my house.
Hired a contractor to repair the rooms, he subcontracted it to a guy. Day one he is supposed to show up at 8 am, at 1030 we get a call the clutch went out in his truck, sorry for the delay, we got people on the way. A bit later two guys show up to do hang the drywall for the ceiling, they look around like the drywall could be hiding somewhere and ask us where the drywall is. So they hang out for a couple hours before leaving. Come back for about 20 minutes knock on the door and tell us the drywall got delivered to the wrong address. They will be back tomorrow. At 520 in the afternoon someone shows up and delivered drywall. Guys show up early the next morning and hang the ceiling. Insulation guys show up a bit later look around and ask me what they are supposed to do. So I tell them to insulate the rooms and ceilings. They proceeded to do a excellent job.
So at this point I'm sure you are like where the issue, here it comes. I call the "project manager" and say hay looks like they are coming along well, is there a projected time frame for completion, so that I can schedule carpet install. He tells me Monday (6days) Tuesday latest (7days). So I schedule the carpet install for Friday (11 days later). Next day the drywall hangers come back and hang the drywall. Except for a section in one of the closets because they do not have enough. Except they have plenty of scrap that could be cut down to fit. They also punched a hole in one of the completed walls. Then nothing happens for a day, Thursday a guy shows up and starts mudding the flats, for a couple hours, Friday they are supposed to come and get stuff done, they didn't. Saturday they crew is there working mudding everything and such. Sunday is mother's day we told them we were out of town. Monday rolls around. No one showed up until about 5 in the afternoon. They again mudded and did some work. Tuesday I called the project manager, who I then find out is actually a real-estate agent and is the contractors business partner and knows nothing about projects and time frames. Anyway I tell him hay I have concerns about the time frame and this getting done before carpet should be installed. He said it's not a problem they will get it done. Tuesday the sub again showed up after 5 and worked until 930 texturing the ceiling. Wednesday he wanted the ceilings to dry so no work got done.
Thursday rolls around and I'm on the phone, hay carpet is coming in tomorrow the walls arnt sanded there no paint, no trim is painted. Wtf. They responded thry needed to get the paint ordered. So I went to home depot and bought paint and ceiling fans and took them home and waited around for people that were supposed to be on the way. But again didn't show up until after 5, when they proceeded to sand the drywall and then slap paint on the walls. They left at 930 Thursday night. Friday morning I got up went to harbor freight and bought a shop vac, and proceeded to move all their supplies and stuff out of the rooms, and spent hours vacumning drywall dust and scraping drywall mud that had been dripped off the floor so the carpet wouldn't be lumpy, the project manager showed up and I showed him what I was doing and he got with the contractor about it. Only thing the contractor said was they would adjust the invoice. And now the sub has his ass on his shoulders cause I asked who would cover the damage to the new carpet if there was an accident because I followed the supplied time frame given.
Sorry for the long post. I'm just looking for any suggestions on how to deal with this, I feel like I have been understanding and reasonable with my expectations and making sure people knew the expected schedule. Thank you for your thoughts. Let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Hi guys! I promised myself that I would make a post if I passed. There are so many wonderful posts on this subreddit and my study methods were honestly horrible, but I hope that I can provide some hope for people with similar scores or laziness.
Background: Average student, very slow reader, pretty good memory sometimes, awful memory at other times, finished my rotations, finished EBM, 5 day dedicated.
Scores:
UWorld: 6x%, I’m sorry I forgot 😣, 22% completed.
NBME 29 (3/23, 3 weeks out) – 68
NBME 30 (3/31, 2 weeks out) - 67
New Free 120 (2024) (4/9, 3 days out) – 73
Step 1 (4/12) - Pass
Helpful Resource Summary:
**NBMES** Try to do all of them, I’m pretty certain I saw almost exact repeats. I’ve heard that there are offline ones but I only did 2 , and bought the online ones for both. If you have limited time, do 29-31, free 120 (2021), and free 120 (2024).
nbme high yield images (you’ll find it immediately after googling)
The 100 anatomy concepts pdf (I read about 20-30 pages, should have read the rest too). A quick google will bring this up as well!
UWorld: I personally think that going through it system wise for about half the questions in each system and then a couple of timed randoms would be more than enough. However, you can read the mess of what I actually did below.
Pathoma 1-3 (I only read 1-3 but all of it probably would have helped too!)
Dirty medicine (I used it for biochem!)
FA: A great reference book but don’t read it cover to cover! Use it as a reference. The rapid review section is pretty good as well.
Timeline (Story Time):
I started preparing for Step 1 by getting a 6-month UWorld subscription that was partially paid for by my school. In retrospect, I should have gotten the 3-month subscription or something because I activated it then didn’t use it at all for like 4 months.
I did about exactly 2% of UWorld in 4 months.. haha.
About 2 months out I started changing from doing random blocks to system blocks. I think this worked better for me because similar concepts were reinforced and studying felt less overwhelming. I am a very slow reader because I read the full answer obsessively even for questions I got right. I tried to fix this later on by reading only the educational objective for the ones I got right, and reading only the highlights in the main explanation and trying to skim the incorrect options. I then skip the educational objective because it is covered in the answer I just pretty much read entirely.
1 month out I had only finished all of psychiatry (I have weird priorities), half of cardiology and a little bit of renal. I took 1 block of the UWSA2 and got a 47% 😨. I almost fainted and immediately closed the rest of the exam and came to reddit to read about UWSA 2. I read about someone who got a 50% on UWSA2 and passed, and the general consensus that UWSA is not predictive anymore.
*Tip: Get the UWorld without self-assessments and spend money on online nbmes instead. UWSAs are not very similar to the exam and should only be done if you’ve done everything else or have no access to other self-assessments.
After hopping on reddit, I regained some confidence, and tried to do about 2 UWorld blocks per day by system. What I actually managed was about 1 to 1.5 blocks per day. I worked through mostly renal and gastrointestinal systems, which were systems that I was weak in according to previous random blocks and the 1 block of UWSA 2 that I did.
3 weeks out:
I did my first NBME and scored a 68%. I was relieved! I think the score difference was mostly due to uwsa2 being too hard. I tried to do more UWorld blocks but ultimately gave up on UWorld because I was taking a lot of time with reviewing nbme questions and content review. I used FA and dirty medicine (for biochemistry) to do content review on topics related to questions I encountered on the nbmes and random stuff that I felt like I should know.
2 weeks out: I took NBME 30 (67%) and my scored dropped from 29 which was discouraging but still a pretty good score. I kept reviewing all my nbme questions, reading literally the WHOLE explanation and reviewing topics from FA. Around this time, I started panicking, realizing that I‘m probably not going to get to do nbme 31 and I badly wanted to reschedule. However, rescheduling at this time would be really expensive (mostly this reason) and also mess up my schedule for other things.
5 days out:
I started my dedicated, which started with continuing to review nbme 30 and reviewing topics. I also read about 20-30 pages of the 100 anatomy concepts pdf.
3 days out:
I took the free120 (73%). I reviewed answers from the free120 along with FA and dirty med videos. I did not have time to do free120 2021 so I studied the answers. (I managed to finish about 30%?, I really regret this, at least go over all the answers for both free 120s and nbmes 29-31).
1 day out:
I studied intensely on my last day. I read pathoma 1-3 and watched a few of the videos (for the first time). I also read about half of FA rapid review in a panic. I then tried to read nbme highyield images but only finished about 30%. However, I went to sleep at about midnight and had a decent night’s sleep, which I think is important.
Test day:
Plan when you’ll take your breaks ahead of time. Read the tutorial and understand it completely when you do the free120 then skip it on the real day.
I had a small breakfast and did not pack any snacks only water for the real thing because I’m usually not hungry during tests.
I did 3 blocks one after the other to get a lot done while you still have energy then I took a bathroom break. I did another block then had lunch. During lunch, I looked through some more nbme high yield images and a bunch of questions that appeared on previous blocks. After lunch I did 2 blocks together -> bathroom -> last block.
I felt like I was guessing a lot. I tried to mark my guesses but it became too discouraging so I didn’t mark them anymore.
**Tips: Take a bathroom break, even if you don’t think you need it. You are smarter when your bladder is empty. Time was a problem for me even though it wasn’t during practice tests. I’m pretty sure this is because I stressed over unimportant information from anxiety. I finished some blocks with 30 seconds left and had to rapidly answer some of the last questions. Thank god I didn’t have to do any blind guesses. In later blocks, I told myself to be focused but remember that you don’t have a lot of time. Especially for audio questions, don’t let yourself sit there listening to it for 5 minutes.
After the exam I didn’t feel particularly good or bad. I felt like I passed deep down despite the abysmal amount of guesses.
Waiting for results:
I was part of the group that had to wait for a month. Scrolling on reddit had me convinced I failed because of all the passing scores with a fail posts that were showing up then. Thankfully, I was distracted by school for the last 2 weeks. I repeat what others have said, DON’T scroll reddit while you are waiting for results.
Results:
I passed!😍
I received my results and was so relieved that the awful wait was finally over! To be honest, some time over the past 2 weeks I had convinced myself that I would probably pass again so I was relieved but not really overjoyed, haha.
Unpopular Opinion:
The wait was really stressful especially because I realized a 196 is closer to a 65%? I see posts that are most likely real from people scoring about 60-63% who failed by an extremely small margin. Even after my pass, I encourage you to wait until you are scoring over at least 65% before you take your exam if you are not extremely pressed for time. However, if you really don’t have any options, know that it is definitely possible to pass with a score in the low 60s and to go for it! I hope you all pass and can continue enjoying your life as soon as possible! ✨✨ Feel free to ask me anything. :)

Hey all, I'm currently a student in the Middle East, I will be taking my finals next month and graduating soon and I'm interested in applying to a polytechnic in Singapore (Ngee Ann, Nanyang, Singapore) as an international student, so I have some questions.
Navigating grading systems has been really confusing for me since where I live our grading system is measured by marks, specifically; out of 100, rather than a grade point average or grades like A or B. And every Polytechnic I've looked at uses grades like A or B (and my country wasn't on the list of the international countries so I have to use the requirements of other international qualifications which use grades like B). I read online that a 70 in the Middle East is equivalent to a B in America, generally from what I've seen most countries consider a 70-79 score a B, but sources vary and I'm getting mixed answers which is making me confused. So are there any conversion tables I can use to convert my scores to that of the grading system they use in Polytechnic? Or is that something they do themselves?
I would like to take a course in something related to Engineering, like Mechanical and Computer Engineering, I know the competition is fierce and they prioritize Singaporeans over Foreigners but would I have a good chance of getting in provided I score above the minimum requirements? I'm aiming to get a 90 across all my subjects (Atleast the relevant ones, not sure if they care about Arabic) but again, the issue is I don't know what that equates to in grades so... I really need some sort of conversion.
Sorry for the long post and thanks all.

Please don’t come for me!! I’m a big fan and collect all her books and will always read them. Please don’t tell me “just don’t read them” the books were very comforting to me at a time I needed them but that doesn’t mean I can’t be open to discussion about her recent work and how her new direction or perhaps rush to put out books might be affecting quality.
I’m part of her Facebook group as well; which is strictly a fan page.
Spoilers ahead !
Here goes:
I guess I expected Sloane to be a character who looked like Bridget but with the personality of Jules. Instead she behaved exactly like Allesandra, Isabel and Vivian. Speaking of Bridget, the Queen was more icy than Sloan (the series' designated Ice Queen) and she was supposed to be Rhy's sunny counterpart. We were constantly TOLD how icy and emotionless she was and never really shown it. Instead, we find out she's actually insecure and has a lot of issues, which yes is realistic to how Ice Queens typically form their avoidant personalities, but it would have been great to see a few chapters of her being icy before we peel the layers and find out why she puts up these icy walls.
If the book was supposed to be about how she’s NOT the ice queen people think she is…that wasn’t exactly shown either. She does admit it herself that she is icy, just hates that she is and hates being called that.
Xavier is the Jojo Siwa of bad boys. He was a bad boy, he did some bad things. The things that made him Colombia’s biggest bad boy with a bad boy reputation known all over the word: Parties with other rich kids, spends his wealthy father’s money, refuses to behave at publicity events like galas, refuses to inherit his family’s company, gets into shenanigans that land him in a night in jail with other rich kids, got a tattoo of his family rival’ crest….this one’s more stupid than “sticking it to his family”, slept around with whether model/It Girl was around. In the words of Phoebe Buffay “Okay, who hasn’t?!” Even Jules, Ava and Stella have landed themselves in jail after some shenanigan gone wrong. It’s clear that despite being a “spicy” book, AH created a Disney character version of a bad boy.
I feel like Ana forgot how to write from the male's POV after the Twisted series ended. The point of the dual POV is that you feel like you're reading two different people's POV, and honestly it all just blends together. I think Josh's book (Twisted Hate) was the best example of a male's perspective and thoughts/dialogue that a guy in that situation would be saying.
I noticed since King of Greed at least, these Alpha males have been carrying dialogue that mention the most ridiculous things that "Alpha billionaire" males wouldn't even notice. Example: In King of Greed, when Dominic makes a comment about the expression a Chinese food delivery person makes when he realizes he just dropped off a ton of food for two people.....I think that was an Ana Huang thought, not a Domenic thought. While we’re at it, Domenic was just as bad a Xavier…. Dante was the last good “Alpha” she wrote and Kai was such a different character (modeled clearly after the lead in Crazy Rich Asians) that he was hard to mess up ..
The Spanish in King of Sloth was important given the character's background, but felt like it was written with Google Translate. It felt very formal and boring, and doesn't feel like a Spanish-language consultant was brought in to make sure the random sentences and random Spanish words made sense. It was giving the same energy as the Netflix original shows that are set in Los Angeles neighborhoods and the writer's idea of Spanglish is sprinkling random Spanish words into English sentences. There was a little Spanish dialogue in Twisted Games that was way less cringier- maybe because the Spanish was in full sentences and then translated right after….. Latino English speaking people don’t add random “Tios” or “hermano” to their sentences. Look up @Leogonzall “how Latinos talk in movies” videos to see a visual representation of how the Spanish dialogue in these books feel.
Neither Xavier or Sloane had to work very hard to get together. We've seen small bits and pieces of how Sloan is essentially his babysittePR person and he's a chaotic playboy and I get the
Some random things that appear in every single book: - "A thought niggling......" - A table groaning under the weight of food - The first kiss consists of the male's mouth "crashing" into the female's - Every single female character has parental and sibling issues of some sort. - Every male character has parental/abusive parents of some sort. I'm beginning to feel like AH cannot write complex characters that don't rely solely on parental drama, as relatable as it can be...not counting her "If Love..." series, we've seen this 7 times in a row, for EACH main character. - Ana Huang writes parents and siblings the way Amy Sherman-Palladino writes children in Gilmore Girls, just very one-dimensional and for the plot. - Except for Isabel's good relationship with one of her brothers, Alessandra (and Ava and Josh) every female character has severe sibling drama, usually a case where their sibling is an over-achiever and conforms to their parent's expectations (and that's horrifying because it affects the main character and not because that sibling is also a victim that may have used conformity to survive their abusive parents actions)
Things I wanted to learn more about Sloan other than the same repetitive things over and over - How she started her PR agency and the staff she hires- what a girl boss! We only get a vague background about how she started her agency but nothing about how she built experience prior, and how she managed to build a reputation to become one of the best PR agencies in the world. We just have to take the author's word for it, and there's been so much build-up of Sloan in the three previous books.

• I always imagined Sloane having a luxury apartment in NYC, something completely immaculate and stone-cold like her personality. We hear nothing about her apartment despite so many scenes taking place there.
  
• We didn't get that many scenes of Sloane doing anything by herself…anything she eats or wears or anything. I feel we got more of these smaller details about the heroines in the earlier books.
  
• I think Sloane got the Stella treatment- Both heroines's have been teased since the first book in the series but were a bit lackluster once the book came out. The both have parental and sibling drama….but they do yoga
  

The things I enjoyed about KOS and Ana Huang books in general - The world building in NYC and DC and other countries. - I love the scenes that take place in both DC and NYC - they feel so cosmopolitan but I feel we no longer get smaller details about the weather, street details, etc - we got plenty more of this in Twisted Hate and Twisted Games...even details about it being a misty or cold day, make a huge difference in creating imagery in the reader's mind. - The Valhalla scenes are typically entertaining and beautifully written, it's clear how lovely and gorgeous this country club is. - Any cameos where Alex shows up, are well-written. I think Twisted Love was one of her strongest books, so it makes sense he's one of her strongest characters who is stable and can carry any appearance.

I’ve made a post before. There I also spoke about how I never felt anything for anyone, how all the relationships I’ve ever seen were toxic to varying degrees, and other things I can’t recall right now.
However, as the title states… there was more hate as I grew up. My mother still feels guilty that she didn’t leave and somewhat encouraged my father’s behavior towards me. Through that, I really only learned that I should use one emotion.
Rage.
That rage only pushed people (who I was already isolated by) away. I hardly had any friends and was ostracized by practically everyone as I grew up. It’s kind of hard to imagine love then. I did many physical outbursts on myself, passing out once from a blind rage. The scars are shameful, but very small in number compared to my others.
Now, I just wonder what it feels like. I’ve heard it is peace, fulfilling, wonderful, etc. Is that what it really is? I know love isn’t easy, but neither is the toll of hate and anger on the body. Even though I like being by myself a lot, just being capable of feeling something would be enough. I’ve heard the “hate takes more energy than love”, but then you would have to call me the mitochondria.
I’ve been in therapy. Coming up on 6 years. Different therapists, different methods, but I just see it as worthless. Paying the price of a motorcycle in total over the years for what feels like a simple conversation. It feels pathetic, as if I need to pay to talk to someone. I actually have an appointment today in the next hour.
I’ve even been hit on multiple times recently, but I didn’t find it flattering. I found it annoying, irritating, and (sounds horrible) disgusting. I want to learn how it can be genuine and flattering.
I never had feelings and don’t think I can, so I don’t even know if that’s a possibility. Might be better off though. If I’m being honest, there are aspects of romantic/sexual love that I find somewhat repulsive.
What should I push myself towards. The majority of myself that is just saying “do you really think love is a key component to life? You can live without it.” While the minority part of my mindset is “Even if it’s just once, open your heart to love. Yes, you don’t NEED it to live, but it can certainly be a step for you to take.”
It’s confusing and I don’t know what to do.

I'm not sure where to post this, but i need some opinions/validation/advice/whatever i just want to fix this and make my wife happy. This might jump all over, and I'm sorry but bear with me. I'm also going to attempt to describe the whole situation, but if theres questions i will be happy to answer.
I'll start by saying I(37m) have a high sex drive, and my wife(34f) has a low sex drive. I want/need an orgasm daily whether that be from sex or masturbating. I have been married for 16 years and always been faithful to my wife, and she has always been faithful to me, as far as I know and I have no reason to believe otherwise. To me, the orgasm that I need doesn't have to come from intercourse and i would never cheat on my wife. I'm attracted to her and the emotional connection is what fuels my desire for sex with her. Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't want to have sex with anyone else. I dont sleep well if I haven't had an orgasm, and i lie there in bed feeling bored and frustrated until I fall asleep and I dont feel rested when I wake up in the morning.
There's been some things lately that I'm uncomfortable with, and I don't really know how to describe how it makes me feel, but I'm going to try.
First, I'm a pleaser and my kink is making her cum. I try to be very self aware and i hear complaints about men who get in, bust, and get out leaving their partner unsatisfied and frustrated. I always initiate with foreplay, then i go down on her so she has an orgasm, then we have sex. I tried to have a conversation with her about her wants and i shared mine, and it seems like we both want the same thing. I want to be told what to do, I want to know what she wants me to do to her. I'm not a mind reader and she knows her body better than I ever could. She said she wants to be submissive and not make decisions because she makes decisions all day and doesn't want to in the bedroom. I get it, because that's how i feel as well.
When we have sex she always covers her face with a pillow, I'm not sure why. I've asked her and she says she doesn't know. When i ask her what she wants me to do to her, she shrugs or says I dont know. The only thing ive gotten out of her after years of basically begging her to tell me what she likes or wants is "the only thing off limits is any butt stuff". Got it. I'm not really the type that wants to do anal anyway, it's just not my bag. So it seems like we're compatible, i think. I mean, i dont have a need that's off limits to her, and she doesn't have a need that's off limits to me.
In the past my communication has been has been an issue, and I am aware of my flaws. I suffered an injury that caused sensorineural hearing loss. This has caused me to have a real hard time controlling my tone. Not my volume, but the tone in which I say things so sometimes things sound like I'm being sarcastic or rude when I'm not trying to be. I decided to see a therapist to learn some techniques to better communicate. I've been trying, but it it's not perfect. And hearing aids aren't an option because it doesn't matter how loud the sounds are, there are just some frequencies my brain cant interpret. Certain sounds just sound like im under water, or like im holding cups over my ears.
I told my wife about going to therapy for this and the response was "I've been with you for 13 years since the injury, I know you cant control your tone and I've learned to just listen to what words are said and not how they are said". That's great, but what about every other conversation I have in life? I want to learn skills to better communicate with everyone, because no one will know just by looking at me that I'm not trying to be a dick when I have a "snappy" tone.
During my therapy sessions we have uncovered other traumas that i want to address that have lead to trust issues that I have. And my trust issues are backwards from most peoples. When i was young, i was accused of lying all the time, even when I was being honest. I remember how this made me feel so I always try to trust people more than I probably should. So I've been going to therapy for about six months now.
Last week, my wife asks "are you cheating on me?" I was kind of shocked by this because, 1. I'm not and 2. I'm not sure what behaviors I've displayed to make her question my fidelity. I tell her no, and ask why she would think that. She tells me it's because I'm in therapy, and working on myself. I have referred to my therapy appointments as "going to the gym for my mind". She tells me that I'm perfect for her the way I am and the men that she knows that go to therapy without obvious flaws are either cheating or considering cheating or have some sort of guilt they're dealing with. I can see my therapists notes on the app, i have nothing to hide, so i downloaded them and showed them to her. I'm not sure if she read them, but i made them available to her if she wanted to read them. I know i didn't have to, but maybe this is because i was always accused of being deceptive by my parents and i could prove that i wasnt in this case so i took the opportunity to do that.
I'll add that she grew up in a dysfunctional household and was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by a close relative for many years. The other day she was complaining about a work colleague and their sexual promiscuity and infidelity. Her colleague was sexually abused when she was younger, and my wife says "abuse victims typically become hyper sexual or have little interest in sex at all. Very few have 'normal' sex lives like me".
Anyway, back to the bedroom parts. Like i said, I need to have an orgasm every day to sleep well, and to feel clear minded. Somehow it came up that I don't feel desired by her because she has never initiated sex. She says "I do too initiate sex, I know I've done it at least once." I told her "no you havent, I would remember it and it would probably be a life changing moment for me to feel desired". I try to initiate that night with her, and she turns me down so I decide to masturbate. I'm not going to the couch because I have kids that could walk in, and I'm tired of doing it on the toilet because it just feels weird to me. Plus, our bathroom is huge with the sliding barn doors so it's not really private anyway. I don't watch porn, i masturbate to thoughts about her. So, I thought to myself. If my wife wanted to have sex with me, and i turned her down, and she began masturbating, how would i feel? I think that would be hot, and perfectly acceptable. So I decide to do it in the bed. I'm not going hard and rattling the bedframe or anything, but she turns over and says "are you playing with yourself?" I brief moment passes where i try to decide if im going to lie, but i dont and say "yes" and she rolls over, climbs on top of me and rides me until i orgasm. A couple days later i try to initiate again, she turns me down, I do the same thing. I'm not doing it to pressure her into having sex, but I'm tired of doing it in the bathroom. This time she rolls over says "are you playing with yourself?" I say, yes and she gets fucking pissed. She tells me that she feels like it makes her feel like she's not loved. I tried to come up with something to say but all i could muster up was "I'm sorry" through the massive lump in my throat and the tears that were brewing in my eyes. I never wanted to make her feel that way, and i never want to do that again. How do i fix this?

Hi everyone! So, I (34F) too, am now a member of the club I guess. After having read all the stories around the internet and on multiple forums, it just seems to have put me under so much stress and feel like I will never have my 'normal' life back.
I am now 9 months pregnant and recently diagnosed with DVT with full weight adjusted dose of LMWH twice a day. I am not sure about PEs (I did have an episode where I thought my heart would stop one night with the heartbeat going through the roof that night but it went away in the morning, which I still keep thinking might have been a PE) After this very unpleasant experience, I saw a cardiologist thinking there would be a problem related to my heart, but yet again they just told me tachycardia was pretty common in pregnancy and didnt seem to be bothered or find any pathology. Had no idea what DVT was at that time. My DVT symptoms appeared a month after that, I simply woke up feeling as if I had been shot in my left calf. Had to go to ER twice as the first doctor sent me home with some paracetamol after sinply eye-scanning my leg and saying there had been no redness or swelling (which I could clearly see). Good thing I didnt let it go and found another ER a couole of days later who finally did the Doppler and found the DVT. The doctors I saw afterwards were not really concerned about PE. I was asked if I had any shortness of breath recently, which I told them I did, but for some reason they didnt seem to be bothered as I had also gotten off an extended strict bed rest of 8 weeks and they claimed the treatment would still be the same.. my d-fimer is through the roof even on anticoagulants and its double the already elevated norm during pregnancy. I have basically convinced myself I have cancer. I m not aure why Im giving all the background, it s probably just because I want to nag about everything and find someone to blame or looking for support. My mom and husband simply start yelling now whenever I start crying so I constantly feel like noone understands me.
I've also had hypochondria for quite a while and it's really not helping. I m worried about labour and my life after pregnancy - after having read all the stories around the internet it just feels like it s going to be a constant anxiety roller coaster with so many things I used to do when 'normal' I'll have to say goodbye to.
A couple of questions for those who have had DVT during pregnancy, or in general, if you may: - my doctors told me 12 hours were enough to get off the meds before labour, although all over the internet it says 24 hours for full dose. They also told me 'not to get the c section' as if I could choose this and not to take epidural as this can leave me paralyzed. Has anyone experienced anything similar when it comes to full dose? (5000 units/ 0.6 ml twice a day)
-Is there eally a chance to get off anticoagulants after 3 months of treatment? After having read all the posts, it simply seems many people 'have been lied to' when it comes to treatment. I know I need to have the blood tests done for genetic disorders. My mom has been struggling with her varicose veins all her life and has ulcers and my dad died of stroke although being an alcoholic for years might have contributed to his hylertension. So I guess, something genetic is coming my way.
-is there anyone you know who actually did not reclot after the initial episode? I feel like this would give me some hope.

• do you travel? How do you handle air travel? We re an international couple and would have to travel a lot in the future. Does the anxiety ever go away? Im afraid of getting VTE during these flights. Afraid to be alone or away from any place that would have a proper hospital.
  
• and do you drink coffee? My doc pretty much told me I could do anything I wanted, so that didnt really seem reassuring..
  
• are those compression socks forever? I cant believe id have to wear them all the time at this age..
  

Sorry for the very long post - I have resumed my therapy, but hearing from real people might put my mind at ease. Thank you for at least reading, even if you can't answer.

So my problem is that I've installed the gog version of fallout 3 through heroic. And when I'm in desktop mode the game launches fine and everything works. But after using the "add to steam" button on heroic and trying to launch it through game mode it just spins for a second or two and then immediately closes.
I've tried multiple different versions of proton, I've uninstalled and reinstalled. I've tried adding the default exe (the regular fallout3 one and the falloutlauncher) and neither worked either. I've done most of what I'm capable of doing but I'm very very unfamiliar with Linux so I've hit a wall.
Is there something I'm doing wrong? Has anyone had this issue? And how can I go about fixing it?

Hello,
I have found my dream property in the area I am looking for at a price I can afford but... it has a very low energy rating (EPC E). It is a top floor flat (flat roof), solid brick construction. There is a ~25cm gap between the roof and the ceiling which may indicate there is some insulation (unsure). There is no insulation on the walls. The flat is fairly large (~100m2). Flat is in central London (zone 2), outside of congestion zone.
I would like to get some reassurance that something can be done to make the flat more efficient (this matters to me, beyond the financial aspect). I would have 2 questions:

• Is it common/acceptable to have an expert assessment for quote and feasibility of insuring the property before the exchange? Do people have recommendation of reputable insulation experts for flats in London?
• What would be the ballpark cost for an internal insulation of all walls (I don't mind the thickness and would prefer stud insulation) of the property (it is rectangular) for the London area. Not looking for an exact number but what should I expect? £10k? £50k? £100k? more?
• Same question about the ceiling, what order of magnitude would one look at to take out the existing ceiling (100m2) and put in ~25cm of insulation if needed?

Hired a local and well established tree company I have used before to take down a large tree ($5k range). No issues on the first job, it was a smaller job -- Fast foward to this job. The crew worked very hard for 8 hours and toward the end of the job is when the accident happened. It seems like they probably should have split the work into 2 days cause they were exhausted when the accident happened.
When the trunk of the tree was cut - it slid down a landscaped hill and took out at least 14 ft wide of a 3ft tall retaining wall/bench seating and the landscaping.
The owner of the the tree company said he will fix it next week that they were done for the day and I paid them in full. I thought about withholding payment but him and his crew worked super hard on a very hot day and there is no way I could sleep at night not paying them when they did in fact did what they said and took care of removing the tree..
When I started questioning the tree service owner how he was going to fix -- he kind of didnt see it as a big deal -- and said something to the effect "well I thought you were replacing that anyway cause its old" While I had plans to replace some parts of the deck near the tree, I never intended or have the cash to replace a perfectly functioning retaining wall or the damaged landscaping. Plus I have tons and tons of stuff I need to fix on my house the last thing I needed was to pay thousands of dollars to open up a new can of worms of fixes and add more jobs to my honey do list.
Im going to give the tree service owner the benefit of the doubt, but based on his response of how he plans on fixing it and how he said I thought I was replacing it anyway, I have a bad feeling they are not going to repair the landscaping and retaining wall to its original state. It kept me awake all night worrying..
The problem is the wall holds up a lot of dirt that the house is sitting on. The rest of the damage to the landscaping, misplaced boulders, etc is cosmetic. So now fixing the wall holding up a lot of earth is a time sensitive fix.
What would you do here?
Should I start contacting landscapers to get estimates on a proper fix? And then hire a competent landscaper to fix and then send the company the bill?
I really dont wanna file any claims with my insurance company to prevent my insurance from going up from something that was not my fault and also to prevent from being dropped from my insurance company
BTW - No written contract. I have had a lot of tree work done by multiple companies and not one tree company has provided a contract. They come out, give estimate and normally do what they say without damage, so this is my first time dealing with damage.