Couple base

TLDR: 18M, Australian first year uni student, have a mother and an elder sister. Father is abusive. Mother was hurt, strangled on multiple occasions. What actions can I take, especially in addressing financial situations. My mom can speak English, but extremely complicated phrases and lesser known laws for relationships and finances she probably doesn't know. Me and sister are fluent, grew up here. I really don't know what divorce processes are like either. Dad works and earns the money from his small business. Mom can start working elsewhere but we probably won't earn nearly as much. Sister technically can start working with her degree, although she is completing further studies right now. Live in Victoria, if it helps. The biggest problem I'm thinking of is financial security, especially since me and my sister are still in uni. I wish I studied more instead of messing around. I'm in Australia. I'm only half a year into my degree, but my older sister has one and is currently doing another further degree. I'm probably going to start part time work soon to go along with my studies. Sister has some saved up from working part/casual time but probably not enough. Ideally, me, her and my mother could move out after a divorce. As soon as possible would be great, but I'm not sure when, and probably unlikely. The violence has recently escalated to strangulation, choking her from behind (like a rear naked choke, google for reference), and dad trying to pull her into one of rooms further back rooms where he was probably going to do something worse, but she got away from him. These accounts are from her, and although both hate each other and are toxic with warped perspectives, they are probably correct or at least accurate enough. I don't know anything about the legal system in Australia, nor anything about the court and stuff. maybe it'd be too expensive or unlikely to bring a successful case to court, or not, I really don't know. I guess they are staying together for some reason, maybe in their heads it was for us, maybe he didn't think she'd tell us, I don't know. Mother refuses to let dad get his way and argues back at him too, so the violence usually escalates when she brings up sensitive topics. There's a lot of things I don't know. I think I'm going to confront and ask him about what happened, and see if it's really true. She said he would probably lie. I hope not. He's a bit religious and a "family man", so I'd probably ask him to swear on his passed parent and god or something. I'm thinking of plans if things go south, maybe I'd talk to him in one of the open rooms so I won't get locked in with him, but there's a lot of things that could be used to harm me there (broken glass shards, hard objects, etc.) Maybe I'm thinking too far. He's never really hit me after I turned like 13. I remember I yelled at at him when he slapped my sister (on the shoulder or something, because corporal punishment at that age is clearly healthy) when she was like 15-16, though I was younger, I think he was a little surprised. Maybe I'm thinking too far. Maybe nothing will happen, but I want to be prepared. I'm the only one as tall as him in my house, my sister and mom can't compete. Still makes me angry that he could do that to someone like my mom. He must feel real strong and mighty. I was thinking of recording the conversation or something, but I don't know how. what if I need to use my phone mid-conversation something, what if I have to leave the house without it, how will it be retrieved? What if things get physical? I might do it while mom isn't home. I don't want my sister to get hurt. She's older, but very weak and frail. My physique is somewhat tone but I have muscle, but I don't want to bet on an unpredictable fight with him, it's too risky. He also has like 10-20 kg on me, although it's not all muscle, he still has some strength from some labor. Right now I'm just thinking of talking to him in a room while my sister could listen and pay close attention in the corridor next to the front exit door, ready to record or call the police from a safe location and be able to immediately leave if something does happen. I'm thinking of the worse possible scenarios right now unfortunately. Maybe some would advise me to not ask or confront him about it. I have to. I'm sorry, I just need to hear it from his perspective. Maybe it's my naivety, thinking there's any explanation from him for his actions. I understand there's no justification for him, and that there's never a situation where you can harm someone like that. But I need to know what he was thinking. My mother could be considered toxic and hurtful with her words, and would be annoying when yelling and following you to nag and keep yelling, but I understand it's no excuse for her to be treated in the way she was. I don't know when to ask him, I was slightly heated and planned to ask him as soon as he got home tonight, but now I realise I don't really know what to say or ask, other than if things really did go down how my mother described it. But that's basically the outline of it. What should be my plans now? Assuming maybe things chills for a bit, ideally until I finish my degree (unlikely), since fights would only start if they argue. But I suspect something will happen and dad will do something unfair or something with finance or work or some shit that gets mom heated since she's somewhat emotional. This abuse has happened a few times now, and my short, certainly weaker mother refuses to back down, probably because it would mean that him strangling her would mean he won and successfully silenced her bickering with violence or something, I don't know I'm pulling cards. I know she's probably scared, but she refuses to show it or to back down from him. I think I've heard, and I don't want this to be taken too severely, although it is if I heard correct, him saying death threats to intimidate her. Be mindful I could have heard wrong, and it might be some intimidation tactic he tried to scare her with, but if I heard it correct, I heard it with clarity. A whole month went by before she told me about this most recent strangulation event, but similar abuse can be tracked back to few years ago, although it was never this severe, and recently escalated to this level. Now that I think about it, it really has escalated. It went from shouting, to spitting, to slapping, to throwing things around, to front hand chokes and recently he tried to choke her in a rear naked choke kinda way while pulling her to a room. (This last event detail is from my mother. I don't know, I don't like cementing facts based on perspective, because they both view each other horribly and have warped perspectives of what is and what occurred, although I understand that there is no excuse for what happened if it occurred, and I'm almost certain it did. The other events happened with certainty, I witnessed it in time.) For those who might be curious as to if my father is really guilty, I've seen him front hand choke her in the throat before. While I was in the house. He has been noticeably more violent when I'm not in the room or if he's in some corner of the house with her, where it escalates from shouting to physical contact. I've seen slaps, spits, plenty. He is guilty. I'm only looking for his sick perspective. I want clarity on the events, I want to see what he saw when he put his hands on the woman that birthed me. Maybe I'm being to hopeful and calm. Maybe I should call the cops and bash his head in right before they arrive. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Fortunately, I'm covered in uni work, and kept busy for the rest of the weekend, to distract my mind. I'm kind of excited? Maybe it's the wrong word. I can't wait to ask him, for closure on what happened. I want to see how he would react. Maybe I shouldn't ask yet. I'm scared of change and pretty nervous. If they get divorced immediately, then my complete lifestyle will change, house moving etc. We're living a somewhat average household right now, although they always complain about bills and such. What would happen after the divorce? Maybe we'd live in poverty, idk. I have no idea about the cost of living in Australia to be honest, I had very little interest in politics and financial situations when I was still so far from such matters, but now I wish I read more about it. My life could be upside down. I can really see how ungrateful I was now. I really thought that I was going to live a normal life. That is all for detail about the situation. Sorry for the long, untidy, stream-of-thought mess. I basically typed and added all conscious thoughts into one giant text wall. I'll add a tldr; to the front. Please let me know where else I can post this for advice. I'm really lost. I was thinking about posting it in Australia but I don't know the rules of the subreddit. I mean, I'll probably do it anyway who cares if it gets removed. I also don't know how I should be reacting. I'm pretty sure I just described a dire, alarming and severe situation. As I read my own post, I'm kinda realising how fucked it is. I was told of the most recent violence (the choking pulling one) around 30 minutes ago. My first couple of thoughts were aggressive and hostile, but now I'm stressing thinking if there's any way out, preferably peacefully, although if he peacefully had a heart attack it would make things easier. And if there's helpful ways or mindsets to cope, I'm all ears. I'm kinda stressed with uni right now, I'm already having trouble with a course worth double the units, now I'm job hunting while thinking of all this, it's a rather large plate for me. This post was long winded and improperly expressed in some areas I suspect, I am willing to elaborate or fix details if I notice or if someone asks.

Pretty much the title. We’ve been together for 2 years and are discussing next milestones. He was previously in a super toxic relationship and was also briefly married and is understandably not enthusiastic about remarrying. However, I come from a culture where staying unmarried is not an option, he comes from one where it’s pretty much the norm. When we got together we discussed how it was a dealbreaker if he didn’t want to get married, given my family, but it was way too early to base everything on that.
Our relationship is going really well and I can see it last a very very long time if it weren’t for this issue. Now that we’ve been together for a couple of years I’d like to know where it’s headed. I really want kids and have always wanted to be a mom. However given my culture I just do not have the luxury of having kids without getting married, and due to health issues I don’t have the luxury of waiting 10 more years for him to decide either. However, whenever I bring up the topic, he gets super defensive and doesn’t want to hear about it (even though he has never actually said point blank that he doesn’t want to get married. He just doesn’t want to talk about it which to me feels very similar tbh).
I would be heartbroken to end the relationship for this reason, because I love him very much. I’ve ended a previous long term relationship for the same reason, but this feels so much more natural and I’m so much happier than the last one. I’m also tired of just never being able to find someone to settle down with.
Should we break up? I feel like I’m torn between staying with him and being happy with him but giving up on having a family (not to mention upsetting my own family) and risking resenting him for it, or ending things because it would frustrate me to know it was going nowhere, but also ending up alone with no guarantee that I’d actually get married and have kids. Waiting things out also seems like too much of a risk but it seems unfair to force him to make a choice right now (knowing that I don’t necessarily want to get married RIGHT NOW, probably in a couple of years).
TL;DR my bf and I have opposing views on marriage but apart from that everything is perfect

From an emotional standpoint, falling in love is one of the blunders somebody can make.
Once you decide you like them enough to share your life with them, including your vulnerabilities and secrets, you put yourself completely at their mercy. They have total control over your emotional well-being, and can ruin your entire week at a moment’s notice with some careful jabs in the middle of an argument.
Sure, the honeymoon phase feels nice, but it simply isn’t worth the constant pain and trauma that comes after. And yet so many people decide to ride it out and handcuff themselves to another person forever.
Even in the best case scenario, where there’s minimal fighting and everything goes well, I’d still be sacrificing my sense of privacy, my maneuverability, and if I have kids, all of my free time. And for what? So I can have boring sex once a year on my birthday only to eventually lose half of everything I own? That just doesn’t sound worth it to me.
I want to be wrong about this. The feelings I experience when things are good with whoever I’m with are amazing, and if those could keep going forever, I’d sign myself up in a heartbeat. But once the initial attraction fades, I eventually realize I’m making a huge mistake by staying with them. Cracks start to form, and soon enough we’re only seeing each other out of obligation to this idea that we’re “together”. And based on what I’ve seen from some older married couples, the bitterness only gets worse from there.
Given how high the divorce rate is, and how many relationships disappear into a haze of blocked contacts and happy memories that turn into nightmares, I really don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze.
I’m not going to run around telling other people to stay out of love, mind you. But for me personally, I don’t see a point in continuing to be the proverbial charlie brown running at the football. The ball is always going to be pulled away, and I’ll be left on my ass cursing the skies for letting me think I had a chance at happiness.
I don’t know, honestly. This is a tough pill for me to swallow, because I’ve always considered myself a romantic. I can’t let that get in the way of doing what’s best for me.
What do you think?

The TLDR: XPS 9510, i7-11800H & FHD+. -100 mV undervolt. Same 10 minute CB R23 score as 'factory when plugged in on performance' at only 40 W on battery and CPU temperature of 70 C.
​
I picked up an XPS 15 (i7-11800H, FHD+ display) to replace my aging Skylake based Latitude 14" laptop I use for work. Never had owned an XPS before so I read all the reviews before purchasing. After having it for less than 2 weeks, I almost returned it due to the 9510 lagging terribly in performance compared to the Ryzen based and Macbook laptops (had an ASUS Flow X 13 at the same time for comparison) coupled with the scorching temperature due to the exceedingly high PL2 power draw. It was exactly as described by all of the review sites: pretty great while being simultaneously terrible.
But the pros (display and speakers) are impressive. If they would have just put the keyboard with the increased key depth from the old Latitudes on the XPS, it might be the best laptop based upon user interfaces (display, keyboard, and sound).
Had some life events happen and as a result, I missed the return window deadline. It sat and I thought about just unloading it due to the cons. Earlier this year, I finally decided to try undervolting it using Throttlestop. I also did a re-paste but didn't use liquid metal as others have done because I don't want to have to deal with that maintenance. The paste job from the factory was actually pretty good and the re-paste did not seem to increase CB R23 scores for the same settings. Lastly, picked up an SK Hynix P31 due to the excellent reviews of it's low power consumption with great performance. There is about a 0.5 W difference between the P31 Gold and the factory Micron drive according to the tech specs. Over 10 hours, that is 5 Whr of battery life saved.
With the Sk Hynix P31 Gold, a clean install of Win10 22H2, and latest Intel drivers, I am able to get idle times of 20 hours as reported by HWINfO and Windows (see image 1) with Wi-Fi on but not connected to the network. It should be noted that Intel's most recent Dynamic Tuning service does not seem to allow ThrottleStop to apply it's undervolt. Despite this, voltages as low as 0.69 V are observable in TS. CB R23 scores are 10500-ish when the CPU power is limited to 45 W via TS. The CPU average frequency is around 3.2 GHz on all 8 cores and temperatures are 70-75 C. The 2nd image shows Win10 also reporting over 20 hours of battery life based upon a full charge.
As a comparison, I swapped out the SK Hynix with the original Micron SSD. I then updated the original Win10 20H2 on the Micron mvne drive with Win10 22H2 while keeping the older Intel drivers. With this configuration, I can visible observe TS changing the CPU voltage and it typically runs on battery at -100 mV CPU offset with voltages of 0.70-0.72 V at idle. At -100 mV, I am able to obtain CB R23 scores of 10300+ at a CPU power of ONLY 40 W and CPU temperatures of about 70 C as shown by the 3rd screen shot. This is while on battery. So same performance as what Notebookcheck and other reviewers recorded while plugged in and on Performance with 95 C temperatures. This thing is getting 9-10 hours on Wi-fi too. It would even be longer if I didn't have to play 'whack-a-Windows process' (i.e., Windows keeps restarting services and processes I don't need running like Windows update, Gelocation services, Connnected User Experience and Telemetry even though I opted NOT to use telemetry during setup, Remote Access Connection Manager,...) every time it wakes from sleep.
Now, it is not a scorcher and actually usable on your lap. No 95-100 C CPU temperatures and thermal throttling. Longer battery life. Same performance. Not quite M1 Macbook level of performance, but it's the intangibles of no burnt legs and being able to use it as a an actual laptop that now make it a much better user experience.
Please Dell and Intel. Stop the scorch. Or quit locking down the BIOS's and re-allow undervolting so users can tune their laptops to perform better than stock. This would improve both company's images among tech enthusiasts and reviewers.

Base singles and inserts from 1989-2002ish. Couple parallels.

Hello everyone. I (29M) am auditing the trauma-laden relationship with my DID wife (29F) after another bout of unwanted cheating. We are hypermonogamists. To us, infidelity is a sacrilegious violation of Love. Alas, my wife has Dissociative Identity Disorder and some alters are hellbent on reenacting trauma with abuser substitutes. Yes, the DID is diagnosed by a trauma specialist, not Dr. Google. To differentiate from her alters, I will refer to Her True Self as Wifey.
I tracked the cheating history by writing this behemoth of a post and did my best to connect dots between childhood trauma and modern consequences. I hope that the community’s outside perspectives can spot things to which we are still blind, provide advice, or give any input that might aid our situation. All opinions welcome. I will access them carefully.
Please note that I have a Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style, and my psychologist noted C-PTSD. I also have DID but unlike my wife, I worked long enough to achieve co-consciousness, internal cooperation, and current dormancy in my alters. My True Self is finally in command. We ran out of therapy money before my wife could address her own issues, hence online communities are our last resort until savings build up again.
OUR TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD ORIGINS
I was raised and abused by my narcissist grandmother for 25 years due to her orchestrating a rift between Mom and I (topic for another post). Her 16yo son aka my uncle sexually abused both my wife and I from infancy. In my case he had daily access. For my wife, it was because our fathers and my uncle were a trio of scum.
Despite the uncle link, I didn’t meet Wifey till age 3. She was dancing under a sprinkler and noticed my stare. Lightning hit us the second our eyes met and we breathlessly ran over to announce the mutual BOOM. After that, we were inseparable. At age 4 I proposed, she agreed, and we shared our first kiss. Adorable? No. We didn’t know how to be kids—due to sex abuse and grandma teaching us adult concepts, we related as boyfriend-girlfriend way too early and began playing the game ‘naked stuff’. Nothing beyond this first connection is purely innocent.
Soon after our romantic friendship started, my wife was groomed into nightly ‘special love’ with my uncle, laying a foundation of unfaithfulness towards me. When the ‘other boyfriend’ dumped her at 6, infatuation spiked and led to 9 years of cartwheels to regain his desire. Between that and my grandmother worshipping him, I competed for both women’s hearts by copying uncle into synonymity. I even used his playlists for dates and sex, believing that I am only worthy of love if I *am* him.
During and after my uncle’s abuse, my wife’s pedo father raped her too. I am loathed to call this BDSM given that he never abided by Safe, Sane, Consensual, but what he inflicted *is* BDSM activity. By age 5, he was trafficking his daughter and forced me to watch the rapes plus participate in sadism until I started doing it of my own accord. I was taught that boys are supposed to do this to girls, because they are girls. I didn’t know vanilla sex exists till age 11, at which point we finally shared positive intimacy—this formed the bedrock of what we are striving to build in adulthood. Alas, the learned fetishes persisted for years.
Meanwhile, my narcissist grandmother tormented me daily and brainwashed my wife to mimic her opinions, mannerisms, approaches, etc., thereby producing a mini-me alter and adding layers to our trauma bond. That alter learned toxic views on women (they exist to serve men) and pro-adultery, as the Narc preyed on committed guys for the fun of causing break-ups, obtained her husband by homewrecking, and caught a married lover long before grandpa died. As teens we were actually ghostwriters and phone sex assistants for that affair, obstructing critical stages in our own relationship.
Throughout this, Love existed. No one but her made me feel Loved, Seen, Heard, Safe, Certain. Moreover, me and Wifey expressed authentically only to each other, providing an oasis for Our True Selves to develop untarnished. We mutually soothed our demons, inspired creativity, and entertained one another. Teen Wifey also proved my angel. She endured hell to guide me out of darkness and prevented suicide attempts. Without her, I would be in prison or dead. At 23 we married in hopes of becoming wholesome and slowly inched toward that goal.
For Wifey’s wellbeing, I spent 2015-2022 deprogramming my BDSM porn addiction, fetishes, and toxic attitudes about women. Only last year I comprehended healthy relationships in concept. I think it is a beautiful way to live but it unnerves me as well. We also realized that vanilla D/s is our true preference, and we are highly compatible as a team. There is potential for absolute Paradise, but many issues still need to be overcome (communication struggles, ignoring Wifey for eons while she waits for me to interact again, etc.). The infidelity is my current focus. Here goes the trauma-fuelled history of online cheating.
AN UNCLE SUBSTITUTE EXPLOITS HER
Wifey has 7 alters. Some self-harm, some climb out windows, some rabidly scratch me or shriek enough for police to arrive, but the most annoying is that 9yo girl imprinted on my uncle. She always pines to get him back—which she finally did, in proxy form: AP1 (Affair Partner 1).
May 19th, 2022, my wife met a 31yo ‘virgin’ on Facebook who sucked her in via sob stories. While extracting info on her alters and rapes, AP1 made her a sex-ed teacher. Her confidence flourished. I had no concerns given my rock-solid trust in Wifey. Little did I know the 9yo alter was having an emotional affair of unrequited ‘love’. AP1’s eerie similitude in looks / job / zodiac / vibe / pedo streak made him an ideal projection, especially given how much Uncle 2.0 lavished the alter. He was her dream come true. Looking back, I invited this situation by depriving Wifey of attention for too long. She needs regular interaction with me to stay Her True Self.
Anyways, Wifey believed the hours spent texting / on the phone were recharging her desire for ‘me’. We were yet to understand that ‘me’ meant ‘uncle’, as the two were blended. I started feeling off, but kept trusting her. After all, she had befriended two FB guys in 2021 who stayed platonic (only now we recognize them as lighter emotional affairs). Besides, grandma taught me that getting randomly sidelined or devalued is ‘just the way things are’.
After 3 weeks of grooming, AP1 triggered my wife, fully infiltrating her subconscious. She fearfully hid from him for 2 days, then tried to end the friendship on June 8th. AP1 derailed the goodbye into engaging topics, followed by traumatic content that methodically wore her down into an aroused trance. Once he hit the trigger jackpot, her alter seized control and delved into 6 hours of abuse reenactment sexting, audio clips, nudes, unholy “I love yous”, etc. while Wifey’s undercurrent of extreme stress induced miniature heart attacks—this caused permanent damage. Once Wifey woke up and saw what transpired, a female FB friend moved mountains to prevent her guilt-ridden suicide. She desperately wanted to die.
Later, I walked into the room expecting nothing unusual. Instead, tear-stricken wife fell to her knees, grabbed my leg and frantically confessed sexting, giving away our gif collection and using terms sacred to us. The heartbreak annihilated me. While consoling her, I struggled to swallow reality: the ONE PERSON I thought would never break my trust, just shattered it. Another dude just *stole MY wife*. Long before I learned that my old rival (uncle) was the motive, I felt triggered.
Many talks / meltdowns ensued between us and Mom. 48 hours later, the alter cheated again (June 10th) while we thought Wifey was snoozing. AP1 had unlocked an oil spill of traumatic arousal, hence it took seconds to induce the marathon, this time centred on BDSM. AP1 then instructed the alter to give him first dibs every day—the Husband can only get sloppy seconds. Once he left, she ran over to Mom announcing that her boyfriend is going to marry her (old fantasy about my uncle) in a jarringly American voice (Wifey is Francophone). This unmasked DID as the cheating engine and introduced us to a previously-unknown alter.
Once awake, Wifey plunged into catatonic shock and depression. We all supported Wifey grieving AP1’s sick exploitation and processing why she succumbed. I never got a chance to focus on myself amid the revolutionary insights, plus Mom and I kept scrambling to stop that alter before she obeyed the “sext me daily” command that would only retraumatize her further. We also discovered AP1 is a predator who targets mentally-ill wives in addition to little girls. That vulture has a thing for the most vulnerable forbidden fruit.
Realizing the insidious influence made Wifey hyperfocus on Our Marriage. She was outraged that AP1 dared invade us and texted him revocations of love, condemnations for “raping her while drunk” and tried to hammer the sanctity of Marriage into his snide mug. We banded together against my uncle’s spectre and felt in-tune as a couple. Therapy sessions were scheduled. Had this continued, Our Love would be detoxed and stronger than ever. Alas, a parasitic distraction sapped its power 6 days later.
GRANDMOTHER TRAUMA BOND INTERFERES
My wife kept shutting down during intimacy due to intrusive memories of AP1, plus an urge to blot out the existence of non-abusive sex. Her alters were clinging to my uncle’s ‘style’. She quickly realized that AP1 had stained sex and rendered her numb to me. She was distraught.
When my wife sought advice on June 16th, 2022, her friend (also abused) nabbed the chance to confess a bewildering lesbian crush. This shock activated the trauma bond with my grandmother and prompted another alter affair. She declared that a bit of lesbianism will cure our intimacy problem. At first, I laughed it off. Then therapy was cancelled, my savings were spent on gifts, and I realized that my wife’s #heart# was stolen in addition to sex drive. A Facebook woman had burglarized my one remaining stronghold.
Given how romantic it was, I felt replaced, invisible, abandoned (childhood themes). It sliced and diced me, particularly since my wife blinded herself to my pain no matter how I pushed her to see it (grandmother theme). My wife cried that she wants us both and can’t choose—no wonder, since she was unknowingly reliving a childhood scenario where emotional incest with my grandmother accompanied and influenced Our Love.
I was clueless about this. To me, it seemed a heart-crushing romantic affair. Being a hypermonogamist forced into polyamory is indescribable. On June 23rd, I ranted at AP2 for stealing the Love of My Life and decided on suicide even if I’m hellbound—Heaven means nothing sans my wife. Panicked AP2 called the cops. Mom convinced the officers that it was a false alarm, knowing that I would try to get shot. Wifey was unrecognizably hollow while comforting me. I fell asleep in bitter tears, her hand numbly wiping them away.
My bitterness began erupting while teary wife insisted this is a mission. She swore to end the affair as soon as she solves the ‘mysteries of sudden lesbianism’. I refused to support it. Our fights incited a fullblown manifestation of my AFib and worsened heart issues for my wife. Daily vomiting turned her into skin-and-bones. We nearly died, which would have caused the suicide of My Mom and AP2. Poor Mom already suffered intense health issues from this affair. She adores us both. Our vitriol devastated her.
Eventually I put my wife’s happiness above my own and let her go: if she is meant to come back to me, she will. I spent another month in living death. Surprisingly, Wife kept her promise. She discovered that the emotional incest with mother figures in both her and AP2 caused them to ‘fall in love’. The alters tied to my grandmother lost their grip, the affair ended (August 13th), and Love for me flooded back.
Wifey returned a matured woman: more Self-Aware, rational, and opposed to adultery than ever. I fell in Love with her vibrancy. Meanwhile, AP2 became our mutual best friend, an invaluable source of epiphanies for my healing too, and the biggest supporter of Our Love. Turns out that we all share near-identical trauma plus share common interests. As a result, I felt gratitude for this affair. Short-term suffering reaped long-term blessings.
A STRAINED AFTERMATH
AP1 continued to highjack our sex life. The conscious resurrection of my uncle in my wife’s psyche permanently split him and I into two men and revealed the sexual imprint. Between bringing that into her awareness and the various desecrations, AP1 vandalized her. Damn the timing! We were on the verge of a sex life free from trauma!
We lived in tension despite Loving efforts, and I struggled to overcome the sense that my mate is tainted. I put the bedroom on hold until these stains were purified, and figured it was best not to impose myself until the alter stops craving Uncle 2.0. For months I patrolled my turf obsessively while screaming inside. Did my best to remember that Wifey never betrayed me—these are only echoes of the past wrecking havoc in modern day.
TRANSCENDING THE CHEATING
Fast forward a year since the two affairs. I was working on Self-development and finally grieving my grandmother trauma. My wife started reflecting deeper on infidelity and had epiphanies:

1. Everything that she finds attractive and attributed to my uncle belongs to me (e.g., *I’m* the analytical nerdy poet surrounded by books—he’s the robotic, stuffy tech fanatic).
2. I am her real dreamboat, projected onto the pedo worshipped by her idol (my grandmother) instead of vice versa. She actually Loves me MORE as I gain authenticity.

AP1 displacing me as the substitute proved a vital liberation. My wife gained clarity because he took the entire uncle projection onto himself. That also made me shed residual mimicry. Her sex alters went dormant and True Wife was eager to rediscover Her Husband directly.
During Our Anniversary (mid-April), True Wife was a trembling ball of remorse and begged for an impromptu vow renewal. Her turn was a meltdown of apologies and fervent promises to never forsake Our Love again. She convinced me of her redemption, especially after rejecting FB dudes in her inbox while posting wishes to me. Hope was rebuilt. We seemed en route to healing. One problem: we still didn’t have sex.
ABUSER CONDITIONING RETALIATES
Avoiding sex since the cheatings was incredibly stupid. I didn’t realize that her alters, though dormant, felt owned by my uncle because I never reclaimed her. AP1 factory-reset my wife’s sexuality. The healthy things needed reinstallation before it was safe for her to face old trauma. My failure to do that made alters restless and our reconciliation was seen as a challenge to her fortified abuse programming. This was the worst time for my wife to post in a rape support sub.
In minutes the DM creeps descended and my wife met a pedophile whose way of abusing little girls woke the alters. My wife was in denial about the risk and texted me: “The affairs revealed truth about my alters and abuse. This man too. I gain awareness about my trauma as I tell it to him and understand more why pedophiles hurt us. I shall make sure it does not get personal. It is not a real affair. I am just researching.”
My heart was pounding but I tried to trust that she will stay within (barely tolerable) boundaries. NOPE. A mere 38 days after vowing never to betray me, her alter pleaded the pedophile to describe what *he* would do to 6-year old *her*. He whet her appetite with a partially-fulfilling fantasy before ghosting. Wifey entered a bizarre state of autopilot.
Inexplicably, she contacted a BDSM Redditor who is a known sanity risk, solicited him for sexting, then prayed for him not to respond. When he did, she felt scared shitless and obligated to describe her old tortures (as he commanded). The guy proceeded to demolish my wife’s barriers until she started craving her father’s tortures. The moment she called him “Master”, it was over for me.
I shut down and observed the trainwreck, feeling no sympathy. My wife invited all this shit and made a conscious choice to engage instead of block. I was dejectedly amused listening to the circus: “This is just research, I learn my mind by interacting with bad men—OMG OMG I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN SURVIVE THIS FILTH! I WANT ONLY YOU! Oh, another client needs my trauma for pleasure! Got to go!”
I felt too drained to realize that her unhinged sexting spree was stirring my trauma. Another oversight.
THE RIDE THROUGH OLD HELL
From May 27-28th, her alter became a snowball down Mt. Everest and the avalanche pulled me under. DM perverts verbally raped my wife while she took explicit photos right next to me in bed. Against all expectation, these e-rapes catapulted me back to boyhood: helpless to intervene, and too horrified to close my eyes. Taking away the phone didn’t cross my mind, nor could I. My body was paralyzed and eerily, I lost the ability to make sound. Seems that I contain significantly more trauma programming than anticipated. I resent my wife for subjecting me to this oppressive hell even more than I resent the cheating itself.
As if going down ‘memory lane’ wasn’t enough, possessed wife also channelled my grandmother. She would look at my tears and emit her sadistic CACKLE. Once I merged the two women, I was screwed. My trauma program dictates that I must endure whatever grandma wants; this includes watching her affair unfold.
As the ultimate insult, my wife spent the last 12 hours building an emotional affair on Reddit while I prayed for sleep. By dawn, her alter declared him a potential ‘boyfriend’. In her deluded head, the sexting arranged for nightfall would cure the rest through ultimate satisfaction plus bring True Wife back to Our Love, as this guy made her feel that “I am with you, not your uncle. Like *you* finally feel real.” The nonsensicality made me short-circuit. I was DONE.
INSANITY SLAMS TO A HALT
That afternoon, she finally jolted out of the binge-sexting. How? Wifey noticed my distress, 5 days too late. I watched her first comprehend that this is hurting me, then struggle to reset consciousness, then remember that Love exists. She did a 180 on her ‘client’ and viciously berated his perversion. That helped her regain footing.
My jittery wife proceeded to apologize, freak about the explicit photos, and spiral into a suicidal state over betraying me again. She erratically cancelled every sexting appointment, shut off the DMs, and spent days begging Divinity for help. We avoided each other.
In our first talk, Wifey confessed that she fears herself, as only her housebound life prevents physical cheating. While she wants nothing more than to be pure, her alters are begging for more due to trauma bonds. Wifey described it as: “Insatiable rocket blocked by a moral fence and waiting for release to zoom again.” Needless to say I was embittered.
REFLECTING ON THE AFTERMATH
While analyzing recent events, I realized something: my wife didn’t run to that BDSM sadist of her own volition. An elusive alter had taken the wheel: the brothel Madame who pulls my wife into prostitution re-enactments. No wonder she was cackling! It’s the alter’s trademark, based on my grandmother! That damn Narc used to say that it’s bad to deprive other men and let the body go to waste on one Husband. *No wonder* a vow renewal pissed off that alter! Now Wifey-on-autopilot made sense.
Wifey was stunned at the revelation and had a glitch (outraged cackles, whimpers, shudders) that confirmed its truth. She never knew this freaky alter steers her from behind the scenes. Took her awhile to digest the disturbing paradigm shift.
Interestingly, she later texted: “That alter does not excuse my choice to chat with a pedophile right after another creep showed me how vulnerable I am. I have ultimate responsibility even if later choices were not mine.”
I asked if that choice was really her own. She replied: “I think so, because he introduced himself as a retired counsellor. I never expected he was a pedophile and when he mentioned it, I should have been proactive about risks continuing such a topic with any man.”
I avoided her again and tried to pinpoint my feelings (still a struggle). No matter how blatantly I see the nymphomaniac is not Her True Self, the serial breakage of trust is making me relinquish hope, care, and concern. The more I sink into numbness, the less I care who is culpable. The whole Wifey & Co. feel ruined. I know it is very unfair to shun Wifey for sins committed in a trauma trance. DID is involuntary. Yet, her issues are a jinx now that I am surpassing our old life. The very toxicities Wifey healed in me remain her alters’ addiction. Now they’re in nasty withdrawal, desperate for any ‘drug’.
For the first time ever, divorce is drifting through my thoughts. I keep wondering, do I treat these events as a growth opportunity for her, or grounds for divorce? I want to reconcile, but should I? I’m burned out. She’s constant trouble. I feel ready to bail. And honestly, I feel unsafe.
Like my grandmother, my wife let me fly again before shooting me down. I barely began grieving narcissistic abuses and am scared of her containing grandma energy. The no-contact I implemented seems pointless—that Narc lives in my wife anyways. She even has the same power to crush me to dust, only stronger. My wife is my biggest weakness. I abhor weakness, thus I am abhorring her. I also detest the oppression of tiptoeing, compromising, and obliging alter whims at the expense of serious plans—JUST LIKE WITH MY GRANDMOTHER.
Then again, I can’t fathom living after a divorce. Wifey loves Celine Dion and we are the epitome of that duet I Hate You Then I Love You. The lyrics “It’s impossible to live *with you*, but I could never live *without you*, for whatever you do, I never never never want to be in Love with anyone but *you*” still rings true.
The Spouse Slot in my heart was formed in my wife’s shape and for her Essence alone. I can’t accept any other. If I was the dead guy in What Dreams May Come (one of our favourite films), I would definitely traverse the afterlife to save my wife no matter how broken she is. Existence in any world is meaningless without her.
We overcame worse hells than cheating. Why would I abandon Wifey when she is in desperate need of protection!? We live by the quote: “A perfect marriage is two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other.” In my belief, we are Twin Flames, and Wifey is definitely my Ideal Woman: demure, dreamy, melancholic, full of mischief and poetry. She saved my life. She redeemed me. We are supposed to grow old and go to Eternity together. Why would I give up on a lifelong mate over trauma!?
It seems that I am losing interest. This necrosis spurs the desire to amputate, while the increasing loss of exclusivity is repellent. For years I unquestioningly believed that she’s *incapable* of desiring anyone but me. Now my ownership feels diluted, invalidated, defeated. Several guy’s marks are all over her and nothing scrubs them off. Her intrusive memories of affairs even obstruct our intimacy!!!!! It is slammed into my face constantly—she is no longer ONLY MINE. That triggers a kneejerk aversion to others’ territory, which she now is.
After decades of impassioned Gomez & Morticia-style romance, I have no clue if I even Love her anymore. Something feels extinguished between us. There is a loss of respect—for the first time, my wife’s worth has fallen in my eyes. I saw her defile every renewed vow. It’s burned into me: she is substandard. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My beloved is suffering. Why am I on the verge of abandoning her!?
MY WIFE’S PERSPECTIVE
Wifey insists that she deserves patience as she tackles her trauma. Is Wifey right? I am going to copy/paste that text message from her here. Only fair to include both sides.
“Mon Amour, before you sink too deep with ghastly divorce ideas, may I please remind you one thing? I had infinite patience while you wrestled with your demons…I sacrificed myself to my depths for your healing and stayed even when I should have fled. You bemoan loss of trust online while I lived many years never feeling safe to trust you face to face!!!!!! But I never gave up on Love and the amazing man I saw beneath your shadows…my Ideal Man you have now become!
My alters twist and blur my thoughts dreadfully until I forget everything I have now…but they are NOT ME. You also were not yourself when you were lost…I fought so much to free you from problems and I would pray not to be abandoned when my own problems catch up with me…no one can heal their distortions overnight. “In sickness and in health” hm? I am sick. Why throw me away now? I do not feel this is very fair no matter how utterly loathsome my own actions…you know I shall always regret succumbing again. Alters aside I should have been proactive when I still had control and listened to Mama and even Mods warning me to turn off DMs when I signed up. I overestimated myself and now I pay many prices for my idiocy.
You do good job punishing me with ice already…I beg you be merciful enough to stay while I cleanse…please…we are like in the Destino animation…meant to be together but lost among shifting sands and obstacles trying to separate us…please do not forget Our Destiny of Love…remember, we don’t say goodbye…J’taime Éternellement!!”
CLOSING QUESTIONS
How do I cure the disenchantment / indifference? If I decide to stay, how do we rebuild when we lack solid rubble for a new reconstruction? How do I stop her restlessness to cheat? Is my wife getting exploited similarly to a drunk woman or is she culpable for her cheating? Am I the real failure here? Is this worth fighting for? Am I the real failure here?
TL;DR: Our Marriage is plagued by a shared abusive childhood, wife’s DID in particular. In 2022 an online predator reactivated her trauma programs through sexting. The fortified issues were never resolved, thus her alters cheated again once new predators DMed her in 2023. I hit my tolerance limit and something extinguished between us. I need advice on how to help my wife and rekindle Love.

​
It all started about 9 months ago. I got a wild idea to combine cannabis with breathwork exercises. After a while a red vortex appeared and different things would show up in the middle of it. At first it was stars, then a purple flame, and then random scenes would appear. Nothing special. It was usually people going about their day to day lives. A busy crosswalk in some metro area and group fighting in the UK are a couple of examples. It always felt like I was there but not there... if that makes any sense.
This went on for a while and I thought that maybe I'd be able to control it and see what I wanted to see. I started out with the intent of seeing a beach. Next thing I know I've got a flying bird's perspective of dotted islands in Thailand. Then I focused on underground military bases in Antarctica (I know how wild that sounds but I wanted to see). Next thing I know I'm a fly on the wall in this harshly lit tunnel with two military personnel walking past me. One looked at me like he knew I was there. This happens a lot.
After some time I was able to do it completely sober and sometimes spontaneously. It happened the same way every time. I close my eyes. The red vortex forms. Images appear inside. It even got to the point where I could do it with my eyes open.
A couple of times I was able to see energy rising off of my body. I could even see it radiating off my shadow. Lastly, I could see my body with my eyes closed. Blindfolded I could put my hand out in front of me face and see the silhouette of it and even the glimmer of the ring I was wearing.
​
I know all of this sounds absolutely ridiculous. Does any of this sound familiar to any of you (specifically the vortex)? I trumped it up to the result of my meditation/mystic practices but I'm not sure.

TLDR:
VIC, 18M, Australian first year uni student, have a mother and an elder sister. Father is abusive. Mother was hurt, strangled on multiple occasions. What actions can I take, especially in addressing financial situations. My mom can speak English, but extremely complicated phrases and lesser known laws for relationships and finances she probably doesn't know. Me and sister are fluent, grew up here. I really don't know what divorce processes are like either. Dad works and earns the money from his small business. Mom can start working elsewhere but we probably won't earn nearly as much. Sister technically can start working with her degree, although she is completing further studies right now.
The biggest problem I'm thinking of is financial security, especially since me and my sister are still in uni. I wish I studied more instead of messing around.
I'm in Australia. I'm only half a year into my degree, but my older sister has one and is currently doing another further degree. I'm probably going to start part time work soon to go along with my studies. Sister has some saved up from working part/casual time but probably not enough. Ideally, me, her and my mother could move out after a divorce. As soon as possible would be great, but I'm not sure when, and probably unlikely.
The violence has recently escalated to strangulation, choking her from behind (like a rear naked choke, google for reference), and dad trying to pull her into one of rooms further back rooms where he was probably going to do something worse, but she got away from him.
I don't know anything about the legal system in Australia, nor anything about the court and stuff. maybe it'd be too expensive or unlikely to bring a successful case to court, or not, I really don't know. I guess they are staying together for some reason, maybe in their heads it was for us, maybe he didn't think she'd tell us, I don't know. Mother refuses to let dad get his way and argues back at him too, so the violence usually escalates when she brings up sensitive topics.
There's a lot of things I don't know. I think I'm going to confront and ask him about what happened, and see if it's really true. She said he would probably lie. I hope not. He's a bit religious and a "family man", so I'd probably ask him to swear on his passed parent and god or something. I'm thinking of plans if things go south, maybe I'd talk to him in one of the open rooms so I won't get locked in with him, but there's a lot of things that could be used to harm me there (broken glass shards, hard objects, etc.) Maybe I'm thinking too far. He's never really hit me after I turned like 13. I remember I yelled at at him when he slapped my sister (on the shoulder or something, because corporal punishment at that age is clearly healthy) when she was like 15-16, though I was younger, I think he was a little surprised. Maybe I'm thinking too far. Maybe nothing will happen, but I want to be prepared. I'm the only one as tall as him in my house, my sister and mom can't compete. Still makes me angry that he could do that to someone like my mom. He must feel real strong and mighty.
​
I was thinking of recording the conversation or something, but I don't know how. what if I need to use my phone mid-conversation something, what if I have to leave the house without it, how will it be retrieved? What if things get physical? I might do it while mom isn't home. I don't want my sister to get hurt. She's older, but very weak and frail. My physique is somewhat tone but I have muscle, but I don't want to bet on an unpredictable fight with him, it's too risky. He also has like 10-20 kg on me, although it's not all muscle, he still has some strength from some labor. Right now I'm just thinking of talking to him in a room while my sister could listen and pay close attention in the corridor next to the front exit door, ready to record or call the police from a safe location and be able to immediately leave if something does happen. I'm thinking of the worse possible scenarios right now unfortunately.
Maybe some would advise me to not ask or confront him about it. I have to. I'm sorry, I just need to hear it from his perspective. Maybe it's my naivety, thinking there's any explanation from him for his actions. I understand there's no justification for him, and that there's never a situation where you can harm someone like that. But I need to know what he was thinking. My mother could be considered toxic and hurtful with her words, and would be annoying when yelling and following you to nag and keep yelling, but I understand it's no excuse for her to be treated in the way she was. I don't know when to ask him, I was slightly heated and planned to ask him as soon as he got home tonight, but now I realise I don't really know what to say or ask, other than if things really did go down how my mother described it.
But that's basically the outline of it. What should be my plans now? Assuming maybe things chills for a bit, ideally until I finish my degree (unlikely), since fights would only start if they argue. But I suspect something will happen and dad will do something unfair or something with finance or work or some shit that gets mom heated since she's somewhat emotional. This abuse has happened a few times now, and my short, certainly weaker mother refuses to back down, probably because it would mean that him strangling her would mean he won and successfully silenced her bickering with violence or something, I don't know I'm pulling cards. I know she's probably scared, but she refuses to show it or to back down from him. I think I've heard, and I don't want this to be taken too severely, although it is if I heard correct, him saying death threats to intimidate her. Be mindful I could have heard wrong, and it might be some intimidation tactic he tried to scare her with, but if I heard it correct, I heard it with clarity. A whole month went by before she told me about this most recent strangulation event, but similar abuse can be tracked back to few years ago, although it was never this severe, and recently escalated to this level. Now that I think about it, it really has escalated. It went from shouting, to spitting, to slapping, to throwing things around, to front hand chokes and recently he tried to choke her in a rear naked choke kinda way while pulling her to a room. (This last event detail is from my mother. I don't know, I don't like cementing facts based on perspective, because they both view each other horribly and have warped perspectives of what is and what occurred, although I understand that there is no excuse for what happened if it occurred, and I'm almost certain it did. The other events happened with certainty, I witnessed it in time.)
​
For those who might be curious as to if my father is really guilty, I've seen him front hand choke her in the throat before. While I was in the house. He has been noticeably more violent when I'm not in the room or if he's in some corner of the house with her, where it escalates from shouting to physical contact. I've seen slaps, spits, plenty. He is guilty.
​
I'm only looking for his sick perspective. I want clarity on the events, I want to see what he saw when he put his hands on the woman that birthed me. Maybe I'm being to hopeful and calm. Maybe I should call the cops and bash his head in right before they arrive. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Fortunately, I'm covered in uni work, and kept busy for the rest of the weekend, to distract my mind. I'm kind of excited? Maybe it's the wrong word. I can't wait to ask him, for closure on what happened. I want to see how he would react. Maybe I shouldn't ask yet.
​
I'm scared of change and pretty nervous. If they get divorced immediately, then my complete lifestyle will change, house moving etc. We're living a somewhat average household right now, although they always complain about bills and such. What would happen after the divorce? Maybe we'd live in poverty, idk. I have no idea about the cost of living in Australia to be honest, I had very little interest in politics and financial situations when I was still so far from such matters, but now I wish I read more about it. My life could be upside down. I can really see how ungrateful I was now. I really thought that I was going to live a normal life.
That is all for detail about the situation. Sorry for the long, untidy, stream-of-thought mess. I basically typed and added all conscious thoughts into one giant text wall. I'll add a tldr; to the front.
Please let me know where else I can post this for advice. I'm really lost. I was thinking about posting it in Australia but I don't know the rules of the subreddit. I mean, I'll probably do it anyway who cares if it gets removed.
I also don't know how I should be reacting. I'm pretty sure I just described a dire, alarming and severe situation. As I read my own post, I'm kinda realising how fucked it is. I was told of the most recent violence (the choking pulling one) around 30 minutes ago. My first couple of thoughts were aggressive and hostile, but now I'm stressing thinking if there's any way out, preferably peacefully, although if he peacefully had a heart attack it would make things easier. And if there's helpful ways or mindsets to cope, I'm all ears. I'm kinda stressed with uni right now, I'm already having trouble with a course worth double the units, now I'm job hunting while thinking of all this, it's a rather large plate for me. This post was long winded and improperly expressed in some areas I suspect, I am willing to elaborate or fix details if I notice or if someone asks.

There are so many similarities between Harpocrates and Miquella that I’d find it hard to believe that FromSoftware didn’t take any inspiration from this god. So I decided to examine this deity to see if I could find anything interesting. All screenshots shown in this post in the Haligtree and Elphael were taken in-game without freecam, though many were in first-person with the FPS mod^[1], which was done to get a closer look at some of the symbols and iconography. I know not all of FromSoftware’s assets aren’t entirely original for dev purposes of course (Path of Exile assets reused for example) so I won’t be scrutinizing every symbol except for the more elaborate and relevant iconography.
Harpocrates is the Greek translation for “Horus The Child” (the Egyptian Hor-Pa-Khered)^[2], the famed Egyptian son of Isis and Osiris. In Plutarch’s (Greek philosopher) account of the couple, Isis “gave birth to Harpocrates, imperfect and premature…”, further described as “prematurely delivered and weak in his lower limbs”. To the Greeks, Harpocrates and Horus were not two separate deities, but “two degrees of evolution of the same god.” Very interestingly, Plutarch mentions Isis as “...the female principle of Nature, and is receptive of every form of generation, in accord with which she is called by Plato, the gentle nurse and the all-receptive…"
I believe we can make some parallels to Marika. Mention of generation and other female qualities bring to mind the role of an Empyrean, one who is capable of birthing new progeny as potential successors to the next age. The principle of Nature itself could be applied to the metaphysical laws of the Elden Ring in-game in my opinion.
Miquella was born malformed and is a savior figure for albinaurics and demi-humans who embarked on a pilgrimage to his Haligtree. Harpocrates was favored by the rich as a god of plenty, but was also loved by the masses. In Elphael we can see wheat, a symbol of abundance scattered throughout the area when exploring.
Harpocrates is commonly depicted standing or striding on an animal (such as a goose or a horse), with side locks^[3]. I was curious to see if Miquella is ever depicted with side locks but from the art of his kidnapping by Mohg and the teaser imager for the Shadow of the Erdtree, I’m not sure. The statues of Miquella at the Haligtree (by himself and with Malenia) don’t appear to depict him with any. It’s not really important, but it’d be cool if he did have them I feel. Miquella is shown in the dlc teaser riding Torrent so maybe his connection to our trusty steed was intentional by FromSoft if inspired by Harpocrates.
Terracotta figurines of Harpocrates often depict the young sun god emerging from a lotus flower, and according to this overview of a figurine, “The cornucopia, representing fertility and prosperity, is a Greek motif; however, the association of child-gods with agricultural bounty has Egyptian parallels as well."^[4] It’s interesting to me that the lotus flower is associated with Harpocrates, since we can immediately draw parallels between Malenia and her scarlet blooms. According to Plutarch, “...they portray the rising of the sun in this manner to indicate allegorically the enkindling of the sun from the waters.” when they speak of the sun rising as a new-born babe from the lotus. He is a god of the rising sun, represented seated on a lotus capsule.^[2]
In Egyptian mythology, the lotus is a symbol of life, the fecundative (fertile, or producing new offspring or growth) power of the Nile river, and was a source of food for not only Egypt, but the deltas of China and India (hence Brahma seated on a lotus) too. “By night it closes its leaves and submerges so deep under the water, that the hand cannot reach it. At dawn it directs itself eastwards to the light, and raises itself above the water and opens again.”^[5] Thus the lotus is a symbol for the birth and rebirth of the sun. “It is then one of the ways of introducing the dead to the divine life in the rebirth by the lotus, so that men after death can be reborn from the lotus as the gods.”^[5] From decay and death comes new life that bursts forth from the Scarlet Rot, and Malenia blooms as the goddess of rot at the roots of the Haligtree in a dramatic fashion.
Malenia’s name seems to mean “heir to the sun”^[6], which is very fitting seeing as the Golden Order’s gold has associations with it in my opinion.
“Shield of honor depicting a city crowned by the sun. It has seen better days. Much like the wear upon the shield, the Seat of the Sun is long faded away.” - Sun Realm Shield
These shields can be found from the beastmen skeletons in Farum Azula, though they are also found elsewhere in the Lands Between. Farum may very well have been the seat of the sun in ancient times. With Godrick also referring to a dragon as a “true-born heir”, I don’t feel the notion of the Greater Will being the sun is outlandish at all. We see a great light on the horizon while fighting the Elden Beast, and other celestial objects such as the moon are great powers in their own right.
He is depicted with his finger to his lips (a gesture to keep quiet about Sarapis being only human) and as such, was later called a god of silence. According to Plutarch though, the motion is actually little Harpocrates suckling his finger, as the motion in Egyptian means “eat” or “speak” and “Isis, in order to nourish him, puts the finger in his mouth instead of the breast.” Later depictions of Harpocrates as a deity of silence are Greaco-Roman, not Egyptian.^[5]
I didn't see a connection between Miquella and the later role of silence attributed to Harpocrates until I learned of the deity being associated with Mercury in the Renaissance-era. "The theme of silence is not just a Christian one: the association of wisdom with silence goes back to classical times, to writers such as Pindar, Euripides and Plutarch'."^[7] This is immediately significant, as not only have others put forward arguments of Miquella and Mercury in the alchemical sense, but Euripides' play The Bacchae in my opinion^[8], was the basis for the tragedy of Miquella, and the myths of Plutarch are a heavy focus in this post.
"During the Greek period, however, a mistaken interpretation of this gesture arose, namely that by it, Harpocrates commanded silence concerning divine mysteries. Renaissance mythographers and humanists accepted this explanation and Harpocrates appears as the god of silence in, amongst others, Gyraldus, Cartari and Valerian."^[7]
"Sometimes in Renaissance writing, the god Harpocrates was conflated with Hermes or Mercury, god of Eloquence, for a play on the rhetorical commonplace of eloquent silence."^[7]
As I have only recently stumbled upon this Renaissance-era connection, I will have to explore Mercury and the Cymbalum Mundi at a later time, since Plutarch's connections to sleep and dreams are another avenue I need to explore further in relation to Miquella, and putting both in this post would bloat it.
In Egypt, Horus the god was represented by a winged solar disc, symbol of the sun, which later gave rise to the cosmic “clipeus”, or world circle with its cosmocrater (ruler of the world) inside of it during Graeco-Roman times.^[5] Throughout Elphael and especially near the roots in the Haligtree, we find this symbol of two griffin-like figures underneath the Haligtree inside of a circle. It seems to me this visual was directly inspired by this depiction of Harpocrates inside of a solar disc (surrounded by an ouroboros), accompanied by two Agathodaemones, “noble spirits”, representing Isis and Osiris^[5]. Furthermore, in Elphael we can find more similar “noble spirits” depicted upside down. With this in mind, I’m comfortable with interpreting the symbol of the Haligtree over two Agathodaemones as Miquella, god of the world depicted inside, shown with his parents Radagon and Marika.
Very interesting that this imagery is seen when Miquella is inside his bloody cocoon. Note the pelvic bones that look similar to the “Agathodaemones” at the Haligtree, with the Empyrean literally inside of a new circle. In my last Miquella post arguing his tragedy mirrors The Bacchae^[8] , just as Pentheus’ gruesome demise seems a cosmic joke to Dionysus, Miquella’s aspirations of godhood have been turned on his head, becoming a literal surrogate to another god entirely. All of this symbolism at the Haligtree seems more thematic than indicative of some sort of convoluted plot by the Empyrean to let himself be Mohgnapped while having placed clues beforehand just for fun.
Later depictions of Harpocrates with Isis and Osiris according to El-Khachab^[5] seem to be Gnostic, “for in the mode of the Kabbalah, the two arms of God or the first cause, the infinite light, the Ensoph symbolize the second triad of the sephiroth, since the right arm is love, Chesed, and the left one is justice or strength, geburah. The former, Chesed, is the life-begetting principle, while the left arm represents might and from the union of the two comes tifereth, beauty or rather mercy, rachamzm, which is the eminent quality and principle of the Christian teaching,' and the assurance of the moral order of the world.”^[5]
“The first triad of the ten sephiroth, which are the qualities or the agencies serving as the media for the manifestations of God in the finite, represents Him as the Thinker of the universe. The second triad interprets Him as the moral power of the universe, and the third one represents the material universe;”^[5]
I’ve spoken of “Sophia” before in my Bacchae post, where I argued Sophia the archetype is present in-game as Marika, but also as the moral term; the self-knowledge of one’s place in the world, knowing the limits that compose human fate, and the assurance of moral order shown by El-Khachab relates to this idea, as the Order in-game is dictated by the Elden Ring. Every pistis Sophia (relating to the god) seems to have its own Horus, as shown in this image with the name Harpocrates at the bottom-left, only strengthening the notion that the Sophia and Harpocrates archetypes are represented in-game as Marika and Miquella in my opinion.
Back to Plutarch’s account of Isis and Osiris, I wonder if partial inspiration for the shadows in-game are from Isis finding the child of her deceased husband Osiris and sister Nephthys: “And when the child had been found, after great toil and trouble, with the help of dogs which led Isis to it, it was brought up and became her guardian and attendant, receiving the name of Anubis, and it is said to protect the gods just as dogs protect men." Plutarch also mentions the special Dog-star of Isis: Cyon (Sirius).
Another interesting tidbit are the mentions of the sisters Isis and Nephthys as “...the face of Isis on one side, and on the other the face of Nephthys [bottom of the circumference of the sistrum]. By these faces they symbolize birth and death, for these are the changes and movements of the elements.” This is in regards to the world as a sistrum (rattle of a snake), where all things in existence need to be shaken, rattled, never to cease their motion, but woken up and agitated when they grow drowsy and torpid.
I’ve argued before^[9] that Miquella’s unalloyed gold is immutable (unchanging) in a world that is fundamentally one of vicissitude (change between opposites), and the world described as a sistrum by Plutarch where things never cease their motion fits in quite nicely in my opinion. The sisters Isis and Nephthys being a dualism of life and death to me, bring to mind the Empyreans Marika The Eternal and the Gloam-Eyed Queen, life and death, in opposition. This doesn’t suddenly mean the GEQ is Marika’s sister, but I had always thought she was at least a Numen, since their longevity seems to make them good candidates for hosting the Elden Ring.
Plutarch also assigns Isis to Earth and Love to Osiris. For me personally, I assign Earth to Marika as the Elden Ring within her is “the wellspring of all joy” in the words of Enia and once bore fruit in the Age of Plenty, relating to Sophia. Radagon and Love are inseparable in my view, as he loved the perfection he sought above all else, and may have always loved Rennala even after leaving her in my opinion^[10] (though there's still much to debate about that in fairness). Overall, I strongly believe inspiration was taken from these myths.
As for Horus-the-Child, he is neither eternal, unaffected, or imperishable but “being ever reborn, contrives to remain always young and never subject to destruction in the changes and cycles of events.”^[5] (the sun that renews itself daily)
Most interestingly, Plutarch mentions the reason that Harpocrates was born frail, referencing Plato’s Symposium in regards to Love being the child of Plenty and Poverty. In the Symposium, Diotima showed Socrates “that Love was neither, but in a mean between fair and foul, good and evil, and not a god at all, but only a great demon or intermediate power... who conveys to the gods the prayers of men, and to men the commands of the gods.”^[11] This intermediate power in neoplatonic thought would be a demi-god. Miquella’s name seems to be “a variation of Miguella, itself a feminine version of Miguel, a name of Hebrew origin meaning ‘who is like God.’”^[6] The name fits his demi-god status quite well, but what of being born of Poverty and Plenty?
Diotima notes that Love, as the son of both, partakes of their natures and is full and starved by turn. “Like his mother he is poor and squalid, lying on mats at doors (compare the speech of Pausanias); like his father he is bold and strong, and full of arts and resources. Further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge:—in this he resembles the philosopher who is also in a mean between the wise and the ignorant.”^[11] Plutarch says of the duo that “Poverty, wishing for children, insinuated herself beside Plenty while he was asleep, and having become pregnant by him, gave birth to Love, who is of a mixed and utterly variable nature.”^[2] He also speaks on their natures similarly since “...the son of a father who is good and wise and self-sufficient in all things, but of a mother who is helpless and without means and because of want always clinging close to another and always importunate over another. For Plenty is none other than the first beloved and desired, the perfect and self-sufficient; and Plato calls raw material Poverty, utterly lacking of herself in the Good, but being filled from him and always yearning for him and sharing with him.”^[2]
In Pausanias’ speech on Love in the same Symposium, he says there are two kinds; the first is noble, concerning the intelligence of man, “without wantonness or lust”, while the second is a more vulgar love, a love of the body rather than the soul, and of power and wealth.
Malenia is bold and strong like Radagon, while Miquella has inherited his father's talents for arts and resources. They are also afflicted with crippling weaknesses in turn.
I’d like to be very speculative right now about the true nature of the twins’ maladies, so feel free to disregard this next theory as mostly speculation. What if there’s another reason the twins were born malformed that has to do with their parents’ character rather than their relation (incest)? Radagon embodies Plenty in my opinion, through his journey of Golden Order Fundamentalism, mastering sorceries and incantations in his journey to be complete, having skills in crafts like sewing, and founding a school of thought that studies the Elden Ring through scholarly means. The love he practices seems to be a nobler one according to Pausanias, involving the intelligence of man in his journey for perfection.
I’ve argued before that Radagon represents the Intellect that comes into conflict with the Soul.^[10] Marika, the archetype of Sophia (who embodies the Soul) on the other hand, was chosen to be an Empyrean, having godhood thrust upon her because of her physical attributes (Numen, able to bear successors). She, like Poverty, clung close to another, Godfrey, relying on his strength to conquer the Lands Between, and dismissed him to serve her own ends. The love she pursued was more vulgar, loving the power that Hoarah Loux’s bodily strength brought her, not his mind, which is one of extreme amathia^[8] (self-ignorance resulting in cruel violence, barbarism). His love for Marika may have also been of the low kind, because I can't imagine any other reason his cave-man brain would choose Marika. The twins were born quite a while after her Age of Plenty (during Godfrey’s reign) ended, and her Erdtree was sick with sprouts afflicting it^[12], furthering her character as one of Poverty.
Elden Ring’s world is fundamentally one of vicissitude in my opinion^[9], (change between opposites and contraries) and I posit that the twins were subject to these forces when they were born because of their parent’s divine natures, with Miquella forever young (too little entropy, which could relate to the Law of Causality) due to the reasons Diotima and Plutarch said of Harpocrates, and due to what I choose to dub “The Law of Vicissitudes”: One cannot exist without the other, and as all things have their opposites and contraries, his twin Malenia was born with too much entropy in turn, afflicted by the influence of the Goddess of Rot.
Since this theory of Plenty and Poverty is very speculative, the fact of the matter is that the simplest explanation for the malformed twins is the self-incest of Radagon/Marika. At the very least, I believe it is still appropriate to view the Plenty/Poverty dynamic as thematically relevant in Elden Ring.
SOURCES:
[1] First Person Souls – Full Game Conversion
[2] Isis and Osiris by Plutarch
[3] Harpocrates and Other Child Deities in Ancient Egyptian Sculpture
[4] Harpocrates Plague and Figurine
[5] Some Gem-Amulets Depicting Harpocrates Seated on a Lotus Flower: To the Memory of My Great Friend Dr. Alexandre Piankoff
[6] The names, terms and language of Elden Ring (etymology/nomenclature study)
[7] SILENCE, HARPOCRATES, AND THE CYMBALUM MUNDI
[8] Miquella's story is based on the Greek tragedy "The Bacchae", and the "Sophia" that permeates Elden Ring
[9] Why the Flame of Frenzy can only be quelled in Placidusax's arena & the nature of unalloyed gold
[10] The Heroic Frenzy of Radagon
[11] Symposium, by Plato
[12] Misbegotten, Omens, and Grafting: An Origin Story

I beat Deadlocked a couple days ago in around 1600 attempts and decided to jump to Nine Circles, because I love the level's deco and song, and it didn't look to difficult based on videos (oh boy was I wrong).
I've been trying the level for the past two days with around 1500 attempts and I've only reached 49% so far. I've been practicing layouts of the level, and so far I have the first cube, ball, and final cube reasonably consistent. The wave doesn't actually seem too bad, but I have to practice the section after the first gravity inversion.
The thing that is really discouraging me is the predrop ship. Holy fuck. It feels like you have to concentrate so hard every attempt because there's next to no room for error. I don't know if it's because I'm playing on 60 Hz mobile, but it feels so easy to overshoot or undershoot gaps. The worst part is that I know exactly what I'm supposed to do during the ship, but I only pass it around one in ten times.
I genuinely enjoy the rest of the level so far, but running into the same wall at 20% over and over again hoping for an attempt or two at the ball/drop gets incredibly frustrating.
I still think it's way too early to move away from the level, and I think I'm just burnt out, but based on my description, should I keep practicing the level or grind some medium demons?

Apologies if this is inappropriate for this sub. I'll happily take the post down if so, but I was doing this for myself anyway, and figured maybe others would be interested in the same thing. Basically, I've done the whole game and remodeled every house, now. So I used a little randomization to draft up some clients for myself. And since I'm a writer by trade, I went ahead and wrote up their mission statements, too. Basically, trying to mimic the little opening spiel you would get from, like, the Luxury/Pets/Farm jobs (Also, there's at least one kind of sad story in here, so CW for widowing.).
If this is of interest to you, please feel free to grab any of them and go to town. They're pretty basic, not as in-depth as some of the jobs you get in-game obviously. But they also offer you a little more design freedom, so give and take. Some of them, you won't be able to do if you only have the base game, but there are definitely some you can. I freely put these out for anyone who wants them. And again, I'm sorry if this isn't the kind of post the sub is generally looking for.
1. A Tranquil Place
a. Property: Lake Cabin
b. Client: Hazel Bishop, 46, public defender
i. Single, no children
c. Client Statement: I wouldn’t trade my job for anything. Everyone has the right to be defended in the court of law, and I take it very seriously. But when I’m home, I want to decompress. I need something light and airy, with indoooutdoor living so I can commune with nature and not get too down in the dumps. I see a lot of things I’d rather not in my day job, and I need a place that’ll help me leave that all behind. A place to entertain is a must, as is a luxurious bathroom. I also need an office space, but make sure it’s closed-off so it doesn’t leak into the rest of the space. A place to watch movies and let my brain float away would be most welcome as well. Money is no object when it comes to my well-being and peace of mind!
2. The Music of the Night
a. Property: The Hall of the Mountain King
b. Client: Bennett & Darrel Perkins, 28 & 29, composer and trombonist
i. Married, no children
c. Client Statement: We love the hustle and bustle of the big city, but we need to be able to get away and get some real work in from time to time. An apartment isn’t exactly the best place to practice trombone, and it’s just not the best atmosphere for creating new, exciting compositions. We want lots of intimate space for the two of us, but we also need our own places, especially for work. Somewhere Darrel can play trombone to his heart’s content, and somewhere I can go to be at peace while I work on my next piece. Make sure there are at least a couple guest rooms for our friends from the city, as well as a big dining room and kitchen so we can host galas!
3. Early Retirement
a. Property: Let it Snow
b. Client: Waldo Walsh, 20, tech entrepreneur
i. Single, no kids
c. Client Statement: Salutations my good individual. I recently sold my startup, Exterra, for a hefty sum of money. Not polite to talk about finances, you know? But I want to make this as nice as I can. You noticed it’s a bit of a drive to get up the mountain to the place, so I want as much as I can here around me so I don’t have to brave the elements. An office, a media room, and a big kitchen. I think I want to take up cooking now that I’m retired. But I also want to take care of my folks, now that I’ve got the money to do so. Make sure there’s a nice space for them so they can move in as well. Oh! My dad has a pet macaw, so he’ll need a home as well.
4. The Pen is Mightier
a. Property: Uninhabited House
b. Client: Agnes McPherson, 91, Romance Author
i. Married, no children at home, 1 adult child
c. Client Statement: Hello, hello, hello! Oh, thank you so much for taking me on. I know it’s a bit strange for someone of my age to be buying a new house, especially a house this large. But at 91, well, let’s just say I’m considering what my son and his wife are going to inherit. Not that I plan on leaving any time soon! I want this house to be a place where I can continue to be inspired to tell tales of love and triumph, so an office is a must. My Richard and I also need to make sure that we have our bedroom on the first floor. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore the upstairs! That needs to be ready to host my son and grandkids, and transition to being theirs when that nasty business goes down. I know it’s not fun to talk about, but all the more reason to make the house full of energy and life until then! Spare no expense, all right?
5. Wash Out That Man!
a. Property: Man Cave
b. Client: Ada Carney, 33, Dentist
i. Divorced, two sons (10, 14)
c. Client Statement: I could really use your help with this. My good for nothing ex-husband is finally gone from my life. Shacked up with some other poor, unfortunate woman who has to deal with him. I got the house in the settlement, but I need to get rid of his man cave down in the basement. My oldest is growing up, and it’s high-time he gets his own space rather than taking up the entire basement with all that nonsense. Plus I need to make sure the main bedroom is as frilly and femme as possible. Lots of space outside for the boys to play would be great, and an outdoor cinema would make me the coolest mom on the block for sure.
6. Reshuffling
a. Property: Camping Bungalow
b. Client: Ursula and Rhett Compton, 56 & 56, Psychiatrist and homemaker
i. Married, 1 adult child (19) moving back in
c. Client Statement: Life just moves so fast, doesn’t it? I didn’t expect to be opening up a new practice this late in my life, but here I am. And then, my kid Alex decides they’re going to take the summer off from college this year and move back in. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong, but Rhett and I just downsized to this new place a month before they decided. Luckily I have my own office downtown for work, but this place is still a little small for three people. We don’t need anything complex, just a place to sleep, a living room, and a kitchen. But we’ll need an addition for Alex. I remember being nineteen, and the last thing I want to do is cramp their style, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays. So make sure it’s nice and separate from their old, fuddy duddy mom and dad.
7. A Place for Me
a. Property: Semi-Detached House
b. Client: Edgar Bishop, 87, retired coroner
i. Widower, no children at home
c. Client Statement: I know this probably isn’t the kind of job you usually take on, but I like your work, so I’m glad you were willing to step in. My Cindy passed away about six months ago, and I just decided I needed a fresh start in a new city. She wouldn’t have wanted me puttering around that old house, feeling sad all the time. And this way, I live closer to my brother and sister. But you don’t need my whole sob story, unless you want to have a drink. I bought this place outright, and I’m the only one going to be staying here full-time. A guest room would be good, just in case I need it. But mainly, I just need something simple. I’ve got plenty of time, but not plenty of energy, so easy is a plus. Just make sure I have a comfortable bedroom, and a space where I can read my books. And if you could include a little orange? That was Cindy’s favorite color. Just a little touch of her to keep her memory alive. But I don’t need a bunch of knick-knacks and decorations I’m going to have to dust. Functionality first and foremost.
8. Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth
a. Property: Uncle’s Bunker
b. Client: Geraldine Shields, 28, Journalist
i. Single, no children
c. Client Statement: Yeah, I could really use a hand with this…situation. Let’s call it a situation. So my uncle was one of those prepper types. But he recently decided that living in the suburbs, even with an underground bunker, was too close to “the enemy” when “the time came.” So he sold me the house for pennies, handed me enough cash to renovate it—you do take cash, right?—and moved out to some place he refuses to tell me or anyone else about. And look, normally I wouldn’t, but…being a journalist doesn’t necessarily pay that well. Not sure when I’m going to get another chance to own my own place. So if you could give me a hand? Make the underground portion as hospitable as you can, and just make sure there’s a space for me to write. I don’t need much. Once this is out of my hair, I can put some more focus on making sure my uncle’s at least okay. I’m a professional snoop, after all. Oh, and one more thing: I want to keep things pretty neutral, so don’t go crazy on the color scheme.
9. A Working Home
a. Property: Townhouse Hostel
b. Client: Maxine Curtis, 43, Fashion Designer
i. Has a girlfriend with a daughter (12), no kids of own
c. Client Statement: I love this place. I remember staying here when I was way too young to be traveling on my own. I can’t believe it’s fallen into such a state of disrepair. But I’m hoping you can help me give it new life. I’m a bit of a fashion sensation. I can tell you’re not a part of my world, but that’s fine. An outsider is the perfect person to bring a unique vision to this space. I need one floor fully dedicated to just being my work space. Then I need a spacious suite for my girlfriend and I, and preferably a space for her lovely little daughter to stay. I want them both to feel at home, and make it a little easier for her to say yes when I ask her to move in with me. Mum’s the word on that, though! The whole house needs to be presentable at all times, since I’ll have clients coming in. I’m sure what you lack in fashion sense you’ll more than make up for in design appeal.
10.Fresh Starts and Old Bones
a. Property: This House Was on Fire
b. Client: Elisa Camacho, 39, History Professor
i. Single, but ready to mingle, 2 daughters (13, 17), 1 son (16)
c. Client Statement: This new job is kicking my butt, so I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to really clean anything up around here. I hate to leave you with so much work, but my kiddos and I just can’t keep staying in this cramped little apartment while I try to find the time to fix this place up. Each of my kids needs their own space, and of course I do too, plus I’ll need a good-sized dining room so we can all have sit-down dinners together. They’re getting older and I don’t want to lose touch with them quite yet. A big kitchen is a plus, since I love to cook when I have the time. And if you could make my bedroom just a little more, shall we say, inviting? I want to get back out in the dating world, and maybe bring some of the dating world back home with me too.

Hello everyone. I (29M) am auditing the trauma-laden relationship with my DID wife (29F) after another bout of unwanted cheating. We are hypermonogamists. To us, infidelity is a sacrilegious violation of Love. Alas, my wife has Dissociative Identity Disorder and some alters are hellbent on reenacting trauma with abuser substitutes. Yes, the DID is diagnosed by a trauma specialist, not Dr. Google. To differentiate from her alters, I will refer to Her True Self as Wifey.
I tracked the cheating history by writing this behemoth of a post and did my best to connect dots between childhood trauma and modern consequences. I hope that the community’s outside perspectives can spot things to which we are still blind, provide advice, or give any input that might aid our situation. All opinions welcome. I will access them carefully.
Please note that I have a Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style, and my psychologist noted C-PTSD. I also have DID but unlike my wife, I worked long enough to achieve co-consciousness, internal cooperation, and current dormancy in my alters. My True Self is finally in command. We ran out of therapy money before my wife could address her own issues, hence online communities are our last resort until savings build up again.
#OUR TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD ORIGINS
I was raised and abused by my narcissist grandmother for 25 years due to her orchestrating a rift between Mom and I (topic for another post). Her 16yo son aka my uncle sexually abused both my wife and I from infancy. In my case he had daily access. For my wife, it was because our fathers and my uncle were a trio of scum.
Despite the uncle link, I didn’t meet Wifey till age 3. She was dancing under a sprinkler and noticed my stare. Lightning hit us the second our eyes met and we breathlessly ran over to announce the mutual BOOM. After that, we were inseparable. At age 4 I proposed, she agreed, and we shared our first kiss. Adorable? No. We didn’t know how to be kids—due to sex abuse and grandma teaching us adult concepts, we related as boyfriend-girlfriend way too early and began playing the game ‘naked stuff’. Nothing beyond this first connection is purely innocent.
Soon after our romantic friendship started, my wife was groomed into nightly ‘special love’ with my uncle, laying a foundation of unfaithfulness towards me. When the ‘other boyfriend’ dumped her at 6, infatuation spiked and led to 9 years of cartwheels to regain his desire. Between that and my grandmother worshipping him, I competed for both women’s hearts by copying uncle into synonymity. I even used his playlists for dates and sex, believing that I am only worthy of love if I am him.
During and after my uncle’s abuse, my wife’s pedo father raped her too. I am loathed to call this BDSM given that he never abided by Safe, Sane, Consensual, but what he inflicted is BDSM activity. By age 5, he was trafficking his daughter and forced me to watch the rapes plus participate in sadism until I started doing it of my own accord. I was taught that boys are supposed to do this to girls, because they are girls. I didn’t know vanilla sex exists till age 11, at which point we finally shared positive intimacy—this formed the bedrock of what we are striving to build in adulthood. Alas, the learned fetishes persisted for years.
Meanwhile, my narcissist grandmother tormented me daily and brainwashed my wife to mimic her opinions, mannerisms, approaches, etc., thereby producing a mini-me alter and adding layers to our trauma bond. That alter learned toxic views on women (they exist to serve men) and pro-adultery, as the Narc preyed on committed guys for the fun of causing break-ups, obtained her husband by homewrecking, and caught a married lover long before grandpa died. As teens we were actually ghostwriters and phone sex assistants for that affair, obstructing critical stages in our own relationship.
Throughout this, Love existed. No one but her made me feel Loved, Seen, Heard, Safe, Certain. Moreover, me and Wifey expressed authentically only to each other, providing an oasis for Our True Selves to develop untarnished. We mutually soothed our demons, inspired creativity, and entertained one another. Teen Wifey also proved my angel. She endured hell to guide me out of darkness and prevented suicide attempts. Without her, I would be in prison or dead. At 23 we married in hopes of becoming wholesome and slowly inched toward that goal.
For Wifey’s wellbeing, I spent 2015-2022 deprogramming my BDSM porn addiction, fetishes, and toxic attitudes about women. Only last year I comprehended healthy relationships in concept. I think it is a beautiful way to live but it unnerves me as well. We also realized that vanilla D/s is our true preference, and we are highly compatible as a team. There is potential for absolute Paradise, but many issues still need to be overcome (communication struggles, ignoring Wifey for eons while she waits for me to interact again, etc.). The infidelity is my current focus. Here goes the trauma-fuelled history of online cheating.
#UNCLE SUBSTITUTE EXPLOITS HER
Wifey has 7 alters. Some self-harm, some climb out windows, some rabidly scratch me or shriek enough for police to arrive, but the most annoying is that 9yo girl imprinted on my uncle. She always pines to get him back—which she finally did, in proxy form: AP1 (Affair Partner 1).
May 19th, 2022, my wife met a 31yo ‘virgin’ on Facebook who sucked her in via sob stories. While extracting info on her alters and rapes, AP1 made her a sex-ed teacher. Her confidence flourished. I had no concerns given my rock-solid trust in Wifey. Little did I know the 9yo alter was having an emotional affair of unrequited ‘love’. AP1’s eerie similitude in looks / job / zodiac / vibe / pedo streak made him an ideal projection, especially given how much Uncle 2.0 lavished the alter. He was her dream come true. Looking back, I invited this situation by depriving Wifey of attention for too long. She needs regular interaction with me to stay Her True Self.
Anyways, Wifey believed the hours spent texting / on the phone were recharging her desire for ‘me’. We were yet to understand that ‘me’ meant ‘uncle’, as the two were blended. I started feeling off, but kept trusting her. After all, she had befriended two FB guys in 2021 who stayed platonic (only now we recognize them as lighter emotional affairs). Besides, grandma taught me that getting randomly sidelined or devalued is ‘just the way things are’.
After 3 weeks of grooming, AP1 triggered my wife, fully infiltrating her subconscious. She fearfully hid from him for 2 days, then tried to end the friendship on June 8th. AP1 derailed the goodbye into engaging topics, followed by traumatic content that methodically wore her down into an aroused trance. Once he hit the trigger jackpot, her alter seized control and delved into 6 hours of abuse reenactment sexting, audio clips, nudes, unholy “I love yous”, etc. while Wifey’s undercurrent of extreme stress induced miniature heart attacks—this caused permanent damage. Once Wifey woke up and saw what transpired, a female FB friend moved mountains to prevent her guilt-ridden suicide. She desperately wanted to die.
Later, I walked into the room expecting nothing unusual. Instead, tear-stricken wife fell to her knees, grabbed my leg and frantically confessed sexting, giving away our gif collection and using terms sacred to us. The heartbreak annihilated me. While consoling her, I struggled to swallow reality: the ONE PERSON I thought would never break my trust, just shattered it. Another dude just stole MY wife. Long before I learned that my old rival (uncle) was the motive, I felt triggered.
Many talks / meltdowns ensued between us and Mom. 48 hours later, the alter cheated again (June 10th) while we thought Wifey was snoozing. AP1 had unlocked an oil spill of traumatic arousal, hence it took seconds to induce the marathon, this time centred on BDSM. AP1 then instructed the alter to give him first dibs every day—the Husband can only get sloppy seconds. Once he left, she ran over to Mom announcing that her boyfriend is going to marry her (old fantasy about my uncle) in a jarringly American voice (Wifey is Francophone). This unmasked DID as the cheating engine and introduced us to a previously-unknown alter.
Once awake, Wifey plunged into catatonic shock and depression. We all supported Wifey grieving AP1’s sick exploitation and processing why she succumbed. I never got a chance to focus on myself amid the revolutionary insights, plus Mom and I kept scrambling to stop that alter before she obeyed the “sext me daily” command that would only retraumatize her further. We also discovered AP1 is a predator who targets mentally-ill wives in addition to little girls. That vulture has a thing for the most vulnerable forbidden fruit.
Realizing the insidious influence made Wifey hyperfocus on Our Marriage. She was outraged that AP1 dared invade us and texted him revocations of love, condemnations for “raping her while drunk” and tried to hammer the sanctity of Marriage into his snide mug. We banded together against my uncle’s spectre and felt in-tune as a couple. Therapy sessions were scheduled. Had this continued, Our Love would be detoxed and stronger than ever. Alas, a parasitic distraction sapped its power 6 days later.
#GRANDMOTHER TRAUMA BOND INTERFERES
My wife kept shutting down during intimacy due to intrusive memories of AP1, plus an urge to blot out the existence of non-abusive sex. Her alters were clinging to my uncle’s ‘style’. She quickly realized that AP1 had stained sex and rendered her numb to me. She was distraught.
When my wife sought advice on June 16th, 2022, her friend (also abused) nabbed the chance to confess a bewildering lesbian crush. This shock activated the trauma bond with my grandmother and prompted another alter affair. She declared that a bit of lesbianism will cure our intimacy problem. At first, I laughed it off. Then therapy was cancelled, my savings were spent on gifts, and I realized that my wife’s #heart# was stolen in addition to sex drive. A Facebook woman had burglarized my one remaining stronghold.
Given how romantic it was, I felt replaced, invisible, abandoned (childhood themes). It sliced and diced me, particularly since my wife blinded herself to my pain no matter how I pushed her to see it (grandmother theme). My wife cried that she wants us both and can’t choose—no wonder, since she was unknowingly reliving a childhood scenario where emotional incest with my grandmother accompanied and influenced Our Love.
I was clueless about this. To me, it seemed a heart-crushing romantic affair. Being a hypermonogamist forced into polyamory is indescribable. On June 23rd, I ranted at AP2 for stealing the Love of My Life and decided on suicide even if I’m hellbound—Heaven means nothing sans my wife. Panicked AP2 called the cops. Mom convinced the officers that it was a false alarm, knowing that I would try to get shot. Wifey was unrecognizably hollow while comforting me. I fell asleep in bitter tears, her hand numbly wiping them away.
My bitterness began erupting while teary wife insisted this is a mission. She swore to end the affair as soon as she solves the ‘mysteries of sudden lesbianism’. I refused to support it. Our fights incited a fullblown manifestation of my AFib and worsened heart issues for my wife. Daily vomiting turned her into skin-and-bones. We nearly died, which would have caused the suicide of My Mom and AP2. Poor Mom already suffered intense health issues from this affair. She adores us both. Our vitriol devastated her.
Eventually I put my wife’s happiness above my own and let her go: if she is meant to come back to me, she will. I spent another month in living death. Surprisingly, Wife kept her promise. She discovered that the emotional incest with mother figures in both her and AP2 caused them to ‘fall in love’. The alters tied to my grandmother lost their grip, the affair ended (August 13th), and Love for me flooded back.
Wifey returned a matured woman: more Self-Aware, rational, and opposed to adultery than ever. I fell in Love with her vibrancy. Meanwhile, AP2 became our mutual best friend, an invaluable source of epiphanies for my healing too, and the biggest supporter of Our Love. Turns out that we all share near-identical trauma plus share common interests. As a result, I felt gratitude for this affair. Short-term suffering reaped long-term blessings.
#A STRAINED AFTERMATH
AP1 continued to highjack our sex life. The conscious resurrection of my uncle in my wife’s psyche permanently split him and I into two men and revealed the sexual imprint. Between bringing that into her awareness and the various desecrations, AP1 vandalized her. Damn the timing! We were on the verge of a sex life free from trauma!
We lived in tension despite Loving efforts, and I struggled to overcome the sense that my mate is tainted. I put the bedroom on hold until these stains were purified, and figured it was best not to impose myself until the alter stops craving Uncle 2.0. For months I patrolled my turf obsessively while screaming inside. Did my best to remember that Wifey never betrayed me—these are only echoes of the past wrecking havoc in modern day.
TRANSCENDING THE CHEATING
Fast forward a year since the two affairs. I was working on Self-development and finally grieving my grandmother trauma. My wife started reflecting deeper on infidelity and had epiphanies:

1. Everything that she finds attractive and attributed to my uncle belongs to me (e.g., I’m the analytical nerdy poet surrounded by books—he’s the robotic, stuffy tech fanatic).
2. I am her real dreamboat, projected onto the pedo worshipped by her idol (my grandmother) instead of vice versa. She actually Loves me MORE as I gain authenticity.

AP1 displacing me as the substitute proved a vital liberation. My wife gained clarity because he took the entire uncle projection onto himself. That also made me shed residual mimicry. Her sex alters went dormant and True Wife was eager to rediscover Her Husband directly.
During Our Anniversary (mid-April), True Wife was a trembling ball of remorse and begged for an impromptu vow renewal. Her turn was a meltdown of apologies and fervent promises to never forsake Our Love again. She convinced me of her redemption, especially after rejecting FB dudes in her inbox while posting wishes to me. Hope was rebuilt. We seemed en route to healing. One problem: we still didn’t have sex.
#ABUSER CONDITIONING RETALIATES
Avoiding sex since the cheatings was incredibly stupid. I didn’t realize that her alters, though dormant, felt owned by my uncle because I never reclaimed her. AP1 factory-reset my wife’s sexuality. The healthy things needed reinstallation before it was safe for her to face old trauma. My failure to do that made alters restless and our reconciliation was seen as a challenge to her fortified abuse programming. This was the worst time for my wife to post in a rape support sub.
In minutes the DM creeps descended and my wife met a pedophile whose way of abusing little girls woke the alters. My wife was in denial about the risk and texted me: “The affairs revealed truth about my alters and abuse. This man too. I gain awareness about my trauma as I tell it to him and understand more why pedophiles hurt us. I shall make sure it does not get personal. It is not a real affair. I am just researching.”
My heart was pounding but I tried to trust that she will stay within (barely tolerable) boundaries. NOPE. A mere 38 days after vowing never to betray me, her alter pleaded the pedophile to describe what he would do to 6-year old her. He whet her appetite with a partially-fulfilling fantasy before ghosting. Wifey entered a bizarre state of autopilot.
Inexplicably, she contacted a BDSM Redditor who is a known sanity risk, solicited him for sexting, then prayed for him not to respond. When he did, she felt scared shitless and obligated to describe her old tortures (as he commanded). The guy proceeded to demolish my wife’s barriers until she started craving her father’s tortures. The moment she called him “Master”, it was over for me.
I shut down and observed the trainwreck, feeling no sympathy. My wife invited all this shit and made a conscious choice to engage instead of block. I was dejectedly amused listening to the circus: “This is just research, I learn my mind by interacting with bad men—OMG OMG I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN SURVIVE THIS FILTH! I WANT ONLY YOU! Oh, another client needs my trauma for pleasure! Got to go!”
I felt too drained to realize that her unhinged sexting spree was stirring my trauma. Another oversight.
THE RIDE THROUGH OLD HELL
From May 27-28th, her alter became a snowball down Mt. Everest and the avalanche pulled me under. DM perverts verbally raped my wife while she took explicit photos right next to me in bed. Against all expectation, these e-rapes catapulted me back to boyhood: helpless to intervene, and too horrified to close my eyes. Taking away the phone didn’t cross my mind, nor could I. My body was paralyzed and eerily, I lost the ability to make sound. Seems that I contain significantly more trauma programming than anticipated. I resent my wife for subjecting me to this oppressive hell even more than I resent the cheating itself.
As if going down ‘memory lane’ wasn’t enough, possessed wife also channelled my grandmother. She would look at my tears and emit her sadistic CACKLE. Once I merged the two women, I was screwed. My trauma program dictates that I must endure whatever grandma wants; this includes watching her affair unfold.
As the ultimate insult, my wife spent the last 12 hours building an emotional affair on Reddit while I prayed for sleep. By dawn, her alter declared him a potential ‘boyfriend’. In her deluded head, the sexting arranged for nightfall would cure the rest through ultimate satisfaction plus bring True Wife back to Our Love, as this guy made her feel that “I am with you, not your uncle. Like you finally feel real.” The nonsensicality made me short-circuit. I was DONE.
#THE OBSESSION SLAMS TO A HALT
That afternoon, she finally jolted out of the binge-sexting. How? Wifey noticed my distress, 5 days too late. I watched her first comprehend that this is hurting me, then struggle to reset consciousness, then remember that Love exists. She did a 180 on her ‘client’ and viciously berated his perversion. That helped her regain footing.
My jittery wife proceeded to apologize, freak about the explicit photos, and spiral into a suicidal state over betraying me again. She erratically cancelled every sexting appointment, shut off the DMs, and spent days begging Divinity for help. We avoided each other.
In our first talk, Wifey confessed that she fears herself, as only her housebound life prevents physical cheating. While she wants nothing more than to be pure, her alters are begging for more due to trauma bonds. Wifey described it as: “Insatiable rocket blocked by a moral fence and waiting for release to zoom again.” Needless to say I was embittered.
#REFLECTING ON THE AFTERMATH
While analyzing recent events, I realized something: my wife didn’t run to that BDSM sadist of her own volition. An elusive alter had taken the wheel: the brothel Madame who pulls my wife into prostitution re-enactments. No wonder she was cackling! It’s the alter’s trademark, based on my grandmother! That damn Narc used to say that it’s bad to deprive other men and let the body go to waste on one Husband. No wonder a vow renewal pissed off that alter! Now Wifey-on-autopilot made sense.
Wifey was stunned at the revelation and had a glitch (outraged cackles, whimpers, shudders) that confirmed its truth. She never knew this freaky alter steers her from behind the scenes. Took her awhile to digest the disturbing paradigm shift.
Interestingly, she later texted: “That alter does not excuse my choice to chat with a pedophile right after another creep showed me how vulnerable I am. I have ultimate responsibility even if later choices were not mine.”
I asked if that choice was really her own. She replied: “I think so, because he introduced himself as a retired counsellor. I never expected he was a pedophile and when he mentioned it, I should have been proactive about risks continuing such a topic with any man.”
I avoided her again and tried to pinpoint my feelings (still a struggle). No matter how blatantly I see the nymphomaniac is not Her True Self, the serial breakage of trust is making me relinquish hope, care, and concern. The more I sink into numbness, the less I care who is culpable. The whole Wifey & Co. feel ruined. I know it is very unfair to shun Wifey for sins committed in a trauma trance. DID is involuntary. Yet, her issues are a jinx now that I am surpassing our old life. The very toxicities Wifey healed in me remain her alters’ addiction. Now they’re in nasty withdrawal, desperate for any ‘drug’.
For the first time ever, divorce is drifting through my thoughts. I keep wondering, do I treat these events as a growth opportunity for her, or grounds for divorce? I want to reconcile, but should I? I’m burned out. She’s constant trouble. I feel ready to bail. And honestly, I feel unsafe.
Like my grandmother, my wife let me fly again before shooting me down. I barely began grieving narcissistic abuses and am scared of her containing grandma energy. The no-contact I implemented seems pointless—that Narc lives in my wife anyways. She even has the same power to crush me to dust, only stronger. My wife is my biggest weakness. I abhor weakness, thus I am abhorring her. I also detest the oppression of tiptoeing, compromising, and obliging alter whims at the expense of serious plans—JUST LIKE WITH MY GRANDMOTHER.
Then again, I can’t fathom living after a divorce. Wifey loves Celine Dion and we are the epitome of that duet I Hate You Then I Love You. The lyrics “It’s impossible to live with you, but I could never live without you, for whatever you do, I never never never want to be in Love with anyone but you” still rings true.
The Spouse Slot in my heart was formed in my wife’s shape and for her Essence alone. I can’t accept any other. If I was the dead guy in What Dreams May Come (one of our favourite films), I would definitely traverse the afterlife to save my wife no matter how broken she is. Existence in any world is meaningless without her.
We overcame worse hells than cheating. Why would I abandon Wifey when she is in desperate need of protection!? We live by the quote: “A perfect marriage is two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other.” In my belief, we are Twin Flames, and Wifey is definitely my Ideal Woman: demure, dreamy, melancholic, full of mischief and poetry. She saved my life. She redeemed me. We are supposed to grow old and go to Eternity together. Why would I give up on a lifelong mate over trauma!?
It seems that I am losing interest. This necrosis spurs the desire to amputate, while the increasing loss of exclusivity is repellent. For years I unquestioningly believed that she’s incapable of desiring anyone but me. Now my ownership feels diluted, invalidated, defeated. Several guy’s marks are all over her and nothing scrubs them off. Her intrusive memories of affairs even obstruct our intimacy!!!!! It is slammed into my face constantly—she is no longer ONLY MINE. That triggers a kneejerk aversion to others’ territory, which she now is.
After decades of impassioned Gomez & Morticia-style romance, I have no clue if I even Love her anymore. Something feels extinguished between us. There is a loss of respect—for the first time, my wife’s worth has fallen in my eyes. I saw her defile every renewed vow. It’s burned into me: she is substandard. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My beloved is suffering. Why am I on the verge of abandoning her!?
#MY WIFE’S PERSPECTIVE
Wifey insists that she deserves patience as she tackles her trauma. Is Wifey right? I am going to copy/paste that text message from her here. Only fair to include both sides.
“Mon Amour, before you sink too deep with ghastly divorce ideas, may I please remind you one thing? I had infinite patience while you wrestled with your demons…I sacrificed myself to my depths for your healing and stayed even when I should have fled. You bemoan loss of trust online while I lived many years never feeling safe to trust you face to face!!!!!! But I never gave up on Love and the amazing man I saw beneath your shadows…my Ideal Man you have now become!
My alters twist and blur my thoughts dreadfully until I forget everything I have now…but they are NOT ME. You also were not yourself when you were lost…I fought so much to free you from problems and I would pray not to be abandoned when my own problems catch up with me…no one can heal their distortions overnight. “In sickness and in health” hm? I am sick. Why throw me away now? I do not feel this is very fair no matter how utterly loathsome my own actions…you know I shall always regret succumbing again. Alters aside I should have been proactive when I still had control and listened to Mama and even Mods warning me to turn off DMs when I signed up. I overestimated myself and now I pay many prices for my idiocy.
You do good job punishing me with ice already…I beg you be merciful enough to stay while I cleanse…please…we are like in the Destino animation…meant to be together but lost among shifting sands and obstacles trying to separate us…please do not forget Our Destiny of Love…remember, we don’t say goodbye…J’taime Éternellement!!”
#CLOSING QUESTIONS
How do I cure the disenchantment / indifference? If I decide to stay, how do we rebuild when we lack solid rubble for a new reconstruction? How do I stop her restlessness to cheat? Is my wife getting exploited similarly to a drunk woman or is she culpable for her cheating? Am I the real failure here? Is this worth fighting for? Am I the real failure here?
TL;DR: Our Marriage is plagued by a shared abusive childhood, wife’s DID in particular. In 2022 an online predator reactivated her trauma programs through sexting. The fortified issues were never resolved, thus her alters cheated again once new predators DMed her in 2023. I hit my tolerance limit and something extinguished between us. I need advice on how to help my wife and rekindle Love.

Back story: I went to college at the University of Houston and got a bachelors of science degree. After graduation, I was approached to begin a Manager in Training position at a very well known restaurant which I accepted. I moved my way up and got promoted to kitchen manager where I was basically on path to become a GM within the next couple years but an altercation arose which resulted in me quitting/getting fired from that position. I was in my early twenties at the time and my emotions got the best of me partly due to personal relationship issues as well as stress within the workplace. I took a couple months off work, started interviewing for other restaurant positions and landed on manager position as a PM operations director for well known fast food restaurant where I worked hard to move up the ladder but soon realized that this company and the restaurant I worked for wasn’t what I wanted long term. It made me question whether the restaurant business was meant for me. I decided to try my foot in another industry, automotive, to see if this would be a fit. Fast forward to now, I just finished up another MIT program at a reputable dealership where I worked every position within the dealership. After completion of the 2 year program they moved me to another dealership within the company where I worked the position for 6 months. Eventually my name came up to get out of the program early to help out another dealership that was soon going to open at new and bigger location doing the same thing I was currently doing keep in mind this wasn’t a manager role yet. They offered to promote me based on performance once the new dealership opened as service drive manager since they are currently two brands operating under one roof and would need someone to run the new brand making a name for itself. My current employer caught wind and decided to offer me a better salary and more opportunities and decided to accept the position I am in currently. I am 7 months in and ready to start pursuing a finance manager path within the company. I am nervous about pursuing a management role again due to past history but I can say that I’ve have done a lot of growing since then but I would just like some advice from someone in the industry on your thoughts and experience. Thanks for reading if you got this far! Any advice would be extremely helpful!

Hello HFY!
I have published a couple works here before, under a different username. Those works can be found on my profile. I have a new short story here, as well as an announcement!
My second book and first full length novel, The Harbinger of Life, has been published! If you enjoy sci fi combat adventure stories, you should check it out. Use coupon code HFY for 25% off!
https://rabideaupublishing.com/product/theharbingeroflife/
Not all my stories are strictly HFY material, but I have been influenced by a lot of the stories here and I want to thank all the authors who post!
A spectrograph of the nearby star filled the display screen on the Johnston’s bridge.
“It’s certainly interesting,” Bjørt said, stressing the last word. “But is it worth our while?”
“All I’m saying is there’s an unusual amount of heavy metals in this star. It would be interesting to see how the planets orbiting it have developed.” Ingólfur leaned back in his chair. His antenna twitched in irritation. “Anyway, I’ve already scanned the outermost gas giant while I was waiting for permission from the academy. I think a full survey will give us enough data to justify the grant money.”
Bjørt sighed. “I still don’t think this system is unique enough. There’s a binary system only ten light years away. Surely that will yield more interesting data.”
“That system doesn’t have four gas giants. This one does.”
“You and your gas giants. You keep expecting to make another discovery like Thalamos Eight.”
Ingólfur leaned forward. “You have to admit that mission was a massive success. We got funding for three more missions, including this one. Why wouldn’t we try to repeat it?”
Bjørt interlinked his claws. “Fine. But you fixate on gas giants too much. I’ll sign off, but I’m taking the skiff to survey the inner planets.”
The other insectoid scoffed. “Those are just rocks. None of them can support life, and one doesn’t even have an atmosphere.”
“I’m sure I’ll find something interesting.” Bjørt glanced at the star system’s readout. “There. DF-NK Four. Traces of argon. That seems unlikely. Wouldn’t you like to know why it’s there?”
"Ha. If you find argon in a gas giant, come find me. Otherwise, have fun.”
The two insectoids stood up. “I will. Trust me.”
DF-NK Four, it turned out, was very interesting. Just not in the way he had hoped. The ancient landscape was pitted and carved in a way the thin atmosphere never could have, and Bjørt found himself calculating how long ago and how much pressure an atmosphere would have needed to create such monuments. But he wasn’t a geologist, and astrogeology was a tad underfunded at the academy. He reluctantly admitted the fourth planet wasn’t worth his while.
The third planet seemed even more dull. It was only a hundred and thirty thousand kilometers from its star, and whatever features it might have had were bleached from the intense radiation. He sullenly wondered about his chances on the first and second planets. But still, he sat in orbit and ran a full sensor scan to find anomalies.
On a whim, he decided to call Ingólfur. The subspace transponder beeped for a few seconds before the video came through.
“How’s it going?” Ingólfur asked. “Did you find something?”
Bjørt shook his head. “Nothing worth reporting. You?”
Ingólfur’s antenna lifted in excitement. “Yes! DF-NK Six might have had rings! The gravitational alignment between the gas giant and its moons could have allowed for an elaborate ring system millions or billions of years ago! There are traces of multiple collisions between asteroids and moons that could have provided the material.”
Bjørt listened with enthusiasm, though admittedly not nearly as much as Ingólfur. The latter was fascinated by gas giants in a way Bjørt had yet to grasp.
They were interrupted by the computer beeping on Bjørt’s skiff. “Hold on, Ingólfur. I’ll call you back. Bjørt terminated the call and examined the sensor report.
He almost dismissed it, but took a second look. Buried beneath the surface of the sun blasted terrain was an unusually high concentration of metal. There was no other metal of this kind in the area.
The entire planet was covered in featureless dunes. The atmosphere was nitrogen and carbon dioxide. DF-NK Three seemed so uninteresting, it was unlikely anything on it could warrant academic interest ever. But still, Bjørt found himself oddly drawn to the sensor ping.
He landed the skiff on the surface of the barren planet to take a closer look. The skiff’s ground sonar mapped out the anamoly in more detail.
It was a ship. Bjørt struggled to contain his enthusiasm. Even though there was no trace of civilization in a thousand light years, it didn’t mean they were the first to explore this system. It was probably a pirate ship, or an early explorer, or some other person of little interest.
But the sonar showed few features he was familiar with. There were no light sails, no drive train, no nacelles. Odd lumps dotted one side of the ship, while the other was oddly smooth. One piece of metal was sitting by itself a little ways away. He thought it might have been a container or shed erected by the ship’s crew. With a start, he realized it was part of the ship itself broken off.
He sat back, stunned. It was obviously a ship. It was hollow. It had internal structures. Debris was scattered around as if it crashed. But it was unlike anything in the database.
It had to be dug up.
Two months later, Bjørt looked at his report one last time. It had indeed been a ship, and Ingólfur was just as stunned. He abandoned his gas giant survey and rushed to help unearth the vessel. What they found would shock the academic community.
The ship was in remarkably good condition. The planet’s atmosphere had no oxygen, and the dusty soil had protected the wreck from harmful rays. It seemed as if it had been abandoned yesterday.
There was no other trace of civilization on the planet. And yet, Bjørt felt there must have been. The ship was not space going.
The lack of features common to space ships was the first clue. The second was the propulsion system. Although they could only guess where it was located, there was clearly no way to take off or land. If this ship had crash landed here, it would have been in much worse shape. Therefore, it had to originate and operate entirely on the planet’s surface.
What they did eventually agree was the propulsion focused entirely on the rear of the vessel, and was the basis for a landmark claim: The ship was ocean based. The shape of the hull confirmed their suspicions. The streamlined underbelly was perfect for water, and most of the mass was located near the bottom.
There was no trace of organic material. The crew was long gone. Ingólfur suggested it could be automatated or unmanned, but it was more likely that too much time had passed. With the discovery of crew quarters, it seemed obvious it needed a large complement of sailors.
Finally, it appeared the vessel was military in nature. The technology was so foreign, it was impossible to conclusively identify any components. However, the hull was much thicker in some places than others, leading to the conclusion it was meant as armor. This was supported by the discovery of hardened steel projectiles in some of the most damaged sections. Sections of the top seemed to be turrets, and could have fitted similar projectiles. It was a crude means of delivering damage, but computer simulations said it could work. The ship had seen battle, and likely had found its final resting place because of it.
A large amount of symbols were visible throughout the ship. Bjørt and Ingólfur agreed it was a form of language, but to their disappointment, not enough text survived to translate. Perhaps more could be found. There was enough here to excavate for years.
The age of the ship was impossible to guess. There was no rust, and almost no decay of any kind. But with no other surviving artifacts on the planet, it must have been at least millions of years. The only possibility he could imagine is that the planet had an oxygen atmosphere at one time. The ship was in sunk in deep water, where the immense pressure would prevent rusting. Eventually, the oxygen was stripped out of the atmosphere by the expanding star and the oceans boiled away.
Bjørt looked at the cover photo on more time. It was the ship’s bow, still sporting alien text. He wondered where it had come from, how it had found itself here. Who had built it, and who it fought against. So many mysteries left unanswered. If he could read English, he would have recognized the numbers on the bow as 413.
Almost One Billion Years Ago:
The deep blue of the south Pacific ocean stretched to the horizon. The destroyer escort USS Samuel B Roberts, DE-413, cut through the choppy waves at emergency speed.
Behind her was the defenseless carriers and troop transports of US task force Taffy 3. Even further, well out of reach, was the bulk of Taffy 3’s fighting ships.
Before her was the Japanese navy.
The Lieutenant Commander told his crew to prepare for “a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival could not be expected”. Together with three other destroyers, the Samuel B Roberts charged the line of enemy battleships and cruisers.
Despite being vastly outgunned, the destroyer’s ferocious assault severely damaged multiple ships. Convinced this was a trap, or part of a larger fleet action, the Japanese force of twenty vessels retreated to regroup.
Three of the four courageous destroyers were sunk, with significant loss of life. But the carriers and transports were saved. The Samuel B Roberts came to rest nearly seven kilometers below the Pacific. She remains the deepest known shipwreck.
There is no oxygen or light at those depths. The destroyer is perfectly preserved. She will likely be the last trace of our civilization after all else has rusted away.

I’ve made some adjustments. One thing I noticed is that.. You don’t make drafts in reddit because if you switch the draft to another tab, it erases. Hence, the late update.
I’m not too versed in the reddit format, so I just created a new subreddit so you can view previous posts, FAQ, Theories, etc. jojoboba
I’m still figuring out what style I want to approach to help out this community. Still at the meta stage, so please be patient. Anyways… I’ll answer the most asked question this month.
How does one start a cafe?
There are 2 ways to start a cafe.

• Empty box - You lease/buy a space and buy everything from ground up.
• Turn Key - you buy an existing space and all you have to do it “turn the key”

This will depend on your character. But to me, the most important thing to consider in starting a business is your risk/reward ratio. I knew a couple things about myself.

1. I have no knowledge of cafe business
   
2. I do not anything in regards to franchise business
   
3. I have no on coffee/boba IQ
   
4. Coffeeshop Margins are miniscule.
   

When you don’t have actual experience besides reading books, your business IQ is 0. I can say this now for sure because…. despite my love for books, I was wildly shocked how much I didn’t know. The gap between theoretical knowledge (although important) and practical application are so distant it was quite eye opening. Even more so in true knowledge.
I told the broker that I will not do this unless the cafe is turnkey and it was the right move. In a turn-key, you tend to lose control of how you want to build but you save at least 2x the amount of $. You gain knowledge, you see what's actually possible, what is needed, what is unnecessary and here is why.
Blender Theory
As an example...I have what I call "blender theory". The previous owner bought a open blender (vitamix, which I recommend as well) because we use the blender often for frappe, smoothies, and slushes. But there is an issue with the blender.
The blender is loud. In a small cafe (open style), it echoes quite loudly and disrupts the vibe of the shop. Oftentimes, I can’t hear customer orders, customers can’t hear their order, complain they can’t hear them talk, etc. The difference between an open blender and caged blender is $300 vs $1000.
What if we had a cafe that makes our drinks on the back (back style)? Then we don’t need a caged blender. There are these little things that add up. The refrigerator that opens from left instead of right, the ice machine that's bottom scoop vs height scoop, mixing spoons that's too small vs too wide, size of the equipment, etc. All these little minor details seem irrelevant, but $1 x 10,000 problem is the same as $10,000 x 1 problem. You should do your best to make your mistake thats "time" rather than "money." Because you can always find ways to work more, but there isn't always time to get more money. That's why its important to work in the industry first.
Why your 1st shop should be turn key
The dangerous thing about not having any actual experience is that you have no base to know what is right for you. If you built a coffee shop from the ground up and designed an open style cafe, you needed a caged blender, but because it was too expensive you bought an open blender. Then you wasted extra $300 that you didn’t need to waste if you had the previous experience. Because well...you’ll need to get a caged blender later on.
What is “correct” and what is “right”?
Let's say you want to start a cafe from scratch that is an open style cafe and hire a consultant and you ask them “find me a blender that's budget friendly under $500” Then they’ll offer you the $300 blender even if you needed the $1000.
If you are at the Starbucks level, they’ll tell you every variation of every blender and every scenario but….those company won’t even look at your request. Their consultation fee alone is $10,000. They are not going to bother with small cafe. And the ones who will take your request will do just enough to get you to buy their services. After all, they fulfilled your conditions.
As a devil's advocate, If they happen to offer the two choices, what do you suppose someone with no experience would say?
“$1000? That's 2x the budget I asked for. I can see how it could be ‘loud’ but how loud could it be? Can it justify paying that much more? I saw one online for $300. I shouldn’t get fancy in the beginning i should try to reserve fund as much as possible for emergency. This is the right move”
Well...this was my line of thought, as well as the previous owners thought, and pretty much all the owners I talked who didn't have cafe experience. And guess what…I’m buying the $1000 blender this week.
I can’t say if this is naivete or arrogance but…it stems from not having experience. Because if you have no experience, you become one of the three; everything makes sense, you think you know everything, or everyone is out to get you. I have been all three.
That's why these management companies, food consultants, efficiency experts whose job is to save you money aren't necessarily the best thing... And scarily enough… even if the number looks right.
Imagine if you open 10 open style café and buy the open blender, only to have all the customers complain and you buy the new caged blender later. Or worse, you don't know why your business is not thriving. That alone is enough to break the cafe’s profit. Everything looked right on paper but it didn’t translate well later on. These small things snowball into huge success or failure.
This lesson is hard to explain but if I can try its... what is “right” isn’t necessarily “correct.” and what is “correct” isn’t necessarily “right.” That's why its hard to replicate success based on what someone else have done. And I’m only talking about blenders. Do you know how much an espresso machine, refrigerator, layout, chairs/table cost? I'll give you a hints, its more expensive than blenders.
Why vague advices exist
To gain…. "TRUE" understanding...you have to experience it yourself.
That's why there is so much truth in the advice “just try it.” because it's simply impossible to encompass experience into words. No amount of book learning can help you appreciate what it's like to be inside the storm and how to weather it.
How to connect the dots.
And from my humble experience, it's almost impossible to connect the dots unless you experienced them yourself.
If I had a blender at home, I would think, “man this thing is loud.” You have that experience in your pocket and maybe you visit a coffee shop and notice “man they make so many frappes, but its not loud, I wonder why?” and you notice that all the blenders are caged blenders. The dot connects. You level up.
So whatever you want to pursue, experience it in any form possible. Try that new coffeeshop, taste something you haven't before, buy that home espresso machine, look at that new layout, fuck that blender, and etc…
Knowledge in incremental and experience is exponential, so experience what's out there for you in the field you want to pursue. Its the best way to learn.
That's enough for this month. = P
Gotta go blender shopping.
For next month, I'll tell you how I evaluated the shop and bought the cafe.
Jojo.

Here's my Lottery Mock Draft 1.0. My picks are based on reporting of who got promises, historical similarity, talent and fit. I also tried to look at other team's subreddits to try to get a feel for what each fanbase was interested. This isn't my Big Board, but I'm happy to share that with anyone who is interested.

1. Spurs, Victor Wembanyama - No explanation necessary
2. Hornets, Scoot Henderson - Best Player available on a team needing talent.
3. Blazers, Brandon Miller - Complimentary wing player to play alongside Dame.
4. Rockets, Amen Thompson - Elite athlete and best playmaker in this draft imo. Should fit like a glove for a team that desperately needs playmaking imo.
5. Pistons, Cam Whitmore - Troy Weaver loves his freak athletes. I think Whitmore is the most skilled freak athlete remaining. Not worried about passing when he's next to Ivey and Cade. Also need wings
6. Magic, Taylor Hendricks - Floor Spacing, rim protecting big. Magic need shooters, and love size.
7. Pacers, Jarace Walker - High feel player to put alongside Haliburton.
8. Wizards, Cason Wallace - Seems the Wizards have promised him at #8 as he has cancelled workouts with other teams.
9. Jazz, Anthony Black - Seems the Jazz are looking for a point guard, and Black is an extremely versatile and high feel playmaker.
10. Mavericks, Gradey Dick - Dallas needs talent and spacing. Dick provides that in spades. Rim protection is a concern and I considered Lively, but I think Dick is a much better player than Lively and wasn't going to reach.
11. Magic, Jordan Hawkins - Magic continue to load up on shooters to give Franz/Paolo spacing
12. Thunder, Ausar Thompson - Coincidentally, I am mocking one of my favorite Thunder prospects to OKC. Versatile, athletic wing with size. I think OKC can continue to help Ausar improve his shooting. It seems weird that he would end up here and I might just be projecting my hopes.
13. Raptors, Bilal Coulibaly - I think the Bilal promise is actually to Toronto and not OKC. They love tools-y athletic freaks.
14. Pelicans, Kobe Bufkin - I think NOLA could go a couple directions, but I think Bufkin can be a good replacement for CJ.

Honorable Mentions: Nick Smith Jr, Dereck Lively, Dariq Whitehead, Leonard Miller, Keyonte George.
Let me know what you guys think and where I might be wrong! I'm in the process of writing an article with my Big Board + a (likely inaccurate) Mock Draft and would like to get some initial thoughts on the latter.
Love the discussions in this sub!

Hello,
Started driving a couple hours ago with everything running normal. Stopped by a shop, got back on the highway, and noticed car wasn’t pulling and a loud whoosh / air sound was present. Low end torque was still present but no boost building, but car sounded and ran fine. Pulled back over and saw the silicone cold side pipe blew off the throttle body. I stuck it back on but lost the round clamp.
Is it ok to drive to drive back home / my dads shop? Heard the cars are MAP based so it’s correcting AF ratio.. right? Even so if imagine it would just run very rich if I went into the boost range Aware of possible debris contamination but didn’t look the silicone pipe wasn’t completely blown off, just loose and lost the clamp.
Thanks!

My formal diagnoses are Autism, ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder (with massive SI), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
I’m 99.99% sure there’s also RSD and cPTSD, but no clinician has actually said so, and frankly, if an environment doesn’t cause me problems with the four official diagnoses, then it shouldn’t aggravate the informal ones!
Being AuDHD in and of itself doesn’t usually manifest as a problem in workplaces for me, and I’ve been in the workforce or in higher education for over 30 years.
The only negative role that my AuDHD plays is it marks me out as “smart”, and often “different”, if not full-blown “weird”, which is what seems to make me the target-of-choice for any bully in the entire enterprise!
The thing that ended my last 2 jobs and actually prevents me from working is workplace abuse/bullying that was not only allowed but actively ENABLED by “leadership”.
In the second case, the enabling and encouragement of the abuse was IN SPITE OF there actually being a formal ”no harassment“ policy from corporate!
While this does seem to always happen to me, before anyone starts jumping on me as the “obvious source“ of the problem, I have gotten along beautifully with thousands of other colleagues over the decades, AND I almost ‘specialize‘ in winning over the “grumpy”, “difficult“, “chip-on-their-shoulder“, “cantankerous“, and “impossible-to-please” coworkers!
I only ever have this kind of problem with ONE person at a given employer, and they invariably seek me out! So I worked with and supported a couple thousand staff members across 3 facilities at my last job, and ONE person, who unfortunately for me was tasked with “mentoring” me, decided to be abusive by yelling, name-calling, threatening physical violence, humiliating and insulting me publicly, lying about me, trying to blame me for things I did not do, AND engaging in multiple attempts at active sabotage, up to and including giving WRITTEN directions to me to violate Federal law.
(Fortunately for me, because my abuser hadn’t taken the time to get to know me, all but her last attempt at sabotage failed miserably because each one tapped into a strength, skillset, or knowledge base she didn’t realize I had. I quit in the middle of her final attempt, so perhaps that one succeeded, but she never did accomplish her goal of getting me fired.)
​
I’m still trying to figure out what EXACTLY to ask for as an accommodation. Any suggestions or advice?

I like to batch cook to save money. Maybe cook a couple of things on a Sunday arvo with a beer. But you end up with loads of containers, which is expensive, and also takes up a lot of freezer space/cupboard space when not in use, as it's rare you'll find a container the perfect size for what you are freezing, so they are usually way bigger than they need to be.
What I do now?
I have a few containers. I freeze my food in batches (usually 4 - 6 containers worth.
Once they're frozen, I take them out of the freezer, leave them for 5 mins to warm a little.
Now, turn them upside down, gently push down on the base til the frozen food drops onto the lid in a solid frozen lump. You can now put this portion into a freezer bag, or alfoil, or baking paper, or cling wrap, label it, and stack it neatly back in the freezer.
You now need less containers, and it will save you loads of room in the freezer as these portions are only as big as they need to be - there is no wasted space.
I make labels from old cardboard from coke can boxes. Hole punch one end, and tie with string. You can reuse the labels too, as I find I often make the same things (pasta, chill, stews, Currys, shepherds pie etc)
It's a nice feeling when you have 15 or more meals in the freezer ready to go.
Just remember when you want to defrost, to unbag it and put it into the container you froze it in. It's hard to get it all out of a plastic bag once it has defrosted.

I'm way late to the game, but I recently finished the Amazon Prime TV series Hernán (2019), which wasn't ever released on Prime in the US due to a different, similar show that was planned. However, it's currently available in the US for free on Roku.
It follows Cortes and his allies during their conquest of Mexico.
It has some major issues, which I'll get into, but I'll start by saying that this story has never been told with this level of production quality, including the acting, sets, costumes, attention to the languages Nahuatl and Maya, and special effects. It's worth watching just to see the story told in such a spectacular fashion.
Nahuatl is featured extensively in the show, and it's legit, at least to the extent that I could understand it when quickly spoken. They did a great job there. If I were to nitpick, I could say that the Nahuatl was not particularly classical, as it would have been spoken in those times (though even in those times it would have had dialects), but I think that that would be expecting too much, and the fact that any kind of legit Nahuatl is featured so heavily is great. Also, I'm not a native speaker, so my idea of what constitutes "classical Nahuatl" is purely academic and hobbyist.
At a high level, the plot points are historically accurate. I'm talking things like the people involved, the sequence of events, and even some of the finer points, such as the temperament of certain characters like Alvarado, and the progression of Marina's/Malinalli's Spanish language acquisition.
But now we get to the issues.
The show can be very sympathetic to Cortes, at times, and the Spanish account of events, more generally. I understand that you can't have a show with a one-dimensionally evil character, so some of that can be forgiven. But at times, the writing really simps hard for Cortes.
I'll assume everybody here knows the story, so there isn't really such a thing as spoilers, but one example is that they show Motecuhzoma addressing Cortes as a god shortly after meeting him, which I'm sure everybody here knows is not generally accepted by scholars, and is only based on later, retrospective accounts. Another example is Motecuhzoma begging for Cortes to put him out of his misery, which is only found in the accounts most sympathetic to Cortes. Yet another weird example is Alvarado being pushed by his Tlaxcalteca wife to kill everyone at what would become the Massacre in the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. The Tlaxcalteca were not big fans of the Mexica, but still, Alvarado was known to be cruel without provocation, and it feels like an attempt to shift some of the blame off of the Spaniards. A more general example is that Cortes is often seen trying to do the right thing, being a victim of circumstances, and expressing remorse.
The show ends after La Noche Triste, and was picked up for a second season, but then the pandemic happened. I have seen no news about it since then, whether it was cancelled or just delayed. Some sources that say it was cancelled are confusing it with the American show Cortes starring Javier Bardim that got cancelled due to the pandemic.
I watched the show with my wife, who was not familiar with the story beforehand, and she enjoyed it. However, it was good that I was there in order to point out when the story was based on the accounts most favorable to the Spanish. After the first couple times it happened, even she started picking out things that seemed improbable. But overall it was a great way to share something I'm interested in with her.

I'm unsure whether I'm being unreasonable or if she's just being immature.
So for me, I understand I have an anxious attachment style which causes my feelings to essentially go into overdrive at times and I try my best to self soothe and think about situations logically.
So the main problems we're having is that communication and conflict resolution seems to be so difficult and even when we do reach a mature solution it just seems like she's agreeing or saying things to end the Convo. I understand that sometimes when it's heated space is required but like how much, how often and to what degree.
We've talked about each other's boundaries and I've found myself on the end of having to repeat my boundaries cus in the moment when we're or atleast I'm trying resolve a situation, she'll either just get up and go to her house or end up flipping the whole thing like the issue I had with her is a me problem.
Examples: I had a fwb a couple of years ago and we agreed that we remain friends and that's all because we both valued other parts we brought to the table as friends. She stated that's unheard off and is gna be a boundary for her so I cannot talk to her or see her at all anymore. I respected it even though I tried explaining that we're rlly just friends. For me I thought something in her past was making her reach those conclusions.
Ive stated my boundaries as followed: When we are resolving a situation or issue, don't just walk out without a explanation or saying I need time to think about it and we can revisit this later. Like giving her model answers to things that trigger me.
She said she's a type of person who often requires space to think and analyze and I get that but then the space is just used as a way to more make me move on from my issue and just forget about it rather than reaching a healthy resolution.
She takes pretty much anyway of me trying to tell her, hey I didn't like this action, made me feel pretty shitty can you please try not to do it again. As an argument rather than a discussion. Sometimes she'll outright just say no, believe what you want or even go upto threatening to break up cus that's who she is and I should accept her for that. She says I'm trying to change her and says we always do what I want which is just downright wrong, it's like pretty much the opposite. During these convos she'll throw words like 'always' and other black and white logic, then start to give unproductive/ toxic solutions. Like to the communication and leaving boundary her solution was just do that too me also. Like that helps in any way.
She'll apologize and even cry sometimes about her behavior but then repeat the same thing sometimes the next day. Even for things classed as a boundary. Then when I get triggered over something we've talked about a few times, instead of seeing her repeated actions are causing the issues, it's my fault for reacting increasingly triggered each time the same issues have to be brought up.
The other thing is that her English as much as it's not a issue for anyone, she isn't confident in her ability and so is her reasoning as to why meeting my friends isn't gonna happen. The 2 times I tried to babystep her into a safe environment and told her hey, let's just meet one of my friends, hes also international and his English is much worse. She will come super reluctantly after me explaing that running away from simple interactions isn't healthy for her long term and will diminish opurtunities for her, which she has clearly agreed on and times have come when it's blown up in her face and she says I should have just listened to you. But then will go aggressive mode and blame me for pushing her past her comfort zone, the second time this happened she said she'll break up if I keep trying to nudge her towards being able to socialize or even stay in my room while friends come over for an hour or so.
It's gotten to the point where my brain cannot distinguish between am I being controlling and manipulative as that's what she says or it's infact these things she calls me pretty much describes her own actions.
She'll get pissed if I communicate with other women if they're attractive, give me the silent treatment for hours or a day, whilst I keep asking hey what happened, did I do something? As her mood and attitude clearly shifts but she says nothing. I think she genuinely thinks Im a mind reader combined with her ability to make conclusions based off assumptions in her head without actually asking for the reality. For example, she'll assume her actions will lead to a discussion/ argument so she'll just ignore / walk away/ give up before any healthy discussion even takes place. Like rather than addressing/ understanding the fact that bad behaviour will result in a reaction. She'll not see her actions and the discussion becomes how I had a bad reaction...