Pain olympic women

Prompt: The Variants of Vampires. Think of an alternative vampire that survives on something other than blood. Write a story or scene based on this character.
As the sun faded over the horizon, Vlad’s eyes opened slowly. A sigh escaped his cold lips, and he stretched his long legs onto the red velvet lining of his coffin. Another day has come. He thought sadly, as he had everyday for last 206 years.
He checked his timepiece in the left chest pocket of his silk pajamas, 8:36 p.m. Thankful for the spring sun that set earlier than it would in the coming months, he pushed on the heavy hardwood lid of his resting place. With a creak the wood swung open, landing heavily to the side. While a modern coffin would no doubt be lighter, and easier to open every evening, this one was sentimental to him. As he had been buried in this exact coffin 206 years ago, at 35 years old.
With a heavy sigh, Vlad rose and climbed onto the step that sat beside his coffin. His stomach rumbled, and he knew he had no choice but to venture to the kitchen of his estate home. With his head hung low, he began to undress.
You see, Vlad was not like other vampires. His long life was full of loneliness, even for one who was undead. When he had first been turned by his Maker he was optimistic, excited even, for the wonders of the world he would be able to see. With no time limit, no fear of death, and an infinite supply of food walking the earth- the possibilities stretched before him like the vastness of the night sky.
However, Vlad was unable to satiate the hunger that filled him, that turned him into a ravenous beast, night after night. The mere thought of blood churned his stomach, much to his Maker’s chagrin.
Isabel was her name. Even the thought of her filled him with longing. Her had loved her once, and she him, until they learned the truth: Vlad could not be sustained by blood, but one of the things that all Vampires feared: Garlic. Of all things. The thought still flooded him with embarrassment, even after more than two centuries of living as a Vampire.
He climbed the steps from his dirt cellar, whose entrance lay hidden behind a false door that led into the Master bedroom of his estate. He lifted the heavy wooden lever that would propel the door open to his closet. The clever vault disguised by many shelves of his expensive leather shoes. He kept an armoire near his coffin for convenience, as sometimes he awoke before the sun had set. A terrible habit he picked up 50 years prior.
He wound his way from the closet into the room, down the long hallway, and the curved staircase to the first floor. His heavy footsteps echoed eerily in his quiet manse, as his staff had already left at the end of their workday, thinking that he was abroad on business. A ruse which was quickly growing thin. Soon I shall have to replace my staff again, how much easier this dreary life would be if I could simply drink from them. He mused.
Vlad had no excitement for the night, as even the mere smell of his skin repulsed those of his kind. He was unable to rejoin his coven, the one that he had briefly reveled in. Expensive goblets of crisp red blood he could not drink, dances and guests from around the globe each night, the women with their necks adorned with jewels, some thought long lost to the mortals of the world, but safely stashed in the secret rooms of the elites of the Vampire world. The men in their black tuxedos, fashionable hairstyles and long white teeth often exposed in laughter. His tenure in his coven had been short, merely days, but it had been a lifestyle he mourned. He and Isabel had tried to make things work… But this train of thought was far too painful, and his stomach panged once again, so he quickened his steps and focused once again on his coming meal.
He made his way into the back kitchen, not the formal kitchen he would have likely entertained Isabel in (if he was a “normal” Vampire), but into the staff kitchen where the fridges were, and food was prepared and stored. Rows and rows of dried garlic bundles hung from the exposed wooden beams, all harvested from the garden on the grounds.
Vlad once again rued his life, as he wished the preparation of his meal didn’t fall to him each night. But he reached up and took down a bundle, released a corm from its tight knot, and sat at the stool at the quartz countertop, grabbing for one of his Japanese Damascus knives that made his task of slicing his garlic head easy.
Briefly inspired, Vlad decided a garlic comfit would be nice, and he got to work.

This is a slightly meandering story. Sorry for the length.
Our daughter - call her Jillian - (38F) got re-married two years ago to, say, Joe (40M). His mother is what I call a "sheeple". She worships the ground a certain Republican walks on. Now we're Republican, but very liberal and I despise this certain 'politician'. Joe warned his mother before we met NOT to bring up politics. We went out to dinner to meet, having a lovely time, then MIL to be starts talking politics. I get up and excuse myself to the restroom. This happened several times, and I always handled it basically the same way. Removing myself from the room.
As an aside, I should mention that I was mobile then. Now I use a rollatewalker because I need a hip replacement and have for several years.
Finally the Thanksgiving before the wedding, I reached my limit. I was in pain and AGAIN MIL to be brings up some case that highlighted gun use. I got up snapped at her something in opposition to what she was saying and starting to "roll" off. She sneered and said I must be a liberal snowflake. My response was that I was a Liberal Republican who believed in women's rights & gay rights. Then I literally told hubby "we're leaving" and stormed out as best I could.
Wedding came, and everything went smooth. MIL sat next to me, we chatted, we were polite. No politics. I thought everything was fine. Though MIL got to sit at head table and we did not. We sat in first table with other family members.
Holidays come around again and we get a phone call from Jillian. We're no longer going to have holidays with her and Joe because they can't put me and MIL together and MIL is single (been divorced for decades), while hubby and I have each other. I was hurt and said it wasn't fair. She has a son from her first marriage - our only grandchiold - and he lives in another state with his father. So we only see him during summer months and a few holidays each year. Jillian decided to compromise. Since her son would be with his Dad at Christmas, she had Easter the following year (2024). She would have us over for Easter,, but MIL would get Thanksgiving. Okay, that sounds fine.
A month before Easter we get a call that our niece and her family would be travelling home from Disney World and spending the Easter weekend with Jillian and Joe. Their house would be too crowded (7 total w/o us), therefore we wouldn't be allowed to spend Easter with them. I wanted to see my niece and her family too. "Maybe you can go out to dinner while they're here." I blew up, I admit it. She has cut us off once before from grandson (don't even remember why), when we ask to be invited to outings with grandson she tells us that it's too difficult for me or I would slow them down. We paid for parts of their wedding, I've given her money when married to first husband to help them out. I have an elderly father in our hometown that she keeps promising to take grandson to visit (he's only met him once and never met Joe), but always has an excuse.
Finally I threw my hands up and have washed them of her. She did send me a text wishing me a "Happy Birthday" last month, but I ignored it. Nothing for Mother's Day. None of us have blocked the others on SM. I just don't want anything to do with her anymore, grandson or not. I'm tired of swallowing my thoughts & feelings so we woudn't be cut off from him. So if we have to lose him too, at this point, so be it. My father is not going to be around many more years and I don't want them at the funeral, either. If she can't be bothered to visit him while he's alive, then don't visit when he passes.
So are WTA in overreacting and should we reach out?

Hello! So, if you remember me - I made a post about how my SO sexually coerced me among other things and it’s been two weeks since I left the relationship.
I made a follow up post about how I was feeling like shit and depressed but the second week has been so much better, specially realizing that I can just… do things. Without having to give him exportations. I reconnected with my friends because I could finally pick up my phone and text them because when I was with him, he’d text me so much I didn’t even want to look at my phone.
Am I still in pain and miss him? Yes, it’s grief after all. But doing so much better.
Now, I needed to get this off my chest: Since the break up, my mom’s EX has been texting me to ask me how I was doing. I had a great relationship with her so I replied to her texts. She asked me to please not to tell him anything about her texting (and I know she’s not lying about this because I know him and know he wouldn’t want that).
However, I feel her texts started to become a “get back with my son please” through time.
At first she only said how sad she was about it because she loves me. But then it was like “you’ve been 5 years together, I don’t understand what happened that you can’t resolve talking”. And I was like… okay, it’s her son, she sees that he’s sad, she’s his mom after all.
Then she texted me a second time, asking me how my mom was doing (she’s been hospitalized but she’s good now), so of course I replied. I asked her how she was doing and she told me she couldn’t stop thinking about what could’ve happened between us, that she doesn’t understand how is something we can’t resolve talking (spoiler: YOUR SON DOESNT KNOW HOW TO HAVE A HEALTHY CONVERSATION WITHOUT MANIPULATION!!)
So I wrote him a long text about how he needed to mature, basically explaining a lot of stuff but decided to delate it because it’s not something she has to know. She later replied with “I don’t know what you delated, I just feel that if you really loved him you’d do the impossible to be with him”
Uhmm… excuse me? I have to do the impossible to be with him??? Why do you think she did nothing wrong???
I didn’t reply to that and she texted a few days later just asking how I was. Nothing more to that.
So… today she texts me again. She said that she didn’t want to bother me, she just wanted to know how I was. I replied that things were complicated. She said that she was sad and then “I’m sorry to ask you this but did he do something wrong? I’d like to know because I can’t understand, you two never fought and suddenly it’s over. I can’t understand it. I’m sorry I have so many questions in my head”
I answered “it’s hard. There were a lot of things that we couldn’t resolve. It was the best for both of us”.
And this is what she replied “it’s ok, I really understand that but he doesn’t want to talk and he told us that he doesn’t know what could’ve happened because you two were in good terms. Also last month you two went together on a trip. But I guess something is happening that you two aren’t giving the relationship another chance. If you don’t want to tell me I understand completely but it’s weird because you were 5 years together, not a month. I won’t bother you anymore, I know now that there’s no turning back. I’m so sorry because he saw because of your eyes”
So… after I spoke to my friends, mom and SIL about it (lol) I decided not to reply to the text. There’s nothing I could take her that would satisfy her enough and I can’t tell her the real reasons because I don’t trust her with that and don’t want to become this into a circus.
I really care for her but she’s overstepping.
However, I came to two conclusions after this:

1. Even after 5 years together and me constantly telling him what was wrong, he still doesn’t understand why I left him and believes everything was fine between us. Five years together and this dude never saw me at all.
   
2. He’s so fucking dependent because of this. His mom (and me at the time) resolved all his problems so he can’t be an independent person at all. Like his mom is talking to me asking for reasons. Wanting to get back together with him. SHE’s doing that, not him. This dude is 26 years old!!
   

I don’t judge her tho, because even though she’s young (around 47yo) she still has that old fashioned mentality that women have to be servants to men and I realized that from the way she acts around her husband. I hope one day she realizes she doesn’t have to be a maid to the men in her life.
Sorry, I know this was a super long post but I needed to get it off my chest!

I’m 29. Red headed guy, 5’11. 160 pounds, pretty average looking. I have an engineering degree, no debt, and am doing fairly well financially for my age. I have a handful of hobbies that I really enjoy and a few friends. I’m very close with my family.
I haven’t been on a date in 7 years. I get matches on dating apps, and get ghosted after a few messages almost every time, even if we have common interests and seem to be compatible. In person, women have generally treated me as if I’m invisible, or go out of their way to tell me I’m unattractive.
For example, I’ll be in a bar with a few friends, and I’ll sit in the middle. The bartender or women we meet will look at guys on either side of me, while totally glossing over me. Or I’ll be alone in a bar holding a beer, and a hot girl will come over and grind on me, and run over to her friends to laugh at me. One group of girls danced with me for a minute at a club, only to tell me “no woman would ever be with a guy like you” before laughing and leaving. I had some dates in my early 20s where the woman would meet me in person and then walk back to her car right away.
I met a woman online a few months ago who lives far away. We clicked instantly and talked on the phone often, but after a while she decided it was best we don’t continue talking as we live just too far away. She met a guy close to home. It made sense but was still disappointing. She is a great person, and seemed like that “one in a million.”
Going almost 30 years and having no good experiences has made me numb to the pain to a certain degree. It’s just not a part of life for me. I’m probably not attractive or “interesting” enough to date, but I don’t think I deserved to be treated as poorly as I was either.
At this point, I can’t justify putting in the time and effort trying to date after having absolutely no success and seeing no interest from anyone over the first decade that I have tried. I can’t comprehend how people who have gone through what I have continue to try again and again. It’s admirable, but I can’t fathom putting myself out there again.

What do you want out of this? I know it’s nothing from me….
You want me in pain, you want to break me down- for what? I’ll have you know it hasn’t worked. Seeing beautiful women doesn’t make me feel insecure- it inspires me.
All this, it’s not for me to understand though how I wish I could. I just wanted to know the truth- I warned you I’d find out.
I will keep your secret as just that.
I’m disappointed you didn’t want to be friends. Threw away exquisite romance.
Be good.
❤️‍🩹

i got diagnosed with pcos almost 10 years ago and how it all started was with periods ranging from 2-3 weeks that were very heavy and painful. i also had a cyst and what made it go away and brought my periods back to normal was birth control, inositol and following a ‘healthy’ diet.
in the years since, my most alarming symptom that always alerts me to make some lifestyle changes or get a checkup is the same long, painful, heavy periods (thought never as long as those 15+ day ones i had at the start). and usually when i’m getting regular exercise and eating in accordance with pcos, my periods are not painful or that heavy, and go on for around 5 days.
my other female relatives who have pcos and many other women i’ve spoken to always say that their periods are infrequent or spotty and i have been told that my experience is more common with fibroids or other disorders. i’ve definitely been diagnosed with pcos though and have other pcos symptoms like hirsutism etc, and have regular ultrasounds that don’t show fibroids.
so i’m just wondering if anyone else with pcos has had the same experience as me, because i rarely see heavy, prolonged bleeding discussed when it comes to this condition.
i do want to mention that i got my diagnosis when i was going through puberty which i think is quite early and may explain a difference in symptoms.

title. 20F, and i honestly don't think i ever formed a healthy self-image. i attended a K-12 school with a small student population and a severe endemic bullying problem so the same 15 individuals i met as a toddler were the classmates alongside whom i graduated high school. my school was actually known throughout the surrounding area for having a bullying issue and i got dealt a pretty bad hand in those terms. bullying and social exclusion followed me from kindergarten all the way up to high school. my only friends were my cousins up until sixth grade. i know this by itself doesn't sound all that bad but feeling like an alien and an outsider as a six-year-old girl messes you up. i wasn't a "quiet" or "weird" kid or anything like that- just literally a normal young girl- but a lot of the other kids in my grade just came in with these vicious, catty personalities which didn't mesh well with the sunshiney, always-assuming-the-best-in-people attitude i had as a young child. my parents were also working class and i didn't always have the trendiest items/wasn't "hip" to what was popular and that certainly didn't help. i never really formed any sort of self-image during those formative childhood years because all that time was just spent feeling awful about myself and trying to figure out what i had to do to earn acceptance. my most formative memory is just spending years and years trying to figure out why i couldn't be accepted by the other kids in my grade and trying absolutely everything to no avail. additionally, i wasn't exactly able to build a strong self-image at home because my father was largely emotionally absent and hypercritical. (he was never abusive in the slightest, but was just very rigid, not emotionally involved, would criticize every single thing etc). i internalized a lot of those criticisms and still have an incredibly overactive hypercritical voice. then when i was 11 i got involved with an excessively-competitive intensive sport which involved adult male coaches who (as i now recognize) were incredibly abusive. think those eastern european gymnastics coaches in the 50s. i was training 30-35 hours a week by the time i was 13 and my life resembled an Olympic training regimen. because i already was so incredibly weak in self-esteem i internalized and accepted all of the abuse from the coaches while other children told their parents and were removed from the environment. i felt like this sport was a place where i could be competitive, included and treated like a mature adult- a break from the constant exclusion i was experiencing from my peers at school. i couldn't figure out how to quit because the coaches' validation (which was few and far between) had become the only thing remotely resembling a self-image i had. i couldn't relate to any of my peers or the few friends i did have because i didn't have a normal teenage life where i could go to the mall or hang out with friends; all of my waking moments involved crippling anxiety due to these adult men who i spent the majority of my time around. they screamed at, insulted, threw things at, and took delight in physically hurting the young children involved in the sport. i felt like i didn't own or control my life and i had a sense of being completely isolated because i didn't know how to get out of or even define the situation. i finally left at 15 (in the middle of my freshman year of high school) and within a month of leaving developed some sort of mental health/trauma response (which i am still unable to identify because i never got any sort of psychological help due to being afraid of seeming "weak"). i started having regular anxiety attacks (something which i had never experienced before), throwing up daily, having nightmares and losing my hair. growing up although i was always insecure i had never dealt with any mental health issues and i am neurotypical so this was all absolutely new for me. the fact that this was something i had never felt before all arising so abruptly at once- seemingly overnight- made the experience scary and unfamiliar, and i felt like i was losing my control of my mind and body at 15, right when teens are meant to be naturally growing into and forming healthy relationships with their bodies. it was around this time when the usual teenage drama of high school really took off and due to the mental health issues i had begun to experience i found myself involved in typical teen drama which led to me losing my entire friend group multiple times over. my high school years were full of painful drama, friendship breakups and a plethora of unhealthy actions which i now recognize as desperate efforts to regain some sort of sense of control over my life and self-image. i got rejected from my dream ivy league university which i had wanted to attend since i was a child (the university where my father works) because my grades had dropped after my experience in the sport- not a lot, but just enough to remove me from the ivy league range. i enrolled in my state university and entered my first relationship which swiftly ended due to my baggage from childhood/the fact that my insecurities made me unable to accept the fact that someone genuinely liked me. i got my life together (in some sense) in college and now am an honors program + dean's list student on a pre-law track, set to graduate with phi beta kappa and magna cum laude distinctions as well as a near-perfect gpa and membership in a national honors society for my area of study. i still have absolutely zero self-esteem or even any idea of what it feels like to have a healthy relationship with myself. my opinion of myself (physical appearance, personality etc) is so negative and distorted that i have absolutely no idea what i look like or how people perceive me. i have been told that i am attractive but i honest-to-God just don't know. i criticize myself brutally for every decision i make and i can't go a day without comparing myself to other people. nobody knows that my self-esteem is so awful because i seem on the surface to "have it all together". i don't want to go to therapy or counseling because i feel like my parents would see me as weak or incompetent and even if they didn't i know that i would see myself that way. the mental health issues i dealt with in my teen years are (for the majority) gone now but only because i've had to develop my own coping mechanisms (some healthy, others not so much) and most of it has just come down to toughing it out and pushing it all down inside. i have this weird overachiever complex where i purposefully will put myself in painful/uncomfortable/excessively difficult situations in order to "prove" that i can overcome them and feel like i'm proud of myself/have accomplished something, if that makes sense. i'll stay awake 72 hours consecutively studying for an exam and skip meals just to score the highest in the class on zero hours of sleep and an empty stomach and the more uncomfortable/unpleasant it is the better i end up feeling because it seems like i've accomplished something/like i'm being "disciplined". everyone just thinks that i'm an overachievereally good student and so i feel like if i actually did tell someone about how bad i feel on a daily basis i'd be dismissed with "but you have it all together!!" etc etc. idk how to fix this or if it even can be fixed but i would appreciate some sort of advice. i want to be able to just enjoy my life.

Hey All -
I'm thinking of actively engaging in receiving unprotected BJs from various women. I'm trying to understand the risk... here is what I think it is. My wife gave me a hall pass to get a few BJs from escorts.
Am I on track with my thinking that this is reasonably safe?
Oral Chlamydia is extremely rare. Assuming unprotected oral sex is what you received there are only three STDS that really transfer with any frequency at all from this. Those are Gonorrhea, NGU (Urethritis not caused by Gonorrhea and Herpes type 1. That's it. Now let's do a closer look.
STD's transfer inefficiently. Meaning that the chances that you catch an STD every exposure to an infected partner are not 100%. Oral STDs transfer even less inefficiently than that. There are a whole handful of STDs that you either cannot catch from oral sex or the chances are so low that it is really not worth worrying about. DO NOT go searching the internet. Depending on what site you go to there are a whole lot of wild non-science based claims out there.
So the three you can catch, here are the signs to look out for.
Gonorrhea: You can get this from oral sex. If you would have caught Gonorrhea days after the encounter you would have experienced painful urination and a pus like discharge from the penis. You'd notice it. It can be asymptomatic, but most of the time it is not. If you do t experience any of that within like 2 weeks, that's a good sign that you didn't catch it.
NGU: Urethritis that is not from Gonorrhea. This is usually caused by Chlamydia BUT Chlamydia is very rare in the throat. So what is it!?!? Current science says that it is normal oral bacteria that has entered the urethra and the urethra is not used to it so the body has an immune reaction response. Symptoms would be the same as Gonorrhea albeit perhaps milder. Currently thought to be harmless. Basically it would have about the same time frame to develop symptoms as Gonorrhea but perhaps slightly longer.
Finally Herpes.. This would be due to Herpes virus type 1. The one that causes cold sores around the mouth. Most of the population has it. Chances are you already do. If you do have this orally already, you cannot catch it again in the groin. If you don't have herpes, then there is a small chance. The odds are pretty low that you would catch it this way, again oral STDs transfer very inefficiently. If you had caught Herpes within 2 weeks you would have developed liquid filled lesions on your penis. Cold sores. If you have t noticed that, chances are you are totally fine. Herpes can take a longer time to develop, up to like 3 months sometimes BUT, the odds are in your favor that you didn't get it.
STDs you can't get from oral sex:
HIV - Never in the history of the HIV epidemic has anyone ever caught HIV by receiving oral sex alone. The only two ways you really can catch this is by sharing needles with an HIV positive person or by having unprotected vaginal or anal sex with someone who has it. But even there, vaginal sex, it's like 1 chance in a thousand.
Hepatitis no chance. Other forms of NGU like MG, UU, trich no chance.
STDs that are exceedingly rare from oral sex:
Syphilis, Chlamydia, Herpes Type 2.
Chances are very very low that you could have caught those.
most of my research came from AskExpertsNow. To review this go to www.askexpertsnow.com then scroll down and click, "I just want to browse the questions that have been asked by others". This is a forum that was put on by the American Sexual Health Association and they have three docs that have answered all kinds of STD related questions. Two of the doctors are friggin Amazing when it comes to the world of STDs. Dr Edward Hook and Dr Hunter Handsfield. They have studied STDS between them over 40 years. You can browse that forum and see a ton of questions of dudes who have been in your exact scenario. You can see the doctors responses. Dr Hunter Handsfield basically wrote the book on Asymptomatic Gonorrhea in men.

Background: Husband (34) and I (30) are in the process of recovering after about 8 years of his serial lying and cheating. We have two small kids, built a wonderful life for ourselves, and I really pride myself on our family unit.
After his last bout of lying about women a little over a year ago, he started DBT therapy and took it very seriously. He ACTUALLY seems to have changed. He recognizes his past trauma that was unhealthy. He is an Army veteran and so there’s definitely a lot to unpack there, which he’s finally doing. He’s been working so, so hard for about 10 months. I see the effort and I HAVE seen some really positive changes as well. I want to give him credit for that because it did take so much work for him to get the help he needed. He’s doing great, for the first time ever.
However, I had to leave for a military obligation (I also am serving) and have been gone for about 6 months. We all visit at least once a month…but that’s where all the problems came to my attention.
I’m not that happy to see him whenever I do. It’s not that I’m unhappy or that I dread it…he’s just kind of a guy that’s in my house with the kids. I don’t miss him. I’m happy to see my children and miss them painfully every single day, so I don’t think I’m emotionally entirely broken. But when my husband and I reunite, I can’t even remember to kiss him and when I do it’s just so I can check it off my checklist of stuff I know “normal” couples do. I don’t feel like I can really be intimate (I’ve tried. It feels like I have to talk myself into it every time.) I don’t feel any desire or attraction. I can’t imagine making out with him. It’s almost like I still am living in a “me vs him” mentality and being intimate would be like sleeping with the enemy. How fucked is that?
We have almost nothing to talk about and everything, to me, seems so forced and awkward. He tries to keep them going because he’s trying to connect with me, but I just never feel like having a fake conversation. He never makes me laugh. I’m super silly, but I don’t feel like we can play together or joke or really do anything. We just talk about the kids and then ask each other dry questions about our day before I can’t take it anymore and make up an excuse to stop talking. It’s all taking a toll and I feel like he doesn’t even know who I am. I struggle to even care enough to want to know who he is now. I thought I knew him, but apparently I had no idea.
He says he feels unwanted because he’s always missing me and happy to see me but I’m cold and physically unavailable. I don’t even hug him. I told him that if he feels unwanted that he should try being me…I’ve always been 2nd, 3rd, or 4th place to whatever girl he was trying to be with at the moment. I can’t get these types of thoughts out of my head. I don’t think he loves me even though he shows me every day with how hard he’s working in therapy.
He sends me gifts, flowers and seems to think of me often, but when it comes down to it I struggle to meet him halfway. I almost look at his kind gestures like he doesn’t mean it…it’s only just so he can say he’s tried. I say thank you but I don’t feel anything…
I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to loosen up or to love him again. For the first time, he’s actually trying. He’s doing everything I needed from him the entire time. I’m frustrated with myself.
I’m away until at least January and he’s home with the kids, so divorce isn’t an option. I’d love to use this time away as a way to try and build us back up. I can’t help but feel like I’m the problem now. He’s doing all this work and I’m just so shut down I can’t even really feel the results for myself.
I WANT to want him. I want to laugh and like him. I want to get lost in conversation…I wish he was my friend again but I just cannot get myself to allow him to even see me be goofy. It feels too vulnerable. My trust is so far gone that I don’t even CARE if I’m being lied to or not (I don’t think I am, for the record). I just live day to day and try not to think about it all.
Has anybody been through anything similar? I want to reconcile. I want to recover. But I’m in my own way. How can I get through this? I don’t even know who I am…who he is…how can I help myself? Are there any specific methods you used to love again? Any thought processes that particularly helped you? Books? Podcasts? Talking points? I am open to anything.

At this very moment, in this very community there are people, posting, the kind of people that would write a lengthy article about why there need to be female Space Marines if they had more empathy or were women, the kind of people who would rejoice to see the works of professor Tolkien defiled if they had more empathy or were dark-skinned or women.
They are the ones who share their essence with the enemies of Warhammer 40k, with the so called "wokes".
But, it's not really the "wokeness", that is the problem.
The essence that spreads the poison of representation, is the essence of the LARPer.
It's the essence that thinks diseased thoughts like this - and I mean both perspectives (of the described man and women) presented in that post:

Man: I can still identify personally with a custodes because men can be custodes...coll HOWEVER for some men (inc yourself) I identify better with male only groups (maybe you dislike women?) so there being women potentially in the custodes makes it less enjoyable for you
Women (pre change): I'm interested in the custodes but I can't personally identify with them at all as due to my sex/gender I am not allowed join.
So while I can follow your reasoning it only makes sense from the point of view that this hobby is for men exclusively and should prioritise men. To the point making it 80% less enjoyable for women is preferable than making it 5% less enjoyable for some men.

It's a disease that needs to be gatekept to secure our hobby for those who are pure hearted true fans. For the natural aristocracy of scholars and artists.
A setting is an object to be learned about, a miniature is an object to be converted and to be painted. It isn't here for self-inserting LARPers.
The thing that is really sickening about these femarine articles isn't merely their attack on Warhammer 40k, but the essence of the LARPer exposing itself. Displaying its whole alien perversion.
The threat reaching out to defile our culture isn't really of politics but of the alien nature of the LARPer.
LARPers would accuse proper fans of lack of empathy.

It's not your intelligence that I doubt I just think you have a toxic way of thinking about gender relations. I think you lack empathy and it's either difficult for you or you refuse to put yourself in the shoes of other people. You are letting that lack of empathy cloud your logical reasoning.

To this, I wish to clarify: I don't feel mere lack of empathy towards the LARPers. I feel complete and utter contempt towards their kind. I don't merely don't care about their feelings, but reading about them makes me want to actively inflict pain on them.
So, to say more about "representation", Sisters of Battle shouldn't be thought of as being here for women, they are overwhelmingly written and played by men. They are here for the setting. Female fans can play Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, whatever, thinking they should specifically play Sisters of Battle because they have female miniatures is just patronizing and essentially saying that all women are LARPers and not proper fans.
I actively prefer the editions where there was less women fighters and women in power because for scholarly reasons, with certain disinterest and detachment, I think that creeping addition of women characters is making the setting make less sense. I have to say, I do have personal fondness for female fighters and powerful women, but it's simply not relevant to the setting of 10 millennia old fascist Imperium that keeps treating people as expendable resource, where even creation of Space Marines includes massive waste of human life.
And more, I would say, that in fact it is more woke to recognize that the Imperium would be patriarchal and would subjugate women and exploit them for breeding than to pretend it wouldn't for sake of "inclusion" of LARPers.

Why YSK: There is absolutely* no reason why women shouldn't be offered topical pain relief before their smear test. There is absolutely* no reason why women should experience pain during their smear test. Being in pain isn't necessary for the procedure. Any doctor that insists that pain is acceptible during a smear test is misinformed and not up to date with their medical knowledge. Any doctor that insists you continue with a smear test without pain relief is not a good doctor. You are entitled to be pain-free for this invasive procedure, please don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
*There are always exceptions, but they better be damn good and not some old tosh because the doctor doesn't want to do their job or is dismissing you for being overdramatic.
https://www.ohsu.edu/womens-health/closing-gender-pain-gap-your-gynecologist-has-pain-control-options
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22417905/
https://www.london-gynaecology.com/make-smear-comfortable/#:~:text=Numbing%20gel%3A%20If%20all%20else,not%20interfere%20with%20the%20quality.

Hi, just needed to vent because I feel so sad/scared/frustrated I had an MA on April 30th. The miso was honestly the worst pain I’d ever felt and I felt shitty p much the rest of that week. I went to work the next week as the cramps & bleeding got better. But they got worse again at the end of last week. I saw my doctor again on Monday & she said there’s a big clot I didn’t pass & suggested taking the miso again or waiting for it to come out. I can’t take the miso again, it was just too painful. I was supposed to leave for europe today but now I have a D&C scheduled for Tuesday. This has been the worst experience of my entire life. I feel so weak from being bedridden for a week and I feel so morally worn down. I can’t believe I was one of the 5% of women that misoprostol doesn’t work for. I feel like this isn’t my life.

Hello everyone, I've been wanting to make this post for a while and now here we are ! This is a long post but ENJOY !!!
Another Eden is now 7 years old which means many stories, characters and an entire world...or rather time periods/timelines that currently exists. So here's the question, what's your Another Eden Hall of Fame ? Both Meta and Non Meta related.
Note: Remember that what I'm about to write is based SOLELY ON MY OPINION but I'm interested to see what my fellow Residents of Time's Forgotten Keep think ! Without further ado, let's start:

1. Best Story Protagonist (Excluding Aldo): Nona
   Another Eden is composed of many stories and they are NOT always centered around Aldo which is the game's protagonist, few examples of that being Deirdre in the Knights Episodes/Nona in Apocrypha and Wryz from the recent Wryz Saga. My pick is Nona because she has BY FAR the best character development and to me she took the spotlight in the entire Apocrypha. In fact I'd argue that if Another Eden had the "Choose your Protagonist" Aldo would be the Male Protagonist and Nona would be the Female one because she's litterally the Protogonist of Apocrypha and it can be regarded as a "Game within a game" so yea that says alot.
   
2. Best Side Story: Western Mythos (Song of Sword and Wings of Lost Paradise)
   The Western Mythos is the best story in my opinion (And actually alot of players do agree with me on that). The Zerberiya continent, the world, the cast of characters and the story is phenomenal from it's 1st chapter to the finale. I know that people will tell me Future Mythos is also great but it doesn't have THAT impact on me as much as the Western Mythos did.
   

Which is why (Rant Warning!) WFS ! WHERE'S MY WESTERN EXPANSTION !!! WHY DID YOU FORGOT THAT ZERBERIYA EXISTS ?? WE NEED MORE OF PEAK !! That is hurting me alot !! The only story which is a close second is Apocrypha but Western Mythos is the far better one and I'm thankful for Another Eden for creating that. I do hope that the Highly Rumored Eastern Mythos would be just as good because speaking of...

1. Best Main Story: Main Story Part 2 (Tales of the East)
   There are currently four Main Stories: Main Story Part 1;Main Story Part 1.5 (Ogre Wars) ;Main Story Part 2 (Tales of the East) and the currently Main Story Part 3 (Into the Hollow).
   In my mind while having played all of those stories, I still find myself being drawn and attached to the Eastern Continent ! Because I truly love the setting ! WFS clearly nailed it and even so when you consider the amount of "Eastern" Personality characters that are in the game which is the highest in the game at 30 characters (Not counting AS/ES). Heck I'm currently replaying the Main Story Part 2 because I enjoyed it even better than the current Part 3 which from a pure gameplay sure it's better but in terms of Story/Characters and OST then to me nothing beats the Garulea Continent (Present/Past/Future and Underworld) !
   

Alot of people in the sub love Eastern characters, most notably u/NoWaifuN0Laifu who like Hozuki, an Eastern sensual Fox Lady so yea there's that.
This is in part why I'm extremely hyped for Eastern Mythos and I can't wait for it ! And Yukino Alter (One of the main things keeping me attached to Another Eden)

1. Best Character Quest: Melissa
   Melissa is by far the best Character Quest and ask any veteran player and he'll tell you that. It's also the darkest and the saddest one in the entire game and it's special in the fact that Aldo IS NOT PRESENT in it at all ! Imagine THAT ! I won't say more because of spoilers but if you don't have Melissa you can just search on Youtube as her CQ is there and you can watch it ! If you have her but have not played her quest...WHAT ARE YOU WAITING for ? DO IT !
   
2. Best Character: Yukino
   This is subjective and my AE subreddit flair checks out, I love Yukino so much since her introduction, apart from me having a thing for women/girls with Ice powers, her story and how she was created (Also she's Eastern as well so another point !) also her relationship to Tsukiha so no need to say more!
   
3. Best Antagonist/Villain: Guildna (Main Story Part 1)
   The reason why to me Guildna is the best villain is NOT what you think it is ! Another Eden is a game centered around stories Beyond Time and Space there I said it but while there are really good villainy characters like for instance the Empress/Emperor of the Land of Mi and Shin (Again Eastern !) Garneli and Genshin but Guildna is special because he made me appreciate Main Story Part 1 alot more then the other characters, it tells you what happened if Guildna makes some impactful decisions in the storyline. Besides without Guildna there's no Aldo and therefore no Another Eden !
   
4. Best Cat Companion: Kuchiba
   I love the Siamese Cat Breed and Kuchiba IS the only one in the game in whom I didn't change ever since I found her years ago in Vermillion Road (Another Eastern Reference, see what I told you)
   
5. Best NPC: Some Guy
   He's Scott literally everywhere in the game. From the past to the future, from Zerberiya to Garulea, heck even in the Hollow you'll find him ! There's no way I make a list without appreciating "Some Guy" and his deeds to the game.
   
6. Best Frog: Cyrus (He's Eastern aswell ! I tell you this is why the Eastern Setting is THE BEST !!)
   
7. Best Main Cast Character: Guildna
   
8. Best Mascot: Varuo
   If Moke wasn't released as a playable Sidekick he would have been my pick but now I have to choose the 2nd best IMO and that's Varuo. The Iconic Cat mascot in the game.
   
9. Best Boss: Caroline and Justine (From Persona 5 Royal part 2 Collab)
   This boss used to be the hardest boss in the game for a long time and for good reason as it has alot of HP stoppers and has TONS of HP, while the boss has been powercrept and now easy with the recent units...back than it was a pain, another close second would be the Toova AS Manifest Battle which used to be the hardest Manifest fight in the entire game because of Toova AS insane fixed DMG and RNG involved.
   
10. Best OST: エルの唄～メリナ Song of Sword and Wings of Lost Paradise ED ~ The Stifling Song Melina Edition
    The best theme for the best story in the game, everytime I hear the OST I unconsciously start humming and even start tearing up because it's JUST THAT GOOD and after playing the Western Mythos and knowing what the lyrics means...man it hits hard ! A close second is Apex Logic and Cardinal Scales ED ~ Immaculate Full Version but let's be real ! The game is full of the best OST in a game ever !
    
11. Best Battle OST: Apex Logic and Cardinal Scales ~ Last Notes of the Battle Song Alter Dewey Boss Theme.
    This one is hard to choose as the game is packed full of Bangers in the Battle Theme departement but this one personally gets me all hyped...besides even you didn't reach that part of the game it still hypes you up ! A close second is First Knight and The Holy Sword ~ Dear My Dearest -Prayer of the Holy War- as I loved the Knights Episode Story so much and love the plot twist which leaves to this battle.
    

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Now let's go to the Meta:

1. Best Free Character: Nona AS
   Seriously she's by far the most flexible free character in the game, yea sure it takes a bit to get her but she can give 1/3 of her stats to anyone and she can mold her kit into the unit she's devoted to including zone setting/element and attack type change etc... She's even more good when used with Aldo (And it's canon aswell as she's devoted to Aldo and loves him so much which he also does (Not in a friend way btw)) and we know SA Aldo is OP especially at 255 Light so yea !
   
2. Best Zone Setter: Iphi
   To qualify for The Best, a unit doesn't just has to set a zone but it needs to have OP effects with the zone setting skill/VC and to me no one who's better at that than Iphi, her zone setting skill Walpurgisnacht is seriously broken: First of all the skill is Pre-emptive; you get the best elemental zone (Shade zone); you get Blood Contract which gives you survivability and Lunatic Risktaker; you get 5T Magic Focus and if you recast it, you get Kaleido switch to Shade element for 1T for all units...ALL OF THOSE in a single skill and moreso when you realise that these are all skills you usually see in Stellar Awakening Locked-Behind recent units in a unit released a year ago
   
3. Best Damage Dealer (DPS): Xianhua
   Before Xianhua got released and broke the DPS meta, Yakumo and Sesta used to dominate that market but now Xianhua is the best end of question ! The reason being that her DPS potential is not locked behind her SA skill as most recent units does.
   
4. Best True Tank: Radias AS
   Some people might argue that Radias AS is being powercrept but to me a Tank is more than just high HP/DEF/DMG Mitigation via Shield or Debuffs but to me a Tank in AE needs to have Guard and Rage and to me Radias AS is still the best one even if she's now almost 2 years old. While Alma AS is alot more recent and has all of those she's more of a Secondary DPS/Support than a tank and her Guard is conditional; Soira AS doesn't have Guard;Anabel ES doesn't have Guard nor Rage and Prai is constrained by Stun after Guard
   
5. Best Support: Myunfa Alter
   I tried alot of units but to me no one can do support/sustain in the entire game than Myunfa Alter, seriously her kit is a dream to every one, she has everything you can think of, YEP EVERY.SINGLE.SUPPORT.EFFECT in her kit. If you have the fourth slot (80 light) she's even better, she support the entire party but more so the unit on her right:
   

* She can heal HP and MP and reduce MP consumption.
* She can tank (Tho not with Guard but with DMG mitigation such as -50% DMG taken, a 2000 Max HP Shield and insane debuffs + Buff END/SPR).
* She can set Earh/Magic Zone (3 Staff users+) and can awaken any zone.
* She can give Magic and Singular Focus.
* She can give Weapon Type DMG and Weakness Multiplier.
* She can give Status and Knockback Immunity.
* She set 3T pain/poison ignore res.
Yes everything I said above is in her kit, what's more is that she can do most of these preemptively and do you know what's more insane ! She's not bound by the Stellar Awakening System !

1. Best Healer: Anabel ES
   She can heal 50% HP/15% MP but unlike Radias AS which can also do it in a counter, if you put her in Guiding Light she gets +50% DMG and Healing meaning she can potentially heals 100% HP ! Something only seen in EX Attacks in ES characters and that one requires complex setting.
   
2. Best Pain/Poison Setter and DoT (Damage over Time) user: Pom AS
   A Best Pain/Poison setter doesn't just have to set p/p ignore res as most units can do that but can use p/p as DoT (Damage over Time) and no one can do it better then Pom. Heck 4⭐ Pom has been known for her gimmick of giving p/p if you have the appropriate equipment and there's Grasta Ores that gives +50% DMG if user is inflicted with Pain/Poison so yea.
   
3. Best AF user: Miyu ES
   To qualify for this the unit has to benefit more from using AF (Another Force) either by doing more DPS in AF or get easy AF Combo Multiplier, it's been known that Thunder units are the ones who can use AF efficiently and while the current Meta revolves around DMG outside AF, some units only shines in AF and Miyu ES is just that, a close second would be Victor AS but he can be tricky to use as you need the AF Combo to 1000% for him to deal 7300% DMG Multiplier but in a Thunder Team with high SPD it's possible.
   
4. Best Singer: Milsha AS
   While Singing has been powercrept by Praying, I still use Singing units from time to time and Milsha AS is by far the best from the best, seriously her 2 songs can give different Lunatic to the entire party depending on the Song being user (Sacrifice and Risktaker) and this effect can co-exist with other lunatic.
   
5. Best Praying unit: Toova ES
   This one is hard as most Praying units are OP ! However for me Toova ES takes the crown by a slight margin, just set her pray and forget about her and if you have a unit which can Cover (Iphi is most used with her) then you don't have to worry about her taking DMG and breaking Prayer.
   

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Phew This essay took me 3 hours to write but that's how much I love Another Eden even tho the game's questionable direction does leave alot to be desired, I hope you enjoyed reading and I want to see everyone's opinion

Hello Reddit users and friends, I am a 42-year-old male currently navigating a complex separation from my 36-year-old wife. We've been married for 14 years and together for 16. We have only one child, and I manage a business that I originally started over a decade ago and she joined as a helper 2 years ago.
Despite our plans to support each other as friends post-separation, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the situation, especially the idea of dating again.
Context for our situation:

• Relationship Foundation: We both had minimal dating experience prior to our marriage, which might have affected our relationship dynamics. We never cheated on each other.
• Career and Financial Support: I have financially supported her through three different career paths, including her current roles as an engineer and a teacher, without expecting financial contribution to our household. Contrary to her feelings and dis-approval of any of my support, I've always encouraged her career development and she saved every Penney she made into her own personal savings by working in both careers.
• Legal and Financial Arrangements: Our marriage included a pre-nup, which we later revised into a post-nup due to ongoing relationship issues, detailing the separation of our property and a 2-year promise to assist her with a lump-sum after divorce when / if it happens.
• Family Dynamics: There have been ongoing challenges with family acceptance on both sides. She has repeatedly criticized my racial and religious-sect and all of my roots and background, even my fatherhood (i am a good father as i get compliments from strangers and i feel content about my fatherhood abilities, often shown in my kid's sports, school, and character) and she pretty much criticizes everything about me which has caused further isolation.
• Mental Health: I suffered a serious depression about five years ago, which led me to seek therapy. Although the therapy was beneficial, she was dismissive and even ridiculed the process, which strained our relationship further.
• Social Isolation: My social life has been significantly isolated to a few friends, which includes a few straight friends and two gay friends. Total isolation from women friends (she is very jealous) This isolation was exacerbated by her jealousy and reluctance to engage socially with my acquaintances or partake in my planned activities.
• Exploration of Sexuality: In an attempt to cope with our marital issues, I explored my sexuality with a friend, with her initial and complete consent (started about 16 months ago and went on for a few weeks and had stopped since 14 months ago due to the added criticism and drama, i tested him for STDs before, and tested after-wards, and she saw all the tests before and after). This later became a point of contention and she punished me by isolating me from any intimacy with her or any other human being for 5 months which i agreed to in-order to avoid divorce. Again, i never cheated on her, she approved every thing and she had met my friend as well ! I did not mind having sex with him, was socially very rewarding and approving of my character as opposed to my distant wife's dis-approval, but i missed having sex with her, as we had a successful sex life (which she also criticizes the next day but feels satisfied in the moment with a positive feedback of "amazing" and the like) however, i am not socially happy with her ! She also met a guy back then, over a year ago, but she never became intimate with him, and i had approved.
• Physical Abuse: She had punched me very strongly once on the chest, which was very painful for 2 weeks and hindered my ability to exercise well, and had hit me another time before-hand but was not as painful, i never hit back, i am a muscular guy so i wouldn't dare out of fear of causing a serious harm.

Specific Challenges:

• Despite our separation, we are still living and working together but are physically and emotionally distant.
• I am grappling with feelings of loneliness and isolation, compounded by the emotional toll of our strained relationship. I am seeking therapy just so you know, i am fine.
• There is a lingering feeling of being misunderstood and unfairly judged, not just by her but also by her family, and i tend to be a sensitive person, had my own childhood trauma as well.
• The situation has left me questioning my readiness to date again, as my feelings for her wane daily, and i feel, well, just over-whelmed sometimes, i still do my fitness routine and i work hard.

Questions for the Community:

1. For those who have navigated a long-term relationship breakup, especially under complex circumstances, how did you manage the emotional fallout ?
2. When and how did you decide you were ready to start dating again? Were there specific signs or milestones that helped you realize it was time?

I’m looking for guidance, personal stories, or any advice that could help me understand how to move forward emotionally and socially. Thank you in advance for your support and insights.
I am usually social, have a good sense of humor, and respectful, and i love people. She tends to be reserved and she is also likeable by people. She does NOT take pride in being next to me out in public, but all my friends enjoy my company and i am known to be a respectful and fun to be around. Enough said about our characters, we are both average and never had any troubles with the law.

I’m 29. Red headed guy, 5’11. 160 pounds, pretty average looking. I have an engineering degree, no debt, and am doing fairly well financially for my age. I have a handful of hobbies that I really enjoy and a few friends. I’m very close with my family.
I haven’t been on a date in 7 years. I get matches on dating apps, and get ghosted after a few messages almost every time, even if we have common interests and seem to be compatible. In person, women have generally treated me as if I’m invisible, or go out of their way to tell me I’m unattractive.
For example, I’ll be in a bar with a few friends, and I’ll sit in the middle. The bartender or women we meet will look at guys on either side of me, while totally glossing over me. Or I’ll be alone in a bar holding a beer, and a hot girl will come over and grind on me, and run over to her friends to laugh at me. One group of girls danced with me for a minute at a club, only to tell me “no woman would ever be with a guy like you” before laughing and leaving.
I met a woman online a few months ago who lives far away. We clicked instantly and talked on the phone, but after a while a he decided it was best we don’t continue talking as we live just too far away. She met a guy close to home. It made sense but was still disappointing. She is a great person, and seemed like that “one in a million.”
Going almost 30 years and having no good experiences has made me numb to the pain to a certain degree. It’s just not a part of life for me. I’m probably not attractive or “interesting” enough to date, but I don’t think I deserved to be treated as poorly as I was either.

Since I was 5 I wanted to end this shit life. I was raped before I was 5. Taken from my family. Used as a pawn on family court. Told my entire life I was why my parents had to divorce. Because I was placed in a group home. I spent my entire k-5 locked in a small room. Do to undiagnosed depression and anxiety!
Back in the 80’s no one gave a fuck about mental health especially in children. Always told just deal with it. Everyone lives suck, we can compare notes if you’d like. I’ve made federal judges cry.
My entire life has been one fuck up after another. I got used by friends,family, bosses, courts.
Life was manageable. Meet my now x wife started a a little family. We just finished college. I was working in the automotive industry. Not making much but a start. Do that work for some shitty people. And start to get to the point I’m ready to start my own.
Well just a few months later I got hurt on the job. Had a life changing back injury. And lost everything over night even my tools. Which got stolen while I was recovering. 40,000.00 of my life savings y gone.
Few years later I find a note how my wife isn’t happy anymore and wants a co worker. I leave and get begged back. We were apart 9 months and we talked about trying for or family. We did for another 13 years till a new little one came.
This was my mental health breakdown. I raised my kids. When I worked I took care of them daily. My wife worked nights and slept till just before work. Feed the kids drop them off at daycare. And I didn’t want this life again. Was finally facing the fact I couldn’t work just before him I got my Ssdi. Before work comp is a joke!
I started pissing blood the day he was born. I tried to talk to her. And she just went to the same old just deal with it any time I had an issue. That was here response anytime I had a struggle with the children at night I’m at work deal with it. I tried for so long. Till I started saying I was done feeling this way. Just for her to put of the time on me. My pains never matched her.
I’d rub her back while my screamed in pain. While my leg trembled in pain. But that’s what you do. And I’d get everyone has pain if I brought mine up.
Well three later little one is now three and she starts coming home and going straight to her phone. And everything from dinner to how was work was a fight. I caught her cheating. She came home from work with an overnight bag in her truck. Said what’s that none of my business. Like yes it is! Well I’m leaving you. My suicidal tendencies started kicking in. And I tried that night with my dad in my truck. Telling me how life mattered not more then mine mf. We have history especially childhood abuse. Like I guess we both die today.
She told me she was done with him, for her to leave that Friday. Dropping my kids off at her mother’s. She lied about everything. Kicked me out well tried. Then took my two youngest kids three hours away and had my 15 year old daughter lie about where they moved. They both said only a 45 minute drive not three hours.
Now a year and half later still playing her games. She uses I have a girlfriend against me. I’m still married to her I’m low income. And been fighting you want this divorce me. Since that’s been what she wanted since the day I found out, she has left my son to go chase men in other states with his teenage sister. He’s none verbal.
I’m so over fighting for my family. 43 years and I’m tired of never having life go good. Tired of my kids being used by women. I been here before with my oldest son’s mother. She used everything I begged her not to do against me. And I’m so ready. I wake up every day from nightmares. Haven’t slept a full night in 14 years. I’m mentally exhausted. Sick of telling police I’m not going do it while I’m playing it out in my head.

Harrison Butker’s commencement speech has been spending entirely too much time living rent-free in my head. I’ve seen a lot of “I cannot believe he said that in 2024!” and disbelief that anyone still actually thinks like that. A lot of women (including myself) are justifiably livid. But it doesn’t surprise me. I grew up in a place where those ideas were just…life.
I (37F) grew up “evangelical-adjacent.” I say this because, while my parents never really subscribed to the gender or social norms of conservative evangelicalism, most people around me did. I went to church camps as a teen, and at my religiously-affiliated college, traditional gender roles were expected, and even joked about (gotta get that MRS degree!).
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize how much that entire way of thinking permeated not only my life, but my psyche. And that is what makes me SO MAD about that commencement speech. I know what imbibing those gender assumptions can do. I internalized all of the traditional gender roles I was exposed to as a teenager and young adult, and the result is an adult woman who feels incredible guilt for wanting and needing fulfillment elsewhere.
This legacy of evangelical gender norms in my life has hurt my marriage. My husband and I have had so many fights about unequal division of labor, but not because he was lazy or uninvolved—because he wanted to be my partner, and I wouldn’t let him. It took 6 months of couples counseling for me to recognize this. I was taking everything on myself without communicating to him that I was drowning, because the gender roles I was exposed to when I was younger were showing back up again after our son was born.
I married a man who wants to be an equal partner in all things. But the entrenched conviction of “women are supposed to do this” has its hold on me, even still. After 6.5 years of marriage, my husband recently took over all the cooking, meal planning, and thinking about food in our house. He had been begging me to let him do that for YEARS—and I couldn’t let him, because doing so somehow meant that I’d failed as a woman and as a wife. And even when I did finally get out of my own way, it took a lot longer before it just became second nature. I still feel guilty about it sometimes, like last night, when I collapsed after a very tough week at work while he both made dinner and entertained our toddler.
I have chosen a career over staying at home, and I would rather manage a project at work than make dinner. And the guilt I sometimes feel about the fact that I prefer those things is painful. “You don’t get personal fulfillment from baking cookies? What kind of woman are you?”
So this is why this speech makes me so mad: because I have tried to live that life, and found it so unfulfilling as to be damaging. I will be working to untangle the legacy of evangelical social thought from my life forever. I knew I wanted something different than that for my life, and I don’t live in that world anymore. But the legacy is real.
*I know Butker is a Trad Catholic, not an evangelical, and that there are differences. But the thinking on gender roles and women’s rights is the same; Trad Catholics just throw some Latin in on the top.

First real love, first break up
I'm in my 30s and we met in our 20s. It was a LTR, engaged, family... all the works. It's been over a year and I'm doing so much better. It's true that healing takes time, but it takes continuous effort on your part. Pain is the best motivation to become a better person. Use the pain for the best glow up of your life. I know a lot of people talk about going to the gym, traveling, hobbies, spending time with family/friends.. but don't neglect your mental health. If you don't learn from your break up, you will repeat the patterns in your next relationship. Even if your ex was toxic/abusive, you had a part in the relationship too. I have learned that not everyone learns from heartbreak or grief. Most people a have a victim mentality and that prevents them from major growth. Lean into your emotions and dig deep.
After a good year and half of heartbreak, grief, and constantly working on myself, I'm a true believer of loving yourself before you can love someone else. I loved my ex tremendously and gave her my all, but after major reflection, it wasn't the capacity I truly had within me. I gave her the emotional capacity I had at the time, and it wasn't very much. All the tears I cried this past year is the love I didn't give her, and the tears I cry today, is the imaginary relationship we could have had if I knew what I know now. With that being said, I would go through the heartbreak again if it meant becoming the person I am today. I understand now that she wasn't meant to be my forever person. Our relationship was meant to teach a lesson about ourselves and I'm so glad I took the opportunity. I needed this major growth to love myself and see my worth. I know I'll love deeper and harder in my next relationship.
I actually bumped into my ex and I realized she didn't grow. She dumped me and she moved onto someone else. She doesn't see her faults and she still has a victim mentality. I realized after bumping into her that she wasn't for me and I was so wrong about her. What I want in a relationship now is so much different than what I wanted when I was with her. I'm not going to lie though, I got jealous that she moved on while I've been in the trenches. I was devastated when I found out it was only a few months after the break up, while I was still holding onto hope. I got jealous when I found out she's moving in with her new person so suddenly and they are doing things together that I've always wanted to do with her. It hurts. But comparing yourself to your ex does no good. All that does is bring more pain. The truth is that you are on different paths and what they do is no longer your concern.
After more than a year, I'm not 100% healed, but I'm coming to terms that she will always hold a special place in my heart. The pain I carry now is more about loneliness and abandonment wounds than it does about being with her. We are just not meant to be together. What held me back the most was hoping she would return. I was so in love with her and I wanted her so badly, that I was blinded by it. Even though she ignored all my messages, never reached out, never checked my social media, or gave any hint she wanted me back.... I kept hoping. I entertained thoughts of getting back together. I assumed she was in pain just as much as I was. That hope kept me back. If I had any advice to give, I highly suggest keeping no contact and completely focus on yourself. Dive into healing yourself. Your thoughts are WRONG about them. Learn how to redirect your thoughts or challenge them through CBT.
I'm in a place now where I'm okay being single and dating scares me, but I'm putting myself out there. I've been on a few dates and even though nothing has stuck, I've met a few women who align with who I am today. One of the biggest things I want in my next relationship is emotional availability and a deep understanding of grief. I don't want to be with someone who doesn't understand the loss of a loved one or having experience major growth. I want to be with someone who can take accountability for their actions instead of victimizing themselves. My ex wasn't those things during our relationship and if she doesn't want to take the time to grow from our relationship or see my worth, that's her loss. After so much therapy, self-improvement, and diving deep into psychology and relationships... I am a needle in a haystack and whoever ends up with me will have the golden ticket.
I understand how hard it is to lose someone you love. It's so hard and some days it feels like you can't make it. I'm here to tell you that you can get through it. You can push through. Take each day at a time. Take advantage of the pain and use it to grow. Become a better version of yourself and show up for YOURSELF in ways you haven't before. Don't go back to your ex. You will find love again. You have so much worth and you are deserving of love.

Blake was listening to his sister through his headphones while she ripped into him about his hopeless addiction to pornography. He rolled his eyes as she went on and on about his sexist attitudes and his distorted views on women and sex. If his sister had only known that he was scrolling through explicitly drawn versions of Marge Simpson and Lois Griffin in various poses with various props, she would have hung up the phone and given up.
As far as Blake was concerned there were no distortions in his mind about women. He had lived through so many interactions and had seen so many videos of women being terrible people that it only reinforced his bias.
Porn didn’t judge Blake. Porn didn’t make Blake do things that he didn’t want to do. He spent time with women the way he wanted to. If he wanted a woman to act a certain way, he could find a video where she did just that.
The way he saw it, women wanted a lot, and if they didn’t get what they wanted, they made everyone’s life hell until they did. Conversely, if a man wanted something, it was tough luck. He watched his mother treat his father like that until the day he died, overworked and unhappy.
Less than a year after his mother put his father in the ground, she was with someone else that she was all too happy to control. Porn gave Blake the control, and he liked it.
“Blake, I love you, but you’re going to waste your whole life in front of a screen holding your dick.”
“Don’t you have another kid that you should be working on squirting out?”
She hung up.

Blake was caught watching videos at work again, but this time he had a plan. He knew eventually that he would be caught, but after losing three jobs for the very same reason, he hatched a simple way of ensuring that he wouldn’t lose out on any money, and be able to stick it to the boss and company he hated for no other reason than employing him.
Blake was called into his manager’s office, but before anything could be said, Blake blurted out that he needed to take mental leave. He sobbed in front of his manager while he said that the job was giving him thoughts of hopelessness and self harm, but he was smiling on the inside. He was talking just loud enough for a few people outside of the office to hear him.
His manager's face was red.
“Cornered you, bitch.” Blake thought to himself. “Good luck firing someone who’s crying out for mental help.”
Blake figured that he’d be able to stretch this out for at least a month. A month of paid time off doing what he loved.

“It’s my phone!” he muttered to himself as he rode the elevator down to his new found freedom. “If people have a problem with the things I’m looking at, perhaps they shouldn’t be looking over my shoulder and mind their own fucking business.”
He didn’t mind the other people in the elevator, or their awkward expressions. They didn’t matter to him. No one really did.

Still on a high from manipulating his boss into a corner, Blake decided to do something new on the bus ride to his apartment building. He clicked on a video. He wasn’t exactly watching the video, rather he was watching people’s reactions out of the corners of his eyes.
He kept the volume low, but up just enough so the moaning could be heard.
At first, people around him were wondering if they were actually hearing what they thought they were hearing.
He was trying not to laugh at their reactions. People began to move to other seats, and soon enough, everyone was giving him disgusted looks.
“Fuck em.” he whispered.
He noticed one man sitting in the back of the bus who was giving him quite a different look than everyone else. The man was well dressed. Perfect hair. Perfect teeth.
He was smiling at Blake.
Blake, a self admitted and overly enthusiastic homophobe, turned off the video. He began to worry that he had attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Blake was all too eager to get out of the bus and hurry towards the doors to his building. He heard a voice behind him that caused him to catch a breath and lose his forward progress. He turned around. It was the beautiful man from the back of the bus.
“Excuse me! I’d like to have a word!”
Blake found his voice hypnotic, and his stride was elegant, almost like he was floating just above the cracked and cruddy sidewalk.
“I uh… couldn’t help but notice what you were doing on the bus young man. I think I have something you might be interested in.”
Blake was lost in that voice. He had never been attracted to another man, but he was feeling things inside himself that he’d never felt before, and he hated himself for it. After a long awkward silence, Blake finally found his voice.
“Look buddy, take your pixy dust and bother someone else. You’re not my type.”
“Oh, you’re definitely my type.” The beautiful man laughed and handed him a plain white business card with nothing but a web address on it. “In so many different ways, you’re exactly my type.”
“What is this?”
“It’s my business, Kid. You want videos you can’t tear yourself away from? Trust me. It’s the newest thing.”
He winked at Blake and walked away.
-
Blake was staring at his screen while he was riding in the elevator. There was a paywall. A dollar for the first month, then a hundred dollars a month after that.
No screenshots or thumbnails, just a form for a credit card. As the doors opened to his floor, he put his phone in his pocket and decided against any further investigation. He was sure that it was a scam of some kind.

Until ten o’clock that night, Blake engaged in his normal activities with one new addition he had begun almost two weeks prior. He built two shelves in front of two different air vents in his apartment, and he had placed speakers on the shelves. The tenants in his building got to experience all of the auditory pleasures of the thrusting and jiggling and smacking that he was watching.
Blake made sure he followed the rules, and nothing came out of those speakers after ten p.m., but it was fair game until that time.
He would laugh to himself thinking about the tenants having to listen. He wasn’t sure how far the sound traveled through the vents, but he figured that most people on his floor were getting a good chunk of it.
That night though, his usual joyful time in front of his phone, his 70 inch television, and his newly discovered fondness for Cerave was marred by the thought of something unique and dangerous out there that he hadn’t seen.
After several attempts at a satisfactory denouement in his masturbatory madness, Blake finally gave up, raised the white flag on its limp post, and went to bed.

Blake kept hearing the man’s siren-like voice in his head while he tried to sleep. After almost two hours of tossing and turning, he sat up and snatched his phone from the charger and typed his credit card information into the mysterious site. He just had to know.
The site opened up and he was instantly intrigued. There were no thumbnails on any of the videos, but the descriptions on each of them were so graphic, profane, and dehumanizing that it would do us all a great service if they were not repeated here. Blake’s favorite appendage however, jumped to a zealous attention at the graphic depictions that the perverse descriptions painted within his brain.
Blake stripped off his briefs and sat down on the edge of his bed. His left hand gripped the phone while his right hand eagerly gripped something else.
He clicked on the first video and it began to load.
Blake waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The video wasn’t loading, so Blake decided to try another one, only to find that his left thumb wouldn’t move. He realized that his entire body was stiff. Nothing would move with the exception of his eyes. He couldn’t even speak.
All he could do was stare at the glowing screen in the darkness of his apartment.
After a moment, his mind started to race while his body remained ridiculously rigid.

Three hours had passed. Blake had been able to see every minute tick by. He had watched his battery meter slowly run down to eighty percent. He had thought that his screen would eventually turn off, but it never did. It was still trying to load the video.
Something was tickling his nose and his face itched. His back had begun to ache and he felt some tiny pin pricks along his still turgid tool. He wanted to cry, but nothing would come. In fact, his eyes had begun to dry because he had not been able to blink.
Blake watched another hour go by before his body finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep, in spite of the fact that he could not close his eyes.

He awoke six hours later and his vision was partially obscured. Still holding his phone and his phallus, Blake tried to scream. The sun was now coming through the window of his apartment. He could see his reflection in the mirror that was on the opposite wall. His hair was long, and it was white. A spotty and wiry beard had exploded out of his face and it hung down to just above his enlarged and sagging nipples set in a sagging and flabby chest.
His breaths were shorty and ragged; phlegm was gurgling with each inspiration.
His arms and legs were covered in large liver spots and all of his skin was a purple paper thin.
He was old.
The shock of seeing his hunched and rigid reflection had staved off the feeling of pain from his nether regions for only a moment. His fingernails were growing on his hands. Some of the yellow things were curling around his phone while the others were curling and jabbing into what now looked like a deflated balloon stretched too thin, that was desperately trying to retreat into his abdomen against his rigid grip.
The battery on his phone was blinking.
It was about to die. He wondered what happened when the battery ran out, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew exactly what would happen when that loading screen finally went dark.
His sister’s words were all he could think about as the screen and the world went dark.

After several nights of peace, Blake’s neighbors noticed an awful smell emanating from the air vents. After several complaints, the building’s Super opened Blake’s apartment and found the withered, still rigid frame of a dead old man sitting upright on the edge of the bed.
After taking several photos that he would post later on social media and stealthily absconding with almost a full bottle of Cerave, the Super called the authorities.

Tissue
Polysemous title- Tissue • Tissue- paper + skin (human life is fragile [criticises arrogance, encourages us to protect]) • Also paper (not alive) + skin (alive)- criticises monotony of life, not really living • Tissue paper- found in bibles and holy texts, but fragile (overinflated importance of identity causing wars and discrimination, really it’s very fragile and identity isn’t real, we’re all just people (tissue as in skin)) • Tissue- used to wipe away tears, togetherness can reduce suffering • Tissue- medical term for deep skin- poem shows deeper nature of humans and our potential for goodness, can be wounded and damaged by outside influences but can always heal
"Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things" - reference to religious texts paper, light as Jesus and Allah (power of religion) - or coexistence with nature (Dharker is a Muslim Calvinist)
Enjambment- freedom, lack of control of humans, rejecting constraints
Free verse- same thing
"Let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths" - power of nature, criticism of authority, weakness of humans- “break” violent personification, destroying authority, daylight + break = sunrise + hope
"The sun shines through their borderlines" - nature overcomes human segregation identity, criticism of war, power of nature) sibilance shows power, “their” still shows separation, criticise that
"fly our lives like paper kites" - childish metaphor, mocking control of money over life (criticism of authority)
"the back of the Koran" - “the” repetition shows importance, “back” shows it is hidden/shunned by society, still holding onto identity
"Transparent" - repetition, criticism of dishonesty of authority
Exposure
"Merciless iced east winds that knive us" - personification of wind shanking people (first line not about war but nature- more significant) (power of nature)- subtle sibilance (just as dangerous as bullets but most people don’t realise)- Germans were in the east, but the only thing from there is wind
ABBAC rhyme, structure is built only to be taken down (tension of soldiers expecting fight but let down)
Pararhyme- unsatisfying for reader, reflects how the soldiers are always nervous but never get to chill
“What are we doing here?” Rhetorical question to criticise authority, or actual question to show PTSD confusion, can be asking what they are DOING or why they are HERE
"For love of God seems dying" ok 1. The soldier's love of God is dying 2. God's love for the soldiers is dying 3. To show love of God, you should die
"forgotten dreams" - juxtaposition, loss of hope, forgotten dreams on purpose to be less sad? war made them forget? “forgotten” disassociated from PTSD, “dreams” as happiness from the past that seems unreal
“a dull rumour of some other war" reference to the Bible and Armageddon, metaphorical end of the world for the soldiers be suffering "sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence" - sibilance represents sound of bullets, jolting reader out of relative lack of noises, feel like soldiers
Epistrophe "but nothing happens" cyclical structure, stuck in suffering
“we” “us” “our” collective pronouns, shared experience, comradeship, loss of identity, relatable to all soldiers
Kamikaze
Title- single word, only military rank- only seen as a kamikaze pilot by others
Structure- 6 lines per stanza but free verse and lots of enjambment- conflict between control and freedom (military/social expectations/duty vs love for family/nature/memories/life)
Constant shifts between first person and third person- disconnect from family due to shame
“Her father embarked at sunrise” -sunrise as power of nature + Japan’s military flag- conflict
“a shaven head full of powerful incantations” -incantations are deliberately vague- orders from military? prayers? inner conscience against it? It’s “powerful” tho and influences him, and it’s “full” showing his distress, shaved head like most kamikaze pilots
“green-blue translucent sea” beautiful imagery, “translucent” shows how things are unclear but getting clearer- nature helps him decide what to do
Describes fishes “like a huge flag”- patriotic semantic field shows brainwashing, but reduces as the poem goes on, simile shows how he is starting to disconnect and change his mind,
also as “a figure of eight”- shows thoughts of pride and prosperity-
“The dark shoals of fishes/flashing silver as their bellies/swivelled towards the sun” - • sibilance shows ocean noises and beauty, “dark” -> “flashing silver” things get brighter and easier to see- knows what to do thanks to nature • “Silver”- medals he would have gotten for being a kamikaze pilot, but true reward is in nature • “Sun”- represents beauty of nature and also Japanese flag- conflict but now there’s also nature in the mix • Belly up- death on his mind
“bringing their father’s home safe/-yes, grandfather’s boat- safe” repetition of “safe” shows reason to come back- wants to return to family, memories
“a tuna, the dark prince, muscular, dangerous.” • first mention of danger = power in the whole poem, danger to the mission as it causes the pilot to have doubts, true power is in nature and memory • First full stop in the poem and lots of commas- makes us stop and think like the pilot about what he’s abt to do
“laughed” “loved” at the end of the poem- all in past tense- nothing left for the soldier
“we too learned to be silent”- “learned” should be positive but contrasts with what they learnt- criticises how they were taught shame by the older generations- but it’s said in first person, the daughter is criticising this and teaching her children not to think that way
Poppies
Title- honours and grieves dead soldiers, short single word title shows full intent of the poem and how the mother’s life is consumed by grief
Dramatic monologue- emphasis on the domestic impact and how the soldier isn’t present in the poem
Free verse, enjambment- chaotic, lack of control over the son, distressed
Domestic + military semantic fields- life has been ruined by war
“Spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade of yellow bias”- mix between war + domestic • “spasms” and “red” is injury and pain- mother is worried or is hurt by letting go (spasms is involuntary muscle action- involuntary letting go), • “paper” is the fragility of the son • “blockade” is military language showing her worry abt the conflict, how she wants to “block” her son from going into the military • “disrupting” the fabric - the son becoming a soldier disrupts the peace or she is trying to disrupt him from going to war
“The dove pulled freely against the sky, / an ornamental stitch”- dove represents peace and grief- she and her son is at peace with death, “pulled freely” is an oxymoron- inner conflict with grief or letting her son go, the comma shows a pause to reflect on the grief, the “ornamental stitch” metaphor for the mother (pretends to hold it together)
“I was brave”- takes down ideas of just the soldier’s bravery but also the mother’s, but past tense shows current weakness from grief
“Sellotape bandaged around my hand” • Bandage shows wounds • Sticks them together one last time- cat hairs are removed, no more reason to stay • Claustrophobic feeling- stuck in the domestic role, can’t go and protect the son
“Blackthorns of your hair”- religious connotations of Jesus on the cross, sacrificed for the country- metaphor for the son
History Boys
"Enemy of education" war metaphor and alliteration, opposition between true understanding of literature and grades only used shallowly “Cheat’s Visa”
"a fact of life" indisputable and unchangable, in opposition with Irwin's views on history (truth does not matter to him until now?)
Drummer Hodge: Intertextuality, Tom Hardy (the poet) represents Hector, sympathising with the ordeal of the youth, Drummer Hodge represents the Boys, thrown into the chaos of life without proper guidance
"She's my western front" war metaphor objectifies Fiona, personal pronoun further expresses how women were seen as objects to be owned
“... all the other shrunken violets you people line up" [you people] segregates gay people, [shrunken violets] derogatory language
"Some of the literature says it will pass" looking to literature for solace and comfort during a sexuality crisis
"All literature is consolation" Dakin changes his mind on literature symbolising him changing to Irwin's side. No need to look for solace in literature when he can pursue Irwin
Parallels with "all knowledge is precious" from Hector - A.E. Housman, one of the first intertextualities and used in the intro to establish his character
“cunt-struck” “a cunt”- Mrs Lintott repeats the colloquialism “cunt” twice, to describe Dakin as “cunt-struck” and Headmaster as “a cunt”. This is the hardest swear in the play and is used show that it wasn’t a slip of the tongue, and to break down stereotypes of women being gentle and passive
“history is women following behind with the bucket” - her big scene about women in history at the end of the play (which is typical for Alan Benett’s plays such as “Kafka’s Dick”) so it would be recent and stay in the audience’s mind when the show ended
Irwin intro as politician in the future "etc., etc." while talking abt freedom- that man gives no fucks about freedom really, just waffling on (first impression for the audience too!!)
Parallel with Holocaust debate- Lockwood uses the SAME EXACT PHRASE while talking abt how the holocaust was bad, (dismissiveness of mass genocide? in this education system? it’s more likely than you think) then goes on to argue that they should be unique with their arguments- Irwin passed on thr mindset even on such an important subject
Hector is set up to be looking cool and all (motorcycle scene dramaticness, greek name connotations, fav teacher) but is absolutely uncool when we get to know him- purposeful? "studied eccentricity" and all. clinging onto youth?
Posner is actually rather helpful as the "dictionary person" bc i doubt the audiences know what "otiose" means
SCRIPPS IS THE MOST RELIGIOUS ONE AND CLOSEST TO POSNER it can dismantle the idea that religion is against queerness
Irwin didnt know how nietzche was pronounced bc from what we know of him he would call Dakin out on that