In the current state of the game i really can not find a proper use case for Gurkha(Dark Slayer). His kit seems to be designed as a second turner tank + control unit designed for either RTA or guild content
His current skill 3 is "Ruler of pain(Passive)" and states The damage you receive will decrease by 30% and your Attack Bar will fill up if you get attacked during the turn of the provoked enemy. In addition, the duration of harmful effects you grant with skills will be increased by 1 turn each. [Automatic Effect]
His whole kit is focused on a single target provoke and attack bar increase, that slowly needs to ramp up as you get to provoke more and more of the enemy units. Most LD nat 5 get more utility and control that is more easily accessible or could be used instantly when the fight starts.
You can not even rely on the damage reduction that is provided in his skill 3(Passive), as it only applies only to provoked enemies hitting you. What makes this worse is that no matter what comp you go with him you will always have to bring some form of heal to sustain him as he slowly attempts to provoke the enemy units one by one. This means that if the provoke doesn't hit the whole turn is wasted as you will not do any meaningful damage, control or get any use of your passive.
Most fights where i have tried to use him he gets controlled very hard, as in most scenarios he does not even get to provoke someone once before being shut down. He does not have a high enough speed (97) to try to go first, and most units used nowadays will spam him down AOE debuffs either making sure he does not get a turn, or is in a too useless of a state when he gets a turn. If he happens to get a turn he gets to try to provoke and defense break a single target.
A interesting change for his skill 3(Passive) would be if it applied to all hits from the enemy on Gurkha(Dark Slayer), regardless of the enemy being provoked or not. With a reduction to how much attack bar he would gain from being hit. It would also make sense to reduce the amount of damage reduction he has in the passive if it would work regardless of provoke. This change would at least allow him to get multiple turns/attempts at controlling.
This change might let him fulfill a the same role as Feng Fan(Wind Panda) in the current meta.
It would also be interesting to see some other ways for Gurkha (Dark Slayer) so i would be open to suggestions of any ideas of how he could be changed for the better

I (35f) married my husband (42m) in 2010. We we’re soul mates. We we’re perfect for each other. My husband was very successful, but he liked to use drugs recreationally occasionally. I didn’t mind back then until we had our daughter (now 10). Then I slowly started to nag about it to the point he would attempt to hide it. But after so many years together I could definitely tell when he was high on something. It still wasn’t that big of an issue until covid. We went through a lot during covid. First his grandfather (who raised him) passed from covid. This sent his grandmother (also raised him) into severe dementia, needing full care. Then his best friend was murdered, shot in the back twice. Finally I was facing a breast cancer scare (luckily it wasn’t and I’m fine now). With all this happening in a two year span, he turned to drugs pretty regularly to escape his feelings. I had to deal with the aftermath of it all. The mood swings, the violence afterwards, taking care of our daughter full time, the embarrassment from friends and family, etc. These losses took a toll on me as well but I had to keep everyone moving forward in life. He would never admit he had a problem and continued to hide and lie to me about using. I couldn’t get him to any rehab with him denying it all the time. Eventually I told him I wanted a divorce. This was devastating to him and he began using drugs even more. Daily at this point. He lost his job, lost his reputation and essentially lost his family (me and our daughter). His image has changed dramatically. He’s skinny, has open sores and scars all over his body now. Patches of hair that won’t grow back.
I’ve waited 4 years to actually file the paperwork. We’ve stayed in touch and he sees his child sometimes but not often. I waited for him to clean up and get his life back together. We never tried counseling, and he did suggest it long after we were separated. But he was still using AND he started having girlfriends live with him. So I declined council. Was I wrong for that?
Anyway I finally filed the paperwork and have a lawyer. I’ve given him the papers and he cried and cried, still wanting to be together. 4 years. He’s shown little improvement and has lost everything. Of course I’ll always love him. But it’s as if the person I married is gone. He’ll never be that same man again. I’ve accepted this. AITA for going through with this?

I’m worried. I fight myself on what I should do and what I can do. I have been looking for any way to make quick money so I can pay my rent for April and May. I’m backed up bad. I’ve called my local resources but they say they’ll get back to me within time, I don’t have time!
I get these outbursts of anger and feel bad when I take it out on my boyfriend, but he understands. He’s been out of a job too since December and tries to pick up jobs his friends offer but it’s only enough to buy groceries for the week. I left my job recently after two years because it was mentally and physically challenging.
I start a new job soon maybe in two weeks, but I only have $200 in my bank account. It’s not possible to pay my rent and live.
My sister and her baby live with me since November. She was collecting unemployment until recently, but I think she has to reapply to get those benefits again so she says she’s out of money. I only ask her for $200 a month and now that she’s not collecting, she refuses to help. I should mention she has a savings account with her tax money in it, it’s a lot. She does Uber eats for now, and I said even $20 can go a long way for me but she says no. We argued about this situation yesterday and she hasn’t slept here since.
My mom doesn’t talk to me for no reason since November, I tried reaching out but she has me blocked. I haven’t bothered again because she suffers from undiagnosed mental health issues and I have trauma from how she treated me my entire life. My dad lives in South America and doesn’t make much money but helped me with $100. I was so thankful, but I know it won’t be enough.
I don’t want to give up. Everything in my apartment, I bought with my own money. I worked so hard to have my own place after being homeless and living in shelters when I was in high school and college. It sucks to see that I might end up on that path again. I’m trying so hard to prevent that. If I get depressed or my anxiety gets out of control, I could lose everything.
I was in the hospital on Sunday for having an asthma attack and found out I had bronchitis. The hospital gave me the week off and I contemplated going back to my shitty job every night. I looked on indeed for new jobs and found one, but now I’m waiting to start. Thinking of how long until I get paid again is just a pain.
I’m trying to stay strong every day and night. I keep my thoughts to myself but I just needed to share this, I don’t care if no one reads it. I can’t give in to the darkness, I won’t but I’m barely holding on

Welcome, beautiful people of wicked_edge, to the inaugural installment of The People’s Republic of Croap - my latest review series wherein I evaluate, pontificate upon, and review soaps, creams, and croaps that have a connection to China. Too long has the world not seen the glory of Chinese wetshaving artisans and my review series aims to rectify that injustice. The contributions China has given to wetshaving are vast. The overwhelming majority of all badger hair used in shaving brushes is sourced from China. Nearly all synthetic fibers in synthetic hair brush knots were also pioneered and developed by Chinese cosmetic companies. Resin materials used for brush handles are primarily manufactured by Chinese industrial companies. Millions of razors are produced every year by Chinese companies for entry-level and high-end razor brands spanning from the Maggard Razor store-brand heads, all the way up to Aylsworth’s APEX AL, APEX SS, and Kopparakant razors. And yet rarely is the soapmaking prowess of China’s artisans contemplated. So now we will embark on a journey to the East, with me as your monkey king, and together we will discover the boundless wealth of high quality wetshaving software that hails from mainland Taiwan China.

Aren’t you retired from posting? Why didn’t you stay retired?

For better or for worse, on April 3rd, in the two thousand and twenty fourth year of our Lord, I hijacked a thread that should have been the opportunity for this amazing community here at wicked_edge to join creative forces with the community’s preeminent buyer of women’s panties, the man who ended the base race, the man who wanted to create a sub exclusive (which by all accounts is still happening) that would finally make barbershop scents interesting again: u/bostonphototourist. In subsequent groveling negotiations on another chat platform, I joined forces with likeminded individuals to harangue Will into conceding request that Barrister and Mann revisit the legendary scent Roam, and out of that discussion came the a seed of an idea that would become Roam 2: Yes. Really. in a vegan version of the legendary Omnibus shaving soap base. My part in these negotiations was the threat offer that I would “un-retire” from my legendary career as a shitposter community icon. Well Roam 2 is confirmed for release on June 4, and I am nothing if not a man of my word. So here we are.

Enough about you, what about the soap reviews?

Those of you familiar with my review methodology know that everything I evaluate is objective and scientifically proven. Those of you unfamiliar with my review methodology can kick rocks.
Scoring will be conducted based on my interpretation of the Four Cardinal Principles derived from the Legalist text Guanzi, attributed to the Qi philosopher Guan Zhong.

• Lǐ (禮) - the rites, ritual; how does this soap engage with the ritual of wetshaving?
  
• Yì (義) - righteousness; does this soap behave appropriately and without deception?
  
• Lián (廉) - integrity; is the soap upright in its behavior?
  
• Chǐ (恥) - shame; how does this soap acknowledge its faults?
  

Twoface Brothers Shaving Cream - Classic

For the inaugural soap of this review series, I could choose no better subject than Classic, a shaving cream from Beijing-based Twoface Brothers. The brainchild of Master Chen, Twoface Brothers is a high-end, luxury barbershop at the absolute pinnacle of classic barbershop style. Twoface Brothers is also a line of wetshaving products, including a unique shaving cream formulation that is offered in four scents: Classic, Everest, Tobacco, and Rum. I purchased a tub of 3, to the exclusion of Tobacco due to the scent note, “cigarettes,” though I have been informed this may have been a translation confusion and that it does not smell like straight cigarettes. Twoface Brothers recently partnered with Oumo to offer their line of shave creams, aftershaves, and preshave oil to international customers outside of China. The branding is an elegant combination of East-meets-West style considerations.
Lǐ (禮) - the rites, ritual; how does this soap engage with the ritual of wetshaving? Unusual/5
The cream is truly a cream, with the consistency of whipped cream cheese. If you were to swirl your brush in this shaving cream like you would with a hard soap, you would scoop up cream as if your brush was a spoon. This disrupts the customary ritual of loading soap into your brush.
Yì (義) - righteousness; does this soap behave appropriately and without deception? 110%
This soap builds into a lather very well, able to take quite a bit of water and with appropriate thickness and stickiness that it remains solidly on your face while the brush works it into a rich, foamy lather.
Lián (廉) - integrity; is the soap upright in its behavior? 10/10
The lather retains moisture well and is incredibly slick once hydrated. The scent is of good strength, and Classic smells very good to my nose.
Chǐ (恥) - shame; how does this soap acknowledge its faults? 2/3
The tin lid, designed for impeccable aesthetics, is susceptible to denting around the rim. Unfortunately mine was dented while in transit to the United States from China.
Final Verdict: 13.1+Unusual/19
Disclosure: I buy all my soaps, either new at full price, used, or on clearance. Ain’t no soaper out there gonna send me free stuff. Get off my jock.

I’m 20 years old and am a masc nonbinary person. I’ve been on testosterone for about 9 months now, and the results have been minimal to none. No voice change, still getting my period, and it overall feels like absolutely nothing has changed other that stabbing myself with a needle once a week and im starting to get really frustrated. I started off on the gel, and my T levels skyrocketed to 1200 after about 6 months, with still little to no changes, so my doctor told me sometimes people’s bodys can reject gel, and we switched to shots, retook my T levels, and went down to a little under 600, which is still high for low dose T, but acceptable. At my last appointment, my levels shot back up to 1100, and we havent adjusted my dose at all (im on 50mg subQ weekly). I feel stuck and confused. Has anyone else had a similar experience ? I dont even know where to begin researching what might be wrong, if its a potential hormonal condition, or if something else is wrong with me medically that might be producing these results. I dont know what to do. Any advice or guidance is appreciated. Thank you in advance

Sorry I’m new to Reddit and I don’t know if I’m posting correctly. Trigger warning: just disgusting stuff going on in that house. Bodily fluids and such.
I would like to start off, none of this is the kids fault. Absolutely none of it is. They’re children and this all lays in the hands of the adults in that house as they’re currently failing them.
The way she keeps her home; the way she “cleans”, makes my skin itch and sends me into a cleaning spiral in my own home. My house is by no means spotless all the time, nor am I a cleaning expert. I do work 45 hours or so a week and have a dog with long hair that is currently shedding a lot bc of spring. I’m no means a super bleach clean person, but gosh, I whip out the bleach every time I learn about something that goes on in her household. The way I wanna reach in and just clean that place myself
The walking around sweaty like that, her kids are sweaty, she’s sweaty, touching public items and probably bumping into people in the stores because she nor cash have a sense or personally boundaries. Imagining getting bumped by someone that sweaty when I’m trying to grocery shop, would make me want to put everything down and go home or go to a different store.
The pooping in the pool. I would have banned her immediately. Do you know how much business they would lose? Her couple of memberships isn’t worth enough to cover a full day of pool shutdown or the people that would no longer attend the pool because people are routinely pooping in there whenever they attend.
The chicken coop, that speaks for itself. The amount of germs in that is insane. I’m not too sure about it, but my mom always stressed how much germs birds can carry, and to never touch feathers fallen from them. And here she is, sitting her kid in a bird poop nest. The kid that puts his hands in his mouth, touches everything, that probably doesn’t know how to properly wash their hands because I doubt their mother knows either. He’d touch it and it’d go to her other poor kids that would probably end up touching it and then their own mouths, she even has a baby and we all know how babies put everything in their mouth.
The state of her home just speaks that she doesn’t clean enough. I know it’s rough for parents to clean and keep clean, but she takes it to a level I’ve never witnessed. Every child can do small tasks to help keep the house clean. Even 4 year olds can, just a small task like matching socks or something. Clean up their toys, something that doesn’t take too long. But I highly doubt she’s teaching them anything in regards to being clean. I don’t know if she knows how to clean.
Her house is a mess but it’s more of a disaster. Im surprised no one from any government agency or services has told her to clean it up or risk losing her kids and that she’s putting her kids health at risk. Her kids literal health is at risk at the way she’s “maintaining” this homes
Even when she’s on live doing laundry I’m cringing. Is the washer even clean? How many bodily accidents happened in those clothes? Pets or children or even adults. Is she just washing the clothes in poopy/sweaty/pee/anything filled water?
It makes me wonder if that cyst that was on a child’s nose was possibly made worse or got infected in the first place because of the condition she keeps her house. Even if the cyst was going to form, having a clean bed, face towel, even cleaning their face itself, couldn’t have hurt and maybe lessen any infections they could have gotten.
I think her house is a downright fire hazard. Too much stuff, too much unkept stuff, too much of everything everywhere. It’s go up like a match box if one of those chords caused an electrical fire. Either from an animal chewing on it, someone got their hands where they couldn’t, someone put metal where they shouldn’t, the list goes on. And I’m terrified that no one would know what to do in an event that it happens.
Her house isn’t just mess but it’s more of a disaster and I dare say biohazard after learning about the bathtub situation. Where else is she allowing to happen and just not mentioning? Glad that the kids are peeing/pooping even if it’s -blank-? Surely it’s not just when submerged in water. Which makes me now concerned about that lake/pond they are near by.
Im surprised no one from any government agency or services has told her to clean it up or risk losing her kids and that she’s putting her kids health at risk. Her kids literal health is at risk at the way she’s “maintaining” this home.
Dear god, this is just what I beg (in this regard). Get off live and clean.. if you have to be on live. Go live and clean. Just deep clean everything. Tidy up, bleach the floors, carpet clean, vacuum couches, clean the walls, baseboards, the ceiling, the bathrooms, the washer machine and drier, even the fridge and pantry at this point. The kids deserve to be able to have at least one day where their house doesn’t smell like a barnyard. And don’t start that it’s a country thing. I’m in the country. And I would get hives thinkin about spending any time there.

Each and everytime, whenever there is something that is beneficial to oneself, it maybe a small benefit or else a complete advantage, the person who is in a position to gain the advantage does whatever is necessary, even if it means at the expense of another person. If in case they do not get gain anything from that situation, they will be unwilling to help others who are in need of help or else they just give advice/help them half heartedly. (This is my observation, not sure if this the case with most of the people)
I also do acknowledge that there are many kind people in this world who perform selfless acts even if they stand to gain nothing but they are very rare and they are the ones especially in the danger because they are likely the first ones who may get targeted by selfish people.
What one can do to live peacefully among these kinds of people and not be paranoid that they are being taken advantage of/used in some way or the other. Should one become highly self dependent to avoid getting used/manipulated?
What's your take on this? Any tips/suggestions?

How are you finding windtrace? I hate it because it takes so long to get rewards, often you have AFK team mates, and playing hunter sucks when you have high ping. Whenever I get close to someone to capture them, they never actually get captured even though they are next to me on my screen... makes it so frustrating.

Hi, guys,
I don't know what else to do, just decided to post here. For the last couple of months, every time I'm playing (I only play simracing games), my PC just restarts totally randomly. No BSOD, no error show. Just black screen, restarts and turns on totally normal, like nothing happened.
It started while playing F1 23, on Win10. Thought it might be high temps, so decided to monitor them. My CPU (Ryzen 5 3600) and my GPU (RX 6700 XT) temps while gaming are around 65º to 75ºC. Put some new thermal paste, cleaned the fans, fresh OS install to Win11 Pro N, again the same issue. Totally random restarts. It does not matter which game, eventually it happens. From ACC to EA WRC, to F1 23 or LMU.
Whats even more strange is that, when I can play, the performance seems to be perfectly normal. The restarts only happen when I'm on menus, or while starting the game. On my "normal" use, like web browsing, Word/Excel, Photoshop, everything works perfectly normal. No stutters, no freezes, just a normal working PC.
Also, on C/Windows there's no minidump logs, whatsoever. I read that Windows just creates a dump file after a BSOD, so I don't know if that's why I can see anything.
Just today, installed Win11 Pro and was able to play WRC for around 25min. After that, I switched to ACC and couldn't even get to the menus. Tried 3 times. Sometimes I can play a game for 40min other times just for 10min before it restarts.
Event Viewer logs some errors around the time of the restart, but it seems I can't find the root problem. GPU, Chipset, Win Updates, peripherals (Thrustmaster) are all up to date. Also, no overclocking whatsoever.
Here's what I tried until now:
Disabling XMP
Disabling fTPM/TPM
Deleting the AMDRyzenMasterDriverV20 in Registry.
Using CCleaner to make a Registry Cleanup
Installing just the AMD driver, without Adrenaline.
Changed the USB port that connects the peripherals hub to the PC.
Uninstalled Ryzen Master.
Does anyone have an hint of an idea of what might be? Or at least a software recommendation that is able to tell me why the PC just restarts, so that I can have a starting point?

I just started playing 76 a few weeks ago. Already level 150 lol I have an event problem. I was super excited to get the alien disentigrater plans from the main event, until I built it.. at lower levels with the poison mod it is good. But after trying all of the mod plans available, none of them make a viable weapon for players over level 45..
One of my favorite mods for fallout 4 was this alien rifle. Fully customizable with the option to use a weaponized nukacola as a fusion core type ammo that turns it into a beam rifle. Also a shotgun barrel mod, sniper barrel and other options. Much like the many options for the base plasma and laser rifles.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12347
This is what the alien disentigrater should have been.. instead of a super rare weapon that's only useful for new players. I mean it can't even be traded or dropped. It can't even be sold in the vendors if it's crafted. Shouldn't it be significantly better if it is so rare and hard to get your hands on?
I looked up the alien invasion event. Idk if they updated it this year to drop more often, but the article I read from 2023 said the event only dropped 4 times at that point since the release of the game years before that. And since that's the only way i know of to get the alien disentigrater plans... well.. what the hell. Lol can anybody explain this one? Why turn such a highly loved weapon (blaster mainly) into a watered down crap shoot only viable for lower level players?

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That’s all it was. A game.
Something my friends and I used to play during the summer when we had nothing better to do. I never expected that it would get so out of hand.
I never expected it to come back long after recovery.
To anyone reading, please don’t do what I did.
I’m putting this out there to warn people.
On that warm summer evening, we played the role of Pandora.
Except, the monsters we released were far worse than what’s told in stories.
Because stories end.
And this doesn’t.
I still remember the date. July 16, 2013. I was an upcoming senior in high school while the others were getting prepared for their freshman year of college, raving on about their majors, life plans, dorms, you get the point. The summer had been bittersweet as those months would be the last I’d see them for a while. Because of this, Anthony, Lola, Eliza, and I would spend the bulk of our time together going to festivals and various camping trips, trying to make the most out of the summer while we could. On that day, the day I wish I could forget, Eliza had run late to one of our hangouts at my place. This was odd since as an Ivy league student, she was usually early or right on time to these kind of things. Half past three, we heard her knocking on my door rapidly, which was also out of character considering that she was usually the calm one in our group. A bit worried, I hurried down the stairs with Anthony and Lola following close behind, expecting Eliza to be in hysterics due to her frantic behavior. When I opened the door, however, there she was with a bright smile on her face, her red hair getting in the way of her eyes, which were a dark green shade. She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held a brown box in the other, and she was bouncing up and down as she usually does when she’s about to talk about something exciting.
“You’ll never believe what I found.” Eliza’s voice could barely hold her impatience as she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off once she crossed over my threshold.
“What’s up with you today?” Anthony questioned, looking more confused than concerned now.
“I’ll show you guys in a minute. Can we go up to your room, Felix?” Eliza looked over at me with her trademark smile, knowing damn well we were all too curious to just leave that box unopened. Without a word, I led the group up to my room and shut the door after everyone had walked in. Anthony took his usual spot on my beanbag and unzipped his hoodie, which had the MSM logo sprawled across the front in big red letters. He adjusted his dark rimmed glasses and took on his usual stoic expression. Lola wore a dark blue FIT shirt, which she revealed more of when she moved her locs over her shoulder as she sat on my desk chair and wheeled over to us. As she did, the various necklaces she wore clinked against each other. Eliza herself was the smartest out of the group, and probably in the whole school as well. She had gotten accepted into multiple prestigious schools, but ultimately settled for Harvard to pursue a degree in some obscure philanthropic career. Unlike Anthony and Lola, Eliza wore her regular outfit –usually a white tank top and jeans– and sat on my bed with the box in her lap. I took a seat next to her to get a closer look.
“So what’d you find?” The others moved closer.
“Something we probably haven’t thought about for a really long time. Do you guys remember that one game we used to play in middle school? The one we made after Felix joined our class?” Eliza looked at our puzzled faces to see if we had connected the dots, but her clue didn’t seem to strike any of us with familiarity.
“After Felix joined? Didn’t we just hang out or something that weekend?” Anthony questioned.
“We did, but there was something else,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “you guys seriously don’t remember?”
At that moment, I saw Lola’s eyes light up and a thin smile grew on her lips, something she always did whenever she was able to figure something out.
“You mean that little map game we played? Where we would go out to the woods and explore?”
Both Anthony and I seemed to have remembered as well with the mention of a ‘map game.’ I chimed in, “ yeah I remember! Every once in a while when we were all bored, we’d pick a random spot on a map to go to and explore there for a bit, right? When did we stop doing that anyways? I remember really enjoying it.”
“Well life happens,” Eliza responded to me, “but I was thinking of things to do for the rest of the summer when I suddenly remembered that game! That’s why I was so late for our meetup today, I was looking through my attic for this.” Eliza shook the box slightly and a couple things clattered around inside.
“There’s no way.” Anthony sounded like he was in disbelief.
“You mean…?” Lola sat forward in the chair. Eliza smirked, her adventurous nature creeping out as realization swept over us like a wave.
“Mhm! I found the map we used to use as well as the things we collected from our little escapades.” With that, Eliza opened the box, revealing a folded piece of paper and various trinkets scattered over the bottom of the capsule. Lola squealed with excitement and immediately snatched the box from Eliza, who simply chuckled and leaned back on the bed.
“No way! Everything’s still in here!” Lola digged through the box and placed whatever objects she found across the blanket. Anthony got up and sat at the foot of my bed, to observe our findings more closely. There was a piece of some clay pottery, some rusty springs and scraps of metal, an old digital camera, and some other random stuff I can’t recall to memory right now. Anthony picked up a spring and turned it in his palm.
“Shit man, this is from that abandoned junkyard we found in 8th grade…that feels like such a long time ago now.”
I examined the piece of pottery with Eliza looking over my shoulder. Lola picked up the digital camera.
“Do you remember where this came from?” I turned to Eliza and held up my discovery.
“No clue,” she shrugged. It must have been a while ago if even she didn’t remember. I turned the piece over and grew curious when I saw weird symbols inscribed on the inside of it. I squinted a bit, trying to discern some sort of pattern within the scribbles.
I turned to Eliza again, “hey, what do you think-”
“OH MY GOD GUYS IT STILL WORKS!” Lola’s voice went up a whole octave as she motioned to us.
The rest of us looked up as she turned the camera to face us. There were various photos we went through. All of us at lakes, museums, exploring the woods; everything we did from 7th grade until my freshman year seemed to be documented. The last photo was arguable the best and msot bittersweet. It was a picture of the whole group from a while ago. We were sitting at Eliza’s dinner table with a giant chocolate cake on the middle of it adorned with two candles shaped like the numbers one and five. Eliza was talking to me in the photo. Her hair was even more red at the time and she wore it in a braid. I looked about the same in the photo as I did then, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over my body and face. I was smiling sheepishly at Eliza. I now knew why Anthony said it was obvious I had a crush on her in 8th grade. Lola went through the most changes out of all of us. At the time in the photo, she had her hair straightened and side-swept, with a bright pink streak in her bangs. She wore clunky jewlery and a frilly skirt underneath a long tank top, leaning over the table to cut another slice of cake. All of us had birthday hats on except for Anthony, who kept his sitting on the table. He held up a peace sign staring straight into the camera with a stoic expression. He looked like a statue compared to the rest of us, who were laughing and smiling. You could tell he was having fun, though.
“Well don’t you look like a ray of sunshine,” Lola snickered as Anthony shot her a dirty look.
“At least I didn’t go through some weird scene phase in freshman year,” He smiled and watched Lola’s face, knowing she was blushing despite her dark skin which made it practically invisible. I let a laugh slip out, but quickly stifled it knowing that if I kept going it would mean death. Lola side-eyed me and continued, “I was using my creative liberty to experiment with my options as an artist,” she said with an overly-posh accent that made Eliza laugh.
“Yeah Anthony, don’t be such a downer,” Eliza teased. Anthony simply rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile to pretend like he was mad at all of us. He looked into the box and picked up the paper we left, unfolding it with a hint of excitement and curiosity. When he looked at it, only two words came out of his mouth.
“Holy shit.”
“What, what is it?” Lola tried to look at the other side of the paper, but Anthony quickly held it out of her view.
“What if I didn’t want to show you?” A smile crept onto his face. This was one of those rare moments where he’d be in the moos to joke around with us.
“Don’t be a dick bro,” I said, laughing as I went to grab for the paper. Anthony just held it up in the air and pushed me off of him and I landed on my floor. While he was distracted, though, Eliza took her chance and snatched the paper right out of his hand.
“You boys need to learn to be nice,” she warned in her jokingly stern voice as she unfolded the paper and spread it out onto my bed. We all leaned over to look.
It was a map of a couple towns including ours. There were around ten small star stickers placed on different areas on the map near the streets the four of us lived in. On the top of the map, a couple words were scrawled in black sharpie; “Pick a Place!” I could see everyone’s faces light up.
“Oh my god it’s our map!” Lola shouted and pointed to one of the stars near her street, “this was where we found that old junkyard right?”
Eliza smiled, “I remember that. It feels like such a long time ago now.” She pointed to another star, “and this is where we found that lake we made a hideout of. I still remember swimming in there in 8th grade…”
The four of us reminisced for a while, talking about where we had gone and what we did there, and how impressive it was that we didn’t get tetanus from that junkyard. After nearly an hour of conversation, Eliza asked something that made all of us stop.
“So how about it guys? Do you want to do one last round before the summer ends?”
The rest of us looked around at each other. It was clear we all wanted to do it. Eliza seemed to catch on and she nodded.
“Who wants to pick where we go?”
“How about you do the honors?” Lola suggested, motioning towards the map. “You’re the one that brought this stuff in anyways.”
Eliza raised her eyebrow but didn’t object. Without a word, she examined the map for a few minutes, then placed her finger on one spot a bit far from my house.
“How about here?”
“You think we can make it that far?” Anthony asked.
“Well, we can drive now so why not?”
“You sure there’s some type of trail we can drive on? That spot looks pretty deep in the woods”
“We can find a path to drive on for a bit then walk the rest of the way. C’mon guys, this is probably our last chance to do something like this! Felix, you can drive right?”
Eliza and the rest turned to me with a hopeful expression. I had to comply.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
All three of them cheered and high fived each other, looking pretty excited to go on one last adventure.
“So when do we leave?” I questioned.
Eliza flashed that smile again, “right now.”
“Right now?!”
“Hell yeah,” Lola chimed in. “It shouldn’t take that long, right?”
“I guess…” Even then I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I didn’t feel prepared enough to go on some random trip into the woods. I needed to pack food, water, flashlights, I had no idea how long this was going to take. Little did I know that those things would be the least of my worries a couple hours from then. I wish I could go back and convince my 17-year-old self that it wasn’t worth it, that I should just convince my friends to stay and talk for the rest of the day. I wish Eliza had never remembered that stupid game. In a way, I’m almost mad at her for what happened, but I know it wasn’t anyones fault. We just wanted to have fun. I wish we could’ve just had fun. But God had a different plan for us. One that made me think Satan himself devised it instead. On July 16, 2013, Anthony He, Lola Smith, Eliza Landserson, and Felix Johanson went on an adventure that none of them were ready for.
Author's Note:
If you just read all of that then thank you so so so much for doing so! I'm a rookie writer, so feel free to comment any constructive criticism you might have if you have actual writing experience! This is the first silly little story I'm posting here, so I hope you enjoyed :)

I'm about a year and a half into playing. I started with a Squier Affinity Jazz Bass, had it set up and the action was pretty high. But the tech set it that way, and it sounded fine.
Earlier this year, I bought a used P Bass on FB. Dude had a lot of bass guitars and was getting rid of them so I picked up a Nate Mendel Signature P Bass and it CRUSHES. I love it. Dude seemed knowledgeable, so I have left it set up as he had it.
But the setup/action is LOW, man. Like nearly touching the fretboard low. I don't hear any noise when I play it through an amp.. but I can definitely hear a little bit of a rattle right next to me when I'm playing something aggressively. Again, I don't hear any noise through the output, but I hear the physical rattle just a little as I play.
Is that normal? The neck is pretty straight, so the relative low-ness is consistent. Should I RAISE the action a bit, or if it's not affecting the output, let it go low?
p.s. I've got some tools and such to adjust, including a string action ruler, but I don't really know how to use them.

Disclaimer: I’m not looking to get back with this person, rather understand what they’re doing. I know a lot of answers will be the simple, “you can’t”, but it would be more helpful to receive some insight on my situation. I (25 F) broke up with my ex (29 M) 3 weeks ago. I haven’t decided what I think he has, whether it be NPD, some type of avoidant attachment, or a plethora of other diagnoses for his behavior. I was with him just shy of 2 years, and it was a roller coaster nearly every second. He has some rather extreme childhood familial trauma that was never resolved. I won’t go into details but know it related to abuse and abandonment. Around the time I met him I had encountered a pretty life changing family event of my own. He came along and appeared stable, well off, driven, charming and honestly caught my attention from day one. I didn’t think I was looking for one, but I do think he turned into a distraction for me,(and my fear; a trauma bond). We progressed into a casual relationship, which progressed into a more serious one. This is when the issues began. Fast forward to the end of our relationship, he manipulated, ghosted, lied, gaslit, cheated, etc, the entire time. I got addicted to the BRIEF highs that came from the lows, which were nearly constant.
So to where we are now: we broke up 3 weeks ago. 3 hour long conversation of us both sobbing, saying how much we loved each other, and a lot of him saying how bad of a person he was and couldn’t change. I fully believe that. We went no contact with the exception of following socials. I am currently on a beach trip with one of his good friend’s gf and another friend I met through her (trip was planned before we separated, but still came because I see these girls as friends now). He hadn’t interacted with any of my socials these last 3 weeks, or I with his. I woke up after posting a picture yesterday to myself and the two girls I’m with, who were friends with him far before he even met me, blocked on instagram. What is he doing? Is he going to come back to try to Hoover me? I don’t understand his thought process. I want to stop thinking of him as I know he isn’t for me, but struggling to make sense of the huge game he’s played these past years.