Sex greeting cards
About Making Greeting Cards
2013.11.15 18:47 plantfriend About Making Greeting Cards
Here on CardMaking we discuss everything to do with creating handmade greeting cards.
2008.12.12 19:38 FB: Stuff found in books
2010.04.18 00:43 elaryan Stationery
Share your love for paper and office supplies, notebooks, pens and other writing implements, greeting cards... No self-promotion allowed
2024.05.15 11:04 Tricky-Current-7718 SIM Lock, IPhone.
greetings! please help me, blocking the SIM card by the Bell operator led to the inability to use my iPhone. I am from Central Asia (Uzbekistan), I bought a phone in 2019, the phone worked well for 4 years, but after I did a factory reset, a sim card lock appeared (probably there was a one-time activation of the SIM slot) I can't unblock the email, as there is no way to register on the bell website and submit a request, how can I solve the problem? thank you in advance!
submitted by Tricky-Current-7718 to bell [link] [comments]
2024.05.15 10:44 AbsentFriend99 30/M - how to explain to spouse 32/F to not only enjoy life while we not where we want to be?
One of my few post that i share on reddit, but this problem is affecting our relationship in last couple of months quite a bit.
A bit of background....i was a professionall football player till 21 years old, had from 16 to 21 very bad mindset about things in life, ( parties, drugs, girls) searched only for short term fun without any goals in life or concentration on present moment and what needs to be done to sustain life i was living.
Im now 30 years old, moved to another country to start from scratch more or less...reading mindset and goal oriented books has helped me much about how to look on life. Im now working and playing football to have 2 seperate incomes which are okey to get by and save some.
My spouse, i love her very much. She is down to earth person, she is direct, helpfull, caring and many other things. She lack motivation to improve herself in any way.
When we started living together back in the days we talked about long term goal = that we do in our life what we will be happy to do, this we both meant:
-To work normal job that we at least a bit enjoy and is payed okey
My week is like this:
-work Monday-Friday
-football trainings 3x per week + weekend game
2nd goal to be fitness coach for recreatives, in best way to open in future own studio and can help people become fit ( workouts, streching, massages)
Girlfriend :
Is currently at home for a year now, which we both agreed and we like it that she dont need to go to work at some company that she will hate. She dont yet speak language that is used where we currently alive... So work she would like to do would be hard to find and also we have stable income and for now enough money that she can be at home. She is not lazy.
The problem we have in last months is that she cant understand really when we talk about concept "do things that are hard now, that in future will be easier" or dont just go past the day with short term fun ( mobile games, food, tv, sex, buying things online, planing vacations).
From time to time i remind her about our goal and what for example she did towards this goal for us in last month. Trying to explain that mobile games every morning and searching things online to buy, are free time things that should be done moderate while other things that can help heus in future are not even focused on.
Problem that i see in her is that anything that is now enjoyable ( cleaning the house, going for a walk/run/fitness, read a book, water the garden, clean the dishes etc,) are things just to be done quick as possible and then return to enjoyable things.
The worst thing is when i try to be direct with her and try to explain that what she do most of the days brings no benefit to us, also im direct that i dont want that she over push herself, but once twice in a month she could do something for our goals, or at least ask me something about this, tips help, she could suggest something or just that we talk about some things that we can improve in any way.
When i come home from training or work is just lets watch movie, lets cuddle, lets play cards etc. ( fun things)
Last time i asked about why in last month or two didnt do any workout besides going for a walk to my training place ( 25min away), the answer i got is why i dont suggest to go hill hiking once or 2 per month???
So the problem is when i confront her sometimes if she is even willing to do for herself/us something beneficial long term is always comming to an end where im the bad person and insult her that she is nothing.
And thats far from my point, i try to explain that from nothing we get nothing, not that she is 0 and im hero.
We both are in normal situated life right now but like from our goal is to rise above working level and do things that only gets you by.
Couple days ago the argument finished with me saying: I dont see myself with person who only looks for fun and easy things and dont even understand the concept of what to do in present to be better someday( in a year or 20 years)
Answer was from her: i also dont like to be with person who says im 0 all the time.
Please share some answer or your point on view on this, i appreciate it.
TLDR: Spouse seems to not understand without thinking that i insult her, when trying to explain that some things we dont want to in the present do is neccessary for long term goals.
submitted by AbsentFriend99 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
A bit of background....i was a professionall football player till 21 years old, had from 16 to 21 very bad mindset about things in life, ( parties, drugs, girls) searched only for short term fun without any goals in life or concentration on present moment and what needs to be done to sustain life i was living.
Im now 30 years old, moved to another country to start from scratch more or less...reading mindset and goal oriented books has helped me much about how to look on life. Im now working and playing football to have 2 seperate incomes which are okey to get by and save some.
My spouse, i love her very much. She is down to earth person, she is direct, helpfull, caring and many other things. She lack motivation to improve herself in any way.
When we started living together back in the days we talked about long term goal = that we do in our life what we will be happy to do, this we both meant:
-To work normal job that we at least a bit enjoy and is payed okey
- To have our bussiness that we will enjoy leading ( for me football trainer, for her nails, makeup)
- to invest in some way long, short term and hopefully be financial in better way so we can make living easier.
- to have as much as possible free time to raise kids in future and to enjoy free time off work ( our own schedule or at least together work free days to go somwhere to ease minds.
My week is like this:
-work Monday-Friday
-football trainings 3x per week + weekend game
- 6 times per week gym
- free time pc games, movies with spouse, reading books, going for a walk, chilling listening to music.
2nd goal to be fitness coach for recreatives, in best way to open in future own studio and can help people become fit ( workouts, streching, massages)
Girlfriend :
Is currently at home for a year now, which we both agreed and we like it that she dont need to go to work at some company that she will hate. She dont yet speak language that is used where we currently alive... So work she would like to do would be hard to find and also we have stable income and for now enough money that she can be at home. She is not lazy.
The problem we have in last months is that she cant understand really when we talk about concept "do things that are hard now, that in future will be easier" or dont just go past the day with short term fun ( mobile games, food, tv, sex, buying things online, planing vacations).
From time to time i remind her about our goal and what for example she did towards this goal for us in last month. Trying to explain that mobile games every morning and searching things online to buy, are free time things that should be done moderate while other things that can help heus in future are not even focused on.
Problem that i see in her is that anything that is now enjoyable ( cleaning the house, going for a walk/run/fitness, read a book, water the garden, clean the dishes etc,) are things just to be done quick as possible and then return to enjoyable things.
The worst thing is when i try to be direct with her and try to explain that what she do most of the days brings no benefit to us, also im direct that i dont want that she over push herself, but once twice in a month she could do something for our goals, or at least ask me something about this, tips help, she could suggest something or just that we talk about some things that we can improve in any way.
When i come home from training or work is just lets watch movie, lets cuddle, lets play cards etc. ( fun things)
Last time i asked about why in last month or two didnt do any workout besides going for a walk to my training place ( 25min away), the answer i got is why i dont suggest to go hill hiking once or 2 per month???
So the problem is when i confront her sometimes if she is even willing to do for herself/us something beneficial long term is always comming to an end where im the bad person and insult her that she is nothing.
And thats far from my point, i try to explain that from nothing we get nothing, not that she is 0 and im hero.
We both are in normal situated life right now but like from our goal is to rise above working level and do things that only gets you by.
Couple days ago the argument finished with me saying: I dont see myself with person who only looks for fun and easy things and dont even understand the concept of what to do in present to be better someday( in a year or 20 years)
Answer was from her: i also dont like to be with person who says im 0 all the time.
Please share some answer or your point on view on this, i appreciate it.
TLDR: Spouse seems to not understand without thinking that i insult her, when trying to explain that some things we dont want to in the present do is neccessary for long term goals.
2024.05.15 10:34 AbsentFriend99 AITAH for trying to explain my spouse to improve herself in some way
One of my few post that i share on reddit, but this problem is affecting our relationship in last couple of months quite a bit.
A bit of background....i was a professionall football player till 21 years old, had from 16 to 21 very bad mindset about things in life, ( parties, drugs, girls) searched only for short term fun without any goals in life or concentration on present moment and what needs to be done to sustain life i was living.
Im now 30 years old, moved to another country to start from scratch more or less...reading mindset and goal oriented books has helped me much about how to look on life. Im now working and playing football to have 2 seperate incomes which are okey to get by and save some.
My spouse, i love her very much. She is down to earth person, she is direct, helpfull, caring and many other things. She lack motivation to improve herself in any way.
When we started living together back in the days we talked about long term goal = that we do in our life what we will be happy to do, this we both meant:
-To work normal job that we at least a bit enjoy and is payed okey
My week is like this:
-work Monday-Friday
-football trainings 3x per week + weekend game
2nd goal to be fitness coach for recreatives, in best way to open in future own studio and can help people become fit ( workouts, streching, massages)
Girlfriend :
Is currently at home for a year now, which we both agreed and we like it that she dont need to go to work at some company that she will hate. She dont yet speak language that is used where we currently alive... So work she would like to do would be hard to find and also we have stable income and for now enough money that she can be at home. She is not lazy.
The problem we have in last months is that she cant understand really when we talk about concept "do things that are hard now, that in future will be easier" or dont just go past the day with short term fun ( mobile games, food, tv, sex, buying things online, planing vacations).
From time to time i remind her about our goal and what for example she did towards this goal for us in last month. Trying to explain that mobile games every morning and searching things online to buy, are free time things that should be done moderate while other things that can help heus in future are not even focused on.
Problem that i see in her is that anything that is now enjoyable ( cleaning the house, going for a walk/run/fitness, read a book, water the garden, clean the dishes etc,) are things just to be done quick as possible and then return to enjoyable things.
The worst thing is when i try to be direct with her and try to explain that what she do most of the days brings no benefit to us, also im direct that i dont want that she over push herself, but once twice in a month she could do something for our goals, or at least ask me something about this, tips help, she could suggest something or just that we talk about some things that we can improve in any way.
When i come home from training or work is just lets watch movie, lets cuddle, lets play cards etc. ( fun things)
Last time i asked about why in last month or two didnt do any workout besides going for a walk to my training place ( 25min away), the answer i got is why i dont suggest to go hill hiking once or 2 per month???
So the problem is when i confront her sometimes if she is even willing to do for herself/us something beneficial long term is always comming to an end where im the bad person and insult her that she is nothing.
And thats far from my point, i try to explain that from nothing we get nothing, not that she is 0 and im hero.
We both are in normal situated life right now but like from our goal is to rise above working level and do things that only gets you by.
Couple days ago the argument finished with me saying: I dont see myself with person who only looks for fun and easy things and dont even understand the concept of what to do in present to be better someday( in a year or 20 years)
Answer was from her: i also dont like to be with person who says im 0 all the time.
Please share some answer or your point on view on this, i appreciate it.
submitted by AbsentFriend99 to AITAH [link] [comments]
A bit of background....i was a professionall football player till 21 years old, had from 16 to 21 very bad mindset about things in life, ( parties, drugs, girls) searched only for short term fun without any goals in life or concentration on present moment and what needs to be done to sustain life i was living.
Im now 30 years old, moved to another country to start from scratch more or less...reading mindset and goal oriented books has helped me much about how to look on life. Im now working and playing football to have 2 seperate incomes which are okey to get by and save some.
My spouse, i love her very much. She is down to earth person, she is direct, helpfull, caring and many other things. She lack motivation to improve herself in any way.
When we started living together back in the days we talked about long term goal = that we do in our life what we will be happy to do, this we both meant:
-To work normal job that we at least a bit enjoy and is payed okey
- To have our bussiness that we will enjoy leading ( for me football trainer, for her nails, makeup)
- to invest in some way long, short term and hopefully be financial in better way so we can make living easier.
- to have as much as possible free time to raise kids in future and to enjoy free time off work ( our own schedule or at least together work free days to go somwhere to ease minds.
My week is like this:
-work Monday-Friday
-football trainings 3x per week + weekend game
- 6 times per week gym
- free time pc games, movies with spouse, reading books, going for a walk, chilling listening to music.
2nd goal to be fitness coach for recreatives, in best way to open in future own studio and can help people become fit ( workouts, streching, massages)
Girlfriend :
Is currently at home for a year now, which we both agreed and we like it that she dont need to go to work at some company that she will hate. She dont yet speak language that is used where we currently alive... So work she would like to do would be hard to find and also we have stable income and for now enough money that she can be at home. She is not lazy.
The problem we have in last months is that she cant understand really when we talk about concept "do things that are hard now, that in future will be easier" or dont just go past the day with short term fun ( mobile games, food, tv, sex, buying things online, planing vacations).
From time to time i remind her about our goal and what for example she did towards this goal for us in last month. Trying to explain that mobile games every morning and searching things online to buy, are free time things that should be done moderate while other things that can help heus in future are not even focused on.
Problem that i see in her is that anything that is now enjoyable ( cleaning the house, going for a walk/run/fitness, read a book, water the garden, clean the dishes etc,) are things just to be done quick as possible and then return to enjoyable things.
The worst thing is when i try to be direct with her and try to explain that what she do most of the days brings no benefit to us, also im direct that i dont want that she over push herself, but once twice in a month she could do something for our goals, or at least ask me something about this, tips help, she could suggest something or just that we talk about some things that we can improve in any way.
When i come home from training or work is just lets watch movie, lets cuddle, lets play cards etc. ( fun things)
Last time i asked about why in last month or two didnt do any workout besides going for a walk to my training place ( 25min away), the answer i got is why i dont suggest to go hill hiking once or 2 per month???
So the problem is when i confront her sometimes if she is even willing to do for herself/us something beneficial long term is always comming to an end where im the bad person and insult her that she is nothing.
And thats far from my point, i try to explain that from nothing we get nothing, not that she is 0 and im hero.
We both are in normal situated life right now but like from our goal is to rise above working level and do things that only gets you by.
Couple days ago the argument finished with me saying: I dont see myself with person who only looks for fun and easy things and dont even understand the concept of what to do in present to be better someday( in a year or 20 years)
Answer was from her: i also dont like to be with person who says im 0 all the time.
Please share some answer or your point on view on this, i appreciate it.
2024.05.15 10:17 Prestigious-Wind-200 If I could interject
Luckily I’ve had some pretty great jobs but looking back I always tried to talk to people about what they do for work and what is associated with that field.
I’ve always recommended to everyone looking for work or for advancement, to call their local or metro area chamber or commerce and ask to attend their next meet and greet. You can meet a lot of different businesses and at the least talk to them briefly and always have a business card to hand out even if it’s only your name and content number.
With my old job I had to get up in front of the group and give a little snippet of our company and what we do, so I knew I had contacted everyone in the room all at once and everyone knew who I was. Then I would just work the room for business.
In most peoples case if companies know you are out there they will eventually contact you.
submitted by Prestigious-Wind-200 to jobs [link] [comments]
I’ve always recommended to everyone looking for work or for advancement, to call their local or metro area chamber or commerce and ask to attend their next meet and greet. You can meet a lot of different businesses and at the least talk to them briefly and always have a business card to hand out even if it’s only your name and content number.
With my old job I had to get up in front of the group and give a little snippet of our company and what we do, so I knew I had contacted everyone in the room all at once and everyone knew who I was. Then I would just work the room for business.
In most peoples case if companies know you are out there they will eventually contact you.
2024.05.15 09:42 TerminalSunrise Why isn’t DOB on some PIV cards?
It seems some agencies do put date of birth on the back of their employees’ PIVs. For some reason, my LincPass (name for Agriculture/USFS PIV) does not - yet it has my height, eye color, and hair color presumably to help more accurately describe my physical appearance to someone inspecting the card. I would think my age (and probably sex) would be just as useful too. Maybe even weight, though it can change over time (then again, hair color can instantly change too).
Does anyone know if Agriculture ever has it on there and, if so, when and why they changed it? And if they never did, also why not? Or why/why not your agency or another you know of chose not to put it on there? Also, does any other agency have their own name for their PIV lol.
I’m mainly wondering out of curiosity, but also because I don’t have a RealID driver license and I read that you can fly with your PIV however someone else suggested that it had to have your DOB to qualify. Also using it as a second form of ID when I don’t have a birth certificate or passport handy would be nice, but again usually requires a DOB on it. Sorry if this is overly long winded lol I’m traveling and can’t sleep so I’m Redditing into the void.
submitted by TerminalSunrise to fednews [link] [comments]
Does anyone know if Agriculture ever has it on there and, if so, when and why they changed it? And if they never did, also why not? Or why/why not your agency or another you know of chose not to put it on there? Also, does any other agency have their own name for their PIV lol.
I’m mainly wondering out of curiosity, but also because I don’t have a RealID driver license and I read that you can fly with your PIV however someone else suggested that it had to have your DOB to qualify. Also using it as a second form of ID when I don’t have a birth certificate or passport handy would be nice, but again usually requires a DOB on it. Sorry if this is overly long winded lol I’m traveling and can’t sleep so I’m Redditing into the void.
2024.05.15 09:25 StrawberryScallion I got lube and gift card to a sex shop for nurses week, what did you get?
Raffle gift card at my work (hospital), and I got sex stuff
submitted by StrawberryScallion to nursing [link] [comments]
2024.05.15 08:50 dele1987 ‘Twas The Night Before Polin…
 | Happy Polin Eve!!!!!!! Can one feel depleted from excitement! I’ve been waiting so long and as I head to bed for the last time before Part 1 arrives I feel weird. It feels unreal that this is finally and really happening. submitted by dele1987 to PolinBridgerton [link] [comments] I want to embrace this season as it is! I want to appreciate all the hard work Nic & Luke, cast, crew, and all involved did for months and months. I want to honor the folks who have been like private investigators the last two years and sustaining us with every sweet morsel. I want to celebrate love, romance, friendship, forgiveness, yearning, sex:)… and I wanna discuss it all here! I hope we will have some kind of episode by episode mega thread. Sweet dreams everyone, the glorious greets us super duper soon! |
2024.05.15 08:31 Prize-Dinner-7418 AITA for getting drunk and turning off my phone
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!):
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.
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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.
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.
2024.05.15 07:56 ravi188chauhan Complete Guide to Setting Up Your Shopify Store: Step-by-Step Shopify Website Setup Tutorial
 | Greetings and welcome to the definitive guide for setting up your Shopify site and embarking on your journey into the world of online commerce. Whether you're a novice entrepreneur taking your first steps or a seasoned business owner looking to establish a stronger digital presence, this comprehensive Shopify installation guide will lead you through every aspect of the setup process, ensuring a smooth and successful launch of your online store. submitted by ravi188chauhan to bloomShopifytheme [link] [comments] Step 1: Sign Up for Shopify shopify signup To kickstart your online journey, head over to Shopify's website and sign up for an account. With Shopify's user-friendly interface, you can get started in minutes, and they even offer a free trial to help you familiarize yourself with the platform. Step 2: Choose Your Store Name https://preview.redd.it/c205ttvx3j0d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=81cec5703cb124d041d0b450092fc7b605aa47b3 Your store name is your digital identity, so take your time to brainstorm a unique and memorable name that reflects your brand. Keep in mind the importance of SEO, and try to incorporate relevant keywords that potential customers might use when searching for products like yours. Step 3: Select a Theme https://preview.redd.it/btn2v4ga4j0d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=b271f08ecf1a29d49ca04b48899c0283f3d86979 Now it's time to make your store visually appealing with Shopify's wide range of customizable themes. Choose a theme that aligns with your brand's aesthetic and values, and don't forget to optimize it for mobile devices – a crucial factor in today's digital landscape. Custom Shopify Theme Step 4: Add Your Products https://preview.redd.it/tmxvq58h4j0d1.jpg?width=2880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8daccf7420f714a9253c97530fb2695b586fe9be One of the most exciting steps – adding your products to your store! Create compelling product listings with high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and SEO-friendly titles and tags. Consider conducting keyword research to identify the most relevant keywords for your products and incorporate them strategically to improve your store's visibility in search engine results. Step 5: Set Up Payment Methods https://preview.redd.it/94pd57fd5j0d1.png?width=936&format=png&auto=webp&s=f385cad107c70de66cfbe31d3a80a04d10e33c98 To facilitate smooth transactions, configure your preferred payment methods on Shopify. Whether it's credit cards, PayPal, or alternative payment gateways, ensure that your customers have various options to choose from. Implementing secure payment processing is paramount for building trust and credibility with your audience. Step 6: Configure Shipping Settings Shipping logistics can make or break the online shopping experience for customers. Define your shipping zones, rates, and carrier options to provide accurate shipping estimates at checkout. Optimize your shipping strategy for efficiency and cost-effectiveness while maintaining transparency with customers regarding delivery times and tracking information. Step 7: Customize Your Settings Fine-tune your Shopify settings to tailor your store's functionality to your specific needs. From tax rates and inventory management to email notifications and SEO settings, make sure every aspect of your store is optimized for success. Leverage Shopify's robust features and integrations to streamline operations and enhance the overall shopping experience for your customers. Step 8: Launch Your Store Congratulations – you're almost ready to launch your online store! Before going live, take the time to thoroughly review your store to ensure everything is in order. Test the checkout process, review your product listings, and double-check your settings to iron out any potential issues. Once you're confident in your store's readiness, hit the "Launch" button and watch your online business come to life. Shopify Site Setup Service in 12 Hours Conclusion In conclusion, setting up a Shopify store is a rewarding endeavor that opens up endless opportunities for growth and success in the world of e-commerce. By following these detailed steps and incorporating SEO-friendly practices throughout the process, you'll be well-equipped to establish a thriving online presence and connect with customers worldwide. Start your Shopify journey today and unlock the potential of e-commerce for your business! |
2024.05.15 07:12 One_Cardiologist8719 What is the outcome of this relationship?
Greetings to everyone and I am most humbly asking for your help!
So, the question is in the title and I’d like to provide some background: we (M/M) have been going out for more than ten years. Of course, as with any long term relationship, there is up and down and we even have to separate on three occasions. Now that we are back again, I’m anxious to know where this connection would lead. My spread is as follow (in correct order) Dog - Garden - Ring - Cross - Anchor
My interpretation (based on my limited knowledge) is as follow:
The deck I used is the Aurum Lenormand deck designed by Melissa Wotherspoon :) I hope this information help.
submitted by One_Cardiologist8719 to Lenormand [link] [comments]
So, the question is in the title and I’d like to provide some background: we (M/M) have been going out for more than ten years. Of course, as with any long term relationship, there is up and down and we even have to separate on three occasions. Now that we are back again, I’m anxious to know where this connection would lead. My spread is as follow (in correct order) Dog - Garden - Ring - Cross - Anchor
My interpretation (based on my limited knowledge) is as follow:
- Dog vs. Garden: We will maintain our friendship for the time being and he has goodwill toward me but our relationship might bear the burden of rumors and gossips so we must encourage each other on the path we chose. Also, a friendly support from our social circle might be our strength.
- Garden - Ring: our commitment is strong but again, there are a lot of potentials for negative rumors and gossips. We may have to weigh other people’s opinions when we think of taking our commitment a step further.
- Ring - Cross: the relationship might bear more obstacles and difficulties in the long run and we just have to brace through the hardship. Ultimately, it is in our decision whether we can make it work or not.
- Cross - Anchor: this is where I’m confused. I don’t know if this pair indicates a lasting struggle or if it signifies a lasting union with the blessing of religion. I don’t want to be overly optimistic.
The deck I used is the Aurum Lenormand deck designed by Melissa Wotherspoon :) I hope this information help.
2024.05.15 07:07 meerkatopia [US][SELLING] Manga By The Gallon, Please Drink With Your Eyes!
Hello all friends,
Hoping you are well. I am interested in clearing some space and cash up for new hobbies and some vacationing this summer. The list is a little jumbled but gets the job done. If I missed anything the vast majority are $2-4 with some price breaks if you pick up multiple books.
All that is needed is your current shipping address on paypal when I request or invoice your email, with shipping info updated within 2 days of order. Orders to be shipped with media mail and with a few layers of packaging.
That should be it, I hope you enjoy the list!
Timestamp- Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Air gear 19, 23, 24 $45 G4
Tokyopop Sampler 2003-2006 (6 vols) $75 G4
Gantz 1-23 $360 G4-G5
Gantz 11-13 $65 G5
Hitman Reborn 1 Misprint upside down inside $40 G4
Cutie Honey $75 G4
Bastard! 1-19 G4 $600
Hellsing 7, 8 $35 G4
Iron Wok Jan 8-10, 12, 19-21 $105 G4
Battle Vixens 13, 14 $80 Sealed
Animal land 1-14 $400 G4-G5
Inuyasha 37, 40, 46-48, 52 $134 G5
Gakuen Alice 6, 9 $40 G4
Berserk DMP (8 Vols) $50 G4
Pandora crimson in a shell 1-3, 5-11 $35
Princess Knight 1 $10 G4
Limited Copies/ Signed/ Sealed OOP:
Dementia 21 1st print $90
Color Of Rage Sealed $60
Akira Volume 4 Limited Edition Hardcover Graphitti Katsuhiro Otomo $50 G4
Astro Boy Essays Osamu Tezuka Mighty Atom, and Manga/Anime Revolution Signed By Frederik L. Schodt G4 $40
Yumiko Kayukawa 2013 Japanese Wolf /1000 $40 G4
Cardfight Vanguard 1 with Sealed card $25 G4-G5
Ragnarok #1 Signed $20 G4
Alice Hearts 1-3 $12 G4
Hino Horror 11 $39 G4
Ikigami 1-8, 10 $120 G4
Gundam R 3 $5 G3-G4
Omamori Himari 6 $5 G3-G4
Kagerou Daze 1, 3 $8 G4
Tokyo Tribes 1 $4 G4
Psycho Pass 1-4 $20 G3
Code Geass 1, 2, $18
NGE Shinji 10 $5 G4
Dragon Ball Vizbig 1-2, Z 2,4 $32 G3-G4
Kamen Tantei 2-3 $20 G4
Initial D 3 $12 G4
Gantz 1-2 $30 G3
Btooom 25 $10 sealed
Fire Force 1-8 $30 G4
Appleseed Alpha $8 G4-G5
Cromartie 8 $4 G3
Ring 0 $10 G4
Zombie Fairy 1 $5 G4
Gundam Blue Destiny $5 G4
Mid 2010s Japanese Shonen Jump Magazine $25 each
Crimson Shell 1-3, 5-11 $50 G4
Sherlock Bones 1-7 $20 G4
Jack Ripper 1, 5 $50 G4
Midori Days 8 $12 G4
Record Of Lodoss War Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight 1 $20 G4
Get Backers 9 vols $25 G3-G4
Samurai Kyo (3) volumes $9 G3-G4
Dragon Head (FRENCH) $100 G4
Incomplete sets:
GTO 3, 6-9 $75 G4-G5
With the light 2-4, 6 $70 G3-G4 Ex lib
With the light 2 $20 G3 Ex lib
Berserk 1-3, 5, 9, 15, 18, 19 G2-G4 (8 Volumes) $30
Crayon Shin 3 $12 sealed CMX
Lum 1-2 90s 1st print $20 G4
Record of Lodoss War Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Vol. 1 $15 G4
Scientific Accelerator 2, 4-7 G4 $50
Lone Wolf & Cub Omnibus 1985 Japanese $80
Saint Tail 2 G3 $10
Saint Seiya Sho 1-2 G4 $4
Mushoku Tensai 1-2 + Roxy 1-2 G4 $15
Magical girl raising project 1-2 G5 $9
First love monster 1-2 G5 $8
Big Order 1 G4 $4
Tomodachi monster 1 $3
Those who hunt elves 1-2 G4 $9
Spare 22 G3 $4
Rin ne 3 G4 $3
The story of Saiunkoko 1-3, 6-9 G4 $40
Fuishigi Omnibus 1-3 G4 $20
Eden Zero 1-3 G4 $6
New lone wolf 1-4 G4 $50
Wedding Peach 1 $15 G4
Strawberry Marshmellow 1-2 $38 G4
Lone Wolf and cub 13 volumes with spare $50 G3-G4
Chaotic Century 11 G4 $
Emma 1-2 G3 $10 ex lib
Jyu oh sei 3 G4 $5
Jack Ripper 1, 5 $50 G4
Beyblade 3 $20 G4
Clover omnibus G3 $5
Blade immortal spares (3) spine fade G3/G4 $10
Vampire Game 15 $8
The promised neverland 17 G4 $3
W Juliet 1-4 G3 $10
Scrapped Princess 1-4 $10
Tenchi- $3
Exaxxion 1 $5
Karneval 1 G4 $8
Black Jack 1, 3, G4 $10
Spare 1 $4
Wotakoi 1 G5 $5
Shin Chan CMX #3 Sealed $12
Dance In The Vampire Bund 1-3, 7-9, 18-21 G4 $30
Bt'x 13 G4 $35
Aoi house $1
Angel Sanctuary 2 $1
Ragnarok 1 $1
World War Blue 5, 7 G4 $3
Grils got game 2 $1
Akame ga Kill 1 $2
Captain Ken 1, G4 $10
Sex ed 120% $3
Ichiroh 5, G4 $5
Infini T Force 1-4 G5 $18
Shugo chara 2-6 G3/G4 $20
Magic Knight Rayearth 1st 3 G3 $3
Ode To Kirihito 2 G4 $10 Spare Available
Desert Coral 1-3 G4 $10
Spare Ryu Final 3 G4 $10
Thanks for checking it out and be safe out there!
Clover Omnibus $10 G3
Utena 2 $20 G4
Summit of The Gods 2 $13 G4
Stawberry Marshmellow 1-2 $25 G4
butterfly flowers 5 $3
Honey Clover 10 $40 G4
Yugioh (3) volumes $10
Oreimo 4 $4 G4
Megaman 12 Ex lib $12 G3
Berserk 4, 15 $5 G2-G3
Death note 1-13 + 2 journals $49 G3
Suikodon 9 $5 G3
Scrapped Princess 1-3 $6 G3
Eden zero 1-2 $5 G4
I dont like you at all big brother $3 G4
Vampire game 15 $3 G4
One Piece (9) volumes $24 G3
Bleach (14) $34 G4
Mushoku 1-2, roxy 1-2 $15 G4
Shaman king (6) ex lib $20
Kurosagi 4, 7 8 $10 ex lib G3
Tsubasa 1-4 $10 G3-G4
Ajin 8 $3 G4
Juvenile Orion 1-5 $12 G4
Ranma 22 $4 G4
Worst 3 $15 G4
Rayearth 1 $4 G3
Captain Ken 1 $30 G4
Dounuts under a crescent moon 1 $3 G4
Again 2 $3 G4
Stray Little Devil 3 $5 G4
Ng Life 3 $3
D frag 1 $4 G4
Velveten & Mandela $8 G4
Franken Fran 1 1st priint $20
Hollow Fields $6 G4
Record Lodoss CMP $15 G4
Lum: Urusei Yatsura Vol. 1-2 $50 G4 1988
Remina $10 G4
A brides story 1 $5 G4
Karneval 1 $4 G4
Oh my goddess (4) $10 G3
Inuyasha (5) larger tpb $20 G3-G4
Saikano 1-3 $13 G4
Dark Metro 1-2 $13 G4
Gyo 1 $25 G4
submitted by meerkatopia to mangaswap [link] [comments]
Hoping you are well. I am interested in clearing some space and cash up for new hobbies and some vacationing this summer. The list is a little jumbled but gets the job done. If I missed anything the vast majority are $2-4 with some price breaks if you pick up multiple books.
All that is needed is your current shipping address on paypal when I request or invoice your email, with shipping info updated within 2 days of order. Orders to be shipped with media mail and with a few layers of packaging.
That should be it, I hope you enjoy the list!
Timestamp- Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Air gear 19, 23, 24 $45 G4
Tokyopop Sampler 2003-2006 (6 vols) $75 G4
Gantz 1-23 $360 G4-G5
Gantz 11-13 $65 G5
Hitman Reborn 1 Misprint upside down inside $40 G4
Cutie Honey $75 G4
Bastard! 1-19 G4 $600
Hellsing 7, 8 $35 G4
Iron Wok Jan 8-10, 12, 19-21 $105 G4
Battle Vixens 13, 14 $80 Sealed
Animal land 1-14 $400 G4-G5
Inuyasha 37, 40, 46-48, 52 $134 G5
Gakuen Alice 6, 9 $40 G4
Berserk DMP (8 Vols) $50 G4
Pandora crimson in a shell 1-3, 5-11 $35
Princess Knight 1 $10 G4
Limited Copies/ Signed/ Sealed OOP:
Dementia 21 1st print $90
Color Of Rage Sealed $60
Akira Volume 4 Limited Edition Hardcover Graphitti Katsuhiro Otomo $50 G4
Astro Boy Essays Osamu Tezuka Mighty Atom, and Manga/Anime Revolution Signed By Frederik L. Schodt G4 $40
Yumiko Kayukawa 2013 Japanese Wolf /1000 $40 G4
Cardfight Vanguard 1 with Sealed card $25 G4-G5
Ragnarok #1 Signed $20 G4
Alice Hearts 1-3 $12 G4
Hino Horror 11 $39 G4
Ikigami 1-8, 10 $120 G4
Gundam R 3 $5 G3-G4
Omamori Himari 6 $5 G3-G4
Kagerou Daze 1, 3 $8 G4
Tokyo Tribes 1 $4 G4
Psycho Pass 1-4 $20 G3
Code Geass 1, 2, $18
NGE Shinji 10 $5 G4
Dragon Ball Vizbig 1-2, Z 2,4 $32 G3-G4
Kamen Tantei 2-3 $20 G4
Initial D 3 $12 G4
Gantz 1-2 $30 G3
Btooom 25 $10 sealed
Fire Force 1-8 $30 G4
Appleseed Alpha $8 G4-G5
Cromartie 8 $4 G3
Ring 0 $10 G4
Zombie Fairy 1 $5 G4
Gundam Blue Destiny $5 G4
Mid 2010s Japanese Shonen Jump Magazine $25 each
Crimson Shell 1-3, 5-11 $50 G4
Sherlock Bones 1-7 $20 G4
Jack Ripper 1, 5 $50 G4
Midori Days 8 $12 G4
Record Of Lodoss War Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight 1 $20 G4
Get Backers 9 vols $25 G3-G4
Samurai Kyo (3) volumes $9 G3-G4
Dragon Head (FRENCH) $100 G4
Incomplete sets:
GTO 3, 6-9 $75 G4-G5
With the light 2-4, 6 $70 G3-G4 Ex lib
With the light 2 $20 G3 Ex lib
Berserk 1-3, 5, 9, 15, 18, 19 G2-G4 (8 Volumes) $30
Crayon Shin 3 $12 sealed CMX
Lum 1-2 90s 1st print $20 G4
Record of Lodoss War Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Vol. 1 $15 G4
Scientific Accelerator 2, 4-7 G4 $50
Lone Wolf & Cub Omnibus 1985 Japanese $80
Saint Tail 2 G3 $10
Saint Seiya Sho 1-2 G4 $4
Mushoku Tensai 1-2 + Roxy 1-2 G4 $15
Magical girl raising project 1-2 G5 $9
First love monster 1-2 G5 $8
Big Order 1 G4 $4
Tomodachi monster 1 $3
Those who hunt elves 1-2 G4 $9
Spare 22 G3 $4
Rin ne 3 G4 $3
The story of Saiunkoko 1-3, 6-9 G4 $40
Fuishigi Omnibus 1-3 G4 $20
Eden Zero 1-3 G4 $6
New lone wolf 1-4 G4 $50
Wedding Peach 1 $15 G4
Strawberry Marshmellow 1-2 $38 G4
Lone Wolf and cub 13 volumes with spare $50 G3-G4
Chaotic Century 11 G4 $
Emma 1-2 G3 $10 ex lib
Jyu oh sei 3 G4 $5
Jack Ripper 1, 5 $50 G4
Beyblade 3 $20 G4
Clover omnibus G3 $5
Blade immortal spares (3) spine fade G3/G4 $10
Vampire Game 15 $8
The promised neverland 17 G4 $3
W Juliet 1-4 G3 $10
Scrapped Princess 1-4 $10
Tenchi- $3
Exaxxion 1 $5
Karneval 1 G4 $8
Black Jack 1, 3, G4 $10
Spare 1 $4
Wotakoi 1 G5 $5
Shin Chan CMX #3 Sealed $12
Dance In The Vampire Bund 1-3, 7-9, 18-21 G4 $30
Bt'x 13 G4 $35
Aoi house $1
Angel Sanctuary 2 $1
Ragnarok 1 $1
World War Blue 5, 7 G4 $3
Grils got game 2 $1
Akame ga Kill 1 $2
Captain Ken 1, G4 $10
Sex ed 120% $3
Ichiroh 5, G4 $5
Infini T Force 1-4 G5 $18
Shugo chara 2-6 G3/G4 $20
Magic Knight Rayearth 1st 3 G3 $3
Ode To Kirihito 2 G4 $10 Spare Available
Desert Coral 1-3 G4 $10
Spare Ryu Final 3 G4 $10
Thanks for checking it out and be safe out there!
Clover Omnibus $10 G3
Utena 2 $20 G4
Summit of The Gods 2 $13 G4
Stawberry Marshmellow 1-2 $25 G4
butterfly flowers 5 $3
Honey Clover 10 $40 G4
Yugioh (3) volumes $10
Oreimo 4 $4 G4
Megaman 12 Ex lib $12 G3
Berserk 4, 15 $5 G2-G3
Death note 1-13 + 2 journals $49 G3
Suikodon 9 $5 G3
Scrapped Princess 1-3 $6 G3
Eden zero 1-2 $5 G4
I dont like you at all big brother $3 G4
Vampire game 15 $3 G4
One Piece (9) volumes $24 G3
Bleach (14) $34 G4
Mushoku 1-2, roxy 1-2 $15 G4
Shaman king (6) ex lib $20
Kurosagi 4, 7 8 $10 ex lib G3
Tsubasa 1-4 $10 G3-G4
Ajin 8 $3 G4
Juvenile Orion 1-5 $12 G4
Ranma 22 $4 G4
Worst 3 $15 G4
Rayearth 1 $4 G3
Captain Ken 1 $30 G4
Dounuts under a crescent moon 1 $3 G4
Again 2 $3 G4
Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star Vol. 1 $3 G4
The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated! 1 $2 G4
Inuyasha 46, 48 Ex Library $20 G3Stray Little Devil 3 $5 G4
Ng Life 3 $3
D frag 1 $4 G4
Velveten & Mandela $8 G4
Franken Fran 1 1st priint $20
Hollow Fields $6 G4
Record Lodoss CMP $15 G4
Lum: Urusei Yatsura Vol. 1-2 $50 G4 1988
Remina $10 G4
A brides story 1 $5 G4
Karneval 1 $4 G4
Oh my goddess (4) $10 G3
Inuyasha (5) larger tpb $20 G3-G4
Saikano 1-3 $13 G4
Dark Metro 1-2 $13 G4
Gyo 1 $25 G4
2024.05.15 06:40 ilovesoftblankets31 Experience with FOCUS? Desperately Looking for Advice
Hey y'all. This is my first ever post on reddit, and I came on here for the sole purpose of seeking advice...
For context, you could consider me a "cradle catholic." I have never really been that religious, and my siblings and I were catholic for the sole reason that we grew up with it. However, around 3 years ago I started walking away from the Church after realizing just how hateful and hypocritical it is, and how it's just a down-right business at this point. A majority of my family thankfully share the same mindset, except for one family member, and I have no idea what to do anymore.
I feel like I lost a family member at this point. After my family member has been involved with FOCUS at their university I feel like they have become a totally different person, in a bad way. Before their involvement with FOCUS, we were relatively close, but not I feel like the only option I have is to cut them out forever.
Firstly, my family member has never really been "extremely religious" growing up. I think when we were younger, going to church, confession, CCD, was always like a chore and we did it to make our remaining family happy most of the time. It was more a just "nod and smile" kind of thing. Now, fundamental catholicism is their ENTIRE personality and completely changed them into an entirely different person.
For example, some of us were IVF babies and my parents were very transparent with that. When we were younger it was just another thing, not a big deal... Now ever since they have been affiliated with FOCUS, this family member acts as if my parents are the most God-awful creatures on the planet, and HATES them (not disagree, HATE) with everything inside of them. They even told me that my parents need to "Beg for forgiveness" since they gave life to THEM, and a parent who recently passed is "rightfully burning in hell."
In addition to this, I've never seen my sibling HATE the way they do. Again, this is not just a disagreement, this is a full-blown, bitter, dark HATE. My sibling HATES my parents, and HATES my grandparents for allowing my parents to have IVF. They HATE the LGBTQ+ community, and they ESPECIALLY HATE women's rights, reproductive medicine, and any form of contraceptives. Following this my sibling as also flat out told me "condoms are just as bad as abortions" and that "it is up to the man to decide when to start of family." (Mind you, this specific person has NEVER taken a biology class OR sex ed class in their entire life, nor had a significant other) They just hate, hate, hate... And for how "holy" they are they have NO problem calling me really nasty names and telling me to "suck my cock."
Plus, they have become extremely artifical in publically displaying their faith... Mind y'all none of my family or close friends even did this, so it's not like this is a family thing... But now they have to obnoxiously do the sign of the cross before every meal, they leave their bibles and rosaries all over the house, gives my non-religous (all ex-catholic) family members prayer cards, and if they are really feeling like an asshole they will send me bible versus on how I need to repent and be more like them. It's just so fucking forced and fake...
Whenever I try to talk to them about, just why, they always try to claw me in back to Catholicism. Always. And if it isn't that, they completely lack any common logic/reasoning to their argument and it often ends in bitter screaming matches.
I try, so, hard to find a middle ground with them... or at LEAST TRY to understand where all this shit is coming from but I just can't.
Regardless, I genuinely do not know what to do anymore. Ever since discovering who I am, and my values as a human being, I've really started to grow a deep disappointment for this family member.
They mean a lot to me and of course, I want the best for both of us, but they have made my life a living hell for the previous years... If it isn't trying to start an argument it's ruining personal achievements and accomplishments (tell me my honors should've been THEIRS and how they have been unrightfully given to me)... They have really shown me just how ugly and terrible religion can be and I do not know what other steps to take to have them in my life anymore.
My apologies for the long-ass post, and my gratitude if you made it this far.
submitted by ilovesoftblankets31 to exchristian [link] [comments]
For context, you could consider me a "cradle catholic." I have never really been that religious, and my siblings and I were catholic for the sole reason that we grew up with it. However, around 3 years ago I started walking away from the Church after realizing just how hateful and hypocritical it is, and how it's just a down-right business at this point. A majority of my family thankfully share the same mindset, except for one family member, and I have no idea what to do anymore.
I feel like I lost a family member at this point. After my family member has been involved with FOCUS at their university I feel like they have become a totally different person, in a bad way. Before their involvement with FOCUS, we were relatively close, but not I feel like the only option I have is to cut them out forever.
Firstly, my family member has never really been "extremely religious" growing up. I think when we were younger, going to church, confession, CCD, was always like a chore and we did it to make our remaining family happy most of the time. It was more a just "nod and smile" kind of thing. Now, fundamental catholicism is their ENTIRE personality and completely changed them into an entirely different person.
For example, some of us were IVF babies and my parents were very transparent with that. When we were younger it was just another thing, not a big deal... Now ever since they have been affiliated with FOCUS, this family member acts as if my parents are the most God-awful creatures on the planet, and HATES them (not disagree, HATE) with everything inside of them. They even told me that my parents need to "Beg for forgiveness" since they gave life to THEM, and a parent who recently passed is "rightfully burning in hell."
In addition to this, I've never seen my sibling HATE the way they do. Again, this is not just a disagreement, this is a full-blown, bitter, dark HATE. My sibling HATES my parents, and HATES my grandparents for allowing my parents to have IVF. They HATE the LGBTQ+ community, and they ESPECIALLY HATE women's rights, reproductive medicine, and any form of contraceptives. Following this my sibling as also flat out told me "condoms are just as bad as abortions" and that "it is up to the man to decide when to start of family." (Mind you, this specific person has NEVER taken a biology class OR sex ed class in their entire life, nor had a significant other) They just hate, hate, hate... And for how "holy" they are they have NO problem calling me really nasty names and telling me to "suck my cock."
Plus, they have become extremely artifical in publically displaying their faith... Mind y'all none of my family or close friends even did this, so it's not like this is a family thing... But now they have to obnoxiously do the sign of the cross before every meal, they leave their bibles and rosaries all over the house, gives my non-religous (all ex-catholic) family members prayer cards, and if they are really feeling like an asshole they will send me bible versus on how I need to repent and be more like them. It's just so fucking forced and fake...
Whenever I try to talk to them about, just why, they always try to claw me in back to Catholicism. Always. And if it isn't that, they completely lack any common logic/reasoning to their argument and it often ends in bitter screaming matches.
I try, so, hard to find a middle ground with them... or at LEAST TRY to understand where all this shit is coming from but I just can't.
Regardless, I genuinely do not know what to do anymore. Ever since discovering who I am, and my values as a human being, I've really started to grow a deep disappointment for this family member.
They mean a lot to me and of course, I want the best for both of us, but they have made my life a living hell for the previous years... If it isn't trying to start an argument it's ruining personal achievements and accomplishments (tell me my honors should've been THEIRS and how they have been unrightfully given to me)... They have really shown me just how ugly and terrible religion can be and I do not know what other steps to take to have them in my life anymore.
My apologies for the long-ass post, and my gratitude if you made it this far.
2024.05.15 06:33 ilovesoftblankets31 Experience with Catholic-Group "FOCUS" ? Desperately Looking for Advice...
Hey y'all. This is my first ever post on reddit, and I came on here for the sole purpose of seeking advice...
For context, you could consider me a "cradle catholic." I have never really been that religious, and my siblings and I were catholic for the sole reason that we grew up with it. However, around 3 years ago I started walking away from the Church after realizing just how hateful and hypocritical it is, and how it's just a down-right business at this point. A majority of my family thankfully share the same mindset, except for one family member, and I have no idea what to do anymore.
I feel like I lost a family member at this point. After my family member has been involved with FOCUS at their university I feel like they have become a totally different person, in a bad way. Before their involvement with FOCUS, we were relatively close, but not I feel like the only option I have is to cut them out forever.
Firstly, my family member has never really been "extremely religious" growing up. I think when we were younger, going to church, confession, CCD, was always like a chore and we did it to make our remaining family happy most of the time. It was more a just "nod and smile" kind of thing. Now, fundamental catholicism is their ENTIRE personality and completely changed them into an entirely different person.
For example, some of us were IVF babies and my parents were very transparent with that. When we were younger it was just another thing, not a big deal... Now ever since they have been affiliated with FOCUS, this family member acts as if my parents are the most God-awful creatures on the planet, and HATES them (not disagree, HATE) with everything inside of them. They even told me that my parents need to "Beg for forgiveness" since they gave life to THEM, and a parent who recently passed is "rightfully burning in hell."
In addition to this, I've never seen my sibling HATE the way they do. Again, this is not just a disagreement, this is a full-blown, bitter, dark HATE. My sibling HATES my parents, and HATES my grandparents for allowing my parents to have IVF. They HATE the LGBTQ+ community, and they ESPECIALLY HATE women's rights, reproductive medicine, and any form of contraceptives. Following this my sibling as also flat out told me "condoms are just as bad as abortions" and that "it is up to the man to decide when to start of family." (Mind you, this specific person has NEVER taken a biology class OR sex ed class in their entire life, nor had a significant other) They just hate, hate, hate... And for how "holy" they are they have NO problem calling me really nasty names and telling me to "suck my cock."
Plus, they have become extremely artifical in publically displaying their faith... Mind y'all none of my family or close friends even did this, so it's not like this is a family thing... But now they have to obnoxiously do the sign of the cross before every meal, they leave their bibles and rosaries all over the house, gives my non-religous (all ex-catholic) family members prayer cards, and if they are really feeling like an asshole they will send me bible versus on how I need to repent and be more like them. It's just so fucking forced and fake...
Whenever I try to talk to them about, just why, they always try to claw me in back to Catholicism. Always. And if it isn't that, they completely lack any common logic/reasoning to their argument and it often ends in bitter screaming matches.
I try, so, hard to find a middle ground with them... or at LEAST TRY to understand where all this shit is coming from but I just can't.
Regardless, I genuinely do not know what to do anymore. Ever since discovering who I am, and my values as a human being, I've really started to grow a deep disappointment for this family member.
They mean a lot to me and of course, I want the best for both of us, but they have made my life a living hell for the previous years... If it isn't trying to start an argument it's ruining personal achievements and accomplishments (tell me my honors should've been THEIRS and how they have been unrightfully given to me)... They have really shown me just how ugly and terrible religion can be and I do not know what other steps to take to have them in my life anymore.
My apologies for the long-ass post, and my gratitude if you made it this far.
submitted by ilovesoftblankets31 to atheism [link] [comments]
For context, you could consider me a "cradle catholic." I have never really been that religious, and my siblings and I were catholic for the sole reason that we grew up with it. However, around 3 years ago I started walking away from the Church after realizing just how hateful and hypocritical it is, and how it's just a down-right business at this point. A majority of my family thankfully share the same mindset, except for one family member, and I have no idea what to do anymore.
I feel like I lost a family member at this point. After my family member has been involved with FOCUS at their university I feel like they have become a totally different person, in a bad way. Before their involvement with FOCUS, we were relatively close, but not I feel like the only option I have is to cut them out forever.
Firstly, my family member has never really been "extremely religious" growing up. I think when we were younger, going to church, confession, CCD, was always like a chore and we did it to make our remaining family happy most of the time. It was more a just "nod and smile" kind of thing. Now, fundamental catholicism is their ENTIRE personality and completely changed them into an entirely different person.
For example, some of us were IVF babies and my parents were very transparent with that. When we were younger it was just another thing, not a big deal... Now ever since they have been affiliated with FOCUS, this family member acts as if my parents are the most God-awful creatures on the planet, and HATES them (not disagree, HATE) with everything inside of them. They even told me that my parents need to "Beg for forgiveness" since they gave life to THEM, and a parent who recently passed is "rightfully burning in hell."
In addition to this, I've never seen my sibling HATE the way they do. Again, this is not just a disagreement, this is a full-blown, bitter, dark HATE. My sibling HATES my parents, and HATES my grandparents for allowing my parents to have IVF. They HATE the LGBTQ+ community, and they ESPECIALLY HATE women's rights, reproductive medicine, and any form of contraceptives. Following this my sibling as also flat out told me "condoms are just as bad as abortions" and that "it is up to the man to decide when to start of family." (Mind you, this specific person has NEVER taken a biology class OR sex ed class in their entire life, nor had a significant other) They just hate, hate, hate... And for how "holy" they are they have NO problem calling me really nasty names and telling me to "suck my cock."
Plus, they have become extremely artifical in publically displaying their faith... Mind y'all none of my family or close friends even did this, so it's not like this is a family thing... But now they have to obnoxiously do the sign of the cross before every meal, they leave their bibles and rosaries all over the house, gives my non-religous (all ex-catholic) family members prayer cards, and if they are really feeling like an asshole they will send me bible versus on how I need to repent and be more like them. It's just so fucking forced and fake...
Whenever I try to talk to them about, just why, they always try to claw me in back to Catholicism. Always. And if it isn't that, they completely lack any common logic/reasoning to their argument and it often ends in bitter screaming matches.
I try, so, hard to find a middle ground with them... or at LEAST TRY to understand where all this shit is coming from but I just can't.
Regardless, I genuinely do not know what to do anymore. Ever since discovering who I am, and my values as a human being, I've really started to grow a deep disappointment for this family member.
They mean a lot to me and of course, I want the best for both of us, but they have made my life a living hell for the previous years... If it isn't trying to start an argument it's ruining personal achievements and accomplishments (tell me my honors should've been THEIRS and how they have been unrightfully given to me)... They have really shown me just how ugly and terrible religion can be and I do not know what other steps to take to have them in my life anymore.
My apologies for the long-ass post, and my gratitude if you made it this far.
2024.05.15 06:05 Crlopaz Appreciation
My husband has stated that he doesn’t feel appreciated and that I am taking advantage of him, his example was I don’t greet him at the door when he gets home and give him a kiss, I’m usually extremely busy with 5 kids 7yrs and under most of which are home with me the majority of the time. I told him I’m always doing something and I trying to get as much done as possible before he gets home so I can spend that time with him instead of him sitting around waiting for me to get the stuff done. That’s not good enough for him he says that’s a Bull shit excuse, he challenged me to tell him what I do to show my appreciation, I told him sex is how I show appreciation. I’m not very sexual, I don’t think about it and generally I’m not interested in doing it but he’s mentioned so many times that that’s how he feel loved and connected so I make a point to do it and try new things and all of that. He told me I’m disgusting for having sex and not wanting it and that I need to want it for it to be love. I truly believe I love him and I’m showing him I love him by have sex to make him feel loved even though it’s not what I want.
submitted by Crlopaz to Marriage [link] [comments]
2024.05.15 05:41 mcoc11 Seen this gift card scam a lot.
 | I have been seeing this scam lately. On the KIK messenger app and now on telegram. Someone inviting me over and then asking for a gift card as "they have kids and don't know any other way to keep their kids busy while grown ups are having sex"excuse. Or the "I don't want my kids to find out" excuse. Be on the lookout for this scam, I have seen this scam on different apps and all sorts of sob stories. submitted by mcoc11 to scambait [link] [comments] |
2024.05.15 05:40 xkoffinkatx New here! Love meeting new folks💖
Hey there, greetings from Maine! 39 year old StonePunk/Rockabilly/Psychobilly Grrrl.
I love going to Shows, smoking Weed, conversation and meeting people, Crystals and tarot cards also Celestial stuff, I love cooking and chilling at home. I'm a Barista by day and moonlight as a CSR at night SO I love chilling out as often as I can. Looking to meet like minded people with similar interests Mid 20's and up. Message Me let's get talking, I'm psyched to meet you.
submitted by xkoffinkatx to LetsChat [link] [comments]
I love going to Shows, smoking Weed, conversation and meeting people, Crystals and tarot cards also Celestial stuff, I love cooking and chilling at home. I'm a Barista by day and moonlight as a CSR at night SO I love chilling out as often as I can. Looking to meet like minded people with similar interests Mid 20's and up. Message Me let's get talking, I'm psyched to meet you.
2024.05.15 05:39 HeyItsEmpyre Deciding Between 2 Companies
Hi all,
I've got a question about managing 2 potential job offers.
Firstly, I went through the guard card training with Securitas. They told me from the beginning, they don't know what pay or posts will be available until after orientation. I was just told Orientation is tomorrow (and I assume after I'll be told what posts there are)
However, I also applied to SIS, in hopes of more options to choose from. The recruiter told me about the specific post, that it pays $25/hr (which is about the highest I could expect for unarmed). It didn't SEEM like a bait and switch where you don't really know what the position or pay is until later... She even told me the area of the city it's in, and that it's a corporate position where I greet people, check for badges, etc. She told me the schedule and shift availability (swing and 3rd only). I don't think they would do this if they actually didn't know which site I would end up at, unless I'm just naive.
Anyways, My preference is very much a chill corporate gig, so I'm leaning towards SIS, especially if Securitas only has retail or something less desirable available. However, I would still consider taking it, because I'm eager to get started (took about 2 months from guard card to now)
My question is, if I go to the paid Orientation tomorrow at Securitas, am I officially "hired on", in which case I would have to "quit" if I decide I want the SIS post more? How would you recommend balancing the two options? Keeping in mind that SIS will probably take a couple weeks to get me going, and Securitas probably sooner. Thanks!
submitted by HeyItsEmpyre to securityguards [link] [comments]
I've got a question about managing 2 potential job offers.
Firstly, I went through the guard card training with Securitas. They told me from the beginning, they don't know what pay or posts will be available until after orientation. I was just told Orientation is tomorrow (and I assume after I'll be told what posts there are)
However, I also applied to SIS, in hopes of more options to choose from. The recruiter told me about the specific post, that it pays $25/hr (which is about the highest I could expect for unarmed). It didn't SEEM like a bait and switch where you don't really know what the position or pay is until later... She even told me the area of the city it's in, and that it's a corporate position where I greet people, check for badges, etc. She told me the schedule and shift availability (swing and 3rd only). I don't think they would do this if they actually didn't know which site I would end up at, unless I'm just naive.
Anyways, My preference is very much a chill corporate gig, so I'm leaning towards SIS, especially if Securitas only has retail or something less desirable available. However, I would still consider taking it, because I'm eager to get started (took about 2 months from guard card to now)
My question is, if I go to the paid Orientation tomorrow at Securitas, am I officially "hired on", in which case I would have to "quit" if I decide I want the SIS post more? How would you recommend balancing the two options? Keeping in mind that SIS will probably take a couple weeks to get me going, and Securitas probably sooner. Thanks!
2024.05.15 05:14 Unlikely4ever My mother is a cheating wife
My mom has been a consistent cheater to my father, even nung bata pa ko, I always see him with another guy. He even physically abused me (sakal lang natatandaan ko - dalawang beses na sakal) when I was 4 yrs old when she found out na I told our neighbors na the guy slept at our home. Pinagtanggol lang ako ng yaya ko kaya di niya ko napuruhan, pero si Yaya nasapak nya sa tummy and muntik pang malaglag sa hagdan to protect me from her.
Fast forward to my college years 2015, she decided to reconnect w an old guy friend from college, and the connection didn't stop. They were seeing each other consistently. Even caught the msgs from the guy on my mom's messenger "I will win you back, I will always win you back" wtf. Hanggang ngayon, they've been seeing each other. Caught her na sinusundo/hinahatid ni guy sa bahay every weekend because she stays w him every weekend and holiday pero ang palabas nya is "may work sya". San ka nakakita ng work na weekend and holidays lang meron? May dala pa syang maliit na dog w her - regalo ata nung guy.
Tapos now, 2024, I have my own place na. Bumukod na ko kay Mama because hindi ko na kaya. She blocked me on all messaging apps. And yung fb nya is puro "galangin mo ang magulang mo" posts. Also, I'm afraid of failing because she always use the "tignan natin saan marating mo" card back then because pinagtanggol ko Dad ko from her cheating and I no longer tolerate it.
Now, naguguluhan ako kung ako ba talaga mali. Na mamalasin ba talaga ko sa buhay because I no longer respect her, that's why I avoided her too. Naaawa lang din ako sa Dad ko, he's been working hard abroad just to be cheated numerous times by my jobless mom.
May cancer now yung Lola ko (Mom ni Mama), and my Dad shoulders most of the expenses kasi ayaw mag ambag ng mga kapatid nya masyado. Naiinis ako, what did my dad do to deserve this? Ako din, what did I do to deserve a mom like her. 3 lang kami sa fam, pero we will never be complete anymore.
Last weekend nung Mother's Day, we did not greet each other at all.
Mamalasin ba ko sa buhay for not tolerating her cheating and abuse?
Edit: Alam ni Papa lahat because sinabi ko.
submitted by Unlikely4ever to OffMyChestPH [link] [comments]
Fast forward to my college years 2015, she decided to reconnect w an old guy friend from college, and the connection didn't stop. They were seeing each other consistently. Even caught the msgs from the guy on my mom's messenger "I will win you back, I will always win you back" wtf. Hanggang ngayon, they've been seeing each other. Caught her na sinusundo/hinahatid ni guy sa bahay every weekend because she stays w him every weekend and holiday pero ang palabas nya is "may work sya". San ka nakakita ng work na weekend and holidays lang meron? May dala pa syang maliit na dog w her - regalo ata nung guy.
Tapos now, 2024, I have my own place na. Bumukod na ko kay Mama because hindi ko na kaya. She blocked me on all messaging apps. And yung fb nya is puro "galangin mo ang magulang mo" posts. Also, I'm afraid of failing because she always use the "tignan natin saan marating mo" card back then because pinagtanggol ko Dad ko from her cheating and I no longer tolerate it.
Now, naguguluhan ako kung ako ba talaga mali. Na mamalasin ba talaga ko sa buhay because I no longer respect her, that's why I avoided her too. Naaawa lang din ako sa Dad ko, he's been working hard abroad just to be cheated numerous times by my jobless mom.
May cancer now yung Lola ko (Mom ni Mama), and my Dad shoulders most of the expenses kasi ayaw mag ambag ng mga kapatid nya masyado. Naiinis ako, what did my dad do to deserve this? Ako din, what did I do to deserve a mom like her. 3 lang kami sa fam, pero we will never be complete anymore.
Last weekend nung Mother's Day, we did not greet each other at all.
Mamalasin ba ko sa buhay for not tolerating her cheating and abuse?
Edit: Alam ni Papa lahat because sinabi ko.
2024.05.15 04:47 JustKneller Epilogues for every BG NPC
By popular demand, I guess...
I was kinda just being a smart-ass, but some of you wanted more so here it is: epilogues for every NPC as if they didn't continue to travel with Gorion's Ward and instead just decided to live their own life. Obviously, there are some implied alignment changes here.
This turned out to be longer than I expected and I kinda just threw it all together while I was working. Please excuse any typos or sloppy writing.
I want to apologize for one thing, though. Viconia's epilogue really only works if GW is a male, so I had to make that assumption for the sake of her story. If it matters any, I easily play just as many female GWs as I do male GWs. In fact, I probably play more female GWs because I don't care for the romances, frequently play the canon party, and want to nip the lame Jah romance in the bud.
But, to have them all in one place, I included my original smart-ass epilogues with the additional ones I created. Now, every character from BG1 and BG2 has an epilogue. I don't have the EE characters, though, because I play the original games and don't really know them.
So, just for funsies, which one is your favorite and why?
"Anomen continued to wait at the Copper Coronet for a party of adventurers willing to travel with him. Maybe it was the grating sound of his voice, or perhaps the way he leered at women, but he continued to remain alone. Eventually, he needed to find work to make ends meet. With Gorion's Ward having disbanded the slave traders and pit fights, Hendak had to find a new form of entertainment for the patrons. As such, he invented an all male review ladies night, and Anomen found work as a 'dancer'. He left the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart to join the less noble order of the pole. He also renounced his faith to Helm and instead allied himself with Waukeen because if you wanna see some groin, you gotta have some coin."
"Despite Gorion's Ward clearing the trolls from her keep, Nalia was not able to reclaim her lands and instead lost her estate to Lord Roenall. The lord offered to let her retain residence in her family's ancestral home, but only in exchange for her hand in marriage. Nalia found the proposition to be repugnant. Instead, she salvaged whatever wealth she could from her family's keep and moved to Athkatla to start a new life. She no longer helped the less fortunate, as she was now among their numbers and had her own problems. Nalia's lack of any practical skills combined with her sense of entitlement sent her into a life of failure followed by drinking and debauchery. She now spends more time back at the Copper Coronet than anywhere else. It is hard to say where she squanders her wealth more, the alcohol, or on the dancers during Ladies Night."
"After the incident with the Planar Sphere, Valygar was finally free of his past, could retire to his cabin, and pursue his true passion: writing. Ironically, the only inspiration he found ended up stemming from his family's checkered past. Valygar's only works that even had middling success were 'Tuesdays with Lavok' and 'Dude, Where's My Planar Sphere', with the latter being made into a production at the Five Flagoons Theater."
"Haer'Dalis continued to work as a performer at the Five Flagoons Theater. Unfortunately, it struggled due to poor management. It might have turned out better if an outside agent with fresh ideas had stepped in, but Gorion's Ward had better things to do than be a bard. While the work was generally steady, the returns were not great and the material was a little low-brow for Haer'Dalis' liking. The tiefling realized he reached rock bottom when he was cast as the lead in a play about a buffoon who apparently lost a plane-shifting apparatus the size of a small castle and had to find it before his parents returned from Neverwinter. After the opening night, he took his own life in his dressing room. His body was found the next morning with a note saying, 'Art is dead and I am art, so I shall join art in death.' Biff the Understudy stepped in for Haer'Dalis despite never having an opportunity to read the script. Nevertheless, the production was a resounding success and launched Biff's career to new heights."
“A heartbroken Garrick found work as a character actor at the Five Flagoons Theater, but eventually gained more success as a writer and director. He found it to be a mostly agreeable situation, aside from a tiefling primadonna who would constantly belittle his work and call it ”trite" and “drivel”. Fortunately, that situation worked itself out in time and Garrick found Biff to be much easier to direct. With the tiefling gone, his ideas had room to grow. He invented a new kind of love story, one where the protagonist doesn't always get the girl at the end but the journey to that ending would be quite amusing. He labeled this genre “the Comedy of Romance” and the works were mostly based on his own life. His plays were quite popular among the commoners, with his top selling shows being 'Sleepless in Saradush', 'Silverymoon Linings Playbook', and 'Crazy Rich Aasimars'. He eventually fully transitioned off the stage into the director's chair. By the peak of his fame, he was married to none other than Queen Ellesime."
“Aerie continued to work at the circus and WOULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT HER DAMN WINGS. Even Quayle eventually grew sick of hearing about it. This put strain on their relationship. Things took a turn for the better when Ribald Barterman acquired a new curiosity for his shop. It was a magical ring which he sold to Quayle at a reduced rate out of sympathy. This ”treasure" was actually a cursed Ring of Deafness, which Quayle found to be anything but a curse and wore it for the rest of his days."
“Xzar and Montaron were both slain at the hands of the Athkatla Harpers, but this is actually where their story begins. Xzar, as he had done so many times before, had a backup plan of an arcane nature should death befall either he or the halfling. Their mortal essences were pulled to a pocket plane he created. There they could be channeled into restored bodies cloned at his estate. With this particular round of ritual, Xzar had incidentally made a slight error in the incantation and the two found themselves in a time suspended state in Xzar's pocket plane. It was only five minutes for the rest of the world, but it was fifty years for them. This turned out to be a pivot point in their relationship. Having only each other's company in this shadowy void, they were finally able to work out their feelings for each other. When they had returned to the prime material plane, they discovered their mutual animosity was replaced with love. Rather than pick up their life where they left off with the Zhentarim, they decided to pack it all in, moved to Bryn Shander, and start a bed and breakfast. Montaron rediscovered his halfling roots and love for the culinary arts while Xzar would perform seances to connect guests with their late loved ones. Scones and Bones became an overnight success and was consistently listed as a “must see” in Volo's travel guides. In their golden years, the couple co-wrote a memoir of their journey, ‘Brokeback Montaron’, which is sold in bookstores everywhere."
“After briefly crossing paths with Gorion's Ward, Mazzy Fentan continued her crusade as a de facto halfling paladin. She eventually found herself petitioning for membership at the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart in Athkatla after she had singlehandedly saved a village from an ancient dracolich. Despite the extent of her virtue and accomplishment, her petition was denied on the basis that halflings could not possibly be real paladins. This inspired her next crusade, one to break down vocational barriers for all demihuman races. Why couldn't halflings be paladins or dwarves be wizards? And why did gnomes always have to be illusionists? It simply made no goddamn sense. She began to get traction with her quest when she attended lectures by the wizards of the (sword) coast in Candlekeep. With their help, she ushered Faerun into a newedition era where there would be no vocational barriers for adventurers based on their race. Soon, the world began to see roguish halflings that also venerated Helm, while tending to the wilds as a druid. Half-orc bards also studied as wizards while manifesting natural arcane abilities as sorcerers. Tiefling paladins took their crusades to the wilderness and served as rangers, while sidelining as clergy to Mystra. The world was now a liberated place, free to not make any goddamn sense in a myriad of new ways. At one point, Lady Mazzy Fentan of Trademeet (now formally a paladin) crossed paths with a dwarven shadowdancebard and in that moment she regretted everything. Seriously, just take a moment and picture that. It would look fucking ridiculous.”
“Yeslick's clanhome was flooded once again. Despondent and without options, he took work at a smithy in Baldur's Gate but never stopped dreaming of finding both a clan and a home. He found a way to bring this dream to life after a courageous halfling paladin broke down the barriers for, among other things, dwarves to be wizards. Yeslick had an idea. He studied magic diligently until he was able to cast two spells of great importance: Water Breathing and Permanence. He then searched the lands for other clanless dwarves who would be willing to try something new. With the new clan he formed, Yeslick permanently gave all his fellow clansman the ability to breath underwater. They then moved into the flooded Cloakwood Mines and built the first underwater dwarven stronghold. Using his arcane powers, Yeslick also developed the ability to speak with the marine life that shared this stronghold. And, with that, the clan Aquadwarf was born. At one point, Valygar visited and wrote a play based on Yeslick's story. However, he couldn't even get it to stage at the Five Flagoons Theater. The illustrious director Garrick was quoted as saying, “A hero that can breath underwater and talk to fish? Nobody would go for that!"
“Keldorn finally retired from the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart and looked forward to a much simpler life. He rekindled his marriage with Lady Maria and life seemed to improve. It was rather early on when the couple discovered that Maria had become pregnant again. It was also not long after that when Peony, the housekeeper, also became pregnant. Maria started to ask Keldorn about this, but Keldorn started to get defensive and asked, ”Hey, who's the Inquisitor here?" Then Keldorn started to do the math with her to track the conception of Maria's pregnancy. She certainly did not want him to get to the end of that equation, so she quickly changed the subject. She suggested getting a new maid, but Keldorn chastised her for abandoning someone in their time of need who had been like family for years. He forbade Peony's departure claiming that his god, Torm, would not stand for it. Maria then made a passive aggressive comment about Torm being the god of loyalty, but she was mostly just muttering under her breath to get the last word in. Eventually, both children were born and had probably the most awkward upbringing of anyone in Faerun."
“After Gorion's Ward helped Coran take down a wyvern, the rogue brought the beast's head back to the mayor of Beregost for the reward and accolades. He thought this put him in a position to be a hero of great renown and perhaps, just maybe, people would stop mocking him for his flashy attire and completely superfluous eye mask. They didn't. He only gained acceptance when he crossed paths with a ranger who seemed indifferent towards Coran's keen fashion sense. Coran traveled the Sword Coast with his ranger sidekick, righting the wrongs against the ‘little guy’ and taking the law into their own hands when needed. This partnership dissolved when he discovered that the ranger thought Coran was the sidekick. As if! Coran tried to correct the ranger, whose argument was, 'Really, man, if that outfit doesn't scream sidekick then I'm Elminster's twin brother.' The ranger was not related to Elminster and shared no resemblance.
“Kivan never was able to get his revenge on Tazok. Unbeknownst to him, that honor was taken by Gorion's Ward. His thirst for vengeance continued to eat away at him until he found himself in a bat infested cave in the wilderness. It was then he snapped. He turned the cave into his secret hideaway, put together a disguise and started wandering the sword coast looking for evil-doers to punish. He would leave his calling card wherever he saved the day, a token of a bat with longer ears like an elf. And bats already had rather long ears so these bat ears were almost comically obtrusive. Nevertheless, his deeds were generally appreciated and the people stared calling him Bat-elf. For a short spell, another elf tagged along with him and tried to help, but he was so flamboyantly dressed that one could pick his sidekick out of the shadows blindfolded. Kivan eventually had to send him on his way. Unfortunately, his vigilante crusade abruptly ended after receiving a cease and decist order from DC Comics. Kivan could fight both monster and marauder all day, but his 14 Constitution wouldn't hold up against a lawsuit for trademark infringement.”
“Skie was deeply affected by both the death of her brother and the assassination of her father. And yes, her father was actually murdered and didn't lol-jk back to life in some crappy DLC. In any event, through these traumas, she came to realize the puerility of what she thought was her brilliant criminal masterminding. Instead, she decided to settle down and live a more responsible life as an upstanding citizen of Baldur's Gate. She took the reins of her father's estate after his death and rose to prominence as one of the Grand Dukes of the city. She maintained her relationship with Eldoth for quite some time, inexplicably, as he refused to get a job because he didn't want to take attention from his band which he swore was going to make it. However, the bard spent most of the day either lounging at Skie’s estate or gambling away his allowance with games of three-dragon-ante at the Helm and Cloak. Eventually, inspired by the book “Men Are From Menzoberranzan, Women Are From Immilmar," she decided to call it quits with Eldoth and sent him packing. Shortly thereafter, she met a man who was nothing like Eldoth and they settled down together to start a family."
“Eldoth's dreams of being a world-famous musician fronting the greatest band in Faerun never reached fruition. This was partly because he didn't actually have a band and partly because he didn't have the talent to write music. Instead, he just had a lute he purchased at Lucky Aello's Discount Store that only had one A-string and was missing the E-string. Also, Eldoth could only play power chords and he couldn't really sing and play at the same time. Most of the time he would just strum a chord or two and then talk about what the song would do next, often describing a solo and half playing it on an ”air lute" (while he was still holding an actual lute, mind you) to give people the idea as to how the song would sound when it was finally written. Yeah, he was one of those guys. After Skie kicked him to the curb, he bounced between various barmaids who clearly had low self-esteem, but not low enough to keep him around for long. Eventually, he got one of them pregnant and was forced into a shotgun wedding by the barmaid's father. He now works in the kitchen at the same inn as his barmaid wife. She helps the customers up front and he cooks eggs in the back. Eldoth continues to tell himself that this experience will just provide inspiration for his music and that someday he was going to get the band back together."
“After being rescued by Gorion's Ward, Xan made his way to Baldur's Gate to regroup. He spent an inordinate amount of time beating himself up over his failures and trying to muster the gumption to continue his quest to unravel the political turmoil of the region. However, it took him months to get to this point, and by that time, Gorion's Ward already sorted out the problems in the region. Discovering this, he deemed himself a failure yet again and sunk into a deeper depression. He pulled himself out of it when he met a woman who lost most of her family to violent deaths during the iron crisis, yet she still kept herself together and became a local success in a few short years. Xan immediately fell in love with the recently single Skie Silvershield and began to court her. They eventually married and started a family. At Xan's insistence, and inspired by his wife's name, their two daughters were named Sunshine and Rainbow. Xan was a staunch supporter of his wife's career and stayed home to raise the kids. When they were older and needed less attending, he followed a new dream and became a motivational speaker.”
“Korgan had his revenge against his backstabbing crew and employer, but he felt...empty. It was done, but he felt no satisfaction. Disgruntled and disappointed, he decided to lose himself in his cups at the Copper Coronet. Even this did nothing to alleviate his malaise. One night, having passed out drunk in a peasant room at the Copper Coronet, he dreamt of that final fight but something was different. In the background of the battle, there was a glow coming from the door of a shack and he heard the whispering of a language that sounded like it was from Kara-Tur. When he woke the next morning, Korgan returned to the rooftop and found the shack from his dream. He knocked and was greeted by a priest of Illmater. Korgan told the priest of his dream and he was led into the backroom where he found a man from Kara-Tur infirm and huddled over a cup of tea. The priest explained that he had just reincarnated this man of the faith using a heart delivered by a passing adventurer. Korgan took this as a sign, converted to the faith, and the two paired up to help those in suffering as a result of the schemes of others. The tales of Korgan and Yoshimo were not only told in many of a tavern by the bards, but also collected in graphic serials that were popular among the children of Athkatla.”
“Ajantis' death sent him into an afterlife at Everwatch, the realm of Helm. For his honor and diligence, the devout knight was granted an audience with his patron. Ajantis then told Helm what utter bullshit the god was. I mean, c'mon, he's the god of protection, the Vigilant One, and he couldn't protect a group of knights from a dragon's cheap illusion spell that a mage even tried to dispel with True Sight? It was like Helm wasn't even trying. Helm was stunned by the confrontation but also had no valid defense. Ajantis called Helm to a trial that was mediated by Tyr. After careful deliberation, Tyr determined that Helm was sleeping on the job and the judgment was to demote him to a lesser deity. Now, Helm was the patron of guards, but not actual guards that ever see action, just the ceremonial ones whose weapons and armor are super shiny and probably not even real. Ajantis was then granted Helm's old portfolio and became a god that truly protected his followers.”
“Viconia left Athkatla's government district perplexed. She was rescued from burning at the stake by Gorion's Ward and then immediately dismissed. She found this to be unusual behavior for a male. She was accustomed to men either trying to bed her or kill her, but this casual indifference was completely new. Viconia came to be obsessed with Gorion's Ward from a distance. She spiraled into a fantasy where the two of them had a future together. It was pretty bad. There were some extremely embarrassing vision boards involved and that wasn't even the worst of it. When her mania reached critical mass, her obsession actually collapsed and she had an epiphany. She came to realize that she did not need this man, or any for that matter. She started on a journey of self discovery and took a moral inventory of her past relationships. She wrote about it in the book, “Men Are From Menzoberranzan, Women Are From Immilmar”. She then used the revenue from the book sales to open Athkatla's first feminist bookstore. In Her Words became a mecca for women, particularly those who felt trapped in bad relationships. The community that emerged here created the group, Friends of Galia, which strove to free women from abusive relationships. Eventually, the bookstore expanded to include an apartment block above that became a shelter for such women. Occasionally, the partners of these victims would come around to In Her Words in an attempt to drag their partners back home. You can probably guess how a confrontation between a drunken 0-level commoner and a Drow priestess of Shar ends."
“Faldorn was defeated by Jaheira in Trademeet and lost her title of Arch-Druid. In truth, she was relieved to be relieved of the position. Years of pushing forward the Shadow Druid agenda led Faldorn to realize that she had lost touch with the real Faldorn along the way. After some soul-searching, she reinvented herself as a lifestyle guru and developed an entire line of organic health and beauty products under the name, She-Wolf. Both her products and seminars were all the rage in Athkatla, specifically among noblewomen who clearly had too much free time. Faldorn eventually gave up her residence in natural environs for a lavish estate in Athkatla's government district. Her following soon pressured her to petition to join the Council of Six after the fall of the Cowled Wizards left the position open (aside from a short-term replacement). Her petition was a success and she soon found herself on the Council of Six. Under her leadership, she created created the FDAA, the Food and Drink Association of Athkatla. Now, instead of draconian rules governing magic in the city, equally restrictive rules and standards were applied to the food and drink that the people consumed.”
“Barely surviving being gravely wounded by Irenicus, Tiax left Spellhold for Athkatla where he intended to do what he did best: rule. Learning from his past campaign mistakes in Baldur's Gate, he changed his slogan from ”Tiax Rules!" to “Make Athkatla Great Again”. Of course, what he thought would make Athkatla great was putting himself in charge as a despotic leader. But, he toned down that aspect of his platform and instead focused on the history of scheming and backroom dealing of the Cowled Wizards (as if he was any less evil or scheming) and promised the people he would be different than all the other corrupt politicians. Miraculously, despite his obviously apparent character flaws, he succeeded in replacing the Cowled Wizards' representative on the Council of Six. He decided to take their stance on restrictive magic to the next level and banned magic entirely. Since he didn't study the arcane himself, it was no skin of his nose. This move undermined his support base leaving him with only the most backwards and ignorant followers. He was ultimately removed from his position when he insisted the city build a wall around the planar sphere and was expecting that the city's wizards would be the ones to pay for it. After his removal, his few remaining extreme supporters organized an invasion of the main government building under the guise of freedom of assembly. All nine of these “rebels” were rounded up, tried, and sent to prison. Tiax was convicted of treason and reincarnated in Spellhold, which was now just a common prison. After his eventual release, he was prohibited from seeking any position of power in Amn."
"Edwin Odesseiron continued to lay low with the Shadow Thieves for a while. The Cowled Wizards suffered a crippling blow as a side effect of the conflict between Gorion's Ward and Irenicus. Edwin decided to step in and finish the job. His thought was that he could wipe out the Cowled Wizard remnants and then take credit for their defeat, thereby gaining him more clout among the Red Wizards of Thay. After many conspicuous mage battles in the streets of Athkatla, he succeeded. However, the people who noticed his efforts the most were actually the people of Athkatla. They were tired of living under the Cowled Wizards' iron fist and Edwin was lauded as a liberator and hero. He even had a statue in his image raised in Waukeen's Promenade. Edwin was initially nonplussed over people finally giving him the credit he always felt he so rightfully deserved. But, he quickly came to accept their praise and bought in to being a champion for the people. Edwin continued his agenda of liberation when a clearly insane gnome who found his way on the Council of Six tried to ban magic entirely in the city. Edwin and his followers were primarily responsible for having the madman removed from his seat.
“Shar-Teel, Safana, Branwen, and Alora all happened to cross paths with each other at Elfsong one evening. Shar-Teel was looking to fight a man, Safana was looking to shag a man, Branwen was recently petrified by a man, and Alora was just excited to be somewhere new. The four got to talking with each other and, despite having wildly different personalities, seemed to hit it off. Shar-Teel was sarcastic and aggressive, Safana was self-absorbed and man-hungry, Alora was kind and sweet, and Branwen was the matriarch of the group. You wouldn't think this lot would get along, but they actually did, and their differences merely become the fuel for innocuous hi-jinks week after week.”
"With Gorion's Ward's help, Cernd was able to rescue his child that he then abandoned again at the druid grove near Trademeet. He promised that he would return to raise the child, he just needed to run to the general shop in Trademeet for some pipeweed. He never returned, but that was pretty obvious since he didn’t even smoke. Cernd continued to wander Faerun. It came to light in Cormyr that Cernd had actually married, and had children, with numerous women in Cormyr, Amn, the Sword Coast, Tethyr, Calimshan, Turmish, Halruaa, Icewind Dale, Chondath, Sembia, Impiltur, the Silver Marches, and even the Troll Hills (don't ask). Furthermore, it was discovered that Cernd was not actually a druid, just a werewolf that had a Ring of Goodberries. The druid con was so that he could have a reason to abandon his wives and children and move on to a new situation. You would be surprised at how many women could fall for a guy that can conjure an impromptu picnic in the park. Unfortunately for Cernd, Cormyr was not the kind of place to run afoul of the legal system. For the crime of bigamy, he was sentenced to life in prison. He never set foot near a druid grove again, but he was allowed to participate in a work-release program tending to the gardens of nobles.
“Kagain returned to his shop and grew even more bitter, but not over what the death of Entar Silvershield's son had done to his reputation and business. Instead, he resented that even the Enhanced Edition of the game didn't give him a remotely decent companion quest. By Moradin's hammer, Cernd even had a pretty involved companion quest and the story there both starts and ends with a deadbeat dad! Also, Kagain can regenerate! Korgan can't even do that. And another thing! He was sick of people confusing the two of them as if all dwarves look alike or something. Ok, granted, they're both old dwarves with greying beards, but Korgan's beard is tied while Kagain's beard is brushed out. Of course, none of this made sense to anyone, even to Kagain who never actually crossed paths with Cernd or Korgan. However, the dwarf had nothing to do with his time except stand in his shop, isolated and alone, until he was done in by insanity and plantar fasciitis.”
“The death of Khalid shook Jaheira to the core. She convinced herself that she could never love again, certainly not so soon after his death nor with anyone that would be a child in her eyes. That would be absurd and rather tacky. After her escape from Irenicus' prison and deposing Faldorn from the druid grove, she took over as Arch-Druid. Being a Harper just wouldn't be the same without Khalid. However, the grove would allow her to explore a new, but comfortingly familiar, phase of life. She had barely been installed as the Arch-Druid when Cernd dropped off his child and disappeared again. He did not even stay long enough to tell Jaheira the child's name. Knowing he would likely not return, she named the child Khalid after her lost love. Realizing there were other children our there without families to care for them, Jahaeira would send her subordinates to wander nearby lands and bring them to the grove for a better life. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of these children happened to be Cernd's. She eventually renamed the grove to Kinder Garden in honor of the grove's new purpose of giving these children a kinder upbringing. Jaheira's headstrong personality served her well with these lost children, who all loved her as they would any mother. The Kinder Garden became the most thriving druid grove in all of Faerun. Jaheira eventually died in 1547 DR, with hundreds of children haven been rescued in her lifetime, and a memorial was erected in her honor at the grove. The inscription read, 'Nature's Servant Awaits.'"
“After being freed from Irenicus' dungeon, Minsc put his boots on the ground at the Copper Coronet. Being the simple man that he was, he found himself unwittingly recruited into fighting in the gladiator pits (before Gorion's Ward was able to free the slaves). Yet again, Minsc took a blow to the head. But this time, its effects were something completely new. No longer was he the slow-witted evil-slaying ranger, armed to the teeth and packing a hamster. Instead, his intelligence and wisdom started to blossom and he explored, through dissertation, the impact of modern civilization on the overall ecosystem of Faerun. Indeed, before Minsc started his work, the people of Faerun didn't even have the concept of an ”ecosystem". He left Athkatla to pursue a residency at Jaheira's grove where he could study and work in peace. He published works like, “The Intersection of Geopolitics and Biodiversity: Living More but Dying Sooner”, “The Essential Symbiosis Between the Savage and Civilization”, and “Moral Urbanization: Seeking a More Comprehensive Prosperity”. Minsc continued his studies and writing and ultimately produced enough groundbreaking works to have his own annex in Candlekeep. It was shortly after the dedication of this annex that Minsc disappeared from Faerun, never to be seen again."
“Jan Jansen's fate was the most impressive of all as his endeavors shaped the very fabric of Faerun for centuries to come. His story truly serves as a moral lesson for everyone and we should heed its virtue quite seriously. Helping Lissa and Jaella planted a seed of regret in Lissa with regards to her marriage to Vaelag. Speaking of seeds, this reminds Jan of a time when he was helping his Uncle Scratchy with his turnip farm. However, Uncle Scratchy was hoodwinked and the seeds he received were actually purple carrot seeds. You can imagine Uncle Scratchy's surprise when they sprouted and he suddenly had a field of purple carrots. Well, as you probably know, you can't make turnip stew, or turnip casserole, or turnip pie with purple carrots. But it just so happened there was a mage tower nearby and the resident mage needed a vast number of carrots. Apparently, her plan was to animate them as a kind of vegetable army to combat a myconid infestation in cave system rather close to her tower. Of course, animated carrots are quite self-assured and were immune to myconoid's confusion spores. Anyway, Jan had a once-removed cousin, Bobil, that was lost in those caves when he was a young gnome. He had wandered so deep that he found himself in the den of a solitary xvart who was obsessed with a magic ring. Bobil happened to purloin that ring but it turned out to not be magic at all. However, it was still worth enough for Bobil to buy himself a nice cottage in Trademeet. He then started his own turnip farm and had better luck than Uncle Scratchy. Wait, what were we talking about, again?”
“Boo continued his mission to study the sentient life forms of Faerun and determine their potential impact on the metaverse. He preferred the continued company of Minsc due to the ranger's kindness and protectiveness. Boo found this to be quite valuable in his current miniaturized state. Even after Minsc's accident, where his intellect began to expand, Minsc never lost his good heart and inherent kindness and the two remained the best of friends. It was a number of years later that the term of Boo's mission was complete. A team of his fellow people arrived on a spelljammer to collect the giant miniaturized space hamster. Minsc (and Boo) were on a retreat in a remote part of the Neverwinter Wood when a vessel shaped like a giant acorn landed in a nearby clearing. A number of human-sized anthropomorphic hamster-like beings, who called themselves the Ysoki, emerged and met with Boo. One had a strange crystalline device which it used to restore Boo to his proper size. Minsc naturally remained composed while all this was happening. He and Boo talked often and he knew this day would be coming. Boo returned to the spelljammer with his brethren to debrief on the mission. The Ysoki wanted to bring a sample back to their homeworld for further learning and study. Boo offered Minsc for the task, as the exemplar human would fit in nicely with the Ysoki's advanced culture and society. Everyone was in agreement and made the offer to the ranger. Minsc felt like he had made every contribution he could to the people of Faerun, so he accepted and boarded the ship. Boo, excited to finally be on a spelljammer again, took the helm and plotted a course for his homeworld. At his side sat his friend and faithful companion, Minsc.”
submitted by JustKneller to baldursgate [link] [comments]
I was kinda just being a smart-ass, but some of you wanted more so here it is: epilogues for every NPC as if they didn't continue to travel with Gorion's Ward and instead just decided to live their own life. Obviously, there are some implied alignment changes here.
This turned out to be longer than I expected and I kinda just threw it all together while I was working. Please excuse any typos or sloppy writing.
I want to apologize for one thing, though. Viconia's epilogue really only works if GW is a male, so I had to make that assumption for the sake of her story. If it matters any, I easily play just as many female GWs as I do male GWs. In fact, I probably play more female GWs because I don't care for the romances, frequently play the canon party, and want to nip the lame Jah romance in the bud.
But, to have them all in one place, I included my original smart-ass epilogues with the additional ones I created. Now, every character from BG1 and BG2 has an epilogue. I don't have the EE characters, though, because I play the original games and don't really know them.
So, just for funsies, which one is your favorite and why?
"Anomen continued to wait at the Copper Coronet for a party of adventurers willing to travel with him. Maybe it was the grating sound of his voice, or perhaps the way he leered at women, but he continued to remain alone. Eventually, he needed to find work to make ends meet. With Gorion's Ward having disbanded the slave traders and pit fights, Hendak had to find a new form of entertainment for the patrons. As such, he invented an all male review ladies night, and Anomen found work as a 'dancer'. He left the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart to join the less noble order of the pole. He also renounced his faith to Helm and instead allied himself with Waukeen because if you wanna see some groin, you gotta have some coin."
"Despite Gorion's Ward clearing the trolls from her keep, Nalia was not able to reclaim her lands and instead lost her estate to Lord Roenall. The lord offered to let her retain residence in her family's ancestral home, but only in exchange for her hand in marriage. Nalia found the proposition to be repugnant. Instead, she salvaged whatever wealth she could from her family's keep and moved to Athkatla to start a new life. She no longer helped the less fortunate, as she was now among their numbers and had her own problems. Nalia's lack of any practical skills combined with her sense of entitlement sent her into a life of failure followed by drinking and debauchery. She now spends more time back at the Copper Coronet than anywhere else. It is hard to say where she squanders her wealth more, the alcohol, or on the dancers during Ladies Night."
"After the incident with the Planar Sphere, Valygar was finally free of his past, could retire to his cabin, and pursue his true passion: writing. Ironically, the only inspiration he found ended up stemming from his family's checkered past. Valygar's only works that even had middling success were 'Tuesdays with Lavok' and 'Dude, Where's My Planar Sphere', with the latter being made into a production at the Five Flagoons Theater."
"Haer'Dalis continued to work as a performer at the Five Flagoons Theater. Unfortunately, it struggled due to poor management. It might have turned out better if an outside agent with fresh ideas had stepped in, but Gorion's Ward had better things to do than be a bard. While the work was generally steady, the returns were not great and the material was a little low-brow for Haer'Dalis' liking. The tiefling realized he reached rock bottom when he was cast as the lead in a play about a buffoon who apparently lost a plane-shifting apparatus the size of a small castle and had to find it before his parents returned from Neverwinter. After the opening night, he took his own life in his dressing room. His body was found the next morning with a note saying, 'Art is dead and I am art, so I shall join art in death.' Biff the Understudy stepped in for Haer'Dalis despite never having an opportunity to read the script. Nevertheless, the production was a resounding success and launched Biff's career to new heights."
“A heartbroken Garrick found work as a character actor at the Five Flagoons Theater, but eventually gained more success as a writer and director. He found it to be a mostly agreeable situation, aside from a tiefling primadonna who would constantly belittle his work and call it ”trite" and “drivel”. Fortunately, that situation worked itself out in time and Garrick found Biff to be much easier to direct. With the tiefling gone, his ideas had room to grow. He invented a new kind of love story, one where the protagonist doesn't always get the girl at the end but the journey to that ending would be quite amusing. He labeled this genre “the Comedy of Romance” and the works were mostly based on his own life. His plays were quite popular among the commoners, with his top selling shows being 'Sleepless in Saradush', 'Silverymoon Linings Playbook', and 'Crazy Rich Aasimars'. He eventually fully transitioned off the stage into the director's chair. By the peak of his fame, he was married to none other than Queen Ellesime."
“Aerie continued to work at the circus and WOULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT HER DAMN WINGS. Even Quayle eventually grew sick of hearing about it. This put strain on their relationship. Things took a turn for the better when Ribald Barterman acquired a new curiosity for his shop. It was a magical ring which he sold to Quayle at a reduced rate out of sympathy. This ”treasure" was actually a cursed Ring of Deafness, which Quayle found to be anything but a curse and wore it for the rest of his days."
“Xzar and Montaron were both slain at the hands of the Athkatla Harpers, but this is actually where their story begins. Xzar, as he had done so many times before, had a backup plan of an arcane nature should death befall either he or the halfling. Their mortal essences were pulled to a pocket plane he created. There they could be channeled into restored bodies cloned at his estate. With this particular round of ritual, Xzar had incidentally made a slight error in the incantation and the two found themselves in a time suspended state in Xzar's pocket plane. It was only five minutes for the rest of the world, but it was fifty years for them. This turned out to be a pivot point in their relationship. Having only each other's company in this shadowy void, they were finally able to work out their feelings for each other. When they had returned to the prime material plane, they discovered their mutual animosity was replaced with love. Rather than pick up their life where they left off with the Zhentarim, they decided to pack it all in, moved to Bryn Shander, and start a bed and breakfast. Montaron rediscovered his halfling roots and love for the culinary arts while Xzar would perform seances to connect guests with their late loved ones. Scones and Bones became an overnight success and was consistently listed as a “must see” in Volo's travel guides. In their golden years, the couple co-wrote a memoir of their journey, ‘Brokeback Montaron’, which is sold in bookstores everywhere."
“After briefly crossing paths with Gorion's Ward, Mazzy Fentan continued her crusade as a de facto halfling paladin. She eventually found herself petitioning for membership at the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart in Athkatla after she had singlehandedly saved a village from an ancient dracolich. Despite the extent of her virtue and accomplishment, her petition was denied on the basis that halflings could not possibly be real paladins. This inspired her next crusade, one to break down vocational barriers for all demihuman races. Why couldn't halflings be paladins or dwarves be wizards? And why did gnomes always have to be illusionists? It simply made no goddamn sense. She began to get traction with her quest when she attended lectures by the wizards of the (sword) coast in Candlekeep. With their help, she ushered Faerun into a new
“Yeslick's clanhome was flooded once again. Despondent and without options, he took work at a smithy in Baldur's Gate but never stopped dreaming of finding both a clan and a home. He found a way to bring this dream to life after a courageous halfling paladin broke down the barriers for, among other things, dwarves to be wizards. Yeslick had an idea. He studied magic diligently until he was able to cast two spells of great importance: Water Breathing and Permanence. He then searched the lands for other clanless dwarves who would be willing to try something new. With the new clan he formed, Yeslick permanently gave all his fellow clansman the ability to breath underwater. They then moved into the flooded Cloakwood Mines and built the first underwater dwarven stronghold. Using his arcane powers, Yeslick also developed the ability to speak with the marine life that shared this stronghold. And, with that, the clan Aquadwarf was born. At one point, Valygar visited and wrote a play based on Yeslick's story. However, he couldn't even get it to stage at the Five Flagoons Theater. The illustrious director Garrick was quoted as saying, “A hero that can breath underwater and talk to fish? Nobody would go for that!"
“Keldorn finally retired from the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart and looked forward to a much simpler life. He rekindled his marriage with Lady Maria and life seemed to improve. It was rather early on when the couple discovered that Maria had become pregnant again. It was also not long after that when Peony, the housekeeper, also became pregnant. Maria started to ask Keldorn about this, but Keldorn started to get defensive and asked, ”Hey, who's the Inquisitor here?" Then Keldorn started to do the math with her to track the conception of Maria's pregnancy. She certainly did not want him to get to the end of that equation, so she quickly changed the subject. She suggested getting a new maid, but Keldorn chastised her for abandoning someone in their time of need who had been like family for years. He forbade Peony's departure claiming that his god, Torm, would not stand for it. Maria then made a passive aggressive comment about Torm being the god of loyalty, but she was mostly just muttering under her breath to get the last word in. Eventually, both children were born and had probably the most awkward upbringing of anyone in Faerun."
“After Gorion's Ward helped Coran take down a wyvern, the rogue brought the beast's head back to the mayor of Beregost for the reward and accolades. He thought this put him in a position to be a hero of great renown and perhaps, just maybe, people would stop mocking him for his flashy attire and completely superfluous eye mask. They didn't. He only gained acceptance when he crossed paths with a ranger who seemed indifferent towards Coran's keen fashion sense. Coran traveled the Sword Coast with his ranger sidekick, righting the wrongs against the ‘little guy’ and taking the law into their own hands when needed. This partnership dissolved when he discovered that the ranger thought Coran was the sidekick. As if! Coran tried to correct the ranger, whose argument was, 'Really, man, if that outfit doesn't scream sidekick then I'm Elminster's twin brother.' The ranger was not related to Elminster and shared no resemblance.
“Kivan never was able to get his revenge on Tazok. Unbeknownst to him, that honor was taken by Gorion's Ward. His thirst for vengeance continued to eat away at him until he found himself in a bat infested cave in the wilderness. It was then he snapped. He turned the cave into his secret hideaway, put together a disguise and started wandering the sword coast looking for evil-doers to punish. He would leave his calling card wherever he saved the day, a token of a bat with longer ears like an elf. And bats already had rather long ears so these bat ears were almost comically obtrusive. Nevertheless, his deeds were generally appreciated and the people stared calling him Bat-elf. For a short spell, another elf tagged along with him and tried to help, but he was so flamboyantly dressed that one could pick his sidekick out of the shadows blindfolded. Kivan eventually had to send him on his way. Unfortunately, his vigilante crusade abruptly ended after receiving a cease and decist order from DC Comics. Kivan could fight both monster and marauder all day, but his 14 Constitution wouldn't hold up against a lawsuit for trademark infringement.”
“Skie was deeply affected by both the death of her brother and the assassination of her father. And yes, her father was actually murdered and didn't lol-jk back to life in some crappy DLC. In any event, through these traumas, she came to realize the puerility of what she thought was her brilliant criminal masterminding. Instead, she decided to settle down and live a more responsible life as an upstanding citizen of Baldur's Gate. She took the reins of her father's estate after his death and rose to prominence as one of the Grand Dukes of the city. She maintained her relationship with Eldoth for quite some time, inexplicably, as he refused to get a job because he didn't want to take attention from his band which he swore was going to make it. However, the bard spent most of the day either lounging at Skie’s estate or gambling away his allowance with games of three-dragon-ante at the Helm and Cloak. Eventually, inspired by the book “Men Are From Menzoberranzan, Women Are From Immilmar," she decided to call it quits with Eldoth and sent him packing. Shortly thereafter, she met a man who was nothing like Eldoth and they settled down together to start a family."
“Eldoth's dreams of being a world-famous musician fronting the greatest band in Faerun never reached fruition. This was partly because he didn't actually have a band and partly because he didn't have the talent to write music. Instead, he just had a lute he purchased at Lucky Aello's Discount Store that only had one A-string and was missing the E-string. Also, Eldoth could only play power chords and he couldn't really sing and play at the same time. Most of the time he would just strum a chord or two and then talk about what the song would do next, often describing a solo and half playing it on an ”air lute" (while he was still holding an actual lute, mind you) to give people the idea as to how the song would sound when it was finally written. Yeah, he was one of those guys. After Skie kicked him to the curb, he bounced between various barmaids who clearly had low self-esteem, but not low enough to keep him around for long. Eventually, he got one of them pregnant and was forced into a shotgun wedding by the barmaid's father. He now works in the kitchen at the same inn as his barmaid wife. She helps the customers up front and he cooks eggs in the back. Eldoth continues to tell himself that this experience will just provide inspiration for his music and that someday he was going to get the band back together."
“After being rescued by Gorion's Ward, Xan made his way to Baldur's Gate to regroup. He spent an inordinate amount of time beating himself up over his failures and trying to muster the gumption to continue his quest to unravel the political turmoil of the region. However, it took him months to get to this point, and by that time, Gorion's Ward already sorted out the problems in the region. Discovering this, he deemed himself a failure yet again and sunk into a deeper depression. He pulled himself out of it when he met a woman who lost most of her family to violent deaths during the iron crisis, yet she still kept herself together and became a local success in a few short years. Xan immediately fell in love with the recently single Skie Silvershield and began to court her. They eventually married and started a family. At Xan's insistence, and inspired by his wife's name, their two daughters were named Sunshine and Rainbow. Xan was a staunch supporter of his wife's career and stayed home to raise the kids. When they were older and needed less attending, he followed a new dream and became a motivational speaker.”
“Korgan had his revenge against his backstabbing crew and employer, but he felt...empty. It was done, but he felt no satisfaction. Disgruntled and disappointed, he decided to lose himself in his cups at the Copper Coronet. Even this did nothing to alleviate his malaise. One night, having passed out drunk in a peasant room at the Copper Coronet, he dreamt of that final fight but something was different. In the background of the battle, there was a glow coming from the door of a shack and he heard the whispering of a language that sounded like it was from Kara-Tur. When he woke the next morning, Korgan returned to the rooftop and found the shack from his dream. He knocked and was greeted by a priest of Illmater. Korgan told the priest of his dream and he was led into the backroom where he found a man from Kara-Tur infirm and huddled over a cup of tea. The priest explained that he had just reincarnated this man of the faith using a heart delivered by a passing adventurer. Korgan took this as a sign, converted to the faith, and the two paired up to help those in suffering as a result of the schemes of others. The tales of Korgan and Yoshimo were not only told in many of a tavern by the bards, but also collected in graphic serials that were popular among the children of Athkatla.”
“Ajantis' death sent him into an afterlife at Everwatch, the realm of Helm. For his honor and diligence, the devout knight was granted an audience with his patron. Ajantis then told Helm what utter bullshit the god was. I mean, c'mon, he's the god of protection, the Vigilant One, and he couldn't protect a group of knights from a dragon's cheap illusion spell that a mage even tried to dispel with True Sight? It was like Helm wasn't even trying. Helm was stunned by the confrontation but also had no valid defense. Ajantis called Helm to a trial that was mediated by Tyr. After careful deliberation, Tyr determined that Helm was sleeping on the job and the judgment was to demote him to a lesser deity. Now, Helm was the patron of guards, but not actual guards that ever see action, just the ceremonial ones whose weapons and armor are super shiny and probably not even real. Ajantis was then granted Helm's old portfolio and became a god that truly protected his followers.”
“Viconia left Athkatla's government district perplexed. She was rescued from burning at the stake by Gorion's Ward and then immediately dismissed. She found this to be unusual behavior for a male. She was accustomed to men either trying to bed her or kill her, but this casual indifference was completely new. Viconia came to be obsessed with Gorion's Ward from a distance. She spiraled into a fantasy where the two of them had a future together. It was pretty bad. There were some extremely embarrassing vision boards involved and that wasn't even the worst of it. When her mania reached critical mass, her obsession actually collapsed and she had an epiphany. She came to realize that she did not need this man, or any for that matter. She started on a journey of self discovery and took a moral inventory of her past relationships. She wrote about it in the book, “Men Are From Menzoberranzan, Women Are From Immilmar”. She then used the revenue from the book sales to open Athkatla's first feminist bookstore. In Her Words became a mecca for women, particularly those who felt trapped in bad relationships. The community that emerged here created the group, Friends of Galia, which strove to free women from abusive relationships. Eventually, the bookstore expanded to include an apartment block above that became a shelter for such women. Occasionally, the partners of these victims would come around to In Her Words in an attempt to drag their partners back home. You can probably guess how a confrontation between a drunken 0-level commoner and a Drow priestess of Shar ends."
“Faldorn was defeated by Jaheira in Trademeet and lost her title of Arch-Druid. In truth, she was relieved to be relieved of the position. Years of pushing forward the Shadow Druid agenda led Faldorn to realize that she had lost touch with the real Faldorn along the way. After some soul-searching, she reinvented herself as a lifestyle guru and developed an entire line of organic health and beauty products under the name, She-Wolf. Both her products and seminars were all the rage in Athkatla, specifically among noblewomen who clearly had too much free time. Faldorn eventually gave up her residence in natural environs for a lavish estate in Athkatla's government district. Her following soon pressured her to petition to join the Council of Six after the fall of the Cowled Wizards left the position open (aside from a short-term replacement). Her petition was a success and she soon found herself on the Council of Six. Under her leadership, she created created the FDAA, the Food and Drink Association of Athkatla. Now, instead of draconian rules governing magic in the city, equally restrictive rules and standards were applied to the food and drink that the people consumed.”
“Barely surviving being gravely wounded by Irenicus, Tiax left Spellhold for Athkatla where he intended to do what he did best: rule. Learning from his past campaign mistakes in Baldur's Gate, he changed his slogan from ”Tiax Rules!" to “Make Athkatla Great Again”. Of course, what he thought would make Athkatla great was putting himself in charge as a despotic leader. But, he toned down that aspect of his platform and instead focused on the history of scheming and backroom dealing of the Cowled Wizards (as if he was any less evil or scheming) and promised the people he would be different than all the other corrupt politicians. Miraculously, despite his obviously apparent character flaws, he succeeded in replacing the Cowled Wizards' representative on the Council of Six. He decided to take their stance on restrictive magic to the next level and banned magic entirely. Since he didn't study the arcane himself, it was no skin of his nose. This move undermined his support base leaving him with only the most backwards and ignorant followers. He was ultimately removed from his position when he insisted the city build a wall around the planar sphere and was expecting that the city's wizards would be the ones to pay for it. After his removal, his few remaining extreme supporters organized an invasion of the main government building under the guise of freedom of assembly. All nine of these “rebels” were rounded up, tried, and sent to prison. Tiax was convicted of treason and reincarnated in Spellhold, which was now just a common prison. After his eventual release, he was prohibited from seeking any position of power in Amn."
"Edwin Odesseiron continued to lay low with the Shadow Thieves for a while. The Cowled Wizards suffered a crippling blow as a side effect of the conflict between Gorion's Ward and Irenicus. Edwin decided to step in and finish the job. His thought was that he could wipe out the Cowled Wizard remnants and then take credit for their defeat, thereby gaining him more clout among the Red Wizards of Thay. After many conspicuous mage battles in the streets of Athkatla, he succeeded. However, the people who noticed his efforts the most were actually the people of Athkatla. They were tired of living under the Cowled Wizards' iron fist and Edwin was lauded as a liberator and hero. He even had a statue in his image raised in Waukeen's Promenade. Edwin was initially nonplussed over people finally giving him the credit he always felt he so rightfully deserved. But, he quickly came to accept their praise and bought in to being a champion for the people. Edwin continued his agenda of liberation when a clearly insane gnome who found his way on the Council of Six tried to ban magic entirely in the city. Edwin and his followers were primarily responsible for having the madman removed from his seat.
“Shar-Teel, Safana, Branwen, and Alora all happened to cross paths with each other at Elfsong one evening. Shar-Teel was looking to fight a man, Safana was looking to shag a man, Branwen was recently petrified by a man, and Alora was just excited to be somewhere new. The four got to talking with each other and, despite having wildly different personalities, seemed to hit it off. Shar-Teel was sarcastic and aggressive, Safana was self-absorbed and man-hungry, Alora was kind and sweet, and Branwen was the matriarch of the group. You wouldn't think this lot would get along, but they actually did, and their differences merely become the fuel for innocuous hi-jinks week after week.”
"With Gorion's Ward's help, Cernd was able to rescue his child that he then abandoned again at the druid grove near Trademeet. He promised that he would return to raise the child, he just needed to run to the general shop in Trademeet for some pipeweed. He never returned, but that was pretty obvious since he didn’t even smoke. Cernd continued to wander Faerun. It came to light in Cormyr that Cernd had actually married, and had children, with numerous women in Cormyr, Amn, the Sword Coast, Tethyr, Calimshan, Turmish, Halruaa, Icewind Dale, Chondath, Sembia, Impiltur, the Silver Marches, and even the Troll Hills (don't ask). Furthermore, it was discovered that Cernd was not actually a druid, just a werewolf that had a Ring of Goodberries. The druid con was so that he could have a reason to abandon his wives and children and move on to a new situation. You would be surprised at how many women could fall for a guy that can conjure an impromptu picnic in the park. Unfortunately for Cernd, Cormyr was not the kind of place to run afoul of the legal system. For the crime of bigamy, he was sentenced to life in prison. He never set foot near a druid grove again, but he was allowed to participate in a work-release program tending to the gardens of nobles.
“Kagain returned to his shop and grew even more bitter, but not over what the death of Entar Silvershield's son had done to his reputation and business. Instead, he resented that even the Enhanced Edition of the game didn't give him a remotely decent companion quest. By Moradin's hammer, Cernd even had a pretty involved companion quest and the story there both starts and ends with a deadbeat dad! Also, Kagain can regenerate! Korgan can't even do that. And another thing! He was sick of people confusing the two of them as if all dwarves look alike or something. Ok, granted, they're both old dwarves with greying beards, but Korgan's beard is tied while Kagain's beard is brushed out. Of course, none of this made sense to anyone, even to Kagain who never actually crossed paths with Cernd or Korgan. However, the dwarf had nothing to do with his time except stand in his shop, isolated and alone, until he was done in by insanity and plantar fasciitis.”
“The death of Khalid shook Jaheira to the core. She convinced herself that she could never love again, certainly not so soon after his death nor with anyone that would be a child in her eyes. That would be absurd and rather tacky. After her escape from Irenicus' prison and deposing Faldorn from the druid grove, she took over as Arch-Druid. Being a Harper just wouldn't be the same without Khalid. However, the grove would allow her to explore a new, but comfortingly familiar, phase of life. She had barely been installed as the Arch-Druid when Cernd dropped off his child and disappeared again. He did not even stay long enough to tell Jaheira the child's name. Knowing he would likely not return, she named the child Khalid after her lost love. Realizing there were other children our there without families to care for them, Jahaeira would send her subordinates to wander nearby lands and bring them to the grove for a better life. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of these children happened to be Cernd's. She eventually renamed the grove to Kinder Garden in honor of the grove's new purpose of giving these children a kinder upbringing. Jaheira's headstrong personality served her well with these lost children, who all loved her as they would any mother. The Kinder Garden became the most thriving druid grove in all of Faerun. Jaheira eventually died in 1547 DR, with hundreds of children haven been rescued in her lifetime, and a memorial was erected in her honor at the grove. The inscription read, 'Nature's Servant Awaits.'"
“After being freed from Irenicus' dungeon, Minsc put his boots on the ground at the Copper Coronet. Being the simple man that he was, he found himself unwittingly recruited into fighting in the gladiator pits (before Gorion's Ward was able to free the slaves). Yet again, Minsc took a blow to the head. But this time, its effects were something completely new. No longer was he the slow-witted evil-slaying ranger, armed to the teeth and packing a hamster. Instead, his intelligence and wisdom started to blossom and he explored, through dissertation, the impact of modern civilization on the overall ecosystem of Faerun. Indeed, before Minsc started his work, the people of Faerun didn't even have the concept of an ”ecosystem". He left Athkatla to pursue a residency at Jaheira's grove where he could study and work in peace. He published works like, “The Intersection of Geopolitics and Biodiversity: Living More but Dying Sooner”, “The Essential Symbiosis Between the Savage and Civilization”, and “Moral Urbanization: Seeking a More Comprehensive Prosperity”. Minsc continued his studies and writing and ultimately produced enough groundbreaking works to have his own annex in Candlekeep. It was shortly after the dedication of this annex that Minsc disappeared from Faerun, never to be seen again."
“Jan Jansen's fate was the most impressive of all as his endeavors shaped the very fabric of Faerun for centuries to come. His story truly serves as a moral lesson for everyone and we should heed its virtue quite seriously. Helping Lissa and Jaella planted a seed of regret in Lissa with regards to her marriage to Vaelag. Speaking of seeds, this reminds Jan of a time when he was helping his Uncle Scratchy with his turnip farm. However, Uncle Scratchy was hoodwinked and the seeds he received were actually purple carrot seeds. You can imagine Uncle Scratchy's surprise when they sprouted and he suddenly had a field of purple carrots. Well, as you probably know, you can't make turnip stew, or turnip casserole, or turnip pie with purple carrots. But it just so happened there was a mage tower nearby and the resident mage needed a vast number of carrots. Apparently, her plan was to animate them as a kind of vegetable army to combat a myconid infestation in cave system rather close to her tower. Of course, animated carrots are quite self-assured and were immune to myconoid's confusion spores. Anyway, Jan had a once-removed cousin, Bobil, that was lost in those caves when he was a young gnome. He had wandered so deep that he found himself in the den of a solitary xvart who was obsessed with a magic ring. Bobil happened to purloin that ring but it turned out to not be magic at all. However, it was still worth enough for Bobil to buy himself a nice cottage in Trademeet. He then started his own turnip farm and had better luck than Uncle Scratchy. Wait, what were we talking about, again?”
“Boo continued his mission to study the sentient life forms of Faerun and determine their potential impact on the metaverse. He preferred the continued company of Minsc due to the ranger's kindness and protectiveness. Boo found this to be quite valuable in his current miniaturized state. Even after Minsc's accident, where his intellect began to expand, Minsc never lost his good heart and inherent kindness and the two remained the best of friends. It was a number of years later that the term of Boo's mission was complete. A team of his fellow people arrived on a spelljammer to collect the giant miniaturized space hamster. Minsc (and Boo) were on a retreat in a remote part of the Neverwinter Wood when a vessel shaped like a giant acorn landed in a nearby clearing. A number of human-sized anthropomorphic hamster-like beings, who called themselves the Ysoki, emerged and met with Boo. One had a strange crystalline device which it used to restore Boo to his proper size. Minsc naturally remained composed while all this was happening. He and Boo talked often and he knew this day would be coming. Boo returned to the spelljammer with his brethren to debrief on the mission. The Ysoki wanted to bring a sample back to their homeworld for further learning and study. Boo offered Minsc for the task, as the exemplar human would fit in nicely with the Ysoki's advanced culture and society. Everyone was in agreement and made the offer to the ranger. Minsc felt like he had made every contribution he could to the people of Faerun, so he accepted and boarded the ship. Boo, excited to finally be on a spelljammer again, took the helm and plotted a course for his homeworld. At his side sat his friend and faithful companion, Minsc.”
2024.05.15 04:13 zombieofcoffee I hate the CVS pharmacist
The pic is here to show you how I'm walking into the pharmacy.
If i remember correctly a few of you guys thought I was a cis guy trolling last time I posted. So I know that this is absolutely transphobia that I'm experiencing. -sigh-
The pharmacist KNOWS I've transitioned. Sees the name and gender marker. Greets me full bearded broad shoulder cis looking guy as I'll be right with you ma'am I mean sir. How are you doing? What's your new name again?
I mean your holding my id.
Let me check if we have the right name and pro nouns in here. It might not pass insurance if we have the wrong letter here. All it takes is a wrong m or I mean a wrong f and it can deny your whole script.
This lady has gone far enough to deny a diabetic medication because they had the wrong identity marker in the system. She made fake calls to my insurance company in front of me to tell me they only have an Annamarie in their system not a Danh. I'm handing her an insurance card that says Danh and a photo id that says Danh both with a nice little m under gender.
She also puts a mask on every time I come to the counter but not for other customers.
I'm stuck using this pharmacy. ( At least for the time being. ) How would you all deal with this?
submitted by zombieofcoffee to TransLater [link] [comments]
If i remember correctly a few of you guys thought I was a cis guy trolling last time I posted. So I know that this is absolutely transphobia that I'm experiencing. -sigh-
The pharmacist KNOWS I've transitioned. Sees the name and gender marker. Greets me full bearded broad shoulder cis looking guy as I'll be right with you ma'am I mean sir. How are you doing? What's your new name again?
I mean your holding my id.
Let me check if we have the right name and pro nouns in here. It might not pass insurance if we have the wrong letter here. All it takes is a wrong m or I mean a wrong f and it can deny your whole script.
This lady has gone far enough to deny a diabetic medication because they had the wrong identity marker in the system. She made fake calls to my insurance company in front of me to tell me they only have an Annamarie in their system not a Danh. I'm handing her an insurance card that says Danh and a photo id that says Danh both with a nice little m under gender.
She also puts a mask on every time I come to the counter but not for other customers.
I'm stuck using this pharmacy. ( At least for the time being. ) How would you all deal with this?
2024.05.15 03:31 extra-thick-cock 30 M4F Buffalo/Monticello Area
Low on groceries, gas or cash? Hit me up i have a bunch of $50-$100 gift cards (Visa, Wal-Mart, Target, Holiday, and Starbucks. I am clean vetted straight male average build i am 30 years old. I am just asking for some type of sexual favor hand or oral can get you your choice of gift card. Oral and sex you can have 5 gift cards of your choosing.
Now you may be asking. "Steven you are such a nice gentleman why are you doimg this?" Well to answer your question. I am i nice & respectful single gentleman and if im completely honest dating is hard and people suck. I am a hard core introvert so peopleing is not a thing i do but i am a man and i have needs. So i have taken to the interwebs to fill these needs.
Please don't call me please text me if you are interested. 7632309793
submitted by extra-thick-cock to u/extra-thick-cock [link] [comments]
Now you may be asking. "Steven you are such a nice gentleman why are you doimg this?" Well to answer your question. I am i nice & respectful single gentleman and if im completely honest dating is hard and people suck. I am a hard core introvert so peopleing is not a thing i do but i am a man and i have needs. So i have taken to the interwebs to fill these needs.
Please don't call me please text me if you are interested. 7632309793
2024.05.15 02:01 FunSubBtm Am I Weird In Bed??
I could pass off as straight at work or in public but in bed.. I want to be treated like a woman. Hehe.
Gusto ko ung sinasabihan na bubuntisin ako, momol, niririm ako and niroromansa, kantot asawa, finifinger habang dinedede and all.
Di naman mahirap maghanap ng tops since thank you heavens sa face card pero Ung encounters ko na ganito treatment saken super satisfied ako. I don't want to be trans naman pero gusto ko laging submissive. Pag normal sex lang is okay lang din.
Super hypermasculine kasi ng community and most porn natin kaya I feel left out. Ako lang ba ganito?
submitted by FunSubBtm to phlgbt [link] [comments]
Gusto ko ung sinasabihan na bubuntisin ako, momol, niririm ako and niroromansa, kantot asawa, finifinger habang dinedede and all.
Di naman mahirap maghanap ng tops since thank you heavens sa face card pero Ung encounters ko na ganito treatment saken super satisfied ako. I don't want to be trans naman pero gusto ko laging submissive. Pag normal sex lang is okay lang din.
Super hypermasculine kasi ng community and most porn natin kaya I feel left out. Ako lang ba ganito?