Is plies and kirk franklin related

hey.
here's a toast to another day of a loner.
i watched "Wayne" series the day before yesterday n i have to say that i'm very jealous of main characters. not violence-wise, of course.
it's the time to figure out whether i want a soulmate or is everything i do is just a projection of my inner inadequacy.
maybe i just want fate to reward me with a companion so that i wouldn't have to drown my sadness in relatable oldies n classic rock. no, it's not going to happen. i love music.
i remind that my favourites are: Elvis, Rory Gallagher, Nick Drake, early Donovan, Emitt Rhodes, Chet Baker, Jake Holmes, Al Stewart and the kinks.
if you want to know more about me, just read my previous post.
please don't message me if you are married/in a relationship/have a beard; if you don't like green colour, seventies' rock music or don't know who Rory Gallagher is. be a gentleman. lol.
please message me if you are a CIA agent who's interested in my mental health; if you look like Christopher Reeve in 1978 or have American/British/Australian/Irish accent, blue/green/grey eyes + dark hair combo + you are a musician and you think that sending cat pics is a great way of showing your affection.
see ya.
https://ibb.co/XxJ57Pv

My Syrian is changing. She is ~ 18 Months old. I would like some advice on what is normal for an aging hamster and what is not please.
She seems to be getting smellier as she gets older. Like I fully clean out her tank (it's a large converted vivarium) and use vinegar & water solution to clean as always, but immediately she stinks it back up again. I've tried ventilating more, she has different types of bedding and sand etc.
It's definitely stronger than it used to be. Is this her making it home again more efficiently than she used to, or something to be concerned about?
It's the musky season scent that is extremely strong rather than an ammonia scent. I picked her up to say hello this evening as I'm seeing less and less of her lately.
I've also just noticed that the fur on her lower belly/ genital area has gone completely now. This has happened relatively quickly. She has a lot less now than say 2 weeks ago. It's pink and bald.
Will her hygiene change with age? I noticed that she had sand stuck to her genitals also - seemingly held by an amount of dried poop, whereas usually she's very clean. Ive completely stressed her trying to help clean up her butt a little :(

I (M26) have of my own will had no contact with any relatives since I was 18 due to various kinds of abuse and continue to want NC. I do this because I want NC with my parents, and so I must also NC with any relatives. I changed my name two years ago.
A former landlord from before my name change has reached out to me and said that he “believes a beloved [relative of mine] is not doing well and would like to speak to me.” I assume: - my parents found where I lived - at least one physically went and talked with a currant tenant who told the landlord (it is in my parents’ character) - I believe the relative is actually sick and/or dying
My ideal would be for the landlord to stop interaction with them. I am considering doing something like tell the landlord “this is a scam, I don’t have any [relative type], don’t interact with them”? Or would you have other suggestions?

1. Research, research, research
2. Take a sniper shot, not a shotgun blast approach
3. Be a doer, not an idea guy
4. Anyone can point out problems; try to focus on actionable solutions
   
5. Research. Research the company you're applying to, the position, the team. Find the hiring manager / recruiter on LinkedIn. Find their Facebook / Instagram / Blog / Youtube channel. What are they interested in? What catches their eye? What are their side hobbies? What charities do they donate to? What's the company mission? What's the market / competition like? What products do they sell besides the obvious? Why do you want to work for them? What's an improvement you could make to their products - or a market they could expand into? What's a gap they have that you've identified? Etc, etc, etc. I highly doubt you've done this for 3 companies a day - most people don't even do it for a single company they "really really really want to work for" and that includes FAANG.
   
6. Once you've compiled all this, start hunting their job postings. Find one at least closely related to what you think you can do - don't worry about meeting 100% of the requirements, but aim for at least 70-80%. Then tailor your resume to that job posting. You may end up with a few different versions of your resume - that's fine. Get the meat and potatoes in there and then dress it up with tweaks for each position / hiring manager you're trying to appeal to. Reach out to someone at the company you know on LinkedIn or Facebook and see if they can give you a quick intro to the hiring manager or recruiter. Personality and culture fit DO matter. Once you make the connection, save the job listing link / # and have it ready along with the corresponding resume. Give it directly to the recruiter / friend / manager if the conversation goes well. Or try to have it passed along to them. You may need to be persistent - being local always helps.
   
7. Active language / projects that demonstrate quantifiable progress on something. It's easy to spot the bullshitters - "facilitated this" "helped with" that etc. Put it in terms of "I did [x] with [y] to achieve [z], utilizing [a] and [b]" When the interview - even if it's just an initial phone screen - comes, have stories ready about projects / times you've been that person of action. Even if you failed and it didn't pan out. You can always spin failure into lessons learned and fail forward.
   
8. Following on from #3 + #1. If you can identify what you think is a gap with the company, come up with a potential solution, and propose that as the reason you want the related position, it will come across well even if they disagree or are already working on closing the gap. Or even if you've misinterpreted the way they're taking the company (though that might be a small yellow flag, so do try to learn what you can about their industry and competition).
   

There is almost always work for those who DO and take action. You may indeed have to move for it - that's good that you're already accepting that and being flexible. It can help to target large companies with offices in multiple states - especially if they're primarily located in heavy population centers (VHCOL areas). Often, they have a difficult time getting current employees to move to remote locations for roles, so for example if you look up someone like Google, Facebook, Cisco, WalMart Labs, etc they have offices spread out across the US. Contrast that with Amazon, who are primarily in Seattle / SF Bay Area and anything outside of that is data center or distribution center. Apple similarly is primarily just the bay area, though of course they have Apple stores everywhere if you're looking at that. Picking a field as well will be useful - a discipline like Global Supply and Logistics will have far more location possibilities than software engineer, but sales will have even more locations available.
Figure out what you want to try and get your foot in the door for that first job. Be hungry, helpful, and knowledgeable, and you'll gain mentors in no time who can show you the ropes and boost you further.
Good luck.
P.S. yes, at the end of the day it can still be a bit of a numbers game, but it is far better to be thorough about 20 positions than lazy about 2,000 positions. It’s far less noise and bullshit for recruiters to sift through, far better chances you’ll land somewhere working at a company you like on a product you believe in. Far better chances you’ll enjoy yourself and get along with your teammates. The saying “measure twice, cut once” applies here. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Etc. It’s no different from writing good code - you don’t just launch in and start firing off variables and methods and classes without having a good understanding of what’s needed, how it will affect other systems, what your end goal is, etc.

Anyone else have this weird pressure around eyes, brows, sometimes heavy eyelids, temples, top of head, back of head, jaw, throat, basically the whole head.
Also, my neck/spine seem to get burned out quickly and often find myself trying to stretch myself numerous times a day. As if my head is just too heavy to hold. It also feels awkward because all of this to make eyecontact with people.
Sometimes I just don't know anymore if this is pure stress/anxiety related or actual LC symptoms.

Hi all,
I'm a first year interpol PhD student in the UK (Wales specifically), in a small university with an even smaller community of fellow PhD folk. One of my biggest problems I've encountered is I'm struggling to develop my ideas/thinking because there is virtually no other PhD people whose research focus is near mine, so I have no one to bounce ideas off of or to feed me inspiration. My supervisors are fine, but I'm too intimidated by them and would feel more comfortable in a group of people of a similar level/age group (I'm 24).
Don't get me wrong, I love the community I have here and everyone is so interesting to listen to, but if I start talking about my ideas, people just politely nod because they (naturally) don't really know what I'm on about.
My question is, how would I go about finding people who do similar research to me so we can discuss (online or via Zoom/Teams or whatever) what we know, what we're reading etc.?! My research (broadly) concerns US-China relations, post-Western theory, and also theory of knowledge (Eurocentrism in IR and such).
Any advice much appreciated!

Not yet professionally diagnosed with CPTSD, so I don't really post here, but there's something that I think some of you might be able to relate to.
I went for pretty much all of my childhood convincing myself that "I'm fine. I've got all this stuff so I'm very lucky and I shouldn't be sad".
After 3 years of therapy, I realized that most of my childhood was either trauma or a trauma response.
I used to play make-believe alone a lot. I'd play with my brother too, but he'd always play the good guy, and I'd always play the bad guy, so he'd always defeat me. I already had a pretty big inferiority complex, especially towards him, so being the bad guy always made me upset, but I didn't think I could be the good guy when he was around. But my first imaginary friend was a friendly yet scary looking dragon who would always insist on being the bad guy and letting me be the good guy. I used that make-believe to make myself feel like the protagonist in a way that I didn't feel otherwise.
I used to have dreams about a boy who would always make me talk about my "negative" feelings. This happened when I was around 6, I think. The boy likely looked like a combination between all the boys my age that I felt closer to (because I remember looking at my brother or friends and thinking "huh, he looks like the boy in my dreams").
Even if it was my dad who was emotionally neglectful, my relationship with my mom was also very affected. I remember insisting on sleeping on an empty stomach because I didn't want to bother my mom. We had enough food, so there was no reason for me to do that other than some sense of protecting my mom (for the record, my mom is pretty great and she never did anything that made me feel that way about her, it was my dad who made me think that having basic needs equals being needy and spoiled).
I would've never thought of any of these things in the context of emotional neglect before therapy.
Again, not sure if this is CPTSD and that's not even why I'm posting. I just wanted to reiterate that when you live in a traumatic environment and get used to it, there are a lot of signs that you're not doing that well that are easy to miss. I knew about trauma but I thought it always looked very dramatic and scary, but sometimes, the signs are innocuous on the surface, like playing make believe more than the other kids and insisting on playing alone, or lucid dreaming and talking about my feelings to my brain.

Dear therapists and psych doctors, why are you so selfish? You don't do enough research to understand people. Especially psychiatrists. I have never met a good psychiatrist who didn't want to just add and add medication after medication. Most of these profound doctors don't even believe in gene sight testing.
Did you know that chemical imbalance does not exist. It is simply a theory. These medicines do nothing for you but numb parts of the brain. Sounds really healthy, doesn't it? No it does not.
Moving on to counselors, why is it when I think I found a reasonable person I can trust, you turn on me like the last one? I obviously was improving. Then I noticed you were lazy and started suggesting the very thing you said I should stay away from because of my HPPD...? What sense does that make? None. So now I am withdrawaling from pristiq and I will no longer consent to medications. Every dang time this happens. At this point, I will report any counselor that immediately suggests medication for a trauma related issue.

I am a medical professional who has opted to form an S Corp. My hospital contracts are 1099 and I perform this work through my S Corp. I had the option to be W2, but I choose to be 1099.
I am now second guessing myself and trying to get a better understanding on whether or not it makes more sense to do it this way vs as a W2. FWIW the S corp is already formed, fees paid for that.
My total income is 850k.
My business related expenses are 25k.
I am in the process of getting set up with a defined benefits plan, but for the purpose of these calculations I assume a pre-tax retirement contribution of 100k, so I am actually looking at taxable income of 725k less my personal deductions.
When I run my projected income through a W2 calculator specific to my state, I come out with an effective tax rate of 34.76% after anticipated deductions ( I will itemize as I will be over the standard deduction limit). I am married btw as well.
My question is, if all things are equal, can I expect to have a lower effective tax rate making 725k income as an S Corp vs as a W2? I will likely take reasonable salary of 250k and the rest as distribution. My understanding was that should be the case at this level of income, but I would love to hear from you intelligent people about this. Thanks.

I am in the middle of an “Emperor of Hindustan” run and was trying to decide between various possible idea groups to choose early on and kept running into these recommendations. I hope this helps others who face the same question when playing outside their comfort zone.
General remarks: ideas are listed in Diplo/Admin/Military order as (i) Military tech should be prioritized early on, (ii) Admin 7 unlocks the second idea group and should be rushed. Feel free to deviate from this recommendation (I frequently open with Admin ideas myself), but this standardizes the formatting slightly.
Additionally, these choices are not necessarily “optimal”. The purpose of this list is to provide suggestions for idea groups that align with each other in some sense
1. WC Starter Kit – Diplomatic, Administrative, Offensive
Diplomatic provides many benefits: additional relations slot, improved relations, more diplomats and ends with war-score reduction. This reduces aggressive expansion (AE), reduces coalitions, and increases rate of expansion. Administrative is picked almost entirely for the coring cost reduction, Offensive provides better generals and crucially better siege ability, which is a major quality-of-life (QoL) improvement as forts are a major time-sink later on as well as improved generals and discipline.
Major policy benefits are another diplomat plus reduced autonomy (A/D), and another diplomatic reputation (D/M). Humanist is recommended as a follow-up as it synergizes well with Offensive and minimizes rebellions from conquests, which is a major QoL improvement.
Recommended nations: Standard WC countries (Mughals, Ottomans, Austria, Horde), especially if ideas already include coring cost reduction. Austria should also consider Religious rather than Humanist (perhaps earlier too); Hordes should choose Horde ideas early on as well.
2. Wallbreacher – Espionage, Innovative, Offensive
Innovative is recommended as the opener as it reduces tech and advisor costs; Espionage synergizes with advisor cost as well as siege ability from offensive. This pairs with increased spy network construction, which provides even more siege ability. Corresponding policies (A/M and D/M) further provide both advisor costs reduction and siege ability as well. Other benefits include AE reduction and better generals with a guaranteed siege pip due to the A/M policy.
Good follow-ups include Influence (synergistic policy with Innovative) and Infrastructure (even faster spy networks and artillery bonus if you can afford it). In general, none of the ideas here are stellar, but the combination improves the tedious aspects of this game and provide general QoL improvements.
Recommended nations: HRE minors, particularly those without missions as claiming states is extremely useful early on with chain claims. In general, this combination is beneficial for any game lacking a specific focus.
3. Release, Reconquer, Re-integrate – Influence, Administrative, Quality
Strategy revolves around picking cores from major releasable nations then stacking annexation reduction modifiers to integrate them later on. This indirectly circumvents AE since the Reconquest casus belli provides significant reductions compared to regular Conquest. Influence ideas provide direct benefits to vassals, administrative ideas reduce coring costs for general (non-reconquest) expansion and quality ideas ensure competitiveness during battles on both land and sea. As mentioned, all policies combined provide annexation bonuses for -60% annexation cost in total.
Good follow-ups include Economic for amazing policies and improving the economy, Religious for the Deus Vult casus belli that maximizes ability to conquer neighbors.
Recommended nations: Anyone who can further stack onto the integration cost or relies heavily on vassals. Options include Catholics who may use the Papal legate (particularly Sardinia Piedmont and Austria), Southeast Asian countries including Siam and Majapahit whose mission trees support vassal play.
4. Soli, Deo, Gloria – Exploration, Expansion, Quantity/Plutocratic
Perhaps the most self-explanatory choice: Exploration allows viewing colonies; Expansion provides colonists for establishing them. Quantity and Plutocratic are mostly recommended for synergistic policies as well as their ability to ensure a healthy economy by either reducing army upkeep (usually the main expense) or increasing income while providing numerous other benefits too.
Good follow-ups include Trade to further increase income from the established colonies and trade companies (amazing policy with Expansion), Quality to increase competitiveness on land and sea. In fact, Maritime may even provide niche utility by allowing countries to declare Thalassocracy as well as providing QoL improvements towards maintaining the numerous fleets across colonies.
Recommended nations: Portugal is probably the poster child for this combination, although other colonizers including the Netherlands may also benefit. Interestingly (and perhaps ironically), some African countries have colonization-oriented missions. These choices are more complicated with countries like France, Castille, and England due to their increased synergy with other playstyle.
CAUTION. Some countries only receive the colonist provided another is not unlocked (e.g., Adal and Kongo), whereas others keep them for a temporary period (Kilwa, Mali). Proceed with these conditions in mind.
5. Salvation Army’s Workshop – Trade, Religious, Quantity
Perhaps the most niche combination that remains highly synergistic, this combination should probably be implemented in reverse, i.e., quantity, religious and trade. Quantity provides increased numbers in the army, religious provides a bonus to conversion and trade provides economic support. This coupled with their policies that provide increased morale as well as goods produced creates a truly unique synergy for a strong trade-based economy used to field a crusading empire.
Recommended nations: Ironically, this is the combination I chose as my circumstances fit them quite well: playing as Delhi, quantity helped with defeating the other Indian powers without relying on alliances. Once Sikhism became available, formed Punjab whose ideas and religion synergized extremely well with these ideas and their policies.
Other viable situations I can foresee include a Buddhists Strike Back run as well as a brewing monastery campaign. Would love to see more suggestions for this.
6. Rule the Waves – Maritime, Infrastructure, Navy
The new meta. Maritime provides more sailors and strengthens the navy as well as increasing ship trade power. Naval further buffs the navy and ensures that no other country has any hope of ruling the seven seas. Infrastructure allows improving your existing lands to fund your navy. Lastly, the policies provide faster ship building, reduced sailor maintenance, faster ships, and blockade efficiency. Devastate anyone who swims in your way. Make Nelson proud.
Recommended nations: Switzerland for their achievement. It literally mentions lakes.
Which other combinations do you enjoy playing in your campaigns? I would love to hear about other playstyles in alternate campaigns. I am sure someone must have thought of a heavy Mercenary build for instance although I do not know any possible country that would align with such a playstyle.

I keep seeing a lot of posts asking how to improve within XXX amount of time before the exam. There are some good responses but I feel like a lot of them aren't relatable. I am by NO MEANS a genius because I'm just your average Joe "work hard, study hard" kind of guy. But I feel like I can give some proper advice since I went from a 501 to 516 on the FLs in 2 weeks.
Timeline: I had about 6 months of studying. 3 months were "fake" studying and the other 3 months were real studying. What I'm about to disclose is an accurate timeline of what I did in order.
Content Review (3 months): I spent 3 months doing on-and-off content review using Jack Sparrow's ANKI deck. There's about 6000+ cards and I memorized about 70% of them. If I actually tried, I probably could've done this within 1.5 months. But you know what? I'm human and I get lazy.
uWorld (2 months): Another 2 months of on-and-off practice questions. There will be days where I do about 80 questions and days where I do none. I used uWorld because they have hard af passages and they require you to remember even low yield topics. uWorld was essentially used to find out what my weaknesses were and a way to learn how to approach hard passages.
Tldr; uWorld was basically lube for bumhole when I take the AAMC FLs.
AAMC FL1: This is where I tested my current knowledge and you know what I got? A motherfuckin' wake up call because I got a 501. I was completely stressed tf out because I was gunning for a 510+ at least. Instead of being a weenie and getting depressed, I looked at the bright side. The only reason why my score was low was because of CARS and low yield questions. The content review I did was solid. So it was time to formulate a game plan.
AAMC Section Bank and CARS QPack (1 month): After getting gangbanged by uWorld and AAMC FL1, I decided to switch over to AAMC for my final month of studying. And let me tell you, nothing really changed. Section bank and CARS Qpack ripped my butthole a new one but I wasn't going to give up. The more I progressed with the questions, the more I realize how I should be approaching these questions. Like I said, it wasn't my content review that was lacking but my test taking strategies. When people told me to "understand AAMC logic", I did not know wtf they were talking about. But as I did more practice questions and REALLY ANALYZE why I got the question wrong and why I chose the wrong answer... I understood.
AAMC FL2 (2 weeks left before test date): This is where I had my breakthrough. I got a 513.
AAMC FL5 (1 week left before test date): After taking FL2, I reviewed the content I missed on that and did more AAMC practice questions. Then I decided to take FL5 because it's the most representative out of all the FLs. I got a 516 (although lowkey I could've gotten a 520 if I didn't suck ass on CARS). Now I have about 4 days before my test date on 06/03/23.
I'm going to keep at it until I feel confident and try my best to get that 520+.
​
Okay, that was my story so here's what I did to study!
C/P: Dimensional analysis (unit manipulation), or known as DA, is all you need to answer every question regarding to calculations. Sure, you'll need to memorize a few equations here and there but DA is the way to go. Also learn all your CONVERSIONS. For the chemistry/orgo part of this section, I suggest you learn ALL IMPORTANT CHEMICAL STRUCTURE CHARACTERISTICS that you always see being asked in the practice questions and FLs. What do I mean by that? I mean polarity, bonds, periodic table trends, etc. But what about learning theories? Man, FUCK learning all those theories because you know why? If you know the relationships between each variable in the equations you memorized, YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEARN ANY THEORIES. Because essentially, theories are a more in-depth explanation as to why variable Y is dependent on X.
CARS: Bro, IDK what to say but just practice. If you're bad at CARS like me... Then all you can do is just practice. I just did 3-5 passages a day TIMED. I don't do that untimed BS because then I'll just get used to being slow. Learn how to improve your techniques in a timely manner. Because on the real exam, you are not going to have 20 minutes to finally understand a passage and do questions.
B/B: Do a lot of content review. You cannot skip out on B/B. There is no cheese. Learn everything the best you can. For biochemistry, all you gotta know is the 20 amino acids and its characteristics, enzyme kinematics/inhibition, all metabolic pathways forward and in reverse, all experimental techniques, and protein/lipid types. What about biology? Don't know where to start? Well, let me shamelessly plug in my 19 PAGE MCAT BIOLOGY SUMMARY (doesn't include DNA replication, transcription, or translation so pls review that on your own lol): https://www.reddit.com/Mcat/comments/13th8ax/mcat_biology_notes_only_19_pages_short_version/
P/S: All you need is this 86 page doc and learn how to interpret studies and its results. Read it, memorize it, love it, and get you that 132. Here's the link for it: https://www.reddit.com/Mcat/comments/64um9s/ka_ps_the_lazy_ocd_86_pg_version/
​
Well that's all to it! Good luck guys! Here's some miscellaneous stuff from me:
Section Bank Percentages: C/P (62%) B/B (68%) P/S (62%)
AAMC FL1 (05/14/23): 501 - 126/121/127/127
AAMC FL2 (05/21/23): 513 - 129/128/129/127
AAMC FL5 (05/29/23): 516 - 131/124/129/132
Test Date: June 3, 2023

And I found...
- I own ~150 more volumes since december. About 10 new series
- I removed one series.
- I bought quite a bit written by Shuzo Oshimi
- I bought quite a bit of Romance
- I bought quite a bit of Shojo/Josei
- I bought relatively little Shonen
- Only 1 in 4 books were to keep the running series updated
- Almost 2 of each 3 books are new series.
- The 1 in 11 remainder are oneshots
- What did I buy?
​
Complete series:
- Assassin Classroom the box 1-21
- Flowers of Evil complete edition 1-4
- My Dress up Darling 1-8
- My Boy 1-9
- Nana 1-21
- Perfect World 1-12
- Sweat and Soap 1-11
- Welcome back, Alice 1-4
- Shiori's Diary 1-3
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou 1-2
​
Singles/Oneshots:
- Avant Garde Yumeko
- Pink
- Shino can't say her name
- Helter Skelter
- Is love the answer
​
Volumes adding or finishing series
- Higehiro 6,7
- Komi can't communicate 21-24
- Rent a Girlfriend 13-18
- Sweet Poolside
- Children of the whales 20-21
- Imakoi 4-5
- Mint chocolate 6-7
- Orange: to you dear one
- Takane and Hana 5-18
- Blade of the Immortal Deluxe 7-8
- Blood on the tracks 12
- Blue Period 9-13
- Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction 12
- Gantz Omni 11-12
- Gigant 9-10
- My Wife has no Emotion 4
- The country without humans 3
- The way of the Househusband 9
- I think our son is gay 4
- I want to be a wall 2
- Citrus+ 4
- Doughnust under a crescent moon 5
- Even though we're adults 5
- Given 7
- I can't believe I slept with you 3
- I cannot Rach you 3,5,6
- I hear the Sunspot : Four Seasons
- Monologue woven for you 3
- Sasaki and Miyano 7,8
​
And what got removed?
- On or Off... 1
​
So that's my update. I could have posted a haul, This is roughly the same.

So I had recently joined a institute and the institute has a zoology teacher that was kind of nice. So I went to the institute and found out that it's her birthday, now i wanted to have a extra class so I talked to her and settled a time on the next day. Now being a good guy I thought I should give her a gift as a form of appreciation and also as a birthday gift, hence bought a fountain one( the fancy one not too expensive obviously) and gave it to her and this helped me build a very good relation with her l also got her personal number. Well as a conclusion she is very nice to me now ( also I am one of the toppers of the class so that also helped ) and you guys should also give your teachers some sort of appreciation gifts.

Years ago I went to a therapist and I remember her saying that my insecurity and feelings of low self-worth largely came from my father leaving the family when I was 21. (He moved out state, divorced my mother in a horrible way, and wanted nothing to do with my siblings or me, after years of him being mean and/or absent.) I ended up not going back to therapy because of financial constraints, so we never delved into it too much. Now I'm 40 and have feelings of INTENSE insecurity (more so than before) which is affecting my everyday life. I can't speak to a person (stranger, friend, neighbor, co-worker, boss) without feeling like they think I'm stupid/ugly/boring. I recently went out of town to a wedding and the entire weekend felt everyone at the welcome party / rehearsal dinner / wedding thought I was terrible in some way.)
My question: How does a father leaving the family relate to these feelings? I feel like if I understand that a bit more, I can make myself feel better for now. I'm not in a great place right now. (I fully intend to get back into therapy, but the past few days have been very difficult, hence coming here.)

Hey y'all,
I'm a volunteer at UT Austin for an international student organization called International Student Mentorship Program. if you're an international student and have questions about how to get around when you arrive to Austin, or how to find housing, or any visa-related questions, feel free to message me. We have an info session coming up if you're interested and can join. Even if you can't attend that time, you can fill out the form and let us know when a better time works for you. If you want more info our website is https://www.internationalmentorship.org/.

I've had an interesting idea about the effect that distant celestial bodies have on Tyraskäth, my fantasy world orbitting a pair of binary stars, and its people. Of course, I am not talking about the Suns themselves or its moons have, but the other planets in its system as well as distant stars. Basically, how astrology works.
Even I as an aspiring astrophysicist who has heard astrology jokes more often than I could count have to admit that the basic concept of astrology sounds quite neat, even if it's wishful thinking at best, and that early astronomical achievements likely wouldn't have been made if it weren't for stargazers trying to predict some noblemen's fortune by looking at the positions of planets and stars in the nightsky. Thus, I wanted the sky to have a more profound and tangible effect on my world.
In particular, I want to address stars, the type of celestial object that I am interested in the most. In particular, this idea concerns a special class of stars which the scholars of Tyraskäth, at least in Eastern Aviir, refer to as Ritual Stars or Ceremonial Stars.
​
Stellar Astrophysics Renaissance
The setting of my world is largely reminiscent of pre-modern times (vaguely similar to the Renaissance period), but a few scientific disciplines such as mathematics, physics and also astronomy are a bit ahead of their time. This is in part due to the binary Suns, which define the world's calenders and allow for more precise measurements of orbital parameters of both the Suns, Tyraskäth and the other planets in the system, and the denser stellar environment (while fantasy, the universe resembles ours at least on interstellar levels, beyond that is up for speculation, so the system could be in what we'd consider an open star cluster) where even stellar motions can be tracked over sufficiently long timescales (at least with telescopes, which also exist at this point).
For a long time, astronomers and natural philosophers considered stars highly enigmatic objects exceeding human comprehension. Unspeakably bright and, they were often considered to be of purely divine light, although them being physical objects as well has become a widely spread theory as it can easily be proven that they have a great mass by studying the motion of the Suns. Therefore, it was not far fetched for scholars to ponder their nature. The stars in the night sky were sometimes believed to be different from the Suns, but telescopes allowed the resolution of a third, more distant Sun from a bright red star into a small bronzen disk. A Sun, yet far more distant, and thus other stars might be just like this. Though why do they shine, and why do they have different colours?
Ularios was a great mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and artisan living in the great metropolis of Kareiah (a sort of Konstantinople counterpart), and was a scientific assistent for the Imperial Court Astrologist and Astronomer of the Sainic Emperor Zhavatios I. One day, he visited the great smithy of the Imperial Palace to place an order for a stable mounting for instruments to measure the motion of the planets as accurately as possible. There, he observed the blacksmiths forging the swords for the Emperor's personal guardsmen, the Tralkya Guard. As the dark steel was heated by flames of the forge, it soon began to glow in a dim red, which then turned into a sultry orange, a saturated yellow and finally a glistening white. Not only did it change colour, but became more luminous the hotter it became: while the initial red glow could barely immuninate its immediate surroundings in a dark room, the bright white of the nearly molten metal would be painful to look at even from afar. This immediately reminded him of the two Suns. The Golden Sun is brighter than the Copper Sun. Naturally, he thought, as the Golden Sun is larger. A campfire is brighter than a torch, which is brighter than a candle, and thus a large star shines brighter than a small one. However, the correlation between the area of the Suns' apparent disks in the sky and their brightnesses was not a linear one. Instead, the Copper Sun was dimmer than it should be based on its size alone, which means it must be intrinsically dimmer. Perhaps, he thought, much like how incandescent and nearly molten iron is much brighter and hotter than dimmly glowing red iron, the Golden Sun was hotter. And thus, he put together his early theories of stellar astrophysics.
Pondering the (cosmic) orbs...
For years he looked at stars, bright and dim, near and far, of all colours in all parts of the sky, mapping them and naming many, trying to describe their nature compared to the two Suns he would see each and every day. He measured and compared them, trying to derive relations and mathematical equations to describe them more precisely. Red stars would be dim and small (he did not yet know what red giants are), white stars bright and large, and the two Suns somewhere in between with their white-gold and bronzen shine, respectively. He theorized that stars are, essentially, made of molten metals, specifically of Godsmetals (these are basically very rare, or very hard to impossible to obtain metals and natural alloys of those, including Black Boreal Steel) heated up beyond their melting point and thus glowing accordingly. What was below those oceans of liquid metal he did not know, but he believed those inner shells to be home to incomprehensible, equally wondrous and terrifying processes of thaumaturgy, alchemy and the pure energy of creation and destruction (if you think about it, he's not so wrong about that part...). "Stars are the sparks forming then the hammer of the Gods is struck upon the anvil as worlds are being forged", he wrote in his book called On the Nature of the Heavens, which did cause a fair bit of controversy among his peers as well as political and religious figures of his time (it should be noted though that among his first supporters was, in fact, a religious order). The metal the Golden Sun would thus be forged from is not gold, but another metal that melts at a similar temperature as iron or beyond, whereas the Copper Sun could indeed be made from copper, but ironically also from gold, but likely from no metal that is known to men. Interestingly, metals melting at higher temperatures would form larger stars, a phenomenon he did not completely understand and attributed to either thaumaturgical or not yet understood properties of these metals.
What about the blue stars?
When iron melts, it glows at with a whitish light that only becomes more luminous. Therefore, pure white stars such as Cyndra (as opposed to white-gold ones) are thought to be the hottest stars, made from metal withstanding much greater heat than iron. However, there are a few stars, even bright stars, in the sky that did not fit in the spectrum of glowing metal: Ramail, Zarul, Areph and the majestic Tura, all of which have a strong, blue hue to their splendour. Ularios could not explain why the stars would look this way. Blue was associated with the cold and winter, so do these stars burn with cold flame? Or perhaps their flame is even hotter, or just fundamentally different?
For centuries or even longer, blue stars have been associated with magick and the supernatural. Thaumaturgical rituals and religious ceremonies of different cultures often take place when asterisms of bright blue stars are high up in the sky or when a planet occults a blue star. Whenever this happens it is believed that the effect of the ritual is amplified as the Veil, or Curtain, that separates the physical from the spectral planes is particularly thin during such events, and powers from beyond can be called upon and manifested with greater ease by the rare Thaumaturgists and Mantists of many cultures (keep in mind though that open practice of thaumaturgy is still incredibly rare, and most people never witness it).
Later Thaumaturgists such as Valkaz from Starikaz (Sainic: Valokos), who often have rich knowledge on the sky above, deduced through their meditation in Dreamstriding that blue stars must be much brighter than even white stars, and that they are the result of the immense magickal energy within their cores dissipating and vaporizing the surrounding metal, exposing their heart of pure Thaumic energy as pure fragments from cosmogony. Here, the three metaphysical planes would converge.
Belief Shapes Reality
So, long story short, astronomers think that blue stars are weird because iron can't glow blue from heating it up, concluding they must be magickal, which Thaumaturgists (wizards but cooler) and religious entities adopt as well and have for a long time, thus affecting the local metaphysical barrier and literally making it true to a degree.
The stars are not made of literal liquid metal btw. That would be very cool, but it's too "fantastical" for what I have in mind for my universe. At least up to an interstellar scale, this universe is similar to ours. But there is nonetheless no shortage of weird, fantastical and eldritch things.
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Very long text I know, so I THANK YOU if you've read through it and haven't left. Highly appreciate it and would love to hear what you think!

So my ex and I got back together(I know is a mistake right?) the reason we first broke up is cuz I found out that he was sexting other people, he had said before that he wasn’t attracted to me sexually but we did get along very well in everything else. We would actually have relations sometimes not very often. He moved out. After two years we started taking again and decided to get back together. Recently after 4 months I got sneaky and found out that he sends messages like he did before. He doesn’t know I know yet. What should I do?