So, about a year ago I was attacked by a particularly focused, malicious, and protracted malware attack. That still goes on till this day.
With the help of companies like yourselves patching known issues quickly, and otherwise giving a shit i’ve slowly been able to chip away at this thing and over the past week that seems to have gone parabolic.
Whatever it is i know it’s a boot kit. I have the heuristic detections to show it. But, it’s a boot kit that is OS agnostic. Meaning it’s a honeybadger in terms of what operating system it infects. I’ve seen samples run on Windows, Linux, macOS, AND Android all in the same analysis.
Just this past Friday i was pushed a BIOs update from Dell’s fwupd via gnome on Linux, as i have not been able to use Windows since this all started. Seriously. And, given this adversary’s acute understanding of the industry ecosystem, systems, and devices in general i had stopped taking OEM updates all together. From yourselves, the main reason why i’m writing this, as they were abusing the GCC executable to preload malicious Intel drivers onto the machine before i could even log in (analysis: here). But, i did this time, and to an extremely productive extent end. Whatever the industry is getting around to patching in the firmware space, it’s working. As the entire linux distribution (arch) lit up with all types of errors and things i hadn’t seen before in terms of dmeg’s, files, directories.
And it happened again this morning another Dell laptop i had, even without the bios update broke something, (most likely in their dynamic linking) and bam, entire volumes of things i hadn’t seen before float to the surface and i pulled a malicious kernel, initrd , and a 6g disc image in an apt named .guestfs dir in my /vatmp that seemingly was home to one or 4 qemu machines. But enough of the fluff.
And about two hours ago i went to go boot into my instance and something broke. Suddenly i’m able to read files i previously hadn’t and otherwise had the same experience of the laptops. On a wim i decided to check my UEFI via shellx64.efi as my UEFI is legitimately like the Bermuda Triangle for bootloaders, and sometimes yields either valuable intel or even malicious files. After poking around check dmem and bam, about 6-7 new classification and table addresses. One of which was apt named “image execution table” which led me to this:
Per usual the videos are out of order after upload - am uploading from my phone and will reformat from PC here in a bit.
Which seems to be either an ISO, a copy of the Gigabyte BIOs, or even written to flash itself, complete with a bad guy Q flash utility, all of the locales, and even their own personal demo and eval versions of not only AMI Aptio, but also Management Engine and AMT (Intel’s Serial Over Lan utility).. Oh yea. Oh, and not to mention that 5 or 6 PCI Root devices they installed into all of my machines, in which i haven’t been able to locate till today
The videos are long, about 25 minutes all together but chopped down to 5 min a piece, and if you don’t know what you’re looking at or for, completely uneventful. But, using the AMI native UEFI hexeditor i punched up hexedit -m 35fa4000 90000 and it immediately took me either to a Microsoft UEFI boot utility or cert for such and the first elusive PCI Root address. And that quickly yields the 4 or 5 more; enumerations for all my disks, a grub bootloader, possibly the a Gigabyte UEFI instance itself and buckets more.
Now, knowing reddit there’s going be the obligatory heckler and naysayer. But outside of all the broken cryptography and C++ there should be no reason all of that data should be bundled together like that, at that address. There’s hex for the PCI slots next to .efi executables next to The SMBIOS table is at 340xxxxx and bootcode is at 24xxxxx. It does blend with some runtime data, which has been known bad, persistent, and a huge pain in my ass since i bought the board in January. It also pipes right into a massive “reserved” section that’s been written to that spans from like 55xxxxxx to cxxxxxxxx.
I’m only putting you guys up blast like this to give underhanded praise and also show that Gigabyte’s incompetence had and has real life consequences.
And this type of attack was not unique to your machines either. The same attacker also leveraged the same style attack on Dell, ASUS, and EVGA products as well. Primarily through signed malicious Intel drivers. (Most likely being MITM’d or written to locally).
This ordeal has cost me well over a year at this point and i’m cautiously optimistic but the party’s just getting started in the red vs blue cybersecurity space. So bring a helmet and do better.
Disclaimer: i’m just a normal dude who found himself in an extraordinary situation. I’m a sales guy, I am not an expert. Just someone who out of almost a literal life and death situation had to sink or swim but that’s a story for a different time. You most likely do not have a rootkit, and use secure boot. ;)
Edit: Unironically having device issues. Posting and then adding links.

The skill ceiling in AOE2 is ridiculous compared to chess
My Dad taught me AOE2 when I was younger, and I'd play once every few months or so. I was decent at the game. I feel like most people know the basics of the game, and for people who played as much as I did, I tended to win. I was comfortably better than most people. I rarely 'stomped' people, but I won more than I lost. When I joined voobly in graduate school, my rating was about 600 on random map. Think about that. "better than most people" equates to 600 on random map. I have been consistently playing for a bit over a year now, and I just broke 1400 on Definitive Edition yesterday. I am a good player. I'm not a great player, but I am a good player. According to the percentile I am better than 97% of the players on AOE2 DE. This isn't being better than 97% of all people, this is being better than the 97% of people who were serious enough about the game to play ranked online (granted, that's not a high bar, but it's still a bar). I'm good. I stomp people now. If I played my 600 rated self I would decimated them (me?). I have a 700 team-elo legend friend who I'll play without advancing to the imperial age, and I'll still beat her more often than not. (yes you read that right - I have a friend who is a girl!)
I am not *HALF* as good as the top players. There are people in this world who are consistently breaking 2700. That is ludicrous. I am more likely to lose to a 200 low-elo legend in a fair game than I am to beat TheViper if you let me start in the Feudal Age. People like to make fun of Mr Yo and MBL for not winning big tournaments, but they are competitive at the highest possible levels. Hera's peak rating is 2844, and TheViper’s peak is 2813. And those are Definitive Edition ratings, which is way more competitive, not HD so it's not even a fair comparison. Daut memes around online and is still so good at this game that he literally does "starting the game with four minutes of idle time runs" to the **pro** level *for content.* In-freaking-sane. It blows my mind how good people are at this game. If I plug myself into an Elo odds calculator vs Hera The computer gives me 0.999999665 odds that Hera wins, and 0.000000602 odds of him disconnecting. If you put that into a calculator and add them together it comes out to a rounding error. Count the 9's on that bad boy, there are 6 of them. That is literally less than 1 in a million chance. /anarchychess is twice as likely to end up making an original joke. Here's a fun website showing other things that have a 1 in a million chance of happening https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/\~aldous/Real-World/million.html. I can name 7 famous people, go to wikipedia, hit "random article" and have a greater chance of immediately landing on one of those people than I do at having a chance of beating Hera.
A 600 elo difference equates to about 1 in 100 odds, which we will call "stomping territory." So if we start with my original 600 rating which is *already better than most casual players.* Then a 1200 stomps a 600, an 1800 stomps a 1200, T90Official stomps an 1800, and T90Official gets beaten by Hera93% of the time. Hera playing my 600 rated self is like my boss's boss's boss's boss coming in and telling me I'm doing a bad job. The CEO of Walmart circumventing the regional, district and general mangers to fire the greeter at the local store.
Blows my mind. Chess is so easy in comparison. If I had a solid month to study, I could beat Magnus Carlson.

Hi y'all. I just hit 10 days today and I thought it best to make my journey "official" by posting on this subreddit. Moreover, it is a requirement in my recovery plan. For the record, my first glance at porn was at age 8/9. I did not become addicted to it until the age 15. At first, I thought it helped me learn about sex and intimacy, today,11 years later, I'm sitting here writing this post having not achieved anything I had hoped for, just got kicked out of college last fall due to bad grades, financially unstable, no job and no healthy habits. Lately, I have had to deal with the consequences of being a liar to hide my addiction. The compounded effects of my porn addiction has left me with nothing but uncertainty. My family and a few close friends are all I have. I have suffered a wide variety of side effects from porn; anxiety, shame, guilt, regret, loss of relationships, loss of trust, PIED and porn novelty. Porn novelty has gotten me into dark porn places that had me feel shameful about what I watched. I'm a straight guy but I found myself watching gay and trans porn just to get off(no offense to gay and trans guys). I have been trying to quit since 2020. I haven't achieved success as I had wished but I have gained a better understanding of my addiction. I have also come up with a plan to ensure I maintain steady focus on what's needed to complete my recovery process. From today, I will post here once every two days to give updates on my progress and as a way to keep myself accountable.
I wish everyone on this journey success!
Thanks y'all!

Quick check on pacing for Hansons' Advanced Plan for a first marathon – I've done the calculators and estimates, but just getting a spot of verification (if possible) early in the program now that I've done a couple runs at each of the paces:
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• Easy runs: 5:20-5:30/km @ HR <130
• Long runs: 4:50/km @ HR ~150
• MP "Tempo": 4:30-35/km @ HR ~160

... in the context of Max HR ~178, LTHR 168-170, just gauging how much stress each of these types of runs is supposed to be causing.
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First marathon, so first time using any of these paces or training concepts. Has taken me several years to convert from a plodding ex-rower into a halfway mechanically efficient runner, did a PR 19:30 5k, a PR 41:40 10k, and a trail half this summefall and finished up and was like "wow ... am I actually not running injured/in pain?" Turning 45 this August, which has the added benefit of BQ time dropping to 3:20, and I thought – well, no better time to give this a shot and tick off a milestone before I become fully decrepit, eh?
I chose the Hansons' plan because my work/family schedule gives me consistent time to run longish during the week, whereas the weekends are comparatively tight. I was already doing ~70km a week, so turning it up to 80-100+km a week should be attainable. I've got the Pfitz book from a friend, just for education re: the purpose of metabolic/muscular adaptation in these different runs, nutrition, and etc., and my wife is a multiple BQ'er who is probably going to end up completing the world marathon majors thing over the next 5-6 years.
I'm on week 4 of Hanson's having transitioned into it from doing some fun XC races with my wife's team these past few weeks, so a long way to go – helped by having a 4 week vacation to the PNW in July – with a trail 25k at Mt. Hood – and if I'm still healthy after that, I'll sign up for the Sydney Marathon which might be fun, with its new course and candidate major status.

Hi guys,
I’ve done a lot of acid in my day.. probably 50-100 tabs or so over the course of my life? But I always did 1-2 tabs max. Just had really strong gels.
Anyways so right now I’m addicted to kratom and I’ve been trying to get off of it which is proving harder than I anticipated. I wanted to trip on the 4th of July and was hoping to quit by then, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to.
What are your guys thoughts on tripping with it? I just don’t wanna get fixated on it or maybe go into wds mid trip and not know what’s going on and just have a bad trip. I’m probably just gonna do a tab or two, but I smoke a lot so I tend to trip pretty hard off of that.

I’m not going to share my age or real name but in the story just call me Leslie. To start off my dad was abusive to me and my mom and I didn’t get it as bad as my mom though I remember once when I was little my dad threw his hydro flask at her and told her to shut up and stop crying. When my dad is in these moods you have to make sure to not piss him off. Even the smallest mistake like not putting your shoes in the correct place is going to cost you. This has happened to me before, I didn’t k ow that my mom and dad got into a fight so when I came back from school I took off my shoes and put them in the wrong place. Immediately my dad started screaming at yelling at me telling me why I’m so messy and disorganized and when I tried to go upstairs he told me not move or else I would never go outside again. I didn’t listen to him so I took of running up the stairs and locked myself in my bathroom. I started crying because I didn’t k ow what to do I could hear my dads angry foot steps coming, I honestly thought he was going to bust down the door but all he really did was rattle the handle and yell obscenities at me. But the most recent one that happened was when I was getting off of his car to go to the train station I told him if he had any plans for my birthday then he said “we probably won’t celebrate it because your not important” of course this made me mad so when I got off the car I slammed the car door, 2 seconds later he got off of the car and yelled obscenities and told me that he wants another daughter. Even though I should just be used to him saying these things. I broke down inside the train station and missed my train. I don’t think my dad will ever change, and today he asked me why I neglected him so much. I really had to think carefully about what I say because if a said something by wrong he would try to hit me. So I ended up ignoring the question. So my dad didn’t bring it up again. To show how much his attitude effects my everyday life. The other day when I was in my room with my friend having fun my dad suddenly walked in and my whole body was stiff and I was scared. I have no other word to describe how I felt but just scared. My friend must have noticed I was uncomfortable because she told my dad that we were fine and he could leave. She looked concerned but decided not to press the topic so we got into another conversation. I’m really glad I could write this down somewhere and I would like to hear your thoughts about my situation.

My girlfriend and I broke up on our one year, on the 29th. This same day my grandpa had passed away and I was also dealing with not being able to compete in my lifelong sport anymore from a week prior. She broke up with me because I wasn’t working around this time due to playoffs for my sport (needing to travel) causing me to take a leave of absence in order to not get fired. We had an idea of where we wanted to go for dinner but she was upset to hear that I didn’t have enough money to pay for the whole dinner as I had to pay for insurance and gas that same day; and that I did not make the reservation a week prior. I am a broke college student who was trying to play out his last season of baseball ever, after 18 years of hard dedication. She didn’t believe in me and kept telling me to quit even though I had several college scouts in interest. That’s besides the point though, she didn’t like that I wasn’t productive enough with work and with school as I didn’t do well during my first two semesters in 2020-21, causing me to obtain my associates later than her. She felt embarrassed by me. I haven’t really been upset until recently, as I have not been able to stop crying the past couple days. She still shared her location with me so every other night I made sure she was home safe after work even though we hadn’t been talking. Last night she was at a middle school parking lot at 2am and my buddy who just so happens to live down the street from it was on his way home and I asked him to check out what she was doing there. As soon as he got there she hopped out of the backseat of a car of her coworker. Needless to say I feel betrayed, hurt, angry and more sad than I have ever been; even more than when my mom passed away. I texted her furiously out of per emotions and she denied having sex with anyone and that there were two coworkers in there including a girl. She understandably was extremely upset/uncomfortable that I had done this and I feel extremely guilty and ashamed of myself for stooping that low. She had told me that we could still talk and that she just didn’t have time for anyone else right now. I feel like an idiot and don’t know how to mend my feelings in order to recover from this. She was my first true love and I always tried to find ways to make her show me love back but she never did. I don’t know why I’m so attached to someone who didn’t love me. Any advice for recovering would be appreciated.

The Hoax Story of Remarkable Testimony of a Buddhist monk in Myanmar (Burma) who came back to life a changed man!
Introduction The story that follows is simply a translation of a taped testimony from a man with a life-changing story. It is not an interview or a biography, but simply the words from the man himself. Different people react in different ways when they hear this story. Some are inspired, some skeptical, a few will mock and ridicule, while some others have even been filled with rage and anger, convinced these words are the ravings of a mad man or an elaborate deception. Some Christians have opposed the story simply because the radical and miraculous events described herein do not fit their feeble image of an Almighty God.
We were first made aware of this story from several Burmese church leaders who shared it with us. These leaders had looked into the story and had not found any suggestion of it being a hoax. It was with this in mind that we decided to step out and circulate the story. We do not do so for any monetary gain, or with a motivation of self-promotion. We just want to let the story speak for itself, and invite Christian believers to judge it according to Scripture. If God wants any part of it to be intended for His glory or to encourage His people, then we pray His Spirit will work in the hearts of the readers in those ways.
Some people have told us they think the monk in this story never actually died, but that he just lapsed into unconsciousness, and the things he saw and heard were part of a fever-driven hallucination. Whatever you think, the simple fact remains that the events of this story so radically transformed this man that his life took on a complete 180-degree shift after the events described below. He has fearlessly and boldly told his story at great personal cost, including imprisonment. He has been scorned by his relatives, friends and colleagues, and faced death threats for his unwillingness to compromise his message. What motivated this man to be willing to risk everything? Whether we believe him or not, his story is surely worth listening to and considering. In the cynical West many people demand hard evidence of such things, evidence that would stand up in a court of law. Can we absolutely guarantee, beyond doubt, that all of these things happened? No, we cannot. But we feel it is worth repeating this man's story in his own words so that readers can judge for themselves.
My Early Years Hello! My name is Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu. I am from the country of Myanmar. I would like to share with you my testimony of what happened to me, but first I would like to give some brief background information from my life growing up.
I was born in 1958 in the town of Bogale, on the Irrawaddy Delta area of southern Myanmar [formerly Burma]. My parents, who were devout Buddhists like most people in Myanmar, named me Thitpin [which means 'tree' in English]. Our lives were very simple where I grew up. At the age of 13 I left school and started working on a fishing boat. We caught fish and sometimes also shrimp from the numerous rivers and streams in the Irrawaddy area. At the age of 16 I became the leader of the boat. At this time I lived in Upper Mainmahlagyon Island [Mainmahlagyon means 'Beautiful Woman Island' in English], just north of Bogale where I was born. This place is about 100 miles southwest of Yangon [Rangoon], our nation's capitol city.
One day, when I was 17, we caught a large number of fish in our nets. Because of the many fish, a large crocodile was attracted to us. It followed our boat and tried to attack us. We were terrified so we frantically rowed our boats toward the riverbank as fast as we could. The crocodile followed us and smashed our boat with its tail. Although no one died in this incident, the attack greatly affected my life. I no longer wanted to fish. Our small boat sank because of the crocodile attack. We had to go home to our village that night on a passenger boat.
Not long after, his employers transferred my father to Yangon City [formerly spelt Rangoon]. At the age of 18 I was sent to a Buddhist monastery to be a novice monk. Most parents in Myanmar try to send their son into a Buddhist monastery, at least for a time, as it is considered a great honor to have a son serve in this way. We have been observing this custom for many hundreds of years.
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A Zealous Disciple of Buddha When I turned 19 years and 3 months old (in 1977), I became a normal monk. The senior monk at my monastery gave me a new Buddhist name, which is the custom in our country. I was now called U Nata Pannita Ashinthuriya. When we become a monk we no longer use the name given to us at birth by our parents. The name of the monastery I lived at is called Mandalay Kyaikasan Kyaing. The senior monk's name was called U Zadila Kyar Ni Kan Sayadaw [U Zadila is his title]. He was the most famous Buddhist monk in all of Myanmar at the time. Everyone knew who he was. He was widely honored by the people and respected as a great teacher. I say he "was" because in 1983 he suddenly died when he was involved in a fatal car accident. His death shocked everyone. At the time I had been a monk for six years.
I tried hard to be the best monk I could and to follow all the precepts of Buddhism. At one stage I moved to a cemetery where I lived and meditated continually. Some monks who really want to know the truths of Buddha do things like I did. Some move deep into the forests where they live a life of self-denial and poverty. I sought to deny my selfish thoughts and desires, to escape from sickness and suffering and to break free from the cycle of this world. At the cemetery I was not afraid of ghosts. I tried to attain such inner peace and self-realization that even when a mosquito landed on my arm I would let it bite me instead of brushing it off!
For years I strived to be the best monk I could and not to harm any living being. I studied the holy Buddhist teachings just like all my forefathers had done before me.
My life proceeded as a monk until I got very, very sick. I was in Mandalay at the time and had to be taken to the hospital for treatment. The doctors did some tests on me and told me I had both Yellow Fever and malaria at the same time! After about one month in the hospital I was getting worse. The doctors told me there was no chance for me to recover and discharged me to make arrangements to die.
This is a brief description of my past. I would now like to tell you some of the remarkable things that happened to me after this times...
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A Vision that Changed My Life Forever After I was discharged from the hospital I went back to the monastery where other monks cared for me. I grew weaker and weaker and was lapsing into unconsciousness. I learned later that I actually died for three days. My body decayed and stunk of death, and my heart stopped beating. My body was prepared for cremation and was put through traditional Buddhist purification rites.
Although I faded away in my body I remember my mind and spirit were fully alert. I was in a very, very powerful storm. A tremendous wind flattened the whole landscape until there were no trees or anything else standing, just a flat plain. I walked very fast along this plain for some time. There were no other people anywhere, I was all alone. After some time I crossed a river. On the other side of the river I saw a terrible, terrible lake of fire. In Buddhism we do not have a concept of a place like this. At first I was confused and didn't know it was hell until I saw Yama, the king of hell [Yama is the name ascribed to the King of Hell in numerous cultures throughout Asia]. His face looked like the face of a lion, his body was like a lion, but his legs were like a naga [serpent spirit]. He had a number of horns on his head. His face was very fierce, and I was extremely afraid. Trembling, I asked him his name. He replied, "I am the king of hell, the Destroyer."
The terrible, terrible lake of fire The king of hell told me to look into the lake of fire. I looked and I saw the saffron colored robes that Buddhist monks wear in Myanmar. I looked closer and saw the shaven head of a man. When I looked at the man's face I saw it was U Zadila Kyar Ni Kan Sayadaw [the famous monk who had died in a car accident in 1983]. I asked the king of hell why my former leader was confined to this lake of torment. I said, "Why is he in this lake of fire? He was a very good teacher. He even had a teaching tape called 'Are You a Man or a Dog?' which had helped thousands of people understand that their worth as humans is far greater than the animals." The king of hell replied, "Yes, he was a good teacher but he did not believe in Jesus Christ. That's why he is in hell."
I was told to look at another person who was in the fire. I saw a man with very long hair wrapped on the left hand side of his head. He was also wearing a robe. I asked the king of hell, "Who is this man?" He replied, "This is the one you worship: Gautama [Buddha]."
I was very disturbed to see Gautama in hell. I protested, "Gautama had good ethnics and good moral character, why is he suffering in this lake of fire?" The king of hell answered me, "It doesn't matter how good he was. He is in this place because he did not believe in the Eternal God."
I then saw another man who looked like he was wearing a soldier's uniform. He had a large wound on his chest. I asked, "Who is this man?" The king of hell said, "This is Aung San, the revolutionary leader of Myanmar." I was told, "Aung San is here because he persecuted and killed Christians, but mostly because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ." In Myanmar the people have a common saying, "Soldiers never die, they live on." I was told that the legions of hell have a saying "Soldiers never die, but they go to hell forever."
I looked and saw another man in the lake of fire. He was a very tall man and he was dressed in military armor. He was also holding a sword and a shield. This man had a wound on his forehead. This man was taller than any person I have ever seen. He was six times the length between a man's elbow and the tips of his fingers when he stretches his arm out straight, plus one span of a man's fingers when he spreads out his hand. The king of hell said, "This man's name is Goliath. He is in hell because he blasphemed the Eternal God and His servant David." I was confused because I didn't know who either Goliath or David were. The king of hell said, "Goliath is recorded in the Christian Bible. You don't know him now, but when you become a Christian you will know who he is."
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I was then taken to a place where I saw both rich and poor people preparing to eat their evening meals. I asked, "Who cooked the food for these people?" The king of hell replied, "The poor have to prepare their own food, but the rich people get others to cook for them." When the food had been prepared for the rich people they sat down to eat. As soon as they started a thick smoke came up. The rich people ate as fast as they could to ease their consciences. They were struggling to breath because of the smoke. They had to eat fast because they were fearful of losing their money. Their money is their god.
Another king of hell then came to me. I also saw a being whose job is to stoke the fires beneath the lake of fire, to keep it hot. This being asked me, "Are you going into the lake of fire too?" I replied, "No! I am only here to observe!" The appearance of this creature stoking the fire was very terrifying. He had ten horns on his head and a spear in his hand that had seven sharp blades coming from the end. The creature told me, "You are right. You came here just to observe. I cannot find your name here." He said, "You must now go back the way you came." He pointed me toward the desolate plain that I had first walked along before I came to the lake of fire.
The Road of Decision I walked a long time, until I was bleeding. I was hot and in great pain. Finally, after walking for about three hours I came to a wide road. I walked along this road for some time until I came to a fork. One road, going off to the left, was wide. A smaller road went off to the right hand side. There was a signpost at the fork saying that the road to the left was for those who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The smaller road to the right was for believers in Jesus.
I was interested to see where the larger road led so I started down it. There were two men walking about 300 yards ahead of me. I tried to catch up with them so I could walk with them but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't catch them up, so I turned around and went back to the fork in the road. I continued to watch these two men as they walked down the road away from me. When they reached the end of the road they were suddenly stabbed. These two men cried out in great pain! I also cried out when I saw what happened to them! I realized the bigger road ended in great danger for those who traveled down it.
Looking into Heaven I started walking down the believers' road instead. After traveling for about one hour the surface of the road turned to pure gold. It was so pure that when I looked down I could see my own reflection perfectly. I then saw a man standing in front of me. He was wearing a white robe. I also heard beautiful singing. Oh, it was so beautiful and pure! It was much better and more meaningful than the worship we have in churches here on the earth. The man in the white robe asked me to walk with him. I asked him, "What is your name?" but he did not answer. After I asked his name six times the man answered, "I am the one who holds the key to heaven. Heaven is a very, very beautiful place. You cannot go there now but if you follow Jesus Christ you can go there after your life has finished on the earth." The man's name was Peter.
Peter then asked me to sit down and he showed me a place to the north. Peter said, "Look to the north and see God create man." I saw the Eternal God from a distance. God spoke to an angel, "Let us make man." The angel pleaded with God and said, "Please don't make man. He will do wrong and will grieve you." [In Burmese literally: "He will make you lose face."]. But God created a man named anyway. God blew on the man and the man came to life. He gave him the name "Adam". [Note: Buddhists do not believe in the Creation of the world or of man, so this experience had a significant impact on the monk].
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Sent Back with a New Name Then Peter said, "Now get up and go back to where you came from. Speak to the people who worship Buddha and who worship idols. Tell them they must go to hell if they don't change. Those who build temples and idols will also have to go to hell. Those who give offerings to the monks to earn merit for themselves with go to hell. All those who pray to the monks and call them 'Pra' [respectful title for monks] will go to hell. Those who chant and 'give life' to idols will go to hell. All those who don't believe in Jesus Christ will go to hell." Peter told me to go back to the earth and testify about the things I had seen. He also said, "You must speak in your new name. From now on you are to be called Athet Pyan Shinthaw Paulu ["Paul who Came Back to Life."].
I didn't want to go back. I wanted to go to heaven. Angels opened a book. First they looked for my childhood name (Thitpin) in the book, but they could not find it. They then looked for the name I had been given when he entered the Buddhist monk hood (U Nata Pannita Ashinthuriya) but it wasn't written in the book either. Then Peter said, "Your name is not written here, you must return and testify about Jesus to the Buddhist people."
I walked back along the gold road. Again I heard beautiful singing, the kind of which I have never heard before or since. Peter walked with me until the time I returned to the earth. He showed me a ladder that reached down from the heaven to the sky. The ladder didn't reach to the earth, but stopped in mid-air. On the ladder I saw many angels, some going up to heaven and some going down the ladder. They were very busy. I asked Peter, "Who are they?" Peter answered, "They are messengers of God. They are reporting to heaven the names of all those who believe in Jesus Christ and the names of those who don't believe." Peter then told me it was time to go back.
It is a Ghost! The next thing I was aware of was the sound of weeping. I heard my own mother cry out, "My son, why did you leave us now?" I also heard many other people weeping. I realized I was lying in a box. I started to move. My mother and father started shouting, "He is alive! He is alive!" Other people who were farther away did not believe my parents. I then placed my hands on the sides of the box and sat upright. Many people were struck with terror. They cried out, "It is a ghost!" and ran away as fast as their legs could carry them.
Those who remained were speechless and trembling. I noticed I was sitting in smelly liquid and body fluids, enough to fill about three and a half cups. This was liquid that had come out of my stomach and my insides while my body was lying in the coffin. This is why people knew I had indeed been dead. Inside the coffin there was a type of plastic sheet fixed to the wood. This sheet is placed there to retain a corpse's liquids, because many dead bodies release much fluid like mine did.
I learned later that I was just moments away from being cremated in the flames. In Myanmar people are placed in a coffin, the lid is then nailed shut, and the whole coffin is burned. When I came back to life my mother and father were being allowed to look at my body for the very last time. Moments later the lid of my coffin would have been nailed shut and I would have been cremated!
I immediately started to explain the things I had seen and heard. People were astonished. I told them about the men I had seen in the lake of fire, and told them that only the Christians know the truth, that our forefathers and us have been deceived for thousands of years! I told them everything we believe is a lie. The people were astonished because they knew what kind of a monk I had been and how zealous I had been for the teachings of Buddha.
In Myanmar when a person dies their name and age is written on the side of the coffin. When a monk dies, the monk's name, age and the number of years he has served as a monk are written on the side of the coffin. I had already been recorded as dead but as you can see, now I am alive!
Epilogue Since 'Paul who came back to life' experienced the above story he has remained a faithful witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Burmese pastors have told us that he had led hundreds of other monks to faith in Christ. His testimony is obviously very uncompromising. Because of that, his message has offended many people who cannot accept there is only one Way to Heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. Despite great opposition, his experiences were so real to him that he has not wavered. After many years in the Buddhist monk hood, as a strict follower of Buddhist teachings, he immediately proclaimed the Gospel of Christ following his resurrection and exhorted other monks to forsake all false gods and follow Jesus Christ with all their hearts. Before the time of his sickness and death he had no exposure to Christianity at all. Everything he learned during those three days in the grave was new to his mind.
In a bid to get his message out to as many people as possible, this modern-day Lazarus began distributing audio and video cassette tapes with his story on them. The police and Buddhist authorities in Myanmar have done their utmost to gather these tapes up and destroy them. The testimony you have just read has been translated form one of those cassette tapes. We are told it is now quite dangerous for citizens of Myanmar to be in possession of these tapes.
His fearless testimony has landed him in prison at least once, where the authorities failed in their bid to silence him. Upon his release he continued to testify of the things he saw and heard. His current whereabouts are uncertain. One Burmese informant told us he is prison and may have been killed, while another informant was told he is now released from prison and is continuing his ministry.
Translated by: Asian Minorities Outreach P.O.Box 901 Palestine, TX 75802 U.S.A. E-Mail: monkst... u/yahoo.com Website: http://www.antioch.com.sg/mission/asianmo
________________________
Dear Triplegem Members, The following message was posted to the NDE.com Website by someone called 'James' on 23rd July, 2000. (NDE = Near Death Experience). The Monk's story is identical. But the source is different. Details can be viewed at
<>
The message began with: "Buddhist Monk visits Hell" I believe this person died, body decay & rotten. He was then brought to those places by the LORD to show him some vision. <-------
This is taken from a mission paper "Northside Missions Update" Northside Christian Centre 31-61 McLeans Road Bundoora Victoria 3083 Australia
The same 'Monk's Story' followed. Then, exchange of interesting messages took place at the NDE.com Bulletin Board among NDE regulars, some of them are Christians, and finally, someone called 'Melvin', 'a Myanmar Buddhist', posted the following message and the discussion came to a close.
The fact that the same story has re-surfaced in another form (cassette), perhaps in a another country is a bit disturbing!
Best wishes to all our Triplegem members, MM Lwin
...................................................................

If I were to be fully honest with myself, I knew we would be forever, or we’d end in disaster. I think a part of you may have felt that, too. So why could we never meet each other in the middle. Perhaps, we were subconsciously unwilling to do so. From the moment we met, we were living on opposite ends of the spectrum. You were finding yourself and wanted freedom; I had been finding myself within my freedom but was now ready for partnership. And, truth be told, I was lonely. I think it was excruciatingly hard to admit the level of my own loneliness as I equated it to weakness within myself. I love being alone. I thrive in an environment where I have freedom and room to breathe. I’m fiercely independent and I take pride in that. But I’m still just a person and I must recognize the toll it takes on my spirit and, on my soul, to be so secluded. Having chosen to stay single and celibate for 5 years to work on myself and my life and my goals, changed my brain chemistry. And I would do it over and over again if I had to. While I learned invaluable lessons on my own inner strength and perseverance, I severely neglected the raw, emotional, intimate, creative, feminine being that is so deeply, me. I was starting to lose myself. The blatant lack of figures in my life was steadily becoming more than I could bear. The unbearable weight of nothing at all creates a whole new ache. So, there it is. I was lonely. Lonelier than I can describe. And then you showed up.
I have to say, I’ve developed a very toxic, on again/ off again relationship with dating apps. I have a habit of creating a profile and deleting it within 24 hours. There’s something slightly addicting to the extreme high and low of it all. I’ll go from feeling wildly confident and hopeful with a few matches and dozens upon dozens of people who like my profile, to quick disillusionment with every uninspired response from potential prospects. Perhaps this is what it’s like to have a gambling addiction. Every time I create a new profile, I’m buzzing with excitement that maybe, just maybe, this time I’ll meet “the one”. And even though the outcome is always a letdown, the thrill of the “what if”, alone, is enough to keep me coming back for more. The dopamine of maybes. And so, on this Thanksgiving night, when good food and quality family time should have been enough, Bumble was calling my name.
I made a profile. I even paid for the month-long subscription. This was a way to force myself to actually give it a shot instead of bowing out in the first 48. Can’t just delete the profile when I’ve literally invested in it. But I can’t deny that it did come with benefits. One of the incentives to get you to pay for their premium subscription is that it allows you to see everyone who has liked your profile without having to match with them first. I mean who doesn’t want to see that? It’s this particular perk that made it possible for our paths (profiles) to cross, in the first place.
So, how is it that my willingness to throw away $50 on this night, somehow led us straight into each other’s lives? If I hadn’t seen that you liked my profile, I never would have swiped right on you. And it’s not for any reason you may be thinking. While I was scrolling through to see who was seemingly interested in little ole me, I saw your picture. I was instantly intrigued. You stood out. Handsome, stylish, a former fellow Paul Mitchell Future Professional. As surface level as a profile is, you seemed like a very interesting person; someone infinitely cooler than me and you certainly didn’t appear to have a hard time finding someone to take the spot next to you. If I hadn’t seen that you liked my profile, I would have just swiped left thinking there was no way someone like you would be interested in someone like me. Another missed connection, lost to the void of the internet because of my own insecurity. But not on this night. Because on this night, I threw caution and fifty bucks to the wind, and we matched, and I messaged you and you messaged back.
The small talk was easy with you. You were sweet and charming. Very quickly our small talk turned into essays upon essays of messages, and it only got better once I gave you, my number. From sunup to far past sundown, we were in constant communication, and I looked forward to every text. It seemed like you were truly interested in getting to know everything about me and I assure you, I was truly interested in getting to know all about you. You really were a breath of fresh air. It hadn’t been easy to find someone I could chat with like that, for quite some time. And it was thrilling. It was refreshing. It was new. I felt seen. I felt heard. For the first time in such an agonizingly long time, I saw possibility. I remember thinking to myself that even if this didn’t pan out in a romantic sense, I at least had found an amazing new friend. Someone new and beautiful to be a part of my life.
Even though we had been hitting it off right from the jump and even though I had been so taken with you, I had to do my due diligence. As a single woman and single mother with a lot to lose, anytime someone new comes into my life, it’s always a good idea to know who I’m speaking with. Personally, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to do a little digging when someone new enters their life. You can call it paranoia, but I just call it safety.
First, I did what anyone would do, and I searched social media. No Facebook and I couldn’t find an Instagram with your first and last name. Just your Snapchat as it was listed on your Bumble profile. So, then I tried google. It’s truly scary how much you can find on someone with very basic information. In a couple of searches, I found your middle name. I know this sounds like stalker territory, but the only reason I even wanted to know your full name was so I could search a particular state website. For anyone’s protection, I’d recommend it. So, I did. Honestly, I thought I was just wasting my time and being overly cautious, but in a couple of clicks, there it was. Your torrid past laid out in front of me. It scared me. Terrified me. I’ll even admit that I cried in frustration when I found it all. I cried because it just solidified what I had already been feeling; you were too good to be true. I sat with this information for a while and eventually decided, against any instinct inside of me, to still give it a chance. Give you a chance.
Finally, you asked me out. It wasn’t a typical date, but it was an easy way to meet you in person for the first time. To say I was nervous was a vast understatement, but I was also just as giddy. At this point, I’d damn near forgotten the fluttery rush of pending first impressions and I rode the high all day long. Instead of going out to dinner and a movie, you came over to my house for dinner and a root touch up. When I got the “I’m here” text, I’m pretty sure my soul left my body. I never asked you how you felt the day leading up to our meeting. Were you as nervous as I was? I like to think and hope that our energies were vibrating on the same frequencies, that day, but I may have been the only one so hopeful. When I saw you in person the first time, I thought you were just as handsome, if not more, standing in the light of my front porch. Admittedly, most of my nervousness stemmed from the thought that you might have been disappointed when you saw me in person. Perhaps, you were, but if that were the case, you hid your disenchantment, well.
I cooked spaghetti that night. You ate two bowls. You kept telling me how delicious it was and even though it took absolutely nothing for me to prepare the meal, I was charmed by how grateful you were. After we ate, I did your hair. I picked out a funny podcast to listen to in the background. I thought that if conversation died, we could listen in unawkward silence and hopefully you’d think it was as funny as I did. To my surprise, the conversation didn’t die at all. In fact, us talking over the podcast just became distracting, so I turned it off, altogether. Eventually, it was time to wash your hair. To make up for the fact that you had to be bent over in an extremely uncomfortable way, I attempted to give you a decent scalp massage while I shampooed. Because of the odd angle, it was a clumsy attempt, at best, but I still hoped you liked it. It’s funny to me that the whole time I couldn’t help but think how oddly intimate it was washing your hair in my kitchen sink. But I think I’m just weird. After that, we moved to the couch. You were sitting on one end, and I was sitting on the other. No music, no podcasts, no tv, just us. It seemed like we discussed anything and everything. If there was a lull in the conversation, you’d just stare at me with a soft smile and assured me that this silence was peaceful, and you were enjoying it. But, every time I met your gaze, I could feel myself blushing, so I grabbed my blanket and kept holding it up to my face. You said I was being cute. Even long after this first meeting, I’d always feel so exposed, so vulnerable, when I’d catch you looking at me like that. Despite my bashfulness, I was more comfortable with you than I’d been with another person in a very long time. I even had the courage to bring up my sleuthing and the things I had found. You took it very well and even thanked me for my honesty. You told me everything, sparing no details. You took ownership of the things you had done and placed blame where you felt was deserved. It was matter of fact with an edge of remorse. I commended your vulnerability and willingness to share. I left the conversation feeling very pleased with my decision to hear you out. And I was proud of your seemingly incredible amount of self-awareness.
Eventually, I had to cut our night off. I had to work the next day and it was nearly one in the morning. You didn’t try to kiss me. You gave me a hug before you left and assured me that you had a great night. I thought, for sure, you weren’t interested after meeting me in person, but I was just so happy that I’d have you as a friend, that any bruise on my ego wasn’t even felt. Afterwards, our texts continued as normal, and it would only be a few short days before you came over again.
The next time you came over, any doubt that I may have had about you being attracted to me or being interested, was put to rest. This time we watched movies. Or maybe just a show I had on. I can’t remember. My brain was too fixated on how closely you were sitting next to me. How close your hand was getting to mine. How our pinkies finally brushed against each other. How you gained the courage, for both of us, to grab my hand and I was so thankful you did. Eventually, the movie or show ended, and we started talking. The nervousness and building tension were palpable. I was screaming in my head “kiss me”. When you finally turned to face me, you just stared at me and smiled, still holding my hand, and then you asked if it’d be okay if you kissed me. I answered with a desperate “yes” that sounded far more pathetic than I like to admit. To my own surprise, I let my body take charge. Without even thinking, I dropped your hand and immediately grabbed for you. One hand on your chest and the other on the side of your face. Our first kiss was not soft and timid like you may have expected. In fact, I felt I may have surprised you. I certainly surprised myself. Our first kiss was fervent and laced with aching desire. At least, that’s how it was for me. And it didn’t take long for me to invite you to my bedroom.
Neither of us were prepared, so we didn’t have sex that night, which was okay. Once we were in the bedroom, I began to feel overwhelmed. But you were so patient and reassuring. When we did finally have sex for the first time, it was absolutely incredible. I never told you this, but it was possibly the most intense sexual experience I've had in my life, thus far, and it was very emotionally charged, for me. You were the first person I’d been with in five years. Up until then, I had wondered if I’d ever be capable of being intimate with someone, again. But I trusted you implicitly. Effortlessly. You made me feel so safe. Before every kiss, before every touch, you made sure to ask me if it was okay. If I wanted to stop at any moment, I knew I could speak up without fear of any form of retaliation or passive aggressive behavior. But I didn’t want to stop. I wanted you; all of you. I wanted us. And God, how beautiful you made me feel even though I was so intensely insecure about my body. You made sure I was comfortable. Comfortable with myself; comfortable with you. You took your time with everything you did. The sensation of it all was overwhelming in the best way possible. The sensation of you was almost more than I could stand. To be completely honest, it felt like losing my virginity, all over again. You were so patient and understanding. So caring and passionate. And from that moment on, you had me wrapped around your finger; just where you wanted me.

I didn't do any of the assignments for a class, even though I did study the material. Now I need 35/40 on the final exam to pass. I know I'll be eligible for a "conceded pass" if I get a D+ but it just seems too risky still. (If I get a 28/40, I think I'll get a D which isn't eligible?)
Tbh, unfortunately I had just too many issues in my life pile up throughout the semester, kind of struggled financially, and had to borrow money to pay off utilities. I was trying to put a lot of work into my capstone course too, which just demanded a lot more than my normal course (especially as most of the group just disappeared and did nothing). And of course just looking for graduate jobs too, which require a million interviews and tests for each job alone.
It felt like I had to sacrifice all of my assignments in that one class in order to actually stay on top of everything else in my life, and be a little more mentally sane. I really just want to graduate at the end of this semester, and don't want to have to go through an entire extra sem just doing 1 class, that'd be terrible. (This isn't a required class either)
I sent an e-mail to the course coordinator this morning about a lot of these struggles that I'm facing, and asked for a shift in grade weight from assignments to exams. Or possibly, an extension to complete all of them by the end of this week (as they are all auto-marked anyway). I'm just stressing though because the exam is on Wednesday so it's super close by. I want to know if I should contact the university too, and maybe get a note from the therapist?
I used to have really bad anxiety issues in the past which I had to take see a psychologist for, and take medication for in order to focus on anything. I don't really need that medication anymore, but because of all the issues that kind of piled up over the last couple of months (social, family, financial, capstone, career), I kind of started getting that same feeling again. In my e-mail I felt maybe I didn't convey just how serious this kind of is for me. And also, I recognize it's a holiday today, and so maybe they'll just reply tomorrow.
Tbh, just trying to get a feel of what my options are atm. Is it too late to get all of this sorted, even if it's after the exam has already happened? Can I still get some sort of exemption or grade weight shift after the exam? If the course coordinator maybe accidentally is too busy, or can't respond, can I get something sorted with the university directly?
Thanks for reading
TL;DR

• Was meant to graduate end of this sem
• Bad anxiety issues, and other things built up in life
• had to sacrifice all the assignments in 1 class to stay mentally sane, and financially stable
• Capstone course just required a lot more work than normal
• have to get a high final exam grade now in order just to get a C-
• Looking for options on what's possible, and what to do and say to the uni tomorrow.
• I really need to graduate, I have a graduate job lined up, and honestly, don't want to risk losing this opportunity

I have a paid Discord account, and I now have a little Super Reactions button that swapped places with my muscle-memory location for Reactions. I already did not care at all about (neither liked nor bothered by) this new feature, but it now actively impedes my use by getting in the way and showing me an error dialog about limited uses when I seriously don't even want to use it to begin with. And that's ignoring the fact that each time I do unintentionally use a Super Reaction, I immediately undo it and instead use the normal version of the same emoji response. Honestly, it just seems super pretentious.

I've been a Christian for about 10 years now. It hasn't been easy but I have learned so much over the years. I know a lot about God's Word though I don't claim to know everything. I'm always trying to learn more all the time. I am fascinated by theology and apologetics. I'm always listening to podcasts about this very subject. I go to church twice a week and participate in a young adults group a few times a month as well. Yet, after all these years of growing in the knowledge of God I feel no more righteous than when I first believed. I mean, I'm more patient than I used to be, slower to anger though even when I do get angry I very rarely let it out and just bottle it up and let it simmer down. I don't even remember the last time I yelled at someone. But for all this I still struggle with the same sins. The only difference is a feel a small amount of remorse whereas in the past I just didn't care. I just did whatever I wanted. Yet even with that small amount of remorse I'll sin again two days later. I feel so imperfect and incapable of ever living a Godly life. There's so many times I feel so encouraged in the faith and I just want to give it my all to serve God but in the same day temptation will show up and beat me to a pulp and shove me back in a cage before I can do anything meaningful in my faith. I just can't take it anymore. I feel so stuck. Like I'll never be capable of anything I want to do and I'll never be worthy of any of the things I ask for in prayer. But I see absolutely no way of being free from this bandage. I want to be but I don't know how.

I can still remember that landscape, tinted in gray smoke and the smell of death all around us, we hadn’t eaten in days and the enemy was relentless. We had nothing, all hope was quickly eradicated by the week, until the day they finally told us we could go home, we just needed to hold on for five more days. Everyone was ecstatic, we wouldn’t need to suffer in that horrible hole for much longer… That’s when I started seeing it. I was assigned to the night watch, I had done it before, and since I was already sleepless I thought it would be easy to stay focused, it wasn’t, not with that thing staring at me from afar. At first I thought it was the enemy so I informed the general, but he said he didn’t see anything, how could he not? It was right there, those eyes, wide open, bloodshot, staring right at me, I couldn’t make out the rest of the body, just the eyes. Every night I saw those eyes, and every night I tried to see what it was but to no avail, after the five days had passed, we finally got to go home. I was… I couldn’t know, I should've been happy about leaving that horrid and dark trench but… those eyes kept haunting me. When I went home… I felt this dreadful sensation… like this wasn't my home. Luckily my wife and dog took that feeling away from me. I hadn’t seen Sarah in months, I missed her kind smile, her beautiful eyes, and her warm face. Toby was also someone I missed, he was a golden retriever that I had since middle school. After a delightful meal that was much better than what they served us at camp, we went to bed, and I could finally rest peacefully. I woke up in the middle of the night, Toby started barking, it was around 3 am. He was in the backyard, barking at the blackness of the forest behind our home… and there they were, those eyes, I thought they were a hallucination, I heard most soldiers had them when coming back home so I just hurried back inside grabbing Toby by the collar and leading him to the bedroom. But I still needed some peace of mind, so the next day I told Sarah I was going to church to talk to the pastor. When I arrived there he greeted me and told me that he was happy to see me, after that I told him about my time at war, and how I had been seeing these eyes in the dark, he told me that this was pretty common, that I had seen the sins of mankind in first hand and now I couldn’t stop seeing them, he said that I should pray, ask God to cleanse my eyes of the horrors I saw. So I did just that, I prayed every night, but it was all the same, Toby barking at the dark in the night, the eyes perpetually still, as if the person who they belonged to was a standing corpse, if it even was a person. My dear Sarah saw how mortified I was about these visions, so the next time Toby barked she went out, after coming back to bed she told me that she didn’t she any eyes, but that she could feel something lurking, she suggested that the eyes might be racoons, but they couldn't be, I don't know what they were but they were definitely not a raccoons, or any other thing that I could explain. After a while I decided to just keep Toby inside at all times and make him sleep with us… That's when I saw them again, now closer than ever, and for the first time I saw the eyes move, I saw them tilt back and forth, I was petrified I couldn't understand it, how was it so close. Then I remembered about Toby, he was laying at the feet of our bed, how could he not bark now? I waited in the dark and the eyes slowly faded away into the darkness of the room. I couldn't sleep just as I standed from the bed there I saw it, Toby’s body, gutted from the inside out, a puddle of blood all around him, I screamed in disbelief at the sight of this atrocity which woke up Sarah who also screamed, after burning Toby and telling her about how I saw the eyes in our room Sarah also started fearing whatever was haunting me, I hanged up crucifix around the house hoping this demon would stop tormenting me, we even had the pastor purify our house but it was to no use, whatever it was, it didn’t care about it all, he came back to our room the next night, however this time it spoke… with a deep in breath voice he muttered “I’m not.. A demon… you can’t get rid of me… I’m something beyond your comprehension” I had a flashlight at hand and I quickly pointed it at him… and he was right I couldn't comprehend him, his body moved in way I can't describe, his face was out of my understanding, and in his eyes I saw horrors no one has ever seen. Sarah screamed in pain, as I turned to her she had a hole in her chest, my hands tinted blood, the creature suddenly disappeared, after that night I turned myself into the police. Maybe this monster didn’t exist, maybe I did all those atrocities. But in the jail… there I saw it again, those eyes… After that I couldn't take it anymore. The things I had seen in his eyes that night were something no man was supposed to see, something that was beyond anything ever conceived, so I took my own life to end the misery.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this, but I cant think of anywhere else, and witchcraft keeps removing my posts.
So last year spring break March of 2022, my dumbass told this guy at work that i had a crush on him, despite glaring warning signs that showed he did not like me at all. Of course I was heartbroken when I was rejected, but for some reason I didnt really care that much at first. But as the weeks progressed, I began to feel more and more bitter and jealous and depressed because I had never had a bf before, and it felt like literally every guy in my life was horrible to me, and I thought I'd never find love due to being ugly and black. I was also mistreated tremendously at my job, not only by my old crush, but also my bosses, and I felt stupid and worthless.
So around May/June last year is when the depression began to hit hard, and I started to become the very self-conscious and anxious person I am now. But one day as I was moping around in my bed, I encountered this tik tok with a really nice song on it. Idk why, but I couldn't stop listening to it, and to this day, it is still my favorite song. Anyway, for some reason this song reminded me of Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan (it sounds stupid af, I know), which is weird because prior to that moment, I never even thought of Eren and the show was getting boring to me, so I stopped paying much attention to it. I didn't even think I'd finish the series since I found it so boring. I also at this time had a major existential crisis, and kept wondering why I was here on earth, why are we alive, what was there before us, what is the universe, etc. And I also was afraid to be in my apartment alone during this time due to said thoughts, and would either stay up all night or call people on the phone to talk to me. I never was scared to be alone before this.
Soon I quit my job, and these weird thoughts and feelings began to fade away as I began graduate school, and I completely forgot about this whole ordeal. But as the year progressed, I became more and more depressed and hateful/disgusted with myself since my old crush seemed so grossed out/mad me, and I felt embarrassed. I also had a tough time adjusting to grad school, so that didn't help.
Fast forward to this year spring break, an exact year from when I had dumbly confessed to my crush, my brother tried to get me to watch the newest Attack on titan episode, and I begrudgingly watched it. Then I read the last chapter of it and for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about the show and Eren especially. Even though before that moment, I didnt two flipping fish about the show anymore. And a few weeks past, and I still couldn't get him out of my mind. I realized that his story is similar to mine, where he is hated and looked down upon for who he is, similar to how I feel as an ugly black woman.
So then, I did my very first spell to get someone who looks like Eren and cares about me/loves me in my life. My depression has slowly been diminishing after this (although anxiety has skyrocketed, but I'm just going to ignore that for now), and it's only been a few weeks since I did my spell, and I am happily awaiting it to come true.
I sometimes wonder if my soulmate felt the sadness I was going through, and planted a seed so that I can find him. Maybe that's why every guy I've viewed in a romantic sense treated me in the worst case scenario, as if to force me stop viewing them in that manner, since they weren't my soulmate. I also wonder if that existential crisis I had was to force me to open my eyes and think about all of the possibilities in the world. To get me to be more open minded about things like magick and things our human mind cannot perceive, so that I'd be successful in creating that spell I did recently.
I have a ton of other weird coincidences, but to cut this short, I also happen to have been born the day after Mikasa's birthday is, which is Eren's main love interest in the story. I also want to mention that now my favorite band is Chase Atlantic, which is the band that wrote that original song that got me thinking about Eren in the first place. And I genuinely really like their music which is weird because I feel like I wouldnt typically go for this type of music. If you look up music by chase Atlantic on YouTube, a lot of them coincidentally have pictures of Eren on the thumbnail or the background for the video. I wonder if my soulmate is calling out to me, which slowly planted this seed in my head so I'd be as ready as possible when I meet him.
Do I just sound crazy? Is it too farfetched?

hi so i’ve had like 3 jobs within this year so far but things keep on happening where i can’t keep them, i lost my job at panera because i had to call off and i didn’t give enough time (i know this is mostly my fault), i quit at mcdonald’s because a 30 yr old man said he’d get me a job at panda which pays more if i gave him my number so i did then he told me he has a crush on me and i’m so beautiful and when i said i’m 16 he said he’ll wait for me to be legal but he likes me a lot and this was after a girl in my town got killed by a coworker she rejected so i got scared and left, then at chick-fil-a they said i wasn’t happy enough or fast enough to be there and they gave me two weeks to improve but i got hit w anxiety and i quit before they could fire me then i got a job at dunkin and it was finally going well until i asked to transfer to a store closer to mine and suddenly my managers got mad and said they won’t transfer me because they don’t give me hours because i roll my eyes at them and i don’t have a sense of urgency then i was like ok should i quit and one said no and the other said if that’s what i want, i told my mom and she said i need to stick it through because i always run from my problems so i stuffed my ego and stayed (i tried telling them i don’t roll my eyes and i get everybting im suppose to do in my role but they kept on saying they see a problem so it’s a problem) i decide to stick through and everybting got better i later asked my manager if i still need to improve anyhting and she said nope i’ve fixed everything and she’ll give me all the hours i want (the other manager coming at me with her that time was later fired for having someone behind the counter) and everyhting was jolly before she started hiring a ton of new employees and so she over scheduled this sunday so i told her i could take off if she needed me to and she said no she doesn’t need me to then the next morning she texts me i don’t need to come in and to enjoy my day off and i asked her if it was due to high labor or something else and she said it was due to high labor and i thanked her and that was that then the next weeks schedule came out and i saw i’m only scheduled 5 hrs (i’m suppose to have 15) and all the new employees have way more hrs then me and i have the lowest hrs significantly in the whole employee list i asked her why i only have 5 hrs and she never answered me, i’m thinking is there something so wrong with me no one wants me and i’ve tried everything to fix myself to be liked by people and companies but i’m always in this situation and it’s scaring me bc it’s showing me i’m not capable or something but i need money to get through college now (i bought my first car with all the money i have made previously) advice would be GREATLY appreciated and my parents don’t help they just say i don’t know to anything regarding any advice i need in life and dismiss me and talk about their life together excluding me. Thank you for listening to me. Please help. -i have illness anxiety -i have anxiety -i’m adopted -i have hidden childhood trauma -i don’t do drugs or alcohol -i’m mostly an A’s or B’s student -i hope this information might help a little

i don't exactly know when i started gaining more self awareness but at one point in my life where i just wanted to become a better person. i started working towards it and becoming more conscious of the people around me, but i can't shake the icky feeling i get when i think about my past self. and it just sucks because i don't like to think about myself that way, especially when it took me so long to build self-confidence and love myself
that being said, my middle school self really sucked. i lacked social awareness, and rarely reciprocated my friends' gestures and kindness. i was narrow-minded, academically unmotivated, slacked off, and just genuinely sucked. I was somehow fortunate enough to have a group of really wholesome and kind human beings that stuck with me. looking back, i was not grateful enough for them and it really hurts to think that they had me as a friend. i didn't deliberately hurt them or anything, but i feel like they deserved better. i eventually lost touch with them after deleting social media, and never reached back out. yet i never had the emotional maturity or intelligence to see how good i had it. now that im in college and it kind of hurts to think about how i took them for granted. because although there are many kind people in this world, it feels like genuine connections are difficult to come by these days.
for the past few years, i tried to reframe how i interact with others and actively think about how my actions impact others. but lately, something felt off. so i did some deep introspection and i realized that the root of my problem is that i'm overcompensating. it feels like everything i am now is a result of how insecure and embarrassed i am about my past self. it makes me wonder if my kindness stems from a genuine place, or perhaps im just acting this way out of obligation.
i honestly have no close friends or people i can talk to besides my family. i can't help but think that it's because im still not a genuinely kind person, maybe deep down i'm still that ungrateful, selfish kid that doesn't care about how others felt. i don't know anymore but i just wanted to get this off my chest

to be honest not sure why I'm even here typing don't see anything coming from this I don't really know how to even do this rofl to be fair I don't even understand have the emotions and maybe that's the luck I got out of it maybe that the curse I was delt or maybe I have some purpose but I'm sick of it sick of all the issues and sorrow the pain and suffering and half the time I don't even understand the emotion here's but here's my story.
i need to get alot of my chest im a survivor of abuse neglect and molestation im also the child of a divorced family and the oldest. i have all the good memories of dad i have good memories up until we left though those good times came with having seizures and flatlining at 3 years old for 1 minute and 2 seconds I survived but why though anyways. mother told us we were going on vacation i was 7 my siblings were under 4 they don't really remember much though 1 remember we moved across from Tennessee to Arkansas to Nebraska the trips are a blur we never went back my mom moved us in with her dad though that's where her dad abused my little brother he got it bad there... my mom met a man through her dad he is my sisters dad he's also my nightmare that I can't forget. my mom let this man horrifically abuse us strip us beat us shoot guns at us while she was at work we cried and cried screamed we watched as our next abuser put his head through a wall this was in another state everything goes so fast skip forward and I got the worst of that abuse.. I protected my siblings and they won't ever know. he kills himself a year after my sisters born my mom is with a foreigner nothing wrong with that though we went from physicaly abusive to verbally abusive I guess that's a step up never understood that one. my sister thinks this person is her dad real dad she never knows about what happen to us we were told if we ever tell anyone were disowned forever. my whole life after that I was abused misdiagnosed thrown on pill after pill by doctor after doctor all because I wanted to live with my dad at 14 they stuck me in mental places I was forever scarred I was abused in one of those places to have the name memorized and all. was bullied made fun of jumped put in special education classes. guess what I gave up no one listened so I rebeled tatted up watched anime and played video games i never really understood the world. I lived in my own world too never break I graduated though my friends well not no more haha j asked for a cigarette and I got drugged by a friend of a friend which my friend didn't know he's the one who called my mom because one guy isn't gonna stop 5 or more lol I got drugged and beat up my heart stopped for 2 minutes lol I survived why??? lol makes no sense. I was 18 had heart break after heartbreak cheated on abused used through high-school and through adult life got used because I was attractive and good and bed I had 2 beautiful daughters with an abusive woman im 5ft 9 she was 6ft5 she cheated on me had another man's baby and married the maitance man from our old apartments before 1 got into an accident and was told I'd never walk again. skip years down it hasn't been easy for me l've been hoping places since I left when I was 18. I moved to TN made up with my dad started to have a good relationship had to leave but left with a wife and two kids who have no dad I took them in they call me dad. my wife and 1 lost are child though 6 months ago he was full term his cord wrapped around him I unfortunately saw and I unfortunately had to take care of him and wipe his blood of him in the room the nurses were crap but I did it so she could say her goodbyes I had to be the strong one. we moved to get my kids :/ they are being abused were getting custody but I'm working 276 hours monthly im drowning and not only that I'm now almost 29 and found out I had autism my whole life my mom never wanted me to know she didn't want me to feel stupid (narsicist) and I decided to open up about my abuse and I got disowned and she turned my whole family against me for the secret or me even opening up so ehh I guess no family now it's been a year almost since they said they disowned me and wanted nothing to do with me sorry if I'm all over the place I don't really care just need to get this off my chest..
just sucks I feel alone yet I'm married my partner doesn't appreciate me it feels like and I'm autistic and fucking awkward I have no friend yet I'm super fucking attractive I guess is what I'm told like I fucking don't understand this shit .. I just want to work hard make money protect my kids and be happy and have friends yet I try and try and try and nothing happens yet I male good money I'm a good human being I am super silent and I keep to myself but when I'm myself yeah I'm just weird and annoying.

This happened at a 24-hour gym in Hong Kong. Since the gym is only staffed for limited hours, the gym goers are expected to do the cleaning and replace the weights after each use of the equipment. This is even written in the terms and conditions. Nonetheless, some of us up on this rule once in a while, some because they are too exhausted and forgets to do so, while some are just lazy. Usually a reminder from fellow gym members would suffice to make things right.
But there came a group of foreigners with two blonde guys and an Asian girl a little more than a week ago. They didn't replace the weights correctly. The plates were randomly arranged on the rack, even though there are numbers on each bar to indicate what weight should be placed there.
'The weights need to be replaced correctly,' I reminded them in a friendly voice while helping them restore the positions of the weights.
They nodded and went to the next machine, and I resumed my workout.
The next day, the same group showed up again while I was working out, and they picked a chest press bench just in front of me. A couple of minutes later, they left the chest press bench in a mess and went to the dumbbell zone.
'Hey guys! The weights have to be replaced correctly,' I said with a sterner face as I walked to them.
The tall blonde guy, let's call him Larry, replied, ' Do you work here?'
'No, but-' I said, but was soon interrupted by Larry with a victorious smirk, 'Then have a nice day.'
'It's common courtesy to-' I tried to reason, but Larry kept dismissing me with 'Have a nice day'. I saw them laughing as I walked away. Maybe they were confident that no staff members would tell them off because most of our fellow citizens barely speaks English. Plus it is not staffed at the time of our workout so there is no way to get a staff member to talk to them.
Two days later, I went to the gym a bit late and didn't see Larry's group. It was then staffed. I walked into the staff room and there was John and working on some paperwork. I waited until John finish the document he was working on.
'How may I help you?' asked John plainly.
'There were a group of people that didn't replace the weights. I told them to but they wanted a staff member to talk to them,' I shrugged.
'Do you remember when and where were they working out?' To my surprise, I sensed a hint of eagerness, if not excitement, in John's voice. I didn't anticipate they would be willing to deal with these seemingly minor issues.
'Two days ago, around 11:30 at the chess press bench, ' I replied quickly.
John made a few quick taps on the computer, looking through the security cameras throughout the gym. A few moments later, he showed me a footage on the computer featuring Larry's group. 'Is this the group?' John asked. The eagerness in his voice could hardly be missed this time.
'Yes,' I replied.
'Thank you so much! We will identify their identity from the membership data and asked the chain they registered in to send them an official reminder,' John said, 'It has been a headache for us to keep having to replacing the weights for these people.'
I never see Larry's group again at the gym after that day.
TL;DR: A group of foreign gym goers dismissed my reminder of replacing the weights because I did not work there. Have them reported to the staff and they got a documented official reminder. The group disappeared from the gym ever after.

Here are the final results of the latest poll after 2 full years of weekly voting, followed by all-time statistics for all 3 years of polls including the Atari Era:

The Best Games of the NES/Master System Era:

1. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Contra
3. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
4. Ninja Gaiden
5. Bubble Bobble
6. Mega Man 3
7. Phantasy Star
8. Final Fantasy
9. Battletoads
10. Batman: The Video Game
11. Blaster Master
12. Shinobi
13. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
14. Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation / Dragon Warrior III
15. Tecmo Super Bowl
16. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
17. Rygar
18. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap
19. Dr. Mario
20. Mother / EarthBound Beginnings
21. Journey to Silius
22. Metroid
23. Super Mario Bros. 2 / Super Mario USA
24. Space Harrier
25. The Legend of Zelda
26. River City Ransom / Street Gangs
27. Jackal / Top Gunner
28. Rampage
29. Super Spike V'Ball / U.S. Championship V'Ball
30. Little Samson
31. The Guardian Legend
32. Gargoyle's Quest II
33. Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
34. Sid Meier's Pirates!
35. DuckTales
36. California Games
37. Alex Kidd in Miracle World
38. Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars
39. Jaws
40. Gun-Nac
41. OutRun
42. Mega Man 2
43. Kid Icarus
44. R.C. Pro-Am
45. Faxanadu
46. Double Dragon II: The Revenge
47. Kirby's Adventure
48. Snake Rattle 'n' Roll
49. The Battle of Olympus
50. R-Type
51. Maniac Mansion
52. Kid Niki: Radical Ninja
53. Golden Axe Warrior
54. Psycho Fox
55. Crystalis
56. Gimmick! / Mr. Gimmick
57. Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team
58. Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior
59. Bionic Commando
60. Gain Ground
61. Conquest of the Crystal Palace
62. Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
63. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
64. Excitebike
65. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
66. Captain Skyhawk
67. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World
68. Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II
69. Zanac
70. Black Tiger / Black Dragon
71. NES Open Tournament Golf
72. Golvellius: Valley of Doom
73. Bucky O'Hare (NES)
74. International Karate + / IK+ / Chop N' Drop
75. Ghosts 'n Goblins
76. Rolling Thunder
77. Renegade / Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun
78. Rambo: First Blood Part II (SMS) / Secret Command
79. Baseball Stars
80. P.O.W.: Prisoners of War
81. Blades of Steel
82. Ice Hockey
83. Fantasy Zone
84. Micro Machines
85. Super Mario Bros.
86. Castlevania
87. 1943: The Battle of Midway
88. Vice: Project Doom
89. The NewZealand Story / Kiwi Kraze
90. Mega Man 4
91. StarTropics
92. Paperboy
93. Gradius / Nemesis
94. Formula One: Built to Win
95. Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen / Dragon Warrior IV
96. Super Sprint
97. Mega Man
98. Ys: The Vanished Omens / Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished
99. Batman: Return of the Joker
100. Super C / Super Contra

"Super C / Super Contra" won last week's poll with nearly twice as many votes as all 5 other games in the poll combined, and becomes the 64th NES game to join the list! Last round 100 people voted in the poll.

Earliest and Latest NES/Master System Era Games:

6 games were the earliest in the poll from 1985.
3 games were the latest in the poll from 1993.

Platforms of the NES/Master System Era by Number of Games:

64 - NES 23 - Arcade 9 - Master System 4 - Computer
The percentage of arcade games fell from 66% in the Atari Era to 23% in the NES Era.
The percentage of console games rose from 20% in the Atari Era to 73% in the NES Era.

Genres of the NES/Master System Era by Number of Games:

38 - Platformer 13 - Action Adventure 9 - Shooter 8 - Sports 7 - Beat 'em Up 7 - RPG 7 - Run and Gun 6 - Racing 4 - Action 1 - Puzzle 1 - Adventure 1 - Fighter
The percentage of shooter games fell from 40% in the Atari Era to 9% in the NES Era.
The percentage of platformer games rose from 20% in the Atari Era to 38% in the NES Era.
A new genre to the polls, the Action Adventure, was suddenly the 2nd-most popular genre.
3 other new genres also did well: Sports, Beat 'em Up, and Run and Gun games.

Developers of the NES/Master System Era by Number of Games:

13 - Nintendo 11 - Sega 11 - Capcom 10 - Konami 5 - Rare 5 - Sunsoft 4 - Tecmo 4 - Compile 4 - Technos 3 - SNK 3 - Chunsoft 2 - Westone 2 - Irem 2 - Taito 2 - Atari 1 - Square 1 - Ape 1 - Bally Midway 1 - Takeru 1 - MicroProse 1 - Epyx 1 - Hudson Soft 1 - HAL Laboratory 1 - Infinity 1 - Lucasfilm Games 1 - Vic Tokai 1 - Quest 1 - Atlus 1 - System 3 1 - Namco 1 - Codemasters 1 - Aicom 1 - Winkysoft 1 - Nihon Falcom
Atari fell from developing 20% of top games in the Atari Era to only 2% in the NES Era.
Activision similarly fell from 10% of top games in the Atari Era to none in the NES Era.
Namco as well fell from 10% of top games to only 1% in the NES Era.
Capcom, a new developer not in the Atari Era poll, ended up tied for 2nd-most games in the NES Era.
Nintendo and Sega rose to dominate this Era, developing 13% and 11% of games, up from 6% and 2% last era.

Platforms on the All-Time List (Atari & NES Era Combined):

83 - Console 56 - Arcade 11 - Computer

Genres on the All-Time List (Atari & NES Era Combined)

48 - Platformer 29 - Shooter 13 - Action Adventure 11 - Action 9 - RPG 8 - Sports 8 - Racing 7 - Beat 'em Up 7 - Run and Gun 4 - Maze 3 - Adventure 2 - Paddle 1 - Interactive Film 1 - Puzzle 1 - Fighter

Developers on the All-Time List (Atari Era & NES Era Combined):

16 - Nintendo 12 - Atari 12 - Konami 12 - Sega 11 - Capcom 6 - Namco 5 - Activision 5 - Rare 5 - Sunsoft 4 - Bally Midway 4 - Taito 4 - Tecmo 4 - Compile 4 - Technos 3 - SNK 3 - Chunsoft 2 - Williams 2 - Lucasfilm Games 2 - Westone 2 - Irem
(only developers with multiple games listed)

The 50 Best Video Games of the Atari Era

Want to see the best games before this era? Check out this list which was compiled by Reddit users' nominations and votes over an entire year:
https://www.reddit.com/retrogaming/comments/o4drau/best_video_games_of_the_atari_era_poll_final/

What Was Eligible To Be Nominated:

• Any Arcade coin-op game from 1985-1988.
• Any Computer game (any PC system) from 1985-1988.
• Any Home Console game from the 3rd Generation (regardless of year published unless it is a port): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_generation_of_video_game_consoles
• NO SNES games, NO Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games. Those systems aren't retro enough for this poll.
• NO Sonic. NO Streets of Rage, NO A Link to the Past, NO Super Mario World. Those games aren't retro enough for this poll.

Exceptions:

In general, the original year published takes precedence. No games that played betteare more iconic/are more remembered in an earlier or later era.
"Sonic the Hedgehog" was released for Sega Master System, but as a port, it was made for the Sega Genesis, so it is not eligible for this poll.
"Tetris" made its biggest impact with 35 million copies sold for the Game Boy, in the next era, so it is not eligible for this poll.
Arcade ports like the original "Mario Bros.", which hit arcades in 1983 are not eligible for this poll, even though they were ported to home consoles from the next generation.
1984's coin-op “Punch-Out!!”, was more iconic/more remembered as 1987's “Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!” on the NES, which is now eligible for this poll.
Instances like this can be debated. I think it's best to allow all games from a console to be designated to one era, and for games to appear in one era poll only.

The Idea:

Comparing, say, Pong and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, is not useful. It's like arguing which is better: the Ford Model T or the Space Shuttle? But comparing games of their era is interesting and fun! Usually, best game polls are limited to a single system. This poll is unique because it includes all platforms from the era together. How will the best arcade, computer and Master System games compete with the best that Nintendo had to offer? It will be interesting!

Why Only Arcade and Computer Games from 1985-1988?

The 3rd Generation of home consoles launched in the West with the NES in 1985 and changed everything. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive launched in 1989, began the 4th generation of home consoles which will begin the era for the next series of polls after this concludes.

The Criteria:

I'll leave it up to the individual to decide. Innovation, quality, influence, iconic status, how much fun it was then, how it holds up today, are all valid. Whatever games you love, whatever games you want to see named as the greatest of the era.

What Happens Next:

Next week we will move on from the NES/Master System Era to the SNES/Genesis/TG-16 Era, for a new set of polls.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in the polls and nominate games in the comments section.
This will be a series of polls I hope to hold every week for a long time! Have fun everyone!