Hey everyone! I had heard so much about Bleach but never watched because I kept putting it off plus the number of episodes turned me off. I originally started watching it just as something in the background and to me the show seemed kinda mediocre. Elements were cool and the story was interesting but never really scratched that itch. I grew up watching other Shonen Anime’s so was kinda disappointed at the beginning BUT WHEN I SAY HUECO MUNDO IS HANDS DOWN ONE OF THE BEST ARCS IN ALL OF ANIME I MEAN IT!!!!! I’m in it for the long haul now and this arc has changed my complete outlook of the show. Ichigo vs Grimmjow one of the best fights and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the series has in store

Can we please get a pinned weekly post just for chatting? To talk about life, ask for advice, fashion, etc. Would be cool to have that in this community of like-minded individuals! Bc as the girls say, all gigglers are hot and successful💁🏼‍♀️ so what do we think??

so I enjoy making music personally, it’s a good place to manifest my thoughts into a form of art and I tend to sorta see autotune as a sensory pleasure in a way 🤣. My music however feels really incomplete without sharing it to others, and i’ve been questioning if I should promote my songs or not.
The only thing is that I know from experience once I feel something i’m passionate about or something I enjoy getting some sort or traction or notice I begin to mask. I begin to try to be cool and compensate for what others may want or expect of me, and over time that passion becomes less enjoyable and I lose my self identity even more. This happened with video editing, beat producing and most recently playing MSP after I began to make more friends on the game.
It’s like as soon as people begin to get involved there is this switch in my mind that says “okay OP act cool! do what you think others would like to see or do what feels natural to do when others are there!” its very weird and annoying.
I’m wondering that if this is a pattern should I go back to letting my music grow by mere chance or should I stop posting my music online to keep my self identity within my music? Or should I actually promote my music and passionately send it out for people to see? I do enjoy the idea of building an audience of people who enjoy my own unique style, but I am scared of building a mask and beginning to do it for others instead. 😖

This could end up being a book, but I don’t know how to change how I’m feeling. Before you come in here really harshly judging me or screaming that I am making accusations and being crazy, full disclosure that I am autistic and I have NEVER hidden this from my friends or any man I’ve dated.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me continue. I was in a Christian singles group in my area that used to get together fairly often (it was usually once a month, but drama happened after the guy that started it made a mess…so we disbanded). Everyone is 21-40 and unmarried. I have a very close friend in this group. I’ve known her for many years and I met her outside of it. We did hikes and trips and lots of fun stuff together during that weird limbo after Covid. We stayed solid once work picked back up, but doing as much did slow down.
One of the other girls from the group and I became pretty close pretty fast (this was over the course of a year, so, May 2023 to now). My gut about her told me that I should maybe be worried and run (comes off as strong!), while everything else said that she was cool. She was kinda pushy to be close as friends, so I was okay with that, especially since my really close friend got buried in her work and had even told me that she gets a bit more introverted when she has to work (I’m 50/50 introvert/extrovert) and to broaden my circle (I was her shadow for a bit there…lol). For context, we are both straight 30 something year old women that have successful careers. The new girl is 29, straight with a boyfriend, and has a good job that keeps her busy.
I check in with them both, to see if they have any interest in the three of us hanging out and being friends. I always get shut down…my long time friend says that she is at a different place in life. New girl says nearly the same thing. What’s really weird though, is that New girls parents live just down the road from my good friend, so, they literally can hang out anytime she visits her parents…which varies…
Time passes and the new girl and I make a plan to move in together, because our city in the US is very expensive and living alone just won’t work anymore for either of us, even on our salaries. Once that was planned, I feel like everything started changing.
So, and this is where autism comes into play. If you have any triggers about cyber stalking or stress from things like that, please stop reading now. I really don’t need someone getting really worked up and laying into me. As the subreddit is called “advice”, I’m seeking advice, not to be screamed at and/or called crazy.
I ended up moving in with newer friend. I let her know of all of my quirks and odd things while we were still friends (not roommates yet), and she has been so great…(I think).
Here is where I’m truly hung up, and it all sounds really odd and off and wrong, because, to my knowledge, both of these people have been great and honest with me.
Right around when I started saying I was going to be roomies with her, I think around the start of the year because of leases and things, I noticed a shift in chat patterns online. It was really odd, but what was also odd was how my two friends started sounding alike. They were night and day for a reason, and it truly balanced out my life. They were online a lot together, and then, I noticed a few of the church ladies, specifically from my church, which, new girl really didn’t like the service at, were online too. I felt like I was getting left out, but, when I would ask my two friends that I was closer to about it, they both denied anything was happening (I asked a few times). I asked another friend that I’m pretty close with about it that was online when they were all online, and she said that she had only talked to my roommate the once, at the singles event (she’s always been close to my long time friend…additionally, the way she answered, I could see her pulse was racing), and she didn’t know of anything.
One of my siblings pointed out the logical answer - these were hot times for people to be online. Right after work. Right after dinner. Etc. But then it started getting specific when one girl moved away for just a few months to take a contract. Again - all on at the same time (there are four of them), but to accommodate the girl that moved. For a bit there, I was gathering my receipts/screen shots, but I deleted them and stopped that once she moved in. The last thing I needed was her seeing that somehow and drama happening.
She and I had a good conversation on the first night that she lived with me about how I have but one thing that could hurt my feelings/is my insecurity, and that was being left out and having stuff hidden from me, and people lying to me. Just to tell me the truth always. I don’t get angry or jealous if I know what’s going on and I don’t feel like things are being hidden from me. I told her that I felt like she was becoming friends with my group of church friends behind my back, and I was really insecure about it. She insisted that wasn’t the case. We shook on being honest about friendships and whatnot, and everything seemed okay.
For those of you wondering/that don’t know - a lot of times, the autistic mind will cling to what it doesn’t know in confusion/curiosity, and obsess. This is what I explained to both friends. I don’t mean to be that way. I was literally born with this, and I’m trying to navigate it as best I can. I just need transparency and honesty always, even if you think it could hurt my feelings.
Well, things got weirder once new girl moved in. She started writing this short story that used the name of my good friends dog in it over and over (not a super common word/name). My close friend had a container in the back of her car that she had mentioned to me she finally got rid of. When roomie showed up with it, I was SHOCKED! I called her on it, and she insisted that her mom gave it to her, but, it had a very odd and specific part marked up ( I’m autistic…I remember these things…every detail….) exactly how my good friends did. I guess that my friend could have tossed it out, and my roomies mom could have done a dumpster dive 🤷‍♀️ It just doesn’t seem likely at all. My close friend and I met for coffee one day, and she got this deer in the headlights look on her face after her Facebook messenger went off, just a minute or two before I went home. Once I was alone, I saw that roomie was on Facebook messenger and was the only common friend we had online at that moment (I guess my good friend added her on fb one day).
I’m so lost on what to do, because when I ask them for honesty (which, they are allowed to be friends, I’m not like, weird about that…) they just insist that they aren’t friends. Why would roomie have moved in with me if she could have lived down the street from a friend for FREE at her parents? That’s what they both ask 🤷‍♀️ I’m at a loss right now. Like, it’s really hard living with someone that I don’t fully trust. I just need to know for my piece of mind…What do I do? Thank you for reading all of that.

Previous Posts
Grayson kept his promise and came over to talk with me. He arrived after classes for both of us were done for the day. It also meant that Cassie was home and this time, she didn’t vanish into her bedroom to give us privacy. She waited until we were both seated in the living room and Titanosaur was settled in Grayson’s lap, thereby preventing him from escaping.
Please don’t read too much into that, as I’ve said before Titanosaur has like three brain cells and will sit in literally anyone’s lap. Our landlady sent her husband over to fix the leaking faucet in the bathroom and Titan was trying to climb in his lap while the poor guy was sitting there with half his body inside of a cabinet.
Then Cassie came over, carrying a chair from the kitchen, and also seated herself with us. I glanced at Grayson. He looked dismayed, but was hiding it well in an effort to be polite. I decided to lean into my non-confrontational side and not ask her to leave.
“You’ve been acting a bit out of character lately,” I began delicately. “As a friend, I’m worried about you.”
“And I’m worried too,” Cassie added. “Maybe you don’t think of me as a friend, but you’ve been hanging out around Ashley enough that I consider you one of mine.”
Huh. I wasn’t expecting that, to be honest. I thought Cassie didn’t like him. I don’t think she was lying, either.
“Have you considered getting grief counseling?” she continued.
Straight to the point. I was glad Cassie was there. My plan was to tiptoe delicately around the subject for what probably would have been another 500 words worth of dialogue here in this post I’m writing up. Fortunately, Cassie’s willingness to address a problem directly saved me the typing and you the tedium.
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” Grayson said. “The university doesn’t know he’s gone yet.”
“Who is running this place?” Cassie asked in amazement.
I know. We’ve all been thinking it. Turns out the answer is ‘there’s a board’ and they make all the real decisions. The president is just a figurehead. Which is pretty obvious if you stop and think about it. I wanted to ask if the flickering man reported to the board but I also didn’t want to derail the conversation with things that really didn’t matter anymore. It’s safer to just assume the board is the administration I’ve been wondering about this whole time. Heck, it’s safer to assume everyone except for the students and professors are responsible in some part for the whole monster situation.
Sorry for not finding out for certain, but Grayson was working through some important stuff and I didn’t dare interrupt.
“I don’t want counseling, either,” he continued. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I never cared for him. Not in a familial sense. My presence was more to fill a role.”
Things were starting to connect in my head. This conversation reminded me of some things the flickering man had said. Roles to be filled. A cycle, ushering in new students to fill them. They’d been filling the president’s role with a corpse - a very old one, judging by the date on the photo Cassie took of the headstone - so perhaps that wasn’t the only role being filled.
“Were you adopted?” I asked. “By the president?”
“I was.”
Beside me, Cassie took a deep breath. It wasn’t from shock. It sounded more like… annoyance. If I’m being generous with the term.
“The flickering man said something to me,” I said slowly. “That I wasn’t the first person he’d seen like this and I wouldn’t be the last. Are you… not the only child that the president has adopted?”
“...I’m not.”
This is the point where Cassie just lost it. Stood up, yelled ‘why the fuck didn’t you tell us any of this?!’ and stormed out of the room. She slammed the door to her bedroom shut behind her. Grayson and I sat there in the living room for a good minute, stunned, listening to what I’m 99% certain was Cassie screaming into her pillow. Then the door opened and she returned to calmly sit down on the sofa again.
“I’m good,” she said. “All better. Please continue.”
The details of the conversation get a little fuzzy at this point, as it seems that even though the forgetter is gone I’m still having memory issues. Unfortunately Grayson was right - it wasn’t the forgetter that was responsible for my particular variety of memory loss. There’s something else trying to protect Grayson.
I suspect the tree in the graveyard. Its roots have spread all over campus, after all.
Sorry to be so blase about this but it’s not actually that upsetting anymore. It’s just this thing we’re dealing with.
It’s a good thing Cassie was present for the rest of the conversation. She filled me in on the details later, after we’d confirmed that I had some significant gaps. Grayson explained a bit more about the whole adoption thing. He didn’t know who his birth parents were. He’d never been outside of this town and basically grew up on campus. This is all kind of recapping what we already knew or guessed at, but the adoption angle was new at least. I’d assumed that his dad had died and been replaced, which he had, except it wasn’t his dad at all and Grayson’s role as the son was being replaced over and over also.
Which is all kinds of fucked up.
It also means that this has been going on for generations and I think we all know why that’s rather alarming.
“What happened to the previous adopted kids?” I asked once we’d gotten through this rather confusing summary.
“They died.”
There was a heavy silence in the room.
“How?” I asked.
“Well… one drowned. Another suffocated.” He hesitated. “This is kind of why I’m reluctant to tell people I’m the president’s son.”
“Grayson, are you worried someone will try to kill you?” Cassie asked flatly.
“...yeah. I am, actually.”
Screaming into a pillow myself was starting to look pretty tempting.
Now I’m sure you’re all thinking what I was thinking at this point. If the university was just recycling the president’s corpse and finding new children to play the role of their child for… reasons??? then perhaps that was why the flickering man was interested in me. Perhaps I was Grayson’s replacement, as many of you have theorized.
I mean, it seems pretty suspicious. Grayson’s dad is getting his soul replaced on the regular - or at least, he was. Grayson himself is a replacement for prior Graysons but I guess since they don’t need an adult, they’re just grabbing any ol’ kid to fill the role for a while. But the former Graysons keep dying because the inhumans get him? Grayson has a lot of protection on campus but he’s not immune - I’ve watched him get attacked by the steam ghost in particular.
Which leads me to my own theory. If I am a replacement, I don’t fit the mold. Perhaps that’s why the flickering man hated me so much. I’m too old (legal adult yay) and… I’m not a son.
But I wanted to confirm some things.
We wrapped up the conversation with Grayson because we were running out of mental capacity to ask more questions. He was clearly uncomfortable and there was a lot to process. He did promise to not be so difficult about this in the future. He wasn’t really grieving. He was just… uncertain. He didn’t know what to do anymore. Which is fair. When you’re raised to fill a role and suddenly that role is gone it’s hard to adjust.
I know what that feels like.
After Grayson left I messaged Maria asking if she knew anyone that was good with a camera. Like, really good. And also good in high stress situations. She got back to me pretty quickly. Maria is starting to become one of those people who knows everyone. She’s heading firmly down the road of becoming the subject of one of those unhinged tumblr posts where someone magically summons an army of people to fulfill a task, while she stays on the sidelines quietly directing the ever-increasing chaos.
Fortunately, she’s not there quite yet, but she is freakishly well-connected for a campus of this size. Within an hour she had me in a group chat with someone from the Folklore Society who fit all my requirements, even the unspoken ones. Someone that was good with a camera in “hostile circumstances” (her words, very accurate) and wouldn’t cut and run the moment things got a little weird. I think you all see where I was going with this.
Yeah, we were going to get photos of something inhuman.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.
For starters, it’s not safe just getting close to an inhuman to photograph it. And once you do, that opens a whole new set of hazards. If the inhuman takes offense to being photographed, then they’re going to do anything they have to to get the photo destroyed and all rules are off the table when it comes to disguising their existence. Think of it like this - an inhuman might not be able to enter a house due to hospitality rules keeping them out, but this is weighed against their need to keep their presence obscured. The latter wins. Hospitality rules are no longer enough protection.
That’s my understanding, at least.
And sure, there are inhumans that don’t seem to care if a photo or two are leaked to the internet, but you have no way of knowing in advance. Let’s say you get lucky and nothing comes after you to destroy the phone/camera, computer, your social media accounts, and you. You’re not quite off the hook. That photo is a connection to the inhuman and if the creature captured in it doesn’t use it as an access point, something else might.
Photos are just a bad idea all around.
So we agreed that if we were going to go ahead with this stupid plan, we’d do so with as many safety measures as we could. First, the person taking the photo would be fully informed on the potential consequences. I was hoping that they could just teach Maria or I how to use a camera, but considering they were in the inner circle Folklore Society (what I’m calling the folks that know the monsters aren’t just stories) they wanted to come in person. I tried to talk them out of it, they finally made a snarky comment about if I wanted them to sign a waiver, and I dropped the topic.
Secondly, we were going to destroy both the photo and the camera afterwards. I got online and ordered the cheapest digital camera I could find. It was a camera designed for young children so it was pastel pink with teddy bears on it, but whatever, it was digital and didn’t cost over $30. The money from my job at the dining hall has helped with the finances but I didn’t particularly feel like lighting it on fire.
Especially since we planned to literally light the camera on fire when we were done. I wasn’t looking forward to the smell of burning plastic but fire is both a thorough and symbolically traditional way to dispose of things. Like I said, we were trying to do this as safely as we could.
The camera arrived the next day so we decided to go ahead with our plan that evening. Cassie would stay home because we felt having too many people might be a hindrance if we had to bail out. Also, she had “digital date night” with her girlfriend and I didn’t want to interfere.
Then we found a discreet entrance to the steam tunnels.
I wanted a photograph of the steam ghost. It had a face. I wanted to see what that face looked like.
I’d scouted out the steam tunnel entrances beforehand, while waiting for the burner (lol) camera to arrive. Last time I’d looked inside, they were clogged with roots. However, if the roots were originating from the graveyard, then perhaps the parts of campus that were farthest away would be clear enough to traverse. I got lucky and found an entrance inside of one of the dorms that’s out by the parking lot. The lobby is open and from there it’s easy enough to just coast into the stairwell behind someone with a keycard and then down into the basement. There were roots, but they hung from the ceiling as slender tendrils that brushed the top of my head like the faint touch of a moth. I didn’t go far inside. Just enough to confirm it didn’t get any worse and we had a long corridor free of obstruction.
When I came back, I had Maria and the photographer with me.
His name is Jacob and he’s a sophomore. He joined the Folklore Society because he realized he wasn’t making any attempts to be social, at college of all places, and picked a club that seemed like it would be small so he didn’t have to deal with crowds. Large groups of people intimidated him. I can certainly relate to that.
I feel bad for him. Imagine getting caught up in all this bullshit just because you had trouble making friends.
It also occurred to me that this photography excursion was also part of his attempt to make friends, because that’s what landed him in the group that had to hide from the thing in the hallway. Whatever. Maria can deal with that. She’s the extrovert.
“Let’s not forget the plan,” I said nervously as we gathered outside the door. “We get in. We get the photo. We run like hell back out the door.”
I’m happy to say that the plan worked. Every step. Swear to god.
We were about halfway to where the tunnel turned when the steam started to rise out of the ground around us. It seeped through the walls, filling our lungs and making it hard to breathe. The usual. We turned back at that point, as we wanted to be close to the exit so we could snap the photo and run once the steam ghost showed up.
The nice thing about inhumans is that they can be predictable. They have set rules they follow and so long as you follow the prescribed pattern of behavior, you know what to expect. This allows you to plan, as I’d done. So when we loitered within sprinting distance of the door, the steam ghost obliged to show up and chase us off.
Just as expected. And Jacob was ready with our pastel pink camera, so that when its face materialized out of the steam, mouth open in a silent scream and its misty hands stretched towards us, he was able to snap a photo.
Then we ran and reached the door before it caught up.
See? Exactly as planned.
There’s one more rule we learned about though. One that I’d forgotten to factor in for this crucial moment.
The doors in the steam tunnels don’t always open to the same place.
We tumbled through without thinking. I, pulling up the rear, had a moment of hesitation when I saw nothing but darkness ahead of me, but it was too late, I was in a full sprint and besides, Maria had already stumbled through the doorway. I slammed into Jacob’s back, propelling him the few steps he needed to be past the doorway, and then we were all through and the door slammed shut behind us.
The air was warm and damp. The steam tunnels, while warm, aren’t damp unless the steam ghost is present. This felt like being inside of a sauna. I could feel water beads forming on my arms, clinging to the hairs that were currently standing on end in alarm. There was a faint breeze coming from ahead of us, a slowly rhythmic flow to it like a fan. It did nothing to alleviate the heat. If anything, it was even warmer.
Maria turned her phone’s flashlight on.
We were in a corridor, much the same size as the tunnel we’d just escaped. The walls glistened with moisture, shining with the gray-pink color of rotting beef. There were no sharp angles, just a round passageway that vanished into darkness at the edge of Maria’s flashlight beam. The floor beneath our feet was slightly squishy.
And it was full of teeth.
Honestly I think I would have preferred sharp teeth, like an animal’s fangs or something out of science fiction. Instead, we got human incisors, circling the entirety of the tunnel in regular intervals.
The tunnel rippled. There was a faint gurgling sound, like the rumbling of a stomach twisting in hunger. And those rows of teeth began to tighten as the tunnel constricted around us.
“STEAM GHOST,” Maria yelled. “I CHOOSE THE STEAM GHOST.”
And she threw the door behind us open and dove back into the tunnel. Jacob grabbed my arm and dragged me along with him, as I was frozen in fear, staring at all those glistening ivory teeth. I stumbled over the doorframe and fell forwards, hitting the cement floor hard on all fours. I heard the door slam shut behind me. Frantically, I looked up at the tunnel.
No ghost. But the steam was still there, hanging heavy in the air and filling my lungs. The ghost would be back. I was certain of that.
“What now?!” Jacob asked, his earlier calm quickly giving way to panic.
“Try the door again!” I said, scrambling to my feet. “It changes!”
Maria spun around and opened the door a sliver for the second time, just enough to peer through the crack and confirm what was on the other side.
“FUCK.”
Then she slammed it shut. Opened it. Another burst of profanity, slightly more panicked than the last explicative. Meanwhile, Jacob and I cowered at her back, staring at the steam that hung thick in the air all around us, waiting to see if it was going to reform into a malevolent spirit while Maria played Russian roulette with the door.
She did this five times before she finally got the dorm we’d entered through.
Flushed and panting, we stumbled through and Jacob kicked the door to the steam tunnels shut with a determined flourish. There. We’d done it. As I’d said, our plan went perfectly. We got the photo and ran like hell to the door.
Didn’t plan on what happened after we went through the door. This is my lack of attention to detail coming into play, which is probably what also made me a shitty barista.
We crowded around Jacob to see the photo he got. This is why we recruited someone with actual photography skills. He was able to use a truly shitty camera intended for toddlers to somehow focus on a literal ghost’s face in the handful of seconds we had before it reached us, all while not panicking.
Staring at us from the tiny screen was a person’s face. Not a face made of steam. An actual flesh and blood human face. The rest of the shot was obscured by steam, framing it so that all we could see was this disembodied human face staring out at us from the camera’s digital screen. The expression was placid, the eyes hollow and devoid of emotion.
I’d seen this look before, on the library ghost. This distant stare of something that wasn’t wholly here.
“That is… really creepy,” Jacob said.
“We just escaped a hallway full of teeth and this is what you find creepy?” I said.
“No, that was creepy too. I can be terrified by multiple things at once.”
We all stared at the photo for a good few minutes, trying to commit the face to memory because we were not going to retain any copies of it. Then Jacob deleted the photo, handed me the camera, and we awkwardly went our separate ways.
I got out my phone as soon as we’d all walked off. My theory was looking plausible, but there was one more thing I could do to confirm I was on the right track.
I texted Grayson. I asked him if the children before him, the ones the president adopted, were all male.
They were.
The library ghost. The stabbed student. And now… the steam ghost.
All former students. All male. All trapped on campus after their deaths.
And for at least two of them, they seemed to have something against Grayson.
They don’t like Grayson because he replaced them.

I currently have a macbook pro early 2013 and I'm dual booting gentoo and catalina on it. I got it pre installed with catalina and so say the least, cataline gives me a very slow boot and a lot of lag when opening programs of moving around windows. I know that mountain lion was the original os this machine shipped with. I heard snow leopard is a good pick. I'm also considering mavericks because it still supports x quarz. I'm looking for the version of mac os that's the quickest and has the fastest response time on that hardware. Optionally I also want a version where safari is able to display the modern ish web, at least youtube works without lag (if not I'll use the web when i boot gentoo but that's kinda inconvenient). Also I want something that supports some version of xquarz because of software I use for work and having itunes + icloud would be nice to drop files on my iphone. The model I have has an hdmi port so airplay isnt necessary, but it would be nice. Lmk your best mac os version for this !

Hi! This is going to be a long one/rant and story because I really don’t know who to talk to about this in real life because I’m not in therapy and I’m so embarrassed to be feeling this way knowing I made all the choices to be here and people are already flying in from out of state to come to our wedding. Also I’m diagnosed adhd incase any of yall are wondering what’s wrong with me once I tell you all the decisions I made to get here. I am getting married in three months and have a son who is 15 months old. My now fiance 28m and I 27f met whenever we were thirteen years old in middle school and started a tumultuous up and down / on and off again relationship. We were together all the way up until junior year in high school and we broke up. I come from a broken home and he does not. Looking back I realize how much of me staying with him and trying to keep his attention stemmed from my abandonment issues that I must have had from my own parents. After we broke up he joined a gang in my local hometown and I was still in love with him so I decided to still be involved with him even though I was not in a relationship with him. I ended up losing my virginity to him while we were not together just because I wanted to be with him and we said we were friends with benefits but really I was just in love with him and thought by doing that maybe he would want to be with me again but he didn’t and continued to sleep with other girls and do drugs. I also started doing drugs like Xanax and smoking to fit in with him and be cool. I ended up getting a horrible tattoo because one of the other girls he was also seeing had a bunch of tattoos. I dropped out of my high school college courses and ended up going to jail for marijuana in high school and got kicked out of cheer and softball. I ended up on probation and having to be drug tested for a year. Within that year after being heart broken and realizing nothing I did would make him change into who he was before he got involved in our local gang or make him want to be with me… I ended up enrolling in college and getting accepted to a university where I would move about two hours away from our home town to live on campus and study to be a nurse. While on probation, so I couldn’t really party or anything in college which was good (even though I was never really addicted to anything and it wouldn’t be that hard for me) I wanted to save money for a car so I ended up getting a job at the hooters next to my college and was in college full time and working at hooters. My sister happened to go to that same college before I did and live in that town with her ex bf and they would give me rides to and from work back to campus. Low and behold after about two semesters of me being in college and finally feeling like I was moving on from him, he came back messaging me and telling me he missed me and wanted to be with me again. I was stupid and so excited that I agreed and asked him to come see me at college where he would stay for the weekend and we would have an amazing time. I felt so good about myself doing what I was doing and being able to show my growth. Despite all that he was still able to convince me to leave school and come back to be with him and live with him and go to the college near our hometown and work at the hooters near our hometown. I had already felt like I didn’t want to be a nurse at the time because my sister who was a nurse told me you could never leave the state as a nurse if you get your license there (which she didn’t know at the time that you could) and I knew I didn’t want to stay where I was from and wanted to eventually travel. So I decided to leave and move back with him in his bedroom at his parents house where I would work at the hooters close to our home town and never enroll in the college. He would eventually break up with me while I was at work one day even though I was living with him and since I didn’t have a car he continued to take me back in forth from work and I continued to live with him and continued to be in love with him while he committed to the fact that he didn’t want to be in a relationship but wanted to marry me one day and just wasn’t ready for anything right now and still wanted to have sex with me which I did. From working at hooters I had auditioned for the calendar and ended up being really liked by the photographer and started doing some modeling from that which was super exciting for me because I always was interested in that and the pictures we took would blow up and I started getting well known in my area for modeling even though they were just pictures and I wasn’t making any money off of it. Eventually a guy came into hooters telling me about working as an exotic dancer and how much they could make and I still needed a car really badly and was desperate to get out of my ex’s (now fiance) house. So I told him I would be waitressing and that I heard the waitresses make good money there and asked him to give me a ride there one day and so he started giving me a ride everyday. The money was so good to me and the most money I had ever seen. I ended up staying in a hotel closer to the club I worked at and sometimes he would come stay with me and I would just uber to work. Eventually I had gotten a car which I was so happy about. A couple of weeks after I got a car I ended up getting sucked into human trafficking with a friend where I would live in a house with multiple girls for 6 months and go to work at the club every day of the week except Saturday and Sundays. I wasn’t doing anything extra just dancing but the money was going to some random guy. It’s crazy I know. I was stupid and young and my family were not concerned for me at all or involved in my life. unfortunately my friend is just now leaving that situation. I got out without anything no car or nothing and had nowhere to go so back to my exes I went where I decided I was going to buy a cash car again and I worked everyday like I was used to saved money and got a car. Moved to my sisters and stayed with her for a little where i decided I didn’t want to dance anymore and I got a job as a bottle service girl and then waitressing at another waitress. I continued modeling because it made me happy and I never told anyone the truth about the deep things that were happening in my life except for my now fiance. So nobody had no idea about me dancing or the human trafficking or anything. Everyone just knew I modeled. I ended up getting an apartment with some friends and One day I got the urge to go to California randomly and at my waitressing job I was handed $800 and I took it as a sign and booked a flight the next day. Where I went by myself my first time ever on a flight with no plans at all. The day I got there I got asked to be in a commercial two days later. My roommate and her friends flew out there to get me and she ended up being able to be in the commercial with me which ended up on tbs but I had to go back home to my apartment and responsibilities and couldn’t leave my roommate stranded. Even though months later we would end up getting in an argument and I’d move out and move back with my ex (now fiance) where I would continue to work and model (for free) and went back to the club to dance and then my sister ended up going to California for a travel nursing assignment and her and her bf broke up and she asked me to move with her. I had nothing else here, my ex was still saying he didn’t want to be in a relationship, he was consistently sleeping with other girls while we lived together and expected relationship things from me. I was paying for everything for him. I paid for him while he was in school for audio engineer, his gas, lunch, school clothes, shopping, I helped him open his own studio and bought his equipment and Mac for it, even though his parents were very involved in his life. I got all his family bday gifts and Christmas gifts every year. He was honestly just using me but I was so in love and blind. He encouraged me to go to California too so I had nothing else there for me, if he had told me to stay and he wanted to be with me I would’ve. I flew out on my 21st birthday and met my sister and Vegas where we would have such a great time and my ex spent that day hanging out with a girl that tried to fight me and didn’t even tell me happy birthday, I was crying in the bathroom in Vegas until my sister shook me and told me to get it together we’re in Vegas. I was so heart broken to be leaving him but he didn’t care. I got to LA and I instantly started modeling on day one I booked a photo shoot where I met a guy that reminded me of my ex (I know) but we instantly clicked and he was 7 years older than me. We ended up talking for a little bit and pursuing something even though I wasn’t ready emotionally but he didn’t really care and I was kind of star struck a little because he was a music producer for a very famous musician and he was very persistent but that’s another story. I ended up booking a music video as a main girl for my ex’s (now fiance) favorite artist. When it came out it was crazy because I felt like the universe and God was just blessing me for leaving that situation and I knew he would see it because he was so obsessed with that artist and it shook up the whole small town I was from. After that I booked a lot of cool jobs like Sephora and worked with a lot of companies, and did some music videos for other super famous artists, and walked in fashion shows and modeled for clothing brands etc. I was working all the time as an extra to pay my bills and I was meeting cool people. I was always getting invited to celebrities parties and just having such a fun time. I decided to start getting into acting instead and started going to acting school where a lot of well known celebrities also went to and I started having meetings with very popular directors and I was being mentored by famous directors and another person that created an tv entertainment channel that I won’t say here also mentored me a lot and got me a lot of meetings with these people and would go to dinners and stuff etc with a list celebrities. I truly was living the life. And coming from where I can it was almost a dream. I had gotten in a relationship my first year there with that other guy I mentioned who ended up being super possessive of me but he treated me like a queen in the sense of paying for everything, giving me a safe space to tell my feelings, open up, the sex was amazing, he would take me on trips, took me out of the country for the first time. We ended up not working out due to lifestyle differences and just being at two different places and wanting different things. He wanted to move out of the country and have a farm and I wasn’t ready to do that as I wanted to focus on my career. (But I would die to move out of the country on a farm now ironically and he is doing just that now like he said he would haha) anyway, I ended up having my own studio apartment by myself that I loved so much and was so proud of. My sister had moved to Montana and it took a lot for me to get my apartment like staying in a house with other girls for a little to sleeping in my car and at a spa for a couple days. When I would fly home or drive home to see my family I would always see my ex, everytime. We kept a friendship and sometimes I would still help him out if needed, he was interning at a church through his school for audio engineering and recording people at his studio in our hometown. By this time I was going to New York and Miami also sometimes and doing work there. I wasn’t as stressed about bills anymore. I was seeing guys every now and then but not at all interested in a relationship, my heart was still healing from the past and both my exes but mainly my first (now fiance). I was super focused on my career and optimistic, I was used to the grind and in no way ever thinking of quitting. It just wasn’t an option because I knew I would make it wherever that would be because to me that is all I had for me and all I ever knew I wanted and the only thing that saved me. Skip to around October 2019 I had found out about a girl my ex was seeing and it crushed me. He was doing with her just like he was with me though. Just “friends with benefits” I was living in my apartment in LA still and my uncle that helped raise me was getting really sick back home and put on hospice so I decided to take a trip back to see him. I would go to restaurants in my state and near my home town and people would ask to take pictures with me, and at the little ceasars drive through someone asked if I was me and stuff it was crazy because I hadn’t been home in awhile and I felt like what I was doing was finally paying off and people were recognizing me. It was surreal. I ended up going to see my ex. I had such a fear of losing him to this other girl for some reason. I was so scared he would get her pregnant or get in a serious relationship since I was gone so far away and I would never be with him, I would end up sleeping with him again and the girl found out and drove by his house mad and cussing me out and throwing stuff at me. We ended up getting in a fight which is so embarrassing and beneath me. I ended up crying to him that I wanted to be with him and don’t know why he never wanted to be with me which at this time he honestly was not even in my playing field anymore. He told me if I wanted to be with him I had to move back to my hometown.. my heart dropped to my stomach and I knew it wasn’t what I was supposed to do but I said okay… all because this is what I had wanted all those years. I decided to stay where the next two years all I would think about everyday was I was making the wrong decision and needed to go back to my life. My hometown had nothing for me.. COVID hit a couple months after me being there and we were terrified. We ended up getting everything out of my apartment and moving into a house around the corner from his parents. I had to tell him how I liked to communicate now without yelling and stuff which I learned from the boyfriend I had in LA and that I wasn’t going to put up with that disrespect but he never listened. Eventually everything went back to normal. I ended up going back to the club again dancing because I didn’t want to go backward and model here. He never wanted me to go back to LA even for a little bit even though that’s where my career and heart was so I had no idea what to do with my life. I started waitressing as well and getting back on my adhd meds. People started pressuring us to get pregnant and we tried for a year and 6 months. The month I found out I was pregnant before I knew, I quit my job and decided I was going to move back and get my life back. Two days later I found out I was pregnant…. Finally after trying for over a year. Our relationship was toxic just like the past he always yelled, I could never talk to him about my feelings without him saying I was trying to fight, he spit in my face once, threatened me, put his hands on me, he would tell me he was going to take my baby away from me as soon as I had it. I started asking him about getting married while I was pregnant and the proposal wasn’t even that. He got mad at me for asking one day and walked in the room and handed me the ring. It didn’t fit because I was pregnant & it was $27 (not that that matters but the proposal sucked).. he drained both my bank accounts and they closed it, charged my credit card up and put me in debt, he has not let me do anything I want to do like school or anything. He is so bad with money. He has an action figure addiction and at one point was spending 3k on action figures every month and turned one of the rooms in our house into a collection room so I had to take everything out of my closet and put my sons crib in there for the first year of his life. we have good times and I feel comfortable with him. He knows everything about me but he doesn’t respect me and sometimes I feel like he is intimidated by me. The sex isn’t good at all we always just ask “do you want to have sex” he never gives oral or foreplay, I never get pleasure. He’s an amazing dad though and loves his son. We have the most sweet and beautiful little boy now who I love so much and he loves him also. He’s very attentive to his son. But I still feel unheard. I can’t talk about my feelings. If I do it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t change anything. He is so defensive and we never communicate for a solution it’s always just pointing fingers. I have started yelling again because I’m so used to it now and I hate it because I grew up like that and I finally grew out of it until I got back with him and recently started again and now he throws it in my face and knows I begged him not to do it forever but he never stopped and now I am too. I’ve asked him to take me to the movies and he hasn’t still. I just ask for more romance and stuff but it just feels like I have a roommate. I have nothing now. I had my car and we traded it in for a new car that he wanted. I always dreamed of the next car I’d get once I paid it off but he got it & it’s in his name now so I paid it off for nothing. I’m driving around his dream car. I’ve been planning our wedding since I birthed our son and everything is going good. Money is tight. He works at the church now full time and makes about 45k a year or so, my son has been waiting to start daycare for awhile so I have been home with him. I’ve tried starting jobs multiple times but he is against it unless it’s super fast money like going to the club which I am so repulsed by and absolutely hate it now. I tried going back to college but my old college won’t release my transcripts for fasfa because I owe them money. I started cosmetology school a few months ago which he was all for but two months in freaked out and him and his mom guilt tripped me that we can’t handle this right now and he was having a hard time doing the night time routine for the baby while I was at school so I had to leave and now owe that’s school for my kit unless I enroll again in 128 days. I also miss modeling so much and sometimes think I can start again but it’s been five years. My body is so different too after a baby. Everything I want is a no go. Especially moving out of our hometown. He says he wants to but I don’t think he does. We are constantly at his moms and dads and they tell us all the time we aren’t moving anywhere which is really hard for me as this place is super toxic for my soul. Anytime I get money he spends it. Anytime I save money he spends it. Even if it does go towards our bills. His action figure habit is almost nonexistent now and he has grown a lot in the past few months from that since I demanded my son have his own bedroom after his first bday and all his figures are in boxes now and told him he could turn the shed into his man cave. He says we can’t save because we have nothing to save after bills but I believe in saving anything even $5 a paycheck. It’s doable. I grew up poor so this is nothing to me but after living the lifestyle I lived in LA and going out with guys that respected me and cherished me it’s hard. I know nobody is perfect but we are about to get married and I’m scared… I have nothing though anymore. I’ve threatened to leave a couple times and he says he will take me to court and take my baby. I’m scared he might. I don’t want my son to be angry like him or not respect women how he does. In public he’s a saint. He also has a very supportive family that it’s almost toxic. They all blame me for his anger issues and say I make him that way. But he’s been punching walls since I met him in 8th grade. I know it’s not because of me. But I have nobody else and nowhere else to go. No money. No car. I’m at the bottom again where I was before. Only difference is now I have a son. And we are getting married in three months and I can’t call it off. I am older now and looking back on my life I realize he maybe truly never loved me and I was just so desperate for love. I got myself here nobody else. I accepted everything, even when my gut told me not to. ( he is not just horrible, he’s a great person just with some bad qualities like everyone but I’m tired of feeling stuck with someone that never truly wanted me and doesn’t care to grow in some ways or show me )
Please help.. what do I do?

at work today i was judged by my manager. i don’t like working with him very much. he can be a dick to other people for basically no reason. he can sometimes take the job to be serious (mc donald’s. and he’s also young). can be nit picky about things. have illogical arguments about random things. and today he judged me.
i know some of you here struggle with ocd and fears of grooming and the such. well i have a 16-17 year old co workers. she’s nice. she’s cool, friendly. i enjoy working with her. we don’t talk really. and i haven’t done a single thing to her. and today i did her a favor (which i often do for many of my co workers) and it was nothing special. it was quite plain. totally harmless. i just wanted to be helpful like i was always do. and he judges me :( gets on my ass for trying to help my co worker out :( if i were to explain the whole story it was technically my obligation to do what i did because it was asked of me. yet he judged me :( and he was rude to me :( i didn’t do anything hurtful or mean :( yet i was judged. and then my other co worker goes up to me and says he will call the police on me or something like that :(
i wasn’t even flirting with her :( or trying to flirt with her :( or wanting to flirt with her :( i was just trying to be helpful. i do the same for pretty much all my co workers except the ones i don’t know well. why do people judge when you are kind? i don’t understand. it hurts because i don’t understand it. it makes no sense :(
my boundaries are just blurred. they have been messed up because of my upbringing. all i wanted to do was be helpful. i shouldn’t be punished for that. yet here i am.

There was a sloop at the outpost that we needed to pick up our Athena Gilded Mercenaries at. The players on the sloop were super chill and didn't try and mess with us even though we had multiple Athenas chest on board. So I have them a skeletons captains chest as a trade for not making a play at us.
Right after I left my buddy kills them and takes the chest and turns it in. He then proceeds to tell me how "Its sea of THIEVES" and that its their fault for trusting us.. I just wanted to point out how hypocritical that is considering we just trusted them first to let us get our mercenary voyages without a problem.
It has nothing to do with the "right or wrong" on stealing treasure. Some people just legit like having control over other people. They'll talk all they want like they're in the right but they can't see that it has more to do with how they get their enjoyment than it does about the title of the game. Nobody will admit they're wrong today it's hilarious, so I fully expect to get other people defending him because they're already on the other side of the argument.
If we had made an agreement then I would be cool with maybe betraying them. But this was an unspoken quick thing that can be almost magical at times. It's one of the reasons why I play this game and I feel like a lot of players just scoff at this like "Its not sea of friends!" yeah keep telling yourself that Pirates were all thieves and liars.
That's what the people in power wanted you to believe so that you would celebrate the deaths of the Pirates. Like all other propaganda for groups of individuals that aren't controlled. Theyre just a threat to those in power. Piracy was always more about freedom than it was about thievery.
I dont expect to get any support about this. I just wanted to say my peace for other sailors like myself that have to deal with players like my friend. Dont take their disrespect. Players like that usually don't contribute much to the voyage anyways. just standing on the front of the ship looking for ships or boarding while you do all the work. Theyre the first ones to blame you when something goes wrong too.

Demographics: Rising senior, Indian, Female, East Coast. Super competitive school, 13 got into Penn, 8 into Cornell, 5ish into Georgetown, etc.
Intended Major(s): BS/DMD (early assurance dental school) programs at schools that offer. Otherwise, biochemistry/biology.
SAT: 1550 (750 EBRW, 800 Math)
UW/W GPA and Rank: UW is 3.91/4, W is 6.88/7, rank about 20 something (because we have 17 valedictorians 😒)
Coursework:

• Completed so far: AP Seminar, APUSH, AP Bio, AP Psych, APES, AP Lang, AP Research
• Senior Year: AP Chem, AP Lit, AP Calc BC (my school doesn't have AB), AP Stats, AP Macro + Micro, Human Anatomy Honors

Extracurriculars (kind of vague so I don't doxx myself):

• Extern at a dental practice nearby - very hands on, I suction and such during procedures ranging from basic prophys to complex extractions or root canals - about 300 hours
• Research assistant at state uni's school of dentistry, working on a project dealing with constructive oral surgery and materials to be used - in the publishing process to top dental journals
• Research intern at local university, project on ALL growth using mice models
• Candidate for Leukemia Lymphoma Society's Student Visionaries of the Year Comp., raised over 38K in a 7 week period to go towards cancer research
• Leading a social-media based health-related (can't say specific topic bc of doxxing but it is a very niche topic and is helping fulfill a gap by reducing stigma) awareness campaign
• Wrote a review paper on cervical cancer and how it affects South Asian women specifically - in one of the final reviewing processes by The Lancet!
• Founder + Co-Pres of Operation Smile at my school (club focusing on cleft palates and helping kids with them in underprivileged countries)
• President of Biology Club (anticipating, not out yet - if I don't get it then I'll speak about being Vice President of Science National Honors Society)
• Job at Kumon for the past 4 years, work as the lead center assistant
• President of Indian Club, leading over 100 members in order to choreograph a 8 min dance for the school's International Day event as well as coordinating various cultural activities throughout the year

Essays/LORs: Definitely going to ask the dentist who owns the practice I extern at - she knows me super well, has been the one who sparked an interest in dentistry for me, and I also tutor her kids (11/10). In school, my math teacher (should be 10/10, we are quite literally best friends) and AP Bio teacher (8/10 - she likes my work and labs and uses them as examples, I just haven't participated the most in her class)
Other: The only thing keeping my GPA from being a perfect 4.0 is that I got 2 Bs in my freshman year (an 88 and an 87) in English and History. However, I've shown an upward trend, ending with all As for my sophomore and junior years, and my English grade improving up to a 99 final grade this year. So I hope it's not that much of a bad look?
Schools I'm Applying To: UPenn 7 Year BA/DMD (ED), Cornell, Barnard, Harvard for fun, UMich, NYU 7 Year BA/DMD, Case Western 7 Year BS/DMD, Boston University 8 Year BA/DMD, Tufts 8 Year BA/DMD, Carnegie Mellon, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgetown, and then some local safeties.

We’ve been together about a year and a half and are (mostly) monogamous. We were open, then exclusive, then did some threesomes, and are back to exclusive. We’ve both been cool with this fluctuation and it’s fit what we were both interested in as we’ve explored what was best for our relationship.
He was more reluctant than I was to delete the apps the first time we were exclusive, and still has them now even though he knows they make me feel weird. He’s just there to make friends, and his profile says that, but it’s just so hookup-centric that I feel weird about it.
I know I’m bringing some baggage from a past relationship where he wasn’t into me and he didn’t actually just want to make friends, so I wonder if I’m being overly sensitive. My bf isn’t messaging people on Grindr often, doesn’t log on often, and respects our boundaries when he’s on there. But, in spite of all that, it just feels weird to me. Am I being too sensitive about this?

to preface my parts are: CPU - I7 3770k (base clock 3.5GHz) at 4.6GHz RAM - kingston 16Gb ddr3 1600Mhz GPU - evga FTW 1070 MB - asus P8Z77-LE PLUS Psu - 750W 80 plus gold rosewill unit
As the title says i’ve been having issues with what I believe to be the VRMs overheating when overclcoking (my best guess, im not certain). I’ve noticed my games after running for a while seem to slow down (especially when running vr games like VTOL).
I ran task manager in the background while playing a game and when it begins to happen the cpu usage goes up but temps and clock speed both drop. gpu temps and clocks are fine and the ram stays decently cool to the touch as well
I ask two things

1. is my thinking correct that it’s the vrms?
2. if so how would I go about cooling them?

Thanks

A Simple Yet Thought-Provoking Doorway

Interviewer: Howl's Moving Castle was a huge success as well, with box office revenue reaching 19.6 billion yen. This places it second only to Spirited Away among Studio Ghibli films. The original story is by Diana Wynne Jones, and the screenplay was written by Mr. Miyazaki.
Mamoru Oshii: Howl's Moving Castle is excellent, my favorite among Ghibli's works. The story isn't entirely clear, the logic doesn't always hold up – these aspects haven't changed much from Miyazaki's past films. But, at this point, there's nothing more to say about those points. So, what do I appreciate about this film? In a word, it's the mechanism of that doorway. Miyazaki's changing mindset as he gets older is clearly expressed through that door's workings.
Interviewer: The door of Howl's castle leads to different worlds, and its mechanism is divided into four parts.
Mamoru Oshii: That truly impressed me. Every time the mechanism shifts, the door opens to a different world. The black passage leads to the battlefield, flames are raging, Howl transforms into a monstrous bird and flies off, then returns completely exhausted. Seeing Howl like that, Calcifer says, "He might not come back." What kind of meaning do you think that holds?
Interviewer: Does it represent Mr. Miyazaki's heart being divided into four parts?
Mamoru Oshii: It's not about the number. Women might not understand easily, but men get it right away. Especially older men, they understand at a glance. Because they are also constantly turning that doorway unconsciously. In other words, whether consciously or unconsciously, they always play multiple roles. An older man working at a company switches modes when he comes home; when playing with a young woman somewhere else, he switches again; when interacting with his son and daughter, he switches yet another time. Simply put, humans are creatures that live separately in different worlds. There may also be a dark side that leads one to become a monster. People definitely possess a side that turns into a monster and runs rampant on the battlefield, and are destined to coexist with this darkness.
I've never seen a film that depicts the multiplicity of an older man's inner world in such a persuasive way. I love it. The doorway mechanism turns, and the world changes instantly. It's fantastic.
Interviewer: That's high praise indeed.
Mamoru Oshii: It is. But it's dangerous, you know? Sometimes you slip up and reveal a side you shouldn't in front of your wife and children. Wives are probably aware of this to a certain extent, but they don't bring it up. If you ask me, that's what living with a man is all about. You might not notice it when you're dating, but after getting married and having children, women realize that older men use different faces in different situations.
Being able to create this kind of expression means that Miyazaki himself must have struggled with switching between different faces. By now, he's probably become quite adept at it. I'm the same way. After all, film directors have to be geniuses at switching gears – the face shown to staff, the face shown to producers, the face when alone, the face shown to family – you really have to separate them all.
Interviewer: That sounds truly exhausting.
Mamoru Oshii: It is, it is. A person like Miyazaki must have a remarkable monster dwelling within him, right? For Howl, that represents the moment when he throws aside all humanity and becomes a monster. Although it's incredibly difficult, even requiring him to fight till he's covered in blood, he can't escape it. Why? Because he couldn't survive without that side of himself.
He must have referenced other archetypes as well, but no one else could have expressed it so brilliantly. Miyazaki truly is one of a kind. That doorway in the film is so good that it overshadows everything that comes after. The war ending abruptly, for instance.
Interviewer: In the first place, it's unclear why the war even started. To be honest, there are too many things that don't make sense. Sophie's original goal was to break the Witch's curse, but somewhere along the way, this goal disappears, and she ends up living with the Witch.
Mamoru Oshii: That's why it's pointless to try to apply logic. This is Miyazaki's world of imagination, where the laws of cause and effect don't apply. This world itself is Miyazaki's fantasy.
Interviewer: But there is a source material.
Mamoru Oshii: Half of it has probably vanished without a trace, wouldn't you say? All that's left is the basic setting. The castle's design is amazing, it even has a torpedo launcher, doesn't it? It makes you wonder what that torpedo launcher is for and what it's supposed to fire at. It feels like Miyazaki just crammed in everything he likes.

Miyazaki and My "View of Family"

Interviewer: I love the design, though.
Mamoru Oshii: It can accommodate anything, and this time he put "family" in it.
Producer Toshio Suzuki said something interesting. He was also the producer for my film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. He said: "It's fascinating how both Miyazaki and you are making the same kind of film. In short, the theme is "home". Both are stories about family. Miyazaki's film expresses the idea that whether it's an old witch or an orphan, it's fine to welcome anyone into the family, because we're all family. And in your film, whether it's a dog or a doll, it doesn't matter if they're not human. It's a very interesting approach to considering a new kind of family."
Interviewer: Mr. Suzuki is insightful.
Mamoru Oshii: He's the kind of person who observes from such unique angles. That's his strength, thinking from perspectives no one else would consider.
Of course, I wasn't conscious of it either. I had no intention of making a story about family. The "unconscious genius" Miyazaki must have been the same. But when Suzuki pointed it out, I felt "that's exactly right". When people establish a sense of shared existence, the most basic form of it is family. Of course, there are male-female relationships within it, but when viewed from the perspective of social relationships, there's nothing other than family. Even blood ties aren't necessarily essential within it. Originally, the starting point of family is strangers, no blood relation needed. A married couple is essentially a pair of complete strangers with no initial blood ties. They start from a marital relationship and then begin to build kinship ties. It's not like in Shuji Terayama's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets where people separate first and then spend time exploring family forms in various ways. That's probably how it is.
Thinking about it this way, even the house they live in in Howl's Moving Castle walks on two legs, doesn't it? What does that mean? It means that it's no longer even connected to the concept of "settling down", which represents the idea of family. The characteristics of a house being rooted in the land are irrelevant. On the other hand, in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, it doesn't matter whether you're human or not, but you need to be with others to live as a human being.
Looking at both films from the perspective of family makes many things easier to understand, that's for sure. If you don't think about it this way, the content of Howl's Moving Castle will become more and more perplexing as you watch it.

Hayao Miyazaki is David Lynch?

Interviewer: Speaking of family, Sophie's family is nowhere to be found. It's as if she's just a beloved and beautiful younger sister that everyone adores.
Mamoru Oshii: After watching Howl's Moving Castle, no one can recall the details of the story clearly. I watched it twice, which is rare for me, but I still can't remember the story. The protagonist Howl appears suddenly, and Sophie is introduced already sewing hats, but why is it a hat shop?
Interviewer: It's a hat shop in the original story.
Mamoru Oshii: But it must be because Miyazaki wanted to draw scenes of hat making, right? Miyazaki loves artisans, loves depicting scenes of crafting things. Up until now, he's always had this tendency - even if it sacrifices consistency to some extent, he'll find a way to realize the scenes and fantasies he envisions. But with Howl's Moving Castle, he completely let go and took a straight path to fantasy. Howl's Moving Castle is exactly that kind of film. Whether or not there's source material is irrelevant. The story of Master Howl is a prime example.
Interviewer: Voiced by Akihiro Miwa, the character of the Witch of the Waste, right?
Mamoru Oshii: Scenes like the shooting stars are undeniably beautiful, but do they have anything to do with the story? Miyazaki's impression of magic must be these beautiful visuals, so he simply wanted to create them.
Interviewer: It's not just that, the character of the Master is completely incomprehensible.
Mamoru Oshii: I've said this so many times, you can't seek consistency in Miyazaki's films because they're all fantasies. It's best to view them through the lens of David Lynch's Twin Peaks.
Interviewer: Lynch's films don't prioritize consistency either. Nobody expects a logically sound story from his work.
Mamoru Oshii: Then why have such expectations for Miyazaki's films? They're both transforming their own fantasies into films, whether it's Lynch or Miyazaki.
Interviewer: "Hayao Miyazaki is David Lynch", that's quite a bold statement.
Mamoru Oshii: There's one crucial difference between Lynch and Miyazaki: Lynch sees humans as frightening creatures. Lynch's theme is singular – the terror of humanity. As a Lynch fan, I've finally reached this conclusion recently. Humans are terrifying beings; they create terrifying events. This is the theme of Lynch's works. The very existence of humans is eerie, so his works are unconcerned with good and evil, angels and demons. That's why Lynch's films are unique.
So, what about Miyazaki? Miyazaki genuinely wants to view humans as benevolent creatures and the world as something beautiful. This fundamentally differs from Lynch, who is obsessed with a world of horror. However, they share the commonality of realizing their fantasies through film. Another difference is that Lynch consciously depicts horror, while Miyazaki does so unconsciously.
Interviewer: In the latter half of the film, Sophie suddenly shifts between being young, middle-aged, and elderly. Is there any meaning behind this?
Mamoru Oshii: No, it's just to make her appearance fit the scene. They simply decided, "It's better for her to be young here", and that's about it. There's probably no deeper reason. So even if you try to overanalyze it, you won't find anything.
Interviewer: It's fine if you don't fully understand Lynch's films, but you still want to try and understand Miyazaki's.
Mamoru Oshii: Because at first glance, they appear to be orthodox narrative films.
No matter how many bursts of fantasy there are, he still wants to reach a conclusion and summarize the meaning in the end, right? In that sense, he's still clearly more timid than Lynch.
Interviewer: But you said that Howl's Moving Castle is your favorite work, didn't you?
Mamoru Oshii: Yes. Even though it doesn't fully let go in the end, it's quite transparent before reaching the conclusion. It doesn't force itself into a narrative structure, so in that sense, I really appreciate it. The doorway mechanism and the scene where the Witch of the Waste makes shooting stars fall from the sky are both incredibly beautiful and impressive. Although the depiction of the royal palace feels somewhat generic, the scene where they're panting and climbing the palace stairs is quite interesting. There are truly many excellent scenes.

Howl is Miyazaki Himself

Interviewer: In that stair-climbing scene, there's a dog named Heen. Don't you think he resembles you a bit?
Mamoru Oshii: That dog... (laughs) The staff kept telling me about him when the film was released, and I could definitely sense some malice directed at me. Because Heen is a useless dog, isn't he? His personality seems quite bad as well.
Interviewer: So he's like you. When I saw it, I couldn't help but think, "It's Oshii!"
Mamoru Oshii: Because I've also poked fun at them many times in my own works. I named the old man who runs Shanghai Tei in Patlabor "Hayao Saki". Mr. Takahata appears as "Inspector Takahata", although he's a villain (laughs). Needless to say, Toshio Suzuki has made multiple appearances as well.
But if that dog is me, then Howl must be Miyazaki. He projected himself onto the protagonist in Porco Rosso, didn't he?
Interviewer: Wait a minute, that handsome Howl? Really?
Mamoru Oshii: Absolutely. The works where Miyazaki projected himself onto the protagonist are Porco Rosso, Howl's Moving Castle, and The Wind Rises. What aspects of Howl resemble Miyazaki? This statement will surely shock many fans.
Mamoru Oshii: He wants to be that kind of man. A wizard, the head of a household - there's no doubt that Howl is his projection.
Interviewer: But Howl said, "I can't live without being beautiful."
Mamoru Oshii: That's right, he transformed from a pig and uttered those words. Voiced by Takuya Kimura, no less. In reality, Miyazaki loves to be cool, but he understands that it doesn't suit him, so he intentionally makes himself appear plain. I forget when it was, but he even imitated Ryotaro Shiba's style by wearing a black coat. Miyazaki respects Ryotaro Shiba a lot, although I dislike him.
What strikes me as the biggest similarity between Howl and Miyazaki is the scene where Howl returns to the castle as a monster and sluggishly climbs to the second floor.
That scene embodies Miyazaki's true feelings - even if he's making a big fuss outside, he still has to crawl back to his room. When Sophie scolds him saying, "You did it again! It can't be helped", didn't you feel like he must have been scolded by his wife this way too? He finally returns, but as a monster. From this perspective, he's really quite transparent (laughs).
As long as you understand Miyazaki, you can pick up on these amusing nuances. But even if you don't know him personally, the film is full of interesting scenes and beautiful visuals. However, there's really nothing to say about the plot. So, they should just tell the world that, but instead, people love to praise "how great the stories are" in Miyazaki's films.

I only just discovered that this was a thing so it's nice to see i'm not the only one.
I worked a remote job for many years and after long relationship ended i got curious and did a lot of travel and it was shocking the difference between the dynamic between the women in my home country of Australia and those abroad. Since then have exclusively dated women from abroad both while traveling for extended periods and at home. I am seeking a long term partner and have had a couple of great relationships that didn't pan out amongst other shorter but just as rewarding encounters.
I came back to Aus as the pandemic was kicking off and I don't know if this is frowned upon and not in the spirit of ppb but Australia has a huge migrant population and also a vast amount of people study here from abroad. I have met a lot of wonderful women from other places here who I felt were genuine and not visa hunting. A lot of them were also high achievers and intelligent but had excellent grounding / moral compass from their upbringings and were of course well traveled.
I still like to take extended trips but have found meeting foreign women at home just as rewarding for those who maybe have jobs that don't allow or other constraints. I like that they are here on their own merit too so i don't feel any obligation as far as their living arrangements if it gets serious.
I just wanted to mention the two recent experiences I have had this year. One was a Filipina and I also tried dating an Australian girl for first time in years...
So this filipina was cute as a button, highly educated completing a masters here and also working. Her attitude was so different to western girls and she always wanted to take care of me bringing food, affection and also sexually she did her best to ensure i was taken care of. The way she treated me made me want to step up to try my best to ensure she had everything she needed and treat her right with lots of love and care. It's all the small things I tell you! alot of it was very sweet cooking for each other and being lame. people think PPB just want a maid or to have some sort of power over their partner but I just loved how it was so reciprocal.
Then i should mentioned this Australian girl. Playing games with me from day one, saying things just to try and get reactions out of me, almost begging to be constantly complimented which was a turn on in itself. Her texts were also super passive aggressive and if i didn't play the game she'd mention oh some guy at work was flirting with me etc like i would be outraged. She was a perfectly lovely person to hang with but i got this feeling like it was a one way street. She wanted to be worshipped but she was so uncaring and cold why would i? She also seemed to think every guy she met or knew was madly in love with her but she was a pretty average person. I just thought her attitude stunk. really hot and cold.
I don't even know why i'm posting but there are so many great girls out there who aren't the spoilt brats we have here in Australia. Im not surprised when i see such i high number of interracial / international couples here in Melbourne. It makes me laugh because i have a lot of female friends and they are always the ones that comment on it when we are out with snide remarks. We are friends so obviously I think they are awesome company, funny and cool but they have the same attitude and wonder why they are single in their late 30's / early 40's now desperately trying to hunt down a man to shack up with or have kids.
I believe in equality for men and women 100% but i also think we are different creatures and theres nothing wrong with that. Being vilified by western women for being a straight white dude blows.
Finally I would say my favourite destinations have been in Asia by far due to the cost, food, proximity to Aus and wonderful people of both genders. Vietnam, Japan and Thailand are honourable mentions. Although with Thailand I stay clear of BKK or Resort towns.
My first post but i look forward to following the sub. I'm at the stage where i really hope to lock someone special I can marry and build something with so i like seeing so many genuine posts also.
Excuse the poorly written post i just typed my random thoughts on the matter. If i've made any blunders that aren't allowed here i'm sorry in advance!
Repost as last wasn't clear enough

A quick note about Karl Nell's SALT Conference audience today

There is literally zero possibility that Karl Nell gave his talk tonight without the express authorization of the United States Pentagon and White House, especially with the audience that attends the SALT Conference. Why? Read this post and his resume. You'll understand why. Karl Nell, today, has four (4) bosses over him.

• You may have heard of the top of the reporting chain Karl Nell works under.

What do you reckon the average net worth of a SALT guest in the crowd is? Eight figures? Nine? A number of the cell phones in the crowd for Nell will have personal phone numbers of United States Senators and House members. Guaranteed.
We were not the audience for Karl Nell tonight. American industry and Congress were the audience.

Karl Nell endorsed two figures in "UFO" history tonight

Karl Nell is a step removed from the National Security Council. These people don't speak out of turn, and certainly not to tell the leaders of American industry "aliens are real, NHI is real, and yeah, they've been here a long time," and... then name drop two foreign officials who flat out argued that we're covering up diplomatic relations with a "Galactic Federation".
But Karl Nell did exactly that in New York City today.
That would be Paul Hellyer and Haim Eshed. My jaw dropped how instantly and full-throated he was with the latter two as people to look toward:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hellyer
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Eshed

Again, Karl Nell is an **active Pentagon employee who is four (4) steps removed from the United States PRESIDENT, and **he just told the world to look to a Canadian minister of defense and the found of Israel's space program... who both say the world is secretly in contact with a Federation of outer space cultures.
A military leader four steps from Joe Biden said to look to Hellyer and Eshed.

What did Karl Nell have to say about David Grusch in 2023?

Source:

• https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/

Quotes about Nell:

Karl E. Nell, a recently retired Army Colonel and current aerospace executive who was the Army’s liaison for the UAP Task Force from 2021 to 2022 and worked with Grusch there, characterizes Grusch as “beyond reproach.”
In a 2022 performance evaluation, Laura A. Potter, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Headquarters, Department of the Army, described Nell as “an officer with the strongest possible moral compass.”

Karl Nell on David Grusch:

“His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence,” said Karl Nell, the retired Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force.

Who is Karl Nell?

He works here today:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Futures_Command

This is Karl Nell's boss:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rainey

The AFC reports directly to the Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_Staff_of_the_United_States_Army
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Wormuth

Who do they report to?
United States Secretary of the Army reports to:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_Defense

Which only reports to:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States

So the chain of command for Nell today is:

1. Joe Biden
2. Lloyd Austin
3. Christine Wormuth
4. James Rainey
5. Karl Nell

Karl Nell's full (known, public) resume

His full resume:
Modernization Advisor to Vice Chief of Staff of the Army
Army Futures Command 2018 - Present · 6 yrs 5 mos Pentagon

Key contributor to the most significant Army reorganization since 1973. Entrepreneurial leader successful in conceiving, shaping, orchestrating, implementing transformative national security strategies, business process improvements, organizational designs, and talent development initiatives. Recommended technical, programmatic, funding actions accelerating the 32 highest-priority (of 800) Army acquisitions. Orchestrated, led cross-organization digital engineering study quantifying gaps and opportunities within the Army Modernization Enterprise resulting in creation of new #1 top priority program – $100(+)-million multi-year Project Convergence – delivering national-to-tactical, sensor-to-shooter integration. Led SE&I advancing JADC2 collaborating with OSD, DARPA, NRO, USAF Rapid Capabilities Office, Space Security Defense Program. Only space-qualified Army participant in joint. Subject matter expert for Army Science Board (ASB) studies and AI/ML whole-of-government forums.

Deputy COO / Director, Special Programs (Colonel)
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) 2016 - 2018 · 2 yrs Stuttgart, Germany / National Capital Region

Managed daily business operations of a 2000-service member geographic Combatant Command headquarters including all strategic planning, human resources, logistics, finance, IT, legal, and public affairs departments. Represents Chief of Staff in his absence responsible for mediating and arbitrating all issues below flag officer-level. Responsible for orchestrating senior leader engagement process resulting in increased partnering agreements and longer-term stakeholder commitments with key influencers across the African continent. Selected by Presidentially-appointed officials at Assistant Secretary-level to serve in OSD. Provided key evidence-based policy recommendations in DoD Program Budget Review process identifying $3-billion in FYDP savings.

Vice President & General Manager (Corporate Officer)
ENSCO, Inc. 2015 - 2016 · 1 yr Falls Church, VA

Recruited by Board to rescue $100-million failing business; affected organizational transformation within complex portfolio (dozen contracts, multiple contract types, majority of IP creation) in less than two-years. Reporting to CEO, P&L leader of 100-employee, geographically-dispersed R&D division supporting AFC, AFTAC, DHS, DTRA, FBI, PFPA, and other elite NSS clients with disruptive technology solutions. Set conditions for sustained profitable growth (building leadership team, Shipley-based capture process, talent mobility, business strategy) winning all contracts during tenure following 2-years net losses under predecessor.

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)
US Army Reserves 2013 - 2015 · 2 yrs Fort Knox, KY

Spearhead largest re-structuring of Army Reserve since 9/11 and inauguration of the "gold standard" for multi-echelon, multi-functional combat support training within the US Army. Led force modernization Task Force re-organizing and re-stationing dozens of units and thousands of personnel to build a two-star, 5000-soldier command across 23 states with annual budget of $32-million. Routinely briefed Army Reserve Executive Steering Committee (Board-level) forum.

Vice President, Solution Architecture, Capture, & BD
CACI International Inc 2011 - 2013 · 2 yrs Chantilly, VA

Led cross-company teams formulating campaigns winning critical $250(+)-million corporate bids; delivered support across a $4-billion, 15000-person enterprise successfully capturing new and re-compete business with tier one clients such as INSCOM, CECOM, DHS. Advised corporate officers in M&A review, championed digital engineering and space technology solutions, negotiated best-in-class cyber-security offerings. US Army Reserve: Served as Chief of Operations (G-3) for Army Reserve Counter-Terrorism Unit advising US Ambassadors abroad in whole-of-government preparations to overseas terrorist incidents.

Deputy CTO / Director, Systems Engineering & Integration
Northrop Grumman 1998 - 2011 · 13 yrs Chantilly, VA

Led Board strategic-thrusts developing, orchestrating, implementing: (1) operational excellence policy & process improvement, (2) digital engineering tools IR&D, (3) talent mobility & development for a $2-billion, 5000-person company rejuvenating TASC as a premier SE&I brand after corporate spin-off. Won >$100-million of new business with NRO through SE&I support to re-compete and take-away bids. Senior Program Manager responsible for all SE&I services required in $1-billion equity-backed, satellite & terrestrial, 4G-mobile start-up spanning multiple states encompassing over 70 multi-national sub-contractors. Spearheaded pursuit, capture, program management of >$25-million P&L within non-traditional markets – US Department of State Merida foreign assistance SATCOM SE&I (international) and TerreStar Networks (commercial) – the most significant new venture in company during that fiscal year.

TECHINT Operations Officer (C/J-2)
Defense Intelligence Agency 2001 - 2003 · 2 yrs Wasington, DC / Kuwait / Iraq

First person deployed from the DIA Directorate of Intelligence Production and Analysis to participate in multi-agency planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom as the Foreign Material Program command representative to USCENTCOM / CFLCC in Kuwait. Served as C/J-2 for the one-star Combined Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center (C/JCMEC) in Iraq. Enabled the safe and successful recovery of hundreds of conventional weapons systems of strategic value and successfully addressed the question of potential WMD-existence asked by the President of the United States while incurring zero mission fatalities.

Senior Systems Engineer / Lead SATCOM SRE
Lockheed Missiles and Space 1996 - 1998 · 2 yrs Newington, VA

Responsible for mission-critical operations of a sophisticated national satellite constellation; preserved unique capabilities by resolving satellite anomalous behavior in safest, most efficient, cost-effective manner. US Army Reserve: Commanded 80-soldier Special Operations Forces (SOF) PSYOP / MISO company training for possible USEUCOM peace operations to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Member of Technical Staff (MTS)
AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories 1994 - 1996 · 2 yrs Holmdel, NJ

Assembled and led teams of subject matter experts engineering new feature enhancements for improving AT&T's long distance switched network capabilities and services. Investigated alternate mechanisms for control of voice signal processing within the toll network. Published a benchmark study quantifying capacity over time of the primary AT&T network element – the 4ESS intertoll switch. Amended the AT&T Network Technology Development work process for certification under the ISO 9001 quality standard.

Commander / Operations Officer
U.S. Space Command 1990 - 1994 · 4 yrs US Army Space Command in Europe

Competitively selected for one of only three Army officer billets within US Space Command in Europe. Commanded a $14-million transportable Satellite Communications Control Central war-traced directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff while serving as Operations Officer for a Defense Satellite Communications System Operations Center valued at over $38-million. Responsible for 63 soldiers.

I was just thinking today about how I was looking forward to middle school as a kid. Elementary school was so awfully boring, but I also didn't really have any real friends so that didn't help. Still though, the thing is that I spent a lot of time by myself and that involved watching a lot of TV. And I'm not from the US, I live in Europe, but the TV shows were all from the US. And they kinda gave me a really cool fantasy of what school was gonna be like after elementary school. And yeah I'm sure anyone reading this is gonna think that, well, of course it's not actually like on TV, TV is fiction. But trust me, this is gonna be way more disappointing than you think. But I mean, at least I wasn't bullied, most people just sorta left me alone instead, so I don't wanna act as if school must definitely be better in other places. It's just that, it was so boring.
Hmm where do I begin. Two things constantly said in these TV shows that left me confused, kids often talked about classes they take, consider taking and don't take. And kids often talked about "this person from my x class". This gave me the idea that, unlike in elementary school, I'd get to at least somewhat choose what classes I might wanna take. Not at all how it worked, at least not at the schools that were options for me at the time I went to middle school in the early 2000s, as far as I can tell. I say as far as I can tell cause it was never explained to me either, it was explained to my parents, so that they could maybe talk to me and figure what to do with me. Anyway, you either went to trade school, which was seen as a huge embarrassment to your parents cause you are an idiot that's probably not gonna do college, or for 7th and 8th grade you decide on one of two options; latin or modern languages. Both of those come with a certain set of classes, you can't not take any of them and you can't take any that don't come with it. My parents didn't put much thought in it, they were just told that since I did so well in elementary school I should go for latin, as that's what smart kids do. It doesn't come with many interesting classes to me, but to be honest neither did the other option. I would have much rather gone to trade school, which has a technical studies option too that would come in handy for college, but many people just didn't like having to say that their kid goes to the trade school. In fact, I had a few people in my group failing on purpose cause they told their parents they wanna go to trade school but were just not allowed, so they protested by failing. Anyway, the other thing that had me confused about that, all classes are taken with the same group. You're in a group of about 20 people, they all have the same classes cause you don't get to pick and choose, why not have them do every class together. I'm not sure if that's supposed to get the group to know each other better or something, but really the result is just that you really don't get to know so many people. If you don't like any in this group so much, well tough luck, everybody only hangs out with people of their own group. You weren't even allowed to sit with people from another group for lunch, they assigned you a seat at a table for your group. And you know, many of them are kinda the same. This school was just for those two options I mentioned anyway, which are for preparing kids to continue to college in the future, anybody wanting to do any trade or anything technical would be at a different school that focuses on those. Oh and also, not a single girl in our group, I didn't really care at the time but thinking back about it it does seem kinda weird to have years of middle school where all classes were boys only. Alright on to the next topic to pick. Hmm how about the whole thing with the activities at school they always have on TV. You know, clubs, sports, arts, dances, science fairs, even elections for something? Yeah I did totally wonder what my future school was gonna have. Which was nothing, in fact I went to three different schools from 7th to 12th grade and they all had nothing. It's just not a thing here I guess? There is not a single thing to do other than go to your set of classes that day and go back home. No special events of any kind either, just an occasional educational school trip. But certainly nothing that would make you meet any people with similar interests, or anything social at all really. Here's sorta how it works instead. You wanna do any of this, you sign up for it somewhere else and go there after school. Like my city did have a music school and a drawing school for example, so if you wanna go to a 2nd school on some days after going to your 1st school that day then you're free to do that. Of course it'll be with completely different people that you probably don't ever see anywhere else. I was in an unrelated sports team for example, we played a game on saturdays that is only attended by parents and practiced 2 hours after school one day in the week. And I never saw anyone on the team ever outside of those couple of hours per week. That's also one kinda problem with that isn't it, the kids learning music or drawing at those specific schools after their main schools probably got to show off the things they learned at times, but only fellow kids at those specific schools and their parents would ever know about it. They never get to show off the stuff they learned to kids at their main schools.
Here's a little short one for in between that is kinda odd, personal lockers. Nobody ever got their own locker, not at any of the three schools I went to. We just stuff all our crap in our backpack and bring it home. Then in the morning figure out what we need that day, and carry it all back to school in our backpack. In elementary school we had a desk at school with a little space for books, but from middle school you're not always in the same classroom so you get no desk with storage. Every classroom you go to you bring your heavy backpack with everything for that day in it.
This is getting really long already so here's my last one, the whole social groups and cliques thing full of stereotypes. Well, just having anything like that at all really. Because of the stuff I wrote earlier, but also some of the rules. Like I already said, you take every class with your group and sit at an assigned place with your group for lunch, you can't go find someone who likes the same stuff as you from outside your group. Except during one of the three breaks, two of those are 10 minutes and one is 30 minutes. During those, you can walk around outside and go talk to anyone you want. Of course they are all total strangers to you though as you have never seen them do anything anywhere, since there are no activities at school other than your classes. But here are some of the rules we had. No electronic devices, so you can't listen to or show anyone any music or play any videogames with anyone. I mean no phones either but almost all of those couldn't really do anything other than call and text at the time anyway. No 'distracting' hair, whether that is a weird style or having any part of it any color that does not appear natural in humans. No 'distracting' clothing either, but at least no uniforms. No tattoos or piercings of any kind, except earrings but one time an acceptable looking punk came in with a safety pin earring he did at home and that did not count as an allowed earring. Actually come to think of it, the punks were the only group. Everybody else just looked the same as everybody else. And these punks were just 4 people. We knew they were punks cause of their outfit, they pushed the boundaries of distracting. And sometimes too far, like with the safety pin. But they usually wore a flat cap, a denim jacket with a few punk patches and leather boots. Probably the coolest looking people at the school, mostly because I couldn't tell you what anyone else looked like now, I totally forgot everything except their face. Though I was also a bit of an exception. I was the guy with long hair. Not that anybody knew anything about me cause I didn't talk, but they did know me as the one guy in school with long hair. They couldn't really ban that as I don't think they could ban things for only one gender. But yeah, you only have the opportunity to talk to people not in your group during the short breaks, but how would you decide who to go talk to? You never talked to any of these kids, all you got is how they look, and they're barely allowed to change their look from anything default.
Alright I'm gonna end it here. I guess the conclusion is that if you make school as absolutely boring as possible then there is not gonna be as much trouble, I think that might have been the goal at least? Just come in, get your education that day, go home, no drama. Is that better? I wouldn't know, I haven't been to other schools of course. But I sure couldn't help but wish it had a little more going on like they did on TV.

I'm solo, city course, got paired with 2x 25 year old athletic friends and a older gentleman. Introductions fine. The older man was the problem person. We are walking he's golf carting.
At tee of he starts stating a rule that does not exist. Our city rules are very basic even dress code is extremely lax. Yes a twisted sister no sleeves t-shirt is allowed. Anyways the 3 of us are like we never heard of the rule. We oblige out of politeness. As we progress the hole I recover a Burnr head cover. I pick it up as if it was his? He says I seen that and I left it, so I just say ok return it to the pro-shop and give it to him since he's on his own cart he says "I guess". I'm like that's a little dick'ish but ok.
Second hole he starts talking to the 25 years old's how good he is. The 25 years out drive him 50+ yards.
3rd hole he hits a bad drive. Takes a mulligan with a 2 min warm up. I hit a bad drive and suck it up. At the end of the 3rd hole he tells us he's ambidextrous and can hit both right and left all day long, as we had a lefty. Everyone is like cool story bro.
4th hole he drives, hits in the water maybe 80y. Laughs and said takes a mulligan, second is 100y in the water. Then third ball "drop" he puts on the fairway, lol. I didn't drive great like 150y. But then I piped the next shot out of the rough 170y and back in the game. The 2 young guys over hit their 2nd balls into the next fairway.
He drives up to me in his cart pulling a Tokyo drift and tells me "hey BUDDY pick up the pace" as there is a group behind us. Now this infuriates me. TSN turning point, I realized I'm not having fun and I am not his mans buddy. I read threads like this about being too kind to people and sucking it up. But I'm like no, I want this round to be fun, I paid for fun.
I look back and I see the 3-some that has been on our tails for two holes. Two older gentleman and mid age female. But one of the men was wearing a lumberjack coat, I'm like his is the group for me. I wait for my current group all to tee off as I was thinking of ditching. The old guy starts telling the one young guy all the things he did wrong on his drive despite he out drove the old man 40y and is closer to the pin. I'm like fuck this. I tell "buddy" strait up I don't want to play with you, I'm going to join the group behind. Nothing dramatic happens.
I wait and ask the next group hey can I crash your three some as I told them the group I was in had a problem person. They said absolutely. This next group was the most favorite randoms I have ever met, this one guy with surgery issues had so much positivity I have never seen anything like it, super positive, super funny and the girl was his daughter and she was awesome they inquire about the problems but I vaguely describe them. We got on the group I ditched and we are on their heels next hole.
Eventually the second last hole we caught up to them on the tee box, the girl tells the older man "pick up the pace"..
MONEY!

Hello all,
First post here. 27m. I used to do casual for-fun bodybuilding about 6 years ago. I was maybe considered a gym rat(?) About 2 1/2 years of consistent 5 days a week, 2+ hour sessions focussing different muscle groups. The meatheads would give me decent tips and I got.. moderately jacked? Anyway, I then went to school and got a desk job and stopped going.
Getting back into it again, to help lose weight and get fit again. I'm having a lot of fun re-learning everything. I don't have as much time and try to get at least 3-4 day, 1-2 hour sessions per week. Going strong about 7 weeks so far.
My question for y'all is... what are your opinions on optimal muscle groupings to train as well as the opinion on my current scheduling..
So far I've been doing a routine of tri-chest/bi-back/shoulder-legs/cardio. I alternate which muscle group I start with each week in my groupings, and don't do it in a particular order. At the end of the weekly cycle, I have 2 busy desk days that force a cool down period. Full body stretch is done before each workout and sometimes after if I remember lol. I'm not really interested in getting big, as I am getting fit.
I've been regaining a lot of muscle very quickly, so I can't say how like.. min-maxed the efficiency for this is so far. It feels really nice on my body, that first month was terrible though after sitting at a desk and living a very sedentary lifestyle for 6 years. But after that it's been feeling pretty awesome, I'm glad I started again.

I’ve been streaming for a while now on PC, never had any issues until recently. My Call of Duty (MW3) application will just close out and bring me back to the BattleNet home screen. When I stream on Twitch I use StreamLabs OBS and occasionally the game will close out. But when I begin to ALSO stream on TikTok Live Studio I notice the game closes multiple times. At times when I try to load cod back up it says “disconnected from servers” but then after a few mins of trying it’ll eventually let me back in. It just seems to be a continuous cycle with this issue lately. Been also getting a lot of packet burst lately too. Side notes: My GPU temp gets up to around 60° C and CPU 62° C. When just streaming on TTV my GPU load gets to 98%. My internet upload speed is always around 16-25 Mbps. I’ve tried resetting my router thinking it was an internet issue but doesn’t seem to change.
My PC is fairly new, I custom built it in Nov 2023, the parts I have are supposed to be meant for gaming and streaming. I’m out of ideas why this is happening, I’m also new to owning a pc so I’m not familiar with some things. Any kind of help/ advice I’d very much appreciate it! Thanks in advance :) PC Specs CPU- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Motherboard- ASUS B650-F Ram- Flare X5 Series 64GB GPU- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Power Supply- Ignition 1000 W Cooling- DeepCool LT720 Water cooling

Just as it says. I feel like Tachy's sword should've been a separate weapon with it's own moveset for Eve. Since it's described as a katana it can have separate animations and a different fighting style with it's own combos. Not a big complaint just an observation because imo Tachy Mode isn't that satisfying to use as is and it'd be cool to be able to actually switch between the two fighting styles.