I need to share my story and seek advice. My father has been battling a gambling addiction for years, and it's taken a significant toll on me and my family. It all started when I was in middle school. I would see him playing slots on his phone and tell my mom, but he would deny it, calling me a liar. This gaslighting left me in tears, feeling confused and helpless.
In high school, his gambling escalated to casinos in another city where he worked. He even stole money from my siblings' and my savings accounts, though my mom said he eventually put it back. She tried to manage his gambling by setting conditions, hoping it would help.
I've been in college for five years now. I gave my parents access to my credit card login to pay for my medical expenses. I noticed strange charges from the city where my dad works and confronted him. He claimed they were accidents and paid the money back, but I removed the card from his phone without him knowing. A few days later, it was re-added, and I was too busy with school to address it immediately.
I called my mom and told her everything, asking her to talk with him because I was too upset too. She checked their accounts and discovered my dad had taken out $60,000 in loans in her name and stolen $10,000 from my brothers' savings. They were also three months behind on bills. My mom, who was recovering from breast cancer, had trusted my dad with the finances, not knowing he was hiding his debts. My dad being in charge of finances also meant he was in charge of giving me money when I needed it while I was going through college. Whenever I asked, he would always say they didn't have a lot of money and give me the minimum he could. After he gave me the money, if I ever did something he didn't like he would threaten to take away all support from me, including the money they paid for me to go to college. I decided to distance myself from him, relying on my own money and support systems to get through college. Working 30-40hr weeks while trying to be full time. I definitely failed at least one class a semester. I did this for a year and a half before my mom caught what he did, took over, and gave me money so I could just work a part-time job at one of the dorm desks.
My dad has never truly tried to get better, despite attending counseling sporadically. My mom is now divorcing him, but they are still "together." She and my family urge me to support him, saying it's a disease, but I can't forgive him for the suffering he's caused.
I feel he has never acted like a father to me, and I struggle with the idea of having him in my life. How do I cope with him being around due to my mom, while wanting nothing to do with him?

I (f 30) am the youngest of two. My older sister (f 36) lives in the same state but a few hours away. She never came home after college because she was in a relationship. When we were younger she was a total mother's girlie girl and I was a daddy's girl. With that dynamic you can conclude that me and mom (f 55) weren't very close back then. When my sister went to college and it was just me and mom, we clashed all the time. I couldn't wait to go to college and be free. Unlike my sister, when i graduated from college I went back home and lived with my mom. While in school she found out she had cancer and I realized how important she was to me, during the summer I would take care of her. I became super protective because my dad (m 60) had died the second part of my freshman year. I guess realizing you only get one dad and mom did something to me and our relationship changed. Strangely, while in college I transformed into a girlie girl with all female roommates that treated me like a toy by dressing me up and taking me to parties. So, when I came home I started working right away. Had some messy relationships and crappy jobs, but my mom always supported me. From what I seen my mom and sister were still close, even with the distance. When Shawn would come home her and mom hung out, sometimes she would stay with us, sometimes not but they talked often. Note, I don't know if it was the age difference or what but me and my sister never got along. Somewhere in my 20's I realized that we were never going to be "those sisters" and called it for what it was. We are blood, but not friends, and I know if we weren't related we would never befriends on purpose. Don't get me wrong, I love her and if Shawn was hurt or in trouble I would help her but for now, for my mom's sake I talk to her on major holiday's and important family matters, but not to just catch up or anything. I honestly don't care. Sadly, if other family member didn't ask "how is your sister", I could probably go years without thinking about her. Anyways, it started off slow, like Shawn would come to town not stay with us, then she would come to town and not reach out until she was leaving, and then we wouldn't know she was in town at all unless she called my grandmother or posted something on social media in a familiar place. It was weird because they would always link up. Shawn loves mom's cooking and would come home just for that. Mom would go visit her and go to work events with Shawn, at the last one mom said they got into an argument because she was tired from driving 5 hours, going to the event without a nap and being on her feet all night. After the event mom just wanted to go back to Shawn's apartment and rest, but there was an after party she wanted to go to. Not wanted to go to the after party mom just wanted her to walk her back to the apartment and then Shawn could go. Shawn wanted mom to go with her and said they wouldn't be there long, but mom was tired. She was trying to convince her that she would only stay for 30 minutes, but we both know when Shawn is in a room she will talk to everyone and 30 minutes could turn into 3 hours real quick. When mom put her foot down and asked her to take her home Shawn got upset and started yelling "this is mom's side of the story", you never want to do anything, ugh, why can't you just have fun, ugh..... She said Shawn was just yelling her on the corner of the street while people were walking. Shawn stays in town where a lot of people walk and everything is close by. Then she agreed to walk mom back but walked super fast and mom couldn't keep up. She is shorter than me and my sister. When they got back, she let mom in, changed her shoes and went back out. When mom came home and told me what happened I was so confused. It isn't like them to argue. I guess you can say this was the beginning of the end. Shawn stopped calling her as often, went out of the country and said nothing about it until the day of. There were just a lot of things she was doing without communicating with mom, it came to a head when our phone plan bill went up 100's of dollars. See, the bill is in Shawn's name but mom pays the bill, well she use to until Shawn got an iPhone and added the cost of the phone to the bill. Mom and I have Samsung's. She did this without telling mom and because the bill was automated it took mom while to notice. When she did, she told Shawn to start paying the bill for the portion of the phone itself. She agreed but wouldn't pay it on times, there were times that my phone was off but didn't notice because I was always near wifi. Somewhere in the middle of this she got another iPhone and the bill went again. Shawn didn't know that just because she got another phone didn't mean she wouldn't have to pay off the other one. They went back and forth on the phone one day arguing, Shawn claiming she paid and mom asking her to go through the payment history and tell her where...... the arguing ended when she started yelling at mom, saying "you're triggering me, you're triggering me" my mom just stared into the phone in disbelief... We're black and raised in a very much black household so for those who know, know those are words that we just don't say..... Well that was last week and this past weekend was mothers day and Shawn didn't call mom.... We have a family group chat of about 23 people and she said it there but not directly to mom or sent a card or anything.... I asked her the Thursday before if she would be sending mom something on mother's because we usually work together to get her something or she send me money and I get her something and Shawn will send a card. But nothing. She didn't even call our grandmother.... I went to my boyfriends house after then mother's day dinner at my grandmother's house, where I stay most weekends and while there she called me. Mom calls when she says things are too much to text. bet she went home and found a package with a 15 pound weight in it and a note saying "I hope your mother's day brought you some joy",.... Um what??? I want someone to tell me why she picked this as a mother's day gift.... and just one ... one 15 pound weight, not a set. Mom works out but already has a set for 5,10,15, and 20 pounds weight that I know Shawn knows she has. Mom was really sad and she isn't the super emotional one of us 3, the emotional one is me. If there is one thing I hate is my mom feeling bad, but then for it to be caused by her own child was different. Shawn NEVER answers the phone like NEVER, I had to tell her our dad passed away via text after calling almost 100 times. Mom sounded like she wanted to cry and just kept asking me " Brit, what did I do wrong, I don't know what I did wrong". Dang, that broke me. Now I'm the bigger of the two of us, and my sister knows me well enough that she don't want these problems so instead for even calling I sent a long text, basically saying I was disappointed to call her my sister and she should be ashamed of how she is treating our mother because when she got fired and unemployment wasn't paying enough to cover her bill's mom paid. Shawn never paid her back. Over all she is one of the most selfish people I know. I just asked her how hard is it to say happy mother's day or send a card. I didn't expect a response, but she did, in only 15 minutes. She said " I appreciate your concern and believe me, this runs much deeper than a phone bill. I don't have the same relationship with mom as you. You only know what you experienced and what happened to you. So, I'm not going to try and explain the various dynamics between mom and I that led to where we are now. It maybe hard for you to understand today. Pls don't blame it all on me. I love you. " I don't even know what that means. I responded something like other than physical, emotional, or mental harm i don't know what could have happened so bad that she couldn't call and say happy mothers day though. I can't imagine my mom doing any of those things. but again she gave some therapy like response and asked me to give her time to heal.... Mom has no clue what various dynamics she is talking about. I'm asking for advice because I feel like she is going down the same path she did with our dad. After our parents marriage ended and we were living with dad, mom still came over 3 times a week and cooked, had us on weekends. It was like she never left the only difference was she didn't sleep at home. When the arrangement changed, dad came 2 weekends in a row. then every other weekend, then once a month, then we were lucky if we saw him at all. It broke my heart in high school when a boy in my class told me to tell my dad that he would be late for practice. I was confused and bugged him all day to explain what he meant. I found out that my dad was coaching baseball across the street from our subdivision about 3 times a week with games on the weekend. So, he could see random boys at my school almost everyday for at least 3 hours and couldn't come over before or after to see his own kids? I actual walked over to the park one day because I refused to believe it, but there he was. We never talked about it. I just started walking there and sitting in the dugout to be near him and he would drive me the 2 minutes back home. All of the players lived in our neighborhood and dad had a flat bed so he would drop them off too. When Shawn graduated high school she never talked to our dad again after that day. She never told me why. He also developed cancer while I was in college and was very sick, when he got better he tried to get back in our lives and I let him in mine, called him on holidays but he did some messed up stuff to me my first year of college so I pushed back a little between that dad would call me and tell me to call my sister on 3 way, if she answered she was forced to talk to him. She wouldn't say much and would always say she was busy or had to do something to do and promise she would call him back and never would. So, now .... as part of my trying to figure out what my mom did, I reminded her how she cried when she found out our dad passed and she just kept saying she thought she had more time and who would walk her down the ail when she gets married and never got a chance to fix things. I would hate for that to happen with our mom too. I know because of our relationship once mom passes away we will most likely not talk or see each other ever again. So, I asking what did my mom do to her? What can I do to help fix this or should I even try? Anyone have any suggestions or ideas, also sorry for the typos or misspelled words or if its hard to follow, but I ask for anyone's input if they have experience this type of situation? Side note, idk if this helps but when Shawn came to town the last few times she stayed with our Aunt Carla. She has baby of the family syndrome, where she thinks she had hard but was actually spoiled rotten and believes all her sisters and brother and their wives are jealous of her. It's total BS but once when mom and I weren't getting along and I stayed with her, she told me some crazy stories about mom sleeping around, getting drunk, trying to fight her and someone else and some other stuff. This was when I was in college and I believed what she said mom and I continued to be on the outs for awhile before I found out about her cancer and became her protector and caregiver for a while. I don't believe those stories so much now be her and mom had issues before, Carla has actually had issues with all her siblings at one point and finds the need to the the main character of her own story and everyone else's. Simply she's a "One Upper". Aunt Carla getting in Shawn's ear is one idea I believe, also Shawn's friend have ummmmm "other people problems" like mellow dramatic soap opera drama and she maybe internalizing their issues. But yeah help, where do I go from here?

Windows 11. 3 days ago.
I was working on a document in Microsoft word among other things. Didn’t save the document when I was working, which was my fault. Luckily it kept a copy.
Out of nowhere, as I am still using my PC, it restarted itself. And a message saying something similar to “windows is updating”, couldn’t remember as I was very annoyed.
It is not in sleep mode, it is not locked, “Get the latest” option is disabled. I was still using the mouse not even a minute ago. It is in the middle of the day (4pm), my active hours is from 10AM to 4AM. There is no prompts, no BSOD. It just restarts itself even though it was not supposed to.
I am 100% certain it is a windows update as it showed up in update history as “2024-05 Cumlative Update for windows 11 version 23H2 for x64-based systems”. The event viewer reads “TrustedInstaller.exe has initiated the restart of computer….. for the following reason: Operating System: Upgrade (Planned)” at 4:43:11 PM, well within my “active hours”.
As a bonus the update is a bad one and my graphics card driver failed 4 times in an hour after the update which is thankfully fixed manually. And it broke Chrome, discord web, google itself (capcha) does not work anymore, Firefox still works fine though.
Good job Microsoft.

I need to share my story and seek advice. My father has been battling a gambling addiction for years, and it's taken a significant toll on me and my family. It all started when I was in middle school. I would see him playing slots on his phone and tell my mom, but he would deny it, calling me a liar. This gaslighting left me in tears, feeling confused and helpless.
In high school, his gambling escalated to casinos in another city where he worked. He even stole money from my siblings' and my savings accounts, though my mom said he eventually put it back. She tried to manage his gambling by setting conditions, hoping it would help.
I've been in college for five years now. I gave my parents access to my credit card login to pay for my medical expenses. I noticed strange charges from the city where my dad works and confronted him. He claimed they were accidents and paid the money back, but I removed the card from his phone without him knowing. A few days later, it was re-added, and I was too busy with school to address it immediately.
I called my mom and told her everything, asking her to talk with him because I was too upset too. She checked their accounts and discovered my dad had taken out $60,000 in loans in her name and stolen $10,000 from my brothers' savings. They were also three months behind on bills. My mom, who was recovering from breast cancer, had trusted my dad with the finances, not knowing he was hiding his debts. My dad being in charge of finances also meant he was in charge of giving me money when I needed it while I was going through college. Whenever I asked, he would always say they didn't have a lot of money and give me the minimum he could. After he gave me the money, if I ever did something he didn't like he would threaten to take away all support from me, including the money they paid for me to go to college. I decided to distance myself from him, relying on my own money and support systems to get through college. Working 30-40hr weeks while trying to be full time. I definitely failed at least one class a semester. I did this for a year and a half before my mom caught what he did, took over, and gave me money so I could just work a part-time job at one of the dorm desks.
My dad has never truly tried to get better, despite attending counseling sporadically. My mom is now divorcing him, but they are still "together." She and my family urge me to support him, saying it's a disease, but I can't forgive him for the suffering he's caused.
I feel he has never acted like a father to me, and I struggle with the idea of having him in my life. How do I cope with him being around due to my mom, while wanting nothing to do with him?

If you're curious about my thoughts on previous Yakuza games, here are my much shorter (except for 4, thats pretty long too) reviews for Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, Yakuza 3 (Remastered), and Yakuza 4 (Remastered).
All of my reviews are made pretty quickly after I finish the game, this was written right after I finished but I haven't posted it till a month later because its so long I thought no one would ever read this but whatever I gotta get my truth out there.
Per usual I played the remaster of Yakuza 5. I'm not sure of any outstanding changes or things of note like with 3 or 4, but if something I say is exclusive to the remaster please let me know! I may sound overly praising or overly critical of this game, who knows but please be kind when you tell me i'm an idiot for feeling the way I do! Lastly and most importantly please please please don't spoil future games in the comments! Also warning I'm way too active in the comments section.
Because I am an utter psycho and decided to write a fuckin bibles worth of yakuza 5 ramblings, Part 1 is just reviewing the plot and Part 2 goes over everything else. I split this up last second so there's likely some spots where I say something like "we'll expand on this later" then I never bring it up again, that's because it's probably in part 2. If you want my thoughts on things like the substories, side stories, gameplay, and settings you can read Part 2 here: https://www.reddit.com/yakuzagames/comments/1cvrybw/yakuza_5_a_mega_big_ole_reviewsummary_for_a_big/
The Plot:
Like with Y4, I will discuss my thoughts on each section of the game rather than in one long chunk just because I find it more fun. I'm not even gonna try to not summarize this time because this game is so big it needs broken down.
Part 1: Kiryu
You might often find me compare Y5 to Y4 a lot in this review because they're honestly quite similar games and feel like a package. When I started playing 4 I was worried I wouldn't like playing as primarily strangers for a majority of the game, but one thing they did absolutely right was making Kiryu the final protagonist you play as in that game. So going into 5 I was very apprehensive about starting off with Kiryu, I worried they showed their hand too soon and that it would be difficult to stay invested the whole time.
With this feeling going into the game, I was immediately somewhat losing it over Kiryu being an incognito taxi driver with the worst disguise of all time (some sunglasses and a face mask, don't worry he's literally the only one in the game that seems to think it's a good disguise). Right off the bat, this game feels...sad. Kiryu watching Haruka giving an interview on the TV and storming out rather then defend her to some losers who don't get what ART is, was SAD. This part of the game felt so mundane for awhile, but not in a bad way! You wakeup as Kiryu, walk to work, drive your taxi, and go home late at night (usually) alone. The whole time my eyes were drawn to a facedown picture frame and wondering what it could be, but I certainly had a guess. Kiryu is going through a hard, isolating, and depressing time and you can feel that so well from the game and how they have you play as him. Anyways there's also a random gal named Mayumi that will not leave Kiryu alone despite him asking her to. All you're doing by the end of chapter one is going "Huhhhhhhh?" Anyways Kiryu is approached by two dudes named Morinaga and Aizawa in chapter 2, telling him Daigo was???? Kidnapped?? GASP.. Admittidly I wasn't too fond of this duo at first. One thing that was consistent through my playthrough is that I was completely incapable of predicting anything correctly, and it had felt like these two were gonna be my pals for the rest of the game and I just wasn't clicking with them. Not to mention this weird semi-one sided-romance going on with Mayumi.
In chapter 3, we begin with the most heartbreaking thing that could ever happen to me, Yakuza 3 superfan. Kiryu has been pushed out of running the orphanage by a lady named Miss Park. It's all making sense now. He does it so the orphanage can have money and so Haruka can follow her dreams. DOESNT MAKE IT EASIER TO DEAL WITH FOR ME :( . Then we meet Watase, first thoughts? I was like "god I hope this guy isn't the main villain he's kinda lame" Soon after we meet Aoyama and I thought literally the same thing. Clearly by this point in the game I didn't have the highest hopes. I was mostly sad and not liking most of the new characters. But then... things take a turn.
Mayumi was actually a spy! thank god honestly. Kiryu meets Aoyama again but then Morinaga shows up and fuckin kills Aoyama and says he buried Aizawa alive HOLY SHIT? and then soon after I'm told Majima is fucking dead. Figured he wasn't actually dead cuz I've seen pictures of him from later games but holy shit I somehow cried just at the THOUGHT of him being dead. Also at some point here we met a detective who is an important player in this story but at this point not too integral. Also before Kiryu leaves he picks up the picture frame and its the orphanage ;-;
Kiryu final thoughts: This part of the game was fantastic. I'm so glad they started with Kiryu in this case despite my initial unsureness with it. Chapter 4 especially is when everything really falls into place and starts going 100 miles an hour but I also love the slowness of the previous 3 chapters. I do wish we got more Morinaga as this is unfortunately the last we hear of him despite this being a wonderful set up to a really interesting villain. Mayumi was a pretty shit character per seemingly always with any full grown woman in Yakuza games. While I think it's cool she was secretly a spy she was clearly an afterthought as we never hear about her again so that's cool. Basically a mixed bag of new characters overall.
Part 2: Saejima
I jokingly said to myself "Wouldn't it be funny if I had to spend half of this section breaking out of prison again. Thank god that's not the case." and continued hanging out with Majima until I was arrested for two more years of serving my sentence and OH NO IM BACK IN THE BUILDING.
Yeah I was VERY unsure about breaking out of prison again being a good call. Thankfully, and sorry to Y4, this is a much better prison sequence. Another thing I was really unsure about was BALD SAEJIMA! But actually... it kinda slays harder? In Y4 he looks like that guy from the game The Hatred (an insult) maybe it wouldn't be so bad if bro washed or brushed it but he never did and so instead bald was a slay. Anyways We're dropped in at nearly the end of Saejima's serving period with his group of friends/cellmates, newest one being some dude named Baba. We are relentlessly tortured by the scariest man I've ever seen, Viktor Zsasz-I MEAN! Kugihara. Who's honestly scarier looking then Zsasz somehow. But it is ON because Viktor Zsasz framed my bestie Baba and I will not let that slide so I beat the fuck out of him and it's revealed Zsasz was instructed to be a dick to me. By who??????????????????? Then it's double revealed to me that Majima is dead and I'm sad all over again :(
Turns out our warden is actually really chill and nice and somewhat tries to help us survive. What a breath of fresh air after Satan (Saito) from Y4. This guy is so cool infact we are encouraged to break out by him. So Baba and I do in the dead of the night and tell me why I cried over leaving my two other cellmates ;_; they were such bros. Zsasz hinders my escape and we fight, but my absolute PAL Himura fuckin shoots him it was an amazing turn of events and I cheered so loud and was devastated to leave him behind but anyways-
FUCK YEA SNOW MOBILES (they were kinda jank to control honestly but its the thought that counts). I am so glad I didn't know I was going to be fighting a bear going into this because that was easily the most camp thing ever and so hilarious. Then some old guy saves me (and later Baba) and we chill in the mountains for a little while. The mountain has a whole crazy detailed side story of it's own that I'll explain in more detail later but basically it was cool.
So then a ton of important stuff happens in Tsukimino, most notably we hang out with Baba in a bar which is great because I love Baba and him and I are super tight and he's easily the only person I could ever trust at this point without potential for betrayal! :)
Anyways me and Baba fuckin kidnap this guy because his chair is by a sewer manhole? He's gone in a flash so all I can imagine is dragging him down the hole by his ankle or something. Then we talk for awhile, Majima is mentioned woohoo, THEN HE'S sniped! The way I gasped. Longstory short :( Baba is the one who sniped him and not only that he kind of set everything up and wasn't my best pal all along :( Why Baba Why? Then Baba basically confesses his love for Saejima and can't go through with killing him, AAAAAAND Im back on the Baba train. That detective I mentioned from earlier arrests Saejima but not to throw him back in jail, to assemble the Yakuza avengers.
Final Saejima thoughts: This was shockingly fantastic. I was probably least impressed with Saejima's section in Y4, so it was shocking to have basically the same structure and general narrative beats but done well. It wasn't perfect, I didn't love it as much as Kiryu's section as I'm partial to a slow burn, but it was fun I have no real complaints, except MAYBE more then one chapter in Tsukimino would be a better choice.
Part 3 (first half): Haruka
I did not know I was going to get the HONOR of playing Haruka going into this game. We start off very strong, dancing to the greatest song of all time "So Much More." I mean we really get the full idol experience here with mean ass teachers and shady management. I didn't expect to get an Idol simulator in my Yakuza game but it might be the best thing ever. I decided right off the bat to put everything I had into this section of the game so immediately I did literally everything I could. Most of this chapter feels like a bit of a reflection of Kiryu's were working and going back home alone, it's all as monotonous and isolating as can be (except you're a predebut idol) and I love this. We quickly meet a girl who will serve as my bestie named Akari and yes I indeed would die for her thank you. Meeting Akari introduces us to this sections version of combat, DANCE BATTLES! I know some people might be disappointed you don't get to punch people as Haruka, and I get that, but this feels like a more genuine gameplay style for her character. It's hard to imagine Haruka fighting thugs in the street due to her personality (not that i'd be against it, especially after that weird virtual reality game where I get to wack dudes with a wand) plus I found this gameplay style so refreshing. I was never groaning or sighing because I had to dance against someone. I think it helps that I wasn't forced to do it 15 times in a row walking down the street, but I had the option to most of the time unless it was part of a quest. Maybe that's how all the gameplay should be? I don't mind being approached by thugs sometimes but it always feels like it happens too often in these games and with getting the option to while getting to walk around carefree otherwise in Haruka's section was just SO NICE.
Anyways, We get the whole set up here, we are participating in a competition show that will single handedly set the course for our debut. We're competing against this band called T-set. I hate them so much. They're so mean :(. At some point we see Miss Park absolutely SLAY and tell off Haruka's dance teacher and she doesn't take his shit at all. At this point I was like "Uh ohhhh I don't wanna like her but...she kinda rocks" my decent into stanning Miss Park only continues from there. We have to go convince some guy named Christina (interesting name to take but also a slay, much respect to Mr. Christina and his fedora) to be our new dance instructor. This causes drama with me and Akari which devastated me because I love Akari but we made up like immediately so it's chill.
Then at one point, I forgot the context, Haruka is shopping for a gift for Miss Park when stupid T-set shows up and STEPS ON THE BROACH I BOUGHT FOR HER. I was back and forth on them until now, now they may burn in hell. Especially after they made Haruka get on her knees and beg for forgiveness like ???? what gives ??? Park shows up and SLAYS and gets rid of them. Park then wears the broach :(((((((((
Then one of my favorite parts happen in chapter 2, Haruka and Miss Park go hit the town and just bond together. It's so stinking cute I wanted to cry. This whole time I was trying to not get emotionally attached to Park because it really felt like she was gonna end up betraying us. But the night continued and we get some mother daughter vibes going, even so far as holding hands????? Also Im somewhat glad I didn't get to wear the outfit I bought at the store with Park because I was going for a Cheetah girls inspired look then realized far too late how tacky that might come off, not everyone is Raven Symone ya know?
Anyways at this point I'm like wow this is the cutest game ever, nothing can ever go wrong, Park MIGHT betray me but I don't even care. She gives us a cool pen and a tragic anime backstory with an abusive ex husband and everything and we call it a night Well the next fuckin day my world crumbles because PARK IS DEAD! She "committed suicide" as if!
Part 3 (second half): Akiyama
I can't tell you how devastated I was to realize I'd only get to play as Akiyama for half of a section of the game. However, I was also thrilled to see him at all. Apparently he's opening a Satenbori office and also he is the one who financed Park's dream to debut Haruka so that's how he has a hand in all this. There is tragically very little Hana, she calls you twice and both times were fantastic but I wish I had more :(. Anyways Akiyama has heard about Park's death and goes to the office and meets Haruka. I didn't think they'd even really know each other and assumed we'd have an interesting reveal that they both know Kiryu later but nah they know each other. It honestly probably works better this way because we don't have time for such trivial things! Akiyama is a fuckin detective now. I don't know why he has been tasked to do this but he does it so well I don't even mind. He quickly figures out Park didn't actually kill herself and they simply need evidence to prove this. I'm unsure when this happens but at some point while talking about the mystery SOMEONE FALLS OFF THE ROOF! It was Horie :( who I haven't mentioned yet but he's my manager and a real pal. Thankfully he lived but we found out that the former dance teacher pushed him off. I think he also killed Park or Kanai did, who knows, either way someone did and they suck for it.
Chapter 4 has a lot going on, but basically the president of Osaka talent is sus and he's also the secret chairman of Ousaka Enterprises, which is a different thing... but sounds similar. Ousaka is basically a higher up family in the Omi alliance, so he's part of the bad yakuza!!! Haruka keeps doing the competition and T-set keeps sucking. She wins the princess league by a landslide. I don't even see the point in a third round if she won both of the other rounds? Is the third round just worth more points? Either way Haruka destroyed them and they suck. Her poor vocal instructor is working as her manager now. At some point we find out Parks ex husband was none other then Majima! Which is quite the revelation. Japan is such a small world, everyone seems to know each other. This does mean that Majima at least hit Park (I think after her abortion) and I think he's like 10 years older then her yet they were already married when she debuted at eighteen... Is it time for me to confront the possibility that my favorite crazed murderer might not be the most upstanding citizen?
It ends with Haruka being kidnapped, (nothing out of character there), and Akiyama saving her. He and Haruka make their way to Japan for the big ole concert Park had been planning. Wow this story is really picking up! I hope nothing grinds it to a sudden stop!
Part 3 final thoughts: God this was amazing, every step of it. My only complaint is I wanted more, more Akiyama and MORE dancing but I might be the only one who wanted 40 more hours of dancing. Detective Akiyama and Haruka duo was not the team I knew I needed but Im glad it happened. I found all of the music and gameplay here SO fun and I loved the plot too. I really liked Parks character. I wouldn't necessarily hang out with her, but I found her to be pretty well written and its hard to hate anyone Haruka clearly treasures, I am very sad she is actually dead because up until the end of the game I kept thinking she was going to come back.
Part 4: Shinada:
We have come to a sudden stop. We start with a flashback to 1997 where Shinada has debuted as a baseball player for the wyverns, don't forget this moment because the rest of this section of the game constantly calls back to it. In the modern day Shinada is a loser who is really heavily indebt and lives in a weird grimey rooftop shack. He also now writes like ? smut articles ? And he's friend with a girl named Milky which is the craziest name I've ever heard. A loanshark who talks about his kids a lot constantly follows Shinada around and takes his money. There was a lot of promise with this gag, like maybe instead of letting me keep the 100k and still acting like I'm broke he shows up after every side mission to rob me but nope. At the end of the chapter we run into a masked man who is frankly just Daigo stealing Kiryu's disguise idea.
Shinada and loanshark (his name is Takasugi) walk around town looking for leads on uncovering the truth of Shinada's past. Because you see, Shinada one time got fired from baseball cuz everyone thought he cheated, oh you already knew that? yeah same but don't worry you'll hear it at least 40 more times. Daigo asked him to go look for clues about this, why does he care? I still don't know honestly. Takasugi is forcing him to go because...I guess money? and he's walking around with me and were acting like friends now for some reason. Shinada is incapable of having any agency for himself, he just does what people tell him to. He also keeps nearly dying like a looney tunes character with shit falling out of the sky and stuff. Eventually we find out the Nagoya family fixed the match and then some guy Shinada used to know does get smashed like a looney tunes character. Skip ahead, were called to help by Milky and she betrayed us. I am sad cuz I thought Milky was a friend for life. Turns out literally everyone Shinada knows aside from the fkn loanshark are evil, even the old baseball lady. This plot was so convoluted I frankly don't understand why they were doing what they were doing, all I know is they were more like a neighborhood watch situation then Yakuza even though they seemed to do the exact same thing. Also when I say literally everyone he knows is evil I mean everyone, even his old coach or whatever. For way too long I thought they meant the middle school baseball coach so I was hella confused. Anyways we then find out that actually Takasugi is Shinada's number one baseball fan. Okay? Anyways
Chapter 4 things finally pick up a little. Daigo reveals himself like anyone ever was doubting it was him, and he also reveals he cares because he went to highschool with Shinada. Is that fr how were connecting this? Daigo got expelled from highschool because he protected Shinada from a rival school. Once again, okay? I guess Shinada doesn't like that Daigo is a yakuza and punches him out the door. I wasn't a fan of this. Daigo goes down pretty easily, pitiful Daigo strikes again. I love him but can he do anything right? Anyways I guess the fight meant nothing cuz they're pals now and go to Tokyo together. We get a cut to Takasugi getting his money back from Shinada as well as a signed baseball...okay that's really cute I nearly cried. I wish they actually left it there but instead Shinada runs away last minute to meet up on that stupid baseball field from 1997 that we cant go 5 minutes without hearing about and we fight this guy named Sawada who was like the kind of mastermind and also the pitcher. Had Sawada not thrown an easy pitch, Shinada wouldn't have hit it and thus been kicked out for cheating. We fight some Omi then play baseball and OMG WHY ARE WE DOING THISSSSSS
Finally it ends and we go to Tokyo
Shinada final thoughts: If you cant tell I was not a fan of this. I found Shinada to be really inconsitently written. In side missions or when he's playing off of certain characters he's quite entertaining and un, but most of the time, he seems to just be a blank slate who does whatever and only talks about baseball. And omg maybe if I liked baseball this would have been the best thing ever but we did not need THAT much baseball talk or constant referencing to that baseball game in 1997. I get its central to his character but it became a meme how often he'd get misty eyed and talk about getting kicked out. Why did he move Nagoya to escape his image as a cheating baseball player when 1) he constantly talks about it anyways, 2) everyone literally knows who he is here anyways. They make it seem like at first he wants nothing to do with baseball anymore but he also goes to the batting cages all the time and also thinks about nothing but baseball. The plot here is just SO hard to follow and not at all what I want to be dealing with after we were really in the thick of things with part 3's ending. I'm not saying it was impossible for this to be good, I think there was so much potential here! Like seemingly all of Yakuza 4, the concepts are there but the execution is iffy. I think it's biggest downfall is when it happens. It would have made so much more sense to make the last section before the finale the Haruka section. Shinada would have felt much better to play as maybe as a part two or even a part three, but NOT part four. The odds were stacked against him being amongst a cast of characters that I already know and love. I definitely was more of a Tanimura fan, but I liked Shinada as a person. His inconsistent writing, unfortunate story, and tendency to be a little annoying really dragged this part of the game down for me.
Part 5: The Finale
This finale is crazyyyyyyy so strap in. I would expect nothing less then insanity from this game. First Kiryu shows up in Kamurocho WERE HOME BABYYYYYY. Were being followed by BABA!! I missed him. We fight for fun or something then we cut to Saejima who is meeting with the detective who tells us we gotta find Morinaga. OH YEAH THAT GUY. So we go to the Florist and we go to the arena only to find... AIZAWA??? The fuck? I thought Morinaga fuckin killed him cold blooded and made me think he was a cool as fuck villain. Only to find out that GASP Morinaga is actually dead. At this point I literally don't believe it because I guess I was in my era of not believing anyone ever dies.
We go to Akiyama who is told by Osaka ceo to not let Haruka perform. Akiayam says hell no. We also find out that Park and him planned to make Haruka and T-set a group and debut them at the same time but I somehow missed this when playing and didnt realize that till way leter. ANYWAY At some point we also see the CEO doing naked push ups in his penthouse which was so weird. ALSO there is a Date-san reveal. The scream I screamt! I didn't know I missed him or needing him so much in a game till I saw him again. Usually I'm wondering why he's even there or what he adds but I finally get it now, he adds being Date to the table and that's all you need.
Then I do a tower sweep at Kamurocho hills and OMG is this what Majima was building the whole time? To be fully honest it's beautiful and im very proud but its so different and lowkey off-putting. Kind of like Majima himself. I miss him. A whole game and I only be hearing about him second hand its not fair. Question, did literally anyone choose Saejima to do the tower sweep? Anyway were on the top of the tower; Kiryu, Saejima, CEO Katsuya, and Watase. We all have to fight eachother to draw out the one true bad guy and also cuz this is a yakuza game, so off our shirts go and everyone fights. Basically everyone gets shot and the bad guy is revealed... THE DETECTIVE. Who saw it coming? I still kept thinking Park would come back or Morinaga but by this point I was definitely suspecting him too. I don't fully get why he's doing all this but long story short he's purging both the Omi and Tojo of nice? Yakuza? I guess? I think it mostly has to do with him making way for his son to inherit a role in everything but thats not further explored till later. Not to worry tho! Daigo has shown up!!!! But because he is Daigo you should definitely be worried because once again he cant do anything right and he gets shot by Kanai. God dammit Daigo. He is now in critical condition, this is the SECOND TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED DAIGO. He's such a damsel in distress, never change.
Baba tells Haruka the message Kiryu had for her, to never give up. He also asks her to come with him to convince to Kiryu to chillax but she refuses. Sad for no one but me. At the New Serena, where that absolute BOP of a song is blaring, Kiryu is sleeping, while the rest of the crew are chilling and chatting. I forgot to mention Akiyama and Shinada briefly teamed up but frankly who cares. Shinada talks about baseball alot here too just incase you were worried he wouldnt. They conclude that detective bad guy is gonna attack Haruka's concert which I will NEVER allow. I guess Shinada's purpose here is actually tha the knows the stadiuk layout pretty well which I will buy in to. Also I believe here Haruka gets told about her and t-set being a band together now called Dreamline. I also dont love this. The idea of it is fine, Im all for a disney channel original movie plot where the bullies are actually great and we all become friends at the end but the issue is they don't properly develop T-set to do that. The short haired girl gets one little moment of being somewhat nice to Haruka then the very next time I see her she's stepping on my boss's broach and making me beg on my knees like sorry but it's really hard to come around on liking them. Even now when Haruka stumbles duing practice they're rude! This is a tragic ending if anything but Haruka seems happy I guess... Dont worry they will be nothing more then Haruka's glorifed backup dancers.
Okay final chapter, and it's a doozy. We send Shinada of all people to go help Haruka at the stadium, I know i just said I get he knows the layout of the stadium but like :( he's literally the only one who hasn't met her. I guess they don't end up interacting really anyways. Saejima is going to go after Majima because btw he's alive and at the top of the millenium tower. Akiyama and Kiryu stay on the ground to defend against attackers and they probably punch/ kick at least 10000 men. All the while Haruka gives her concert. But Baba is lurking and gonna shoot her, I thought he learned to be good again but whatever. Him and Shinada end up having a confrontation that ends in Baba losing and he's about to kill himself when !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my prison besties and the wardon show and up stop him! Oh my god I loved that so much what a nice resolution for Baba and I love that those guys went straight to a Jpop concert just for their pal. Meanwhile Saejima confronts Detective evil man on top of the millenium tower and !!! there he is, finally Majima is here. But he is not having a good time, turns out he's allowed himself to be captured and tortured for the sake of Haruka and now Majima and Saejima have to fight for the same reason. Then! Daigo shows up, while im literally begging him to actually shoot the bad guy but instead they all talk. Haruka is safe from harm (Baba wouldn't have done that shit anyways) and we officially learn about the plot of him attempting to put his son in charge of everything. Kiryu goes to Tojo headquarters to stop whoever this suspicious son is and Akiyama fights Kanai. Then literally all our friends ever show up to help and that was damn cute.
Kiryu shows up and it's eerie, completely silent with dead people everywhere. We go to the meeting room and the guy behind it all along was Aizawa. I definitely did not see that coming because I forgot he existed. But I suppose thats the point, he was so unassuming. I guess that means Morinaga actually was dead all along. We fight Aizawa while Haruka sings a song that seems very pointed at Kiryu wins (duh) but he is not doing well and tries to make his way through the streets. Meanwhile Haruka announces her retirement because she cant hide who she is or stay away from her family any longer and runs away to find Kiryu and THE GAME ENDS. Other games gave me a after credits scene that somewhat eased my concerns, but 5 is a overall very sad game and it's scene is her managing to him but he's bleeding out in the streets and falls unconcious in her arms.
Finale final thoughts: This was quite the finale! It was much better then Shinada's section but it was still a bit messy and left a lot of plot threads up in the air or had some unfortunate revelations. Nothing bad but things I think shouldve maybe been revealed earlier, like Aizawa. Only finding out with like 20 minutes of the game to go makes it feel too empty or even rushed when we know this game is otherwise not rushed at all. I was a little sad about the ending, I don't think it was bad at all I was just sad. The whole time I imagined it ending with the whole gang going to Haruka's concert and having a good time. For once I dont think the game fully dropped the ball on the finale like they tend to do so I commend it for that.
TLDOverall plot final thoughts: As a whole this is one of the most well written Yakuza stories since Yakuza 3 (obviously in my opinion). I can see that for some people all the plot twists and surprises might have felt like too much but I loved it, I never once could predict where this game was going. Morinaga dying off screen was such a let down and missed opportunity, at the end of Kiryu's section I was thinking he was going to be the best Yakuza villain in awhile but instead he went out in such a lame way. I do kinda wonder who killed him, I assumed it was just the detective guy but Aizawa seemed at least somewhat sad about Morinaga's death. I wonder if that was all a show? Another thing I dislike not just because of how it went, but also that it ended up going no where, Mayumi. They made quite the big deal about her at first and I do like the plot twist that she was a spy, but she wasn't even really acting any different when she was in spy mode and in normal mode. Plus you literally never see her again. I think Saejima's section was just very reminicent of his in 4, but done well. Aside from it taking quite so long to get to the city, by the time you leave it feels slightly rushed. I think the chapter in the woods didnt need to be its own thing. Absolutely no notes with Haruka, only that I'm sad this is all we will see of Park, I found her to be a really interesting character. Akiyama is where my main issues arise, only because I really do think he needed his whole section. He felt a little tacked on otherwise when I think he really didn't need to feel that way. I had hoped he would be part of half of Haruka's section then half of Shinada's where he is used to introduce us to Shinada as a character. But instead we get dropped into that like nothing. I know im probably the only one who cares about Hana this much but I really wish we got more of her. I basically said all my issues with Shinada at the end of his section but once again, I really didn't enjoy that plot. The finale was a mess and unfortunatly left at quite a cliff hanger which I wouldve rather it didn't but Im also okay with how it did. Some other things I wanted in this game was MORE MAJIMA I get why he wasnt for narrative purposes but Im gonna say that in every game. I wouldve loved more Okinawa orphan content. That being said there is way more content for them in this then in Y4 which is wild considering we spent like 5 seconds in Okinawa during a flashback and you never actually see them. It was so nice to hear what theyre up to second hand and some of the side missions expand on them a little more but I am devastated they werent there.
Lastly to briefly compare it to Y4, as they do feel like connected games. Y5 realy does feel like they took all of the concepts of the 4th game that needed to be reworked, and then re-did them to be better. The villains are better, prison break outs are better, and just like way more. I do think there are things in Y5 that are lacking compared to Y4, like general atmosphere, and I do think Tanimura's section in 4, as flawed as it is, is better then Shinadas. Akiyama's in 5 is great, but I love his in Y4 more simply because he doesn't have to share the spotlight. But I really have to emphasize, story and character are done better in Y5, ATMOSPHERE is done so much better in Y5.
TLDR for the TLDR: I liked this game :)
And there you have it, the longest goddamn review of all time. It was a really great game and I wish I could play it for the first time again because it was just SUCH a great experience. If you read this far I am so impressed by you and eternally grateful you even cared to. Please let me know your thoughts! I'm so excited to talk about this game with people. As for my rating, It was going to be a 10/10 until I got to Shinada's section now I'm in between an 8 or a 9. Ill just say 8/10 to be mean.
I am already neck deep in Yakuza 0 so I'm excited to write a much shorter review for that one soon.
Thank you for reading!

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I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/Hopeful_Picture586 posting in AmItheAsshole and her user account
Concluded as per OOP
2 updates - Long
Original - 1st June 2022
Update1 - 2nd June 2022
Update2 - 16th October 2022
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AITA for refusing to go to my daughter graduation ceremony
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I (40sF) have a daughter (18F) who I’ll call Belle. When she was younger, her father (broke up before she was born) was very involved in her life and she was admittedly a “dad’s girl” but this all changed when she turned 8 and he got married. He barely called and just abandoned her for his new family. This was obviously hard on her and she rebelled a lot. But she went to therapy and seemed good. Belle has not seen him since she was 12 and he speaks to her maybe 3 times a year maximum. When he calls, she believes he is now back in her life for good then he ghosts her for the remainder of the year. This being said ,Belle and I have a great relationship, we do everything together. She even refers to me as her best friend so I’d say we have a good relationship.
Recently was her graduation and I was excited. But then she came to me a week before and told me she is going to invite her dad and his son. And cos her dad doesn’t want to see me, I can’t come. Belle told me that was the only way he was gonna go. I angrily told her, I felt betrayed and wont forgive her for this. She just told me I have been there for many of her milestones and she wants her father to experience some too. Things got heated and we argued.
The night before her graduation, I pleaded with her but she ignored me when I spoke. And only said “I’m sorry but I’m not changing my mind. I left and cried until my sister offered to take me out during the graduation to take my mind of it and I agreed.
I woke up the next morning to my daughter bawling her eyes out. I looked at the time and realised the ceremony starts in 5 minutes. I asked Belle why she hasn’t left yet. Belle then tells me her father ditched her and isn’t answering anymore. I hug her and tell her to make the most of her graduation. She looked shocked and asks if I’m not going to the ceremony now her father isn’t anymore .
And how it’ll be embarrassing to be the only one there without parents. I told I’m sorry that I already had plans. She then screamed and called me a bad mom. I apologise once again and got ready to meet my sister. I chose not to go because I felt betrayed and wanted to teach her actions have consequences, even if it broke me that i didn’t go. Since Belle returned she hasn’t spoken a word to me. And she looks depressed and like she’s been crying for ages. I’m starting to regret not going.
My sister says I did the right thing, but one of the moms at my daughter school said she was depressed at graduation and now I feel bad that I ruined what was suppose to be a day to remember because I wanted to teach my daughter a lesson. So aita?
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Comments
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Mad_Cowboy_64
NTA. You gave her an important lesson about maintaining relationships with the people who are there for you and not blowing them off for the next new thing that comes along.
Agitated_Cheek4890
I fully agree. Daughter treated her horrendously. Daughter might now go NC but she would be an AH to do so given how she's treated her mother. ETA: thank you for the award
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Awkward-Wasabi-9262
And OP stop apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong. The more you apologize, the more your daughter believes that her was right in her actions. At best you can say "look, I understand you're hurt and I'm sorry you're upset but this is a consequence of your actions."
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Update - 1 day later
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I don’t think I’m a bad mom for this one thing. And I accept the judgements and read everything. To answer your question: Belle does go therapy. This isn’t the first time Belle has ditched me for her dad, she been doing it for 10 years. This is the first time I have said no to her after he father abandoned her. I have asked her therapist, if Belle is being manipulated. and she said no based on Belle and her father’s messages, and my daughter is just grasping onto a reality that isn’t there
Update: I went to my daughter and apologised for not going to her graduation. I also explained that it is not a nice feeling to be left out and I feel under appreciated. Also, that is fine to want her father there for her, but I should too. Belle told me that she’s sorry things ended this way and that she loves me(hugged me)and wants things to go back to normal. And that she acted like a bitch. I told her nevertheless I should have been there and if I could do this all over again, I would’ve gone. ( honestly I said this as I thought she now knew her dad can’t be trusted- and I felt for her).
Then I asked her if she regret uninviting me in the first place and unsurprisingly she said no. This hurt me but I figured it was because I didn’t go so it was understandable. But no, she continued saying that it was probably best I didn’t go because she would’ve been more miserable as she would have preferred her dad to be there anyway. Then I got pissed( I didn’t show it). I told her my feeling were hurt, especially since I’ve been there for her.
And she said that she’s always going to want her dad there for her big moments. I asked, even at the expense of me and knowing he most likely won’t show. And she replied “ I mean if I have to make sacrifices, I’m going to, to have my dad there. I repeated the question as she seemed to be swerving it but she just shrugged and went on her phone. I told her not to expect everyone to apologise and turn a blind eye when she doesn’t value them in the real world. And i also said, knowing how she feels, don’t expect another apology from me and this is the last time I’m doing this. She looked tear eyes but I left.
I don’t know how other parents do this. I know her father is going to keep abandoning her and honestly I’m at my limit. And If I didn’t know whether I was wrong or not before, I definitely know I was right in not going. I know I’m going to get a lot of backlash saying this but I’m bitter and angry. I understand wanting her dad there but I should be on the same level of importance as him. I’m still going to be there for her when he inevitable ditches her again but if this behaviour carries on to her next graduation or wedding day. I can’t say I’ll be that apologetic to her. I should’ve just listened to NTA.
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Comments
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Alibeee64
Can I ask why her dad didn’t want you at the ceremony? It sounds like you don’t have an issue with him, but he obviously has one with you. Perhaps your daughter needs to work to understand this, as he seems very vindictive. If she doesn’t learn to set boundaries with him, what is going to happen when he makes similar demands at other important life events like college graduation, or her wedding? Is she going to expect you to keep letting her run over you emotionally in order to accommodate her dad’s crazy demands, especially when he keeps letting her down. And is she going to spend her life chasing after men who emotionally distance themselves from her because her relationship with her father has taught her to do this?

OOP: Honestly we broke up on good terms. I haven’t spoken to him in years though. And when I have seen their messages, it’s always small talk and nothing about me. So I don’t where this came from.

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Update - 4 months later
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I’m sure no one asked for this update but here goes.
I’m going to refer to Belle's father as Frank.
For the past few months I’ve done a lot of reflection. Although, I can’t say I regret not going to B’s graduation ceremony, I do wish I handled the situation more like an adult. Growing up, I was taught never to ask questions I don’t want the answer to and that is exactly what I did with my daughter. I shouldn’t have asked if she regretted uninviting me because truthfully I didn’t want to hear the answer. And for that, i think I acted childish.
To clear up some misconception: I don’t speak to Belle’s father simply because he refuses to be cooperative. Also, when I said Belle referred to me as her “best friend”. This doesn’t mean I treat her like my equal. I do parent her, she did get grounded and got her phone taken away when she misbehaved at school etc( which is rarely). I think she calls me that because she feels comfortable to talk to me about everything.
Now to the update: There was an incident after, where Belle wanted her dad’s help her move into her college apartment before term started but he refused because he “had work”. She begged for weeks. The whole 3 hour ride to her college was her crying hysterically. My sister consoled her but if I’m being honest I was pissed. Pissed at my daughter as she refuses to go therapy anymore, but seriously pissed at my ex.
It took me ages after graduation but I finally got in contact with F’s aunt. I explained the situation and that I need to get into contact with him as he’s either ignoring or not getting my messages. He ended up sending me a very long letter. In a small nutshell, it said that my daughter has been stalking and threatening him and his family and he’s been trying to have a healthy relationship with her but she keeps being aggressive so he had to distance himself.
He acknowledges he hasn’t been the best father but he tried for the past few years and Belle is too aggressive so he had to put the safety of his family first. As for the graduation, he wrote that he definitely refused to go. And only said it was probably for the best as I probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable with him there. He said not to contact him again and that we’ve done enough damage.
He added photocopies of messages between him and Belle, where she “says” deeply troubling things, like physical threats. Personally, I thought everything he said was BS and misconstrued. I spoke to Belle and told her of her father’s accusations. She broke down in tears hysterically and admitted that she hasn’t been the nicest to Frank’s wife and child (understandably) but she never threatened and stalked them. I was trying to calm her down. I told her I believe her and suggested therapy. Then she turned on me, blaming me for the breakdown between her and her father relationship.
She swore at me and broke stuff. She told me to stop trying to villainize her father, when I’m the problem. She called me a burden and cancer and said I should’ve stayed out of her business. I was called a bad mother and told I should burn in hell. To be clear, she was never violent towards me. She packed her stuff and left, presumably back to college. Me or my family haven’t heard from her since. I called and called but only got one message from a random number telling me to leave her alone. I told her I’m always here when’s she’s ready to talk.
It’s been 2+ months since I spoke to her. I’ll never admit this to anyone but honestly I feel relieved. My self esteem plummeted and I felt dead for the longest time because of this situation. I’m going therapy and feel the tiniest bit better. I finally went on a date yesterday for the first time in a decade, without getting guilted. In hindsight, mine and B’s relationship were no where near perfect. I don’t know what more I could’ve done but I wished I did more. She’s my child and she was a victim of an overall shit situation.
Sorry for the long update.
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Comments
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maybemaybo
I'm guessing with the graduation he likely said something like "and your mom probably wouldn't be comfortable seeing me.." in an attempt to let her down politely.
And that probably led her to go "well if I uninvite my mum, problem solved!" refusing to actually see the truth, that he won't come because it doesn't fit in with their fantasy.
I would honestly reach out to F's family member and say "pass on that he should use these threats to try and get a restraining order" because now she's cut you off, who knows how much more desperate she is to get to him.
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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP. Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Edit: I'm aware my punctuation and grammar are awful. I'm crazy and uneducated and I have never wrote anything to myself so it's probably 🗑
I don't really know where I should start this one. I figured out a lot of the mental health shit and our life hasn't really improved. It's less chaotic right now but we don't really have money or any of the stuff I use to numb my brain and drown myself out. We'll make it like we always do. I know everyone said we wouldn't make it this far (including us) but I'm here and weirdly enough I'm happy about it. I'm about to leave state and start completely fresh again and I swear I won't waste it this time. We're getting back into martial arts right now which is crazy cause we haven't actually trained a martial art since middle school cause we got obsessed with unorthodox stances but I'm gonna try to do unorthodox kickboxing. Our wrist is broken rn but it's not too bad and we're getting a hard cast soon. I know you're probably thinking about it, like me but we can't tap out until our revolution is won. We don't have a girlfriend but we have a roster. That one is still no contact I guess. So the current plan is to make it big in mma and use the money to fund a revolution. Anyway they still say we're crazy and they still keep switching the diagnosis. We try to be as neutral as possible but if our therapist tells me weed is the problem again I might beat him to death with my cast. We still bounce around the same people like a mangy stray but we managed to make ourselves useful so at least that's something. We've always excelled at violence and logical thinking on top of physics being the only kind of math I could do without having an aneurysm (it was because I could understand the physical application of the math and catapults are cool) so we had to become a jack of all trades but we do have some deep interests at the moment that I'd consider real skills (so yeah fuck that school counselor) on top of that we've been making enough to get by so we're not struggling for meals anymore tho we still don't eat as much as we should.
I hope we smile when we read this
"I don't LIKE violence, I'm just good at it. I don't find trouble, trouble goes looking for me with helicopters and binoculars"- the stray dog inside of you that helped you survive

Hi, guys! I'm back. I've just finished reading Starset's new novel, A Brief History of the Future, and i really needed to share it.
Some of you may know me from my previous posts on the Starset lore:

• In "The Starset lore Part I: Transmissions", I covered the events told in The Prox Transmissions (Starset's first novel) and linked them to the album Transmissions.
• In "The Starset lore Part II: DivisionsThe Starset lore Part II: Divisions", I tried to gather the information we had on the new storyline, mainly based on Divisions content (Horizons hadn't released yet by then) and I shared my speculations about its meaning.

Now that I've read this book, I want to sum up what we have now. Keep in mind that, for obvious reasons, this post is all spoiler content. If you plan to read the book(s) I encourage you to do so, because I'm unveiling some of the main "plot-twists" in the second book. I won't be writing a literal summary of the book's plot (I will focus on the content more than in the "drama"), but key elements of it will appear. Also, I'm taking for granted you are already familiar with the contents in The Prox Transmissions -if not, I recommend you reading my post or just dropping this post altogether and go read the book!
If you have already read the books, don't plan to read them or don't care about the spoilers, stay with me along this long post because you will discover much about Divisions, Horizons... and what's coming next!!
Let's go then!
In a unknown year the novel starts in a world dominated by a state called the New East. it's not explicit in the book, but we have reasons to identify the New East with China: it is a current superpower and the powerful people in control have Chinese names. This state is governed by a Governing Committee, composed by Ministers that stay in charge for 5 years, with an exception: the Minister of Security, also known as MinSec. He is the head of the New East's secret police and he is to remain in charge for life.
Prior to 2024, Aston Wise (remember he was one of the protagonists of the previous novel!) is locked up by the US Government. They force him to create the BMI and its Architecture. In 2024, as I have said, the New East manages to obtain it and the big war starts. This part of the story is also explained deeper in a video (called "Initial Debriefing", available in Starset's YouTube channel since September 9th, 2021), with some minor incongruencies:

In the year 2010, the US Defense Advance Research Projects Agency -or DARPA- began work on a neural link system known as the "Brain Machine Interface" developed under the highest levels of secrecy. This technology was to be used in covert espionage campaigns with the goal of giving the US a major advantage in the ever-growing cyber warfare battlefield. The intention was to use the "BMI" on unsuspecting foreign agents, giving US Intelligence a remote line into their minds. Launched in 2020 to great success, the BMI provided a window into the intentions and secrets of numerous potential adversaries. Then, in 2021, a botched operation allowed this technology to fall into the hands of an undisclosed state who would then use it agains the US itself for over a decade. This state -which came to be known as the New East- used this technology to syphon intellectual property and assert control over the US, allowing it to rise swiftly as a global superpower. In the early 2030s, the crippled US launched an attack to the New East. This was quickly thwarted. However, as the New East was fully aware and prepared, in the end, the US and its allies capitulated and became known simply as the New West. Citizens of the New West, now mostly impoverished laborers, were offered BMI implantation -sold on the wonders of its amazing benefits. Eventually though, all were made to comply. Only then did the true goals of the New East become apparent.

The New West is a de facto and de iure protectorate. The New West has its own local police -that dealt with murder and robbery-, but the military and, most important, the Civil Authorities (CA), are controlled by MinSec -focused on thought crime.
Soon after the end of the war, some people were drafted for the reclamation in Virginia by the New East army. This was a forced-labor suicide mission because it was a fallout zone. The goal was the recovery of documents from the US, such as blueprints for advanced weapons and intel. Those who survived, developed NeuroTIDS (neural tissue interface degeneration syndrome) because of the radiation.
Once in control of the US (now New West), the New East implanted into all citizens the BMI. Now, people deal with three layers of reality: unaltered reality (UR), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Considering the BMI, there are three states:

• BMI glowing white (normal state: people are in UR with elements of AR).
• BMI glowing blue (also called frosting: people are in VR having some pleasant experience, while looking absent and apathetic in the outside). See an example of person frosting in the Diving Bell music video.
• BMI glowing red (also called supplication).

(There also exists the Everything Machine in this storyline. Indeed, people ate only printed food, as real food as reserved for the New East).
On top of this, there’s an intelligent algorythm or artificial intelligence in the Architecture, called the Overseer. It is capable of detecting thought crimes by accessing a person's sensory input and also altering their perceptions (for example, blurring texts from banned books). When a thought crime is detected, CAs intervene and turn the perpetrator into a supplicant. Supplicants are stuck in VR prisons while their bodies wander in the streets or are collected and put into "corrals". See an example of a supplication facility in Where the Skies Ends music video.
The protectorate of the New East upon the New West is mantained thanks to the Quantum Comunicator, which keeps both connected and also connected to the Architecture
On the other hand, there's a rebel network still in function. They manage to meet and develop their plans by modding their BMIs, so that they become undetectable under the eyes of the Overseer. Their plan is to trap the MinSec and use their credentials to get access to the Architecture and destroy it from the inside.
(In Manifest music video you can see examples of people frosting, people supplicated, the modding minor surgery, the rebels, the CAs using their "freezing" weapons and supplicating civilians and a bigwig from the New East, maybe the MinSec himself).
Also, it is said that the New East didn't manage to conquer all the Old West (US) territories. There's rumours about the socalled Western Territories, free land where some former rebels already live, though its real existence it's in never confirmed in book. In The Breach music video we can see how a family leaving in the New West takes the opportunity of escaping into the Western Territories during some sort of shutdown.
The New West capital is established in Philadelphia, where the events in A Brief History of the Future are set. Here's the Quantum Communication Center and the New West Center for Advanced Innovation (CAI), where the most brilliant programming students are sent to develop their skills and work for the New West/East. One of this students is one of the protagonists of this book, Thomas Bell (again, someone whose name we are already familiar...), who quickly proves to be the best one and gets to be chosen as the Director's assistant. Eventually we get to discover the Director is Aston Wise and later on we find out he is the Architect himself.
A feature or app of the BMI that will reveal crucial to the plot is the Shadowcast: one can frost but, instead of being conscious in a VR, "enters" inside a celebrity's mind for an hour and experiences all they are experiencing live (the user is passive and can only perceive, but not intervene or influence the shadowcast celebrity into doing anything). You can see an example of this in Symbiotic music video, where the user is finally able to successfully Occupy the body of the celebrity. In the book, when this happens, the person occupied has their BMI turned purple.
In the book, Occupation will be a tool used by Bell and Wise, but also by the government, in an attempt of using the supplicated bodies to their own purposes. The original project launched by the New East and commissioned to the Director of the CAI (Aston Wise), was called by Wise himself 'Project X'. New East wanted to present it to the citizens as a way of emancipating from work: while working, you can let yourself be occupied by the Overseer, who wil perform your job while you can be having fun in VR. In Icarus music video you can see an ad made by the New East to promote the "benefits" of this technology (called Werk here); the other ads are based on previous BMI technology (AR, VR and Shadowcast). (Fun fact: have you noticed that the actor in 3:12 is the same from the Ricochet music video?).
As I said in the beginning, it is not my goal to sum up the book's plot and even though I have already spoiled you much info and some plot-twists, I'm not telling you here how the story of the protagonists develops and how it ends. However, I can't refrain from telling you this: the last page of the book has a QR that redirects to a video that has me really excited.
In the video, we see a man. He tells us it is 2048. In spring 2026, the New East took over the US. But... guess who's back! Oh, yes, the Order! Or rather they were there all along. In fact, the man who's talking to us is Stephen Browning! On July 4th of 2026, after the New East invasion, the Order tried to launch a spacerocket to get to "a lonely planet" (Prox!), but it was intercepted by the New East and then the army destroyed their base, so they lost all hope in a future on another planet. However, they managed to hide a "time mechanism" (I guess the same they had in The Prox Transmissions) and, finally, sent a message to 2024, warning us about this future that awaits us. Then he sais:

Dear Order friends, the time has finally arrived. We're headed to space. We're going go Prox.

This announcement matches Starset's video from six months ago ("It begins. And it ends. Now."), where we see images of astronauts and spacerockets, evoking space travel. Wow! Did you miss that "space-y" aesthetic, plots and sound from Transmissions and Vessels? Because it sounds like we're getting them back! Note that at the end of this video, the three dots of the BMI are occupied by three symbols:

• The bottom one is the symbol of the Order, appears at the beginning of each chapter in The Prox Transmissions.
• The middle one is the symbol of Divisions album, I'd say it's a symbol of the rebels.
• The top one is... unknown? It is quite similar to me to the symbol in Faultline, but I guess it represents the "following chapter"? Who knows.

It also matches the music video for Starset's last single, Brave New Word! And there's more news: the end of the video linked in A Brief History Of the Future ends with a "to be continued in Spring 2025".
So... Again, there are some questions left unanswered (and I love that!): How are both books linked? Are they the same Aston Wise and Thomas Bell, but in an alternative timeline? From where will the story continue? (The Order in 2048 colonising Prox?). I'm soooo excited to learn what's coming next and to listen Starset's next album (I love Brave New World).
Let me know about your impressions, opinions, theories... feel free to add any info I could have missed, to correct any piece I could be mistaken about, etc. Thank you so much for your attention (I literally created this account only to write these Starset lore posts I feel very invested to and English isn't even my first or second language), I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful!!

So to start, my job is dead end and became the most miserable place I could ever imagine. I have worked my way up from this job since I was 16 in high school to now a 21 year old graduating next year. I work 40+ hours a week and do college classes online.
I’m graduating at a super low pace because I work while completing classes (9 credits a semester). My major is business and I currently work as a restaurant manager. My GM quit a few weeks ago and I’m left for the role, which I don’t want (for many, many, many reasons I won’t get into). I want to quit my job and find internships / expand my degree while working to make money and pay my bills. However I’m struggling to find good paying jobs (I currently make $20+ an hour with ZERO benefits). Also the fact that I’ve worked at this job for so long and only compared school to my current position, I know nothing else. I grew to hate and move on from the restaurant industry because I just feel much more worthy than that environment. I want internships and entry-level positions but it’s so difficult with little to no relevant experience, also living in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania. All jobs I find online are based in Philly, Harrisburg, or somewhere hours away from my schooling. (I enrolled in local CC). For someone who wants to be free and have opportunity, I seemed to get comfortable at home. I live independently with my significant other and we both have similar paths in the same direction so I include him in my life plans because we both want the same things (he just graduated with the same degree I’m currently going for and he’s an entrepreneur with pending patents on a product he created - so I’m not worried about him) me on the other hand, I’m unsure of what I should be doing and how I should be networking? This is long and wordy but I truly feel a bit at a loss. I’m just so miserable being in my comfort zone and I don’t know where to jump? This sounds so typical for a college student to rant about, but thanks for reading!

As I find myself staring at the output of Tcl Console for embarrassing amount of time, I had a chance to catch up with my News stream. Lo, I found RMS predicting with immaculate precision what I will be doing on this beautiful Sunday (see below). Do professional FPGA engineers find that abysmal performance of Tcl engine impacts their process ? (pretty much everything in Vivado and Quartus is a Tcl script. I think AMD is trying to move Vitis side of things towards Python, but there's still plenty of Tcl). I surmise that some ~90% - at least - of the actual runtime of HDL tools is Tcl overhead. The real question is, if the entire industry is so dependent on this, for good or for bad, why was it never overhauled into something with respectable performance ?
Anyway, Words of the ProFET (formatting mine) :
Richard Stallman
Sep 23, 1994, 7:14:52 PM
to g...@prep.ai.mit.edu[Please redistribute wherever appropriate.]
Why you should not use Tcl Richard Stallman, GNU Project
As interest builds in extensible application programs and tools, and some programmers are tempted to use Tcl, we should not forget the lessons learned from the first widely used extensible text editor--Emacs.
The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
Extensions are often large, complex programs in their own right, and the people who write them deserve the same facilities that other programmers rely on.
The first Emacs used a string-processing language, TECO, which was inadequate. We made it serve, but it kept getting in our way. It made maintenance harder, and it made extensions harder to write. Later Emacs implementations have used more powerful languages because implementors learned from the problems of the first one.
Another lesson from Emacs is that the way to make sure an extension facility is really flexible is to use it to write a large portion of the ordinary released system. If you try to do that with Tcl, you will encounter its limitations.
Tcl was not designed to be a serious programming language. It was designed to be a "scripting language", on the assumption that a "scripting language" need not try to be a real programming language. So Tcl doesn't have the capabilities of one. It lacks arrays; it lacks structures from which you can make linked lists. It fakes having numbers, which works, but has to be slow. Tcl is ok for writing small programs, but when you push it beyond that, it becomes insufficient.
Tcl has a peculiar syntax that appeals to hackers because of its simplicity. But Tcl syntax seems strange to most users. If Tcl does become the "standard scripting language", users will curse it for years--the way people curse Fortran, MSDOS, Unix shell syntax, and other de facto standards they feel stuck with.
For these reasons, the GNU project is not going to use Tcl in GNU software. Instead we want to provide two languages, similar in semantics but with different syntaxes. One will be Lisp-like, and one will have a more traditional algebraic syntax. Both will provide useful data types such as structures and arrays. The former will provide a simple syntax that hackers like; the latter will offer non-hackers a syntax that they are more comfortable with.
Some people plan to use Tcl because they want to use Tk. Thankfully, it is possible to use Tk without Tcl. A Scheme interpreter called STk is already available. Please, if you want to use Tk, use it with STk, not with Tcl. One place to get STk is from ftp.cs.indiana.edu:pub/scheme-repository/imp/STk-2.1.tar.Z

Richard Stallman

This is not my main account because friends and family know of that. Also, I'm new to Al-anon. I have never written a post this long in my life and I just kept typing. Thank you to anyone who reads this or responds.
TLDR: Estranged brother got 3rd OWI, will be going to jail, and will have a felony in his record. My parents and other brother don't know about it yet but my husband and I do. I don't know what to do.
My younger brother (31), let's call Alex, and I (33f) used to not get along very well as kids - we have loving parents but they were emotionally immature (still are) and dealing with their own generational trauma. In our early 20s, we worked through a lot and became best friends. Fast forward a few years, he got an owi. He told everyone he was at a party, his drink got spiked and he didn't know what to do so drove home. Something about the story didn't sit well with me but I ignored it at the time.
About a year later, due to several reasons, I offered for him to move into my house - most notably it was supposed to be for about 6 months so he could save money as I wouldn't charge him rent. At first things seemed to be normal. He worked odd hours while I worked 8 to 5 so we didn't see each other a lot. It was clear he was depressed but he didn't want to talk about it and I didn't pry - I suggested therapy, we hung out together more, and I assured him that I was here for him any time, night or day. We started having friction when he kept coming home loudly on weeknights between 2 and 3am, waking me up. At first I asked him to be quieter and when that didn't work, we had a meeting and set some house rules - if coming home on a weeknight, park in the driveway and enter the house through the basement (my house has a walkout basement and he lived in the basement).
Things were okay for a while. Alex decided he wanted to wait another year before going to grad school. Since things were going better, I offered for him to stay with me until he figured out what he wanted to do.
Fast forward a year, Alex had no plans of leaving and I started seeing my now husband, let's call him Ryan. Ryan got along with Alex wonderfully as well as the rest of my family. Around this time, Alex kept forgetting to use the basement entrance. One night when I heard him coming home, I went downstairs (to the first floor) to talk to him. Alex was very, very drunk. I was furious and yelled at him asking him what he was doing driving drunk. I did not handle it well. He mumbled and gave excuses and said he never did this and it was just an odd circumstance. He opened up about some of his traumas and that he was going to get help. I believed him. The next morning he acted totally normal and claimed he didn't remember any of our conversation. This was followed by many more encounters exactly like that.
I went to my parents with my concerns about Alex. Their response was very much that I was exaggerating that Alex was coming home drunk or had any problem related to alcohol. They basically said that he was an adult and could make his own decisions. I went to my older brother who basically had the same response butadded he'd reach out to Alex and check in on him.
One night, I went out with Ryan to a bar, started getting a migraine and went home early. Ryan ended up coming back to my house several hours later. He woke me up and said he had run into Alex who was incredibly drunk. I texted Alex to see if he needed me to get him an Uber or come pick him up. Immediately he texted back as saying one of his friends who was sober was about to drive him back to the house and crash in the basement for the night. About an hour later I got a phone call from Alex. He was very upset and very drunk as he explained he got a flat tire and didn't know what to do. When I get there, there is no 'friend' and the flat tire wasn't a flat tire, the tire was sideways (parallel to the ground) on the rim. I put him into my car and drove him straight to my parents house while he babbled about how he hit a curb before changing the story to say it was his friend who hit the curb then Alex called an Uber for the friend so said friend wouldn't have to wait around while the car got sorted. We got to my parents, I explained the situation and that very clearly their son is drunk, drove drunk again, and that they can handle him. Dad and I sort out the car and he drove it back to his house. The next morning, I get a call from my parents explaining that Alex wasn't drunk last night but was dealing with shock from hitting the curb. In not my best move, I erupted which resulted in me going low contact with my parents.
Things continued going downhill between Alex and myself. I started to avoid my house and spent most of my non working hours at Ryan's house. It got to the point that we only interacted when the house was trashed with garbage and moldy dishes (he stopped cleaning up after himself) or I tried to talk to him about his drinking which resulted in empty promises.
At this point, Alex gets another OWI. I tell him he needs to move out, that I can't enable his behavior and that he needs help and it's not something I can fix or change, that he has to be the one who wants to change. I tell him I would do anything for him and I love him but until he is ready to make changes I can't there for him. He moved out.
Many things happen in the next two years, most notably I almost died (surgery and several extended hospital stays) and I got married to Ryan (quick courthouse ceremony). Not a word from Alex throughout all this time. Ryan and I decided to have a wedding reception. My parents brought up inviting Alex to our reception - Ryan and I talk about it and decided Alex could attend if (1) He doesn't drink any alcohol (2) he takes accountability for his actions. We give Alex 8 months to do (2). He didn't. My parents tried to manipulate the situation once the time expired (a couple weeks before the reception) but Ryan and I stood very firm on our boundaries. Two days before the reception I received awful texts from Alex about how I'm the worst, how could I do this to Mom and Dad, and if I cared about our family at all, we would allow him to come. Again, we held our boundaries which caused a lot of friction with my parents and older brother but it was absolutely the best decision for me.
Once again fast forward months to 2 days ago. I've had no contact with Alex. My mother and I were hanging out and she drops a bunch of information about Alex - he is apparently doing even better with promotions at work, seeing a therapist, and is in a happy relationship. I wanted to believe this with every fiber of my being. I don't exactly know why but I had a strong feeling which led me to looked up Alex on my state's online court system (public court document system, if you search by first and last name, any legal proceeding a person is/was involved with shows up). And that's how I found out he got a third OWI (and a driving with a suspended license) in April followed by a search warrant that was executed at his apartment a couple weeks after that. His court date is this coming week. For the third offense, he will be going to jail for at least 30 days and lose his license for years. The 3rd offense is a felony. My parents and older brother do not know what is going on, it's very clear based on how they're acting and the future plans they've been making.
I am profoundly sad. My husband and I have discussed it and we think we are not going to say anything to anyone. The truth is going to come out but after the last several years, I don't think it should come from. I don't know what to do. I feel guilty that I didn't do enough and that I'm at fault.

Cut to Bianca, sitting by the fountain. Gabrielle steps out of the shadows of the hallway nearby, joining her. Bianca looks at her shortly, insecure. Gabrielle smiles and sits down. They don’t say anything for a moment.
Gabrielle: I won’t bother you for long this time. Just checking if you’re still in for the plan.
Bianca: Why wouldn’t I be?
Gabrielle: (looks at her from the side – expression actually turning a little more gentle) Why indeed.
Bianca: (looks at her)
Gabrielle: Soon enough, you’ll finally be far away enough from Prince Difficult to forget him. That’s worth something, right?
Bianca: (chuckles) Can’t believe you know that nickname.
Gabrielle: I have my ways. And when it comes to your friends – aren’t you good at making such?
Bianca: (looks into the middle distance, saying nothing)
Gabrielle: It’s still a tid for tad. You will be allowed to do all the networking, teamleading and sports you could ask for. In fact, we will need you to bring these skills to the table once in a while.
Bianca: (still says nothing)
Gabrielle: That’s more fun that a lot of people get, don’t you think?
Bianca: You know you still can’t give me what I … (she chuckles sadly) Forget it.
Gabrielle: (shrugs) You’ll be something akin to a principal, now won’t you?
Bianca: (stares at her, then snorts a little)
Gabrielle: (stares back, unfazed) There’s nothing left for you here, sweet pearl.
Bianca: (looks at her for a long moment) If I agree with you on this, can I leave?
Gabrielle: (chuckles) I love you.
Bianca: (gets up elegantly, firmly - doing her best not to shake, but not fooling this woman) (ice-cold) Thanks a lot.
Gabrielle: (smirks at her) (quietly) I thank you, Brandy.
Bianca glares at her, then walks away. Gabrielle sighs contently, then gets up to greet some parents nearby she seems to know. In this moment, she hears a commotion nearby. She watches Eugene stomping away as his mom’s try to stop him.
Janet: Honey, come on now.
Eugene: No!
Sue: You can’t just walk out on us.
Eugene: (chuckles angrily) You’re right, I don’t have to! (he flaps his wings and flies away over the building of the school)
Sue: Eugene!
They look down. Janet looks at Sue, who sighs and walks away as well.
Janet: (frustrated) Really? Really?
She doesn’t stop, and Janet sits down on one of the window sills to the hall, covering her face. Two gorgon women, Ajax’ moms, come over to check on her. Gabrielle watches as Sue goes to one of the nearby bathrooms. Sue enters the bathroom, and goes to hold onto one of the sinks, breathing heavily. As she stands there exhausted, Gabrielle enters. She closes the door and stays there, staring at Sue.
Sue: What?
Gabrielle: (doesn’t say anything)
Sue: We all have to do things we might not like for the greater good. (she gets up) Anything else?
Gabrielle: You mean besides that that’s not what you’re doing?
Sue: Oh, what do you know.
Gabrielle: (raises an eyebrow at her) Listen, your family life is very important to a lot of people. And it’s going to cause a lot of ruckus if it falls apart.
Sue: Thanks for the threat, Barclay.
Gabrielle: (seriously) It’s a warning.
Sue: (looks at her)
Gabrielle: We need things to run smoothly, and even one element out of place can bring the whole thing down.
Sue: You don’t know what’s being asked of me. You can’t – I know that much about you.
Gabrielle: (sighs) Get it together, Ottinger. I’m at least reminding you that you still can.
They exchange a look, the Gabrielle turns to leave while Sue turns back to the sink. At the door, she turns a bit.
Gabrielle: All-gifted.
Sue: (stares into the middle distance, retaliating) Unstoppable.
Gabrielle’s face doesn’t change - she leaves the bathroom.

This is will show all the events with some updates to the present, so if you already know it all you don't need to read it.
OPENWORLD
The Start (1948-1989)
In 1948, the Soviet union was searching for a good island, until one day a group of fishers living at the coast of Russia, the fishers reported it to their local government, this started a small expedition of the island by Soviet scouts.
Eventually the Soviets purposed this island to be a "good" island for a possible American invasion of Alaska, Canada, Mainland USA, and maybe even some small islands in the pacific. The USSR first built a fort on a smaller island next to the large island, which they named Fort Ronograd, which is how the island got its name, then the USSR built a huge port near the fort, and made a city which was supposed to be a part of the Fort to inhabit the soilders, and their wifes, but it was later purposed as a normal city to house normal people.
In 1962, a U2 spy plane heading to main land Russia, from Alaska discovered a large island with a lot of activity, this was not normal as the USA never found any islands there, and confirmed that the Soviets were inhabiting a new island, the United States feared another missile crisis, so for now the Air Force and the CIA kept shut.
Meanwhile the Soviets did some tomfoolery ( Kafala System ) , and started putting Nuclear Weapons to the island. Then they build another city ( Sochronia City ) to house the incoming immigrants going into the island, multiple other settlements were also made ( Village ), then the Soviets made a quarry so people can be employed, and a Nuclear Energy Facility for once again employement.
So now the Soviets were like " Holy Moly, we can actually make this island effective, so they made a large Broadcasting station on the highest point on the island, to contact the Kremlin much more easily.
In 1966 Global Defense Alliance was formed for the manufacturing of clothing.
So the USA was like panicking right now, as they found out that the USSR had put nuclear weapons on the island, and where in range of Alaska, and Washington State, due to this president Nixon ordered a naval blockade by a Aircraft Carrier near the island, for an attempt to stop shipments going to the island. Right now the Soviets were pissed, so they were like " USA we will take our nukes away, but you guys stop a naval blockade on our supplies ", then the USA was like " Alright fine, but only unless we can still patrol the island, to ensure you guys don't bring nukes ", then the USSR was like " Yeah sure- " and then the Americans were like " Oh yeah, and we have to search all your ships ".
The deal was signed by both sides, and we lived happily ever af-
Uh oh, it looks like the Soviet Union collapsed, oh what a shame.
In 1989 Apex Precision was formed as a clothing producer.
The uprising (1990- 2013)
After the USSR collapsed, the new Russian government took over, and they were the problem
You see, a lot of the people living there, were soilders recruited by the USSR, and they were like, " Uh uh, you guys are not controlling us, we will remain communist ", so what happened is that these soilders created a group, to attempt to liberate themselves.
in the year 1992, a PMC was formed called Non-Tactical.
Meet the POD, a terrorist group originating from Sacramento, California. This organization is made up of agents, that were either fired from their jobs, went rogue, or just didn't like their country, These agents were from intelligence agencies like , the CIA, MI6, and much more.
So the RLF caught the attention of the POD, and they were like " RLF do you guys want independence? " and they were like " Hell yes ", and the POD was like " We can help you guys"
Eventually the RLF made a deal with the POD that they will supply, and help them revolt against Russia.
But secretly, the POD were using the RLF, because they had a plan to make a nuke filled with chemical agents (ICBM) , and then launch it to New York, because the island was just in range, and this is because the Soviets left behind multiple silos, that were abandoned.
Enter the year 2000, and that is the year when the Russians built a manmade island, that was a designated Airport, and Military Airbase. Before that everything was either supplied with boats, or small aircraft landing on airfields.
In the year 2004, multiple attacks were done, as other terror attacks, Russian Forces have put up with this and declared Martial Law in Ronograd, which saw Russian Army Personnel patrolling Ronograd, and its multiple cities.
In 2013, a large attack made by the RLF, and POD was seen on the FOB, which caused the base to fall to POD and RLF hands, Russian Forces retreated, and contacted the Aircraft Carrier which they almost never contacted.
A group of Russian Spetznaz stationed on the island, and Navy SEALS from the Aircraft Carrier were formed, and called themselves the " Shadow Warriors ", these volunteers were put on the legendary Operation Shadow Raid, and took the FOB back from the RLF, and POD.
Later a UN conference was held in Prague, Czech Republic, the conference ended in the making of a coalition named Platinum Five, which was a Task Force, built up of multiple armies around the world, and some Special Forces.
After these events, in 2023 a bunker was found with a possible silo, which was found from enemy intel.
The Bad Ending:
The Bad ending resulted in the launch of the ICBM.
The Good Ending:
The Good ending resulted in the ICBM being disarmed.
Raid/Ranked Mode:
Its pretty self-explanatory, the country of your choice takes down a POD outpost in the Middle-East.
Multiplayer:
A fight between POD and Platinum Five forces fighting around the world.

Idk if this is the right sub for such advice.
I'm at a crossroads. I'm currently in industrial design and i have the option to learn a language in my last uni year. I was torn between the many languages i wanna learn and my peers convinced me to take italian considering my future plans, in reality i really wanted to take mandarin courses but the system for the chinese program is kind of inconvenient with my industrial design program so before asking for exceptions and whatnot in my coursework, i wanted to see if it's actually worth learning italian for what i wanna pursue in jewelry(keeping in mind i don't even want to live there permanently(cultural clash), i just keep being told that's where the good, too expensive jewelry making schools are). Atp italian feels useless but i'm asking just in case, b4 i fight with my stubborn uni about the lmaguage course issue.
Also. I'm currently in quebec, a summer jewelry for funsies course i took had my teacher telling me that with my skills i'm better off at an actual school and gave me this local school: ecole des metiers du sud west de montreal. Saying it's a good school that's more craftsmanship oriented than design oriented(i wanna do both but i prefer working with my hands).
Idk how to assess what's a good jewelry school and what isn't, esp after being bamboozled with the low design level at my uni. I also wouldn't know what to include in a portfolio with so little craftsmanship experience(i' sure the good schools ask for that).
Thanks for the help

my bf and i have been together since i was 15 and he was 16. We had our little ups and downs as teenagers but since turning 20 we’ve definitely gotten way more serious. we live together and spend every day together. I love him probably more than anyone aside from my parents, he’s my absolute best friend and i feel the most comfortable with him. Im starting to worry we’re turning into best friends instead of lovers, or maybe its just me??? We used to be intimate a lot, like have sex almost every day or every other day or even if it wasnt sex itself it was just something intimate. but the last year has been so Awkward and i hate it. I stopped initiating things with him in the beginning because it became a routine, we both knew what was going to happen next each time 😴and i was sick of that. OR he would do things that completely didn’t work. It would sometimes feel like he had no idea what he was doing and that would bother me because i just don’t understand how thay knowledge disipates. I thought he would get the hint but he didn’t and we just stopped having sex or doing anything… We end up having a fight about this one day and he says he thought i wasnt attracted to him and thats why i wasnt initiating or enjoying anything. We agree to both be more open and honest. NOTHING CHANGES THOUGH😭 the only change is that i now initiate things with him and its only for his pleasure…… anytime he’s tried to do something it feels SO awkward and forced like we’re in middle school or something??? i don’t understand how this is even possible like??? isn’t sex important in relationships? this feels like my best friend that i hold hands with and kiss occasionally and i’m starting to get sick of it 🥲 i feel horrible about feeling this way though because he’s such an amazing bf. he goes to work everyday, almost done with trade school, treats me Amazingggg, always being sweet to me, we tell each other we love eachother constantly, always going out on dates (i never pay for anything with him unless i want to), he supports me in everything i do emotionally and financially, and we constantly plan out or goals for the future. I have no idea what to do, can someone give me advice pleaseeeee😭 what would you do in this situation?

Hi gainers,
I have just finished running Super Squats by Randall J. Strossen and wanted to share my results. There are plenty of discussions of this program out there already, but I figured sharing my experience with the program can't hurt and can hopefully be interesting, or maybe even useful to someone. This was my first time running a "proper" program (i.e. one designed by a prefessional) and it has been by far the most productive training block I have done so far. Since I am a beginner, I'm not calling this a review (I don't have the training experience to offer any kind of expert opinion). This post is meant rather to show my results as a beginner on the program and to share some of my thoughts about it.
[Before, 82kgs, 10 April 2024](https://imgur.com/a/super-squats-before-82kg-10-04-2024-PvPBvIl). NSFW. Pics taken the day after the first workout.
[After, 86kgs, 18 May 2024](https://imgur.com/a/loPa07y). NSFW. Pics taken the day after the last workout.
Background:
M30, 6'2", no athletic background. Typical denizen of this sub in that I could always eat loads and not put on weight blah blah blah. Worked out in my teens with weights in my room but never maintained a consistent schedule long enough to see significant results. Fast forward to 2 years ago when I started doing bodyweight workouts at home and making an effort to gain weight. Had some success and then started going to the gym at the start of this year. Did a 4 day/week UppeLower split with some success. My weight had fluctuated between a very skinny 67kgs to around 73kgs throughout my twenties. Prior to running Super Squats I had already bulked from 74kgs at the start of December to 82kgs at the start of April (I started taking creatine in January which definitely contributed to this weight gain).
The Program:
Super Squats is a book, which is short (less than 100 pages) and contains everything you need to run the program. Although the book was written in 1989, the routine it outlines is based on old-school squatting programs utilized by strongmen from the 1920s onwards. A chapter is devoted to this history of squats, the "master exercise". There are a couple of anachronisms (my favourite is referring to the hamstrings as "thigh biceps") but overall it is well-written and presented.
The program itself is a six week full-body routine, with the choice to run it 2 or 3 days per week. I won't spell out the whole program here (just buy the book), but the core of the routine is, of course, a single set of twenty heavy squats, with the trainee taking at least three deep breaths between each rep. The squats are supersetted with a set of light pullovers or Rader chest pulls to stretch the rib cage. The starting weight for the squats is a weight you can do for 10 reps (and yes, you really do twenty reps with that weight) and the program stipulates that you must add at least 5lbs/2.5kgs every single workout. The program is fairly light on volume (especially if you run it 2 days per week like I did) but what it lacks in volume, it more than makes up in intensity.
There is no way around it: heavy, high-rep squats are deeply, profoundly, brutally unpleasant. There is no stipulation for rep cadence or how long the set should take, you can take as long as you like, but completing 20 reps with good form will require having the bar on your back for at least 3-4 minutes. From week 2 onwards, the single set of squats always took me more than 5 minutes (and it always felt much longer).
Performing warm-up sets slowly and deliberately was crucially important. Before I even got to the warm-up sets I performed a few reps of touchdown-squats on a box, and a few more of goblet squats with a light kettlebell, opening my hips against a resistance band to prime my glutes and quads.
Super Squats is the embodiment of "mind over matter". The book has a whole section on mindset and positive visualization to help trainees to manage the seemingly impossible task of squatting a 10-rep weight for 20 reps. It sounds stupid, but by the second half of the program, I had gotten into a ritual of giving the bar a firm slap, as a jockey would slap his racehorse, before I started the set, cementing my effort to view the bar not as an enemy to overcome but as a friend helping me to achieve my goals.
Reps 11 and 12 were usually the hardest. By the time I got to ten reps my legs were already trembling. My whole body was drenched in sweat, the weight of the bar impossibly heavy resting on my traps, crushing my whole body into the ground. Time had slowed to a crawl, and the thought that I was only half way would be enough to sap my resolve if I let it. Once I got to rep 13, comfortably more than halfway, I no longer had to think about breathing. I was sucking in great lungfuls of air automatically and heaving them out so hard I sprayed the mirror in front of me with droplets of spit (yes, of course I wiped it down afterwards). Once I got to rep 17 I knew I had the set in the bag. No matter how tortuous those last three reps, no matter how long they took, no matter how many heaving breaths I had to take, I could do 3 more reps.
During week 2 I had what I think is the closest I've ever had to an out-of-body experience. It was as if I was watching someone else perform the agonizing reps while I talked myself through the rest of the set: "Breathe, good, deeper, you've got this, next rep, nice. Keep going".
Breathing is the key. The book talks at length about the importance of deep breathing throughout the set. Pretty quickly, I found that deep breathing was the only way to keep from passing out or collapsing mid set, though as I said, deep breathing becomes automatic about halfway through the set (there's simply no other way to stay upright with the weight on your back). A very helpful tip from the book is to suck in an extra gulp of air on top of your already full lungs for each of the last reps.
If all this sounds a bit exaggerated, try the program and see for yourself. But I'm not trying to put anyone off with this description, quite the opposite! The great thing about Super Squats is that the difficulty of the squats is directly proportional to the feeling of giddy elation upon completing the set. I always felt great after the set, and rode the feeling of accomplishment for the rest of the day. The program really pushes you beyond the boundaries of what you think you can do.
My Progress:
I started the squats at quite a low weight of just 40kg. The book recommends erring on the side of starting too light, and then adding more weight if needed, so that is what I did. Remember, the program stipulates a minimum increase of 5lbs/2.5kgs per workout, but there's nothing saying you can't add more. Once I realized the weight was too light (I managed 21 reps for the first workout) I simply increased the weight by 10kgs on the second workout and continued with the 2.5kg increases from there.
Before starting Super Squats I had had a two week break from training due to illness, so I started with too-low weights (I exceeded the target rep range on all exercises). So I increased the weight by 5-10kgs depending on the exercise for the second workout. The program has varying set numbers and rep ranges for different exercises. As a general rule, I increased the weight once I could hit the target rep range for the first two sets of each exercise, but I did not stick to this rule every workout.
The only thing I stuck to was the minimum increase of 2.5kgs for the squats every workout. I managed this consistently until the final week, when I failed on the eccentric of the tenth rep with a weight of 77.5kgs (a 5kg increase on the previous workout). My legs just gave way and I could not get back up. I did two more sets to make sure that I at least performed more total reps than the previous workout. Then, in the last workout, I amazed myself by succesfully performing all 20 reps with the same weight. Definitely the hardest set I have ever done, and I was completely finished afterwards, but the highlight of the program for sure.
Other ups and downs: I lost reps on Bench and Bent-over Rows on both workouts of week five, but got them back in week six and set new PRs on both. A good reminder that progress is rarely linear. My left knee started hurting in the last week, but thankfully the pain hasn't persisted. I guess my form might have broken down a bit too much in one of the last workouts.
Diet:
The book's diet advice is very simple: lots of calories and protein, with the majority coming from healthy whole food sources. Nothing surprising there. The book has two recommendations in addition to meals for achieving these goals: milk and shakes. The book doesn't use the GOMAD acronym, but that's basically what it boils down to: a recommended minimum of 2 quarts (about 2 litres) per day in addition to meals and snacks, with a recommendation to increase to up to a gallon (nearly 4 litres) per day if you can.
I was somewhat surprised to see that the book recommends home-made mass gainer shakes for trainees who struggle to eat enough solid food (the book refers to them as "blender bombs" which I think sounds much cooler).
I am not vegetarian, but I don't eat meat very often. I live with my fiancee, who doesn't like meat, and since we eat dinner, the main meal of the day, together, we eat a lot of plant-based meat substitutes. I did, however, eat meat more often than usual during the program. My typical diet looks something like this:
Breakfast: Usually muesli, with seeds, fruit (apple or banana), yoghurt, and a scoop of unflavoured whey protein.
Lunch: Usually eggs, fried or scrambled in butter, served with wilted spinach on wholemeal toast or with pasta and pesto. If not eggs then leftovers from last night's dinner. My local supermarkets do a rangle of reasonably healthy frozen meals and during the program I ate these a couple of times per week, always going for chicken dishes with plenty of vegetables.
Dinner: Something based around the aforementioned meat substitutes. Favourites include spaghetti bolognese (with plenty of cheese of course), chili with black beans, sour cream and guacomole served with rice, and burgers with fries for a "junk"/"dirty" option.
I don't count calories but I do roughly track protein, aiming for 2g per kg bodyweight and topping up with whey protein as needed.
During Super Squats, I upped my creatine dosage from 3.5g/day to 5g/day, added extra snacks to the above diet (nuts, dark chocolate etc.) and also milk and shakes as the book suggests. For the first three weeks I had a daily shake consisting of whey protein, milk, cocoa powder, banana, peanut butter and oats. The shakes helped with weight gain, but they proved unsustainable, as they led to some, er, digestive issues. Ok, they gave me explosive diarrhoea. See [this review of Super Squats](https://empire-barbell.com/2021/07/23/super-squats-review-of-the-legendary-20-rep-squat-program/) in which the author recounts ingesting a shake according to the book's recipe before starting a work shift and shitting himself during the shift, lol.
I hadn't really drank milk for several years prior to the program (I tend to prefer oat milk with my muesli) but I did increase my milk consumption slowly over the six weeks. For most of the duration I drank a couple of glasses per day, totalling only about 500ml -1 litre. Only in the last week did I make a serious effort to drink at least 2 litres per day. Turns out it's really easy to drink a lot of milk, and a very cost-efficient way to get lots of extra calories and protein. Who knew haha.
Rest and Recovery:
I've been having trouble sleeping lately, which was the reason I opted to do the program 2 days per week from the beginning (the book recommends starting with 3 days and dropping down to 2 if you find you can't recover sufficiently between workouts). I was a very deep sleeper as a child but those days are long gone and these days the slightest noise seems to be enough to wake me. My fiancee gets up early for work during the week (her alarm goes off at 4:45am), ivariably waking me before it does her, and we have a cat, who tends, as cats do, to go crazy in the small hours (her new favourite thing is scratching frantically on the closet doors). I've tired everything I can think of short of getting rid of the cat, which I'm not willing to do for the sake of gains. Hopefully she will mellow as she gets older. If nothing else, I guess it's good practice for when we become parents lol. Suffice to say it's rare that I get an uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep.
I tried to do everything within my power to get as good sleep as I could (making an effort to get to bed earlier, playing with the cat to tire her out, etc.). I still made good gains despite overall poor sleep, but there were definitely some days when I could have gotten to bed earlier.
What I liked about the program:
Super Squats is a simple, easy-to follow program which is practically guranteed to lead to growth. The non-negotiable nature of progression from workout to workout gives a strong incentive to eat enough and get enough rest. I seriously can't see how someone could follow this program, increasing the weight as prescribed, and not grow.
Another thing I liked was making significant progress over a short timeframe while only training 2 days per week, leaving more time for life outside the gym.
By far the biggest benefit of the program, hower, is the lessons it imparts and the mental toughness it inculcates. Lessons you can only learn by standing under the crushing weight of the bar for 20 reps. Put simply, you are capable of more than you think you are, and this program teaches you that in a way that words never could. I feel that I now inderstand intensity as a training variable far more deeply than I did before the program. After running Super Squats I understand why it is so often recommended to beginners.
What I didn't like about the program:
The individual workouts took far too long. This was by far the biggest thing I disliked about the program. The book claims that the Basic Routine should take less than an hour to complete, but I found that I rarely completed a workout in less than 90 minutes, and several times it took me a full 2 hours. Granted, this was partly due to training in a busy McGym, where waiting for equipment is often a factor, and I feel like I spend half my life searching for locking collars, but even so, the long workouts were grinding. Another big factor is just how exhausted you are after that set of squats. I often felt like I was moving in slo-mo, with the stiff-legged deadlifts (themselves no easy exercise) and calf and ab work still to get through.
The other main negative factor was how daunting the squats are. I rarely looked forward to workouts, and often actively dreaded them. I really had to psyche myself up to go to the gym on this program, despite knowing that I would feel great after my workout. That next set of squats was always looming ahead menacingly.
What I would do differently:
The biggest thing I would change is doing the milk properly from the beginning. By "doing the milk" I mean drinking at least the recommended 2 quarts per day. I would also probably leave the shakes out, and make an effort to eat cleaner. I kind of gave myself free reign to cut corners and do what it takes to gain on the program (spooning peanut butter from the jar and ice cream from the tub, eating "junk" meals like burgers and fries or frozen pizzas a couple of times a week, etc.).
I would have chosen a different abs exercise. I did hollow-body crunches, but since these can't be loaded (as far as I know) I had to resort to adding extra reps and then an extra set to add progressive overload. It would have been smarter and more time-efficient to simply choose a weighted abs exercise and increase the load each workout.
I could have been more diligent about consistenly increasing weight/reps on all exercises other than the squats. I feel my progress on the other lifts could have been better.
The book does not mention cardio, and in fact states that trainees should move as little as possible outside of training to allow for maximum recovery. I will definitely add some light cardio in the form of walking the next time I run the program (thanks to u/MythicalStrength for pointing out that since the program is based on old-school principles, it is likely assumed that pretty much everyone would have been doing a fair bit of walking before lifestyles became so sedentary in developed countries). Over the weekend between weeks five and six my mother came to visit, and in the course of showing her around my city I did a lot of walking that weekend (15k steps each day). I think this may have contributed to the failure on the first workout of week 6 by eating into my recovery. Ideally, I would just do, say, a 30-40 minute walk on off days throughout the program.
Most of all, I would trust the process. Of course this is easy to say with hindsight, but there was a point in weeks 3-4 where I got quite demotivated, felt like I coudn't notice the program working (of course not - visual changes take longer than a couple of weeks!) and felt quite tired out from all the eating, so I ended up eating a bit less for about a week in the middle of the program, which quite possibly contributed to the strength losses in week 5. Again, progress isn't linear, but if you stick to the program over six weeks it will pay off.
Conclusion/Next Steps:
Running Super Squats over the last six weeks has been without a doubt the most physically and mentally challenging thing I have ever done, but the payoff has been well worth it. 4kgs gained in 6 weeks and invaluable lessons learned. I'm going to have to go clothes shopping and replace most of my wardrobe. Shirts and T-shirts that were loose are now tight, and my old slim-fit T-shirts now look comically small. Even my straight-leg jeans are now tight fitting (my fiancee said the other day, "Those jeans are a bit tight on you now, huh? But your bum looks great!").
Being on the taller side, I still have quite a lot of frame to fill out, and I still have a lot to learn about training. I will definitely be running Super Squats again in future. I am especially interested in running the Abbreviated Program, consisting of only the squats, pullovers/Rader chest pulls, bench, and bent-over rows. This would solve the problem of workouts being too long, but I imagine it would be extremely challenging, since you should increase the weight on all exercises each workout, not just the squats. With bench and bent-over rows offering less overall muscle fibre recruitment than squats, and 2.5kgs being the smallest weight increase logistically possible (in my gym, anyway), I imagine that this would be challenging in the extreme.
The book suggests running a strength-building training block after the 20-rep squat program, consisting of more sets with lower rep ranges. It even suggests alternating between six weeks on the 20-rep squat program and six on the strength-building program, extending Super Squats well past the initial six weeks. While this approach is intriguing, I want to try something different, and I would rather have more training days in the week in return for shorter individual workouts.
I've ordered a copy of 5/3/1 and will probably run 531 for Beginners, and then see which template I run after that. I have my eye on the BBB Beefcake 3 Month Challenge, but I'll see when I get there. For now, I'm going to dial back on the eating, to around maintenance levels, for at least a couple of weeks (I need a break from stuffing myself all day).
In the meantime, I can't recommend Super Squats enough! You will surprise yourself on this program.
Well, that turned into a huge wall of text. Thanks very much for taking the time to read if you got this far!

Wanted to jot down my feedback regarding S4 so far, from the position of an arpg sweat that grew up on D2. Some of my opinions will be direct opposites of what casuals are feeling, which is okay and I think there is a middle ground that can satisfy all player types in most areas.
Leveling
I was initially quite disappointed by the new leveling experience. Helltides are vastly improved and a lot more fun, but it still gets dull doing effectively only that for 50 levels. I think this is a minor issue as future season campaigns will probably break up the monotony enough to keep it fresh.
Personally I'm not a fan of making leveling faster, I enjoyed the original 1-100 experience but as the game adds more post-100 content it'll smooth out the process of getting there which is understandable.
The biggest issue leveling has is Haedrig's Gift (Iron Wolves & Season Journey caches). One of the big appeals of playing a fresh season is starting from scratch and pathing efficiently through the awkward parts of the early game where you don't have all your powers, and experiencing that growth and the big power spikes when you find the right item along the way. Developing mastery of a chosen class should include knowing how to be efficient without legendary powers, and it's another layer of skill that is fun to improve.
Giving everyone a starter kit toward a solid leveling build directly goes against that, and even makes me less interested in looking at loot since I've already been handed a big burst of power in the first 10 minutes. In a season all about the new loot, that's a big misstep in my eyes. Renown skill points already did this to some degree and it felt very jarring, but it's getting to a stage where it can't be ignored now. Stop solving the problems for me, the problems are the engaging part.
Haedrig's Gift-style mechanics simply need to go - LET ME FEEL WEAK so that I can enjoy being strong.
Loot & Crafting systems
The itemization rework is a big step in the right direction. I was initially concerned with greater affixes being some step in the direction of old D3 ancient items but so far I haven't felt it to be too grating because of the many rng elements involved in hitting several GA's and having them be the right ones. I hope iteration on stats will continue and that more fun or build-altering options will be added going forward.
Tempering is a huge win in my book, and the best new system introduced. The choices are interesting, grow in power as you approach the endgame and serve to let you specialize your character's/build's unique identity. I sincerely hope you double down on this and consider working in seasonal tempering affixes that offer interesting options to the current pool while not being so strong as to invalidate the base affix pool.
Masterworking hasn't made a huge impression personally, the % based stat increases aren't enough of a carrot to make me want to grind them out religiously.
My biggest issue with this iteration on loot is the obsoleting of item tiers. Rares are made functionally useless by having one less affix than legendaries, a complete 180 of the original plan of having them be potentially stronger than legendaries in the right circumstances, and even legendaries without greater affixes become completely pointless beyond salvaging for codex or selling for gold at some point in your journey.
I think there's a big opportunity to keep rares interesting throughout the whole journey even in their current state - what if they were the templates for runewords come the expansion? The power tradeoff of losing a regular affix and greater affix chances in favor of a unique new power could be fun to figure out as a player.
The Pit, and the great question of why?
When I started doing pit runs, I was immediately hit by the realization that although leveling had been shortened to get me here, I've run out of carrots to chase. Yeah, every item on my character could have the perfect stats and be masterworked to absolute perfection, but why? What am I working towards?
The obvious tie-in to greater rifts is a per-class, per-groupsize leaderboard. Now I have something to strive towards and it acts as a big motivation to perfect my gear so that I can compete. It'll also be engaging to more people than it was in D3 since infinite power scaling doesn't sour the experience for solo/legit players after two weeks of a season launching. But not everyone likes to push leaderboards, and even for those that do, creating some friction and diversity in what to focus on keeps the game fun for longer. In the end, I just want a good reason to keep pushing, and that looks different for everyone which is why we need options that aren't all instanced scaling difficulty ladders.
Trading
You expanded trading this season which is great - now give us a modern trading system that solidifies it as a real endgame option for those that want to, without taking the focus away from farming your own gear.
While I personally would like an auction house along with some sort of trading square area in cities where trade chat is auto-enabled, I recognize that it comes with concerns of what the optimal route to player power becomes. So if we want to maintain that bit of friction to make it a viable route, but still not overpowered in terms of loot acquisition, a system like PoE's website could facilitate face-to-face trading while also acting as part of the solution to the issue players are facing with socializing and grouping up. A lot of the people I made long-lasting bonds with from the D2 days I met through trading, either in-game or on third party sites.
Legitimizing trading as a secondary focus for those that want to could help diversify and strengthen your endgame offerings while also helping the social aspect of the game, which is sorely lacking. What it also does is create an interesting bit of friction for your character vs. account level of power and wealth. Suddenly, a unique item I found could be immediately useful to me if I made a Druid, but it could also strengthen my Sorceress if I sold it and spent the resources on masterworking or new template items. I'm predominantly a solo player and don't want grouping/coop to be shoved in my face, but not having a decent option to seek out people to play with in-game is a big miss for those that want it.
D4 with accessible trading and a diverse enough item pool to where I can buy and sell Uniques, Legendaries both for their stats aswell as their aspect creating interesting value breakpoints, rares or other runeword template items or even set items down the line would be a dream for a lot of players - and with the correct implementation, only a small tie-in or completely unnecessary for those that don't want to focus on it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think S4 is a large step in the right direction with some backwards stumbles here and there. I, along with many others, want nothing more than to main this game as the moment-to-moment gameplay is spectacular along with the art and music, but to be able to do that the endgame offerings need to have more depth and be more varied.

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Essemi chapter
The Defender of Virtues was … Well, at least it was capable of moving around, which was rather impressive considering its age. It was built during the Aviel succession crisis, more than a century ago. It was, at the time, a brilliant display of engineering.
To be honest, its sheer size was still impressive, and it was probably better to command it than a smaller, more recent ship. Its shape was a classic example of the later Altirian period, a sort of arrow as the main body, with two smaller one attached to the sides. On the side the artificial gravity considered the “top”, there were building-like structures, resembling a city.
The whole thing looked like it was built for atmospheric flight, which was very much not the case, considering it was more than 800 meters long, and as such would probably fall apart under the forces applied. But it was definitely stylish, even if a little outdated, and still very practical.
There were worse ships to be stuck on for months for sure, and the crew was pretty nice too, barring the exception sitting in front of me. Of course, I was the one who needed to manage Commander Zedbi for the foreseeable future.
“I have come once again to make my complaints heard, Captain.”
“Commander, it’s much too late for me to go back on my decision, even if I wanted to. Complaining now will accomplish nothing except waste everyone’s time.”
“Well, perhaps you should have thought about that before limiting me to bringing only three servants on board. Someone of my status needs at least five, even in special circumstances.”
“Commander, this is a long-term mission. Anyone we bring will be a significant strain on our precious resources. I consider three servants to be more than sufficient for our officers.”
“Yes, I guess you wouldn’t understand who would need more personnel than your mother was ever able to afford. Then again, you only have one butler on a captain’s salary. Guess the Temidian blood runs strong in your family.”
“Enough, Commander. Go back to your post or this conversation will be reported to high command on our return.”
“You wouldn’t dare! They’ll know I’m right!”
Curiously for someone so sure of his righteousness, he still left the bridge, letting me concentrate on the maps of what was known on Terra space. The answer was resoundingly ‘not much’. But we could speculate on what systems would be the potentially juiciest to settle for them, considering what we knew.
I was busy planning the best potential routes for our operation, when the absolute darkness I could see through the glass bay suddenly filled with stars, and the main alarm began blasting.
“We left FTL”, screamed a Licam operating the propulsion system.
“I can see that,” I mumble. “Cut the alarm and send everyone to their combat position. Every officer on the bridge. We need to assess the situation.”
I was already thinking. We were five days of travel away from Earth. We had just encountered an FTL disruption field. What could that mean? Well first of all, the map the sensors were building around us didn’t detect any significant body or hostile vessels nearby, which meant… The disruption field filled a significant part of the system!
For what purpose? It was obvious: traversing it without distortion would take us months. It was a wall. I quickly went over the implications. A disruptor station had to be manned, or at least, maintained. That meant they needed ships travelling for months at sub light speed to resupply these stations! That was quite the commitment to prevent us entry. Fortunately, we could easily turn back to exit the field and go back home, which is exactly what I ordered.
Then, something impossible happened. A ship appeared on the radar, as if it had just exited a jump. But it had done so in the disruption field. Even worse, the gravitational wave detector spiked, like we were now almost right next to the disruptor.
I realized that it was the case: this ship could ignore the disruption field, and as such it had no problem having the disruptor on board.
We began blasting at it with our energy weaponry, to no avail. They were essentially teleporting after each time they fired, always being gone by the time our rays reached their position.
After of few minutes of that pointless exchange of fire, were our weapons never hit and theirs did barely any damage, twelve new signals appeared on the screen coming towards us at a terrifying speed. Missiles! No, the way they maneuvered to escape our point defenses ruled that out. Strike crafts…
The Terrans were hopelessly outmatched in firepower, and elven of the strike crafts were destroyed. But the last one managed to slam in the left “secondary hull”, destroying it almost entirely. We could survive without it, but I doubted that was all the Humans had in stock. We needed to get out now, but how? We were in the middle of a light-hour wide disruption field, that our enemy could somehow ignore! But that gave me an idea. If it didn’t work, we were dead anyway.
“Activate the disruptor!”
My subordinates didn’t understand why I would do that when the enemy was clearly immune to it, but they weren’t paid to think, and they knew it! (Those who were paid at all, that is.)
as soon as our own field reached the enemy ship, they became a lot less jumpy. I was right, they could jump in the field they generated, but ours could still pin them down!
“Fire a relativistic missile at them and cut the field so that they can jump a second before it hits them!”
If we destroyed the main craft, I had no doubt the strike crafts would avenge it. If they fled, however, we might have a chance. Of course, the most logical course of action for them would be to dodge and finish us of, but I hoped one second would be a short delay enough to overwrite rationality in the brains of our opponents.
And I was right. After a few hours, when the enormous disruption field had completely dissolved, our enemies still hadn’t returned, and we were able to escape.
If Commander Zebdi had not met his demise during the battle, (a tragedy that took me several seconds to recover from), he would have probably pointed out that that we should have destroyed the ship at the cost of our lives in the name of honor.
I, however, was certain that the intel we were bringing back would be a more devasting blow to humanity than the loss of any ship could be. The fact that it allowed us to remain alive was merely a pleasant side effect.

Waking up in the middle of the night I find myself restless
So much has come into focus in the last few days. The station, my first steps on another world. It is all a bit overwhelming. Relaxing my thoughts drift off thinking about how I got here. A young girl on Europa, being selected for training after my aptitude tests, the Academy on Ganymede. Then as always my thoughts drift back to… her…
Lucy…
We started at rivals at the academy, we were from different worlds. Literally, me from Europa a wet ocean world remote and isolated, her an inner worlder from the hot dusty plains of Venus. We were water and fire.
The professors pitted us against each other from day one, based on our aptitude tests we were the top of the class. They split the class into teams and gave us challenges. I like to say I got the better of her, I was fast out the gate winning a few challenges. But Lucy turned back on me in a vengeance, she had a magnetism to her that caused our classmates to almost be addicted to her. People from my team would defect over to Lucy. Soon I found myself vastly outnumbered.
One day after Lucy and her team thrashed me again in a simulated strategy challenge. I left and I needed to be alone. I showered, went into the sauna. Replaying the moves again and again. How was I going to get the upper hand. She outnumbered me so much.
Everyone knew to leave me alone in the sauna. It was where I thought, relaxed, my place of peace. I was frustrated, I lean back against the wall and let me hands wander. Gently down my body, letting my stress evaporate as I tease myself…Then the door opened…. And it was Lucy. A cocky grin in her face.
We had been thinking about nothing but each other and we had both become obsessed. When that tension broke. Let me just say in a sauna fire and water combine to make something beautiful. Lucy and I did as well.
She moved towards me quickly, letting her towel drop, she was direct with a purpose. Grabbing the back of my head and kissing me deeply. I was shocked.. surprised... Excited..
I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her back. A deep need inside of me welling up, our lips slid across each other's as our tongue intertwined. I poured my life water of passion into her. She flared up and accepted my passion. Her hands exploring my body as I moved my knees between her legs.
Fuuuccckkk…. When she arched her back… so beautiful… MMM nnngghhhh an orgasm washed over me in my bed while I thought of Lucy.
Panting… even after all this time, separated by a waygate and unfathomable distance my body still yearned for her, I still yearned for her. Rolling onto my side I stare out my window into the vastness of space and the void. My fingers still ryhmically dancing on my pussy. Fingers sliding in and out
Your taught at the academy not to develop attachments, especially since the top prize, the highest honor of our training, to one day fly a deep space exploration through a waygate. Which would put us alone, in a different system. Like I am now.
Even if I power up my waygate in record time and rush home. Lucy is most likely gone. She was my alternate, meaning had I been unable to go this time she would have. It also means she most likely the deployed to her own system and would be gone before I returned. Likely I would never see her again.
Biting my lips and pressing a hand out onto the glass…yes…yes.. there
Fuck again….Fuucckkkkk LLLLuuucccCC
EeeeeeeeeerrrrrreeeemmmmmAAAAAA, a beautiful black haired woman orgasms in a bed identical to Emeras save the ambient lighting is blue inside of pink.
Fuck…. That was good. I find myself panting as I step out into the hallway of my ship. 2 days since the waygate, 6 months since I last saw Emera. Since she departed through her gate. Stars know if she still lives.
It was a rare happening, another gate coming online shortly after Emera’s departure. I thought I would be flying routine patrols around the system. Now I'm alone. Alone with my thoughts of her, and my AI Julia. Fuck. Why couldn't we have gone together. Why only one pilot to a ship. Who knows maybe she's thinking of me. Technically the systems we are in are closer together than home. That's something…
You're probably wondering if I was outnumbered and Lucy normally had my number in competition then how did I get to leave first. Yes, I did sleep with high command. That was only my closing argument though. You see Lucy had her magnetism that caused people to be addicted to her, she drew people in. But I was better at strategy and nuanced maneuvers.
The rules weren't strict on the teams, people defected all the time. Keeping your people together was part of the challenge. I decided to break that challenge.
No Battleplan survives first contact with the enemy afterall. Why not break the competition itself
My enemy wasn't Lucy, trust me we had been together enough at this point my heart swelled when I saw her. My enemy was the rules, and proctors.
There had to be two team in the academy for the lessons to work. But the rules only set a minimum not a maximum.
Lucy and her best 4 left her team, and me and my best 4 left my team. We formed a new team with Lucy and I at the head. The proctors were fuming. I was called into their offices again and again. Which is what led to me sleeping with a few of them to get ahead. It is always good to solicit a meeting with superiors, you can always be turned to your advantage.
In the Academy, there were 50 of us girls. The proctors let us keep our 3rd team, but declared no one else could join us. It was the ten of us vs double our number on both the other teams. Not ideal… but we had Lucy and I together. My how we shined
We out maneuvered, out paced, and out thought the other teams again and again and again..
Entering into the final the proctors split everyone up, eliminating the team. Just to try and stop us from sweeping the competition. Instead there would be 25 teams of 2 members each of our own selection. Lucy and I naturally selected each other.
We set down on a terraformed valley on Mars, all the other duos were around. The mission was complex. Gather knowledge, survive in the wilderness, there were simulator villages where we had to set up relations, and if possible eliminate other teams.
The gravity is different from what I'm used to, my body feels heavy. Sluggish, they train us on this and soon I'll adapt. But first landing it hits me like a weight. Ffuuuccckkk I murmur as I land my account ship on the surface.
Lucy always compares a new celestial body to a lover. Well for me Mars just grabbed my hair, slapped my ass and pushed in
Fuck I can't imagine landing on Earth. Triple this, fuck that give me my moon mother's oceans anyday.
I suck deep and hard on the control in my mouth and all three extract from me. I am about to get up from the control seat when I feel a palm in the small of my back
“Lucy not funny, let me up” I say
She giggles, and rubs my ass cheeks before her fingers rub against my lips
I moan biting my lip as I push myself against her hand
“I knew the gravity here would give a Moonie like you a good fucking, you're so wet my love”
Rolling my head back and forth..”quickly we have to debrief and set up camp” I moan
She smacks my ass again and her fingers deftly slide to work, one hand pinning me to the chair while she teases my sex, her thumb rubbing in perfect circles on my clit and her fingers pulling on my g-spot
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes uuuhhhhh my love it feel so good” shaking my hips back and forth I feel it building as I rock my hips on her hand
Squeezing….my leg….quivering… my voice squeaking… “uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh ffuuuccckkk” I moan as I feel the orgasm wash over me…
Lucy slaps my ass playfully and licks her fingers… “let's go my love, stop playing around we have to set up camp” she giggles
“Oh!! You!!” I get up and rush after her slapping her ass when I catch up
Carryalls follow us out of the ship.. I immediately sent out the scout drones and assessed our landing spot. Allocating tasks and running diagnostics.
Lucy set about converting the ship to a shelter and arranging power arrays, and deciding on perimeter defenses
We were a perfect power duo. Our carryalls and scouts were soon all at work, and Lucy was finishing up the shelter
I needed to repay her, so I slowly walked up behind her. She heard my heavy steps in the gravity. Turning to look at me she beamed at me. My heart melted and grabbing both sides of her face I pinned her to the side of the ship. Our bodies intertwined and our lips locked.
She moaned at me giggling, pushing my knee between her legs, and we quickly undressed each other. Her mouth on my breast, as my hand glided down to her slick vagina.
Grabbing her chin roughly and up turning her head exposing her neck I sink my teeth into it as I push forward with my knee back and forth pressing my fingers in and out of her.
A deep moan emanates from her, licking my bite mark I kiss up her neck until my forehead is resting hers. Eye to eye, I watch the pleasure build in her. Thrust after thrust of my knee. My fingers pressing into her g-spot every time, my palms pressing and grinding onto her clit
“Cum for me my love, give me your sweetness, I want your water to be the first I drink on this planet” I breath
I feel her pussy tighten and grip my fingers. Her legs twisting around me… she goes silent… a flush rises in her flesh… we kiss deep, and long, and passionately as I feel her gush onto my hand as orgasm rapts her body..
I watch her eyes dilate and relax I kiss her gently again before kissing down, my lips brushing through her pubic hair tickling my lips. Opening my mouth and pressing my tongue in I drink of her orgasm
My fingers inside pressing to work again, she cries out as she rocks her hips grinding her lips to mine. As she gushes another orgasm into my mouth..
I can even taste and feel it now on my tongue…
Releasing her, and helping her up I grin
Walking awayz the top of my leotard open my tits out in the sun
“I'm up by one my love, and you taste so GGGGOOOOoooOOooddddDD” I giggle setting back to work.
Days and weeks pass Lucy and I set up our camp. Wefind nearby teams before they find us. We quickly fall on them in the night, clearing our immediate area, eliminating them from the contest. We bathe in a nearby stream, sun ourselves on the rocks, make love on the soft moss of the forest.
I don't know if I've ever been happier, ever been more at peace l than I was then with Lucy. Her and I… her and I against the world.
We make good progress setting up relations with 12 of the 15 villages. Our camp is well stocked. We receive updates from the proctors from dead drops. Seems out of the 25 teams only 8 remain. Lucy and I have eliminated 7 ourselves.
We need to be the last standing, triumphant together.. so that maybe.. maybe we can convince them to send two of us on a ship. Imagine the wonders, this wouldn't be temporary, but would become our life.
Lucy and I talk about it often. We can convince them. We'll defeat the others then refuse to turn on each other.
Our dream died that night…
We were naked, curled up in each others arms when the alarm sounded..all the alarms
Proximity alert for 14 signals… they had teamed up on us. 14 on 2 they were going to eliminate the front runners while they still could.
Fuck.
Lucy and I turned and quickly downed our emergency biotic vials just as a concussive blast hit our ship shelter.
“Fuck! They aren't supposed to attack equipment!” I yell
“The proctors must have sent them, they should be intervening with that!” Lucy says
“You're better in a fight, charge them and I'll flank” I yell
We nod at each other and we are off naked as the day we were born
Lucy bursts from our ship her shield bursting out in front of her
I dart out the side and task our scouts and drones to make dive bomb attacks on the intruders
I leap over a blast, grab a tree branch and swing. I land my legs on either side of the head. Of one the attackers, twisting my flip her over and knock her out. Back on the run, I see Lucy take out another one as drones dive in and out of the chaos.
Lucy blocks to her right and charges blasting herself high into the air, twirling before blasting herself downward tackling her target to the ground and eliminating her.
She's about to get blasted from behind when I take the attackers in the flank, knee to the solarplex. My hand on the side of her neck I thrust up hard with my knee. In the low gravity she turns and flies off into the trees as I raise my hands and blast another in the side.
She turns just in time to block my attack, when Lucy rockets into her side with her elbow

My girlfriend and I were together for two years, part of it was long distance. We were previously good friends for 5 years, then she was the one that caught feelings and pursued me first. During our relationship she always told me things like “I’m the one”, we talked about how we would get married and grow old together, she made so many promises that she was 100% sure of me and that she’d never leave. She would say things like “we’ve known each other in every lifetime”. We got together even though I was leaving for a masters study, she said she thought she’d never do long distance again but for me it was worth it, bc she was 100% sure I’m the guy she wants. I left a week after we got together, and I was gone for about a year. During that time we visited once a month, it was always great. I eventually moved back and we spent another year together in person. I’m sorry if this post is too long.
She ended things about a month ago. During the breakup she gave me very vague answers so I couldn’t get the closure I needed. I decided to reach out a week after the breakup to ask why she did it, and what she said killed me inside.
She said that she knew we were compatible and I’m an amazing person but felt like she was settling for me, and she didn’t want to live her life like that when she thinks she can find something better. She said she believes in that soulmate connection with one person when you know deep inside you that this is “it”, and she didn’t feel like that with me, she didn’t think I was “it”. But we did say to each other during the relationship that this was “it”, she told me so many times that I’m the one, so I don’t know how a flip just switched in her brain. She also said she realized she didn’t love me in the way “real love” is, and maybe she just loved the idea of me. She said she always felt the need to be accepted and loved by people and I made her feel like that. She said when you truly love someone you’d sacrifice things for them, and she wouldn’t sacrifice things for me. She said she was forcing herself to be comfortable around me, and it wasn’t the type of comfort that it should be with “the one”.
How the fuck does it take you two years to realize you don’t love someone in the way “real love” is? Especially after all the emotional intimacy we shared. How could you be uncomfortable with me? I was her first kiss, her first hand hold, she said she was saving those things for the right person and she did them with me. Why would she feel like shes settling for me when she’s the one that pursued me first? She went all out to “get me” and be in a relationship with me. Am I really the type of guy that gets settled for? That hurts like hell. She said she was having all these thoughts during the last 4 months of the relationship. But literally a month ago, I felt that she’s been a bit cold, and I asked if everything was okay. She said “nothings wrong, I’ve been really stressed with school/work. But nothings wrong with us, maybe something’s just wrong with me with all the stress. But we’re good, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you or that I’d ever give up on us, I’d never do that. Don’t worry I still love you and I’ll always be here.” She said that word for word. So she was lying to me? Why would you lie instead of communicating openly? If she had told me she was having those thoughts it would’ve been easier for me, but she gave me that reassurance and then blindsided me a month later. I told her it’s normal to lose feelings in a relationship after a while, that eventually that initial spark or honeymoon phase ends, and that’s when the real relationship starts and you work on building a life together. Love eventually becomes a choice and not just a feeling. But she said she wouldn’t lose feelings with the right person. Now I’m the wrong person when she literally told me a million times that we were always meant for each other. I told her I think she’ll end up being disappointed when she realizes there is no “one” person that gives you that magical feeling for life, you eventually reach a point where you have to choose that person everyday. Relationships are hard and most of them end up losing that initial spark, but it’s an opportunity for a new kind of love to blossom, a love based off commitment and loyalty to each other. That’s the only way a relationship can last forever. And during our relationship we even acknowledged that fact together and we told each other that if the feelings fade we will always choose each other no matter what happens. It makes no sense to me. And if she actually lost feelings and fell out of love, that’s fine. But to say she never loved me in the way “real love” is, that makes no sense to me and it’s killing me inside. Have I just been blind and stupid the entire relationship? How does it take TWO YEARS to realize that? She said to me, “maybe you can choose someone and settle for them and learn to love them, but I believe there’s one person out there that is meant for me and when I find them I will know it deep inside me.” Yea, I believed that too. I believed it because I thought it was you. Just because I chose you doesn’t mean I’m settling for you or learning to love you. I thought you were meant for me. It’s so ridiculous I don’t understand, she used to be so sure that I was the one, she knew it deep inside her that I was. And now she’s saying that when she finds it, she’ll know. Well you knew it with me and now you don’t.
Part of me understands why she lost feelings, we didn’t really have a strong base. We were together for only a week before I left for a year. I feel like it wasn’t enough time for the physical attraction to build up and to get to know each other in person. By the time we visited each other, a lot of time had passed and the spark wasn’t the same as the beginning, it was kinda awkward at first. We got into a serious committed relationship talking about future marriage, before we ever hugged each other. She was scared to kiss me, maybe that’s why she said she was forcing herself to be comfortable. But eventually we kissed and it was great. During the visits it felt like everything was going great and that our relationship was getting stronger. I didn’t think that she was uncomfortable. I feel like if we had done all the intimate things in the beginning, we would have a base to build off of and the spark would be alive.
Also I keep blaming myself and wondering what I did wrong. I’m just certain that it’s my fault, that I made her lose attraction. Maybe I wasn’t manly enough or attractive enough. Maybe I was too boring or uninteresting or too “stable”. Being in love with someone basically means you have to be sexually attracted to them first, that’s what separates family love from romantic love. Maybe I didn’t do enough to keep her attracted to me, so she felt like she lost feelings. It was really hard with the distance. I tried, I really tried. I would always flirt and tease her, I tried not to let the relationship feel like it was a platonic friendship over time. I was always confident and “manly” with her, I stood my ground when she did things I didn’t like, I wasn’t needy. We sexted and video called all the time. I always planned amazing dates. I tried to keep the fun alive. I don’t know what else I could’ve done to keep her attracted. I truly feel like if we had been in person the whole time, it would’ve worked and she would’ve still been attracted to me. It’s just different when you’re there physically. But we both knew this, we acknowledged that it was gonna be hard and the feelings may fade, but we said we’d always choose each other no matter what. Maybe it was inevitable with the distance, but at the end she said it wasn’t because of the distance, she believes with the right person the distance wouldn’t matter. So I just wasn’t the right person for her, I was for a while, but I let her lose attraction for me. Your view on love and attraction may differ, but I learned that it’s the guy’s responsibility to keep a woman attracted, it’s about how he acts and behaves that keeps her attracted. So it’s my fault she lost attraction, it’s something I did. For example when I look back at the first visit, a mistake I made was asking to kiss her instead of just going for it. She said no, maybe because I came off as unconfident and that turned her off. I was so nervous during the first visit because there was so much expectation built up inside my head. Maybe that prevented me from being able to genuinely enjoy myself around her and attract her. Eventually though, we got comfortable with each other and we kissed and it was great. I felt the spark was there. I don’t think she met someone else, I asked her and she said no. Yea maybe she could’ve lied, but i know her and I don’t think she would do that. She said “you know me, I would never allow myself to do that while I’m in a relationship. The reasons are solely because I don’t feel in love with you anymore.”
We hit a little rut near the end because we were both very busy, but I didn’t think it was concerning because she always gave reassurance and made it seem like everything is fine. It feels like shit hearing that someone was settling for me. Why wasn’t I enough? I keep looking back and thinking what I could’ve done different to keep her attracted. I keep nitpicking at myself and feeling insecure about the way I am. She was so sure of me in the beginning so I must’ve done something along the way to make her lose feelings. She let me tear my walls down and trust her fully, then she left. It feels like I’m not worthy of love because she saw something in me and decided she didn’t want me. What hurts the most is that to me, she was “it”, to me she was the one. And she said that to me too and I believed her. I felt that she truly meant it when she said that. She would tell me she was always attracted to me and had feelings during our friendship but she “locked them in a box” because she was too afraid. She even told me that I was a walking green flag and that I was perfect and I did nothing wrong. It hurts to know she thinks that yet she still decided she didn’t want me. It kills to know that one day she’ll get married, he’ll get to hold her and kiss her and have a family, and it won’t be with me. I can’t stand the thought of her being intimate with someone else. And it’s the thought that, whoever she ends up with, will be better than me in a way. She will love him more than she loved me. He will make her feel what I couldn’t make her feel. And I’m blaming myself so much that I couldn’t make her feel like that anymore. I’m grieving the future that we both planned together. I feel so betrayed, I feel like shit. Most of all I just really miss her, we knew each other for 7 years and now we’re just strangers again.
I’ve been hurt before, I’ve had a few breakups, but this one hurts the most. I don’t know what it is about this girl that makes me feel like I’ll never find anyone better. I know that time heals everything but I feel like this has damaged me on a deep level, I feel like I can’t let my walls down again. I don’t want to love again and risk getting hurt. I can’t invest myself fully into someone if I’m always afraid they’re going to blindside me. I know a breakup shouldn’t define your self worth, but it’s just the idea that the person I loved doesn’t see herself spending her life with me anymore, that makes me feel really bad. It’s the thought that she saw something in me that made her decide she doesn’t love me. She analyzed our relationship and thought “I want someone better”. The thought that it’s my fault, that it’s something I did. I didn’t have enough “game”. I couldn’t keep her attraction high. I can’t stand the idea of her getting married one day and finding her “it”. Of course I want her to be happy but I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t kill me inside.
Nobody is perfect but she was close to it. She’s such a rare breed, she had everything I wanted in a woman and it’s so hard to come by. I wish I had a reason to hate her but she’s genuinely an amazing person. She did nothing bad to me, we barely fought and when we did it was very gentle. Our entire relationship was pretty much perfect up until the end. I’ve never been with someone that was this compatible with me. She’s the kindest human, she’s intelligent, she’s very mature, she’s beautiful inside and out, she’s very warm and gentle. And the fact that she’s such a sweet and genuine person makes it way harder. If she had cheated or something I think this would’ve been easier on me, because I’d see her as a bad person. But she’s not a bad person. It hurts way more knowing that she was feeling like she wanted to end things, but at the same time she was trying to convince herself to love me, because she didn’t want to hurt me. She didn’t want to break her promises, she was trying so hard not to, but in the end she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. Why do I have to feel like someone has to convince themselves to love me? Why does someone have to force themselves to believe I’m the one? Why can’t anyone ever just truly believe it with their entire soul, that they want to be with me. When I asked for reassurance and she told me she still loved me and would never give up, she was trying to convince herself because she didn’t want to hurt me. It was all lies. Every “I love you” in the last 4 months was a lie. I feel like such an idiot that I was sitting there for the past 4 months thinking that everything was going great. She was just faking her affection the whole time. Imagine hearing that someone was forcing themselves to love you. No one was forcing you! The exit door has always been open, no one forced her to stay, no one forced her to pursue me in the first place. I told her many times that I just want truth and transparency in our relationship, yet she hid all of those things. She said she hid them because she cared about me and didn’t want to hurt me, and she was trying to make it work. But if she truly cared for me, she would know that I deserve honesty, I deserve to know the truth even if it hurts. I don’t deserve to live in a lie. If she cared for me she would let me go find someone who truly loves me, instead of just pretending to love me. By lying, she was only caring about herself, to relieve herself of the guilt. The breakup would’ve been way smoother if she just told the truth from the start, but now I feel like an idiot who sat there for 4 months thinking that everything was going well, when in reality it wasn’t.
There’s so many things I loved about her. I loved the way she cries during every movie, she thinks she’s too sensitive but I think it’s beautiful to feel your emotions that deeply. I loved the way her face lights up when she smiles. I loved how she would call me just to tell me silly little things about her day. I loved her curiosity and wonder for the universe. I loved how she would run into my arms when she saw me. She just understood me, and I understood her. I can’t hate her, I wish I could, but I just love her with all my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Even when 20 years pass and I’m over this and we’re both married to other people, I will still love her and wish the best for her. I miss her so much, I miss talking to her. I know we can't be friends, but I really wish I could still have her in my life. But I shouldn't wish that I guess, because she decided she wants to live her life without me in it. I can’t believe she could decide to lose me forever when she always said she could never live without me.
The worst part is, I reacted to the break up very emotionally. I showed how hurt I was, I wrote a long paragraph, and I brought up all the promises she made. That was a mistake, it probably killed any ounce of attraction she had left. If there was any chance of her coming back or realizing it was a mistake, I destroyed that chance. I made it look like I can’t live without her. I didn’t beg for her back at all, but I kept pushing for answers and explanations. I asked her what I did wrong and stuff, and that made me look super desperate. I should’ve just accepted the break up immediately and cut off all communication. Maybe then she would’ve thought about it, she would wonder why I wasn’t upset and have second thoughts about her decision. It would make me look more attractive in her eyes. But no I ruined it forever. Now all I want to do is salvage some respect, to make her see me as a valuable person. Not as someone who can’t live without her. Deep down I really want her to have a change of heart, I want her to feel re-attracted somehow, after having some time and space away from the situation. But I ruined her image of me. Now I’m looking back and analyzing every little thing about our relationship and wondering what I should’ve done better. I realized I made a lot of mistakes, which at the time I didn’t think were mistakes, but now looking back it’s probably my fault she lost attraction. I didn’t do enough.
I told myself during the relationship that “everything is temporary, don’t get too attached, life can change at any moment”. I know those things because I’ve learned my lessons from the past, but this is still killing me. I know almost everyone has been heartbroken, I’m nothing special, every human has been through this before. I just need to hear that it wasn’t my fault or that I’ll find someone better eventually. I’m blaming myself a lot right now and I keep thinking that she wouldn’t have left if I had been attractive enough. I generally consider myself a confident person but this has set me back a lot, it’s ruining my self esteem. Maybe I have attachment issues that I need to work on. I know that time will heal this, but right now I can’t imagine myself finding someone that’s better. I feel like the idea of “the one” has been ruined for me. I want to believe it, but I don’t think I do anymore. Even if I find another person who I think is the one, there’s always the possibility that they will change their mind. There’s always a chance that all of their words and actions were just lies. A lot of people get into relationships because they love the idea of being in love, not because they are actually in love with the person.
Thank you for reading this far, I know it’s a long post. I needed somewhere to vent, I don’t have many people to talk to. When I cry, I cry alone. And during the act of crying I start to hate myself for being such a bitch. I know it’s perfectly okay to cry and feel your emotions but it’s hard to escape the conditioning that I’m used to. I have friends and family but, I can’t express my emotions the way I did in this post. People have their own lives and worries and they don’t want to deal with someone’s silly heartbreak I guess.
TL;DR - my gf and I broke up a month ago, she said she was settling for me and that I wasn’t the “one”, even though she made promises and assured me that she wouldn’t leave. I keep blaming myself and wondering what I did wrong.

Yes, you read it right. I got a few admits and I will not be joining any of the colleges. Will be dropping MBA in general, as I have other plans. But, as I bid this community goodbye, wanted to give back in any tiny way possible.
P.S. Do not expect to see anything new here, and feel free to ignore!
Profile; GEM 9/9/9 - T10 Engg college, Work ex: 3yrs, CAT: 99.5X, XAT: 99.2X
I had registered for CAT on the very last day, with absolutely no idea of what the exam is, or if I am even planning for an MBA. As November came closer, I decided to give it a shot as an MBA would be something that suits me. I looked around to ask friends in IIMs on how to prepare with 15-20 days to go. Everyone had different strategies so I sat down to find some material. Everything seemed vague until I started checking out previous-year papers. (I personally have given 2 mocks, and solved all slots '19-'22). The patterns that evolved over the past decade, the most likely pattern for this year, and figured how I have around 1.5 mins per question to reach a rough score of 100. (I decided upon this as the fair average to be in the top 0.1/0.2 percentile based on results from '21-'24) While I state this simply, I did go through a lot of videos from creators, to Quora, to this very subreddit to get my information. And I must say that the first-hand accounts from here helped me all along.
Remember; CAT is strategy first, ability second kind of exam. I will keep different disparities out of this post, but would ask everyone to see this being based on bucketing. Yes, your gender, category, school-marks, UG field, all matter, but then don't think the entire pool is your competition. The percentile system makes one think like that, but it isn't the case. The competition is WITHIN your own bucket, find the scoring needed there. That math will go a long way and will keep you away from unnecessary excuses and debates.
General strategies:

- set an ideal score in mind, everyone would want highest possible but set a realistic number in mind. Aim should be to score equal in all section. Give mocks/prev year papers, find weakest section, compensate for loss there by gain elsewhere. - if strong in VARC, practice completing whole thing in 40mins (whatever the section time is), else tackle in order of strongest module first (RC/ordering/summarising/fill sentence). - in QA, put a hard limit of 1.5-2 mins per question when practicing. Choose only the sections/problems you are comfortable with, learn to solve them in the exam constraints first. There is no need to know everything, this isn't boards. - in DILR, know that 1/4 is enough, 2/4 is good, 3/4 and you can afford huge mistakes in VA/QA, but being able to solve 3/4 probably means you are very strong at reading and math, so no need to think here. 

I went on to give my CAT, and post that is when I got involved here the most. I was active when this community had 14k~ members, so it has grown significantly, in ways good and bad. But that's not the point. There are all kinds of people here, and therefore you should be able to find whatever you need amidst all the noise.
I had applied for top 10ish colleges based on my personal suitability (+All checkboxes in CAT form ). Adding links to their interview experiences/transcripts here;
IIM A, C, FMS - NO call [A and B have non-public criteria, but generally B has more weightage to experience, while A has for diversity. C and especially FMS need raw marks in CAT]
SPJIMR - my first interview experience, got kicked out of round 1 IIM K - admit XLRI BM - admit IIM B - PGP + PGPBA admit IIM I - admit IIT B - waitlist in 20s but opted out to not block seat IIM L - admit IIFT - will probably get IIM Mumbai, IIM Shillong, XLRI HM, IIT Delhi - filled interview forms but didn't attend All other IIMs - skipped entirely
I cannot give any specific advice on interviews as things to work upon vary greatly from person to person. You can go through the above links, and ask questions if any, I will try to answer them.
I hope this post is of help, And all the best for your plans!