The major Abrahamic religions have the same root and have had a heavy influence on most of the world. This is largely due to the Roman empire and it's successors adopting and spreading Christianity in Europe and the Muslim caliphates spreading Islam through the Middle East and Africa.
Further east, Hinduism is the largest polytheistic religion and features a number of prominent goddesses. Though Hinduism has a lot of variety and the exact deities and their genders change depending on the adherents.
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism don't really focus on any deities.
Those are the most widespread religions, many others were eradicated or sidelined by European imperialism. Out of those left, many are animist religions, believing in spirits that can be a variety of genders.
Some classical polytheistic religions are still practiced today. They usually have some major goddesses in the mix.
If you go back to ancient Mesopotamia, Inanna/Ishtar is the head of her pantheon.
Government workers don't negotiate for salary, instead they have a set scale based on their job's pay grade, adjusted for the local cost of living. The lowest level jobs are GS1, followed by GS2, etc. Every GS1 working in the same area will receive the same salary
Depending on your format, some of these could help you get some additional triggers too.
The "how are you" exchange is really just a conversation starter, a way for either one of you to talk about something that is on your mind. If you don't reciprocate that, most people will just assume you don't want to talk to them.
In general, if you just respond and don't make any effort to ask questions or keep the conversation going, people will assume you don't want to talk to them. You aren't obligated to respond, but they are also not obligated to continue talking to someone who is clearly uninterested in talking to the .
So I guess the question is: Why do you want to talk to people if you aren't interested in them at all?
If you're looking for support and friendship, that is a 2-way street that requires you to support and care about them as well. Otherwise the other person can feel like you are just using them.
If you just feel that this is something you need to do to not feel like a failure, that's different. It's not a failure to struggle with something, even if it seems everyone else just "gets it". It's just human. You might be happier with more socializing, but you are fine and perfectly acceptable without it.
All that said, depression is also a liar. It will tell you that people don't like you or at least don't care. It will cherry-pick bad memories to drive a wedge between you and others to feed itself.
I hope at least some of this helps
The crash in DC is the big one and accounts for about 2/3 of the 2025 numbers. Incidents like that don't happen every year and will skew this somewhat.
That said, removing that outlier still leaves us with enough fatalities in 2 months to reach our yearly average. I think many of them are still being investigated, so it's hard to say for sure what would cause this increase.
Legally? No. But it's really highlighting the issue that the legislative and judicial branches don't have the ability to enforce anything since all law enforcement agencies are controlled by the executive. Their power depends on people agreeing they have that power.
Not just Americans. You won't even commonly see them in mainland Europe
Salad doesn't mean vegetables. Salad is a dish made of a mixture of discrete pieces. See other things like potato salad, macaroni salad, tuna salad, antipasto salad, caprese salad, etc. You're going to have a lot of food hangups if this bothers you.
Very few would include all of the things listed above and I've never actually seen veggies in one.
The one my family makes is just a dessert that's primarily jello with a thin layer of cream cheese and pretzels. Has a nice combo of salty and sweet.
Not sure why people are so grossed out by that, what's wrong with it?
To make the setup work, aye
Sphinx: You there, knight. I am the guardian of this place and cannot allow you to pass without a battle.
Me: My name is Ender, Sir Ender to you. And I'm a bit weary from my long journey here, would you accept a pun battle?
Sphinx: Aye, Sir Ender.
Me: Thank you, please move aside
For me, they manage to trigger the "SNAKE!" and "SPIDER!" panic responses simultaneously. The rational part of my brain likes them, the instinctual part tells me to smash it with a rock
The EEA shows up in the list of places it does not apply. They worded it strangely, first calling out the US as a place where it does apply. Then they change it up and say it also applies to anywhere not on this specific list of places
The national guard is part of the military, so funded and supported by the feds. Unlike normal army units though, each state or territory has its own national guard unit under the command of the governor. The intention is to give each state the power to quickly respond to emergency situations without needing federal approval. They're the successors to the old state militias, but have much stronger federal ties now.
Big Strong City, on their homeworld Pakled Planet
Not sure where this was taken, but I know a lot of the old buildings in the Netherlands were built with a slight intentional lean toward the street. It's possible the buildings are actually leaning