Hello, I'm using an expendable account so as to not have my name tied up in this for embarrassment sake.
I'm 20 and male. I met a girl a little over a month ago and we started dating and having sex. We dated about a month before it became blaringly obvious this wasn't gonna work out. She started her last period (menstrual) on the 24th of april and it ended on the 28th. The last time we had sex was the 28th after bleeding stopped.
Fast forward to May 12th, exactly two weeks since we had sex and her menstrual ended, I receive a text saying "hey OP! hope everything is well, just so you know i'm taking a pregnancy test today because i missed my last period, and i figured i should tell you because you were the last person i slept with. i'll let you know how it goes". I call her and ask her how she's missing her period since she just had her last one two weeks ago and while dating she told me she had normal routine periods. She tells me her app says she's 3 days late.
She takes a pregnancy test. A clearblue brand one with the blue plus and it comes back negative with a very very very slight positive line, however the test window is super yellow. Like it looks like an old test yellow. I ask her if she has another and she says she's out and then a minute later texts and says she all of a sudden found an extra. She takes it 10 or so minutes after the alleged first one and jt comes back completely negative but this time the test looked normal. The window was white.
A series of conversations have occured since then and I will summarize some suspicious topics overall:
-She texts me on mothers day (May 12) about possibly being pregnant
-she texts me that she has a suspicion, before she even took a test
-claims she's 3 days late 14 days since her last period ended.
-the first test is super yellow and looks like an old test with an evap line and yellowing
-i wore a condom, she claims she has an iud, and I didn't finish in.... so I don't understand how this could even be possible
-says she doesn't have a second test and then suddenly finds one
-she held me on the phone call regarding the possible pregnancy and discussed our relationship and got me to apologize about it ( I mean I apologized naturally but I think thats what she wanted)
-she adds me back on snapchat out of the blue today (may 14th)
-I ask her to keep me updated on period. She texts the next day and says she started cramping pre menstual but then today she texts me out of the blue and tells me she was blackout drunk last two weekends and is worried. She then tells me she stopped cramping today and might not be having a period.
I'm very scared that she's pregnant, but obviously with how safe we were that seems to be impossible and the timing of her cycle. Nonetheless running through every scenario in which it could have happened. Everyone in my life thinks she's seeking attention or trying to get back with me. But I'm not entirely sure. Looking for someone on here to weigh in. And to any women, does her claim about being three days late make any sense being that her last period ended 14 days prior? Much appreciated.

Hey all!
After ~3 years of no progress, I fully recovered in about eight weeks. 97% of the symptoms are gone, including PEM, fatigue, MCAS reactions, and feeling sick most of the time. I’m back to working 9-10h a day with superb cognitive output, training as hard as I can (i.e., 30min peloton 168 bpm, >10k steps a day, lots of bodyweight work during the day), and being truly myself. Gosh, I’m feeling fucking blessed. Like I was asleep for 3y and finally woke up. I have SO MUCH energy. Started a new project, got back to writing essays, hanging out with friends, etc. I’m fucking alive again!
Case summary:
Got a very mild Covid in the beginning of July 2021; didn’t even have fever but felt exhausted (i.e., struggled getting out of bed in the morning) and lost smell and taste; recovered in ~10 days; senses returned in ~2-3 weeks.
Developed neuro issues (cognitive PEM, difficulty thinking) and fatigue during acute covid, literally next day after exposure, and they never went away; this was my first long covid symptom.
Then kept developing more & more symptoms:

• food sensitivities in Aug-Sep 2021
• chronic recurrent sinusitis in Sep 2021
• dysautonomia and POTS in 2022
• stomach (H Pylori), gut, and joints issues in summer 2023
• more sensitivities (cold, heat, pill coating) in summer 2023
• neuropathies, more severe joints issues in late 2023/2024
• recurring viral infections (reactivation?) in May, Sep, Dec 2023, Mar 2024

My major sX on March 2024 were:

1. feeling and being sick most days (fatigue/ugh state, brain fog, reddish cheeks, sinus and ear Sx, sometimes cold sores)
   1. frequent (every month) sinus infections (very thick yellow mucus, severe cognitive dysfunction, sinus and ear Sx: pressure, congestion, postnasal drip, hot ears in the evening)
   2. persistent brain fog/cognitive dysfunction: working and long-term memory issues, slow info processing, word recall troubles, not feeling like myself/depersonalization, etc.
2. mental and physical PEM
3. MCAS: allergy-like reactions to foods (esp high-histamine), cold, pressure, exercise, certain antibiotics (augmentin), tablet coating, etc.
   
4. dysautonomia and POTS
   
5. gut issues: bloating, upset, abdominal pain (esp right lower quadrant; even tested for appendicitis via bloods + CT + ultrasound)
   
6. joints issues: pain and swelling in both feet metatarsals (bursitis)
   
7. misc:
   
   1. pain, weakness, and discomfort in 4th and 5th left hand fingers
   2. right eye issues: sometimes enlarged pupil (only in right eye), pain above right eye if I roll my eyes up, looking at bright objects leaves a lasting mark in the visual field (but does not in the left eye)

Summary of what I believe healed me:

1. lots of sunlight: sunrise, midday, sunset; as much time as possible under the sun (see below for the pic how I’m typing these words!) >> this cleared up sinus, ear, and GI infections + improved energy and mood
2. cold exposure: 3 min cold showers + morning and evening ~20min naked torso outside at ~5-9 degrees celsius; plus temp variability: hanging out naked torso outside as much as possible to retrain that vasculature and aerate the body >> this reduced stress, removed fatigue, and brought my energy back
3. spending most of my time outdoors, in nature (parks, forest, meadows, lakes, etc.): hanging out amongst animals, birds, etc. >> this further reduced stress to basically zero and brought back a sense of joy and serenity
4. nervous system retraining via specific types of movement and aromatherapy: balance, dancing, climbing, boxing moves, fencing, crawling + smelling flowers, trees, essential oils, herbs >> this brought back trust in my body and a sense of balance & peace
5. very clean, vegan, autophagy-optimized diet + eggs (i.e., no sugar, UPFs of any kind, all organic, mostly fresh/little cooked; lots of spermidine via sprouted rye, wheat; other autophagy boosting foods), with ~3 small meals a day and 20-40% caloric restriction >> this took away gut issues, reduced joint inflammation, and opened up my sinuses after years of congestion
6. lots of movement throughout the day and gradual return to more intense exercise: started from short and very light and low intensity bodyweight workout (10 mins; one set of squats, pushups, abs, etc.) and built up from that; z1 cardio 105 bpm walking with ~5kg backpack; then z2 peloton 15>20>30 mins; then more intense strength workouts with dumbbells + LOTS of movement throughout the day, every 20-30 mins, never still >> this also greatly improved energy, although I did get PEM first (in March-April) after more-or-less intense 40 min strength training with dumbbells, but then it went away; that lady from huberman pod (see below) had a brilliant point of how each type of exercise (walking, strength, endurance, HIIT, zone 2) positively affects mitochondria in different ways, “muscle contraction is medicine”
7. weirdly, 100% dark chocolate, 20-50g daily. It’s a strong autophagy inducer and boasts with antioxidants + boosts brain function and mood. >> I felt substantially better right after I started eating it, and never stopped.

Supplements and drugs I took: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_oA0CONWDlPg7eEABA6tIo9Np5sfVy_iC497JrZDeoY/edit#gid=0
All they did was reduce brain fog + reactions to foods, but those sx immediately returned when I tried stopping the supps in Feb.
I think the main problem was mitochondrial dysfunction because all those things I did address it in various ways. Huberman released a great pod on it last week (https://youtu.be/8qaBpM73NSk?si=cDdTBiOzKk86wkQn) + check out Jack Kruse stuff for more info
Sending you all good energy. Stay strong. You can beat it.
VS

Back story, I had recently moved into a co-op house with my man ( who had been living in said co-op for about 10 yrs). An opening came about and we moved in , there is this stop sign at a 3 way in the intersection with a house on the 4th side. Because this is a private community the roads are empty all the time so no one does a full stop at the stop sign . This Karen was living at said house. Also need to add there are speed bumps like every so many feet so you can't really go more than 20-30 km while driving. So I'm coming home from work one day and as I enter the co-op I see 2 kids riding their bikes. They are well behaved and see a car coming. The older boy tells his younger sister to come to the side of the road until I go by ( the opposite side than what I'm driving on, which is the top of a small hill from the stop sign. The little girl is standing on the grass off her bike and the boy is at the curb with one foot on the grass waiting for me to pass. I proceed past them to the stop sign , do a rolling stop as there is no one on the road and proceed to my driveway a few houses down. This Karen flies off her porch and runs up to my vehicle , I get out and ask if she needs something, as I'm very confused why she ran up to me. She then takes a picture of my license and proceeds to yell that she wants to know where I'm going and why I think it's okay to run kids off the road ( she is drunk and where her porch is there is no sight line to where her kids were when I past them) I told her I didn't hit her kids and that they were at the side of the road and she proceeds to scream at the top of her lungs that I'm a child killer and trying to run everyone's kids off the road and yelling my license plate over and over. I tell she's a crazy bitch and needs to go back home. She doesn't obviously so after screaming back and forth with her for a couple minutes I go inside and tell my man about it. He comes out and she for some reason doesn't realize he came out of the same house as me and starts acting all sweet and telling him she's so scared for the children and that she saw me try and run her kids off the road and she's never seen me in here before ( I should mention I love kids and have been very nice to all them in this neighborhood and I had been living here for months) at this point my bitch side really comes out and I go off on her cause now all my neighbors are out and she's telling everyone to watch their kids around me , her husband has to come drag her back to her house, the whole time she's screaming my license plate and calling me a child killer....The incident ended up costing all the kids my nicities. As I would give lots of candy for Halloween and let them play with my hedgehogs and just me being friendly to them in general because she must have continued to bad mouthing me to her kids who went and badmouthed me to their friends and they all started calling me a child killer. I go on to email the manager of the co-op in case anything further came of it, to find out I'm not the first person she's done that too for not making a full stop at the stop sign and that she had been warned already numerous times...needless to say she got kicked out of the co-op. Also I want to add that co-op houses are about half the cost to rent and since 2020 their is a huge wait list to get into any co-op in my town or surrounding towns. 3bedrooms are about 1200 Inclusive compared to 3000 plus utilities anywhere else. My street has been much quieter since.

These guys have very similar ERAs in similar innings pitched. What do we know about how they got there?
fangraphs says: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&type=8&team=6

1. Strikeout stuff. Skubal's strikeout rate at 11.02 / 9 is 40% better than Olson's at 7.8 / 9. Skubal throws more strikes, and gets more swinging strikes and called strikes. Skubal also walks about half as many guys as a result, 1.47 vs. 2.85 BB/9.
   
2. Batted ball luck. Olson gives up more hard contact, 30% vs. 20% (or 43% to 32% depending what numbers you use), but has lower BABIP, .246 to .263. So he's benefiting from balls being hit hard but right at fielders. Olson also hasn't allowed any home runs, which isn't likely to stay that way; usually 13%ish of fly balls are home runs for him. Skubal is 6.5% home runs / fly balls.
   

Statcast says: Skubal has a whole lot of red going on this year, which is good. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-playetarik-skubal-669373?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
The change from 2021 is profound. (Remember these are what happened already, not what will happen in the future.) Skubal is throwing harder than average, throwing strikes, and keeping the ball from being hit productively. His fastball, sinker and changeup are working well, and his slider is "meh."
Olson's statcast is not as dominant, lots of middling stuff. He's better than average at keeping the ball on the ground. He's not a hard thrower, though he's known for high spin rates. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-playereese-olson-681857?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
In terms of competition, they've faced some of the same teams and some different ones. Olson has faced more of the bottom ten batting teams in OPS in the Mets, Pirates and Marlins.
So, run support not even considered (6.06 runs /9 for Skubal vs. 1.52 / 9 for Olson), it looks like Skubal is doing more to dominate hitters in ways that project favorably to the future, whereas Olson has been getting excellent results that are better than you would ordinarily expect from what he does.

Detailed experience and some questions about an umbilical hernia post op here.
Mid March 2024 I felt a small lump on the top part of my belly button. It was never there before so I went to an urgent care, they said nothing to worry about because it causes no pain, some fat got stuck and it will contract/ expand. They did not call it a hernia, and when I asked if it was a hernia, they said no. There was 0 pain or any issues involved other than it poked out a little bit so since they said its fine, I went on with my life.
Fast forward to April 10th and my friend and I did a 30 min yoga session and a 30 upper body dumb bell workout (dumb bell weights being 1 10lb if exercise uses 1 weight. 2 8lb if one was being used in each hand) around 9am. (Side story, in 2021 I was in a T bone car crash so now I have L3-L4 in my back that's herniated and scoliosis. Since then after after PT for that incident I have done stretching/yoga everyday for 20-45 mins a day and my whole life ive been active and in sports so I like working out so I do workouts 5x a week. It was a whole rebuild post car crash and took a while to get to where I am now but my back hurts a lot and ive tried many treatments for it.) All was normal, she left and then I was going to chill for a couple hours before work that afternoon. Around 11am a sudden sharp pain hit me while I was sitting at my desk, I was thinking it would pass, well it did not . The ache/ pinching feel did not stop and I texted my RN friend around 3pm and he said its the hernia from weeks before and to go to urgent care. I hate going to the doctor and also do not have insurance (story for another day) but it was 5pm , still in severe pain so I drove to a different urgent care 1.5 miles away. They sent me to the ER because as soon the dr had me lay down and she barely touched the lump I started crying due to pain, said it could be strangulated and they dont want to touch it w/o imaging. My BF ,now home from work, took me to the ER where they gave me morphine, hated the feeling of that, and then did a catscan. Results was a fatty umbilical hernia. They said not strangulated and a piece of fat got stuck and then it couldnt retract back in, surgery is the only way to fix it. I asked how I got it , they said most likely born with it and it never caused a problem until now. I read that this is mostly due to pregnancy's (never been pregnant) , overweight (my whole life ive been 105-110 lbs) and heavy weight lifting (which I dont do.) They said in a few days the pain should slowly die down and dont worry its highly unlikely to be anything worse, just painful. I went home in the middle of the night.
They said follow up with with a gastrologist, which I did 5 days post ER visit (learned those people are in demand I called 6 offices in the area and that was the soonest they could get me in.) He confirmed I need surgery. Then 2 days after that saw the surgeon, he discussed my options of open vs laparoscopic and mesh vs no mesh. He suggested open , no mesh because its small and a very standard operation . Since hes the DR and specializes in this, I said ok.
Surgery was April 23. Was only at the hospital from 10am-3pm. They said I was under for 45 mins, all went well. Post op that day I was surprised I didnt feel more pain was only minor(due to whatever they gave me), they wheel chaired me to the car and I got a smoothie and so tired. Throat hurted a moderate amount, from the tube. Pretty much slept then on out til the next day.
Post OP day 1, horrible all over. pain in the ab area, was super sleepy, getting up/down from bed was a whole situation and hurt. For medication i could take ibuprofen and acetaminophen and oxycodone for the first few days, im not a codone fan so just was doing ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Throat was so sore, I didnt finish the smoothie until halfway thru this day. Took like 3 naps and was just tired.
Day 2-4 Pretty much the same thing. Very very sleepy, just walked around the apartment to try to get the blood flowing, very very slow. Abdominal area swollen. Barely ate, even brothy soups did not want to go down. Sore throat (had to get liquid OTC med cause i could not swallow the pills.) The strange thing was I was unable to hold sentences, talking took everything out of me. Around sentence 3-5 I would just be out of breath. Weight was 98 lbs due to not eating (pre surgery for the 2ish weeks I ate half of my normal meals because it would push after eating and hurt .) Day 3 was horrible constipation like severe, my BF even took me to see the surgeon for this and about the breathing. He said the breathing will get better over the next few days and to take a bottle of miralax. So the miralax helped but i got hives all over my sides from it(first time taking a laxative.) Pre surgery no one told me to get on a stool softener.
Day 5-8 slow improvements, the same issues as above but less bad. sore throat was gone by this point but talking was still not normal, better tho. I was doing 2-3 walks outside for 10-15 mins. Back was killing me, because im slouching all the time due to the abs, my back was on fire with pain, esp standing up and walking. Honestly this point back hurt more than front when walking.
Day 9-12 Breathing normal. Can talk normally now. Walking 4 times a days for like 20 mins, walking speed slower than normal . Back still hurting so much. I was icing my back more than my front . Fatigue wearing off. Eating regular meals, smaller portion than normal.
Day 15 I had my 2 week checkup, he said healing is great. Should be no issues. Do not lift more than 15lbs for another 4 weeks(til this point he said dont lift more than 10lbs) I can now go swimming . I asked about when can I do stretches and yoga because my back is bad, he said wait another 2 weeks, start slow, do not work the abs, anything like a crunch move is a no go. Then in another 4 weeks slowly resume workouts and build up from there.
Day 16 - now everyday the hernia area is improving, I can bend down mostly ok now. Getting up and down from bed is still not normal, I do a turn to the side and push myself up with my arm to get up from laying down. Fatigue gone. Walking 3-4 miles a day . Most of the day the incision does not bother me but i get the occasional tug / ach here and there. Still mildly swollen, DR said it would be 4-8 weeks before completely not swollen. The biggest pain right now is my back from bad posture and I assume the abs making the back work more.
So thats my detailed hernia story.
Questions being when and what moves do you think I can do for stretching as the dr was not specific at all other than if it hurts dont do it and dont use your abs. When walking my back is on fire after about a mile and I sit and rest, just due to back. I would get acupuncture but I cant lay on my front. I did chiro, some meds a while back and both didnt do much. To those of you who had surgery, did you also feel the major shortness of breath for a week or so post op?
TLDR: Open surgery for fatty umbilical hernia. first week was hell but now onto week 3 its been improving. What kind stretching do you think is safe for now? Doctor said you can start stretching/ yoga that does not use the abdominal area around 4 week mark. I'm so stiff.

Hi,
I (34M) have had a long journey with hip issues, resulting in an arthroscopy for labral and cartilage cleanup in the hip in Sept 2018.
One of my most persistent issues during both pre and post op was weakness in the core and glutes, that I couldn't get rid of no matter how much time I spend in the gym or with a PT.
Recently I tried a HIFEM machine (the main brand is Emsculpt), which is like a 10x more powerful TENS unit - it has been incredibly helpful, and I have been able to build muscle in 3 weeks that I was never able to do it the 6 years since my issue started.
The machine forces your muscles to contract fully, they brand it as doing 20,000 sit ups/squats in 30 mins, which sounds ridiculous, but my results suggest it is actually kinda true.
I wanted to post about it here, as I have not seen it previously mentioned, and it has been a complete gamchanger for me, in terms of core/glute strength. If you have persistent weakness, I recommend having a look - it doesn't directly address pain, but does help all the supporting muscles.
You can get it done generally at beauty clinics, with sessions for the premium brand (Emsculpt) are as expensive as $500(!) per session, but with a bit of searching, normally $100-120 per session is possible, esp if you want to just try it out. Cheaper machines (EMS Zero, Renasculpt) do practically exactly the same for much cheaper rates, so no real need to go premium.
You can also purchase a home machine for ~$2,500, if you find it actually helps, which is what what I am doing, but recommend trying a couple of sessions to see if you actually think it will help.
It has been so useful to me, I felt I had to put it on the forum, in case anyone searches in the future.

Introduction
1. Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs?
· This will be my first dog but not my partners. He grew up with dogs and has had them for most of his life.
2. Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a reputable breeder?
· Reputable breeder would be my preference.
3. Describe your ideal dog.
· Medium or large sized, willing to go for hiking and backpacking trips with me. Ideally a dog that we can take to the crag when we’re climbing. One that is friendly with cats.
4. What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why?
· Right now we are considering a labrador retriever, an aussie shepherd, or a toller, mostly because I have really nice experiences with these breeds. I am open to other breeds as well. My partner has had huskies, malamutes, flat coated retrievers and pointers
5. What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do?
· Obedience and catch for fun.
6. Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport?
· No I just want a new family member.
Care Commitments
7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day?
· A few hours everyday.
8. How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park?
· On weekdays, up to two hours. On weekends, three to five hours, possibly more depending on what activities we are doing. I work from the office 2 days a week but otherwise I am home. Our backyard is connected to a huge forest with lots of hiking trails and lakes, and I live in a very quiet and dog friendly neighbourhood. There will be lots of hikes and swimming, if that’s what they’d like to do.
9. How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly?
· I groom my long haired cats regularly and will be open to doing the same for my dog. Anything that is too complex will be done by a professional.
Personal Preferences
10) What size dog are you looking for?
· Medium or large.
11. How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle?
· Minimal barking, and slobber. Shedding is fine, I’m used to it.
12. How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area?
· It would be great if they can go off leash while hiking in the forest, but its not a big issue if they need to remain leashed.
Dog Personality and Behavior
13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space?
· I love snuggles but I also get lots of snuggles from my cats so it doesn’t really matter either way.
14. Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please?
· Would like a dog that’s eager to please.
15. How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors?
· No aggressiveness
16. Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs?
· Ideally not.
17. Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid?
· Excessive barking ideally would be avoided,.
Lifestyle
18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone?
· For 2 days I will work from the office, where they will be left alone for 4 hour stretches. Otherwise they will not be left alone.
19. What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog?
· Feed or walk him if I’m outside or working inside.
20. Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they?
· Yes I have 3 norwegian forest cats.
21. Will the dog be interacting with children regularly?
· No
22. Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease?
· We own our house.
23. What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds?
· Sweden. No laws that I know of but I do know that breeds like pitbulls can be frowned upon.
24. What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live?
· Summer is around 20 degrees celsius. Winters there is snow and can be anywhere between negative 15 degrees celsius to 5 degrees celsius
Additional Information and Questions
25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant.
I would like to get a puppy so they can learn to be around cats from a young age.

So I M/17 used to know this girl F/18 we were very close and dated for a little bit and due to moving we sperated and didn't talk at all, now 2 years later we have been talking again for a bit now, she considers me her best friend and I consider her mine, since we dated we have both changed completely, and for the better I might add.
She has a boyfriend, the boyfriend is aware we talk, I am friends with him, we talk here and there, like maybe once every few days. Her and I are very close, now I don't overstep, we just talk about normal every day stuff, give each other advice, vent about random stuff, etc.
I like her, I really do, I have no intentions of causing anything between them and I'm actually really happy for both of them because he is a genuinely awesome guy. Just today she was venting about how he was kind of being a dick and I told her that I didn't want to get in-between them and didn't want to cause any drama between them, he has told her she was being annoying. I told her I don't see how she's annoying, or why he'd be upset, I asked her if maybe he was having a bad day, if maybe he had something bothering him, which she said she didn't think so that he said no.
Her and I talk for probably 5-7 hours a day, on the phone and text, and if we do hangout we've already agreed that the boyfriend will be there simply because it wouldn't be right for us to hangout by ourselves. Now her and I have so much in common it's not even funny, literally every little thing, every interest, every opinion, both of us has said it's actually really scary and that we've never met someone who's so alike with each other, which is why we are close, we never have disagreements, nothing even close. I tell her quite a bit that I appreciate her for who she is because I really do, she's great and helpful, and apparently no one else tells her anything like that, no one compliments or appreciates her, that I'm the first person that's told her that in years, apparently I'm the only person who will actually listen and give her the truth instead of sugar coating stuff and telling her what she wants to hear, she constantly says I'm a great person and she appreciates me as well.
Ive made it clear I have no intentions of trying to get with her, of course I really like her and I would love to be something one day but as I said, I'm genuinely happy for both of them, though it's kind of annoying how shitty he can be sometimes, he's still a great guy. Plus even if she wasn't with him it's still too soon and I atleast want close to a year of time before doing something like that.
The other day he got a hold of me and just said "question" out of nowhere, I asked him what was up and he asked what I do in my free time, so I told him and he just kept making it very clear that they were together by hinting how much they talk and hang out, we both talked for about 20 minutes and ended by us talking about some really nice stuff and we were both pretty happy I'd say.
If something were to happen between them in the future I'd love to be something one day but I'm honestly just grateful for being friends, I'm extremely grateful that we talk and we are how we are right now. I just want a lot more time before anything like that if something were to happen. Even though I really like her I would still want time
Shes constantly complimenting me though, and constantly being very very friendly, I dont know if I'd call it flirting but she's definitely extremely, extremely comfortable with me. Which makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, because if she's gaining feelings for me I don't want them breaking up because her and I just talk, even though I don't THINK I'm doing anything wrong it just still feels wrong because if she does catch feelings then at the end of the day it's because of me that they'd break up. She's constantly telling me how happy I make her, but she also talks about how great her boyfriend is, which is relieving because It shows me she's still happy with him and all of that.
I just dont know, I feel like I'm doing something wrong, I feel like I'm gonna cause issues between them but i dont want to be a dick and stop talking to her because i am the only one she can talk about some stuff with because her boyfriend just doesnt really care, it makes me happy that we talk aswell, doesnt matter if its good, bad, sad or happy, we are both just happy to talk to eachother.
Am I in the wrong? Should I stop talking to her to protect her relationship? Like I've mentioned I won't act on my feelings, it's more of just I really like her but want the best for her either way. If you guys want any other details or have questions feel free to ask me anything, I just want to know what people think.

So right now I am playing through Fo4 again, on PS5 this time, and decided to role play because I am an adult now. Right now I have the following load order, does anyone have recommendations on the order itself, any additions (I am constantly adding, but I started another new play-through because needing x5 damage for a raider with the same armor as the next is dumb imo.) I will number the order and add my explanations in parentheses. Feel free to comment or DM any responses, I’m open to improving my game!
Here is the load order I have:

1. Unoff. Patch (Helps the game ofc)
2. Arm. And Wep. Keywords (Req. for UCO)
3. USO Base Game (more base building options)
4. UCO Base Game (more clothing)
5. Quick Start (Damn the family, I’m a Marine)
6. The Commonwealth Minutemen Arm. (I felt like the Minutemen could use a “buff” bc Democracy, and aside from my issues with Preston’s dumb self)
7. [PS4] STS (I hate Bethesda “bushes”)
8. Sandman’s Power Gen. Tweaks (slight tweak to power output on gen.s)
9. c6k - More Scrap from Junk (simple help when actually building and not needing a cheat room for materials)
10. See-Through-Scopes (better x2.5 and x4 reflex sights)
11. UCO Season Pass (DLC additions to UCO)
12. USO Season Pass (DLC additions to USO
13. [PS4] Simple Settlers (makes everyone a named person and changed outfits)
14. All Settlements Extended (more horizontal room for building)
15. Minuteman Watchtowers (200 years passed, shouldn’t there be some sort of militaristic remnant other than pre-war?)
16. [PS4] Realistic Gore and Dismemberment (shooting off someone’s arms and watching them run has never been more fun, but the keep attacking until dead so not OP)
17. Choose Your Own Perks (lets me craft “starter” armors and weapons, while “level-restricting” myself to late game crafting)
18. 1st Person Animation Tweaks (weapon down when not firing)
19. Apocalyptic Fallout Baby (omg this makes this game so different. Tbf, I haven’t even played an hour with it, but I highly recommend.)
20. Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) (My only issue is that the light effect is a screen effect, so it is radial to your screen rather than connected to your pip-boy. Definitely recommended for horror effect/darkening mods)
21. [PS4/5] USO Next Gen Compatibility Patch (from author of USO/UCO, rec. at bottom of load order)
22. Enhanced Lights and FX (I adding this and Apoc. Fall. Baby at the same time, so I am unsure which has the most effect, but this heavily increases the darkness in unlit areas so that the flashlight mod can shine)

Apologies for the eye-sore if you made it this far, but I really do recommend these mods for a totally different Fo4 experience on PS5. Not sure if my PS4 can handle it lol!

TW: Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicidal ideation, sex abuse
This is going to be a LLLLLOOONNNNGGGGG one. This story goes back quite a way, but yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the ending to this story and I'm feeling it, still got some guilt about everything that happened, wondering what I could have done differently and I just want to vent it out and hope to get some closure from it.
This story started in 2010.
Characters in this story (names are fake, duh!):

• Me, Guy, 32M at the time, 45 now.
• My BFF Stephanie, 33F at the time.
• Stephen, 40M at the time, Stephanie's boyfriend.
• Maryse, 27F at the time.

Background and intro
I had known Stephanie for many years and we had the kind of friendship that made her BFs and my GFs uncomfortable to put it lightly. We had never crossed that boundary and I wouldn't consider us in the friendzone, we were just friend, but the kind of friend where she would sit on my lap with her arms around my neck or her head on my shoulder.
At the start of 2010, Stephanie met her then boyfriend, Stephen. He tolerated me and my friendship with Stephanie because I also had a gf back then. She liked Stephanie, wasn't at all jealous of my friendship with her, so he didn't deem me too suspicious. Then my gf and I broke up for reasons unimportant and all hell broke loose for Stephen. He became convinced that I would try and steal Stephanie from him. He insisted that Stephanie introduce me to her female friends or female friends of his. Thus began what I called the year of the 50 blind dates. It was probably closer to 20, but still I like saying the year of 50 blind dates. Most of them were unremarkable and never went beyond the first date. There are some fun stories in there if anyone wants to hear them eventually!
In July of that year, I had to switch gears because I had to focus up and study for a professional exam for a certification important to my career. This exam required close to 600-800 hours of study over a 3-4 month period. So I hunkered down, told Stephanie to stop the blind dates for now because I had to focus on that. She respected my wishes and, other a text here or there, we went low contact for the last two months before the exam.
Except for one fateful night in September. Her birthday was in September and she always threw these big bashes at her house. She would throw a big pool party that started around noon and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. I knew she would harass me to go to her party, so I made some quick math and figured I would lose more energy and time trying to dodge her calls, texts and most likely visits at my place than by just going to the party itself. So when she called me to ask, I just said: "Okay I'll go to your damn party, now git." I texted her I would get there in the evening probably around 8. She texted back "Great, can't wait. Now study, bitch!"
So I ultimately get there around 8PM. Basically everybody is already drunk off their gourd. Stephanie sees me, squeals in excitement and runs to me in her bikini and just jumps in the air and slams into me, wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and gives me a big hug. I hug her back and just keep walking back to the pool where she had started, carrying her with me. I just duck my head around hers and say hi to Stephen, who just glares at me.
She drops back down and I give her her gift. We chat for a few seconds and says "There's beer in the fridge and food in the dining room." I told her I'd be right back.
I go inside and grab a beer from the fridge. I head to the dining room and the table is against the wall with a buffet of sandwiches, tomato pizza, salads, etc. I grab a plate and start putting food on it. I was focused on the task because I was starving. I barely noticed, sitting at the end of the table one of the most stunning woman I have ever seen. I just see her in my peripheral vision and I do a quick double take, quick glance at her and back to the food. I do that a second time. And finally a third time. At that point she is just straight up staring at me and I can't help but chuckle and whisper under my breath "Subtle Guy, sub-tle".
Thankfully she starts laughing too, saving me some embarassment. I look at her and greet her. She says "Hi, I'm Maryse and I'm guessing you're Guy?" I just nod and we start talking. At that point, I just thought I have no shot with her, she's so far out of my league that I'm just gonna talk to her until she sees one of the "models" hanging out by the pool and ditches me for him.
So I'm not feeling like I'm playing for anything, so I'm just myself and not nervous, just talking to her as I would any friend. We chat and she laughs at all my jokes, she gets all my cultural references. She never gets up or ditches me. The plate of food I had made and the beer I had gotten are sitting on the table next to me untouched, I was too busy with the convo to think about food or beer anymore.
After what felt like only 20-30 minutes, Stephanie comes in and tells me, fake grumpy: "So that's where you disappeared to. I invite my best friend to a party and he spends the whole night talking to someone else." I laugh and go: "What do you mean the whole night? I haven't been here that long." She says "Dude, it's 2AM. You've been here for 6 hours..." My jaw dropped and I just said: "Wow, time flies when you're having fun." Maryse chimes in, with a big smile: "It sure does!" That made me happy as you can imagine.
Now I was a little stuck because where Stephanie lived, there's no night service for the bus and the subway had been closed for an hour or so. I figured I would cab it. So I turn to Maryse and tell her: "It was absolutely lovely to meet you and I enjoyed our conversation very much." She says that she did too. I continued with "At the moment, my schedule is incredibly hectic. I'm basically working full-time, studying full-time and sleeping part-time. So I don't have a lot of free time, but if she was interested, whatever little free time I had, I would love to call her or text her to keep on getting to know her."
I see Stephanie in the backgroudnd, looking like a proud mama at how smooth that came out, knowing I was always anything but smooth with women, as proven by the string of blind dates! Maryse has a big smile and we exchange numbers. I go to Stephanie to wish her a happy birthday again. While I'm talking to her, my phone buzzes with a text from Maryse: "Just checking!"
I asked Stephanie "What's the best cab company to call in this area?" Maryse chimes in: "Where do you live?" I tell her where I lived and she goes "It's on the way to where I live, I can give you a ride if you want." Stephanie raised an eyebrow in surprise. I learned later, she did it because it absolutely was not on the way to her place, like, at all. I say that I would love that as it would give us a chance to keep talking.
We get in her car, driving to my place. We talk, she asks me what I'm studying as I hadn't mentioned it earlier. I tell her all about the boring maths I had to study. Much too quickly, we get to my place. She parks in front of my building and we keep talking. At some point, I tell her: "Normally, this is where I would try to "trick" you into coming up to my place..." She interrupts me: "You wouldn't need to trick me. I'm willing and able!"
I tell her that "As tempting as that sounds, I know who I am and I know that if you come up and things proceed to where they're going, I'm not going to be able to study for the rest of the month. I have a kind of obsessive mind and when I find someone or something I like, I can push everything else to the side in favor of that. So to make sure I can still focus on my studying, I have to go up by myself."
She looks at me, a little disappointed but then says, half-jokingly: "We don't have to go up, there's a backseat right there!" We laugh and I give her a kiss and wish her a good night. I managed to stay strong and go back to my condo. Damn it, why did I have to stay strong!!!
My exam was at the beginning of november. During the month of october, we texted a bunch of times and talked on the phone. We went for coffee a couple of times and dinner once. She respected my boundaries and never pushed for more, which I appreciated but also hated at the same time, if that makes sense. The exam came and it was a monster of a Friday. I slept for basically 18 hours after the exam as the adrenalin dropped and my system crashed.
I texted her when I woke up at around 1PM. She was working at the clothing store Stephanie owned. She said "I'm off at 5PM, wanna meet me." I said: "Duh! Why do you think I'm texting? ;)" So I met her at the store downtown. I asked if she wanted to grab a drink, go for dinner, or what. She proposed going to her place and getting some take out. Stephanie who was closing the store at that moment, came up to us and said: "Hey, so what are we doing?" I said: "WE, that is Maryse and I, are going to her place and getting some takeout. Bye!" I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you that no food was ever ordered that night!
Thus followed a whirlwind month of November where any free time we had was spent together, and I wasn't going to complain!
The troubles
By the start of december, things were still going great with us. One saturday night, we were having dinner at a restaurant and I mention that this coming Friday is my office Christmas party, that it's employees only, so we wouln't see each other that night. She tells me: "Oh sure, that's fine! It'll give me a chance to go see some girlfriends I've been neglecting lately." I said "Great! BTW I also got us a reservation at [this great restaurant she had mentioned a few times] for next Saturday, so we could go there and I'll tell you all about my party and you can tell me all about her night with the girls!"
That was settled, I thought. I was wrong. On Thursday, we had spent the evening together at her place and I was about to leave to go back to my place. She tells me: "So are you coming to meet me at the store tomorrow or do I go to your place?" I reminded her: "Neither, tomorrow is my office Christmas party and we won't see each other tomorrow." She said: "Oh right, I forgot." I asked her if she had made plans with her friends like she had mentioned last saturday. She said that they were all busy tomorrow and weren't available.
She suggested "If your party is boring, maybe you could come meet me." I retorted that it wasn't going to be, knowing who was going to be there.
"Yeah but what if?"
"But it won't"
"But what IFFFFFF?" she kept insisting and I kept saying no. After what felt like 30 minutes of that (probably only 2-3 minutes in reality), I had enough and just said to end the argument: "Okay, if it's boring, I'll come. but it won't be." She said: "Cool" with a big smile on her face. I came to learn that that smile meant "Challenge accepted".
The following night, my colleague and I were pregaming in a conference room before leaving for the party proper and my phone buzzes. Maryse was wishing me a good party. I replied. She texted me again. I replied. She texted again, but I was in a conversation with a colleague so I didn't reply or even look at the phone. My phone buzzes again. Still talking, and didn't want to be rude to my colleague. Another buzz. I just kept talking. Phone buzzes differently, she was now calling because I hadn't answered her texts.
"Why aren't you replying to my texts?"
"Hey, sorry, was talking to my colleague Patrick."
"What? you don't want to talk to me?"
"I am talking to you now."
"Why didn't you reply to my texts?"
"Because it would have been rude to my colleague to pull my phone out while talking to him."
"But you're talking to me now."
"Because I thought something was wrong, maybe it was an emergency."
"I wanted to talk to you, that's all."
"Well, gotta go back to the party. Talk to you later."
She kept texting and if I didn't reply right away, she would call after two or three missed texts. After about 2 hours of this, I stopped answering the texts. When she called back, I asked her: "Aren't you supposed to be working?" which started another round of guilt-tripping of "why are you asking me this? you don't want to talk to me?" At that point I had had enough and wanted to enjoy my party. I remembered that the Blackberry (no shaming old tech!) I had had an annoying feature, but I was hoping to put it to good use at that moment.
Whenever the battery would get really low, like less than 1%, it would let out an ear-piercing BEEP for about 3 seconds, reminiding you to charge it and giving you a heart attack all at the same time. It would do that even when you were in silent mode. It had happened a few days earlier when I was with Maryse. I figured, if I press a button on the Blackberry, it would make a beep too that could be heard through the phone. So while I was talking to Maryse, I pressed my thumb on the space bar for a good 3 seconds and sputtered; "what... the .... what?" trying to put on a somewhat believable performance.
She asked what that noise was and I tell her that it was my blackberry letting me know I was low battery and it might shut off any second. I told her "Listen I'm gonna wish you a good night, I'm having a good time at my party so I'll see you tomorrow at 5PM to go spend our evening together. I hope you have a good....." and hung up mid-sentence. I promptly shut my phone off and went back to the party. I concede that I may be a bit of an AH for that move.
The party was great, I got drunk much quicker than I expected owing to the fact that I hadn't had a drink in over two months because Maryse didn't drink so I didn't either when we were together, and we were always together. At 1AM, I went home and passed out on my bed.
This is another place where I may have been an AH. I didn't turn my cell phone back on and I unplugged my home line too, because I wanted to sleep the deep sleep of the drunkard. I woke up at around 1:30 PM, not knowing it was already too late. In my mind, I was meeting Maryse at 5PM to go out on the town that night. Maryse had other ideas as you'll see.
So like I said, I woke up at 1:30PM and was sticky with alcohol sweat, so I went straight for the shower to get clean again. While in the shower, my stomach grumbled with hunger and I started daydreaming of bacon and eggs. That pushed me out of the shower right quick. I dried myself off quickly, tied the towel around my waist and went to the fridge. No bacon.... booo. Looked at the egg compartment... no eggs... booo again. Okay then, how about a cream cheese bagel. No cream cheese, damn it. Look in the pantry, no bagels.... god. I was starting to get angry. Okay, cereals then. I pick up the cereal box, that mofo was empty and I get mad: "who's the idiot who puts the empty box back in the pantry?" I remembered I live alone.
I close the fridge dejected and see the grocery list stuck on the fridge, taunting me with everything I wanted to eat for breakfast written on it. But I felt like if I went to the grocery store hungry as I Was, I'm just gonna pay 600$ and not get one single healthy thing to eat. I then remembered there's a restaurant next to the grocery store that serves breakfast until 3PM. I get excited! I get dressed quickly, grab my wallet and keys, put my boots on, my coat on, wrap my scarf, my tuque and my gloves and go to the restaurant. If you notice, I didn't mention my phone in there.
I get to the restaurant and confirm that they still have breakfast and get even more excited when she confirms it. I order the "heart attack", at least that's how I nicknamed it: 3 eggs, 3 servings of bacon, 2 sausages, and, I guess to give one peace of mind, fruit (or to be precise, one single solitary slice of orange). Now that the food is ordered and coming I figured I would check if I have any messages. I pat the pocket where my phone always is. No phone. uh-oh. I start clutching evert pocket, no luck.
I wonder if I should go back home after the meal before going to the grocery store and decide against it, it would be too long a detour. So I scarf my breakfast down, rush through the grocery store. I get home and set my bags down in front of the fridge. I go pick up my blackberry. I turn it back on. The little tape icon tells me there are messages on my voicemail, at that time there were no red dots with a number in it to tell you how many.
I connect to the voicemail while starting to put the groceries away. The little automated voice tells me "You have 25 new messages." I pull the phone away from my ear, look at it in disbelief as if saying: "are you f'ing kidding me?" So I press 1 to start playing the messages.
Remember: Maryse knew I was at a party with a dead phone, no chargers and I probably wouldn't get home until 1AM. From 6:30PM, when my phone died, to 11:34 PM, when she went to sleep she left me 9 messages. BTW I know she went to sleep at 11:34PM because she left me a message saying "it's 11:34PM and I'm going to bed. Thinking of you." The 9 messages were in the same vein. These are the salient details, but the messages were all much longer.
She woke up at 7:15 the following day, I'll let you guess how I know that tidbit of information! She left me 5 more messages like those from the day before: 7:15 woke up. 7:35 going to take a shower. 7:55 out of the shower. 8:25 getting ready to leave for work 8:50 walking out of the subway to go to the store.
She leaves me another message at 9 that was different. She sounded very excited as if she had had the best idea in the world: "Hey it's 9AM, I'm about to start my shift. I know we're only supposed to meet after my shift, but what if you came and met me for lunch so you could tell me all about your party." I just did my best Scooby-Doo "Ruh-Roh" and chuckled that I blew that, not thinking the calamity that was awaiting me.
Another couple of messages to talk logistics: "I could take my lunch at 12 or 12:30, let me know which you prefer." "I'm taking my lunch at 12:30"
A slightly worried message: "It's 11:15 and you stil have not said if you were coming or not, are you okay?"
The first bomb goes off and I knew I was in trouble then: "Where are you? We're supposed to meet for lunch and you still haven't given me any sign of life, you're not answering your home phone either, what happened?" Reminder: we were not supposed to meet for lunch, she suggested doing so a couple of hours earlier and I never agreed to anything. I guess she told her colleagues I would meet her for lunch and it was now fact and could perhaps make her look bad in front of her colleagues.
The second bomb drops: "It's almost noon now, WHERE ARE YOU? Stephanie says you're probably sleeping off your drunk, but I don't believe her. I'm sure you got yourself a slut and cheated on me. Didn't you? didn't you, you asshole." Stephanie knows me very well, but that wasn't enough for Maryse it seems.
Ensued four more messages from 12:30 to 1:15, where she starts sounding more and more drunk and accusatory, spewing more attacks like in the message above. At that point I already knew it was over, there was no coming back from that. I can understand having trust issues, but that was nuclear. I don't tolerate jealousy because of horrible experiences with a couple of jealous toxic exes.
A final message comes in, and it's a different voice, that of my best friend being more than a little angry: "Hey Guy, listen, Maryse tells me you had a Christmas party yesterday, so I'm guessing you're sleeping off your drunk, still. But call me when you get this. I put Maryse, who's f'ing drunk, in the backstore so she can dry off and "do inventory". She can't be on the sales floor obviously and I just don't feel safe sending her home in the state she's in. Call me to tell me how you want to handle this."
At that point I had finished putting away my groceries and had put my boots and my coat on and was making my way to the subway to go to the store. I call Stephanie and tell her I got the messages and I was coming. She was right, I was sleeping off my drunk and had just woke up (didn't feel the need to mention the breakfast and grocery store). I ask her if she knows what I'm gonna do when I get there. She says that she knows and understands. She knows my bad history.
When I get out of the subway, I call her again before getting to the store. I ask her how she wants me to do this. It's her store and I don't want to create drama in front of her customers. Does she want me to wait outside and she tells Maryse to meet me in the street or do I go in the store and she takes me to the backstore and I do it there? She says to come to the store.
I walk in the store and every saleswomen on the floor looks at me and gives me the biggest case of the stink-eye. They only have Maryse's side of the story, so they think I did all these horrible things. I see Stephanie in the middle of the store and I walk towards her. She shakes her head and points me towards the cash register. I look over there and see Julia, a salesperson that I've known for a couple of years and really like, who also happens to be the biggest gossip in the store. I understand what Stephanie is trying to do. She's gonna make me tell her my story in front of Julia so Julia can spread the "good news" to the other employees and rehabilitate my name possibly.
So I get to the register and say Hi to Julia. She barely acknoledges me. Steph joins me. She asks me:
"How are you?"
"I was better an hour ago, before I listened to those voicemails. I had gone to our office party last night, had a great night, got drunk off my ass, got home at around 2 and woke up around 2."
Julia asks "Maryse told us you were supposed to meet her for lunch."
"No we weren't. I have a reservation for tonight at XYZ restaurant. I was supposed to take the day to do errands, stuff around the condo and meet her here at closing time. She suggested that it could be fun if I came at lunchtime to meet her, but that was never the plan."
Julia asks again "But why didn't you answer your phone?"
"It ran out of battery last night during the party and when I got home, I was so drunk that I forgot to plug it back in. I only plugged it when I woke up at 2. That's when the messages came in."
Julia asks "She says she tried calling your home line and you didn't answer and your machine didn't kick in."
"Yeah, that one's my fault, I knew I wanted to sleep and telemarketers have a habit of calling me early saturday mornings so I didn't want to be awoken by a call for a rug cleaning service, so I unplugged it yesterday morning, knowing I would be drunk when I got home and forget and be angry if I was awakened by a telemarketer."
Julia gave me a hint of a smile, showing me she was starting to believe me. She asked me a few more questions and then she asked what I was gonna do. I told her that whatever I'll do, I would tell Maryse first.
I looked at Stephanie and said: "Can you open the back store so I can go see her?" So we went to the backstore. As we reached the door, it swung opened and out popped Maryse, looking absolutely terrifying, I actually jumped back when I saw her. Her usual perfect makeup was completely smeared, her mascara streaking down her cheeks from the crying. Her hair was disheveled. She was a mess. Apparently, she had had enough of waiting back there and was planning on leaving the store to go home and had put her coat and boots on.
When she saw me, she went into an unhinged rant about me being an asshole for cheating on her, me not being great in bed, me not treating her right, etc. I let her vent everything she had to say, I looked at Stephanie and apologized for creating such a scene in her store. I tell Maryse we should go outside and talk in private. She keeps on yelling, but when I grab her hand to lead her outside, she follows.
When we get outside, her anger had started to wane a little, or maybe just her energy. I was able to talk to her to explain everything, how I had gotten drunk, had overslept (alone) and woke up at 2PM. I reminded her that we were only supposed to meet at 5PM not for lunch. The anger was leaving her and a smile almost appeared on her face. Through all of this I was being very calm and patient with her, which she interpreted as me not being mad at her. I then said in a firmer tone: "However..." and let it hang for a second.
The beginning smile vanished. I continued: "When you accused me of cheating on you, that broke me. That triggered memories of toxic exes who would always accuse me of cheating, not trusting me when I would tell them where I was, snooping on me, stalking me. Because of those experiences, I have a zero tolerance policy for jealousy. I told her that if she was behaving like after only two months of dating, it didn't bode well for the future and I have to protect myself."
At that, the tears started again and she just turned and ran/waddled away. I told her to wait, but she didn't hear me. I turned towards the entrance of the store to see basically all the employees and customers milling around the door trying to catch the drama. I went back inside to talk to my best friend. The mood had definitely changed and no one was giving me the stink eye anymore, but I didn't really care. I was just sad that it had ended, but proud of myself for having stood up for myself.
So AITA for getting drunk and keeping my phone turned off?
There is a lot more to this story and if you want to learn what happened afterwards, then read on.
The immediate aftermath
So I went back inside the store and talked to Stephanie. I told her that I had a reserrvation for XX restaurant and if she wanted to go with Stephen, she could take it, I wasn't in the mood for a dinner. She said "I already have plans for tonight, but thanks for offering." Julia said she would go with me if I wanted, but I just said that I wasn't in the mood to go out. I just wanted to crash and eat a pizza and get into a food coma.
Stephanie said she didn't feel comfortable leaving me by myself and I should join them at her house. They were having friends over to play board games and it could at least distract me a little. I said why not. So brimming with enthusiasm, I went to play bored games. I left early as I wasn't in the mood. I was feeling a little better, but still a bit down. I thanked Stephanie for the invite and left. I got home and just passed out on the bed.
I woke up at around 7AM the next morning and I saw along the corners of the window the tell-tale signs of a snow-drift and got excited as it was the first snow of the season. I pushed the curtains aside and looked on to see a beautiful white carpet outside. It was early enough that very few cars had marred the whiteness. I was admiring it when I noticed that, against the red bricks of the building across the street, there was a pink blotch. As I focused, the blotch became human shaped and I cleared my eyes enough to realize that it was Maryse and she was raising her cell phone to her ear.
On cue, my phone rings. I pick it up. Still sounding drunk, she asks me if we can speak. I ask her to give me five minutes to get dressed and I'll meet her down there. She asks why she can't come up. I say that I'm not sure I want her in my apartment. She says that it's cold out. I say: "Good, then this will be quick."
I get dressed and meet her outside. I'm still bleary-eyed from having woken up 5 minutes ago, but I try to get my wits together. I tell her that we're going to walk to the subway. It 's a 10-minute walk normally, but with her drunkenness, it might take 15-20 minutes. That's how long she has to tell me what she wants to tell me.
She wants to apologize for accusing me of cheating on her. She says she knows I'm a great guy and... I may be the A-hole at this point too, but I start to drift off in my little bubble and start daydreaming about, if I go back to bed, would there still be some residual heat or would it be cold? I could take a hot shower and warm the bed that way. I could still hear her in the background making excuses, saying how she had been cheated on, but I wasn't really listening.
During the daydreaming I notice it got quite quiet. I look on my left and she's not there, I turn around she's a good 5-6 steps behind me looking angry and she says: "you're not listening" I just say: "when you're right, you're right." I tell her that I understand she's been hurt too in the past, and I hope she can work to resolve her issues, but I was done and I'm going back to bed. I was a bit harsh there, but I was tired and still down.
I walk past her and get maybe 10 paces past her when I hear a scream coming from her. I turn around and I see her messing with something inside her coat. She pulls out a chef's knife with like an 8-inch blade. That wakes me the fuck up. Byebye bleary eyes, hello wakefulness. better than a cup of coffee or a red bull I tell you!
So she's got the knife, she's screaming something that I can't quite understand. She gets quiet and then she charges at me with the knife. If I'm being honest I could have stayed where I was and she probably would have missed me anyways, but someone charges at me with a knife, I'm gonna nope out of there. I take a massive side step and once she gets to where I was and realizes that I'm no longer there, she turns her head towards me and says heyyyyy.
At that point, I have a moment of clarity and see what's gonna happen. She's drunk running one way and looking another, I know she's gonna trip. As I predicted, she stumbled over her feet and starts falling to the ground. I start praying to god and anybody who would listen: "Please don't let her cut herself. I don't want to have to explain this to the doctors, EMTs and nurses. I don't want her drunk ass deciding to take revenge on me by saying I did it."
Thankfully, she winds up in a sitting position on the sidewalk holding the knife up and it was clean. Thank god for small miracles. She starts crying and, other moment of clarity, I know she's gonna turn the knife on herself now. I jump towards her and I realize I was right, the knife starts moving towards her left wrist. I tackle her, grab her right wrist and twist it so she drops the knife. I pick the knife back up and put it in my pocket. She looks at me crying and says: "Why did you stop me?"
I pick her up and take her back to my building. In my building there was a couch in the lobby, so I take her there and I sit her down and plop myself next to her. I look at her and wonder out loud: "What am I gonna do with you? What can I do?"
She goes: "Just let me go, I'll be good." I tell her that's not going to happen. I realize I have three options and I give her the three options.
"So here's the choice I give you.
1- I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted murder back there and they send the police to arrest you. I don't want to do that because that could derail your life and not get you the help you need. Besides, they might not do anything anyway as it's your word against mine.
2= I pull out my phone, call 911 and tell them about the attempted suicide back there and that you need to be placed on a 72 hour hold. I could do that, but at the same time, again it's my word against yours, so maybe they don't believe me.
3- I'm gonna hazard a guess here. From what I've seen, you have alcohol problems. So I'm gonna guess you were in AA, had been sober for a while, I want to say 6 months, maybe less, when we met."
She confirms my guess.
"alright so option 3, I'm guessing you had a sponsor in AA." she nods "we call them up and tell them about your relapse and what happened this morning. Can they come get you and take care of you?"
She takes her phone out and picks a contact and calls. She hands me the phone. Someone answers and I explain the situation. They said they were coming right away. I give them my address, they get here 15 minutes later. Maryse had fallen asleep in the meantime, so I wake her up gently and help her to the car. Off she went.
I went back to my apartment and just crashed back to sleep.
A month later
Mid-january, my phone rings and I see Maryse's number on there. I send her to voice mail. Another call. Voicemail again. 5 minutes later, Private number calling. "Gee I wonder who that could be." Voicemail once more.
Afterwards, I didn't get any unidentified callers for a little over a week. One afternoon, I was at work and my phone rings and it's a number I do not recognize. I pick up.
"Hello."
"Hi, is this Guy?"
"Yes, to whom am I speaking?"
"This is Hannah, Maryse's sponsor. we spoke last month." I started fearing the worst.
"Yes, I remember. How can I help you?"
"Maryse tried to reach you last week and you rejected the calls. I think it could help Maryse if you listened to what she had to say. You're obviously not obligated to entertain her, but I think despite everything that happened, you still care about her or you would not have called me that morning."
"You are right, I do still care about Maryse. I'm just not sure how good it would be for her to meet me this soon after everything that happened. I understand wanting to work through the 9th step and making amends, but..." She interrupts me.
"So you know about the steps."
"Yes I have friends in the program. which is how I could guess that she was in the program too that morning."
"You know it's important."
"I know. I know. How about this: we meet in public at a cafe, you would have to be there. Not necessarily at the table with us, but nearby in case she needs help, in case meeting me causes her pain. Tell her I promise to be in a more receptive mood than I was that morning."
So we make an appointment for that saturday afternoon.
I get to the coffee shop. She's already there, and so is her sponsor. I realize happily that she's not wearing makeup. I say happily because that means she understands that this is not a date, but something serious. She's still stunningly beautiful, and I feel sad almost right away.
I grab a coffee and go join her at the table.
"Hey" I say,
"Hey. So this is gonna be uncomfortable, but thank you for agreeing to meet me and for coming, I appreciate it more than you know. I'm sure you heard I quit the store."
"I have, I'm sorry about that, I hope you didn't do it just because of me."
"No, I needed time to focus on myself for now."
She proceeds to tell me about how I wasn't far off with my guess. She had been sober 4 months when we met. Now she had 39 days. She tells me that in AA, if you are single, they recommend not dating anyone new for at least the first year of your sobriety as it can cause issues, similar to what happened with us. I was like her "drug" and as long as I was available, she could get her fix. But the moment I wasn't available all hell broke loose, and that is what led her back to drinking that day.
I told her I'm glad to see her back sober again this quickly and I hope she can get all the help she needs from it. I ask her if she wants to talk to me about her drinking.
She starts to share a story about how she started drinking at around 11 years old. When puberty hit her, she got into a deep depression because the sexual feelings she was starting to feel were triggering responses. As a child she had been abused by two of her uncles repeatedly and her parents never believed her. They accused her of trying to make herself interesting. That was until they caught one of those uncles red-handed.
They finally believed and took the necessary steps to protect their daughter. But they were poor and they couldn't afford therapy. So she never really got help for it. At 11, she started self medicating the depression with alcohol. When alcohol wasn't enough, she added drugs.
At that point, I was full on crying. She asked me if I wanted her to stop. I told her that she doesn't have to stop. That the tears are there because that was one more thing we had in common. I was also a survivor of sexual assault as a child. In my case, it wasn't a family member, it was only a stranger, so it only happened once. But I also self-medicated with alcohol at the onset of puberty, switching to drugs later on too. I was lucky to avoid the pitfalls of addiction, but I was still dealing with my demons, slowly making peace with them.
So there we were, sitting at a coffee shop, both crying and holding each other. I tell her that I think it's great she's getting help for her alcoholism and addicion, but was she doing anything to help with the underlying issue, the original trauma? She said no, she couldn't afford therapy. I tell her that I am a member of a survivors group and if she is interested, I could get her into a meeting and perhaps learn to heal that part of herself too.
She said that she could give it a try. I tell her I have to talk to the other members to know if I can bring someone new and I would let her know. If they said yes, we would go to her first meeting together, I would introduce her and then we would coordinate so that I never went to meetings where she was. I wanted to do that because I wanted her first few meetings to be about healing and I didn't want our own history to be intertwined or mixed in with that.
After that, we left both feeling content and, while not necesarily happy, at peace if you will. Later on, I contacted Stephanie who was one of the "pillars" of the support group (that's how we met) to ask her if it was okay for me to bring in a new member to the group. She said sure. She asked if it was anyone she knew. I told her she would have to meet her at the meeting if she decides to come.
We were having a meeting the following day. I called Maryse, told her the time and place, and she said she would be there. She came to the group meeting and was shocked to see Stephanie there but Stephanie kinda guessed that it was Maryse I was referring to.
I introduce her, we start sharing stories, talking about how we're feeling, etc. The meeting was good and Maryse liked the vibe. So for the first six months after that, I never saw Maryse and we planned which meeting we would be attending to ensure we didn't cross paths. She started feeling much better.
After maybe 2 and a half years, she finally felt ready and she started dating again. She met someone and she fell for him. They were together for about six months, she looked happy. Unfortunately after about six months, she caught him cheating on her. We tried supporting her, being good friends, cursing his name, doing all the things we could to make sure she didn't relapse. But on April 5th 2014, she ODed on heroin. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks after that.
Hannah took her in and she set up a room for Maryse. She was still in a fragile state, so a group of her friends and I started taking turns watching over Maryse, making sure there was always at least one person there with her to keep her company.
Despite our vigilance, on May 14th 2014, when Hannah was out running a quick errand, she was gone maybe 15 minutes tops, Maryse found a way to cut her wrists and she died. We found a note saying that "the OD was not an accident, and neither was that. Thanks for everything you did for me. I love you all, but I can't do this anymore."
It feels good to write that story (I'll just ignore the fat tears rolling down my face!). Thanks for reading this far and sorry for the long story, I just started writing and couldn't stop. I apologize if it was a bit of a bummer.

I (45 F) have two daughters: Olivia (23) and Rebecca (20). Rebecca still lies at home and has a good job and has been saving her money. Olivia moved out at 20, moved out and later got pregnant (dad is not in the picture). Her son Jack is 9 months old. He is a handful. I love him so much, but he can barely be set down or he cries and whines.
About a month ago my mom scheduled a cruise for her and my dad. She sent a link to the family group chat saying that anyone who wants to join these are the dates/etc. To my surprise, most of my siblings have decided to book on the same cruise. Rebecca was discussing with me and asked if I wanted to go with her. I agreed because I think we’d have fun.
When Olivia heard this, she was upset because she wants to go. I told her the cost, but she said if you add a third and fourth person to your room it only costs approximately $170 for each of them (babies still coat the same amount). That’s with me and Rebecca paying full price ($900 each).
I honestly wouldn’t care if she went and I know she would love it and have fun, but her son would only be 16 months old at the time. He would want to be held or down walking the entire time.
Carrying a kid or chasing him around does not sound like a fun vacation. We’re planning on going to the beach a few days, and I know Olivia isn’t going to want to hold him the entire time. Plus I don’t really want to share a room with a baby (he cries a lot).
It might be selfish, but I don’t want to spend my vacation watching him. I know other people will be there and could help, but I watch him several days a week and he’s comfortable with me, so more than likely I would end up with him. I love the heck out of him, but having a 16 month old on a cruise ship doesn’t sound fun to me.
I told my daughter and she’s being stubborn saying that he would be fine and he’s been sleeping better during the night. So do I just give in and let her go? Even if she shared a cabin with my parents, I still feel it would be a struggle having a baby on vacation.
Edited to add: she is pretty broke. She might be able to afford the $170 per person, but that’s if she saves until the cruise. She wouldn’t be able to split the cost of the room 4 ways.

I (45 F) have two daughters: Olivia (23) and Rebecca (20). Rebecca still lies at home and has a good job and has been saving her money. Olivia moved out at 20, moved out and later got pregnant (dad is not in the picture). Her son Jack is 9 months old. He is a handful. I love him so much, but he can barely be set down or he cries and whines.
About a month ago my mom scheduled a cruise for her and my dad. She sent a link to the family group chat saying that anyone who wants to join these are the dates/etc. To my surprise, most of my siblings have decided to book on the same cruise. Rebecca was discussing with me and asked if I wanted to go with her. I agreed because I think we’d have fun.
When Olivia heard this, she was upset because she wants to go. I told her the cost, but she said if you add a third and fourth person to your room it only costs approximately $170 for each of them (babies still coat the same amount). That’s with me and Rebecca paying full price ($900 each).
I honestly wouldn’t care if she went and I know she would love it and have fun, but her son would only be 16 months old at the time. He would want to be held or down walking the entire time. Carrying a kid or chasing him around does not sound like a fun vacation. We’re planning on going to the beach a few days, and I know Olivia isn’t going to want to hold him the entire time. Plus I don’t really want to share a room with a baby (he cries a lot).
It might be selfish, but I don’t want to spend my vacation watching him. I know other people will be there and could help, but I watch him several days a week and he’s comfortable with me, so more than likely I would end up with him. I love the heck out of him, but having a 16 month old on a cruise ship doesn’t sound fun to me.
I told my daughter and she’s being stubborn saying that he would be fine and he’s been sleeping better during the night. So do I just give in and let her go? Even if she shared a cabin with my parents, I still feel it would be a struggle having a baby on vacation.
Edited to add: she is pretty broke. She might be able to afford the $170 per person, but that’s if she saves until the cruise. She wouldn’t be able to split the cost of the room 4 ways.

Trying to make this short….my 21 month old son does this very strange thing. Whenever we walk into someone’s house(my sisters, both sets of grandparents) he starts freaking out. Just like starts screaming and throwing a mini tantrum…he normally calms down within like 2 mins, but he almost runs and hides…it’s not like he runs to me because he’s scared, it’s like he can’t processes being in a “new place”. To clarify-he goes to my sisters house once a week(if not more) and ends up having a hoot there, he is also extremely close with my sister and her husband(they’re like second parents to my kids). As for my parents and in laws, he also goes to their house at least once a week…we go all together for Sunday brunches and suppers. My son will even sometimes do this when we walk into our own house!(not as often, but has/does) I’m not sure if he’s just decided he’s upset to be where he is or what?? But it’s so confusing, and feels sooo unnecessary!
For context. My son definitely has a speech delay.(he says all of 15-20 words but repeats them…doesn’t say much on his own). This is getting assets in a couple weeks so we can get him into speech asap. With the speech delay, we clearly find it hard for him to properly. express what’s wrong and communicate a need. So I feel very lost about how to handle his meltdowns. When he does meltdown I just either pick him up or come down to his level and tell him “we’re all good, let’s calm down”, as I’m trying to take his coat and shoes off. I’ve tried the getting him to take a deep breathe, and sat down and showed him. Super didn’t work… I’ve kind of gotten to the point where I either let him have his moment to freak out, and then go with him to play with some toys, or I just try to distract/ignore it-which maybe that makes me a horrible parent(but I feel defeated on the situation). Sometimes I’ve found ignoring helps.
To also clarify…my son happily runs up to wherever we’re headed…he tries opening the front door-seems sooo excited, and the second we shut the door behind us, the freak out occurs and he’s trying to re-escape out the front door.
I guess my question is-what is going on?? Do other people’s kids do this?? I’d understand him doing this if it was somewhere new, or with people he didn’t know or like, but it’s not. So what do I do??

Introduction

1. Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs?

• family has had several dogs but -my- dog from age 8-25 was a chihuahua, sadly not trained very well as i was a child. currently learning how to handle dogs better at my job

1. Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a reputable breeder?

• either is fine but i would prefer an adult dog (so rescue or retired breeder)

1. Describe your ideal dog.

• friendly and playful without being too off the wall in energy, able to be taken around new places as i moved to a very dog friendly area where everyone has theirs with them. something to encourage me and my roommates to go outside more/go on smaller trail walks. we are all gamers in our 30s so nothing we need to run marathons with. a bonus is if it has workable fuhair as i am a bather at a grooming salon and it would be fun to learn to groom my own dog

1. What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why?

• shih tzu, toy/mini poodle, boston terrier, pug mixes, pomeranian. preferably toy/small dogs but medium ones aren't out of the question

1. What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do?

• simple and nessacery commands like sit/stay/going to a crate if needed

1. Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport?

• does grooming competitions count? if not with me then my coworkers could use them as a model

Care Commitments
7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day?

• on a work day i have around 5 hours of free time between coming home and going to bed

8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park?

• daily walks and play, longer walks during off days/if i happen to have taken them to work

9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly?

• daily, though i am starting to shy away from double/tripple coated dogs like a pom/spitz as the brushing can be a bit too intense sometimes

Personal Preferences
10) What size dog are you looking for?

• toy to medium

11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle?

• moderate amount. the only breed ive seen that sheds an intolerable amount is westies

12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area?

• as i live in an apartment i would not do this. in my own yard maybe if the dog has good recall (my chihuahua had great recall/didnt walk far from me so she was not leashed at home)

Dog Personality and Behavior
13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space?

• a good median or leaning towards independent. i sleep in a loft bed so a dog that is so clingy it needs to sleep with me would be a sad situation

14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please?

• leaning toward eager to please. i'd prefer a dog that is more dog than cat

15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors?

• i would like a much friendlier-to-strangers dog than the ones ive had in the past.

16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs?

• i would seek training if that were the case but as i would like to have my dog in public/at work around other dogs id like a more dog-friendly breed

17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid?

• dogs that are very escapey/good at climbing though i think this is more a sporting/bird dog trait

Lifestyle
18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone?

• one roommate is unemployeed/disabled so it would not be left alone but i also would not want a dog that is incapable of being alone if need be

19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog?

• no standard poodles, though i believe that to be too big/unmanagable of a dog for me currently. roommates can help with basic needs though as we are on the 2nd floor the primary person to take the dog outside would be me, so training to use a puppy pad or being able to be put on a feeding schedule to manage potty breaks would be a must

20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they?

• we have a chinchilla, a cat, and two lizards, so a breed with little to no prey drive would be prefered.

21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly?

• no

22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease?

• weight limit of 50lbs/typical "banned" breeds

23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds?

• washington state, us

24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live?

• mild climate of 30-50 in the winter and 50-80 in the summer

Additional Information and Questions
25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant.

• i know skin issues are more genetic than breed specific but as both my chihuahua and last cat had skin problems i'd prefer a breed that is not known to be prone to them

26) Feel free to ask any questions below.

• does anyone have any advice for applying to private rescue groups? i feel as though as soon as i put that i live in an apartment on my applications they throw it in the trash. every local rescue requires a fenced in yard/home ownership for even the smallest/laziest dog breeds. they also request very extensive medical records of previous pets but having just moved here from the south i'm sure my previous vets have more urgent things to do than dig through nearly decades old files for these groups and are leaving their emails on read.
  small dogs metaphorically fly off the shelves at the humane society so my other option would be breeders but i'd rather rescue an adult dog in need of a home than spend 3 grand on a new puppy. i know that texas sends their dogs all over the country but these out-of-town dogs arent afforded meet and greets so it seems like a mild gamble of taking their word for how the dog looks/behaves before adopting them.
  

Intro

Hello, I'm Goody. I make TFT content on YouTube, Twitch, and occassionally Reddit.

This time I'm here to discuss Zoe Reroll, a comp that has caused a little bit of a stir on the PBE due to her buffs in 14.10

I honestly think Zoe is insanely OP now (I mean just watch this clip I posted a few days ago).

But there are those that say Zoe is a terrible unit

The most prominent of which is Mortdog who said "Stop playing Zoe. She's not good. Despite the buff even"
(VOD Timestamp of this here)

Challenger Zoe One-Trick: LIGhtYgo

I've been playing a lot of Zoe Reroll on the PBE, but recently in my stream CuLe TV told me about a Challenger on the Japanese server who one-tricks Zoe Reroll called LIGhtYgo. His lolchess page is here if you want to read it
And coincidentally, I've been playing the same comp they play amongst others that I'll share with you today

TLDR:

If you want a TLDR, this timestamped section should cover that

VIDEO FORM

(The video also has Spanish and Vietnamese Subtitles)
Disclaimer: I tested these comps on the PBE and I have not played them in ranked. For transparency, here is my lolchess
And my Exalted only account here

(Highly recommend trying this btw, it's very fun)

But let's get started!

Ghoe Reroll (Ghostly Zoe)

So let's start with what LIGhtYgo plays which is this comp here
(Teambuilder here)
I couldn't find any VODs to link from LIGhtYgo but here's some of my gameplay of this comp on the PBE
From looking at their match history, LIGhtYgo tends to reroll Shen + Zyra or Zoe + Illaoi (1 tank + 1 carry) but sometimes they manage to 3 star everything alongside Aatrox.

Give Zoe Shiv

LIGhtYgo also frequently itemises Zoe with Statikk Shiv, 3 star or otherwise, to stack Zoe's passive as much as possible.

Passive: Kills increase the number of ricochets by 1 for the rest of combat.

Now, I should mention that Zoe's tooltip here is misleading and frankly incorrect. Zoe gains more ricochets if she participates in a kill, also known as takedowns.
And that is why Statikk Shiv is so phenomenal for Zoe. Not only is she reducing the MR of enemy units (helps Ghostly and your Magic Damage Dealers) but the damage from Shiv will give Zoe takedown credit once those enemy units perish.
So, even with just a Shiv and at 2 star, Zoe can be very impactful as her passive continues to easily stack.
Thus Zoe has great synergy with other AP carries like Zyra, Morgana, Teemo, Alune etc as they soften enemy units for each other to clean up.
And so Zoe is an incredible secondary carry as she needs very little to come online
You can infer this from LIGhtYgo's match history as they tend to succeed more when Zoe isn't their primary carry but rather secondary.
Although the buff to Zoe in 14.10 should change that, especially combined with the buffs to Ghostly, Warden, Aatrox, Behemoth and Jax.

Zoe's Weaknesses

From my games, I've felt Zoe has 2 main weaknesses

• Firstly, she can struggle into tanky frontliners as it'll take her more time to stack her passive.
• Secondly, Zoe can lose 1v1s as her ult will no longer ricochet (no targets left to bounce to)

These weaknesses can make Zoe feel very binary: - she either gets 3/4 takedowns and nukes - or she gets stuck, gets no passive stacks, and does nothing

Spooky Solution

But that’s why Ghostly can provide so much value to Zoe.
Those Spectres will help Zoe get through tanks and once they're concentrated, Zoe's single target will nuke which even allows her to win those 1v1s

Problems with Ghoe Reroll

From what I tried on the PBE, I did find this comp to be very powerful at level 9. However it could be a struggle getting there as you also need to reroll Zoe who can be contested by Fortune, Arcanist, and Storyweaver players

Is it a Player Diff?

I also find there to be a really odd tempo where I need to find Zoe 3 but also hit level 9 to find Udyr. I did learn later that you don't really need to 3 star Zoe to get to 9, and it's certainly not impossible to hit Zoe 3 at level 9.
Although, it seems that LIGhtYgo resolves this problem by keeping the option of Zyra Reroll open. (They play boards akin to this one occasionally)
Also, sometimes the Inkshadow item doesn't tend to be that useful, especially if it's Tattoo of Bombardment, as you don't have an AD carry.
Lastly, the position of the Ghostly units is really important so the Spectres concentrate onto Zoe's target(s). This can be really awkward if your primary Ghostly tank has a Stoneplate.
I have lost games because I moved Zoe away from my Ghostly units last second :(
But by far the biggest problem I have found is how much better the comp becomes at 9 than level 8. I personally find rerolling at level 8 to be the easiest to find 3 star Illaoi, Zoe, and Galio 2 whilst also being able to field 8 units which enable many important synergies.
Essentially, I don't like rerolling at either 7 or 8 with this comp. So I decided to comp up with a new comp to address this problem which is Altruist Arcanist.

4 Arcanist 3 Altruist Zoe Reroll

So here's a new variant of Zoe Reroll that has an incredibly strong level 8 (you play Rakan at 9) that gives you more time to reroll and find Zoe 3. This makes this comp so much easier to play and in turn, I have had so much more success with this variation particularly.
Teambuilder here
[Here's the full game from that clip with this comp]
This board also has a primary tank option between Amumu or Illaoi so you can play around whichever you manage to 3 star.
Although your secondary carry here is Lux who also holds your utility items like Morello and Shiv.

The Lissandra Nerfs really hurt...

Honestly, this may be extreme bias due to a bad few games, but I find a Lux 2 to be more reliable than post-nerf Lissandra. Lux feels like she needs a lot less to function better as she CC's more units, usually targets and slows down the enemy carry, and softens up enemy units for Zoe.
(VOD of why I don't like Lissandra)
The combination of Lux, Amumu, and Illaoi feels incredibly solid
Now the reason why I don't give Zoe Shiv on this board is due to a few reasons - Altruists prolong combat due to the mana reave, damage reduction, ally healing, and the trait resistances - That allows your frontline to be super beefy especially since the resistances are great for Bruisers/Wardens (loads of EHP) - Lux will have more AS than Zoe (Lux: 0.7x1.5=1.05 vs Zoe: 0.75x1.2=0.9) - And finally, opening up that item slot allows you to give Zoe a third damage item

Why not itemise Soraka?

Your secondary carry items should be going to Lux as she has more AP from Arcanist.
While Soraka can do a lot of damage, you only really care about her mana reave because it's such a powerful utility ability.
Regardless, Soraka will gain AP naturally from her passive as your frontline will continue to heal during combat. As she gains more AP, she heals your frontline more, who then stall for longer.
Lastly, the following 2 combinations are literally perfect for Altruist Arcanist.

Lux, Teemo, Thresh, Volibear, Galio, Morgana
Darius, Bard, Soraka, Galio, Lissandra

4 Warden 6 Arcanist

Here's the board for this one
Teambuilder
(Here's some Footage of this Comp in Action)

Meta Report from Khym and YBY1

In the 14.10 Meta Report by Khym and YBY1, Arcanist Zoe is described as an Easy Top 4 Comp (if I'm reading that correctly)
Khym also has a guide on how to play Zoe/Illaoi RR here
And what's great here is that, again, as you reroll you have option between Amumu or Illaoi 3 as your tank (however Illaoi is better due to the Arcanist AP)
Also, with the 4 Warden buff, this frontline feels great and buys plenty of time for Zoe to scale.
And this variation certainly has the highest ceiling out of all the comps if you get a Porcelain Spatula

6 Arcanist, 4 Warden, 4 Porcelain is extremely powerful.

Luckily, you can easily pivot into this board from Altruist Arcanist but pivoting is a tad more difficult to do if you're playing Ghoe.
Similarly, both the Warden and Altruist boards can tech in Hwei at 8 to make hitting the 3 stars easier.
4 Warden Hwei 4 Arcanist 2 Altruist Hweimothy
So if you're low rolling Zoe, Hwei can easily save the day.
Regardless, all 3 comps make up for at least one of Zoe's weaknesses. They either buy her plenty of time to scale or they tremendously enable her damage and, in turn, her passive.
And, at the very least, Zoe is great item holder due to her buffed passive
Speaking of which, let's talk about Zoe's items now.

Zoe's Items

Of course, as I've mentioned, you can give Zoe Shiv so she can get takedown credit and stack her passive quickly
But generally, MR reduction is necessary (even if it's not on her) so Zoe can kill units and stack her passive. Shiv is far more preferable to build but Ionic still does the job.
But I'm a simple guy, I want to see BIG damage numbers and huge ricochets, thus I forgo Shiv on Zoe for pure damage items.
But before we get into those items, let's talk about which casting item Zoe will want

Casting item: Shojin vs Adaptive Math

First cast:

Zoe is 0/60 and Shojin/Adaptive give 15 mana

Shojin:

0.75^-1x3 = 4 seconds

Adaptive:

0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds

Second Cast onwards

Shojin:

0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds

Adaptive:

10 mana after 0.7 seconds 40 mana every 3 autos every 4 seconds Then 1 more auto for 10 more mana
Thus Adaptive: 0.75^-1x4 = 5.3 seconds
So Shojin will get Zoe's first cast off sooner however after that Zoe's cast frequency between Adaptive and Shojin is the same.
Considering Adaptive gives more AP, is not dependant on auto attacking, will continue to generate mana even if Zoe gets stunned (or has to walk up) and it grants MR (useful against magic damage), I believe Adaptive is the superior mana generating item on Zoe if she has no bonus attack speed
If Zoe has just a Shiv, then her cast frequency is much faster [(0.75x1.2)^-1x4 = 4.4 seconds] with Shojin.

TLDR:

• Give Zoe Adaptive if you're going solely damage items on her (Rabadon/Archangel's + Jewelled Gauntlet)
• Give Zoe Shojin if she has any bonus attack speed (Nashor's/Shiv/Pumping Up)

AP item: Rabadon or Archangel's

Of course, Zoe is a Mage and so she wants as much AP as possible which is either Rabadon or Archangel’s
I prefer Rabadon because it's more upfront AP alongside a great damage amplifier. However Archangel's can be more realistic to build and eventually it will outscale Rabadon's AP.

Increase Casting/Damage Multiplier

Lastly, you can give Zoe an item to increase her casting frequency like Shiv or Nashor's Tooth. Both of these items maximise Zoe's Kill Participation.
Or you can give her more damage amp for more, well, damage. Those are items like Jewelled Gauntlet or even items like Guardbreaker or Giant Slayer.
Although if you go the pure damage route, you need Zoe 3 and a ton of AP, so Zoe can stack her passive by one shotting whatever she touches.

SUPER TDLR:

Generally great build : Shiv/Nashor's + Shojin + Rabadon/Jewelled
My favourite: Adaptive + Rabadon + Jewelled

Bonus: Luden's Tempest

Luden's Tempest feels amazing on Zoe. With her ricochets, she gets so much takedown credit so quickly with it and it's so much damage.
[Here's my gameplay of Luden's Zoe in action]
And what's nice is that Zoe formerly built Luden's in TFT's spinoff game League of Legends. So it's a great callback
Although I've never played Zoe before...can I pretend to have a sense of nostalgia?

Kayle Upgrade

It's Blue.
20 AP is 20 AP. You're already building Shred so Green is Redundant, and the Attack Speed from Red is only 12%.

Pivot Potential

Zoe's items are very flexible so if you don't hit Zoe 3, you can pivot them to other AP carries like Syndra, Azir, Lissandra and Lillia.
So you don't absolutely need to reroll Zoe, you can just as easily use Zoe to Fast 9 instead, especially around Storyweaver, and pivot into a Legendary board.

Fin.

That is all the information I currently have on Zoe Reroll
Hopefully this was helpful but I'd like to ask for your thoughts
What do you guys think about Zoe?

Do you think it's as OP as I believe or is Mortdog right?

Also, I usually do Patch Previews for each patch (for example here's my 14.10 patch preview), but I'm curious whether you guys would be interested if i made that into a Reddit post as well.
I imagine it'd be similar to how they do it on the LoL subreddit but I'd include my thoughts as well.
For example, I think Low Interest Rates is turbo giga insane in 14.10 because you can hit max interest rate at 2-6 (by the latest) at which point you're earning 6 gold a turn.
Lastly, I'm currently working on a Rek'sai reroll comp that is incredibly funny so look forward to that!
But yeah, I'll leave it on that note I think

Let me know if you have any questions!

I shall answer them as soon as i wake up lol

Thank you for reading <3

E: Formatting

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

“As you know, each mech is programmed to its operator's DNA,” Hector walked through the armor vault with a small group of green-boots trailing behind him. “Once linked, nobody else can operate your armor without command authority override.”
The armor vault was ten stories high, the distant ceiling crisscrossed with the immense cranes and rails used to move the powered-down mechs in and out of the bays. Crossing from one side to the other took ten minutes at a brisk walk. Every inch of the place was filled with twenty-foot-tall mechs mounted in their bays, and all of the gear and machinery required to repair and optimize them for battle.
Hector used to feel shame for lying to the newbies and had dulled that terrible ache at the bottom of a bottle. Orders were orders.
These days, he was rather numb to it, resigned to the fact that 90% of the raw recruits that came through his orientation would be compost within a year. Perhaps less.
He stopped, turned and clasped his hands behind his back. The green-boots stopped with him.
They were young, babies in uniform, their battle dress crisply pressed and boots polished to a mirror shine. The room continued to spin for Hector, and he covered his sudden loss of balance by leaning against an armor bay strut and casually pointing up at the mech. “See that prismatic shine over the armor?”
The recruits nodded, craning their faces to peer up at the mech.
“Know what that is?”
“Stealth coating, sir,” an eager young woman with short-cropped black hair and skin nearly as dark raised her hand and spoke.
“Very good,” he said, pleased that his words weren’t slurred even a little. “That coating is a retrofit. The Nek’s can’t see through it.” He met each fresh young gaze, and all he saw were corpses. All he spoke was lies. “Makes us ghosts on the battlefield.” Not exactly a lie, but misleading for sure.
“How does it work, sir?” A young man with fiery hair and just enough fuzz on his face to warrant the purchase of a razor asked from the rear.
“Shit if I know, son,” Hector had to piss, bad. Time to wrap this up. “All I know is the casualty rates dropped to 1% of pre-retrofit high.” Another lie. He forced on a confident and reassuring smile. Wise and fatherly, he fancied. “And our kill ratio of the enemy climbed 165%.” Lie.
He needed a shot of bourbon. Fuck he had to piss.
“Each of you will go to your assigned armor bay for encoding once this tour is done. There, your op officer will walk you through the armor initialization process. Then, you will be assigned to your units. With any luck, you’ll be out there killing Nek’s within a week.” He beamed his gigawatt smile. “Any questions?” Wonder if they have that imported scotch in the officer’s lounge tonight?
Hector’s eyes wandered across the bay to the door leading out of the vault to the hallway that would carry him across the base to his comfort waiting in a bottle.
“How many kills you got, sir?”
Hector swallowed back his longing, squeezed his bladder shut so he didn’t piss down his leg, and fastened hard eyes on the fool who’d asked the question. He put his face an inch from the asshole’s nose. The kid’s eyes went wide and fearful. He instinctively snapped to attention.
“Never ask that question. Ever.” Hector saw flecks of saliva pepper the kid’s face, but he didn’t care. Fucking fool. Everyone knows it’s bad luck to ask a man that. “Understand, shit for brains?”
The kid swallowed hard. Hector realized the rest of the recruits were at attention, too. He waded back from the battering waves of his anger, fought himself back to calm.
“Bad luck,” he said to the kid. “All of you, you’re dismissed.”
They did an about-face and hurried off to their respective bays, some muttering and glancing back over their shoulders. Fuck’em. He didn’t care. This time next month, half would be dead or laid up in some battlefield infirmary with grievous wounds. He couldn’t afford to care.
Not anymore.
Damn he needed a drink. He smacked his mouth and pulled a hand down his face. Why was he here? Why him? He watched the new recruits fade off into the distance and for a heartbeat, he hoped they would survive the coming horrors. Hoped to see them again, at least a few.
Memory stirred.
Fire and blood and death on a distant world with no name, flickered around the edge of his thoughts. He growled and forced it away. Why him and not them?
Fuck it.
He sighed, hardened his heart and turned toward the latrine. If he waited any longer he’d spring a leak. Hope they have that imported scotch. So smooth. Have to piss. Why me?
Tonight, he’d pay the price for a full bottle.
Tonight, he hoped to wake from this nightmare.

So, I've kind of posted about this in other threads, specifically on askreddit, but by some users request, I will do my best to fully relay this entire tale up to the current point, as well as provide as much context I am able (and will provide missing context if asked in comments).
TL;DR
A friend of mine of 4 years drank himself into liver failure and his wife cheated on him, so I offered him a free room to try and put his life back together, and I was repaid for the thought with a divorce of my own, but honestly, it's probably not that bad.
Part 1: CONTEXT
Me and my wife have been together since early 2014, and married in late 2017. We have been through much together, including two extended deployments, one of which was 10 and a half months long. We have traveled the world together, lived on both coasts of the US, and despite much of our struggles and how things eventually went down, I was always convinced we would work as a team to overcome any issues.
The friend in question was, largely, an online friend. We met playing an MMO during covid and we quickly formed a very tight knit, but small, community that were very close that included me, my wife, my friend, his wife, and 4 other friends. Covid was a wild time and I was surprised how easy it was to form friends in this group and we kept in touch, as a whole, even once quarantine had ended and most of us had moved on from that particular game. This was a group that, while it started online, we have met most of these people several times IRL and had vacations to spend time together and just hang out.
Part 2: His Problems
Fast forward to about January of 2024. My buddy, from here on out I will refer to as Z (and for a quick add, I will refer to my wife as D), contacts us to tell us his condition is dire and he has been diagnosed with stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver as a consequence of his extensive drinking. Shaken, we quickly charter a flight out to visit. Within a week, we're staying with him and his wife and his roommate and a couple members of his family who are taking care of him. This man is bloated, yellow, and probably about 350lbs now. We are worried, but stay supportive and positive that help can be found, especially since he seems keen on changing his lifestyle for the better. Some of his family start a gofundme that we donate to, and many of the people in our gaming circle who have grown close also donate several thousand dollars (One member of our raid team donated 10k. You never know who is stealth rich on the internet I guess). Me and several other friends discuss the possibilities of helping him get on disability and even getting ourselves tested as compatible living donors. Sad, but hopeful, we depart about a week later, and stay in constant touch.
About a month later, I'm getting a call from one of our mutuals letting me know that "Hey, so I may have goofed up." and tells me how Z's wife had visited him and had a 3 way with him and his wife. I am obviously irate at this and turn to back Z up with comments like "So much for in sickness and in health, huh?" I do what I can to stay supportive, and my wife, D, also makes it a point to stay in touch with him as he has found himself banished to the couch of his apartment. Not even allowed to sleep in his own bed and frequently uncomfortable even being in his bedroom to use the PC.
I'm not particularly rich, but I am not poor either. I served in the military and have a high VA rating which means a constant income and have a steady job and a couple side gigs that pay well enough. My love language, in many ways, is gift giving. I pride myself on being able to pick a good gift, even if it's a little early for an occasion such as a bday or christmas, and will often pull the trigger on something if it means a lot or I think it will help. In this case, my brother was selling an old steam deck because he wanted a new OLED model, so I figured "two birds, one stone", and buy the steam deck off him and send it to Z so we can still game together.
In the intervening months, Z and D start playing games that I have no interest in (Disney Dreamlight Valley), but I am happy to play other games and hang out and chat. Really, nothing seems amiss, but since his banishment, me and my wife are both pushing for him to come and take up the spare bedroom we have in our home. Soon enough, I buy him a plane ticket and he arrives with little more than the clothes on his back and we take him in, no cost other than the expectation that he might help around the house a bit (he was a chef, so having a cook and someone to help clean was ideal for me who often did not have the time or energy to handle these tasks as thoroughly as I would like).
Part 3: The Incident
Now, I am skipping ahead a little bit here, but there's not much to be said about the time between. My wife worked part time hours, and when she did go to work, she'd have him tag along just so he wouldn't "Sit and stew with bad thoughts" at the house alone. I will admit that throughout this entire ordeal, I have had several, several times where my brain tried to warn me, but I ignored ALL of those signs because I trusted him, but more importantly, I trusted her with my life.
One new, frequent argument I found myself having with her was she would fall asleep on the couch, and when I finally tried to go to bed, I'd do my best to wake her and drag her upstairs. These became extremely frequent occurrences and I expressed to her how frustrated I was that I had to fight with her just to come to bed so we could sleep (mind you, this is not even about sex. Often I'm taking her to bed at like, 1am and I work at 7, so I really just wanted her to be sleeping in the bed). Hell, one time, I started catching the vibes that the longer I sat and waited for her to be ready to go upstairs, she just never would be, because they were waiting for me to leave so they could talk in hushed tones. On THAT particular night, I went upstairs alone with her finally awake, and she did not join me for another half hour.
Finally, the day arrives. Its Sunday. We are all downstairs hanging out. One of their newest habits I can't really stand but just dealt with is that she'd sit and crochet while he doomscrolled or strummed on a guitar I bought him and listen to music videos on youtube endlessly. Eventually, I grow weary and give my wife a kiss and tell her I'm gonna go upstairs and play some GW2 for a bit.
About an hour passes, and she enters the game room and tells me "I am uncomfortable. I really need to talk to you. Oh, you're dying!" (As she entered the room, I immediately turn face to talk to her and disregard the game, but she decided that my Charr was more important that what was about to happen, so she of course warns me.) We step into the bedroom and close the door.
"You're going to hate me," she says through tears, "me and Z kissed!" At this point, my brain short circuits and I recall one of my first thoughts being "Oh lord, here we go." and just a general desire to not be a part of this conversation. Shock sets in almost immediately. Still with a healthy dose of denial, I talk to her about what had happened and told her that it needed to end. Even at this point, I did not want to send this man home. Was it shock? Denial? Probably a mixture of the two, or some other additional emotional responses. She gets up after some discussion and goes downstairs, promising to shut him down, but comes back about 15 minutes later sobbing "I couldn't do it! I couldn't end it..." (Side note: In my confused haze of a mind, I feel personally threatened, and after she leaves the bedroom, I lock the door and grab a metal water cub I keep at my side and prepare to actually fight if it comes to it, but once she returns, I back off that idea again.)
Talking with her more, I present her with two options; Couple's therapy, or divorce. BOTH of these options are world ending to her, and she even goes so far as to suggest that just because I said the "D word" that it was what I wanted, which was objectively untrue. We talk back and forth about things I don't quite recall at this point, aside from one point where she comes back and locks herself in the master bath and tells me to call 911, she doesn't care, because she's going to take a bunch of pills, but after a couple of hours, Z shows up to the door and knocks and asks if he can come in. I tell him he may enter, and we talk for a bit. After about 5ish minutes, we decide to go downstairs to the living room and continue the discussion.
Once I sit down on the sofa, I immediately feel like I'm being positioned as the bad guy. I'm in the corner of our sectional, and she's on my left, he's on my right. She tells him "He said it's either a divorce or couple's therapy." "Oh, so he gave you an ultimatum?" I continue to argue that yes, those are the two only options. Z tells me "You're not being fair to her emotions. She is telling you there is another option." I am thoroughly baffled at this statement.
D: I didn't think it was possible and I didn't mean for it to happen, but I have fallen in love with another man. My heart has room for two. I truly have two soulmates. I have never been happier than sleeping on the couch next to my two boys.
Z: There is no reason you guys can't stay married, and we can explore what we've found. I mean, look at how happy she has been since I have been here!
Sick to my stomach, I get up to go vomit in the toilet. Now, I wore a silicone wedding ring, and often find even with a hand wash, a little water tends to get trapped under it. After I finish and wash myself up, I come back and am playing with my ring to dry it. She sees this as a sign that I am uncomfortable again wearing my ring, and takes off her ring as I sit back down and hands me her wedding ring.
Me: Uh, excuse me?
D: This is what you want, I can tell.
Me: No? I was washing my hands and water gets stuck under my ring...
D: Oh... I thought... okay. (And she takes back her ring from me)
I tell her, very clearly, the options are to either end things with him, or end things with me. At this point, I'm still in shock, but sober in mind enough to decide that this is not worth fighting over. I will not argue with my own wife my merits or why she shouldn't just pack up and leave with a jobless, now essentially homeless man, and if she cannot figure that out herself then I will eventually move on.
Crying, sobbing, she sits down in front of him and says, "I'm so sorry, I fought for you. I really did. I told you I'd fight for you and I failed. I loved being your girlfriend, but I need to be a good wife and stay."
Z says "Alright." and starts to go gather his things to leave. As he does, she grabs him and says "No, wait! Please don't go. I don't know what I want."
Z: Ok, well if we're getting all this out in the open, I want to say this. I love this girl. I love her with my whole heart, and without her, life is not worth living. I will not leave this house if you (me) tell me to. Only her. You are taking this very well right now, I can tell you want to hit me (Still in shock, no, I can genuinely say that emotion or thought had not actually registered outside of the event upstairs earlier), but this is my stand.
D: OP, we had a good run. I'm sorry.
And with that, I get up and go to get my sandals and leave the house to get some air. As I try to go, she runs to the door and he follows her. She pushes the door closed and says "No wait, please!"
Me: No, this is the deal. I'm going out to get some fresh air. I am not threatening self harm to "win you back".
D: Will you be back?
Me: I don't know.
Z: Man, I'm telling you, you don't understand, you think I am your enemy, but I am not.
And with that, I leave and shut the door.
In the about, hour, I am gone, I drive around near the house and I call my supervisor who I have a very good relationship with (and I did not want to involve direct friends or family yet because I'm afraid it's too early to start spreading this news). I go over to her house nearby and we chat shortly. After our talk, I have at least something of a clear head and go home, with words for both of them.
As I arrive home, there is no one downstairs. I go upstairs. His door is closed. I knock on the door.
Z: Uh, one second.
I wait for about 5 agonizing seconds, but I refuse to be shut out of rooms in my own home and open the door. He is shirtless, and she is hiding in the corner just out of sight of me. I look him in the eye.
Me: Really?
Z: Yep.
Me: Get out of my house.
And with that, they both silently pack their things and leave.
The second I hear the front door close, I start calling people. I am not above pettiness, and the first person I call is her mom, whom I have a good relationship with. She is SHAKEN and immediately calls her. (I find out later that it was a particularly harsh verbal beating by her, but it really doesn't change anything.)
When I come downstairs to check the state of the house, I see her wedding ring on the counter. I call out of work the next day and lay down and hope I die.
Part 4: Her Problems
So, there is some additional context that I did not add in part 1 because a lot of it is red flags I ignored over the course of our relationship that, in the days following, started to become more and more obvious. There are many that I spent much effort playing off or covering her for, but I will try to briefly list much of what I see as glaring issues in the relationship that were never remedied.
This woman is 30 years old and cannot drive. She can drive and HAS driven my vehicle at the start of the relationship (albeit illegally), but after one tiny little accident where she hit a pole and knocked my side mirror off (which she paid for and fixed before telling me, it really wasn't a big deal. I was on deployment), she never drove again. Attempts to get her behind the wheel would end very quickly after they started, and the conditions to get her in the seat were often extremely time limited, scheduled, or something would come up, and every time I told her "okay, this month we're getting your license for sure" it just wouldn't happen and I'd end up feeling like the one who was at fault.
She does not have her Bachelor's degree because she did not turn in her final project for one single class. Not only that, but she has never truly pursued a career with the things she learned from the coursework, or even used her AA.
For half of the relationship, she did not work at all. When she did, it was often part time work, and if she was saddled with full time hours or, god forbid, overtime, it was a world-ending affair. She would come home and constantly be tired from her few hours at work and would do little more than sit around and crochet.
Our agreement when we bought our house was that she was going to work full time and we were going to split household duties, but I would definitely scoop the cat box because she was allergic (but she wanted cats) and wash dishes (because she hated them), and she would do laundry (because I hated it). In practice, all her version of laundry turned out to be was to throw loads in when one of us was out of clothes and just hit wash and then rotate, and then leave all the clothes in a pile on the bed. EVERYONE KNOWS folding the laundry is the worst part! Come on! Men's clothes are easy! I don't wear that much! (When we would fold, I often finished in a third of her time and would just hang out and chat until she was done)
Ultimately, this meant that for many years now, she was working barely more than part time if she was working at all, and would sort-of do laundry. Meanwhile, I am scooping litter, folding laundry, doing dishes, doing all related yard work, doing all the household cleaning, handling all the finances, I did MOST of the cooking, and all of the grocery shopping (often going alone), driving her from work if I could (she'd uber it if not) and picking her up and driving her home, as well as just generally being a chauffeur for her for 10 years, while working a full time job and a side gig online. Many nights I'd have to stop what I was doing to pick her up at closing hours, and then would sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes while she did tasks like vacuum her little crystal shop that she definitely could have done before close so I didn't end up waiting so damn long. Then we'd come home hang out and eat while we watched TV, and then if I wanted to try and go upstairs to do another hobby, I'd be silently guilted about it because she wanted to sit on the couch and crochet.
Part 5: My Problems
I am not perfect, and admit I have flaws. One of her favorite things to claim to our friends now is that I was "emotionally neglectful", and if there is truth to it, I think I can pin down the day. Before I started working full time again, I was going to school on the 9/11 GI bill. I was not a good student in my younger years, but in time, I have become rather good at school. My first two semesters back I easily maintained a 4.0 GPA. Over the summer in 2022, I, woefully, decided to take a Calc 2 class online because I could not find one in person and wanted to be ready for Calc 3 in the Fall to fill a prereq for my bachelor's, and I really liked the instructor for that Calc 3 class. This calc 2 class was painful. The instructor had clearly recorded all his lectures during Covid and we were simply given the full course of videos and given work assignments and said "Email me if you have questions." This is not how I learn, but I figured, hey, it's one class. I'm working again, but one class isn't a huge deal. I can knock this out.
I was wrong.
After the second exam, I had a low C in the class and I knew I couldn't keep up. I withdrew from the class feeling no other option. I tend to be pretty good at math, and ultimately my dream was to work with 3d printing on an industrial scale with a Mechanical Engineering degree- and if that failed I had my military history (which is engineering relevant) and a degree to fall back on and work should come easily. After clicking that withdraw button, I saw those dreams vaporize. After that, I threw myself into my government civilian job full time and slowly fell into depression. By the end of our relationship, with the toll of doing 99% of the work around the house and for her and with my dreams dead and buried, at age 33, I would wake up and pray I died. I would never kill myself, but I wanted to just die. I felt backed into a corner. I still did everything I could to support her and hoped that one day, she would pick up some of the load and maybe, just maybe, I could go back, but that day did not come (At least not in the way I expected).
Part 6: The Aftermath
This post is already too long, and if I include every single detail that has come to light since, I might actually hit the post cap, but I will go over at least some of it here.
I have had my friends come out in droves. Both of them have been effectively exiled, at least from what I can see, from every friend circle we have. After a couple of days, they flew back to live with, I guess, his parents in Vegas while they sorted shit out, because after I spoke with Z's previous roommate, he adamantly explained he was tired of all the "fucking drama" that Z had been bringing into the house and was just done with it.
I have spoken with many, many people and gotten even more context and even receipts of some of each of their conversations to our mutual friends, and some of the shit I read is just hilarious. He is "not ashamed of pursuing happiness, he is just sad that people got hurt". She is "coming to terms with emotional neglect and felt trapped, but now, yes now, she is free."
I got my neighbors to watch the cats, and took my dog up to visit my closest friend of 20 years and spent about a week and a half drinking, smoking, and talking about all this while surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature the US has to offer. Truly, without this man, I don't think I'd have gotten this far as quickly as I have. He really has been a lifesaver and I truly, to my dying day, will always appreciate him.
Paperwork has been filed, we wish to remain on good terms, and one day I still do hope I can be a friend to her, but she is woefully immature and incapable of adequately performing in an adult society. I have quit my job and am returning to school with a much lighter budget and will be getting that degree I desperately need.
It's been hard, real hard. I have put every ounce of my being into this relationship, and I truly felt like she was part of me, and nothing like this could ever happen. But it's that trust that allowed this to happen. I do not hate her, I'm just disappointed. I will pick up my pieces and, hopefully, find myself whole again soon.
Part 7: Rambling anecdotes
These are some stories I wanted to include in the previous body of text but didn't feel like it kept the same flow (if there even is any at all, I'm not proofreading this). If I remember any others after I post, Ill just toss them in the comments.
Early after Z came to live with us, my mother came to the house to drop off a package. I am pretty sure I was at work, but when my mother came to the door, both of them answered the door and the way my mom describes it "First of all, do you answer the door at your friends house? Also, the way he hovered over her made me uncomfortable. They were in the doorway and he was right up behind her poking his head out." She said my wife had told her that I was feeling unwell and was upstairs sleeping. I can't even be sure at this point.
Shortly before all the things happened, my parents were going out of town to celebrate their own anniversary, and I had agreed to dog-sit their 5 month old puppy (who, while cute, has WAY too much energy and was EXTREMELY difficult to handle, and I have raised several dogs at this point). We met up and took the dog, and then ALL of us (including Z) went to dinner. At dinner, my mother looked at my wife and asked, directly "And so how long have you been married? 6, almost 7 years? Well at least you missed that 7 year itch, huh" and my wife shortly followed with a comment about how she was not hungry and did not eat dinner that night.
All of this happened WHILE THIS CRAZY PUPPY was running around the house, and part of me thinks he pushed this to happen when it did because he could not stand having to help take care of this dog any longer (2 days).
About a week after all this happened, my wife did not text or call me, or respond to any messages or emails I sent her (I didn't send many, but they exist). Frustrated, I text her and tell her I need to talk to her about logistics moving forward, specifically about her belongings. She told me "I will talk to you when I am ready." We did not talk for another week. Also, she told me to stop talking to her mom. (I have a good relationship with both of my in-laws and while her step-father tried to remain impartial to the best of his abilities, he gave me some of the best advice I could possibly have gotten at that time, mostly about how to move forward and cope, as he has personally dealt with this with smaller relationships 3 separate times in his life which he gave me details on, and we are still on good terms.)
Their favorite TV show to watch together was Outlander, which, if you aren't aware, is basically a story about a woman who time travels and has two men in her life.
One of our biggest constant points of contention was my friendship with an old high school buddy (who I spent much of the time in the aftermath hanging out with while healing). We believe, with good reason, that she hated this man because after I had almost been hospitalized for psych reasons due to stress, he had told me I needed to talk to her about working again and doing more to help around the house. She figured out, obviously, who was telling me to say these things, and sent a very, very angry text to his wife. They all apparently made up, but I know she never let that grudge go.
One of the fairly recent hobbies I got into was D&D. It seemed like a good fit for all of us. She loved fantasy and gaming, I enjoyed 3d printing and story telling. She needed friends, and a party of people hangin out would give her at least a few connections to start. Every night she "participated" in D&D, she mostly sat quiet and did not do anything. Hell, I tried to get her to participate in 2 different games, and after she left the first one, she asked to just sit quietly in the discord call (This first one was online only, second was in person) and listen, which was super awkward. In the in person game, after 3 months of playing, she did not know how to play her character at all, and mostly spent her time at the table crocheting. (My buddy even made a comment about how at one point, he was proud of how good I was getting at DMing and I was giving particularly good exposition, and she interrupted me to hand another player at the table a dice bag she made. I don't remember it, but I absolutely believe this happened.)
The day of "the incident", she had a meltdown about how a friend of hers had ghosted her. I told her it was okay, she was much younger anyway and people grow apart. She's probably going through stuff and we should respect that path she's on. She cried about how she has no friends.
Also the day of "the incident", we were in the shower together and she told me she had met her sister's new BF on facetime. I asked "why did she break up with her old one?" "Well... she cheated on him." "Oh, that's a shame. Cheating is probably the most cowardly act a person can do to another. If you're going to start a new relationship, you need to grow a pair and end it before starting a new one." She clearly took my words to heart.
One of my biggest pet peeves about cleaning the house is our dog sheds, a lot. If I see a hairball roll through the house it immediately drains me a bit. We had a roomba. She would send that thing home when it started and never start it again. It barely ran. She would not vacuum.
One of the most common descriptors of her I've heard used by many people now that they're "allowed to" is "She was there, doing the thing with us, but it was like she wasn't there."
Something she thought that I apparently hadn't figured out by the time we talked after everything happened was that they had been talking since February. I told her I wasn't stupid and had figured it out already that this wasn't out of the blue.
Z's wife is currently pregnant with the baby of the man she cheated on him with. (And he is also married)
Anything else I remember Ill leave for comments, I know there is much, much more.

Two weeks ago I noticed my cat was breathing with her mouth and abdominal muscles. Turned out she had a pleural effusion, and cytology of the drainages showed “a lot of lymphocytes” per the emergency vet. She’s a fixed half Siamese (half DSH), about 10, 11 lbs, strictly indoors and vaccinated. Post op X-ray shows a large ventral mediastinum mass that spans almost the entire width of her chest and down to the 6th rib; lateral X-ray shows her lung being caudal to the 5th rib. After seeing the films, I thought she couldn’t possibly make it out of this, and asked the vet to put her on palliative care.
After the drainage and while on prednisone, she still has labored breathing although not half as severe as before, and she continues to hide under the bed. But her gums are pink, and her appetite is still amazing, if not better with the steroid - I think we gave her so much goodies that she actually gained weight in the past few days.
Maybe I'm just in bargaining, but I have a bit of hope for her surviving now. I am now contemplating the idea of getting her biopsied and chemo. However, I don't know if it's worth putting her through another procedure, or simply out on a car ride which she hates with a passion, if a poor prognosis can already be drawn from the information we have.
I guess my questions are: does the size of the mass and her age alone indicate a poor prognosis? And would a US vet ever give chemo based on cytology alone, without a biopsy of the actual tumor? Thanks in advance. I know I am likely just grasping at straws now, so no need to sugar coat it.

Timestamp
Endgame:
Grey Mirror Polished Brass Keyboard with Custom CNC Brass Keycaps

The board is a Monokei Hiro SE and the keycaps are CNC machined blank cherry profile chrome plated brass that were custom made for me. Tsangan bottom row (7u spacebar), stepped caps lock, scooped homing keys. The keycaps are chrome plated rather than pvd coated like the board is but they are a very close match in color with the board. The keycaps are also very thick (see comparison with rama & hibi in the album). The chrome plating on the keycaps has some minor surface imperfections (see images and image descriptions in the album). Comes with 1 extra new solder pcb with daughterboard, 1 millmaxed solder pcb with daughterboard, matching brass plate, 4 extra 1u keycaps (1 in each row profile), stabilizers, lots of heavy springs in various heavy weights including super heavy ones for the spacebar, carrying case. Does not come with switches, the keycaps will be shipped in the jtk tray shown. The weight of this keyboard fully built is about 8.7 lbs

$1750 Shipped with insurance, US only (including all US territories). $1250 for keycaps alone (with springs)
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Artisans:
Blank Aluminum Polished

Cherry profile, row 1 (ESC), raw aluminum polished but has micro scratches (see images)

$11 Shipped
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Blue Spruce 3 Keycap Bundle (Pudding, Thermal, Vibro)

These keycaps were NOT made by Rama Hibi or Mozi and are not endorsed by any of them. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)

$60 Shipped
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Iced Latte 3 Keycap Bundle (Pudding, Thermal, Vibro)

These keycaps were NOT made by Rama Hibi or Mozi and are not endorsed by any of them. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)

$60 Shipped
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Solid Brown Thermal

This keycap was NOT made by or endorsed by Rama. Resin, Polished, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)

$20 Shipped
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Dark Grey Warning Keycap

This keycap was NOT made by or endorsed by Rama. Resin, Cherry Profile, Row 1 (ESC row)

$10 Shipped
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Mozi GMK Pickle R1

Excellent condition, Cherry profile, row 1 (ESC), resin

$48 Shipped
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Keycaps:
Angry Miao Glacier Keycaps Dark Blank Alphas

Excellent condition, more details here

$29 Shipped
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Macropads:
Rama M6-C Metropolis

Excellent condition, comes with original packaging, switches, keycaps, USB cable

$52 Shipped
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Rama M6 Lunar New Year (LNY) Base

Excellent condition, mirror gold pvd brass, black silicone rubber ring. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws. More details here. Comes with 6 Tecsee gold metal coated linear switches.

$55 Shipped
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Rama M6 Purple (Haze) Base

Excellent condition, silicone. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws. Comes with 6 matching purple grid keycaps.

$11 Shipped
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Rama M6 Yellow (Yolk) Base

Excellent condition, silicone. This is just the bottom piece, not a full m6 macropad. Can be used with any Rama m6 macropad, does not include screws.

$10 Shipped
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PCBs, Plates, Keyboard Parts:
Mode65 Blue-Grey Backpiece

Excellent condition
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive

$37 Shipped
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Mode65 Solder PCBs

Never used. 2 available
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive

$42 Shipped for both or $25 Shipped each or trade both for one hs pcb (or envoy hs pcb)
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Mode65 Alu Plate and Yellow Silicone Base

Excellent condition. Plate is full ansi
Keywords: Mode 65, Mode Sixtyfive

$19 Shipped
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QK65 FR4 Plate, POM Plate, Alu Plate, Solder PCB

Never used, solder pcb comes with poron foam, pe foam and standoffs. These are from the R2 run.

$56 Shipped for everything, willing to split alu plate and/or pcb from bundle
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All items include free shipping to US, international shipping available at an additional cost
Feel free to dm with any questions, discounts for bundles
Must have confirmed trades for items over $100.
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Want to buy/trade for:

• Rama M6 PCB (Any Kind)
• Rama M6-B Mist(Silver)
• Geistmaschine studio macropod
• Gmk Sloth Base

Didn't want to call this a ranking but this is a list of the 25 teams that have performed the best statistically in both hitting (OPS) and pitching (blend of ERA and FIP) while also taking into account their Strength of Schedule. Was pretty interesting to make for me so wanted to share it with y'all as well.
Disclaimer: This rating does not directly take into account W/L, RPI, fielding, or baserunning stats.

Rank	Team	Conference	Rating
1	Tennessee	SEC	62.5
2	Texas A&M	SEC	57.5
3	North Carolina	ACC	49.7
4	Oregon State	Pac-12	47.9
5	Arkansas	SEC	46
6	Georgia	SEC	44.1
7	Duke	ACC	43.9
8	Florida State	ACC	43.7
9	Oklahoma State	Big 12	41.5
10	LSU	SEC	40.5
11	East Carolina	AAC	39.3
12	Dallas Baptist	CUSA	38.9
13	Virginia Tech	ACC	36.9
14	Arizona	Pac-12	36.4
15	Charleston	CAA	34
16	Mississippi State	SEC	33.9
17	Virginia	ACC	33
18	Louisiana	Sun Belt	32.8
19	Wake Forest	ACC	32.7
20	Kansas	Big 12	32.2
21	UC Irvine	Big West	31.4
22	Indiana State	MVC	31.3
23	Kentucky	SEC	30.7
24	Clemson	ACC	30.5
25	San Diego	WCC	29.9