I grew up homeschooled, with four siblings in the house but I still spent every minute alone that I could get. Psychologically I might as well be an only child. My mom recently told me she used to think I didn't like her because I never wanted to spend time with her, or anyone. Now that I have a job I keep being surprised at what a drive my coworkers have to talk to each other while they work. But I was an obsessive reader, writer, and daydreamer as a kid - I felt like I got to know authors through their writing, I cried over friendships between fictional characters - and in hindsight I think I did have the same social urge other people have, but for some reason I tried to fulfill it in a distant and imaginary way through stories, while rejecting the real people all around me.
I've always thought people were made for love, but I'm getting so tired of leaving the house and interacting with them. I can see so much in them that would be incredibly lovable if I could just be invisible and observe them, like a reader observing characters in a book. But they talk to me and I have to figure out a response in real time, and with all the noise and my hearing problems and stress and tiredness (but I'm only 25 and single with no kids, so I don't know what real stress and tiredness are), I'm two steps away from shutting down. I wish I could just look at my basic job with tunnel-vision and get through the work day asleep. But it eats away at me when I know someone is working with me who wants to talk, when I know I'm not being receptive enough as a listener, when I know my silence is contagious and silence is miserable for most of the people at my workplace. I'm terrible to be around and once I thought so hard about this that I cried in front of people at work, thus making myself even more terrible to be around.
I recently started working with someone who's not a good worker, but was actually fun for me to talk to. She was goofy, smart, upfront about her life and had some things in common with me. I thought this was a potential friend and I came on too strong. Now I'm embarrassed, think maybe she doesn't actually want someone as lame and awkward as me to keep taking the initiative to talk to her, so I've stopped taking the initiative. I even failed completely to acknowledge her several times today (we're working in different areas now but passed each other by several times). But she's mentioned having no friends, she invited me to friend her on Facebook, maybe she will be perceiving this as a potential cool friendship ruined and wonder why I'm doing it, maybe I'm making her hate herself.
I don't want to have to go to work again and either face her or not face her tomorrow. There are several other coworker relationships that make me want to quit when I think about them. There are perfectly good people that I actually like and yet, without wanting to, I keep acting as though I dislike them.
If I hadn't been homeschooled I would have been through all this in middle school and might have a better idea how to handle it. But I spent too much time alone in a house doing nothing, and I want to go back to that. I want to be forgotten by everyone. I hate showing up at work and in society again and having to be forgiven for whatever fuckup I'll make today. I hate hurting people by being there. I hate the selfish worrying about what they think of me, but I can't stop. I really, really badly want people to like me, but they are so exhausting it makes me want to go live in a hut in the woods.

So I just bought a used Juiced Scorpion X from Facebook Marketplace. I test drove it and everything worked great. I got home and rode it and after about 40 min it completly it shut down on me,, all signs of dead battery, I charged it again and same result. AFter checking the 52v 15ah battery with volt meter i saw a big problem. the reader was showing me 5.4v on a fully charged battery. I don't have alot of money to drop on battery because i just bought the used ebike. Any Suggestions? Im not really educated on Ebike batteries so not sure what options I have on purchasing another on. I do know i can't afford the ones on the Juiced website. Im really hoping that this thing isn't turning into one complete loss. I am hoping there is a site or or alternative to getting a fairly cheap battery or something that i can use on bike and not go belly up from this bad purchase

I am one of three roommates all 25F. I moved in here after my lease was up and I found it on an Facebook group looking for roommates. I messaged my one roommate on the forum, Sam (25F), and immediately clicked and after viewing, I decided to go ahead and agree to be the third roommate. We were all in a group chat with each other, me, Sam and the roommate in question, Lana. We all got along and I was very excited. My roommate Sam, texted me separately and said “I don’t want to poison you against her but she really struggles with follow through and cleaning”. I told her, between the two of us, we can have a roommate meeting and sort out what our expectations and boundaries. She liked that and I moved in on April 20th. The house was a disaster moving in. It reeked of cat piss and shit and smelled like weed. My family was very concerned but after I calmed them down, I got to work to clean. Before this, Lana said that she would clean her stuff and since I am paying for two rooms, she will clean the cat piss and shit and the smell will be gone. This was over a month before I moved in. She never did it and after me asking her, politely to clean the rooms I am paying for she said “I can’t clean it because the carpet cleaner is broken”. It is also probably important to mention she has two cats and a dog. I have a dog who has an ESA and is in training and is always attended or being crated trained. The whole two weeks I moved in, I felt sick with the smell and my dog and I were living in one room together and I finally had enough of her excuses and bought the supplies to clean the rooms. I cleaned the rooms and the bathroom (which also smelled like cat piss and weed) and I basically begged her and my other roommate to be respectful of the fact that I cleaned the whole upstairs. Sam lives on the top floor (attic) she has a cat but that cat does not leave the area. My dog is crated when I am not home or at doggie daycare. Lana’s animals roam around and cause havoc in the house. On top of all that, she leaves her stuff all over the house for days if not since I moved here (it’s been over a month at this point), smokes weed when we are a non-smoking household, loiters the house with stuff, doesn’t pay bills on time (we might get our electric shut off because she won’t send her part), complains about not having money but buys stuff online and DoorDashes all the time (none of my business but can’t pay bills?), absolutely refuses to meet with us about concerns, doesn’t control her dog so her dog comes at my dog and our landlord is coming to inspect. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the shit on our porch gets us a fine because it’s against neighborhood regulations. I am so exhausted and stressed and I can’t live like this. I feel horrible everyday and I don’t like eating here and I can’t stand her and her constant disrespect. I’ve tried to like her or talk to her but nothing gets done.
Side note: She broke our washer (landlord only provides hookups so we are screwed)
I don’t want to lose my deposit and I want to leave. She’s incompetent and probably stupid because she doesn’t understand how a lease works.
My pet fee is waived in my state because of ESA (I think that’s federal) but she owes money on her THREE pets and wants to fool the landlord, only having to pay for one.
Please give me advice and if this is enough to take to the landlord.
I HAVE TAKEN PICTURES AND I HAVE TEXTS, RECEIPTS AND MY ROOMMATE SAM AND I ARE ON THE SAME PAGE
thank you 🤍

Right below this post on my overview page, you'll see a serious, sober reply I gave to somebody's perhaps not altogether serious question about galaxies named "Snickers," bringing up a mildly interesting tidbit from the History of Astronomy. Read it there, because you'll never be able to see it anywhere else. It was deleted, almost instantly, with no reason given, a perfect example of what can happen on a site adults use to discuss serious matters, when the adolescents are so often in charge.
If you are new to Reddit, no, that was not a snarky joke. So-called "power mods" have, in the past, turned out to be minors, well under the age of 18, nothing more than dull-witted children with far too much time on their hands, and an overpowering desire to be in control. When governmental policy was being set in keeping with the consenses set by the social media mobs, a few years ago, these are the people who effectively had the power to decide who would be free to speak about what, and about how full grown adults would be forced to conduct their affairs - the sort of adolescents that, in the days before the Internet was invented, would have been shunned by their peers, and with good reason.
I went to mention this most recent moderator power flex on RedditCensors, and discovered that it had been banned by Reddit, which I understand has created a rule that prohibits public complaints about a moderator's abuse of power - literally, an anti-transparency rule. Those are inherently corrupt and on a platform where freedom of speech is effectively put to a vote through the downvoting process, corrupting.
If it ever was anything else, Reddit has become a place where neurotic teens and tweens have gone to live out their dreams of power, as they've been allowed to control the public consensus by being given the ability to quietly silence the voices of dissent with their mad reign of error. Some tried to excuse this inexcusable reality, a few years ago, by mentioning the stress so many people were under due to the "Pandemic," and arguing that free and open discussion of serious issues would be more than people could cope with during the drama, and perhaps they would again, but let us be serious. That was a nonsensical defense even then, and 2024 is not 2020. Sanity might not have returned, but the panic has passed, and at this point there can be no serious question about Reddit's role in that time of panic. The admins and mods eagerly got down and dirty to encourage that panic and haven't reformed, since.
Strictly speaking, this has cost Reddit its safe harbor protection, since it is in no way running a neutral platform, but we already know how much the law matters when a large Internet firm breaks it - not at all. By now, we all know that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and those hearings of his are a joke. They are there to defuse anger, not to start any real sort of move toward justice.
One could respond to this ugly reality by jumping over to a supposedly uncensored platform - like Gab, to cite the best known example. But when one goes to that supposed alternative to the censorious lunacy of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, et al., what does one find? Literal neo-Nazis, flat earth conspiracy theories and endless death threats and targeted harassment, while the staff looks the other way and refuses to enforce its own rules, because the founder is, himself, not so far from being a Nazi, himself. To attempt to have a serious discussion there would be like breaking into a gathering of the Ku Klux Klan, and trying to have a town hall meeting during it.
At some point, one has to be willing to see that something has been tried and proven to be such a trainwreck, so consistently, that to put much more time and effort into it would seem like madness. That is how I've come to see the social web, and perhaps even the Internet in general. You can see the links to my other sites and you're welcome to follow me on them, but I'm not sure that I'm ever going to bother to post to them, because I'm at a loss when I try to think of a good reason for doing so. Certainly, I incur a massive opportunity cost by getting down in the trenches with the losers - compare what I was getting paid to answer student's questions about Mathematics in the real world ($120/ hour as an independent tutor before Covid) with what I get here, where I get repaid only in aggravation. In person, at an art fair, I can be (and have been) approached by the editor of a literary journal and asked to submit. Online, if I'm lucky, I'll see a fraction of the audience I'd get at an open mic night, run into censorship because somebody with well developed psychiatric problems though he sensed a hidden agenda behind my words, and then get to deal with scrapers afterwards.
The Internet has, for the most part, neither proved a pleasant, nor a profitable, nor a productive experience, so why get deeply invested in it, at all? I'll be shutting down my groups on this and other sites, as I reduce the role of the Internet in my life to being what it should always have been: a place for posting announcements, along maybe with a tiny amount of free content as a loss leader, in order to get other people to link to the page with my event announcements and other notices. I'm going to turn off the computer and get back outside, more, as I really should have back in 2020. As everybody should have, really.
The Internet, properly used, is a bulletin board, not a community. Life was better when people remembered it, and for me, it's going to be better, again. If other people want to go on being immersed in a miserable, futile effort to succeed where all others have failed before for structural reasons, they're free to do so, but I think they'll find that other serious people will be making the same choice I have, and for the same reasons. The power mods will still be there, and so will the trolls, but when they're nearly all that remains, when the Internet is firmly linked to the craziest members of society in the minds of the general public, just how much influence will it go on having?
Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Over and out, for now, and probably permanently. There's a nice, sunny day waiting for me, just outside my window and I'm going to go enjoy it.

Young America’s Foundation is taking legal action against the University of California, Los Angeles, following the institution’s blatant violation of students’ First Amendment rights. Last week, UCLA forced the last-minute cancellation of a planned event featuring Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch.
The pro-Israel event, which was organized by the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, would have provided a voice of reason amidst the chaos of the pro-Hamas encampments and protests–but apparently, reason and common sense are not allowed at UCLA.
Despite previously granting the event approval, UCLA abruptly reversed its decision on the day of the event, blocking YAF staff out of the reserved venue and citing arbitrary security concerns. This action followed weeks of inconsistent and obstructive behavior by the university, which included initially refusing the event, offering insufficient time to promote it, and ultimately shutting it down on the day-of.
James Kerwin, senior attorney at Mountain States Legal Foundation, remarked in a letter to the administration, “UCLA’s actions represent a gross violation of the First Amendment. The university’s conduct handed an unconstitutional ‘heckler’s veto’ to anti-Israel activists and engaged in blatant viewpoint discrimination against pro-Israel messages.”
The letter reminds administrators of their legal obligations to preserve evidence, noting that YAF is working to prepare the lawsuit and intends to file very soon.
YAF’s forthcoming lawsuit aims to hold UCLA and its administrators accountable for their actions, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as damages.
Kerwin added, “We warned UCLA that it would be held to account if it did not respect YAF’s constitutional rights. We are deeply disappointed that UCLA did not heed this warning. YAF is committed to vindicating its rights and ensuring that such violations do not occur in the future.”
When UCLA’s sister school, UC-Berkeley, used similar tactics to prevent a successful Ben Shapiro lecture in 2017, Berkeley had to pay a $70,000 settlement and rescind its unconstitutional policies.
UCLA administrators were well aware of the Berkeley case, so it’s a bit surprising that they handled this situation so recklessly.
When YAF reminded administrator Pamela Lewis of the Berkeley situation early on in the event planning process, she said, “Yeah, we didn’t appreciate that.”
“We will win our lawsuit against UCLA, just like we won the case UC-Berkeley,” YAF President Governor Scott Walker said during a recent NewsMax interview about the situation. “But the fact of the matter is we shouldn’t have to go to court. Colleges should be places where free expression, where free speech is embraced and revered–and yet it’s most under attack.”
YAF is dedicated to standing up for our students and will continue to fight against any attempts to suppress their constitutional rights. Further updates on this case will be provided as the legal process unfolds.
YAF Announces Legal Action Against UCLA for First Amendment Violations - Young America's Foundation

Today, I finally put on my altered dress for my (23f) best friend's (24f) engagement party. Although I look beautiful in it and I am feeling myself, I keep having flashbacks and flashfowards of what can go bad.
We met on facebook when we were both in high school and clicked, despite having bad opinions about each other. We had plenty of common things to talk about, and I honestly admired her for how intelligent and well spoken she is. Although, she always was the kind that had her mind set on an ideal when it came to relationships that resulted in a very toxic dynamic between her and her partner. When her partner didn't satisfy her, she would go cold and never said what was wrong. Instead, she was venting to me. That made our friendship toxic. She would constantly cheat emotionally on her partner with me. Things escalated quickly, and we actually caught feelings for each other. I started to be her actual lover, and I felt guilty about it. At some point, we were in a relationship, too. It was a short and bad one that put our friendship on a pause.
4 years later, I decided to reconnect with her because I thought that I wasn't going to waste a good friendship in a bad relationship, and it was a very good decision. We were both healthier, and now we had a better dynamic, too. I talked to her about my boyfriend ( 25m) and our love story. Long story short, he is my soulmate. I am convinced about that. No relationship compares to this one. I told her about how fast we had to move on because of our circumstances and how nice it is to live with him, and she understood. She is happy with our relationship and wishes us the best. Not so much later, she met her current fiancé (25m). He was quite intimidated by me, he told that to my face but we clicked well. That's until we found out that he is quite dodgy. He is a womanizer who decided to "settle" and fell for her quickly. He also is the kind to search for the most dodgy jobs just to make a bit more cash, that he spends quickly on god knows what. He saw everything. Drugs, prostitution, robberies, death, etc. Not only that, but he is cocky about never being caught, too. I thought they were an odd pairing since she is the independent, level-headed but introverted big sister that took no shit from anyone, but whatever. We didn't want to judge. They moved on quickly with their relationship, even quicker than me, and my boyfriend did. They got engaged in 8 months, and three months later, she is pregnant, too. Their engagement lasted only 6 months, and next month, they are getting married. Because a wedding is quite expensive for them right now, they decided to skip the church wedding and only do the official documents and do an engagement dinner party with their close family and friends. Oh boy, the organization is a mess.
First, they asked us to be their godparents but quickly changed their minds after their parents realized that me and my boyfriend are not married, which is a big problem with the church but not with the documents. I wanted to point that out to them since they are not going to be wedded in church but whatever. Ever since we were in high school, she promised me that I would be her godmother to her wedding. It was disappointing, but I knew that I needed to be flexible. Second, she wants her guests to dress more elegantly for the event. Her fiancé and my BF got a bit fussy that they couldn't wear jeans and Hawaiian shirts, but we quickly changed their minds. But this transitioned to the third problem. I had to get my dress pretty early into the engagement so we could save some money. I got a nice dress for my budget: a midi mint dress with puffy veil sleeves and crochet flowers motifs that enhanced my bosom. I checked with her if the color and the model were ok, and she said that she was happy with it... Until she got her dress. She decided to dress in a way more layed back style and get a white cotton beach dress. It's incredibly simple, and my boyfriend described it to be a sack of potatoes in comparation to what I was wearing. Not only that, but it was 5 times more expensive than mine. This was a problem. I didn't want to overdress or upstage the bride to be, so I got another dress that's more laid back, the one that I am currently wearing so my mom could alter her a bit. Fourth, they keep changing the dates, and that got everyone annoyed because it messed with the free work days. Fortunately, this was resolved, and now they have a date that's set in stone. The organization is quite messy, too. BF had the condition that he didn't want to drive in the city, so he would drink, something that can't happen because they have many guests and not enough cars. We live far away from them, in a suburban area. There is a 5 hour drive between us and besides them, we don't know anyone in their city. They offered us a free room ( baby's future room) but even that is uncertain. Fifth, they are not the most stable couple. Her fiancé gets mad and jealous quite easily. He used to fight with her when she wears more make-up than usual or she was too indiferent to his flirting. She is the kind of woman who never wears her emotions, and that drives him nuts. She did open up slowly to him, but it's too slow for his pace. Not only this, but he has a high-sexual drive while her's is low. He gets very fussy when they don't get to have regular sex. When she got pregnant, the gyno told her to stop sexual relations for a while, so the baby stays in place. He said that he can't stop having sex for his own health, and it is quite unfair. She hit him with an ultimatum that if he made her abort it, she would never have kids with him again. That made him settle, at least for a while. He is also the kind that wants a boy, so he could continue his "legacy." If that didn't make it clear for what kind of person he is, then I don't know what more can I tell you. Also, the both of them hinted that me and boyfriend should get pregnant too, so our children could be best friends just like us. We quickly shut it down with "With what money?Plus, we are not mentally prepared for it". Which brings us to the sixth problem, and I and BF are not in a stable money situation like they are. BF used to be overworked and paid badly while I couldn't work right now. He did get to change his job for a better one, which is a huge relief. I wanted to work, I wished to, but bestie and her fiancé keep wanting to have vacations with us twice a year. No workplace would be able to give me that many holidays, which I know is unfair. That's the country we live in. Because of this, for the last year, we were on a tight budget that couldn't allow any more changes.
Besides these problems, there are many more things like family drama and other money problems. Because of the constant change, me and boyfriend are stressed and this got us in an argument. First being about my dress and then about the couple that couldn't understand our money problems. Me and bf resolved it, but he has some good points. The organization is as messy as their future marriage.
I apologize if I've made grammar mistakes, english is not my first language.

Venue: Greensboro Coliseum (Greensboro, NC)
Attendance: ~8,200

Winner	Loser	Match Finish	Stipulation
Chad Gable w/ The Alpha Academy	Sami Zayn	Chaos Theory after Otis attacks Sami
Bron Breakker	Kale Dixon	Spearb
Lyra Valkyria	Iyo Sky	Pin Reversal	Queen of the Ring Semifinal
The Awesome Truth (c) w/ Braun Strowman	Finn Balor and JD McDonough w/ Dominik and Carlito	AA after Braun Strowman runs down and causes JD to run into the ring	For the World Tag Team Championships
Shayna Bazler and Zoey Stark	Damage Ctrl, Ivy Nile and Maxxine Dupree, Katana Chance and Kayden Carter	Alley-Oop Knee	#1 Contender for the Women's Tag Team Championships
GUNTHER	Jey Uso	Chokehold	King of the Ring Semifinal

• Kickoff with Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn making his way to the ring. He says we are 5 days away from King and Queen of the Ring and he finds himself in a triple threat with Bronson Reed and Chad Gable for his Intercontinental Championship. Sami says he agreed to this match despite the disadvantage because he has two issues to deal with, one is very personal with Chad Gable and vows that Chad Gable has an ass kicking coming his way. The other issue with Bronson Reed isn't personal, all he cares about is the title, so the way Sami sees it this is a fight between the mind, Chad Gable, the body, Bronson Reed, and the soul, Sami Zayn. Sami says if he's putting his money down he's betting on soul every single time because it's that passion that is the reason he's holding this title right now and he was able to beat GUNTHER at Wrestlemania, and why he will walk out this Saturday still champion. Chad Gable comes out with the Alpha Academy in tow. Chad says he isn't manipulative, he selfishlessly coached Sami to victory at Wrestlemania and says he's been too damn nice to Sami and the three clowns standing behind him. Take Maxxine for example, she should be competing in the Queen of the Ring finals but she blew her opportunity and she's a failure. Tozawa did 0% of the damage he demanded he do to Bronson last week which makes him a failure as well. Chad turns his attention to Otis and says last week he proved once again why he is the biggest disappointment on the planet. Sami says he's heard just about enough and asks the Alpha Academy how much longer are they gonna deal with this guy's crap?! Chad says he sees what Sami is trying to do but the three of them have already re-dedicated themselves to him and the Alpha Academy. Chad says he's sick of hearing Sami go on about his heart and his soul, it's pathetic and says in Saudi Arabia he's going to pin Sami and won't just be taking that tile, he's taking his soul. Sami says Saudi isn't for another 5 days and last he checked they're scheduled for one on one competition tonight and both of them are dressed and ready to go so let's get it on.
  
• During the opening match Chad tries to get Maxxine and Tozawa to cheat on his behalf but both hesitate, causing him to make them go to the back. After Otis also fails to attack Sami as well Chad slaps him before grabbing the title belt to try and strike Sami. Sami ducks but Otis attacks him while his is in the corner, allowing Chad to his the Chaos Theory for the win.
  
• Backstage Chad is interviewed after his victory but there is a commotion and the camera rushes to find Crus Del Toro laid out with the rest of the LWO checking on him asking is Carlito did this.
  
• After the referee stoppage Bron runs the ropes and nails Dixon with a third spear before throwing him to the outside. Bron goes to attack him with the steel steps but officials rush down to stop him. Bron backs up and grabs a steel chair which he uses to bash Dixon's skull betwee the corner of the steps. Bron walks off as paramedics rush down to attend to Dixon. After the break Dixon is loaded into an ambulance and Adam Pearce shouts for Bron and says he's never been good at math so make this add up for him. Bron says Pearce didn't put him in King of the Ring, this is what he gets.
  
• Backstage Becky tells Lyra has come a long way for this and she's gotta go out there and show why it's been all worth it. Lyra says she's got it.
  
• Lyra is interviewed after her victory, but before she can speak Iyo shouts in Japanese at her before leaving. Lyra says three weeks ago she wouldn't believe that she'd be standing there beating a former WWE Women's Champion, and says it doesn't matter how you get the job the done as long as you believe you can and now she is only one Nightwing away from being Queen of the Ring.
  
• R-Truth is talking with New Catch Republic when Miz comes in and tells Truth they may be in a disadvantage going against Judgement Day. R-Truth says his good friend Andre the Giant told him he's got their back as Miz has to tell Truth that Andre passed about 30 years ago. Truth asks what he passed on before walking. Miz looks up and says they could use Andre in spirit tonight, Truth walks back and says people call him crazy before waving up at the sky.
  
• Earlier today GUNTHER is standing in the stands and admits he was wrong, 7 months ago he mocked Jey Uso, but he has turned himself to one of the hottest people in this company and later tonight these seats will be filled with thousands of people cheering in delusion. GUNTHER says he deals in reality and says tonight it won't matter who is the more exciting act on the way to the ring, it's about who is best once that bell rings and after that final bell rings all those people will embrace him and soon he will be King of the Ring.
  
• In the Judgement Day Clubhouse Finn and JD say they are ready to bring the tag titles back, Priest moves to Dom and Carlito and tells him good work on what he did to Del Toro earlier and Carlito says he came back til the heat dies down. Damian tells him they aren't his personal protection agency and that he needs to keep earning his keep. Dom reminds him that Carlito did help Finn and JD last week so they're cool.
  
• Backstage Shayna Bazler returns! She approaches Zoey Starks and Shayna Bazler and tells them she has something to talk to them about, Zoey seems interested but Shayna shuts it down and says they're busy as they go to prepare for their match
  
• Backstage Becky congratulates Lyra on her win and says they'll never beat the Irish. Lyra continues walking and runs into Liv Morgan who congratulates her as well and says she's shocked she didn't have Becky help her win again like last week. As Lyra goes to explain Liv distracts Lyra before slapping her.
  
• Bronson Reed confronts Sami backstage and tells him he doesn't have to worry about Sami and his mind games, instead he should be looking at the real threat standing right in front of him. Bronson leaves as Otis walks in and Sami says he expected better out of him but maybe he's wrong about him and tells Otis he shouldn't be proud of himself. Otis tells Sami he's truly sorry and Sami believes him. He tells him that Chad isn't a good guy and that he's been in Otis's shoes before and it's time he stops listening to Gable and starts listening to the fans.
  
• Becky Lynch makes her way down to the ring. She says in 5 days she'll be defending her title against Liv Morgan, the two of them have a lot of history, they've fought in honor and in bad blood but not once has Liv beaten her. Now we are dealing a much different Liv Morgan, attacking people from behind and bailing on fights. Becky goes to talk about when she first came over here but Liv comes out to interrupt. She says Becky is gaslighting the fans since last week Becky punched her and she was just getting retaliation and she left once Damage CTRL came out because that wasn't her fight. Liv says she doesn't even care about Becky, her only purpose is to finish the Liv Morgan Revenge Tour. Becky congratulates Liv on finally finding a purpose after being here for 10 years, while she has had her purpose since she first started training at 15, she wanted equality and to break down barriers and wanted to leave things better than she found it, meanwhile Liv just wants revenge and then what. Liv says Becky is the most selfish person in this company and has only ever cared about herself, but since Becky was so kind to ask about someone else for a change Liv says she'll finally sit at the top of the mountain as WWE Champion. Becky says these people have always come here for here, and right now Liv is here and she is here so why wait, let's get this going right now. Liv walks down but turns around at the ring, she says she's doing the smart thing and waiting until the title is actually on the line and tells Becky to cry about it.
  
• Back at the club house Damian demands that someone explains what happened. Carlito says he thought JD was supposed to handle Strowman and Priest tells McDonough to challenge Strowman to a match next week. Priest says he doesn't even recognize them anymore. Finn agrees and tells JD to go to Pearce and get the match made.
  
• In the trainers room the doctor tells Woods he's now cleared to compete and Kofi celebrates and goes off to tell Pearce they're ready to re-enter the tag division. After Kofi leaves Karrion Kross enters and tells Woods there is always times for things to be turned around.
  
• Backstage Ludwig Kaiser says he hopes Jey Uso takes his loss tonight better than Sheamus took his loss. He says Sheamus used to love to fight but now he just pounds at a computer being a keyboard warrior and challenges for Sheamus to come back to Ludwig can put him down for good. After Ludwig Kaiser leaves Drew McIntyre comes out and says he's surprised he's here after being medically disqualified, but the people want him and calls out the paper champion Damian Priest, saying he's spreading himself too thin with the Judgement Day, LWO, Braun, Awesome Truth, and more and says it's the same things he warned Seth about and look how that turned out.
  
• Backstage Chad is talking to the Creed Brothers about amatuer wrestling stories and tells them to keep in mind about what they discussed. Otis walks up and tells Chad he apologized to Sami. Chad assumes he's doing this to soften up Sami and asks Otis if he's all set to help him win back his Intercontinental Championship together and tells him to say it and Otis says of course.
  
• Jey Uso says tonight is the night, there is no tomorrow, the main event vs the Ring General and says he almost had GUNTHER last time but he's gonna finish the job, GUNTHER gonna get a yeetdown while he's about to get that crown.
  

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• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /TheDirtsheets, /luchaunderground, /njpw /TNA, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin and more!
  

Hey everyone, any help would be greatly appreciated!! New ideas are welcomed too!!
My elderly grandmother is being contacted by a “celebrity,” which it is obvious it’s not that person. She isn’t seeing this though. We’ve done the reporting to FTC and FBI, we’ve reported the profiles as they pop up, we’ve blocked several…but this person keeps coming back through different profiles!
My question is to see if there is any way to block all incoming messages? Like shut down all new profiles but have the ability to keep family and friends (the verified ones).
So a couple of things: -yes, we are aware she may have dementia, we are currently working on getting her into a doctor to be evaluated -she has moments of clarity where she wants the conversations to stop but 90% of the time she acts like a teenager who gets giddy when talking to someone new -accessing her phone is extremely hard without her hovering over -we’ve contemplated taking Facebook off her phone altogether, but she has a second phone we can’t get to and she would just use that. -yes, this is definitely a romance scam with money having been sent
We are at a complete loss on what to do next. Common sense, fear, explanation, proof it’s a scam..none of these have worked.
If I tried to put everything going on in this post we’d be here a long while. I tried to hit the main points.
Please!!!! Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!!

It was 9PM. I was driving to my local Publix. The radio was playing the News while I was driving. "Hey! There's a traffic jam on I-75," My GPS would say. "Turn right!" I turned right. I kept driving until I reached the Publix. "You arrived at your destination," the GPS said. I walked into the Publix. I went to the aisle I was looking for. I was about to walk out the store when I saw an old bluey tape on the ground by some boxes. I picked it up and walked out to my car.
I knew what Bluey was. It's a TV show that came out October 1st 2018. The show was for kids and adults that showed life lessons to both. Most episodes were about them playing a game with eachother or going to the beach or something. My favorite episode was 'Hammerbarn.' The episode was about the kids going to their local store and buying stuff for pizza night. Bluey wanted to have the same stuff as Bingo. When she was complaining to Bingo that he should let her have a turn of having something, she accidentally breaks one of the gnomes. It is a great episode. But something about this tape told me, it was different. There was something odd about it. It definitely wasn't about the kids playing a game or the family going somewhere. It wasn't a normal episode.
When I got home, I put the groceries in the fridge and sat down in front of my old tape player. I put the tape in.
The episode was a normal bluey episode at first. The dad drops off Bingo and Bluey at school and goes back home. He goes in his computer and types a document. It all seemed like a normal episode. All of a sudden, when Bandit got up, he heard someone scream. He rushed out and told Mum. They went out to their backyard to find a dead character on the ground. Blood was flowing out of the gaping hole in it's heart. The parents screamed as they hid in the pantry. When they got in, they heard the door open. Then, it shows a flashback of Bluey standing around a bunch of dead bodies holding a bloody knife. It then cuts back with Bluey opening the front door. He shuts it and locks the door. Mum gasps. Bluey walks through the house and checks in the bathroom. No one. Then he checks in the bedroom. "This is it! We have to escape," Mum said to Bandit. They sneakily crept out of the closet and almost made it to the front door when they heard a noise. Bluey was breathing heavily from a far and raised his knife up. The parents screamed. "Bluey, stop! Please!" Bandit screamed. Bluey crept towards them. The parents unlocked the door and ran out. They slammed the door shut and pressed down on it. They breathed heavily and ran to the backyard. Bluey came out and checked outside. He walked through the neighborhood, smiling. Blood all over her fur. The parents ran out. They got in the car and quickly picked Bingo up. Bingo quickly got in and let out a few words. "Mom. I'm scared." They drove the car and ran over Bluey. They looked at Bluey from the car. She looked, dead. But she wasn't. They drove the car back to Bingo's school and dropped her off. They got back in the car. Bandit turned around to make sure no one was behind them when he saw Bluey standing behind them. "Chili!" He yelled. She turned around but it was too late. She stabbed her through the car seat and killed her. Bandit screamed. He ran out as fast as he could. He kept running to a police station. He dodged all the knives thrown at him. He panted and threw one of the knives back at Bluey. Bluey got hit, but immediately yanked the knife out and kept running. Bandit got so tired, he passed out. Bluey crept up. Bluey raised the knife. Stab Bandit was dead.

Hi ShopifyeCommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
STAT OF THE WEEK: Amazon could finally surpass Walmart to become the nation’s biggest company by revenue, having grown by 12% last year compared with Walmart's growth of 6%. Two more years of similar growth discrepancy would push Amazon past Walmart in sales.
Shopify is suing Shopline in New York federal court, accusing it of illegally copying Shopify's software to build its own e-commerce platform. Shopline is a Singapore-based subsidiary of the Chinese technology company JOYY Inc. Shopify said in the lawsuit that Shopline created a “thinly disguised knockoff” of its Dawn theme to power a competing e-commerce service. The lawsuit even says that the “Shopify” name still appears in the code of various versions of Seed that Shopline is distributing, and that Shopify found a Chinese webpage hosted by Joyy with the title “Seed Theme” that still carries headers reading “dawn-test.”
In other lawsuit news this week — Temu is facing legal action from 17 companies accusing it of violating new EU laws with “manipulative practices” such as making it difficult to delete your account, and lack of transparency over who their sellers are and why certain products are recommended to customers. Temu was the most downloaded app in the UK in 2023 and still remains as a top downloaded app in 2024.
The state of Arizona has taken legal action against Amazon, launching two lawsuits that accuse the company of monopolistic behavior and deceptive practices involving dark patterns. The first lawsuit claims that Amazon's business practices violate the state's Consumer Fraud Act by employing dark patterns to make it difficult for users to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions. The second lawsuit alleges that Amazon breaches Arizona's Uniform State Antitrust Act by maintaining a monopoly via enforcing agreements with third-party sellers to prevent them from offering lower prices on other platforms. It also challenges Amazon's Buy Box algorithm under the Consumer Fraud Act, claiming that it favors sellers who use Fulfillment By Amazon. The legal actions echo similar complaints from the FTC and various states.
Last week Amazon made a big splash with its first-ever event during upfront week, taking over Pier 36 in New York which has previously hosted upfront presentations from Disney and TelevisaUnivision. The company called on celebrities including Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell, and Alicia Keys to demonstrate how premium their content is. Amazon worked to separate itself from its competitors by showcasing its scale. Prime Video now has an average monthly ad-supported reach of 200M customers, with 115M in the US, making it the largest premium ad-supported streaming service both globally and in the U.S. It also announced new upcoming series such as Spider-Man Noir, Tomb Raider, and a prequel to Legally Blond.
eBay launched a new feature called “resell on eBay” that is designed to make it easier for brands and consumers to list clothing for sale on its marketplace. The feature is built into Certilogo, which was acquired by eBay in 2023, which features an AI-powered digital ID printed on the product tag to help brands manage the lifecycle of their garments and give consumers a way to confirm the item's authenticity. Users scan a QR code on a product's smart label to generate a “resell your garment” button. Clicking the button directs the user to check the authenticity of the item through Certilogo's AI authentication system by signing in with their eBay account. From there, an eBay listing is prefilled with information from the brand about the item. Users can then edit the listing, upload additional photos, and publish the item for sale.
Poshmark launched a new paid marketing tool called “Promoted Closets” that gives sellers the ability to promote their entire shop at once. The tool uses machine learning to automatically promote individual product listings from a seller's entire inventory, identifying shoppers' search terms and matching them with promoted items. Promoted Closet works on a cost per click model where sellers only get charged when a shopper clicks and views the item from a promoted listing. There's an option to set the budget manually or get a recommendation from Poshmark. Each campaign lasts for 7 days.
Klarna says that it is not sharing its customer data with credit bureaus in the US because the bureaus “do not have proper models to responsibly process the data and ensure good consumer outcomes.” It does share its data with UK credit bureaus. Klarna added that the credit models used today in the US “were built decades ago and calculate data based on monthly payments, long-term loans, and open lines of credit. But BNPL does not fit into these categories.” The company claims that BNPL is different because it offers bi-weekly instead of monthly payments, and unlike a credit card, Klarna doesn't offer an open line of credit.
Third party sellers on Amazon, which make up 60% of sales on Amazon's marketplace, are reconsidering how heavily they'll discount products this year for Prime Day, given how much seller fees have increased on the platform in recent months, according to Modern Retail. According to data from SmartScout, Amazon FBA fees for standard-sized products have jumped 96% over the past 10 years, outpacing inflation. Seller fees can eat up about half the cost per sale on Amazon, according to Marketplace Pulse. That doesn't leave much room for running Prime Day deals, which primarily benefit Amazon as opposed to the individual merchants who are pressured to wipe out their little remaining margin for the sake of running a deal at all.
Netflix announced durings it Upfronts presentation that it's launching its own advertising platform to compete against Google, Amazon, Hulu, Comcast, and other ad giants. Amazon has only been in the advertising business for a year and a half after launching its ad-supported tier in Nov 2022. Netflix originally partnered with Microsoft to develop its ad tech, which let the streaming platform enter the ad space quickly and catch up with rivals like Hulu, which has offered an ad-supported tier since 2010. Launching its own in-house ad tech will allow Netflix to take full control of its advertising and create targeted and personalized ad experiences. Netflix wants to experiment with “episodic” campaigns, which involves a series of ads that tell a story rather than delivering repetitive ads. Brilliant!
Slack is under attack after users discovered that the company has been using their messages, content, and files to train its global AI models, which Slack uses to power their channel and emoji recommendations and search results. It was discovered that if you don't want Slack to use your data, you have to e-mail the company to opt-out, which isn't a good look for a company that makes a big deal out of telling customers that “You control your data.” In response to the outrage, Slack published a blog post to clarify how its customers' data is used.
Google will now let you perform a “web” search, which lets you filter out almost all of its AI results and knowledge panels that currently take over its SERPs, leaving you with just links and text like the old days. The order of the search results are the same regardless of whether you pick “web” or “all”, and it doesn't block links to YouTube videos or Reddit posts. There are also still ads that appear above and below the results.
YouTube is officially launching its YouTube Select “creator takeovers,” which lets advertisers buy out the ad inventory on channels representing the top 1% of content on the platform. The program began as a pilot at the end of 2023 and is now opening to more top creators.
Wix launched three new AI-powered image enhancement and creation tools to help users create and display high-quality images. The new tools include an AI Image Creator to make the images, Object Eraser to remove unwanted objects in the images, and AI Image Editor to add/edit portions of the image. Honestly, the three tools kind of sound like one tool with three features, but you do you, Wix.
Temu, which is already 20% bigger than Shein in the US and gets 42% of its business from the US, Mexico, and Chile, is turning its attention to Europe and wants to grow rapidly in the region. The company has redirected its enormous ad spend to Europe and Mexico while Washington scrutinizes its business practices in the US.
Visa announced major changes to how its credit and debit cards will operate in the US in the coming months and years. The new features mean consumers will be carrying fewer physical cards in their wallets, and will make the 16-digit card number increasingly irrelevant. The biggest change will be the ability for banks to issue one physical card that is connected to multiple bank accounts, which consumers can apply usage rules to.
Mastercard and Salesforce announced a new integration designed to help customers speed up the resolution of transaction disputes and chargebacks, as well as reduce costs associated with resolving them. The partnership will integrate Salesforce's Financial Services Cloud with Mastercard's dispute resolution services, providing real time notifications and a central dashboard for managing disputes.
Meta is taking inspiration from BeReal and Snapchat by developing a feature for Instagram called “Peek” that allows users to post authentic pictures that can only be viewed once. A photo shared via a Peek would have to be taken with your camera in the moment, as you would not be able to upload an image from your gallery, and you won't be able to add filters or edit the photo.
Ikea launched a TikTok livestream where cats and dogs model and demonstrate new Ikea products for pets. The Pet Shopping Network will appear for everyone in the UK on TikTok and showcase pets demonstrating Ikea's 29-piece pet furniture range.
Sam's Club is planning to launch an online shopping portal in Hong Kong within the next two months, giving the territory access to its products via e-commerce. The service will include free delivery for purchases over 599 yuan ($83).
Amazon raised warehouse worker wages to $15/hour five years ago, but today half of workers surveyed told researchers they struggle to afford food and rent. Amazon called the researcher's methodology “deeply flawed” and said the company had tried to raise its concerns with the study’s authors but never heard back.
Lots of layoffs this week… Amazon laid off more than 100 customer service reps, Walmart let go of hundreds of corporate staffers and ordering employees across the US and Canada, Gopuff laid off 6% of its staff, and Indeed laid off 8% of its workforce.
Remember that former diversity program manager at Facebook who stole more than $4M from the company through fake business deals in exchange for kickbacks? I first reported on Barbara Furlow-Smiles in December of last year when she pled guilty to the theft. Well, last week she was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for her scheme.
In the world of corporate turnover… The chief of Amazon Web Services, Adam Selipsky, is stepping down next month after a three-year term to be replaced by Matt Garman, a senior VP who has overseen sales and marketing at AWS. Also, eBay's VP of Global Communications, Michelle Friedman, departed the company to take on a role at Samsara, a cloud platform built for tracking and analyzing data from physical operations.
Meta is shutting down Workspace, a version of Facebook that had been built to enable communication among business teams and organizations. Sources say that it will be business as usual on the platform until August 25, 2025, and then it will be read-only until May 2026. Meta is recommending Zoom-owned Workvivo as a migration-ready alternative.
Ted Baker Canada is holding store-closing clearance sales across locations in the US and Canada after filing for bankruptcy in April. As of May 10th, online shopping is no longer available and all sales are final across the company's brick-and-mortar retail locations.
Sezzle, a US-based BNPL service, partnered up with Celerant Technology, a POS system for retailers, to offer a BNPL option when checking out in-store . The two companies had partnered in 2023 to offer BNPL options online, and now the solution is being brought to brick-and-mortar stores.
BuyBay, a Dutch recommerce platform, is launching a SaaS product using its own recommerce software. Retailers and manufacturers can now resell unreturned products from their own distribution center, which helps reduce CO2-emissions and increase profits.
Setapp Mobile, a subscription-based alternative to the Apple App Store that's now possible thanks to the EU's Digital Markets Act, went into invite-only beta last week. The new app store allows customers to play with a range of apps without being hit with reduced features, ads, options to upgrade, and without spending money on something they may not use. The biggest challenge with the Setapp iOS store is getting the app installed on your iPhone, which involves following a link, installing software, and then activating it — a process made intentionally cumbersome by Apple.
Avalara expanded its partnership with Shopify by joining the Shopify Tax Platform. Avalara has powered tax calculation for Shopify Plus customers since 2015, and now through the Shopify Tax Partner Platform, the company can serve all Shopify customers with their global tax compliance tools.
Walmart delivered 4.4B items the same day or next day, beating Amazon, which said it did 4B items in one day. Walmart's advantage is that it uses stores for its same-day deliveries.
Plus 9 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including Gorgias's $29M Series C-2 round, which it plans to use the funds from to launch its new AI Agent.
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week! For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/shopify-sues-shopline-ebays-qr-code-netflixs-new-ad-serve What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks. -PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com

Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
STAT OF THE WEEK: Amazon could finally surpass Walmart to become the nation’s biggest company by revenue, having grown by 12% last year compared with Walmart's growth of 6%. Two more years of similar growth discrepancy would push Amazon past Walmart in sales.
Shopify is suing Shopline in New York federal court, accusing it of illegally copying Shopify's software to build its own e-commerce platform. Shopline is a Singapore-based subsidiary of the Chinese technology company JOYY Inc. Shopify said in the lawsuit that Shopline created a “thinly disguised knockoff” of its Dawn theme to power a competing e-commerce service. The lawsuit even says that the “Shopify” name still appears in the code of various versions of Seed that Shopline is distributing, and that Shopify found a Chinese webpage hosted by Joyy with the title “Seed Theme” that still carries headers reading “dawn-test.”
In other lawsuit news this week — Temu is facing legal action from 17 companies accusing it of violating new EU laws with “manipulative practices” such as making it difficult to delete your account, and lack of transparency over who their sellers are and why certain products are recommended to customers. Temu was the most downloaded app in the UK in 2023 and still remains as a top downloaded app in 2024.
The state of Arizona has taken legal action against Amazon, launching two lawsuits that accuse the company of monopolistic behavior and deceptive practices involving dark patterns. The first lawsuit claims that Amazon's business practices violate the state's Consumer Fraud Act by employing dark patterns to make it difficult for users to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions. The second lawsuit alleges that Amazon breaches Arizona's Uniform State Antitrust Act by maintaining a monopoly via enforcing agreements with third-party sellers to prevent them from offering lower prices on other platforms. It also challenges Amazon's Buy Box algorithm under the Consumer Fraud Act, claiming that it favors sellers who use Fulfillment By Amazon. The legal actions echo similar complaints from the FTC and various states.
Last week Amazon made a big splash with its first-ever event during upfront week, taking over Pier 36 in New York which has previously hosted upfront presentations from Disney and TelevisaUnivision. The company called on celebrities including Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell, and Alicia Keys to demonstrate how premium their content is. Amazon worked to separate itself from its competitors by showcasing its scale. Prime Video now has an average monthly ad-supported reach of 200M customers, with 115M in the US, making it the largest premium ad-supported streaming service both globally and in the U.S. It also announced new upcoming series such as Spider-Man Noir, Tomb Raider, and a prequel to Legally Blond.
eBay launched a new feature called “resell on eBay” that is designed to make it easier for brands and consumers to list clothing for sale on its marketplace. The feature is built into Certilogo, which was acquired by eBay in 2023, which features an AI-powered digital ID printed on the product tag to help brands manage the lifecycle of their garments and give consumers a way to confirm the item's authenticity. Users scan a QR code on a product's smart label to generate a “resell your garment” button. Clicking the button directs the user to check the authenticity of the item through Certilogo's AI authentication system by signing in with their eBay account. From there, an eBay listing is prefilled with information from the brand about the item. Users can then edit the listing, upload additional photos, and publish the item for sale.
Poshmark launched a new paid marketing tool called “Promoted Closets” that gives sellers the ability to promote their entire shop at once. The tool uses machine learning to automatically promote individual product listings from a seller's entire inventory, identifying shoppers' search terms and matching them with promoted items. Promoted Closet works on a cost per click model where sellers only get charged when a shopper clicks and views the item from a promoted listing. There's an option to set the budget manually or get a recommendation from Poshmark. Each campaign lasts for 7 days.
Klarna says that it is not sharing its customer data with credit bureaus in the US because the bureaus “do not have proper models to responsibly process the data and ensure good consumer outcomes.” It does share its data with UK credit bureaus. Klarna added that the credit models used today in the US “were built decades ago and calculate data based on monthly payments, long-term loans, and open lines of credit. But BNPL does not fit into these categories.” The company claims that BNPL is different because it offers bi-weekly instead of monthly payments, and unlike a credit card, Klarna doesn't offer an open line of credit.
Third party sellers on Amazon, which make up 60% of sales on Amazon's marketplace, are reconsidering how heavily they'll discount products this year for Prime Day, given how much seller fees have increased on the platform in recent months, according to Modern Retail. According to data from SmartScout, Amazon FBA fees for standard-sized products have jumped 96% over the past 10 years, outpacing inflation. Seller fees can eat up about half the cost per sale on Amazon, according to Marketplace Pulse. That doesn't leave much room for running Prime Day deals, which primarily benefit Amazon as opposed to the individual merchants who are pressured to wipe out their little remaining margin for the sake of running a deal at all.
Netflix announced durings it Upfronts presentation that it's launching its own advertising platform to compete against Google, Amazon, Hulu, Comcast, and other ad giants. Amazon has only been in the advertising business for a year and a half after launching its ad-supported tier in Nov 2022. Netflix originally partnered with Microsoft to develop its ad tech, which let the streaming platform enter the ad space quickly and catch up with rivals like Hulu, which has offered an ad-supported tier since 2010. Launching its own in-house ad tech will allow Netflix to take full control of its advertising and create targeted and personalized ad experiences. Netflix wants to experiment with “episodic” campaigns, which involves a series of ads that tell a story rather than delivering repetitive ads. Brilliant!
Slack is under attack after users discovered that the company has been using their messages, content, and files to train its global AI models, which Slack uses to power their channel and emoji recommendations and search results. It was discovered that if you don't want Slack to use your data, you have to e-mail the company to opt-out, which isn't a good look for a company that makes a big deal out of telling customers that “You control your data.” In response to the outrage, Slack published a blog post to clarify how its customers' data is used.
Google will now let you perform a “web” search, which lets you filter out almost all of its AI results and knowledge panels that currently take over its SERPs, leaving you with just links and text like the old days. The order of the search results are the same regardless of whether you pick “web” or “all”, and it doesn't block links to YouTube videos or Reddit posts. There are also still ads that appear above and below the results.
YouTube is officially launching its YouTube Select “creator takeovers,” which lets advertisers buy out the ad inventory on channels representing the top 1% of content on the platform. The program began as a pilot at the end of 2023 and is now opening to more top creators.
Wix launched three new AI-powered image enhancement and creation tools to help users create and display high-quality images. The new tools include an AI Image Creator to make the images, Object Eraser to remove unwanted objects in the images, and AI Image Editor to add/edit portions of the image. Honestly, the three tools kind of sound like one tool with three features, but you do you, Wix.
Temu, which is already 20% bigger than Shein in the US and gets 42% of its business from the US, Mexico, and Chile, is turning its attention to Europe and wants to grow rapidly in the region. The company has redirected its enormous ad spend to Europe and Mexico while Washington scrutinizes its business practices in the US.
Visa announced major changes to how its credit and debit cards will operate in the US in the coming months and years. The new features mean consumers will be carrying fewer physical cards in their wallets, and will make the 16-digit card number increasingly irrelevant. The biggest change will be the ability for banks to issue one physical card that is connected to multiple bank accounts, which consumers can apply usage rules to.
Mastercard and Salesforce announced a new integration designed to help customers speed up the resolution of transaction disputes and chargebacks, as well as reduce costs associated with resolving them. The partnership will integrate Salesforce's Financial Services Cloud with Mastercard's dispute resolution services, providing real time notifications and a central dashboard for managing disputes.
Meta is taking inspiration from BeReal and Snapchat by developing a feature for Instagram called “Peek” that allows users to post authentic pictures that can only be viewed once. A photo shared via a Peek would have to be taken with your camera in the moment, as you would not be able to upload an image from your gallery, and you won't be able to add filters or edit the photo.
Ikea launched a TikTok livestream where cats and dogs model and demonstrate new Ikea products for pets. The Pet Shopping Network will appear for everyone in the UK on TikTok and showcase pets demonstrating Ikea's 29-piece pet furniture range.
Sam's Club is planning to launch an online shopping portal in Hong Kong within the next two months, giving the territory access to its products via e-commerce. The service will include free delivery for purchases over 599 yuan ($83).
Amazon raised warehouse worker wages to $15/hour five years ago, but today half of workers surveyed told researchers they struggle to afford food and rent. Amazon called the researcher's methodology “deeply flawed” and said the company had tried to raise its concerns with the study’s authors but never heard back.
Lots of layoffs this week… Amazon laid off more than 100 customer service reps, Walmart let go of hundreds of corporate staffers and ordering employees across the US and Canada, Gopuff laid off 6% of its staff, and Indeed laid off 8% of its workforce.
Remember that former diversity program manager at Facebook who stole more than $4M from the company through fake business deals in exchange for kickbacks? I first reported on Barbara Furlow-Smiles in December of last year when she pled guilty to the theft. Well, last week she was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for her scheme.
In the world of corporate turnover… The chief of Amazon Web Services, Adam Selipsky, is stepping down next month after a three-year term to be replaced by Matt Garman, a senior VP who has overseen sales and marketing at AWS. Also, eBay's VP of Global Communications, Michelle Friedman, departed the company to take on a role at Samsara, a cloud platform built for tracking and analyzing data from physical operations.
Meta is shutting down Workspace, a version of Facebook that had been built to enable communication among business teams and organizations. Sources say that it will be business as usual on the platform until August 25, 2025, and then it will be read-only until May 2026. Meta is recommending Zoom-owned Workvivo as a migration-ready alternative.
Ted Baker Canada is holding store-closing clearance sales across locations in the US and Canada after filing for bankruptcy in April. As of May 10th, online shopping is no longer available and all sales are final across the company's brick-and-mortar retail locations.
Sezzle, a US-based BNPL service, partnered up with Celerant Technology, a POS system for retailers, to offer a BNPL option when checking out in-store . The two companies had partnered in 2023 to offer BNPL options online, and now the solution is being brought to brick-and-mortar stores.
BuyBay, a Dutch recommerce platform, is launching a SaaS product using its own recommerce software. Retailers and manufacturers can now resell unreturned products from their own distribution center, which helps reduce CO2-emissions and increase profits.
Setapp Mobile, a subscription-based alternative to the Apple App Store that's now possible thanks to the EU's Digital Markets Act, went into invite-only beta last week. The new app store allows customers to play with a range of apps without being hit with reduced features, ads, options to upgrade, and without spending money on something they may not use. The biggest challenge with the Setapp iOS store is getting the app installed on your iPhone, which involves following a link, installing software, and then activating it — a process made intentionally cumbersome by Apple.
Avalara expanded its partnership with Shopify by joining the Shopify Tax Platform. Avalara has powered tax calculation for Shopify Plus customers since 2015, and now through the Shopify Tax Partner Platform, the company can serve all Shopify customers with their global tax compliance tools.
Walmart delivered 4.4B items the same day or next day, beating Amazon, which said it did 4B items in one day. Walmart's advantage is that it uses stores for its same-day deliveries.
Plus 9 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including Gorgias's $29M Series C-2 round, which it plans to use the funds from to launch its new AI Agent.
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.

I’m new to this group and a lot of what I’m reading feels very familiar to me. I (39M) have been in a relationship for 20 years with my (50M) partner. I realized my partner may be a covert narcissist (I’m 99% sure he is) about a year ago. Two years ago I came clean and admitted to past infidelity on my part. What I did was horrible and I regret it immensely. Getting to the reason of why I cheated is what started increasing my insight into our relationship, dynamics, and patterns. I have always had a phrase I would say to myself over the course of our relationship which was, “he has this gun (metaphorical gun) and he keeps playing with the trigger and then it goes off and shoots him and then I get blamed for it.” Then, he is the victim and I “was so awful to him.” When he found out about my infidelity, he put me on blast on Facebook, messaged my parents, my co workers, etc… I understand he was upset and the level of betrayal is probably beyond what I can even comprehend. The “punishing” went on for a solid year. The blasting stopped but it was constant yelling. We could never talk about our issues because it was always “you you you.” If I did bring up how I felt in the relationship, he would say “you’rere blaming me for your affair ”(which I wasn’t). What really opened my eyes to my experience with him was when his daughter and I were discussing what had happened the day after he messaged everyone. She asked how her dad was doing and I said something along the lines of, “you know how he is when he’s mad.” She replied with, “My dad is the type of person who lights a house on fire and then turns to you and starts yelling at you for burning the house down. If you look up gaslighting in the dictionary, his picture is there.” I nearly hit the floor. I never shared my gun analogy with anyone and here is his own daughter who he is VERY close to telling me this. I couldn’t believe she saw it too. This led to a couple therapists and close friends who are familiar with NPD start talking to me about it. I recognize the pattern with no problem now. It starts with me saying something he doesn’t like or agree with. The attacks come and I find myself on the defense and trying to address the last statement but my statement is then used against me and it’s a complete clusterf*ck spiral. I now walk away and cease communicating (which is also my fault too). About one year after the huge “blowup,” he got some help and for the first time ever admitted his behaviors to me were not appropriate. He took accountability for his roll and forgave me. Things were fine until about February when his old habits started creeping up again. Because I know the pattern, I shut it down immediately. He then proceeds to gaslight me like no other and tells me the stuff he’s doing to me is what I’m doing to him. He throws the affair into it and makes himself more of the victim. So….with all that said, every once in a while I seriously start questioning myself. “Am I the covert narcissist?” “Did I escalate this?” The list goes on…Our sex life is non existent on my part bc of the fighting patterns and now that he’s been unmasked (I think that’s the right term), I don’t want to be intimate with him. I’ve told him it’s because of the conflict we’ve been experiencing but that’s also thrown in my face along with my past affair. I don’t really know what I’m looking for but I feel I need to share this with people who understand. Does anyone have any tips for how to bring yourself out of the gaslighting manipulation?

A few months ago I had multiple charges come through from metapay of scammers trying to test my card out. I quickly got it shut down and took all of my cards off of metapay to prevent it from happeninring again. Since getting my new card, I have put it on a select few apps to prevent this from happening, these places I saved my card I know to be safe and have never heard of anyone having issues. It really is only stored in like 3 super secure places. Anyways, I had another charge for metapay come through again and I really have no idea how they got my new card information. I am super safe with my card and like I said only have it stored in a select few places that I know to be safe. I know that the charges are also coming through via my card rather than ACH as well, I confirmed this with my bank. Overall I am just really confused. Does anyone know how they would be able to get my information? I do not have my card saved on instagram or Facebook or any other social media places which from my understanding is where metapay scammers would be able to steal the card information.

My MIL needs constant attention and validation from everyone around her. She’s very insecure and says she has a “low threshold for boredom” (aka she can’t be alone with herself), so it’s on other people to entertain her. She’ll post something on Facebook and then ask if we saw it, ask the same compliment phishing questions, etc. Literally lays it on so thick: I appreciate it when you call, text, visit or comment SOOO much (they live 2 hours away), and I hope it becomes more frequent!! It’s literally very frequent for how insanely busy we are in this season of life.
She’s always texting DH guilt tripping him to try and see us more, phishing for compliments, or photos of what we’re doing. She’ll ask for an opinion on something he’s already told her is beautiful or great, etc. Or how she is sad and needs to see the sun, or do something, or can we get dinner last minute (he usually doesn’t tell me of these requests and says no on my behalf). Demanding snapchats of what he’s doing or where he’s traveling for work, sending a million snapchats of what she’s doing. It’s just CONSTANT.
She has a husband and SO many friends!! She’s crazy active! It is NEVER enough. We could see her every other week and it wouldn’t be enough. She is a bottomless pit of needing attention and validation.
DH just doesn’t respond sometimes (and tells me not to). He knows “she’s a lot” and I think he’s embarrassed by it because my mom is normal and lets us live our life. Honestly, she doesn’t engage me that much bc I’ve had to intentionally pull away for my own sanity. My DH is really sensitive (and is a very thoughtful compassionate person), so i know he does feel bad when she guilt trips him and gives in and gives her the attention she wants.
As mentioned, it infrequently effects me directly…but it irks me that she puts DH in this position all the time (and his quote “she’s been this way since middle school”). So you’ve been guilt tripping your child for his attention because you have a gaping hole in your life that probably needs therapy? since he was 9? Great.
I want to just sit back and let him handle his relationship with his mom but also feel mad at her and protective over him! Stop manipulating my sweet husband and your adult son to be another emotional crutch for you (especially when you have your own husband and friends you’re constantly reaching out to). Do I just bite my tongue and try not to be annoyed or do I try to politely let him know that I think it’s unfair she puts him in this position? I guess my goal would just be for him to stand up to the guilt tripping a little bit and shut her down vs enabling it. Let me know what you think

Hi everyone – I’ve recently been building a weekly business newsletter called Pulse of Progress and got my first 1,100 subscribers in just 14 days!
The best part? I used zero paid ads. All of my subs were completely free!
Here’s how I did it.
But first, let me provide some context…
For the last 6 months, I’ve been testing out different side hustle / business ideas. I have a running list of ideas that I test on forums like Reddit and Indie Hacker to get a pulse on what the public thinks. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to validate an idea before investing any money or serious time into it. If it gets some traction or interest in the first few days, you know you have something. If not, its time to move on.
I start by generating some interest on social platforms and freelance websites (side note – I’ve come up with a method that helps me do this and get tangible results. So, if this is something you want to learn more about, let me know. I’ll make a post around this too). It’s an approach I’ve developed and tested over the last year with other ideas, so I just do the same with all other ideas I want to test / validate in the future. I want to see results fast, not waste time on non-value add activities.
Here are some of the business ideas I’ve tested:

1. Newsletter sponsorship marketplace – created a platform connecting newsletter businesses with potential advertisers. The marketplace allows the businesses to post their content and advertisers to find and book ad slots

2. AI based email marketing optimization tool – developed an AI tool that analyzes email marketing campaigns and provides optimization suggestions to improve open rates, click-through rates, and conversions
3. Remote language exchange facilitation – pair individuals looking to learn each other’s languages and facilitate their language exchange sessions online
I shut all of these down. I couldn’t get the momentum I wanted or hoped for to consider them a success. The AI based email marketing optimization tool went viral on Hacker News and Indie Hacker, but it was because I was able to generate some hype around it for a short period of time. But the hype faded fast…real fast. I had about 100 people sign up for the service. As for my other businesses, I had a few signups here and there but nothing worth keeping the business alive and investing more of my time into it.
Something I want to call out at this point: all of the businesses I tried starting in the past were bootstrapped. I never used money I made from the sale of my other businesses. I sold one business (a virtual event planning business that took off during the pandemic. We organized and managed virtual events, think webinars / workshops / conferences, for specific interest groups and professional communities). I never touched the proceeds from that sale to start the company I currently run. The reason I bring this up is because I think your business, regardless of what it is, needs to stand on its own. If it couldn’t, I knew it was time to move on. I didn’t want to give myself a false sense of hope that it would work by continuously throwing money at it.
The reason I started a business newsletter…
A newsletter was perfect. It was easy to start and required no money to get it up and running. The purpose behind the newsletter was centered around the idea of creating something that informed and educated people but was entertaining to read. Reading in general, news or not, can sometimes feel like a chore (at least for me). This was the opposite. This was something you genuinely looked forward to reading, the things that influence your world and the decisions you make on a daily basis.
The biggest issue I had with everything else out there was that the content was around things I didn’t care about. Not to mention it put me to sleep half the time. And that’s when it hit me – create a platform that genuinely helped people stay ahead in this information heavy world. Filter out the nonsense, deliver on high-value content.
The test phase…
I spent a couple hours looking up any Facebook group that was related to starting side hustles, escaping the 9-5 grind, online businesses etc. Once I came up with a small list of about 8-10 groups, I spent the next few days posting about the newsletter. One caveat for me when looking for which groups to post in: they needed to have more than 50K users. I wanted my posts to have some reach and didn’t want to waste my time in groups that were smaller and were barely active. I also designed some GIFs (I drew inspiration from the early Milk Road days when they posted funny GIFs / memes about their newsletter all over social media) but that didn’t work. Like at all. So, I shifted gears.
The first day, I posted about the newsletter in 8 different groups and got about 45 subscribers the next day. Over the next two weeks, I spent a couple of hours each day making similar posts within these groups and tried finding other groups I can post in. This proved to be successful. Making consistent posts got people engaged and subscribing to the newsletter. It was starting to gain some steam. And this is what lead to my first 1,100 subscribers in the first 14 days.
Why this worked…
1. Value creation: The best ideas appeal to what people want, and more importantly, need. It helps solve a problem. And in this case, people want high quality content that helps them make informed decisions, educates them along the way and is a joy to read.
2. Helps identify trends before they happen: Understanding emerging trends and market dynamics is crucial for staying ahead. This knowledge allows people to adapt quickly, innovate effectively, and capitalize on new market opportunities.
3. Sparks innovation and creativity: Exposure to different perspectives and new information sparks innovation and creative thinking. Staying informed about global trends, tech advancements, and industry breakthroughs inspires new ideas and approaches.
Things to keep in mind…
What I’ve realized is that you want your ideas to generate a “natural pull” from the world. It shouldn’t be something you “push” onto people. Trying to convince people they need something that doesn’t help improve their lives or satisfy a need is a waste of time. Listen to what people want. And build from there.
I’ve had multiple profitable businesses and the common theme between them all is that they cost me less than $100 to start and get product / market fit. I won’t lie, sometimes I let my ego get in the way when I put an idea out there and it got rejected. And trust me when I tell you, that’s happened more often than I’d like to admit. I spent way too much time and money putting something together even when I knew it wasn’t worth pursuing.
How does that saying go…the one about Thomas Edison and his attempt at building the first light bulb after trying and failing 1000 times. “I haven’t failed. I just found 1000 different ways how not to build a lightbulb.” And that’s just it…who cares if the idea didn’t work. Hate to break it to you, but most will. Instead, focus on the skills you’ve picked up and learned along the way while building this business and apply it to the next.
Anyways, I hope this post helps at least one person grow their business, subs count, social media presence. Now that I’ve grown my audience to over 10K subscribers organically, I’m looking into using paid ads to grow even more from here. The problem is I have no idea how to do that! So, if anyone has any tips or tricks, I’d love to hear them.
Good luck my friends.

Hi everyone – I should start off by saying I've spent years trying to create businesses that created passive income streams over the last few years. Most failed. A small few survived. And in the process I realized one thing: today, growing a presence online, whether through social media or through a dedicated email list, is crucial. I hope my story helps at least one person get one step closer to creating their own income streams outside of their 9-5.
My story
I’ve recently been building a weekly business newsletter called Pulse of Progress and got my first 1,100 subscribers in just 14 days!
The best part? I used zero paid ads. All of my subs were completely free!
Here’s how I did it.
But first, let me provide some context…
For the last 6 months, I’ve been testing out different side hustle / business ideas. I have a running list of ideas that I test on forums like Reddit and Indie Hacker to get a pulse on what the public thinks. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to validate an idea before investing any money or serious time into it. If it gets some traction or interest in the first few days, you know you have something. If not, its time to move on.
I start by generating some interest on social platforms and freelance websites (side note – I’ve come up with a method that helps me do this and get tangible results. So, if this is something you want to learn more about, let me know. I’ll make a post around this too). It’s an approach I’ve developed and tested over the last year with other ideas, so I just do the same with all other ideas I want to test / validate in the future. I want to see results fast, not waste time on non-value add activities.
Here are some of the business ideas I’ve tested:
1. Newsletter sponsorship marketplace – created a platform connecting newsletter businesses with potential advertisers. The marketplace allows the businesses to post their content and advertisers to find and book ad slots
2. AI based email marketing optimization tool – developed an AI tool that analyzes email marketing campaigns and provides optimization suggestions to improve open rates, click-through rates, and conversions
3. Remote language exchange facilitation – pair individuals looking to learn each other’s languages and facilitate their language exchange sessions online
I shut all of these down. I couldn’t get the momentum I wanted or hoped for to consider them a success. The AI based email marketing optimization tool went viral on Hacker News and Indie Hacker, but it was because I was able to generate some hype around it for a short period of time. But the hype faded fast…real fast. I had about 100 people sign up for the service. As for my other businesses, I had a few signups here and there but nothing worth keeping the business alive and investing more of my time into it.
Something I want to call out at this point: all of the businesses I tried starting in the past were bootstrapped. I never used money I made from the sale of my other businesses. I sold one business (a virtual event planning business that took off during the pandemic. We organized and managed virtual events, think webinars / workshops / conferences, for specific interest groups and professional communities). I never touched the proceeds from that sale to start the company I currently run. The reason I bring this up is because I think your business, regardless of what it is, needs to stand on its own. If it couldn’t, I knew it was time to move on. I didn’t want to give myself a false sense of hope that it would work by continuously throwing money at it.
The reason I started a business newsletter…
A newsletter was perfect. It was easy to start and required no money to get it up and running. The purpose behind the newsletter was centered around the idea of creating something that informed and educated people but was entertaining to read. Reading in general, news or not, can sometimes feel like a chore (at least for me). This was the opposite. This was something you genuinely looked forward to reading, the things that influence your world and the decisions you make on a daily basis.
The biggest issue I had with everything else out there was that the content was around things I didn’t care about. Not to mention it put me to sleep half the time. And that’s when it hit me – create a platform that genuinely helped people stay ahead in this information heavy world. Filter out the nonsense, deliver on high-value content.
The test phase…
I spent a couple hours looking up any Facebook group that was related to starting side hustles, escaping the 9-5 grind, online businesses etc. Once I came up with a small list of about 8-10 groups, I spent the next few days posting about the newsletter. One caveat for me when looking for which groups to post in: they needed to have more than 50K users. I wanted my posts to have some reach and didn’t want to waste my time in groups that were smaller and were barely active. I also designed some GIFs (I drew inspiration from the early Milk Road days when they posted funny GIFs / memes about their newsletter all over social media) but that didn’t work. Like at all. So, I shifted gears.
The first day, I posted about the newsletter in 8 different groups and got about 45 subscribers the next day. Over the next two weeks, I spent a couple of hours each day making similar posts within these groups and tried finding other groups I can post in. This proved to be successful. Making consistent posts got people engaged and subscribing to the newsletter. It was starting to gain some steam. And this is what lead to my first 1,100 subscribers in the first 14 days.
Why this worked…
1. Value creation: The best ideas appeal to what people want, and more importantly, need. It helps solve a problem. And in this case, people want high quality content that helps them make informed decisions, educates them along the way and is a joy to read.
2. Helps identify trends before they happen: Understanding emerging trends and market dynamics is crucial for staying ahead. This knowledge allows people to adapt quickly, innovate effectively, and capitalize on new market opportunities.
3. Sparks innovation and creativity: Exposure to different perspectives and new information sparks innovation and creative thinking. Staying informed about global trends, tech advancements, and industry breakthroughs inspires new ideas and approaches.
Things to keep in mind…
What I’ve realized is that you want your ideas to generate a “natural pull” from the world. It shouldn’t be something you “push” onto people. Trying to convince people they need something that doesn’t help improve their lives or satisfy a need is a waste of time. Listen to what people want. And build from there.
I’ve had multiple profitable businesses and the common theme between them all is that they cost me less than $100 to start and get product / market fit. I won’t lie, sometimes I let my ego get in the way when I put an idea out there and it got rejected. And trust me when I tell you, that’s happened more often than I’d like to admit. I spent way too much time and money putting something together even when I knew it wasn’t worth pursuing.
How does that saying go…the one about Thomas Edison and his attempt at building the first light bulb after trying and failing 1000 times. “I haven’t failed. I just found 1000 different ways how not to build a lightbulb.” And that’s just it…who cares if the idea didn’t work. Hate to break it to you, but most will. Instead, focus on the skills you’ve picked up and learned along the way while building this business and apply it to the next.
Anyways, I hope this post helps at least one person grow their business, subs count, social media presence. Now that I’ve grown my audience to over 10K subscribers organically, I’m looking into using paid ads to grow even more from here. The problem is I have no idea how to do that! So, if anyone has any tips or tricks, I’d love to hear them.
Good luck my friends.

Hello!
Today I felt like telling my story that don’t matter but actually does because it really built my character haha when I was 13 years old I had a Facebook profile from a character that I like, Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, at the beginning I didn’t even know what role play was, just that I really wanted to play as him. I added a bunch of people roleplaying as other characters from that game in particular and later on just random accounts from other games, I was very shy and didn’t actually role play that much because I was insecure about my English since it’s not my mother tongue, so I kinda just saw everything from the sidelines, with kinda no popular status I got a real life friend to join me as Aerith side note she didn’t even play the game or knew anything from it but went ahead and created an account to role play with me who was my character’s love interest and we would play as a couple. Nothing really happened at the beginning, until it did.
I added a profile playing as Ike from Fire Emblem and we started talking, only thing I know is that he’s a guy haha so we started talking and I explained him about my character and the game which got him interested about it, I really liked him he was cool at that time. He even left his Ike account to make one for Cloud Strife, a character from Final Fantasy VII. My character’s life was started to progress since he was being so extrovert, loud, cringy haha I made friends from role playing like Xion from Kingdom Hearts who I believe was a girl, Roxas from Kingdom Hearts who was a girl too, shout out to my girl! We still talk to this day.
Zack and Aerith got engaged after a while and we adopted Xion as our daughter, but little did they know I was having an affair with Cloud.
Cloud and I got closer and closer by talking I swear everyday after school, next fact I unlocked from him was that he was from the UK, we would talk about our interests and how was our day without revealing our names, to this day I don’t know his, but I would feel like we were actually friends on the start, he would tell me I play the best as my character, even saying I was actually him so I think that started to mess with my head, what was really aimed at my character and my real identity? Because it felt like we were in a relationship, he would say he liked me and that we should be together, so we started talking more flirty and couple like, even role play smut but it would be so awkward like *moan* and stuff haha nothing graphic, I don’t know why I didn’t tell my wife, to the outside we were this happy family, even my daughter had a crush on Cloud and I would discourage to pursue him, my thinking was he’s gay you don’t have a chance but with me it’s different.
I am Zack Fair.
The way I would role play was using fanarts, I would make albums from the characters and post a bunch of cute fanart and go from there, since it was easier to describe the scenery because of my English. I made albums from most of the characters of my game, even albums titled as family and it would be crossovers from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. Other people used this method I am not claiming it as my own, but overall this life was competitive I remember another Zack Fair named with the Japanese pronunciation Zakkusu Fea and I was totally jealous of him, he was so popular he had his Aerith and his family, their profile pictures were pretty so that made him pretty in my head, there was also this other Cloud Strife but named Cloud NotaChocobo something among those lines and he was a very cute boy, he always pick the cutest fanart of Cloud, but I never spoke with any of them I was shy and I tried to expand my social circle.
But Aerith disliked Cloud to the point she deleted him from Facebook, I don’t remember the motives but he would be sarcastically rude to her, it wasn’t really just one big event and I was really a coward to not defend my wife, instead I wouldn’t really interact in public with him, it was all on private messages, one day Aerith suggested we should switch accounts for a day and I accepted because I thought it would be fun to play as her. Big mistake.
She saw,
everything.
She posted on my wall saying what she found out, would copy paste fragment of what we told each other, our professions of love, I tried to warn Cloud but I was not on his friend list, soon enough friends started to notice the posts on my profile and got involved, I was rightfully the bad guy in all this, my daughter hated me because here I was breaking the family apart and engaging with the guy she wanted. I immediately apologized to my friend in real life playing as Aerith and she just lol’d telling me it was okay it was just a joke but in my mind it wasn’t. We got a divorce after that and she kept engaging on role playing as a single mom, later on I saw she remarried but then she really wasn’t much online anymore. For myself I grow out a mustache, a friend drew one from one of my profile pictures, it was popular back in 2008, haha, this face was even my signature :{D.
I went back to Cloud, we were apologetic of what had happened and soon enough it was like before, only this time I would tell him that I wanted our relationship to be public but he wasn’t ready yet, so I waited and waited but deep inside I felt hurt because I thought he didn’t love me in real life, he would then tell me his problems from his day, that he was at a friend’s house playing spin the bottle and he had to kiss a guy but didn’t because he was shy about it and I was so jealous about it I thought we broke up in that moment but didn’t say nothing, he would give me a few hints here and there about his personal life, I only know he has his mother and a big brother and were from India, he would send me links to Indian songs and dramas from Bollywood, that made him happy. One time while looking at profiles to add from mutual friends I saw an account named after my character and the profile was a real photo of an Indian guy, I looked through his profile and I got the vibe it was him, but to this day I don’t know since I never told him and the account was soon deleted or maybe he changed the profile picture since there were so many accounts with the same name.
We kept our relationship private until one day he said he was ready to make it public I was very excited about it, our friends congratulated us and I thought this new step would be so much fun but it went downhill from here. I don’t really remember anything from here I think because it were the days that I really struggled with balancing this persona and my own, the friends I made here would vent to me about their real life problems and I would try to help them as much as a 13 year old can, later I fell sick to the stomach turns out I had gastritis from all the stress, I remember leaving the Doctor with my mom telling her “So it’s because of the stress? But I like helping people, they tell me their problems…” and she said something among the lines of how they wouldn’t help me back, it sucked.
Tumblr was a miracle, I got my blog and I got obsessed with it, since I loved many tv shoes back in the day I enjoyed the content that people were posting, the images, the gifsets, the audios, the videos, the memes we got from that like the Mishapocalypse haha. Again I don’t really remember how Cloud and I broke up but I’m pretty sure he broke up with me, I told my friend Roxas about it and we decided to have a public relationship but really we were just friends, in my head I tried to make Cloud jealous but later on I didn't even care he had changed and I disliked this new persona and speaking of people they were not getting online as much anymore, so leaving was easy, I added Roxas to my real account and didn't look back.
I would only get online from time to time since I was afraid my account could get hacked or deleted for inactivity, but when I was logged I could say hi to all my friends and I got some juicy gossip, remember Cloud? He was in distress telling me that he was role playing with a mutual friend of us, a Genesis from Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, and boy they were role playing smut and Genesis’ mother caught a glimpse or something but she read all that and grounded him from his computer, I was indifferent from it I recall only saying him something like: Too bad. To this day I have the gut feeling that he was cheating on me, not with Genesis but I recall him interacting in a suspicious way with other Zacks, oh yeah he only liked Zack Fair.
Later on I saw that Cloud changed again his behavior, he was like a role play police if he didn’t like how you act he would let you know about it, he made a lot of accounts like a second Cloud Strife, a Genesis Rhapsodos one, one of my character Zack Fair. Until I logged one day and I couldn’t find him on my friend list until I realized he deleted me, with time I never found his account, maybe he deleted them all, I don’t know since roleplaying on Facebook wasn’t as popular.
That is all I have to say, I might have little stories here and there about these time but overall it really messed with my reality of how I view these friendships… relationships… I don’t regret it much, it was a fun escape since I hated my middle school haha but super cringe it let’s be real, I don’t really remember much apart from minor details or fun stuff that happened but shoutout to that other Zack Fair from Italy on his mid 20’s who told me he was in a metal band and learnt German from metal music who got stabbed in a bar I don’t remember why but when I told him I was a girl he wanted to be in a relationship with me and come visit me, I shut that shit down. But hi bro o/

Hello all
Thinning down the collection, just have too many knives sitting in the boxes collecting dust while someone out there could be enjoying them.
TIMESTAMP
First up is CKF EVO-T with the carbon fiber inlay w/ blackwashed S90v blade. First Owner. Knife has been carried once (first day) and has been sitting in the pouch since. Centering perfect. Drop shut action. The only blemish is a slight scratch on the blackwash near the spline on the clip side (can see in picture). SV $480 PICS SOLD
Winterblade Factor Batch 2. Bronze/black configuration. First owner. Knife has never been carried or cut and only flicked 70000 times while sitting at my desk like most other factors. SV350 PICS SOLD
Something Obscene J-Cape 3.5. This one hurts to let go as I love this knife. This is the Obscene EDC facebook group special and his final production of the J-Cape 3.5. CPM 20cv black. Bronze anodized ti handle and has the thumb stud and flipper tab. First owner. Carried a couple of times but is flawless. Centering is dead on and has that beautiful snappy action. SV 480 PICS
CMF Metalworks "Print" by Reate. First owner. This was an exclusive sold through Slice. Basically just a production run so the common man could afford to hold a CMF Metalworks knife. This is the framelock version with a bead blasted ti handle and a belt satin M390 blade. Carried a handfull on times. Great condition and razor sharp. Selling this one at a sizable discount. SV280 PICS SOLD
Vero Axon Batch 2. This is the liner lock version. It has a M390 belt satin blade with an end cut carbon fiber black handle. Second owner of this knife, got it here on the swap early 2023. Great value here. SV170 PICS SOLD
Lastly. A Bridgeport Knife Co. 395 V2. This is the way of knife exclusive with a 20cv blade. First owner and the knife has never been carried. Just sitting in the case for well over a year. Bro price from what I paid for it. SV190. PICS SOLD

My wife 55f and I 59m have been together for 37 years and married for 32. About a year into our monogamous relationship, I caught her screwing another guy which turned my life upside down. It took me several months to get past her only for her to come back into my life again and we returned to dating. I had dated several girls in high school and in college but I had never met anyone like my wife and was absolutely head over heels in love with her.
She got pregnant at the age of 21 and we started living together only to break up 6 months after the birth of our child. She had me served with a paternity suit which made me feel guilty about our child. Wanting to do the right thing, I got back together. We were married 2 years later and had lots of ups and downs in our relationship over the years. I may not have been a saint but I was always faithful to my wife. Things had never been better between us starting about 10 years ago. I was so positive about us in our relationship and was looking forward to retirement for which we were going to travel and do a lot of fun things together.
Things devolved a little over 5 years ago when she had a girlfriend come back into town and they were going to go out to eat at a local restaurant. After not coming home at a reasonable time I tried to call her with no answer as it went straight to voicemail as if the phone was shut off. I drove downtown to the restaurant only to find her vehicle seemingly abandoned in the empty parking lot and my heart sunk! I elicited the help of my adult children as I was extremely concerned about her well being. My younger child used an Apple device to Ping her Apple phone to find that she was a few miles from our home. I gave the address to my older child who drove to the address as I was in route also. I arrived just behind my kid who was confronting my wife's girlfriend as they were both drunk as hell and shouldn't have been driving. They were supposedly at the house of my wife's friend from out of town. My wife acted pissed at us for ruining their fun and my older child took my wife home and I got my younger child to help me retrieve my wife's vehicle from the restaurant. My wife was still acting pissed when I got home and she slept on the couch and I in our bedroom upstairs. The next morning I questioned my wife as to what they were doing and why her phone was shut off. I asked to see her phone which she gave me and going through it I found the profile of a much younger gentleman on Facebook who I did not know. I went through her text messages and she had no recents. I got on the cell account and found almost 30 text messages back and forth between her and this younger gentleman starting about 8:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. and then an almost 2 hour dead space only to pick up again until about 4:00 in the morning(while I was in bed right above her). I was beyond furious and confronted her with this information. She said the guy at the bar asked for her single girlfriend for her FB profile to befriend along with my wife's. Her phone number was on her profile page which I had told her before was not a good idea. This was obviously a convenient way for him to contact her via phone or text. I asked if the nearby house they were at was a house party and whether this guy was there. She unequivocally denied this and said they were just visiting a friend to which I asked why her phone was shut off and allegedly left in her girlfriend's car. My wife never goes anywhere without her phone so her excuses were falling on deaf ears. She denies having had any kind of relationship with this guy to which I am not convinced because at a minimum she had an emotional affair if not physical. I am having to take her word for it and I just can't fully believe her. This put a serious strain on our marriage and I had pulled funds out of our joint account immediately after this incident and was contemplating divorce. We started seeing a marriage counselor but she wasn't very effective in my opinion.
In the midst of all this uncertainty a few months later I get a huge bombshell dropped in my lap, bigger than her alleged infidelity. Evidently my wife was aware that my older child's spouse was paying for a genealogical test. My wife came to me very emotional and said that our older child might not be mine! I thought she was being overly emotional during that time of uncertainty after her night out on the town. I brushed it off not knowing about the test. The genealogical test came back and the child I raised, then almost 30 years old, was not my biological child. The child that cared for emotionally and financially was not mine! Throat punch, heart stabbed, cannonball to the stomach barely describes how I felt at that moment. My child is still my child and we do have a continued relationship.
The ups and downs of the last five or so years have been horrible continuing on to the present. She moved out in February of this year while I was at work just before our 32nd wedding anniversary and I do not know where she lives. All I know is she lives in a three-bedroom house with a fenced yard for our dogs. We talk infrequently sometimes being cordial and more often being strained. She says that I ran her off because of the mean things that I say or have said. Truth is not a cut and I remind her that she is 50% at fault for things being said and 100% at fault of perceived infidelity which she does not want to hear. She accuses me of having a girlfriend which makes me laugh. I tell her that she knows where to find me because I am either at work or at the home we used to share and that she is at a her secret lair doing who knows what with who knows who. She contends there is no one else and my oldest child, strike that, HER oldest child is adamant that there is no one else. I retire with a solid retirement portfolio at the end of the year and have zero bills or debts. I thought if I could just get to retirement and be able to spend more time on our relationship that we might be able to salvage this. My wife askes me frequently what I want from her to which I always reply my old wife back. My wife is an extremely attractive 55-year-old woman who looks more to be 40 years old. I have been described as very youthful for my age and handsome and maintain a high level of fitness. Interests that we shared early on in our relationship have diminished over the years as we are mare and more like oil and water with the exception of our sex life which up until the last few years had always been stellar and regular. She shows up with one of the dogs for me to care for once in awhile and usually ends up in a booty call while she is here. During sex is the only time she is truly sweet to me. So after this "War and Peace" background setup, I have 3 questions open for your all's opinions.. 1. Should I divorce her right now? 2. Should I wait for her to file on me? 3. Should I try to work on things with her until retirement at which time I will have even more time to work on us.

Hey, been writing this for a while. Got a dozen chapters at the moment. All of whom are interviews from veterans after a global war between humanity and aliens.
The premise is that after a short conflict/flashpoint between NATO and Russia in the baltics, that region becomes incredibly militarized as both sides pile up army units preparing for an inevitable conflict in the near future. Then you have meteors hitting Lithuania and Latvia. Which turns out were carrying an unknown Alien race which attempted to desperately colonize earth after their home planet was rendered inhabitable.
This is but one of the chapters. Fyi when they refer to crabs, they are talking about the alien cannon fodder units, 1 to 3m tall bipedal beings that have the face of crustaceans.
Feel free to give me any criticism you'd like. This is just a taste of what I'm working, if people are interested I will share more.

November 2034, Gdansk. European Federation

Pzschemek courteously welcomes me into his apartment, gently balancing his half-asleep young boy in one arm as he opens the door. The 34th floor of this public housing tower was completed just a year ago. As a combat veteran, the governement paid half of the price on the already affordable apartment. Since the official end of hostilities and the remarkable population surge, these towering structures, inspired by their Asian counterpart, have sprouted in nearly every remaining major city across the continent. Having seen combat from the start all the way to the end, I was referred to him by the head of the Polish Army Land Forces who was his battalion commander during the start of the war.
I'm offered a seat on the living room sofa, amidst scattered toys and clothes strewn about. He settles across from me, his son peacefully asleep in his arms, after preparing coffee for us.
A veteran of the war, he had seen combat all across Poland as a tank commander.

"When I began my training, we operated with the PT-91, an upgraded Soviet-designed T-72—sturdy, but we viewed them as deathtraps. Just imagine our optimism when my battalion received our first Leopards 2a7. Transitioning from a 1980s Soviet tank to modern german, American and ever Korean tanks—before the war in Ukraine, even entertaining such a notion aloud would have warranted a psychological evaluation. After a year or so. I knew that thing inside and out. It had short comings but it was a beauty.

He points to a frame on the wall—a cutout of a newspaper front page. It depicts him and his other crew members atop their tank ‘Sokoly’ written on its cannon, with a destroyed tripod lying on the floor behind them, the backdrop a sight of a ravaged city. With the title; “Our boys took Vilnius!"
"We made the front page of Gazeta Wyborcza with that picture. Our company commander sent it in. My parents hadn't heard from me in weeks, and one day, he recognized me on the front page at a news stand."
His face lights up with a warm smile.
"We hit the road five hours after the first landings. My vehicle was still getting fueled when I drove into our base, rushing to the briefing room in my jeans and rain jacket. I was expecting orders to be to rush to the Belarusian border or help out our guys in Lithuania to fend of the russians. Instead, our company commander starts talking about visitors from another world, how the info keeps pouring in every minute, but everything's still up in the air. We didn’t believe him until we saw the footage of the meteor landings, or air force footage from the airstrikes on beings we didn’t even know could exist. That one footage from that tank station, those crabs walking in and shooting all those civilians really set us off. That segment where one crab ripped out the arm of a dead man to make sure he was dead must have filled us with hate. Even do we didn’t know who or what they were. We didn’t ask too many questions. You’d expect us to yell out stuff in the likes of “Have we tried to make contact with them? What is the United Nations saying? From what planet are they?” but the only questions that could be heard was “Did the 2-5 tank get its tracks fixed? How much water should we take? Do we get our shells here or the TAA?”
“We were scared don’t get me wrong but I’m still proud of my boys, Its been a while but we still have contact with each other. Last summer I was the best man at my loader’s wedding.”
After laying down his boy, who had just woken up, he watches as the little one instantly grabs a toy police car and starts playing with it. Pzshemek gazes at his son, lost in thought, as he happily engages with his toy.

"We spent five hours on the road, with our tanks hitched onto trucks. When we finally reached our deployment area, chaos was everywhere. The roads were packed with cars from the north—Polish, Lithuanian, even Russian and Belarussian plates. People crammed into buses, I even saw a truck with an empty container but packed with civilians inside. On one van, boys sat on top, like scenes from trains in India. It's a miracle we only arrived an hour late. In Suwalki, we turned an Ikea parking lot into a makeshift FOB. Half of it was filled with troops fresh back from Lithuania and the border. Fresh might not be the right word. They were ravaged, they sat in silences. Nearly all with bandages or injuries of some sorts. The heavily wounded were being treated in tents and civilian ambulances. The dead layed in rows and rows of bodybags. They had commandeered one of or trench building vehicles to dig a mass grave for them. Helicopters landed, unloaded countless men and they loaded the helis to the brim with the injured. Tents and tents of make shift hospitals. More and more troops arrived. They looked like they’ve been to hell. I remember at one time my gaze met one of the men. I was looking around until I saw him looking at me. He was sitting on a stretcher being treated by a paramedic, his chest and arms were burned black. He was staring at me. I don’t know if it was the morphine or the shock, his gaze wouldn’t leave me. Fighter jets kept buzzing us. On our way to bomb targets and to slow the advance of the crabs down as much as they could. I was confident on our way there but the sight of all those defeated man made me want to empty my guts. We got called to a tent to get a briefing on the situation. There was a white board with grainy pictures of what we could expect. Even drawings. It was the Polish military attaché to Lithuania himself who gave the briefing to us. He looked like he had been to hell. I learned later he had to be restrained with the help of punches and shoved into the last helicopter out of Vilnius by his men.”
“What did he discuss?”
"We're in the dark, and we're counting on you to keep us informed as you hold the line. My English doesn't do it justice, but that was the last thing he said before we set out. We knew more different type of enemy assets would emerge as they settled in. Turns out, our drones spotted them digging into the meteors they landed in. As we left the FOB, they were loading everything onto anything with a motor and wheels. They didn't anticipate us holding our ground. Now, that's what I call motivation.”
Our chat got interrupted when Pszemek's wife walking into the apartment, decked out in nurse scrubs and juggling grocery bags. Pszemek jumped up to help her out, and they headed to the hallway, chatting away in Polish. Before she disappeared into the dimly lit bedroom, they stole a quick kiss.
“She has the night shift.” He said coldly as he put away the groceries. “We got on our tanks, our entire company made it and we were lined up platoon by platoon.
I closed the hatch, sat down, put my helmet on. My loader who also was my assistant of sorts. Installed the radios, helped copy the maps our lieutenant got, made coffee or passed drinks. He gave me a thumbs up, it was our signal and it meant we had radio communications with everyone that mattered. I pressed the push to talk of my microphone. “Everyone in position? Sound off!” I tried to say firmly and calmly. I knew back then it wasn’t the time to show any fear to my boys.
“Driver ready!” One voice yelled loudly. “Gunner ready!” followed by “Loader ready!” we set off right after that
At Suwalki we had to hold the highway entering the city from the north. Nothing particular, just fields and roads. We would have excelled there if we faced anything other than that. As dawn broke. The air strikes and artillery lured closer and closer. Along with our reconnaissance elements on the radio notifying us every time they got one kilometer closer. We could just sit there, it took us five minutes to mark and call out points of interests in that field so that we could communicate quickly during the battle and then we counted down the kilometers between us and them. Some men smoked, wrote letters. My gunner, a young guy he must have been 19 back then. He opened the hatch suddenly to vomit outside. Our nerves were all over the place. We nearly shot our recon troops as they speeded through our lines. They rushed through us and took cover behind us. They had done their job warning us and coordinating airstrikes. I told my boys it was our moment to shine. That whatever may walk,run,crawl over the border that we were the Polish anvil set on stopping them. We sat at two kilometers from the first woodline. We had infantry in the woods to our west and east. We had the open fields. We had to stop them or win time for the folks in Suwalki. But this wasn’t Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. This was Poland. We wouldn’t give them an inch. We all grew up listening to our grandparents talking about what the Nazis and Soviets did to them and to our country.
At first, it was lone crabs on that wood line. They moved from tree to tree. We could see their silhouettes on the thermal sights. As more of those crab joined them we didn’t bother to shoot. We called in the mortar platoon to take care of them. Even after the mortars landed and took care of the first ones, their numbers grew. Then when there mobs of them we called in the 155mm artillery. It turned that forest. We felt the shockwaves as it blasted them. Trees were shredded and their pieces sent hundreds of meter away. Then we heard the first rumble of the beetles. I still have no idea why they didn’t appear on my thermals with all the heat they were carrying inside. If it wasn’t for the dawn and the reflection of the moonlight I might not have seen it until it was on top of me. Those things were as big as an apartment block. I still can't wrap my head around how those beasts survived a journey across galaxies. Must be why they were so darn hard to kill. We had no idea how they fought, how fast they could move. We called them beetles because it was the only thing earth like we could remotely compare them to in shape. I felt my heart race when I switched to normal sight and saw one of them move. I was looking right at it yet it appeared black as the solid on my thermal heat sight. There must have been six of them pushing that field alone. Against twelve of our tanks and three platoon’s worth of infantrymen and IFVs, you'd think we could've held them. But when they carpet-bombed us with fire, everyone lost it. Those beasts opened their mouth as their throat expanded, the fire inside of that could hurt to look at if you watched it with the naked eye. We didn’t know what to expect, but them spitting magma on us wasn’t on our bingo list so to say. Sure, they were two hundred meters short, but everyone outside of tanks must've felt the heat. They fired what could only be described as ropes of magma all in unison. The infantry platoon beside us, even the most ‘gung ho’ grunts who had had time to dig trenches, said ‘fuck that’ did a 180 and sprinted back a few hundred meters. Our platoon commander was swearing up a storm on the radio, trying to get their commander to get his men in order. Can't blame them. We opened fire right after their attempt to cremate us. I told my gunner to aim for the head and fire. Even with the shock of the 122mm armor-piercing shell hitting it, the thing just staggered and kept moving. Even in the tank, with all that armor and my ear protection, I could still hear my colleagues unloading on them. Again and again I ordered my gunner to go for the head. I still don’t know how they survived the kinetic shock alone of a shell like that hitting them. Later on in the war we learned that it gave them those weird types of concussions that made them act all weird, made them even attack their own side and such. But at the time, you can imagine me sitting there looking at them eating a tank shell like it was nothing. One shell hit its upper back. We saw the shell ricochet of its back and fly god knows where in the horizon behind it. My loader was grabbing shells and loading them in the breech at a rythm he could have gotten a medal for that alone. They were getting closer. The beetles and the crabs moving in with them. They spit fire again in unison. This time they were right on the mark. I heard the commander of the tank on my left yell in the radio as his tank ate hot magma. They were safe for now on the inside but the panic it instilled, there was nothing like it. Keep in mind, we still had 155mm artillery landing, it didn’t seem to be bothered by it even do the crabs next to those things were turned into moshed potatoes by the shrapnel and shock blast.
Pszemek got up suddenly to move his kid away from the kitchen as he tried to grab a hold of the hot coffee pot.
“little devil” he said silently.
“When I realized we couldn’t pierce it from the front I ordered by gunner to go for its knee caps. He didn’t hesitate and put its sight on it. The beetle was moving slowly enough for him to aim. My loader, exhausted from carrying shell after shell yelled out “GOTOWY” with a blood curling yell right before my gunner pulled the trigger on the joystick. The ignition on the shell shook the tank as it always did. It’s like a giant punch that makes the whole vehicle jolt backward violently. You can feel the force ripple through the tank, and everything inside shakes for a moment before it steadies again thanks to the suspension. The shell hit it right on the mark. The beast lost its footing. It crashed face-down, crushing a few crabs beneath it who were taking cover under it. It took a few moments for the creature to rise on another leg. Sharp as a fox, my gunner aimed for the first leg on the opposite side and fired another armor piercing shell through the meaty split between its strong carapace. The devil was down. With its front legs disabled, it had no balance. Instinctively, I grabbed the radio. The radio was buzzing with "NO EFFECT ON THE TARGET" and "LIEUTENANT, LET'S GET OUTTA HERE, FOR GOD'S SAKE." I shouted at my colleagues to aim for the kneecaps to slow them down. It got everyone to shut up and focus at the task at hand.



One by one, the beetles crashed in the mud. Don’t get me wrong, they kept shooting their magma at us. My tank got some aswell. It cooked our thermal sights and lazer warning receivers instantly. But since our engine was spared we just had to reverse back twenty meters and we were alright. We were speeding at 30km/h in reverse, I was praying there wouldn’t be a confused 20 year old infantry man end up under our tracks. The beetles were everything but precise. They even hit their own crabs as they desperately spat fire. The amount of which was drastically lower than earlier, their fuel tank just like ours were running low. One brave bastard on the radio yelled out for us to wait for it to fire and then hit it right in the mouth. That’s literally a tactic out of a video game. We did as he told. My gunner was with his sight right on what can be described as its mouth. His knee shaked in anticipation of the shot. I was looking at the gunner sight through my screen. As it opened its mouth, I didn’t even have time to yell “FIRE” that my gunner had already unleashed a high explosive shell down that thing’s throat.”
Pszemek looked at his boy with a warm smile as he thought back at one of the few good events of that fateful night.
“The devil exploded, the flash was so bright it lit up the interior of our tank through the periscopes. For a second I could see the exhausted look on my loader sweaty face. The fire gulf must have taken out god knows how many of the crabs taking shelter near it. My entire platoon followed suit and before long the entire field lit up with the explosions of those devils. I heard later from the folks in Suwalki that they saw the flashes of light all the way back there. One by one we took them out like that.
With the beetles out of the picture, we made quick work of the crabs. They were only five hundred meters away, close enough to start firing. Against our tanks, they didn’t stand a chance. The infantry was less fortunate. I saw one of them fire one of their shoulder mounted cannon, hit an IFV on its side and afterwards I saw the crew throwing themselves out of their vehicle as they burned alive. We took out three-quarters of them before they scrambled back across the field the way they came. Then we picked them off as they ran. Our coaxial gun was working overtime, we barely could keep up reloading that machine gun. I was praying it would’nt jam or overheat. With the last one down and our lieutenant on the radio, praising our performance, I unlocked my hatch, swung it open, and peeked outside. There were still patches of molten magma here and there, and the whole field reeked of sulfur and gunpowder. People were treating the wounded, some men cried, some men were laughing hysterically. Most of them were quiet. I lit up a cigarette, wiping the sweat off my face with a towel. The loader tossed me a can of Monster from our makeshift fridge. I gave him props for his work before he collapsed from exhaustion.

We could have stayed there, all of us would have been happy dying in that field if it meant we slowed their advance into our country. Turns out high command had other plans for us. We held but the units on our flanks were about to break. They had already plans for if ww3 popped off. They already know which unit would be desimated and which would have been spared if the Russians had decided to attack. The worst case scenario had a defensive line from Gdansk through Olsztyn all the way to Bialystok. We had the momentum as we cowardly fled back to Augustow. Stopping time and time again to give time for refugees to flee south. We were glad the Russians in Kaliningrad took a beating. They estimated they held ¾ of the crabs in the southern front. Every fight was harder than the last. We had less and less ammo. Jets were flying less and less. Especially when the crabs found a way to shoot them off the sky.
We felt like cowards every time. Sure we got allot of civilians safe, but even then we felt like we failed despite how many Crabs, Tripods or beetles we stopped.