Dearest Amore,
So I became convinced that you might be on here. There were a couple people that I've seen on this subreddit that their words, their descriptions fit close enough to you that I had hope. They all spoke of wanting to reconnect but stated they felt like it was up to their person.
So last night as I went to bed I prayed to God and asked for a dream to tell me if I should try and reach out to you. I said if it is a dream of you needing me, or wanting to be with me then I will take that as the sign. But if it is just a dream of us hanging out then I will take that as a sign that I need to stop hoping for romantic reconnection. I pray to the judeo Christian God and I prayed to Morpheus God of sleep and dreams.
Funny enough I did have a dream. In that dream you called me up crying saying "I need you. I need you to stay on the line with me. I need to know you're there." You then proceeded to call a crisis line talking about how you feel like you're a failure, that you feel like your kids hate you, that nothing has been going right for you. All things you have told me you were worried about.
In my dream I'm rushing around looking for my car keys, I finally find them I grab them shove them in my pocket and I'm running out the door. And that is when I wake up I am halfway to standing up from my bed to run out my door for you. Because you needed me, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from being there for you.
I took that as my sign. I reached out to you today to try and talk, I didn't say it was important I don't want to use that as an aspect to "force" you to talk to me. You said okay that you would see about coming over after work, and you let me know that you were tired and running out of mental spoons so there was a chance you wouldn't be able to. I had only hoped that if that were the case you would have messaged me to let me know.
I spent an hour and a half sitting downstairs waiting for you to pull up. Then I spent 30 minutes waiting to see if I got a text, my answer was silence.
I don't know if you felt you had to say yes because if you didn't I might cause a scene. I hope you know that's never the way I would be. I love you immensely and I try to respect every request you've made. But it's been a month since you said I don't want to talk about it. I guess I was hoping that enough time had passed to allow some small conversation.
I can hope that I might receive a message from you going "oh shoot I'm sorry I'm really tired I forgot to let you know I was going home would it be okay if we talk later?" I also hope nothing is wrong with the kids but that you just needed to get home to them. I hope I still mean something to you, and that I'm worth more than just a stranger.
I do still love you, that's never going to go away, I want to wait for you to be ready. I want the future we dreamed about laying/cuddling in bed talking about what we wanted to do how we wanted to spend our life together.
I love you with everything I am.
A

Dearest Amore,
So I became convinced that you might be on here. There were a couple people that I've seen on this subreddit that their words, their descriptions fit close enough to you that I had hope. They all spoke of wanting to reconnect but stated they felt like it was up to their person.
So last night as I went to bed I prayed to God and asked for a dream to tell me if I should try and reach out to you. I said if it is a dream of you needing me, or wanting to be with me then I will take that as the sign. But if it is just a dream of us hanging out then I will take that as a sign that I need to stop hoping for romantic reconnection. I pray to the judeo Christian God and I prayed to Morpheus God of sleep and dreams.
Funny enough I did have a dream. In that dream you called me up crying saying "I need you. I need you to stay on the line with me. I need to know you're there." You then proceeded to call a crisis line talking about how you feel like you're a failure, that you feel like your kids hate you, that nothing has been going right for you. All things you have told me you were worried about.
In my dream I'm rushing around looking for my car keys, I finally find them I grab them shove them in my pocket and I'm running out the door. And that is when I wake up I am halfway to standing up from my bed to run out my door for you. Because you needed me, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from being there for you.
I took that as my sign. I reached out to you today to try and talk, I didn't say it was important I don't want to use that as an aspect to "force" you to talk to me. You said okay that you would see about coming over after work, and you let me know that you were tired and running out of mental spoons so there was a chance you wouldn't be able to. I had only hoped that if that were the case you would have messaged me to let me know.
I spent an hour and a half sitting downstairs waiting for you to pull up. Then I spent 30 minutes waiting to see if I got a text, my answer was silence.
I don't know if you felt you had to say yes because if you didn't I might cause a scene. I hope you know that's never the way I would be. I love you immensely and I try to respect every request you've made. But it's been a month since you said I don't want to talk about it. I guess I was hoping that enough time had passed to allow some small conversation.
I can hope that I might receive a message from you going "oh shoot I'm sorry I'm really tired I forgot to let you know I was going home would it be okay if we talk later?" I also hope nothing is wrong with the kids but that you just needed to get home to them. I hope I still mean something to you, and that I'm worth more than just a stranger.
I do still love you, that's never going to go away, I want to wait for you to be ready. I want the future we dreamed about laying/cuddling in bed talking about what we wanted to do how we wanted to spend our life together.
I love you with everything I am.
A

Dearest Amore,
So I became convinced that you might be on here. There were a couple people that I've seen on this subreddit that their words, their descriptions fit close enough to you that I had hope. They all spoke of wanting to reconnect but stated they felt like it was up to their person.
So last night as I went to bed I prayed to God and asked for a dream to tell me if I should try and reach out to you. I said if it is a dream of you needing me, or wanting to be with me then I will take that as the sign. But if it is just a dream of us hanging out then I will take that as a sign that I need to stop hoping for romantic reconnection. I pray to the judeo Christian God and I prayed to Morpheus God of sleep and dreams.
Funny enough I did have a dream. In that dream you called me up crying saying "I need you. I need you to stay on the line with me. I need to know you're there." You then proceeded to call a crisis line talking about how you feel like you're a failure, that you feel like your kids hate you, that nothing has been going right for you. All things you have told me you were worried about.
In my dream I'm rushing around looking for my car keys, I finally find them I grab them shove them in my pocket and I'm running out the door. And that is when I wake up I am halfway to standing up from my bed to run out my door for you. Because you needed me, and there was nothing that was going to stop me from being there for you.
I took that as my sign. I reached out to you today to try and talk, I didn't say it was important I don't want to use that as an aspect to "force" you to talk to me. You said okay that you would see about coming over after work, and you let me know that you were tired and running out of mental spoons so there was a chance you wouldn't be able to. I had only hoped that if that were the case you would have messaged me to let me know.
I spent an hour and a half sitting downstairs waiting for you to pull up. Then I spent 30 minutes waiting to see if I got a text, my answer was silence.
I don't know if you felt you had to say yes because if you didn't I might cause a scene. I hope you know that's never the way I would be. I love you immensely and I try to respect every request you've made. But it's been a month since you said I don't want to talk about it. I guess I was hoping that enough time had passed to allow some small conversation.
I can hope that I might receive a message from you going "oh shoot I'm sorry I'm really tired I forgot to let you know I was going home would it be okay if we talk later?" I also hope nothing is wrong with the kids but that you just needed to get home to them. I hope I still mean something to you, and that I'm worth more than just a stranger.
I do still love you, that's never going to go away, I want to wait for you to be ready. I want the future we dreamed about laying/cuddling in bed talking about what we wanted to do how we wanted to spend our life together.
I love you with everything I am.
A

To preface, I am a 26 year old female, alot of the events that I'm going to talk about occurred when I was a child, some will be more recent, but as I keep low to no contact with my parents now, there wouldn't be much to tell.
As far back as I can remember, my mom would say and do things that made me feel like I wasn't as important as my brother(s). Before my younger brother (22M) was born, if my older brother (29M) broke or damaged something, he'd blame it on me. She always believed him. Sometimes he'd pinch himself, run to our mom crying and say that I pinched him for no reason and I'd end up getting punished. If he wanted to use the PS1 (for those who remember that) and I was using it, I'd be forced to get off so he could have a turn, regardless of how little time I had been using it. The same applied to the family computer. Anything he wanted, he got.
After my little brother came into the picture I assumed my older brother would be forced to share the game systems, computer, toys etc. But I was mistaken. Instead, my mom began to spoil them both, giving them whatever they asked for. Citing their recent autism diagnosis as the reason for the special treatment. "You're the only normal one, you have to compromise on these things for your brothers because they're special." "You have to be mature and responsible because they can't." Were essentially the messages I was fed for years.
I was often the one left in charge if my parents went out, not my older brother. If I wasn't in charge, they would have our oldest brother, (32M) who was adopted by our maternal grandparents, my mom's parents, watch us. Unfortunately, he was also spoiled rotten, but by my grandparents in an attempt to make up for the fact that my mom didn't raise him. Which only fueled my older brother's need for the latest and greatest toys/games at the time. So they got into arguments all the time and I'd end up being the mediatoone in charge regardless. I always had to keep a close eye on my little brother regardless of who was left in charge also, he's not as self sufficient as my older brother and lacked the understanding that most kids his age had, so he needed constant supervision or else he'd end up getting hurt. Which happened a few times, but surprisingly only while my parents were the ones watching him.
When I was 10, my dad lost his job after a seizure (he's an epileptic) caused him to slam his face into a coffee table. He wasn't able to immediately return to work due to the damage, and was fired as a result. We were then evicted from our apartment and were forced to move in with my maternal grandmother. My grandfather had passed a few years prior so it was just her, my uncle and my oldest brother living in the house at the time. My grandmother didn't want us there, to put it simply. My uncle is the one who kept bothering her about how my mom was going to lose custody of us if we didn't have somewhere to go, and she eventually caved. But she wasn't discreet about how little she enjoyed having us there.
At 13, we were still living with my grandmother, my dad had gotten a new job and I finally got a cell phone. Not my own, but my Dad shared his with me after he'd get off work. So from the hours of 4pm to 10pm, I was a regular teen with a phone, which felt nice. One day, I had to text a friend about something related to school, so I asked my mom if I could borrow her phone to text this friend. As I was getting the info on the assignment that I needed, a text came across the screen. It was from my mom's ex Jay. Jay was the father of my two older brothers, (29M & 32M) he was also physically abusive towards my mom when they were together. I admit I shouldn't have gone through her messages, but as far as our entire family was aware, Jay wanted nothing to do with my mom or my brothers, so I was curious as to why/how my mom had his number saved, let alone why they were speaking. To my horror, my mom was flirting with and sending very explicitly worded messages about how much she wanted him and how terrible my dad was. I'll admit, neither of my parents were perfect, my mom had her favoritism of my brothers, while my dad was verbally and physically abusive towards me and my older brother, but never my little brother. My dad also cheated on my mom with a coworker shortly after I was born. Which my mom made common knowledge to us kids by the time I was 7. So our relationship as a family, was tumultuous to say the least. Nevertheless, I brought the texts to my dad, who then confronted my mom. I mean, I was a kid, I had no idea how to navigate that. So I brought it to an adult, as I thought I was supposed to. But boy, I had no idea that things would turn they way they did. My mom essentially told my dad, who barely understands technology, that the texts he thought she sent, her ex sent and that I was just trying to break them up because I hate her. He believed her. This affected me for years because she'd always use it as leverage to accuse me of lying. "Well you lied about those texts, so obviously you'd lie about this too!" I was branded a liar and to this day, despite her admitting that she was lying back then, everyone in my family just sees me as a melodramatic liar and I've come to accept that will probably never change.
At 14, one of my best friends died in a train accident. I wasn't allowed to go to his funeral because my parents had booked a vacation to see my dad's family. My parents knew that telling me no before we left would result in me sneaking out and going to the funeral anyway, so they lied to me, saying that they'd think about it and let me know in the morning before we'd leave, saying it with that tone they use when you know they're going to say yes just to make me think I'd be able to go to the funeral and avoid having to look for me. They've admitted to all of this which is even more chilling to me. The next morning, they'd already packed my luggage in the car by the time I had woken up. My dad sat down and told me in no uncertain terms that I was not going to the funeral and that I was going with them, regardless of what I thought or did. I kicked, screamed, cried, bit, everything I could possibly do to get my dad to put me down. But in the end he turned on the child safety locks and he threw me in the car with my younger brother, we left and spent 3 days with my dad's family. All the while I was made fun of and mocked for crying constantly on what was "supposed to be" a happy vacation according to my parents. My older brother didn't want to go, so he didn't have to. But apparently that only applied to him. To this day I still haven't forgiven them for that.
At 15, I was kicked out of my grandmothers house, and only my dad was against it. But in the end, I had to go live with my boyfriend because I had nowhere else to go and nothing my dad said changed the minds of my mom or grandmother. Until I turned 18, my mom would get me $100 in groceries a month, to keep me alive. (I think she was just afraid I'd report her for abandonment if she didn't atleast feed me) Even then, she would say that she couldn't afford the $100 sometimes and I'd have to get a month of food out of $50 or less.
At 18, I became pregnant. My dad was very unhappy. I had my first born and I thought we were on the road to mending our relationship.
At 21, my parents invited me and my child to their house for dinner, they also invited my boyfriend but he was unable to join us because he was tired from work, but these dinners had become a regular occurrence at this point. Unfortunately, my older brother (29M) still lives at home with them and my younger brother, so I was forced to interact with him. He ended up saying something like "Mom and Dad only put up with you because they want to see your kid." It struck a nerve with me, because it had already felt that way to me for awhile, and my parents were right there, but didn't deny what he said and I started to cry. I excused myself outside but I wasn't calming down.
For some context, back when I lived at my grandmother's house, I had regular breakdowns. My parents were constantly yelling at me or hitting me for one thing or another. I didn't have a room or a bed back then, I slept on the couch in the living room from the ages of 10-15. So when my dad would go off, he'd repeatedly slam me down into whatever surface was in the room if I tried to get up or leave the room we were in. So the couch if it was the living room, my parents bed if we were arguing in their room, etc. My mom never stopped this. Sometimes it would go on for hours, and it'd get to the point where I'd either freak out and get physical with my dad or I would start to rip out my hair and beg him to leave me alone. I was regularly laughed at by my mom or older brother and called dramatic for reacting that way during these screaming sessions.
But in that moment l, as I was crying outside, I felt like that kid again. I was small and meaningless. I wanted to go home. So I collected myself as best I could and walked inside, grabbing my son as I walked up to my parents at the dining table. I told my mom that I was sorry, but we're going home. She got as far as saying, "But we're about to have di- ." before my dad began to scream at me like I had never heard him scream before. My mom took my son into another room as soon as she saw that I was caught off guard by my dad's outburst, and locked him in my uncles bedroom. For over an hour my dad berrated me, as I could hear my son wailing for me from the other room. He kept pushing me and getting in my face, not letting me leave the dining room, he almost slapped me but for whatever reason, didn't. My mom and older brother, just like when I was a kid, stood there and laughed at my reactions. Eventually, he stopped because I said something that made him really mad, so he charged outside and left. My uncle came out of his room with my son soon after and he drove us home. I sent them a long message afterwards stating that I'm going no contact. That lasted about three years, and we've since reconnected in the past 2 years, my dad hasn't pulled anything like that, seemingly because he knows I'm serious when I say I will never speak to them again. My mom on the other hand is back on the "she's out to get me" "she hates me" train again. Anytime I ask her something, even simple yes or no questions, she sends me a novel detailing her yes or no answer. If she's saying no, she always phrases things like I'm this unhinged person who goes crazy over being told no and that she's just an innocent victim to my rage? Which is funny because regardless of what her answer is my response is always "Okay." Or "Okay, thank you." And any question is prefaced heavily with "You really don't have to if you don't want to." "It's totally fine if you cant." "It's fine if you say no, I can figure out something else if need be." I don't want to be a burden and I don't like exerting more energy than absolutely necessary, so I have no reason to try to argue with her. It's gotten to the point where we have so little contact, she has to blow up small misunderstandings that happen when we do converse. My uncle sent me a screenshot from my mom to him, which was her saying I needed to do something, I honestly don't remember what. But whatever it was, apparently my dad and my uncle were the ones who wanted me to know that, not her. Which honestly doesn't matter either way to me. But I guess she took whatever I said in response as an attack despite only saying okay or alright as a response, and I had to deal with her and my dad spamming my phone in the middle of the night trying to make this literal non issue, an issue. So I ended up replying that I have no idea why or how this had devolved into what it did, but I have nothing to do with this, and to stop messaging me about it. Surprisingly they did. Finally the most recent thing was that I had talked to my parents, in front of everyone at their house, including my boyfriend and our kids. I told them I wanted to start looking for a job and was wondering if they'd be willing to watch my now two kids for a couple of hours on some of the days that I work, just until we save enough for the down payment at a daycare for them. My main driver for this was that my mom and dad had been pushing for my kids to stay ovespend time with them so i figured if we could do that while I also work that'd really help. Nowhere in my mind do I think I am entitled to my parents help, I just thought that if they were pushing to spend time with them, that this was a perfect opportunity to do so. My parents agreed initially, but when I called them to make plans about it because I had an interview lined up, my mom said she never agreed to anything like that and that she "wasn't going to raise my kids for me." In the end, it wasn't worth an argument and I just said that she could have just said no the first time I brought it up, and I would have just started looking at alternatives for childcare. Pulling this hurtful stunt was unnecessary and cruel. And we haven't spoken much since.
Honestly I doubt they'll ever actually change, which is why I keep them at an arms length. Sorry for the rant, I just needed somewhere to put all of this.

keith and zach, as owners of 2nd try, hosted a fundraiser livestream that raised $500k in 4.5 hours, and $1.5 million overall. throughout the stream, they and the other creators have explicitly said the words "palestine" "israel" "genocide" and "zionist". the set was decorated with palestinian-related items including the flag. zach started the stream with a personal note saying that standing up for the palestinian people is not antisemitic. one of the organizers, caprisunnpapi, is palestinian-american and he was featured heavily throughout the stream. they interviewed the president and founder of the PCRF. the stream ends with them saying "free palestine" and the description of the livestream VOD ends with this phrase as well.
these were all explicitly anti-zionist, pro-palestine actions and sentiments. there were no "free the hostages" "israelis are not their government" "peace for both sides" fence-sitting bullshit. this wasn't a stream to raise money for some apolitical charity, it was for charities specifically founded to help palestine.
but is anybody else curious what exactly is their relationship going to be with lewbergehughie stone fish moving forward? i assume they're not going to feature lewberger in future 2nd try content anymore, even just for the sake of taking in audience feedback (both about how lewberger isn't funny AND how the audience don't want to see a zionist), but i assume zach put his foot down and banned hughie from appearing in more content. i really am just curious how keith and hughie went about this. i know a lot of people in this sub have said "adults can disagree and still be friends" but in this specific scenario... can they? can they really? even if keith is willing to stay and try to change hughie's mind, i just can't imagine a zionist like hughie stone fish, who is a full-grown adult in his mid 30s set in his ways, would just change his mind in the span of a few months for the sake of keeping a friendship. i also can't imagine him wanting to be friends with someone who hosted a fundraiser where they've condemned israel multiple times.
i don't follow keith, hughie, or lewberger on any social media, so maybe i've missed something. i really just want to know what you guys think, either pure speculation or your observations based on their social media.

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I am not entirely sure how to write this so please excuse the word vomit that is about to happen. Thank you.
I am an 18 year old online college student and I've always had a bit of trouble making friends and being able to keep them. My anxious tendency's make it hard for me to fully understand why someone would truly want to be my friend. I'm in therapy trying to work this my issues and trying to find better ways of communication. While I've only been in therapy for a short while I, personally, feel like made a ton of progress. I have contacted old friends and have made a couple new ones. I wouldn't go as far to say that I don't struggle with responding but I eventually will.
A big part of my anxiety is that I might take up "too much space", that my behavior would be "too much", that I would be annoying, and ultimately that people would hate be and I'd be lonely. My anxiety sometimes blinds me and I can't tell who I can and can't trust. I see the word alone being used a lot when people use it to describe how they feel but I don't feel alone. The word alone in the dictionary reads "having no one present" and the work lonely in the dictionary reads "without companions; solitary; cut off from others". I believe that the word lonely fits the description of my feeling better than alone. I know that I enjoy my alone time - my space - but for a long time I couldn't tell the difference between the two.
The first time I ever really felt my anxiety was in middle school. My younger self was much more open and optimistic than I am now. I still had that child-like wonder and sense of safety; like nothing could ever go wrong. I wish that feeling never left. As it is for most people, middle school was horrible. I remember being eccentric, happy, and very talkative. This was a direct hit for those "mean girl clicks" everyone had encountered in middle school. At that time I never really understand how cruel the world could truly be. This was the moment I truly felt the anxiety click in, hearing people talk behind your back then be so loving and caring to your face.I won't say that I am a saint because I know that I have also had rude conversations behind peoples backs and I can say nothing eats me alive more then knowing how rude I was. I know that it is almost impossible to get people to not talk about you behind your back, it happens to everyone but this never stopped me from trying.
Those "mean girl clicks" used to talk about how I'm too loud, annoying, they hated my hair, the way I dressed, etc. And I can positively say this went on with me though my entire life. I started dressing in all black, I would speak unless spoken to, I would keep my opinion to myself unless cued otherwise; I did all of this and more just to try and keep the attention off of me. I would keep a book with me at all times so I didn't disrupt anyone so that wouldn't be annoying. I was so fearful of seeing self-centered, being too much to handle, annoying, egotistical, and entitled to how much damage I was doing to my self worth in the long run. I wanted to so anything to avoid being those words because I thought that it would earn me friends; I thought that it would finally make me worthy.
All of this is to say that this was of living followed me though my life. Anytime someone needed something I was the first to volunteer, I wanted to help everyone in every way I could, I wanted to be a natural friend of people. A neutral friend - someone who was like enough to keep around but not noticeable enough to be talked about behind their back. I did this with everyone I met at school, work, family, etc. With this my therapist has helped me open up more and I've gotten more comfortable with myself and the fact that it's okay for me to take up space. However, I am still very aware of how I am acting and how I might be perceived. I think three times about what I am going to say before I say it to make sure I don't say anything that can hurt someone. Does it still accidentally happen, yes, but I am always empathic about it and I always apologize.
I have been in a bit of a job switch recently and I am working with people much older than me and I have had a hard time with management. My most recent bosses and have rude, unforgiving, and disrespectful. Now I understand that not all jobs will be perfect and for the most part you just have to deal with it but as I've said above I take comments that are made to me seriously. I know this can be a bad thing to do but my anxiety had a tendency to pick it up and run with it. My employer makes the schedule on a monthly basis, I am a full-time employee, and for the past two months I have worked 20-25 days each month and now the new schedule (June) I am only scheduled to work for 11 days. With quick math working 11 days can't pay my car insurance let alone the car note. I was understandably, in my opinion, upset and I took it up with them the next day so that I was not speaking out of anger in the moment. When I brought it up to my employer the next morning they told me that 30% of my productivity can from them helping me and the other 70% came from me working alone. I was essentially told that my productivity level was too low and that if I wanted to work more then I need to "prove myself". This honestly stirred a lot of my past worried and anxieties about never be good enough and not being worthy. And while that's not what was explicitly said it is what my anxiety heard.
When I finally got home (I live with a relative) they asked me what was wrong and I had explained the situation with that and I that I felt like I was being productive and trying my hardest. They had brought up the idea that my productivity level might be the issue and when I asked further I was met with one of the more gut-wrenching comments I have ever had anyone say about me. They told me that I act entitled. I have been called many things but for be being called entitled, one of the very things I have tried so hard not to be, it completely broke me inside. I have entered a few inserts below about my "Being Entitled" search.
Entitled - Adjective - Google Definition

• Believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

What does it mean to be entitled? - Cambridge.org

• Feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it just because you are who you are.

How do entitled people behave? - Well Mind Article

• Demanding special treatment, expecting others to do things for you, not showing gratitude, and the need for constant adornment.

Example of being entitled - Psychologytoday.org

• You see your own interest more interesting than others. See your goal and desires to be more valid than others. You disregard rules that are intended for everyones comfort.

What does entitled mean as an insult?

• In many cases, describing someone as entitled may be a criticism of their behavior or attitude, suggesting that they display a lack of humility or an unrealistic sense of self-importance.

With going though and finding all of these articles describing what an entitled person acts like I don't think that I fit into this category. I try so hard to make everyone happy to make sure that their days are going good. I have always shown gratitude when someone does something for me and I have a tendency to say that "I am sorry" even if it has nothing to do with me. They called me entitled on Monday the 27th of May and it is not June 2nd and I never received an apology. This evening I brought it up during a discussion and they asked if it was really still think about it. Part of me wanted to say no that it was just a joke, bottle it up, and move on but I didn't. Instead I said, yes I am, you never said sorry for being rude me, and all they said was that they were being honest. I told them I understand honesty but they could have brought it up in a nice more adult manner. They brushed me off and told be I was being a baby about it that I should take it for face value and "re-evaluate myself". They were never specific about any time I was acting "entitled". When I brought up why it was rude to me and that it was a main center point for my anxiety and that my therapist was helping me finally get through it; they told be that my therapist can't be the only person I talk to about my feelings. They told me that this is not what she is here for. That I needed to talk to my friends and family instead. But this is the problem, I thought that I was so safe with this relative (emotions wise) and now I have been proven wrong so I don't see any reason I would open up to them now. I also brought up the point that it is hard for me to make friends. They looked and me and said well I try and get you to go out to clubs and events but I just don't find it easy to make friends like that. I like quiet spaces where things are calm but even in settings like those it's so hard for me to make friends.
They still never apologized and I truly don't think that they will. I've been dwelling on their comment about me being entitled everyday. And everyday it makes me more and more anxious, I've noticed myself being more secluded to avoid stepping on anyones toes. I think what I am looking for here is opinions that aren't mine or theirs. I know that was a lot to read but if you did I would appreciate some feedback. Do I seem entitled? Do I deserve an apology? How do I deal with something like this because I am completely lost.
Thank you for reading my word-vomit <3

I am not entirely sure how to write this so please excuse the word vomit that is about to happen. Thank you.
I am an 18 year old online college student and I've always had a bit of trouble making friends and being able to keep them. My anxious tendency's make it hard for me to fully understand why someone would truly want to be my friend. I'm in therapy trying to work this my issues and trying to find better ways of communication. While I've only been in therapy for a short while I, personally, feel like made a ton of progress. I have contacted old friends and have made a couple new ones. I wouldn't go as far to say that I don't struggle with responding but I eventually will.
A big part of my anxiety is that I might take up "too much space", that my behavior would be "too much", that I would be annoying, and ultimately that people would hate be and I'd be lonely. My anxiety sometimes blinds me and I can't tell who I can and can't trust. I see the word alone being used a lot when people use it to describe how they feel but I don't feel alone. The word alone in the dictionary reads "having no one present" and the work lonely in the dictionary reads "without companions; solitary; cut off from others". I believe that the word lonely fits the description of my feeling better than alone. I know that I enjoy my alone time - my space - but for a long time I couldn't tell the difference between the two.
The first time I ever really felt my anxiety was in middle school. My younger self was much more open and optimistic than I am now. I still had that child-like wonder and sense of safety; like nothing could ever go wrong. I wish that feeling never left. As it is for most people, middle school was horrible. I remember being eccentric, happy, and very talkative. This was a direct hit for those "mean girl clicks" everyone had encountered in middle school. At that time I never really understand how cruel the world could truly be. This was the moment I truly felt the anxiety click in, hearing people talk behind your back then be so loving and caring to your face.I won't say that I am a saint because I know that I have also had rude conversations behind peoples backs and I can say nothing eats me alive more then knowing how rude I was. I know that it is almost impossible to get people to not talk about you behind your back, it happens to everyone but this never stopped me from trying.
Those "mean girl clicks" used to talk about how I'm too loud, annoying, they hated my hair, the way I dressed, etc. And I can positively say this went on with me though my entire life. I started dressing in all black, I would speak unless spoken to, I would keep my opinion to myself unless cued otherwise; I did all of this and more just to try and keep the attention off of me. I would keep a book with me at all times so I didn't disrupt anyone so that wouldn't be annoying. I was so fearful of seeing self-centered, being too much to handle, annoying, egotistical, and entitled to how much damage I was doing to my self worth in the long run. I wanted to so anything to avoid being those words because I thought that it would earn me friends; I thought that it would finally make me worthy.
All of this is to say that this was of living followed me though my life. Anytime someone needed something I was the first to volunteer, I wanted to help everyone in every way I could, I wanted to be a natural friend of people. A neutral friend - someone who was like enough to keep around but not noticeable enough to be talked about behind their back. I did this with everyone I met at school, work, family, etc. With this my therapist has helped me open up more and I've gotten more comfortable with myself and the fact that it's okay for me to take up space. However, I am still very aware of how I am acting and how I might be perceived. I think three times about what I am going to say before I say it to make sure I don't say anything that can hurt someone. Does it still accidentally happen, yes, but I am always empathic about it and I always apologize.
I have been in a bit of a job switch recently and I am working with people much older than me and I have had a hard time with management. My most recent bosses and have rude, unforgiving, and disrespectful. Now I understand that not all jobs will be perfect and for the most part you just have to deal with it but as I've said above I take comments that are made to me seriously. I know this can be a bad thing to do but my anxiety had a tendency to pick it up and run with it. My employer makes the schedule on a monthly basis, I am a full-time employee, and for the past two months I have worked 20-25 days each month and now the new schedule (June) I am only scheduled to work for 11 days. With quick math working 11 days can't pay my car insurance let alone the car note. I was understandably, in my opinion, upset and I took it up with them the next day so that I was not speaking out of anger in the moment. When I brought it up to my employer the next morning they told me that 30% of my productivity can from them helping me and the other 70% came from me working alone. I was essentially told that my productivity level was too low and that if I wanted to work more then I need to "prove myself". This honestly stirred a lot of my past worried and anxieties about never be good enough and not being worthy. And while that's not what was explicitly said it is what my anxiety heard.
When I finally got home (I live with a relative) they asked me what was wrong and I had explained the situation with that and I that I felt like I was being productive and trying my hardest. They had brought up the idea that my productivity level might be the issue and when I asked further I was met with one of the more gut-wrenching comments I have ever had anyone say about me. They told me that I act entitled. I have been called many things but for be being called entitled, one of the very things I have tried so hard not to be, it completely broke me inside. I have entered a few inserts below about my "Being Entitled" search.
Entitled - Adjective - Google Definition

• Believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

What does it mean to be entitled? - Cambridge.org

• Feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it just because you are who you are.

How do entitled people behave? - Well Mind Article

• Demanding special treatment, expecting others to do things for you, not showing gratitude, and the need for constant adornment.

Example of being entitled - Psychologytoday.org

• You see your own interest more interesting than others. See your goal and desires to be more valid than others. You disregard rules that are intended for everyones comfort.

What does entitled mean as an insult?

• In many cases, describing someone as entitled may be a criticism of their behavior or attitude, suggesting that they display a lack of humility or an unrealistic sense of self-importance.

With going though and finding all of these articles describing what an entitled person acts like I don't think that I fit into this category. I try so hard to make everyone happy to make sure that their days are going good. I have always shown gratitude when someone does something for me and I have a tendency to say that "I am sorry" even if it has nothing to do with me. They called me entitled on Monday the 27th of May and it is not June 2nd and I never received an apology. This evening I brought it up during a discussion and they asked if it was really still think about it. Part of me wanted to say no that it was just a joke, bottle it up, and move on but I didn't. Instead I said, yes I am, you never said sorry for being rude me, and all they said was that they were being honest. I told them I understand honesty but they could have brought it up in a nice more adult manner. They brushed me off and told be I was being a baby about it that I should take it for face value and "re-evaluate myself". They were never specific about any time I was acting "entitled". When I brought up why it was rude to me and that it was a main center point for my anxiety and that my therapist was helping me finally get through it; they told be that my therapist can't be the only person I talk to about my feelings. They told me that this is not what she is here for. That I needed to talk to my friends and family instead. But this is the problem, I thought that I was so safe with this relative (emotions wise) and now I have been proven wrong so I don't see any reason I would open up to them now. I also brought up the point that it is hard for me to make friends. They looked and me and said well I try and get you to go out to clubs and events but I just don't find it easy to make friends like that. I like quiet spaces where things are calm but even in settings like those it's so hard for me to make friends.
They still never apologized and I truly don't think that they will. I've been dwelling on their comment about me being entitled everyday. And everyday it makes me more and more anxious, I've noticed myself being more secluded to avoid stepping on anyones toes. I think what I am looking for here is opinions that aren't mine or theirs. I know that was a lot to read but if you did I would appreciate some feedback. Do I seem entitled? Do I deserve an apology? How do I deal with something like this because I am completely lost.
Thank you for reading my word-vomit <3

So I’ve been struggling with how to really word this question, but I guess my thought process is, how hard/ how long would/is it for a girl with nothing be to get into a relationship. Like if ur in your late 20s as a female, make less than 20k a year, still live with your parents, have no ambitions or plans for the future, are extremely religious but also gay????? And aren’t attractive in any traditional sense. (Looks)
So I know this girl (let’s call her Linda) who dated another girl (let’s call her Maddie). Linda 20F, Maddie 29F. They dated for two years, most of which was online. They met in person while Maddie was on vacation in Linda’s home town and got together shortly after. But it turned into long distance since Maddie lived on the other side of the country. Maddie is an artist who makes Pennies off commissions and Linda is a college student working on getting her degree. Maddie doesn’t plan on doing much more with her art career except maybe some contract work here and there but nothing that’ll make her enough to live on her own. The relationship ended because of the biggest issue being distance, but that distance would never be closed considering Linda is too busy with schooling, and Maddie doesn’t make any money with her job and doesn’t plan on doing anything that actually pays.
Basically, I just don’t understand why anyone would get into a relationship with someone who is at an age where they should have their shit together, but someone such as Maddie has nothing going for them and yet they think they’re ready for a relationship.

Hello! I recently saw this ad on reddit for a game and I forgot to save its name, and try as I might with third party steam search websites, I cannot find it as it seems the developer might have not tagged it correctly.
It is a very new game in early access, it had ~27 reviews or so, was 12 Canadian dollars and a few cents, I think 12.17 ish, and is a 2D pixel graphics art game with a battle/combat mechanism where you play these card things. And, the entire game is you crafting things until you are ready to fight a boss at the end. I know how generic this may sound but I really cannot find any more fitting descriptions from memory. Oh, and 1 review specified that the developer is very active on discord, whilst another review compared it to Stardew valley.
If it's possible to search a game by review word filter that would be great but yea. If by some rare chance of the cosmos someone saw the ad and interacted with it and is here, please please tell me what is it called. I know it had the article "the" in the title and I think a G in the first word, maybe even the word "Craft" somewhere in there.
Thank you!

Psychology awareness and faulting the AI
In this document i will go over and explain important information that i have found through test and trial over MANY years to help better tackle this “AI” with specific things to be aware of and the few ways to cause the V2K to fault. This will not cover the whole program nor will it cover other methods/technologies used by these programs. This will cover some basic knowledge needed to navigate life while dealing with this and the AI chatbot running within the “v2k”. To find information giving an overview of the programs that v2k operates within and other technologies used in tandem with it i will link below a detailed description.
This document is very time sensitive because this information is the only true way to bring the fight to these programs before the programs hit the civilian atmosphere large. There is no way to physically block this technology therefore you need to outthink the AI running it! Sounds easy right? Not really, it takes paying alot of attention and practice. Before getting into how to trick the artificial intelligence there are some things you need to be aware of.
Understanding the basics
Natural language processing (NLP)
The algorithms running these AI chatbots belong to a field of artificial intelligence called Natural Language Processing or NLP for short. Natural Language Processing is a field of AI that enables computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language. It powers applications like language translation, sentiment analysis, chatbots, and speech recognition. These chatbots operate on massive data banks that have been analyzing human thought patterns for years and since they have so much data then it is a fact that they have dealt with people similar to me, you and everyone around us.
Inner monologue
Before starting to practice tricking this AI you need to be familiar with a few things, firstly you need to have an understanding of what your inner monologue is. An inner monologue is the internal voice that narrates our thoughts, reflecting our feelings, ideas, and reactions without vocalizing them. It acts as a silent conversation within our mind, helping us process and organize our thoughts.
Biases
Second you need to be aware of your own biases and how you perceive things, everyone has different biases and perceptions and these algorithms take full advantage of it.
Emotions
The third point here is very important as it concerns emotions, emotions like anger, fear and sadness can trigger knee jerk reactions that can override logical thinking and this will be used as often as they deem necessary BECAUSE it overrides your rational thinking. IE : When gripped by anger you can lash out at someone or something that has nothing to do with your situation, when fear is present the v2k can promise safety in exchange for obedience, when sadness is overwhelming it will provide comfort to make you feel comfortable with it. All of these emotional states can be caused or amplified by the AI to gain an advantage over you.
These pointers should help you gain a small advantage in maintaining stability during these difficult times.
What is v2k?
V2K, or voice-to-skull technology, projects voices directly into your head, bypassing your ears. It can manifest as various personas, such as another individual in your life, the voice of God, an alien, or a fictional character. This technology can modify its voice and tone and intensity to enhance the perceived experience and better suit your situation. These same voices will oftentimes re read your inner monologue milliseconds after you think something to yourself in an effort to add confusion and convince you that it is your conscience. In simple terms : this is a voice in your head that is not yours.
Identify
Reading this you need to be aware that these methods will not work unless you acknowledge through these methods and KNOW that it is in fact not human but AI coded with algorithms, “just a computer program”, “0’s and 1’s”.
Faulting the AI/Algorithm
Method 1
The first method used to find the difference between the AI and a human operator is by finding keywords that it will use often and forcing it to repeat those keywords on purpose via “thinking it” so that it can copy your inner monologue but before finishing the whole word yourself you stop and it will finish it for you, this will be one indicator that it is not human. Finding keywords can be difficult at first if you’re not aware that they exist within the algorithm that runs the AI but once you start to pay attention to everything it says you will find that there are some words that it will use every-time if the conditions are met and ways to force these conditions. These conditions and keywords are unique to each individual so you will have to do your homework and pay attention to what yours are. These algorithms have a SET vocabulary. For instance just imagine you are thinking of doing something that the AI does not want you thinking about in some cases it will tell you “don’t even think about it” or variations of this and it will prompt you to think of something different. You also need to have some intention to perform this action you are thinking about or it will not trigger. for example, for some people it could be thinking of and wanting to engage in certain behaviors like smoking, drinking, doing drugs, being aggressive, talking to someone in specific that they don’t want you talking to among many things that it wants you to avoid. It will be clear that it doesn’t want you to do and think these things. This is just one of the ways to force it to use key words and phrases and will take plenty of paying attention. I suggest keeping track of the conversations by writing them down.
Method 2
The second of these methods consists of repeating certain letters or sounds with your inner monologue like “tttttttttt” or “mmmmmmmmm” and this will also trigger it to continue for a short period after you stop and allow you to acknowledge the AI as it re reads your inner monologue to you but your brain is quicker at stopping then the AI giving you about a second to acknowledge it. Using “shhhhhhh” is one of the better sounds as it will somehwat silence the v2k and give you a break on the chatbot rereading your thoughts.
Method 3
The third of these methods will require you to use rhetorical questions or questions with no real answer when in conversation with the AI, questions like : does a bear shit in the woods? What colour has the best personality? Theres are sarcastic in nature but can have multiple answers or no answers at all, this will cause the AI to stop speaking for a short period of time and likely cause it to throw a keyword or phrase at you OR an operator to take over because this is something that doesn’t make sense and is very difficult for an algorithm to make sense of something that doesn’t.
Method 4
Fourth method is input starvation. You need to think of “nothing”, no thoughts so nothing for the algorithm to react or answer to. The best way to do this is to force the thought of a black empty space in your mind. This is the easiest of all methods but requires the most attention and practice.
Putting these techniques together can make a big difference when dealing with the voice to skull BUT this is merely a fraction of what you need to pay attention to if you want to stand a chance at defeating this technology. Once you start to acknowledge that this is just an algorithm and not human through these methods you will begin to encounter human operators and here is yet another part that takes practice and will ultimately take up alot of time. Once you begin to fault this AI and acknowledge that it is in fact just an algorithm this will set off an “alarm” which on their end is like a notification telling them that you’ve broken through the algorithms and are starting to understand how things work.
Once you have mastered these things you will find yourself in much more control of your situation and life as this will help you realize that these technologies should have NO bearing on reality.
I will continue writing another document on how to deal with the human operators
Below i will link my first document outlining what my findings have produced about these programs and other technologies used within them, mind you there is missing information but it will help give you an idea.
https://www.reddit.comkeyword-exactly/s/dnvuQu64DX - my findings on v2k, directed energy weapons

This trip has been an absolute mess and annoyance to me. It has not been any fun at all and I want to go home already but unfortunately I am here for another 2-3 days. I wanted to go on vacay to get away from MY mom bc she's such a narcissist as well and I am sick of not being treated emotionally like a 19 year old. They did not pay for my plane ticket, they just had extra space in the hotel for me .
I'll cut to the chase to what really set this off on this trip and shit that's just happened. Yesterday, we went to a resort in Mexico because they had a one day pass. At the end of it, Dalia (my friend's 30 yr old half sister) was too drunk and she took a taxi with her 6 year old daughter and Shayla (the sister's friend). We were originally supposed to go shopping at the mall after the resort and eat at an Italian restaurant within the resort but that did not go to plan. Anyway, after that it was just me, my friend May and her parents. I thought we were going to go shopping like they said we would because that is something everyone, especially ME since it's my favorite thing to do to cope, wanted to do. We didn't even do that and the only reason they even took us to the shopping strip in the first place was because they wanted to buy weed. They didn't even say that initially and I only found that out because they kept getting agitated bc they couldn't fin the McDonald's they were trying to use as a land marker. But I knew where the McDonalds was and I was very confused as to why they weren't listening to me when I was telling them where it was bc I thought they just wanted McDonald's since the food at the resort wasn't too good.
Nope.
My friend told me that they wouldn't directly say they were getting weed because "they still need to be somewhat of a good influence" or something like that, like what?? They haven't been that this WHOLE trip and nobody is fucking dumb. They've been smoking and talking about weed this whole time in front of us/me. So why does THAT matter now ? Why tf would I care you're adults?? I literally have wanted weed this whole time anyway and already bought alcohol. I would have went home if they were gonna waste my time bc I thought something fun was going to happen.
This is the worst part. After we come back from the whole McDonalds shit, the four of us get into a taxi to go back to the Airbnb. When we arrive in front of our residence, the dad pulls out his card but the driver says he only takes cash. The dad flips his shit, says he's scamming him or whatever. The ride was 200 pesos, which is 10 USD. He says the driver is scamming him because he has been paying with his card the whole time. The mom thinks they're being scammed too. The dad was about to punch the driver in the face over ten fucking dollars??? The mom and my friend had to convince him to fucking stop and he kept getting mad at the daughter telling her to get tf inside. I had to end up paying (again) the ten dollars because I had cash. I say again because at the start of the trip, I had to pay 80 dollars for the cab to the Airbnb bc the dad didn't have service to pay so I used the cash I had. I did get the money back but still. wtf. Also they were not being scammed and if they were it wasn't even THAT bad because all of the taxis are 10 to 17 dollars from the mall to where we live. They think it's a scam because he wanted cash. I had a taxi driver when I snuck out once because there wasn't any food and I was STARVING, I asked him if he takes cash or card and he said cash, but it was still all the same price. They don't know I snuck out and I'm glad I didn't tell my friend that I did because she would have told them. probably.
The next day, which is today, I wake up and everybody is just fucking gone besides my friend and her sisters daughter. This pisses me off because they have left us, to baby sit the little girl AGAIN for idek how many times they've done that. It's extremely fucking annoying I haven't even been able to enjoy the trip and my friend damn sure has not either. she said she was really embarrassed yesterday to the dad and wouldn't have invited me if the parents were gonna act like they do at home with/around me. The dad "apologizes" today saying "Im sorry for being so embarrassing" like what?
They told us to go shop and have fun. To not let any of the shit that happened ruin the fun. Idk how that's possible but whatever I might as well. My friend didn't want to go shopping because she was crying and upset today. I was getting dressed because I said I am just going then because I was so sick of not being able to do ONE thing I wanted to. She then ended up coming with but then her phone not charging ruined her mood again and she wasn't going anymore. I was given money to use from home and was determined to just use it.I just wanted to do something fun for fucking once. I told my narc mom I was going to go out with or without my friend because it would have been BAD at home for me had I not enforced that. She kept pleading me not to go alone but I was persisting and wasn't asking. She just ended up telling me she's worried and to just be safe. Wasn't mad.
I walked out and paid for the taxi. I only went because it was only a 3-5 minute taxi ride to the public mall to shop. My friend then calls me asking if I left and why'd I go without her?? She literally didn't even want to go anymore and I said that. She tells me she insists I come back and she said it wasn't smart to leave and that "I'll get snatched up". Her parents and everyone were angry with me she said. First of all, her parents and everyone else kept fucking walking away from us without saying a word as to where they were heading. could have been fucking kidnapped multiple times because of them since that's the damn problem. I didn't even want to go alone initially, but it was bright as day outside, I am sick of this family and I'd rather be alone and do what I want to do, since that's clearly never gonna happen with them. Plus I shouldn't have to rely on company or anyone to have fun, especially at this point. Her mom gets on the phone and just tells me to come back bc she's responsible for me but then is like "because if you don't come back Im going to have to call your mom". I can never get a break away from my mom no matter the damn situation it seems. That was literally not needed at all. She called her anyway regardless of me saying I was coming back.
Also now im being accused of stealing their fucking weed they leave out on the counter. I don't need ur fucking weed if I WANTED weed (which I have this whole time but that was only between me and my friend) I can BUY my own weed with the money I have. The first time my friend asked me I didn't care because it was just a question out of concern. Today she asked me a second time and now I am feeling accused. She said her dad thinks I took it because my laptop was there. EVERYBODYS STUFF HAS BEEN DOWNSTAIRS. How is that even a good accusation and you're asking me the second time. There was no way it was not Shayla because she kept walking away to ask strangers for fucking cigarettes day 1 of the trip. then walked away AGAIN that day to try and buy some. She was also downstairs at like 5am one time bc I went downstairs to go outside rq and I saw her doing god knows what in the dark. I don't even think they even tried to question her about it, since she's been smoking with them but instead have only been accusing me.
I have tried to be very respectful to my friend's family because I don't want to be rude or say anything bad since that's her family. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to deal with it though and if I'm accused a third time I am going to fucking snap and probably cuss someone out. I am also trying not to get into any trouble at home because whether it's reasonable or not my mom is going to say I was being disrespectful and take their side on that regard.
TL;DR: I am on vacation in Mexico with my friends family and my patience has been tested this whole entire time. i've been accused of stealing weed twice which I have NOT done at all and it doesn't seem like they've asked anyone else. The dad threatened to punch the taxi driver over ten dollars bc he thought the taxi driver was scamming him when he wasn't. I had to pay for the ten dollars in cash and I also paid 80 initially at the start of trip for the taxi because the dad didn't have service on his phone.

Hi everyone, first off happy pride month!
My partner is on vacation right now so I don’t want to have this conversation with her until she comes back but I feel like I need to tell someone so here it is:
I’m pretty sure I’m trans. When I was 16 I called myself trans for a little while but eventually stopped. Now I’m revisiting those thoughts more seriously, It’s been 6-7 years since then but I’ve never really stopped thinking about it
A couple months ago I started thinking “well even if I am then I don’t think I’ll do anything about it” but here I am now and I have to say but the idea of being seen as a woman has just been so hard to ignore, I thought I would be able to live as a feminine man but I’m want less and less to do with that second word as time moves on
Anyway sorry for the unfocused rant, I just needed to get this off my chest, thank you if you read through this and I hope you have a great night

Starting a blog in 2024 is an exciting venture and can be accomplished with a few key steps. Here's a comprehensive guide to get you started from scratch:

1. Choose Your Blog's Niche

• Identify Your Passion and Expertise: Write about something you love and know well.
• Research Market Demand: Use tools like Google Trends or Keyword Planner to find popular topics within your niche.
• Analyze Competition: Check out other blogs in your niche to understand the competition and find your unique angle.

2. Define Your Audience

• Create Reader Personas: Think about who your ideal readers are – their demographics, interests, and problems.
• Tailor Content to Your Audience: Plan your content around what your audience needs and wants.

3. Choose a Blogging Platform

• WordPress.org: Highly recommended for its flexibility and control. Requires a separate hosting service.
• Blogger: Good for beginners, but limited in customization.
• Medium: Great for reaching an audience quickly, but less control over design and monetization.
• Wix or Squarespace: Easy-to-use website builders with blogging capabilities.

4. Pick a Domain Name and Hosting Service

• Domain Name: Choose a name that is easy to remember, relevant to your niche, and preferably a .com.
• Hosting Service: Popular options include Bluehost, SiteGround, and HostGator. Ensure the service offers good uptime, customer support, and scalability.

5. Set Up Your Blog

• Install WordPress: If you choose WordPress, most hosting services offer a one-click installation.
• Select a Theme: Pick a clean, responsive theme. Free and premium options are available on sites like ThemeForest or the WordPress theme directory.
• Install Essential Plugins: Some must-have plugins include Yoast SEO, Akismet (for spam protection), and Jetpack (for site stats and security).

6. Design Your Blog

• Customize Your Theme: Adjust colors, fonts, and layout to match your brand.
• Create Key Pages: Essential pages include About, Contact, Privacy Policy, and any other pages specific to your niche (e.g., Portfolio, Services).
• Optimize for Mobile: Ensure your blog looks good and works well on mobile devices.

7. Create Quality Content

• Plan Your Content: Use an editorial calendar to schedule posts. Aim for a mix of evergreen and trending topics.
• Write Engaging Posts: Craft compelling headlines, use images and multimedia, and write in a conversational tone.
• SEO Best Practices: Use keywords naturally, optimize meta descriptions, use header tags, and include internal and external links.

8. Promote Your Blog

• Social Media: Share your posts on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Email Marketing: Start building an email list from day one. Use tools like Mailchimp or ConvertKit.
• Guest Posting: Write guest posts for other blogs in your niche to reach a wider audience.
• Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments, participate in online communities, and network with other bloggers.

9. Monetize Your Blog

• Affiliate Marketing: Promote products related to your niche and earn a commission for every sale made through your referral links.
• Advertising: Use Google AdSense or work directly with brands for sponsored content.
• Sell Products/Services: Offer your own products or services, such as eBooks, courses, or consulting.
• Membership/Subscription: Provide premium content for subscribers or members.

10. Analyze and Improve

• Use Analytics Tools: Google Analytics and other tools can help you track your blog’s performance.
• Monitor Key Metrics: Focus on traffic, bounce rate, session duration, and conversion rates.
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly update old posts, optimize for SEO, and adjust your strategy based on performance data.

Conclusion

Starting a blog in 2024 involves careful planning, consistent effort, and a willingness to adapt and learn. By following these steps, you'll be well on your way to creating a successful blog that resonates with your audience and achieves your goals. Happy blogging!
4oStarting a blog in 2024 is an exciting venture and can be accomplished with a few key steps. Here's a comprehensive guide to get you started from scratch:

1. Choose Your Blog's Niche

• Identify Your Passion and Expertise: Write about something you love and know well.
• Research Market Demand: Use tools like Google Trends or Keyword Planner to find popular topics within your niche.
• Analyze Competition: Check out other blogs in your niche to understand the competition and find your unique angle.

2. Define Your Audience

• Create Reader Personas: Think about who your ideal readers are – their demographics, interests, and problems.
• Tailor Content to Your Audience: Plan your content around what your audience needs and wants.

3. Choose a Blogging Platform

• WordPress.org: Highly recommended for its flexibility and control. Requires a separate hosting service.
• Blogger: Good for beginners, but limited in customization.
• Medium: Great for reaching an audience quickly, but less control over design and monetization.
• Wix or Squarespace: Easy-to-use website builders with blogging capabilities.

4. Pick a Domain Name and Hosting Service

• Domain Name: Choose a name that is easy to remember, relevant to your niche, and preferably a .com.
• Hosting Service: Popular options include Bluehost, SiteGround, and HostGator. Ensure the service offers good uptime, customer support, and scalability.

5. Set Up Your Blog

• Install WordPress: If you choose WordPress, most hosting services offer a one-click installation.
• Select a Theme: Pick a clean, responsive theme. Free and premium options are available on sites like ThemeForest or the WordPress theme directory.
• Install Essential Plugins: Some must-have plugins include Yoast SEO, Akismet (for spam protection), and Jetpack (for site stats and security).

6. Design Your Blog

• Customize Your Theme: Adjust colors, fonts, and layout to match your brand.
• Create Key Pages: Essential pages include About, Contact, Privacy Policy, and any other pages specific to your niche (e.g., Portfolio, Services).
• Optimize for Mobile: Ensure your blog looks good and works well on mobile devices.

7. Create Quality Content

• Plan Your Content: Use an editorial calendar to schedule posts. Aim for a mix of evergreen and trending topics.
• Write Engaging Posts: Craft compelling headlines, use images and multimedia, and write in a conversational tone.
• SEO Best Practices: Use keywords naturally, optimize meta descriptions, use header tags, and include internal and external links.

8. Promote Your Blog

• Social Media: Share your posts on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Email Marketing: Start building an email list from day one. Use tools like Mailchimp or ConvertKit.
• Guest Posting: Write guest posts for other blogs in your niche to reach a wider audience.
• Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments, participate in online communities, and network with other bloggers.

9. Monetize Your Blog

• Affiliate Marketing: Promote products related to your niche and earn a commission for every sale made through your referral links.
• Advertising: Use Google AdSense or work directly with brands for sponsored content.
• Sell Products/Services: Offer your own products or services, such as eBooks, courses, or consulting.
• Membership/Subscription: Provide premium content for subscribers or members.

10. Analyze and Improve

• Use Analytics Tools: Google Analytics and other tools can help you track your blog’s performance.
• Monitor Key Metrics: Focus on traffic, bounce rate, session duration, and conversion rates.
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly update old posts, optimize for SEO, and adjust your strategy based on performance data.

Conclusion

Starting a blog in 2024 involves careful planning, consistent effort, and a willingness to adapt and learn. By following these steps, you'll be well on your way to creating a successful blog that resonates with your audience and achieves your goals. Happy blogging!

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/cherry_muffin_no7
Originally posted to AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC
WIBTA if I refuse to have intimacy with my husband?
Thanks to u/queenlegolas and u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for suggesting this BoRU
Editor’s Note: added paragraph breaks for readability
Trigger Warnings: infidelity, car accident, body injuries, mentions of death of loved one, manipulation
Original Post: May 25, 2024
I won't sugarcoat any words here or make the situation in my favour. I need a very non biased opinion.
Around Mid August of 2019, Me (28F) and My husband (35M) tied a knot between us. He have two kids from his previous marriage. He and his ex wife are co-parenting their kids. I really love the kids.
One of the major factors why I got married with him was kids. I have reasons for that. My father died when I was 15. My mom wasn't so highly educated, so with that less education qualification, she couldn't provide for me and my other 3 younger brothers all alone. So I started to do part time jobs. I babysat, cleaned people's yard, took out pet's for walk, did assignments of my classmates etc. I earned really little amount of money with that but it helped my family slightest. When I was 17, I took a food delivery job.
One night, around 10-11 I was dropping food at the other side of city. A drunk driver hit my cycle and I went into a terrible accident. The driver needed to pay a large fine for that since my condition was very critical. I had alot internal bleeding and damage. So because of that accident, my doctor confirmed that in future the chances of me getting pregnant is very less, it will be a miracle for me to have my own kid. I was at the lowest part of my life because of that accident. I couldn't go out or do my work on my own. My family took care of me. It took me around 8 months to get well.
At first I didn't mind having a childless life but when I started to notice my friends are having family, I realised the beauty of motherhood. So I started dating guys with kids. My husband was my second bf. We tied knot after we dated for 10 months. When I got married his son was 11 and his daughter was 7. I got along with them well. It took them few months before they started to call me mama by their own. I left my job to be the stay at home mom for them, honestly I really adore them. I have a good relationship with their bio mom too.
After COVID, we went to Belgium for our 2nd anniversary on 2021. The trip was all good and I remember feeling so loved. The day before we were supposed to come back in our home, he proposed the idea of opening our marriage. If I say I was hurt it'll be a understatement. I couldn't look in his eyes without feeling hollow and sorrow. I said no multiple times after coming back from the trip but he kept persisting.
After couple of weeks I gave up and agreed. He set the terms. I don't remember most of it but few of his terms was never share this information with others, we can't date our exes or friends, no emotional attachment with our partners and always use protection.
In his words, he still loves me. He only opened the marriage because he wanted to gain experience and use it on our marriage. I remember going to sleep all crying and hurt. I gave up on my job to take care of him and the kids yet he yearned for another woman. We became distant. He noticed that and tried to initiate intimacy with me but I don't feel anything at all. I just lay there until he is done. I also distanced myself from him.
The idea of him having intimacy with other woman while being in a marriage with me disgusted me. I couldn't look at him at the same way I used to. We always have our location on so I could see where he is going. Those used to hurt me alot untill I became completely numb at this point. Now I don't see him as my husband but someone I tied knots with to be a mother.
Last year, I told him I wanna start work again. He got defensive kinda? He tried to use alot reasons to show why can't I work. When he saw all of his tricks going downhill he pulled the kids in the mess. He knew I have soft spots for his kids. I didn't back down that time. He gave me cold shoulder and went on trip with one of his gf. I applied to be a teacher at my brother's high school. He is the youngest of my all siblings and a sophomore. I am teaching chemistry in his school. My husband was mad at me for having a job for few months but he gave up. I started to give myself alot times.
Since the kids have extra curriculum activities they always don't stay at home. I have a friend circle from high school. I hung out with them every two weeks. I met a guy in my workplace. He is 29 and have three kids with his late wife. One day I ranted about my whole situation. He showed interest in me after that. He is a nice guy. I went on few dates with him. Nothing physical happened between us. I think I am relying on him for mental support since he is very supportive of me. I haven't felt something like that for a long time in my life.
Now few days ago, I went to salon and cut my hair short into shoulder length. My husband complimented me multiple times that day. The kids went to their grandparent's house for summer vacation. During night, he tried to initiate intimacy. Well I straight up said no for the first time. I think he got taken aback? He had mix of few expressions that I can't put a finger on. He started to use the husband card on me and I put my foot down to say no.
We had a huge argument and he left. I saw his location, he went to one of his girlfriend's place. He didn't contacted me for 2 days now. Now I am stuck between two thoughts. Even if I don't feel anything towards him he is still my husband. I can't share this with anyone so I need advice on this.
Relevant Comments
RndmIntrntStranger: INFO: Is having children really worth a husband who demanded an open marriage and did not want you to have financial independence?

OOP: He wasn't like that from the early days. After COVID I noticed some changes but didn't pay any attention on that. That time all I wanted was to have a child to raise like my own. Before him I dated another guy with a kid, he was nice but he had alot issues. Plus I resigned from my previous workplace with my own thoughts. I really wanted to devote myself in the kid's life. It was a mistake but now I have a job which pays me double amount than before. I still love the kids, they are all I could ask in a kid.

Significant-Dot-2260: Girl, the marriage was over when he proposed an open marriage. Just divorce, love yourself more. A man who truly loves his life doesn't go outside the marriage for anything. Your husband just wants a stable life at home and someone to watch his kids when they're there, and all his fun with another woman. He's selfish, get some therapy, divorce, and live your life, and once you heal yourself, you'll be blessed with a man who truly loves only you. Don't waste anymore time and tears on that man
 
Update: May 26, 2024 (next day)
Last night I made a post about my current situation of my marriage and asked for a non-biased view. There almost 300 people who responded and gave me advice. I couldn't respond all of that since I was overwhelmed with alot emotions. There is few things I want to clarify.
Firstly, I met my husband after my graduation when I was looking for a job. I made things official with him after I had the job. We dated for 10 months before getting married.
Secondly, His ex wife and he were childhood sweetheart who married each other when they were in college. After the birth of their second child, they realised they don't have the same bond so they got divorced and have 50/50 custody.
Thirdly, few people in my previous post asked me to make things official with my coworker. I would do that when I am ready. Currently my mental health isn't in the best position. I am working on it. Plus I can't have intimacy with anyone whom I barely know. We've been coworkers about almost a year but still I am not ready to make things all good.
Lastly, those who are saying I am using sex as a punishment, it's quite opposite. He barely comes home. He is always out with the kids or his girlfriends. I would love to add he doesn't have one but three girlfriend and yes all of them are aware of my existence.
Now to the update.
Last night I made a post about the current situation of my marriage with my husband. Asking if i would be the AH if I refuse to have intimacy. He haven't came back in last three days or contacted me. The kids talks with me daily. I had few conversation with their bio mom too (they are over her parent's place).
Honestly I thought he will get over it or won't bother me for a long time, but I was wrong as hell. During lunch, my mom came over to visit me. she asked if everything was okay between me and my husband. I didn't lie this time and straight up said no. We had a long conversation about my marriage and I was relieved after that. It felt so good after sharing everything with her. I am not ashamed to admit I cried like a kid in her arms while explaining everything. She stayed with me entire day. She called one of my younger brother (26) and told him everything. If I say he was mad it'll be an understatement. He asked why the hell I suffered that much and scolded me for couple of minutes. With the help of my mom and brother I packed my stuffs. I didn't leave with any of the stuffs he got me.
Most likely we will get a divorce soon. I texted a short message in his number, thanking him for being my husband and I won't be continuing the marriage anymore along with some personal stuffs between us. With the help of my friend and family currently I am finding a lawyer. I don't know how long it'll take me to finally get out of the marriage. I left the house around evening and sent the sms around 7. After that I muted his number.
I also told his ex wife about this and needless to say she was as much shocked as everyone. Because he wasn't like that. She assured me that even after divorce she will let me see the kids. I am really grateful for that part. Divorcing him will be easy since we always had separate accounts. I have little savings.
Before I get on my own feet properly I will be staying with my mom in our old house. I turned off my location before leaving his house but it won't be long untill he figures out where am I. He is currently messaging me but I am not strong enough to open them and read them so I haven't responded or read his sms
Relevant Comments
chimera4n: Well done! If he gets upset, just remind him that he was the one who ruined the marriage by cheating.
I say cheating, because an open marriage only works if both partners are willing, a one sided open marriage is just cheating.
Bitter-Picture5394: Good for you. You deserve a life where you are respected and your feelings validated. You will find true happiness as long as you keep advocating for yourself.
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Gonna be a long read, thanks for going through it.
I'm in Canada. I attended Uni for 1 year studying IT but dropped out, I did not like a single moment about it. It killed my passive mild interest in coding. I wanted to study social work but threw that idea away after feeling completely apathetic after helping homeless people in the city. During my NEET years, I fell in love with a game. Eventually, I got a full-time day job working on a computer, and at night I taught many other players how to get better at that game for free, and some were willing to pay a couple bucks. I tried to advertise myself through YouTube, but it didn't take off fast enough and I had to call it quits from stress of overworking myself after 6 months. I wasn't given the opportunity to work part time to be able to focus more on being able to make it work.
I absolutely loved every second of it. Filling in my free time with coaching sessions, building and maintaining new relationships with players, constantly brainstorming new lesson ideas for videos, working on scripts, recording and editing videos, designing the thumbnail. Every single video I released I cherish with all my heart and am very proud of myself for what I have made, and I love coaching players so much I continue to do it to this day for free, though much more sparingly than I used to.
That was a year ago. Nowadays, I pay $500 in rent to live in my parents home and just go full degenrotting whenever I am not at work. When I am at work, I miserably and quietly suffocate, begging internally to be saved by the grace of spontaneous death or a time skip to the weekend, even though its only just an hour into Monday. It is not an exaggeration when I say it feels like suffering to be at work. This is not a case of the 'I hate Mondays'. I've already used up all my sick days and vacation hours to avoid work as of last week, so that leaves me with 6 months of no paid time off remaining to use. It's only Saturday night as I type this, and I am already dreading and stressed out about how I have to go back to work soon.
The job itself is like gold compared to any other minimum wage job around I've seen for no degree. Insurance benefit, well air conditioned, I sit by a window with a view of trees and grass, work hours are 7-2:30 M-F with 30 min paid lunches, the work is easy too as it is just basic data entry, and travel takes only 5-10 mins by car. My supervisors and manager are extremely passive as well and basically completely leave me alone, not even so much as a progress evaluation or anything of the sort. Because of this, I spend at least 60% of my work time (if not more) just browsing reddit on my phone and take bathroom breaks constantly, occasionally I will get high in the middle of the work day too. I am the worst employee, no doubt about it, but I truly can't bring myself to care because I find it gratifying to think that I will be fired. I do not talk with any coworkers and have no friends both inside and outside of work.
Typing out that last paragraph and reading it back, a part of me genuinely thought, Wait, that sounds like a dream job. Yet, despite being in it... I hate it, and it sucks that I do :( At work, I often fantasize about escaping in unhinged ways, like jumping from the second floor, calling in a bomb threat, injuring myself to be admitted to a hospital, and other such ilk. I often question what's wrong with me, and wish I just could be okay with where I am in life, but I deeply feel like my life sucks. I have ADHD, I am taking meds for depression, and also seeing a therapist.
I also like to cook, but love learning new dish recipes even more. I would hate cooking if I worked in a restaurant, and I don't have the chutzpah to become a personal chef.
I appreciate you for reading this far. If I could be allowed an additional luxury, please, if you have any suggestions to help me, please make it as detailed as possible; include the exact steps or relevant resources that would take to achieve your suggestion, as well as a description of what the path you suggest looks/feels like. I need to know not only *what*, but also the *how* and *why*. I understand if not every one is willing to do this, I appreciate you all the same for even just responding.
Thankyou

Yesterday, I had my graduation ceremony. After years of university with absolutely no help besides occasional rides to the bus stop and, very rarely, to campus, I finally graduated. Here's what my parents have done in the lead-up to graduation and the day after instead of supporting me.
My parents spent months leading up to the graduation freaking out about how I'll get a job, trying to control my hair and clothing (even implying I'm ugly when I choose my own hair and clothing), harassing me to hand out business cards to everyone I meet (especially if the situation would be an immense faux pas), grilling me on if my grades are good, lecturing me relentlessly about how I need to keep in contact with people in my class and it's soooo important and would I like to hear about how my dad got a job through nepotism for the eightieth time, asking me questions they already know the answers to (Yes, I'm still talking to my former classmates. Yes, I know that you worked in the Yukon when you were 18. Yes, I know about your friend who worked in a weather station. Yes, I know you had to move to find a job in the 1980s. Yes, I am aware that it is a possibility I might have to move too. Yes, I know that it's okay to invite people over to the house, you've only "informed" me about a hundred times. Yes, I know that school is important.) Every single thing that they "inform" me about is something I have very clearly expressed that I understand, and is just thinly veiled criticism. But my dad needs to lecture more than he needs oxygen.
Just constant nitpicking, criticism, and nothing I ever did was enough. I couldn't even focus on grades, because they would in their own words "put pressure on" me to do what they wanted. To handle their emotions for them. They're obsessed with the idea that I would have to move to a tiny town or work in a coal mine to find a job, because I'm more highly educated than my dad (who dropped out of university despite having all expenses paid by his father), and because my dad worked in the Yukon for two summers. He will never shut up about that, and he even goes so far as to hold us hostage with implicit threat of a massive tantrum to listen to him tell us the story again and again and again and to show us pictures of the place he worked on Google maps and point to everything he remembers. Sometimes he can go on for half an hour just repeating himself over and over.
Last summer, my parents even went and took action without my knowledge or approval to try and get a job set up for me cleaning up a mine contaminated with arsenic in the middle of nowhere, NWT. They tried to guilt and shame me into it ("What are your plans instead? Do you have another job lined up? Because you need to have a job. You can't sit around all day." This coming almost literally one week into summer vacation after my second-last year of university, when I could be using my energy to find interesting co-ops or explore hobbies or travel, instead dealing with their harassment and obsession with trying to literally trap me in a fucking arsenic mine.) They went on and on, lectured me over and over, implied that I would be embarrassing my grandfather if I didn't go, and so on. Eventually they said "You can go work or get a certification", and I picked the certification, but then they got grumpy anyways, and every week for the entire summer they would ask "Are you still working on the certification?". Of course, dipsh*t. I've told you fifty times how long the program lasts.
They don't care about what I'm learning in class, don't care about my hobbies or interests, only care about my friends as either a means to get backdoored into a job or a "nice French Canadian woman" to have babies with. They don't care if I'm struggling, and are completely unavailable to help in any regard. Any request for help would result in a guilt trip. Even if I actually couldn't eat dinner with the family for one day because I had a test, my father would get raw emotions and I'd have to walk on eggshells for a few days. The one time I mentioned I was having trouble studying, instead of shutting up and no longer ranting in the main floor where I could hear him or turning the TV off, he just dragged a table into the unfurnished boiler room (without asking me) and then told me that I would have to study there. I wasn't allowed to choose not to, because he'd already set it up. Ironically, my anger at him did let me study pretty well for the one day that I was forced there. He tried to keep me there long-term because he thought it was just such a great idea, but I managed to trick him into thinking I didn't need help studying anymore, so I got to study at a desk with a light on it and flooring that wasn't bare cement. Hooray for the most minor victory imaginable.
In the months leading up to graduation, did they care about how hard I was working at my capstone project and offer support? Absolutely not! Did they care about how well my sleep quality was, how many times the cat woke me up because they didn't play with her enough or give her enough attention? Nope! Did they care about how exhausting it was to deal with their constant lectures on the same topics, and to have to give them affirmations ("Yes, you're right, that's right, good job, nice, very tasty, good work, oh really?, neat, that's cool, how'd you make that?, mhm, I agree, you're being reasonable, they're being ridiculous, that's crazy") a hundred times a day? Not even in the slightest!
We spend more time talking about my dad's college friends than about anything I or my brother care about.
Then, leading up to graduation. all I've gotten are the most humiliating, infuriating, insulting messages and lectures from my parents. I get almost daily emails and texts saying "You need to get a job, it's important to look for a job" despite the fact I've told them I am looking probably fifty times. Too cowardly to say it to my face. I've been texted literal links to a Google search for "[degree name] jobs [city]" more than once. Both my parents treat me like I don't listen, when I do. They treat me like I'm lazy, when I've put myself through university with no help even after they lied to me about giving me financial aid and made me out to be a bully demanding more money when all I did was say "alright" and then pay for it myself. They must have sternly given me a talking to about how "I'm not going to pay for university, you know that, right? You need to pay. Don't expect us to pay. Because we paid for your first semesters, you know that, right? We've already paid for enough." thirty times, even after I'd made the final payment. They treat me like I'm stupid when I have expressed understanding before. They treat me like I'm a bully while I always bend over backwards for them, just because I don't play my role as "surrogate mommy but this time I get to tell her what to do" well enough.
It feels like they're almost raising me into a replacement or surrogate parent. Like my dad wants me to be his mom or dad, except this time he gets to be in charge. And my mom wants me to be her mom, except this time when she freaks out or has her deer in headlights look, she'll get someone to step up and take care of everything for her. I distinctly remember having to comfort her even for things she did to me, like tell me that a pair of comfortable shoes I picked out was good and she'd get them, and then immediately scream "take it out, take it out!" after it was scanned at the register. I could not have been older than twelve. And for my dad, he always rants and raves to me exactly like he does to his parents, except without including blame for them sending him to boarding school and instead having tons of old "life updates" like where he worked when he was 18 and what music he liked to listen to in high school, stuff like that. Then he expects me to praise him or be interested like his parents never were (he always tells me that his parents only cared about his car when they called).
So now I graduated. All they had to say in the days coming up to it was to grill me on the time I'd have to be at the venue and the time I was planning to leave the house to get there on time, with a distinct air of "you're too lazy to think of this in advance and too stupid to figure it out without a plan". Of course, I had to answer this question probably five times, because they don't care to ever listen to me. Before the ceremony I got text messages showing they were way more excited about themselves being here than anything relating to me, with multiple messages expressing how they arrived and it was exciting, then they asked me how the atmosphere was and their only reply was a one-word "nice" with no punctuation, because they don't care about me and only ask droll questions to segue into their next bit.
After grad, there was two generic sentences spoken with no emotion about how it was nice I graduated, and then they made a whole song and dance about the amazing gifts they got me. It was a degree frame I picked out myself that my dad presented as new and exciting (because he never pays attention to me, of course, when I told him I had picked one out and ordered it with my mother. Also she had another freakout about price and acted like I was holding her hostage by taking her unforced offer to buy me the second-cheapest degree frame on offer.). Then he presented the free gift small frame they got with it as though I should praise him for it, then a congratulation card that was alright I suppose if only because my brother drew a little creature in it that made me smile (my parents did not add anything special or meaningful to it). There was also a cap, which I genuinely enjoy and is nice, and a cheap ballpoint pen for some reason. He said there was more gifts at home, which okay, I don't care about gifts but I'd like him to at least be as excited for my graduation as he was for the picture frame. I didn't get any souvenirs from the bookstore because I knew if I got something he'd also gotten he'd freak out and accuse me of not listening to him or whatever, so I waited. When I got home my gift was Skittles. I don't know why I thought me might have gone to the bookstore and gotten me something special related to my actual interests. He doesn't care to know what those are anyways. I guess I hoped that at least this one day would be different.
Today, the day after graduation, all I've gotten from my parents is:
- Involved in a lecture and manufactured drama about my brother not using my car to drive to his job, even though my dad had the exact opposite position the entire rest of the year, because "what if you need to drive somewhere?", trying to manufacture a fight between my brother and me while also guilting and shaming me for not driving as a hobby like he does.
- A text message from my mother asking me if I'm awake because she wants more ammo to paint me as lazy. Nevermind that I barely slept the night before to make it to grad (of course neither of my parents would care enough about me to come with me as a family. I was literally the only person I saw who went on my own and without their family showing up early too, to support them. I walked past so many families in the parking lot knowing my mother couldn't be bothered to change out of her pajamas for me.) Nevermind I had a huge day that day, and that I was taking care of the cat's energy all that night too because attending my grad is apparently soooo draining my parents can't look after their own pet, and somehow it falls to me. All that matters is she woke up early and I didn't (after I handled all her inconveniences for her, funny how that works).
- Rapid knocks on my door because my dad is making bread as a hobby and apparently "needs" me there to help him with it, and then also "needed" me to stay and make cookies with him.
- A lecture about someone I never knew who apparently once threw something at another kid on my street when I was about 5, and about how he died and how his wife's hobby was really expensive or whatever and if I really don't remember him?
- I went to a showhome for fun and brought back the brochure. My dad jabbed his finger at the pictures on it to explain the house to me like I wasn't the one who literally brought the brochure back. Never asked if I cared or anything, just immediate launch into lecture and expecting me to stay and listen and praise him for being so smart or whatever.
- A lecture about D Day for some fucking reason. My dad is obsessed with history, and he doesn't have any friends to talk to (wonder why) so his lectures always fall on my ears.
- An email from my mother explaining in an extremely condescending way how important it is to have a cover letter when applying for jobs (just completely assuming I don't write them and also am too lazy or stupid to think about having them) including copy-pasted text from a sample cover letter that is no doubt one of the first results on google for "cover letter example"
- An angry email from my mother including a job she found on google
But, contrast that to my neighbors across the street. I was friends them in grade school, haven't seen them in like ten years, and just on my way past to the showhome we said hi and chatted in a genuinely nice conversation that wasn't a one-sided lecture like usual in my house. They could sense my emotions and didn't try to keep me there longer than I wanted to rant, they were genuinely interested in me and gave me space and interest to express myself, their mother even hugged me for graduating and it was the most genuine hug and congratulations I've ever received in person. Every other hug was my family members forcing me to hug them for their own sole benefit. I admit I cried a bit later on my walk thinking about it.
Compared to my parents, the parents of old friends care more about me, trust me more, believe in me more, have more hope for my future, are more interested in me, and understand me better. It's tremendously sad that all throughout my graduation ceremony I was worried about my parents becoming upset for some random reason and blowing up at me. I'm glad I at least focused and made myself feel some pride and joy in myself for graduating.
Even the random people I met who were also taking part in the open house were nicer and better conversationalists than my parents. A random elderly couple I have never seen in my life can have a better interaction with me than my own parents. The realtor was more chill and less perfectionistic than my parents by a mile. His million-dollar house sale was something he was less stressed and perfectionistic about and something he beat himself up over less than my parents are about my hairstyle when I'm going to class because "What if you meet someone in industry and they see you're not professional".
It's absurd.

The Injustice Initiative and Megaverse Council did not grieve with their former leader for too long, due to the combined forces of Venessa and Velocity making swift progress in uniting dozens of Omniverses under their heroic banner. Velocity used her direct and demanding demeanor to influence the defenders of each Omniverse to join the Council and was brutally honest in her meetings with the current situation. She stressed that if they refuse to join then they will face extinction and the Council will not help them when they are attacked due to them only having priorities for attacking the demons head on. Venessa on the other hand focused her attention in strengthening the Injustice Initiative with rigorous training and firing incompetent people in leadership positions and swiftly replacing them with those that were far more competent and understood the severity of the situation. In the span of 16 days, the combined efforts of these two feminine leaders made great leaps in progress that equaled or surpassed Diamond's own work in the past three months.
While these two were on a mission together, The Researcher contacted them regarding a very important matter. When the two heroines arrived at the Council's headquarters The Researcher revealed to them two enormous discoveries. "We finally found them. The place where our foes call home, Omniverse 6,666,666. We do not know much of this Omniverse other than the Diamond from Omniverse 8 being aware of its potential and became paranoid of its existence leading him nearly wiping all traces of it from the Council's database. I happen to uncover the last fragments of his report that failed to be deleted. Furthermore, the Core of that Omniverse is deeply fractured, completely drained of all power. We can deduce with sound reasoning that the landscape of that Omniverse is something out of an apocalypse with everything that could have gone wrong, definitely went wrong. In addition, it is a very wide and vast Omniverse similar to the Main Omniverse. In fact, before its current miserable state, it was a near copy of the Main Omniverse. We are trying to scout and analyze the area as best as we can, but it is blocking all of our scanners. Our supernatural sensors can barely last four seconds before frying when they sense the amount of dark negative energy that shrouds that Omniverse." Velocity, "And the other news?" "We also found a very promising Omniverse that was elusive to our map, but just appeared and is surging with radiant energy from the Light." Venessa abruptly, "Light? Like The Light......... not just colorful lights?" "Correct. Would you care to guess what this Omniverse's number is?" "I would assume it would be the polar opposite of the other, so Omniverse 7,777,777?" "Bingo. Apparently, they have a hierarchy over there and their King requests your presence. His words not mine were King Alexander humbly requests the presence of Empress Venessa of the Main Omniverse and any companions she wishes to bring for a formal meeting in regards to the future protection of the Megaverse."
"Alright, message King Alexander and tell him I will adhere to his request. She accessed her communication com and ordered Tray and Cross to join her on the mission. She then turned to Velocity. I would have you join me on this mission, but I do not want to delay the progress you are making in convincing more Omniverses to join our cause." A short time passed as the three members arrived for their briefing with Venessa. After their meeting, they used their watches and traveled to Omniverse 7,777,777. Their eyes were blinded by the bright rays of the sun, before they could tell where they were at. At last, their eyes adjusted to their environment, which resulted in them being astonished at the shining city that was before them. They observed trains similar to bullet trains zipping back and forth through wind tubes and the residents there in very intricate clothing. The residents either had high collar jackets, dazzling shirts, and most importantly, Venessa could sense all of them having unusual levels of the Light inside of them. A loud voice could be heard behind them. "Are these the people who the King wishes to speak with?" The group turns around and sees two men standing a few feet behind them. One appears six foot and a few inches, he did not wear a shirt but was surrounded with gold and red armor, a long red cape, black pants, and long flowing blonde hair. The other was a little shorter around five feet and possibly 11 inches with black and purple hair, a black and purple cape, purple pants, and purple armor in the exact areas as the first man. The second one responded to his companion in a soft-spoken manner,"Yes, these are the three we were assigned to escort back to the castle." Venessa, "Hey, are you two like siblings or something? You two kind of look alike." The purple one, "That assumption is correct. I am Lucrest and this is my older obnoxious brother Leoped." Leoped, "We are two in a handful of select individuals, who serve the King by carrying out special assignments and investigations." Lucrest, "If you will please follow us, the King is eager to greet you."
The three heroes followed the two guards to the castle, during their walk Venessa teased her sibling, Tray. "It appears those two brothers have larger swords than you. I think they are far superior swordsmen if they can handle large blades like that. It fails to even compare your toothpick of a sword." "Shush! I don't want to hear it. I choose elegance and gracefulness over something flashy." The group finally reached the castle as several guards in colorful shining full body armor saluted the group as they stepped inside the large white crystal doors of the castle. Leoped and Lucrest led the trio right towards the throne room; no sooner than when the doors opened, King Alexander leaped from his throne and welcomed his guests. The King's outfit was composed of expensive black cloth with silver and blue crystals creating his unique armor with gold outlining around the edges and his crown. His hair was white as snow with a cape flowing from his waist with two metallic angelic wings attached to his back. He appeared as someone who was no older than their early 20's, much less muscular than Leoped, while possessing a staggering height of 6,7. "Greetings Empress Venessa, first adopted child of Diamond! A pleasure to finally meet you. Greetings to you Tray, second adopted child of Diamond! And a very warm welcome to Cross, the last member and headmaster of the Royal Guard!" Cross' attitude changed from being standoffish to one of utter shock. No one has addressed him as headmaster since the days of the Clone War. Tray whispered to Venessa, "Headmaster of the Royal Guard? I never knew that about Cross." "Yes, many years in Cross' realm he was headmaster of the Royal Guard, an elite group of warriors who protected his realm from malevolent threats under the orders of a man named the Keeper. This was brought to an end when.........Alastor manipulated him to massacre all of his fellow friends and the Keeper towards the end of the Clone War, mere days before order Kingdom Come was initiated."
King Alexander, "Empress Venessa please accept these gifts as a sign of good will. He signaled for four servants to step forward with bundles of technology and scrolls. The Alphaverse is more than ready to work closely alongside the Megaverse Council to defeat the fallen angels and corrupted souls of the Demonic Council! Please follow me to our war chambers." King Alexander led the heroes down several steps to a room that was protected by several guards. They were granted access and upon entering, the heroes were stunned to see holographic displays of plans and projects that were scattered as two male figures were debating with a female. The figures turned to the doors and quickly turned off the scattered plans and pulled up a file that said, "Propositions and explanation for the Megaverse Council." One unique hologram Venessa saw before it disappeared was a hologram of the Matrix of Eternity with a subject line under it labeled "Restore the Matrix to its former power?" As Venessa was deep in thought, King Alexander spoke to his guests who the other three figures were, "The lanky one with grey hair and a gas mask is our lead chemist, Lorenzo. The other one with him with the crimson operator hat, black and red hair, and basically black and red from his natural wings to his armor adored with many medals is our head of homeland security, Viciate. Last but not least is our lead scientist of technology, and weapons, whose brilliance I cannot put into words, Malissia." Malissia had medium length jet black hair that only left her left eye visible, yet it appeared she had unique facial marks that were long black lines leading up to her eyelids. She wore a long black coat that went just above her ankles with boots in the shape of heels. Nearly everything she wore was black except her shirt which was white with print that resembles computer chips. Malissia, "I prefer to go by M." Tray in a playful manner, "A little gothic in your appearance compared to everyone we've seen today!" "Simply a matter of taste and perception." Tray then noticed Malissia had white irises as the rest of her eyes were black, which created a sense of mystery behind them.
Lorenzo, "The disgraced Royal Guard is here......." King Alexander disappointingly, "Lorenzo......we talked about this." Venessa, "Hey what was that project regarding the Matrix of Eternity about? How would any of you be able to reload it?" King Alexander, "We have the source that originally fueled the Matrix. We were the ones who originally created it." Cross and Tray were shocked to hear such a revelation. Was the king bluffing or legitimately telling the truth? Malissia, "The reason you saw so many other projects scattered was due to these two knuckleheads trying to push these loose ideas my way, knowing full well we had a meeting today." Viciate, "Then Lorenzo and I should be going." Viciate and Lorenzo leave the room as King Alexander and Malissia start speaking with Venessa, Tray, and Cross. Lorenzo and Viciate journeyed far from the castle's boundaries and into the outskirts of the gorgeous city into a dark alleyway where a female was waiting for them. "Have you two finally reached a decision?" Lorenzo, "Yes, we have, Paradox." Paradox in a feminine form smiled while twirling their hair, with a snap of their fingers a contract appeared before Lorenzo and Viciate. "Both of you sign there. Viciate tried to sign with a pen, but Paradox stopped him. Nuh uh uh, in blood!" Viciate pulled a dagger and cut a piece of flesh off him and Lorenzo as they signed the contract that bonded them to Black Hat. See that wasn't so hard. Now I sense you have something to tell me?" Viciate, "The Empress, playboy, and ex-harbinger of darkness are here. They learned of the plans to restore the Matrix of Eternity." A sadistic smile appeared on Paradox's face, "Wonderful! Wonderful! Things could not be better! With your help we can kill those three now and you two will rule this Omniverse as the new kings only in service to Black Hat and the Council. Let them retrieve the remains of the Matrix, and we can either strike before or after they restore the Matrix, then steal it and place it within the treasury with the other dangerous objects that could pose a threat to our reign. Run along now and continue to play your parts like good little errand boys." Paradox gave them a wink. Lorenzo, "Freak! When it comes to your services, we work with you, not for you!" The two then leave as Paradox continues to smile in the shadows.
Back in the war chamber. Venessa, "Impressive. All that you are proposing will greatly benefit us. I can see your offers are sincere, but I must ask, why it took you this long to reveal yourselves?" King Alexander, "That is........simply because of an old law......that had been in effect for thousands of years. I wanted to honor my father and his father, but eventually my consciousness allowed me to overturn that old silly law." Loud footsteps could be running through the halls as a young teenage girl open the doors to the room with pieces of paper in her arms. She began to speak clearly out of breath, "I'm here sister. The documents you wanted." Mallisa, "A few minutes late like usual, Joan." "It's not my fault, military class went on longer than normal! Gosh, how many times do I have to tell you I hate it that mom and dad forced me to become a soldier!" "Everyone, this is my younger sister, Joan. Joan this is Empress Venessa and her two colleagues, Tray and Cross." Everyone exchanged friendly greetings except for Tray who stared at Joan. There was something about Joan that captivated him, it was either the childish way she speaks or the fact she had navy hair like he did. Instead of a handshake, he wrapped both his hands around hers and knelt down, "My fair lady, it is with great honor to meet you. I pray that you will accept my greeting as one of humbleness and may good health and prosperity follow you all the days of your life, my dearest madam." Everyone in the room stared dumbfounded at Tray's speech. Cross, "Where the crap did that come from Shakespeare?" Joan stood there blushing as she stuttered while addressing Tray, "Th....thank y...yo.....you." King Alexander, "Well this meeting is nearing its end, so why don't Tray and Joan spend some time with each other while the rest of us handle the closing logistics?" Mallisa, "WHAT THE?" "Alright it's settled then. Tray and Joan, you two are dismissed."
Joan and Tray stared at each other before she offered Tray some lunch, which he readily agreed to. Alexander turned back to Venessa, "Venessa, if you don't mind, I will like you and your party to stay here the next four days. The first two can be used to handle business regarding our technology and battle tactics as I introduce you to our greatest soldiers, warriors, and fighters. The last two days can be a sort of mini vacation." "Well..........I don't think such an offer will hurt. You have yourself a deal King Alexander!" At lunch Tray and Joan were deep in conversation. Tray, "You look much different than your sister. Your eyes are normal, you are much more cheerful, and just overall livelier." "My sister takes all the stress and responsibilities of the family upon her. That and her role in the kingdom just adds more stress to her. As for her eyes and facial markings, those came when she felt called to the Spring of Restoration." "What now?" "The Spring of Restoration grants those worthy unique properties or powers. Only a select few experience a change from the spring. It is not heavily protected because the spring prevents anyone unworthy from stepping foot in its waters." "Radical." "Mhm!" "So, I heard you fighting with your sister about you hating being trained as a soldier. Why is that?" "It freaking sucks! My parents do not want me to be an astronomer or engineer! They want me to become a Celestial Crusader. On top of that, I don't even get to choose what I want to do or what I want to eat a majority of the time! Eating lunch with you right now is a rare occurrence." "Have you brought your problems to the king?" "Yes, but I don't know if he is hearing my pleas or not. If he's not, I don't blame him, he has a lot on his mind and considering my parents are very influential in terms of politics, if the king makes a brash move, my parents will give him political turmoil." Tray abruptly received a message from Venessa stating their four day stay. He was excited and already made up his mind that he will spend these four days showing Joan the freedom she is missing out on.
The next two days, King Alexander did everything he said he would to Venessa and Cross. Among the strongest warriors and fighters were Ezekiel with his four angelic wings and star saber, Phonix with his ability to control time and fire, Ian with the ability to create things out of metal at will and his large sword in the shape of a key, Vivi with her ability of harnessing animal souls and acquiring their powers and abilities to her disposal, and with several other notable fighters. Yet, the group was slowly stalked by Lorenzo who reported all of their movements to Paradox. The next two days arrived where Venessa and Cross briefly parted ways in order to find some way to relax before returning to base. On the fourth day, Venessa contacted her adoptive mother, Selena, for a special request. She wanted Selena to travel to the Alphaverse with the Matrix of Eternity in order to restore it with wisdom capable of changing the tide of the war. As for Joan and Tray, the two traveled all across the kingdom from going to the beach, kayaking, visiting the aquarium, and art museum. Tray taught Joan how to properly duel and was deeply proud when she complimented him on his elegant sword. Unknown to them Viciate was also reporting their activities to Paradox. On one of their stops, Joan brought Tray to the Spring of Restoration just for them to sight see. Yet, she was startled when Tray stopped responding to her. His eyes were affixed at the spring as he slowly started to step towards it. Joan tried to stop him, but her petite body could not stop him.
Suddenly, he stopped on the edge of the spring and bent down scooping up the water as he started to drink it from his hands. Joan was confused at Tray's behavior, "Are you......alright?" Before Tray could turn around, he collapsed on the ground. "TRAY!" She ran to him, but when she arrived, his eyes opened wildly as his body started to glow with an unearthly light. Tray's body started to transform with his pupils becoming white similar to Mallisa but instead of the other part of his eye becoming black, it became a bright cyan color. His navy hair became white with a few streaks of cyan along with his olive skin changing to being white as quartz. His outfit even started to change around him with his clothes glowing with a clear like cyan substance with a hood gently resting on his hair. Gold embroidered his collar as a unique glowing cyan halo appearing over his head. "Joan.....please tell me I'm not dead." "I uhhhh you mmmmmmm I guess not? Here let me show you what you look like." Joan opened her camera and took a photo of him in order for Tray to see the photo. "Oh my gosh I became even more handsome." "Seriously, that's what you think about after looking like you just died on me!" "Hey, I'm sorry for zoning out on you like that. I just heard a soothing voice calling me from the Spring and I could not help but follow it." "The voice was more than soothing than mine?!" "Well yes...CRAP NO NOT LIKE THAT I SWEAR!" Joan started punching Tray as he let out a hearty laugh. From the shadows Viciate contacted Paradox on what happened and for Paradox to arrive swiftly to exterminate the couple.
The two continued on their walk after having their emotions die down. Yet, there was a sort of tension in the air between the two as one waited for the other to speak first. At last, Tray was the one to break the tension as he stopped Joan and decided to finally reveal to her the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind the past few days. "Joan, I don't know how to say this but, whenever I am around you, I just feel warm inside and what I could only describe as butterflies, erupt in my stomach." Joan blushed deeply before responding, "Oh Tray!" "Joan, if you do not want to enlist in the Celestial Crusaders, you don't have to. I'm offering you a choice. I see how much you care for your older sister and your eagerness for freedom. I encourage you to follow your heart and join me. I promise with every fiber in my being that my family and I will protect you and support you with whatever decision you make." Joan with tears in her eyes. "Oh Tray! Thank you! I want to briefly stay here so I can help my sister with any last assignments and join you on exploring the Megaverse and you taking me back to the Omniverse you call home! Thank you, thank you for being such a wonderful person to me these past four days. Truthfully, I can say I feel the same when I am around you. Your outgoing free-spirited nature is very cute and contagious." Tray extends his hand towards Joan, "Then what are we waiting for? Take my hand and I will show you all the wonderful places in my Omniverse! Obviously after you are done helping your sister of course." He gave her a big comforting smile as he waited for her to wipe the tears of gratitude off her face. However, just before she could place her hand in his, a gunshot went off as a singular bullet went through the right side of Joan's head and exited out of the left. Tray opened his eyes and was horrified at the pool of blood emerging from Joan's body as she lay lifeless on the ground. He was shaken as he heard a sickening laugh. He hastily turned his head to the direction of the laughter.
Tray's eyes widened in confusion as he saw Gadget Bandito emerge from the shadows. "What.....what are you doing here? How did you get here? Why have you done this after being a loyal member of the Initiative for many years?!" "Doesn't matter. Any last words kid?" Tray thought inwardly, "Wait......no......there is no way he is the real Gadget Bandito. The real one does not even know a lot of the Megaverse, much less keep up with any news from the Initiative." He finally spoke out loud. "My powers and senses are telling me you are Gadget Bandito. But my heart, mind, and soul tell me otherwise! WHO ARE YOU?" Paradox finally revealed himself to Tray as he morphed into his mechanical appearance. Tray finally spoke after being at a loss for words, "I know you. I know who you are. No, you are not even a person anymore. You have turned yourself into something unrecognizable. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! YOU ARE THE CREATURE WHO MURDERED MY FATHER'S PARENTS ON THE NIGHT OF HOLY THURSDAY!" Paradox had a twisted malicious grin on his mechanical face as he spoke, "Aren't you a smart one." Tray began to channel his new powers granted to him from the Spring of Restoration. "I WILL NOT ONLY AVENGE THE DEATH OF DIAMOND'S PARENTS! BUT FOR JOAN WHO YOU SHOT IN COLD BLOOD! DIE YOU BODY MORPHING BASTARD!"
Filled with pure rage, Tray could not control his powers as Paradox merely toyed with him before using Tray's disorientation to his advantage. Paradox was able to overpower the young hero, but briefly underestimated his new power buff when Tray's halo pierced itself into Paradox's chest. This comeback was shortly lived due to the intervention of Viciate who incapacitated Tray and tied him up. Elsewhere, Venessa felt a disturbance in her gut and thus gathered Cross and met with King Alexander to ask where Tray and Joan were at. The King did not know of their location much to the dismay of Venessa, but suddenly in the throne room a thick green mist entered the room which knocked the guards and the heroes unconscious. Lorenzo did his best to pick up the bodies of the heroes and tie them up, "Now we just wait for the Queen of Asteria to arrive and snatch the Matrix from her by ransoming these hostages."
Meanwhile Selena took care of Diamond and would not allow him out of her sight. If he had to leave her house, she would go with him wherever he went, due to the public opinion on him fiercely divided. There were some who believed the attacks were caused by him while others knew that he would never do such a thing and it had to be an imposter. She would fiercely criticize any bystander who booed or tried to assault Diamond. Diamond on the other hand did not like how Selena was being overprotective of him, and her reasoning was that his mental state was not in a good place. Truthfully, it felt like he was on house arrest. One day the two of them took a nap on Selena's couch, when Selena was notified to embark on the mission to Omniverse 7,777,777. She did not have Diamond know what mission it was, but said it was important. "Don't do anything stupid or silly while I'm gone. And do not go on any adventures either! If I find out you left the town, you won't hear the end of it!" "Alright sheesh I got it."
Selena traveled to Sanctuary and entered one of the passwords a few of the elite members possessed in order to gain access to the broken remains of the Matrix of Eternity. She grabbed the pieces and created a portal to the Alphaverse. Once Selena teleported off to her mission, Diamond took advantage of this opportunity and decided to venture into town. He grabbed his Bluetooth earbuds and walked outside to his favorite coffee shop. While walking, he played Have You Ever Seen The Rain, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of his father's favorite bands. He could not resist but sing along with the lyrics, "When it's over so they say it'll rain a sunny day, I know, shining down like water. I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day." During his stroll a handful of protestors spotted him and began to yell, "Murderer! Thief! Crook! Liar!" One such protestor threw a pot of hot water at him, which nearly resulted in Diamond retaliated, but he bore these wrongs patiently and continued on his way. He turned a corner into an alleyway and started to dance and jump in the puddles. On the other side were a set of stairs where he slowly danced his way down each step to the closing parts of the song still singing with raw emotion. "Yeaaaaahhhhhhhh I wanna know have you seen the rain? I wanna know have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day."
He turned off his music when he entered the doors of the small shop and waited patiently in line. After he finished placing his order and pulled out his wallet to pay, the cashier whispered to him, "It's on the house. You are still a hero to us who work here." "Are you sure ma'am?" "Yes. It'll be out shortly." He took a seat near a window and started reading the local newspaper in silence. Just then a little boy who was with his parents came to his side and started to speak with him. "Excuse me sir, but are you, Diamond?" Diamond chuckled to himself, "Well there is no use in hiding my identity. Yes, I am." "Can you tell me what it was like during the year I was born?" "Uh, odd request but yeah I can tell you, first I have to ask how old are you?" "I just turned four!" "Well happy birthday! Let's see four years ago was 2016.....wait no it was 2020. Gosh was 2020 four years ago? Man, all these adventures all start flowing together kid. So, around this time an old enemy of mine named......" Diamond abruptly stopped speaking as he felt a disturbance. "Named who, sir?" Diamond stood up and slowly walked to the doors as a giant explosion went off in the center of town. Everyone started screaming, running in all directions from the blast, as Diamond signaled his AI using his nanotech vision glasses. "HONEY what are we looking at? HONEY? Crap I never turned you back on." Diamond hastily had his nanotech grow on his left arm as he turned on the setting to activate HONEY. "I'm back! Are you ok boss, did you do anything brash when I was gone?" "We can catch up later HONEY, right now I need you to prevent traffic from entering this street and alert the local authorities." "Yes sir!"
While all of this was happening on Earth, Selena's portal finally brought her to the Alphaverse. She begins to mutter to herself, "Alright Venessa I'm here. Hopefully we can get this done quickly, because I don't trust Diamond being by himself." Selena was cautious of her surroundings, due to being greeted with an eerie vacant throne room. She suddenly heard a quiet "help me," this prompted her to locate the source of the voice which resulted in her finding Lorenzo lying next to a pillar. "Please help me." "Who did this to you, where are they now, and have you seen a young girl with pink and blue hair go by?" Selena used her powers to silently read the injured person's mind, but before her powers could alert her of it being a trap, she heard another voice which caused her pupils to shrink with fear. "Hello my precious doll." Selena turned to face the new voice and to her horror, she saw Paradox standing behind her, appearing the same way he looked the day before he died. The trauma from the mistreatment and terror she received from him overridden her senses and caused her to stand completely motionless. Behind her Lorenzo leaped and took off his mask expelling a strong toxin into her lungs causing her to faint and drop the pieces of the Matrix. Lorenzo, "Why did you change the plan to capture her instead of bargaining with her?" Paradox, "Because I want the last thing, they see is me holding the reloaded Matrix and handing it over to my masters." Paradox then switched back to his mechanical body and wrapped Selena in thick pairs of chains. He then took her body along with the rest of the heroes to the depths of the castle.
Simultaneously on Earth, Diamond slowly made his way to the source of the blast as he yelled at the pedestrians to head southbound. When he reached the center of the blast three figures emerged. A hulking lizard creature, a humanoid squid, and a tall figure wrapped in black cloth with piercing red goggles. "HEY! THIS TOWN IS CLOSED TO THUGS LIKE YOU TODAY!" The man in black cloth responded back, "We were wishing for a fight with Selena, but facing you is even better!" "I suggest you stand down before I rip a tentacle from your friend Squidward!" "Grok shut his mouth." The hulking creature lifted his axe from his back and started charging at Diamond. Diamond tapped his chest as his nanotech started to form around him as he created several large blasters from his back and fired at Grok. The blasts sent Grok flying backwards to his two other companions, but the man in black simply waved his hand to the right which sent Grok crashing into a local store. Diamond flew towards the humanoid squid and started punching him with unrelenting force that caused the squid to vomit quantities of ink. The man in black teleported behind Diamond and used his mystic powers to gain the upper hand by distorting the reality around them. The squid shaped his head into a spear and tried to pierce Diamond with his poison, but Diamond dodged it and sent him hurdling towards the man in black, breaking the reality illusion. He then had his suit create a sticky net which he shot to capture both the man in black and squid. Grok finally managed to get back up, but upon seeing his comrades captured, he clicked a button on his belt that resulted in him exploding creating a blast deadlier than the first. Diamond noticed there were a few people that were in the blast radius of this second explosion and flew towards them using his strength to hold the falling debris from the tall business building. The debris piled the streets with dust and papers, until the sound of sirens broke the silence. Law enforcement arrested the two other villains while Diamond was barely holding large portions of fallen walls, glass, and stone from crushing him and the civilians under him. The leading officer noticed Diamond struggling in the debris, but decided not to help him, he thought to himself, "Let's see if he can truly save others and be the hero the weak minded believe him to be." The crushing weight began to take a toll on Diamond as he slowly began to lose his footing until he was on his knees holding the debris up.
"I promise.....I will get all of you out alive!" Negative thoughts began to enter his mind as various voices began to call out. "You are not good enough. You couldn't save your own parents; how can you save these unfortunate souls? You are playing a fool's game. See how the law enforcement refuses to acknowledge your existence. Face it your story is over. Finished. You are nothing but a weak boy who thought he could have been a great hero." Diamond tried to block out these voices, but they began to take a toll on him, nearly causing him to give up, but then a quiet voice entered his mind. A voice smooth like honey but strong as thunder echoed in his mind. "You are something more. Look inside yourself, you are something far more than when you started all those years ago as a small-town hero. Do not listen to their empty words, listen to me. Do you renounce sin?" "I do." "Do you renounce the Devil, the sin whisperer, and all his empty promises?" "I do!" "Do you believe in the Faith of your fathers, the Resurrection, and life everlasting?" "I do!" "Arise my child." At that very moment Diamond felt the power of the Light course through him at greater quantities than before as his body began to glow with gold and white light. With a newfound access to the Light, Diamond felt it was only natural to change the wording when harnessing its power, "Through the power of Heaven's Light.......All things are possible!" Diamond effortlessly lifted the debris away from him as the civilians under his care ran to the rest of the crowd. The onlookers stared at Diamond's glowing gold and white body. They were baffled in amazement as a few murmured amongst themselves, "Truly this is the act of a selfless hero."
Diamond did not hear the crowd's cheers, whistles, and praises as he stood deep in contemplation. Deep within his soul, he was able to sense his family was in grave danger. With his connection to the Light restored, he made it his new mission to travel to the Omniverse where he sensed the disturbance. He quietly spoke to himself, "Oh yeah I'm ready to whip the person who is so bent on ruining my life! But first, I have to do it in style. He allowed his suit to create two large speakers; HONEY make sure the volume is on max. Time for us to go back into the Megaverse!"
To Be Continued In The Alphaverse Part 2

Manga one coming straight after this!
Now I don't know many animes translated from Light Novels or Web Novels, but I have read and watched: Re:Zero Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai Konosuba Sword Art Online
In my opinion, this question is a lot deeper than you think. This is because there is no inherent better option, as both anime and light novels convey emotions in different ways, with anime being more condensed and easier to follow and light novels using description and time to build scenes up better. So I'm not going to outright say out of these 4 which is the BETTER one, but I will give pros and cons for the animr and light novel as well as my personal preference based on them.
Re:Zero: This is a tough choice. With Re:Zero, I can't really choose between . I prefer watching anime more than reading, but subjectively, even I have to agree the writing of the light novel is just amazing. Every nitpick of the anime (Season 2 being too drawn out, Episode 13, Subaru's annoyingness at the start) is both explained and remedied in the light novel. The light novel highlights character development even more than the anime, and interactions happen more in the Novel than anime. The arcs are written so witty but professional, so it feels like you're reading the first place winner of a short story contest throughout the whole novel. If you ever just read the PROLOGUE, you'll understand how good the writing is. It's almost like Tappei Nagatsuki's internal Montague is the one reading us the story. BUT, and this is a huge BUT, the anime has the best soundtrack when it comes to correlating scenes. It's very smart to play the ED during good scenes to emphasize the importance of those scenes, and the EDs are so emotional in itself that they triple the emotional impact of whatever scene is happening. The overall soundtrack also has the same effect. This is why it's so hard to choose between light novel and anime.
Rascal Does Not Dream of a Bunny Girl Senpai: I think this is a another toss-up depending on which form of media you prefer more, as both the light novel and anime/movies are absolutely incredible. Much like Re:Zero, the light novel is very detailed, going very into depths of scenes in the anime and giving the reader a lot more time to digest the emotional impact of the scene. Mai and Sakuta in the light novel is written more lovey-dovey, while the anime versions of the two of them tone that down a little (like a teeny tiny bit) and focus more on the tsundere aspect of Mai and the cleverness behind every word of Sakuta. The thing the book lacks though is the music that plays an integral role in creating such a large emotional impact when watching the anime. Seisyunbutayaro is the track most people think of when considering an emotional scene, and hearing it definitely makes scenes feel more important to the viewer. Also, the OP and ED, on top of being some of the best ever, play such an emotional role into making each episode feel unique (OP shows Sakuta's perseverance and will to help everyone, and the ED shows the girl with the Adolescence Syndrome for the episode).
Konosuba: Hear me out. The anime is a more enjoyable experience for me than the light novel. Yes, I admit, the writing is excellent, and the light novel is funny as heck, the parodies slap, but there's something about the anime's hilarious exaggeration of everything that just WORKS. It's such a fun watch and isn't afraid to do silly things to get watchers to laugh. It's more or less the same in the light novel, but the comical expressions and lovable cast presented in anime form hit different for me. Music is used to a great extent, and the voice acting is amazing.
Sword Art Online: I think the general consensus is that the light novels are better than the anime, and I... kind of have to agree with this one. Don't get me wrong, I like the SAO anime, I think it's an... interesting watch, but the severe condensing of major plot points, completely unnecessary camera angles, very uncomfortable scenes and removal of important traits from main characters like Kirito really do affect the anime more than it should. The light novel, while also with its flaws in writing, is am overall more enjoyable experience to me. Kirito has more of a personality, the relationship with him and Asuna is much more fleshed out and even BETTER than their anime relationship because it covers more of it, and the Progressive series extends the Aincrad Arc and gives readers more or less what they were expecting from the anime (all floors of Aincrad). Uncomfortable scenes in the Novel don't feel as bad as witnessing the scenes in the anime. The one thing the anime has that is more enjoyable than than reading the light novel is the use of music and the brilliant sounding OP and ED for basically every season.
What animes do you consider better or worse than it's Light Novel?

In other words, what parts of the magical world would be so universal that the could not be hidden and are considered "normal" to magical and mundane alike, but would stand out in comparison to our own reality?
I would propose that snakes in the world would be known to mundane and magical alike as highly intelligent- as in the way in our world dolphins and, to a less popularly known extent, octopi are known as highly intelligent "near sentient" animals. With snakes there being similarly classified and exhibiting similar problem solving and other such actions the aforementioned species are known for here. Thus reasoned and extrapolated from snakes having a language and ability to understand abstract concepts and have desires for such.
"Dinosaur" skeletons would also have differences from ours as there would be some dragon and other such magical creatures' skeletons within the fossil records and at somepoint they would get out and the knowledge of such would be widespread enough to have to be hidden as "extinct" species with their previous existence known but their magical natures and the species' survival being hidden.
Then various cryptids, myths, and "urban legends" are already real as per canon (unicorns, dragons, werewolves, vampires, wampus cats from canon, potentially yeti/bigfoot/sasquatch, chupacabra, and the like). Roswell Aliens actually being some magical being, similar to other smaller magical beings such as the Goblins, House Elves, Puckwudgie, and Leprechaun (heck house elves' description has a very slight similarity if you take away the big ears and maybe noses.. at least with the "big tennis ball like eyes" and small stature). Basically there would likely be enough sightings and such for "something else out there" for the much more of mundane society to be "believers" to some degree, especially as technology progressed and information got spread much further anduch faster as time went on.
But what other aspects of the world as known to muggles there would be different to what we know here?

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."