Five girls finger painting

Do you agree with anything Kanye says nowadays?

2024.05.24 00:33 shin-chan3 Do you agree with anything Kanye says nowadays?

I mostly listen to him for the comedic value of it. My gf got me into it because apparently he makes her laugh her ass off with his rants. And i know most people, particularly within the "culture" see him as kind of demented, but even though i agree he does say a lot of stupid shit, there's value in some of the things he says.
Just now i was listening to him in a podcast where he says he turned his back on the "culture". The culture of victimization. Which i absolutely agree exists, and it's very profitable for some people. Not for the supposed "victims", but for those who convince you that you're a victim.
Then he started talking about how the "culture" victimizes you, but then it's all about spending money on stupid shit instead of making good investments, rapping about glorifying degeneracy, etc. You talk about prison reforms, but then rap about shit that will get you locked up. You complain about the police and discrimination, but then can't shut up about drugs and pimpin' hoes. You show nothing to the kids that will give them good goals in life. Look what you're rapping about. Look what you're showing in music videos. Look what gets applauded and glorified.
To me this reminds me of other problems we have in my country with certain minorities, where they claim to be victims, but they can't bring themselves to lift their own people. All they can do is bitch about being victims. Complain, complain, complain. But then happily glorify ways of life that are absolutely destructive. You don't see them pointing their fingers at their own for the dumb choices they make. You don't see them trying to educate themselves. It's all about pointing the fingers at the white man and ripping the benefits off it.
Also, historically, slavery and oppression is way more widespread than people are lead to believe. And i have a lot of experience with people that aren't black and were enslaved and oppressed for a long, long time. Some are still dealing with the consequences of it. But what i noticed is that the "victim mentality" among these people is mostly nonexistent. So, there's definitely a big cultural component to how much of a victim you feel, and how dependent you are from other's pity.
He isn't as crazy as he may seem. However, there's a big resistance to his way of approaching victimhood. And i believe he's going against a lot of people's livelihood, which is dependent exactly on victim mentality. In my country there are people who eat because they call everything racism. That's literally their job. They're part of governmental "anti racism" orgs, and what they will do is stir the pot at every opportunity.
Example: Not too long ago a group of african migrants terrorized a certain part of a city every single day. Robberies in bright daylight, aggressions, sexual assault, etc. Every day, and everyone knew who they were. Nothing was done about it. One day a group of natives decided to play vigilante and beat the living fuck out of all these migrants, after one of them attacked a preganant women. Essentially, the good old fuck around and find out. Now it's a big story about racism. That's these people's job: Turn this into a race problem. It's how they feed their family: They wait for a black guy to be beaten or insulted and claim it's racism. It's also the reason certain parties exist. Take away racism and they disappear. So you can't take away racism.
And even some artists that i do like strongly perpetuate this mentality. Kendrick is a very good example of it. Unfortunately he is one of the faces of that exact mentality. The dude even grilled a fan for saying the "n" word on stage after asking her to sing a song with him that contained that word. He's perpetuating this mentality, and you go over the Kendrick subreddit and they're all about that shit. The woker the better. Does he think he is helping his own people by humiliating a white girl on stage for doing something absolutely harmless? He isn't. He's creating division.
Bipolar Ye is Wise Ye. You can't tell him nothing.

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2024.05.24 00:33 Capybaby29 wtf is being filtered 💀

like fr. bot already said the nsfw bit.

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2024.05.24 00:25 FloofySkuntank Not-Stars Action ep.2

Suggestion by Proofracer: Last time on Not-Stars Action! The two teams with new captains faced the dreaded alien challenge. Whatever team had the most un-slimed members with eggs that made it back to the film lot would win immunity.
In a confessional Leonard says every time he tries casting magic it just doesn’t work. Perhaps Chris has an anti magic field! He vows to try and not use any spells to see if that would work.
The two teams run into the alien facility and scatter, after all one large group would be a bad idea. The intercom then announced that an alien life form was nearby.
Eva is following Brick, Sammy, and Dawn. Eva tells Sammy that since they aren’t feeling up to it, Eva can lead the team. Brick points out it’s Sammy’s first day and we should give her some time. Dawn goes to speak only for Chef to emerge. Eva sarcastically asks what they should do? Sammy is still out of it and says nothing. Chef tries to slime all four of them at once. Eva gives Brick a glare only to realize that because Brick was following behind the three girls he’s still spotless. Dawn yells for him to run for it and he does.
The Gaffer girls minus Amy huddled together in private. Katie and Sadie tell them that they’d really like to do a girl alliance so Katie and Sadie can finally merge together. Bridgette said her last alliance fell apart so she’s not sure. Ella says she’ll do it. She’d like to see Trent at merge this time and understands them. Bridgette asks what about Amy? They all laugh. Bridgette says she’ll give the alliance a shot. With how long the four talked together in one space though, Chef gets the jump on them, getting slime on all four of them.
Trent is alone with Harold. Trent asks Harold for a favor. Harold says as long as it doesn’t involve anything illegal sure. Trent pauses before shrugging and continues. He tells Harold that last time he was in Action he got REALLY WEIRD. He asks Harold to snap him out of it no matter what, and that he can’t risk losing Ella like he lost Gwen. Harold agrees to this and the two shake on it… before being splattered with slime by Chef.
Topher and Amy are talking about their alliance. Topher says that Zeke is likely a bust cause of what she did to him. Amy rolls her eyes and asks who he suggests. Topher says they need a schemer. Someone that can be the brains of their operation. Someone like Noah. Any shrugs and says if you can make it happen then. In a confessional Topher cheers. He says audiences love to hate villains. If he tries to be evil maybe he’ll finally get the recognition he deserves! The two walk into a dead end room with Beardo. He tells them not to let the door close behind them or- SLAM We get stuck… with the three trapped the sprinklers went off, dowsing the three of them in slime.
Finally in the boiler room the remaining eight players are grabbing eggs. Tyler cheers, slapping Dakota and Staci on the back as they lean over the alien eggs, the two girls fall in from the slap and with a sudden lack of balance Tyler falls in as well. This smashes several eggs and coats the three in slime.
The remaining players are going through the exit when they see Chef behind them. Ezekiel tells them to hurry but as the last person he is hit with slime in the back.
Chris announces that the military has come to destroy the alien and it’s eggs. Brick is mesmerized and starstruck. He says he’s really going to meet the military? Chris lies and says yep. Just stand right there… B proves he’s a solid captain as he notices the nuke and grabs Noah, running behind a prop. Leonard says he casts Bar- before stopping himself and running behind a standee. Brick is obliterated by a slime nuke for not moving, realizing too late it was a trap. The remaining three men run and make it back to the film lot.
Chris then lands the helicopter and says that with a measly score of 2 to 1, the Quiet Gaffers are the winners! In a confessional Leonardo is looking at his alien egg with eyes full of wonder. He says he can’t believe it. He didn’t cast any spells today and almost won for his team!
At elimination Chris gives gilded Chris’s to… Brick, Dakota, Leonard, Dawn, Harold, Trent, Eva, and Staci. The final marshmallow goes to… Sammy! Sammy sighs in relief. Tyler asks why he’s going home so soon? Dakota says you messed up my hair! Brick says that all five of them could have left with eggs and possibly won if he hadn’t been so accident prone. No offense. Tyler sighs and wishes everyone good luck as he leaves the competition.
Votes for Sammy: Eva and Tyler
Votes for Eva: Sammy
Votes for Tyler: Brick, Staci, Dakota, Leonard, Dawn
Votes for Staci: Harold and Trent
With our first fallen it’s time to see who has the acting chops! Teams will be doing their very own plays this time! And three members from each team must perform on stage. They will be judged based on set design, characters, and overall performance. In this slightly altered version of the challenge who will come out on top and who will break a leg? That’s for YOU to decide!

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2024.05.24 00:21 Izanagitho 25% discount for assassins creed Nexus, powerwash simulator, Pavlov shack,Tetris effect connected, stride fates, bonelab, swarm 2, blade and sorcery, espire 1, espire 2, resident evil 4 ,super hot ,kill it with fire, Into the radius, battle talent, budget cuts ultimate, resist, and more.

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2024.05.24 00:19 Izanagitho 25% discount for assassins creed Nexus, powerwash simulator, Tetris effect, pavlov shack, connected, stride fates, bonelab, swarm 2, blade and sorcery, espire 1, espire 2, resident evil 4 ,super hot ,kill it with fire, Into the radius, battle talent, budget cuts ultimate, resist, and more.

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2024.05.24 00:18 Brian18639 Heartbroken and confused

I’m 22 and I’ve NEVER had a girlfriend or experienced any sort of romance. There’s a few guys I personally know at my church who are in their mid to late teens and yet they already have girlfriends. There’s four guys I personally know from my church who are probably around my age and already they have wives. All throughout my life I have been a shy and reclusive person, for years I have dreamed of having a beautiful girlfriend who I love and who truly loves me for who I am. I have dreamed of us starting a family together and living a fun and happy life together.
There’s a girl I met online back in 2021 or 2022 and she is gorgeous. We’re close friends and I feel like our friendship was the most alive around last Fall. We live in two different states but around last Fall we would chat daily for about an hour or longer, we talked about regular stuff and get to know each other. Also we talked dirty with each other, and even exchanged explicit pics and vids of ourselves. I felt overjoyed because for me it was the first time when I truly felt loved by a girl I deeply loved back.
However on March 1st of this year she chose to go into a relationship with a guy who goes to her college. I still feel devastated about that to this day, because it felt like she put our friendship on hold. An hour ago she told me that she’s gonna have her first sleepover with him and he suggested that they get all freaky during it. She’s told me a last year as well that she had anal sex for the first time with another guy years ago, and when I asked if she’s gonna let her current bf use her vagina she said yeah. She PROMISED to me and reassured me that we could start a relationship together in five years from now.
However now that I know by the time she will fully no longer be a virgin by the time our relationship starts it’s making me lose some hope. I don’t know if I’m being petty for this, but I will not want to be in a relationship with her if by the time we’re together she already has another dude’s kids. I feel so pissed off, devastated, confused, and mentally and emotionally exhausted. I have spent THOUSANDS of my own money on video game cards for her and even bought her food a few times. While it’s gonna be incredibly difficult, I told her that I’m gonna want to continue being close friends with her for now and continue holding onto hope that we’ll eventually be together someday and that I’ll be able to live out my dream.
She apologized to me for all this excruciating emotional pain I have went through and I chose to forgive her. I told her that during this five-year wait I’m gonna look for another girl to possibly live out my dream with instead, but that if by the time 2029 comes and I’m still single, then I’ll want to date her. She accepted it and will allow me to date her if I haven’t found anyone else by then.
Before meeting this girl I often looked at photos of girls I thought were pretty on Instagram and tried adding lots of them to Snapchat. However I didn’t chat with them. It feels like my heart has been shattered into a million pieces, but I’m gonna continue holding onto hope.

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2024.05.24 00:13 tourmalineforest Aiglamene’s motivations? [discussion]

I’ve been pondering a lot on who exactly Aiglamene IS and what her background is. She’s been on the Ninth for a long time, but is not explicitly stated to have been born there or grown up there. She was Harrows mother’s retainer before Harrow. She spent a long time in the Cohort.
Long theory: Aiglamene wants to leave the Ninth as badly as Gideon does, or at least did when she was young, tried to do so through the Cohort, and was grounded at the Ninth due to being injured on the battlefield. She doesn’t just have a little soft spot for Gideon, she is deeply living through her.
In GtN, she begins by telling Gideon she’ll serve the Ninth for the rest of her life and by slapping her for disrespecting Harrow. But this is put in context by what she tells Gideon next:

“Such a quick study, and you still don’t understand. That’s on my head, I suppose. The more you struggle against the Ninth, Nav, the deeper it takes you; the louder you curse it, the louder they’ll have you scream.”

I think that line is spoken from personal experience.
Gideon is left feeling like she’s failed on a test.
Further context is given by something she says much later:

“A soldier’s best quality is her sense of allegiance. Of loyalty. Nothing else survives.”

It’s not that Aiglamene believes Gideon should be loyal because the Ninth deserves it - she wants Gideon to escape and doesn’t think she’ll be able to unless she learns how to fall in line, keep her mouth shut, and behave. She never tries to convince Gideon she should feel grateful, just that she needs to learn how to behave appropriately.

“I have condemned your escapes,” said Aiglamene. “They were graceless and feeble. But.” She turned to the other girl. “With all due respect, you’ve dealt her too ill, my lady.

“Graceless and feeble” is an interesting reason to condemn someone’s escape attempts. It’s a far cry from “disloyal and ungrateful”. Her problem with Navs escape attempts are seemingly that Nav wasn’t trying hard enough. And she clearly states she thinks Nav’s situation was unfair.
When Gideon is defeated by Harrow after the skeleton ambush:

Aiglamene was looking at her now with an expression she couldn’t parse. Sympathy? Disappointment? Guilt?

All three. She knows what Gideon has gone through. I think she may have gone through it herself.

The only member left of that order was Aiglamene, who’d left her leg and any hope of getting the hell out of here on some far-off front line.

This quote just hits me hella hard. The Cohort is a way of getting out for people who want to leave their houses, but not when they’re left permanently disabled, and even necromancers don’t handle total limb loss well. She clearly valued her time in the Cohort deeply - her reminiscing with Pyrrha even involuntarily makes that obvious. But her injury meant that path was closed to her, and she was forced to come back.
When Gideon tells Aiglamene that Harrow always lies, Aiglamene is unable to meet her eyes and eventually responds gruffly with something kind of unrelated. She knows shit is bad.

“Consider this offer, Nav… You can stay here—in the House you hate—or go attain your liberty—in service to the House you hate. This is your one chance to leave, and to gain your freedom cleanly.”

Again just being practical and telling Nav to GTFO.
And when she insists to Harrow that she, Aiglamene, must personally vouchsafe for Gideon because Harrow won’t do it. “If I vouchsafe the freedom of Gideon Nav and it is not given to her, then—begging pardon for my ingratitude—it is a betrayal of myself, who is your retainer and was your mother’s retainer.” She continued to INSIST to Harrow that she really truly has to let Gideon leave if she does this.
She clearly doesn’t trust Harrow who she KNOWS is the actual leader of the house to let anyone escape safely.
And then to Gideon, blurted out after a period of silence when they’re alone,

It’s a bad idea, but it’s a chance, you know,” said Aiglamene abruptly. “Take it or leave it.”

And of course:

She paused as her fingers closed over the hilt, her haggard face caught up in her consideration, a titanic battle apparently going on somewhere deep inside her head. One side gained the upper hand, and she said gruffly: “Nav. A word of warning.” “What?” There was something urgent in her voice: something worried, something new. “Things are changing. I used to think we were waiting for something … and now I think we’re just waiting to die.”

And her salute to Gideon as she leaves.
When she sees Gideon again and immediately realizes “They’ve killed you”, Nona, who perceived body language flawlessly, sees that Aiglamene is angry at her and blames her. Aiglamene at this point believed Nona is Harrow. Gideon comes back dead and reanimated and Aiglamene is immediately angry at Harrow and thinks it is her fault.
And then:

“Hah! Don’t come over all intelligence agent with me, you young fool. The Bureau’s not welcome in the House of the Ninth. Last one we had—thirty years back—we dropped off eleven hours from the prison with ten hours’ worth of air and told ’em to hurry up.”

Aiglamene is interestingly also directly responsible for Gideon ending up with her mothers sword/revenant:

Aiglamene petitioned to give it to Griddle from the Drearburh stock.

Either she’s sentimental enough to have wanted Gideon to have her mothers only belonging or she knows way more than we think.
Gideon thinks it’s insane that Aiglamene could ever love her, and that Aiglamene just had “a soft spot” for her but I think Aiglamene felt much more strongly for Gideon than she knew. Her resentment and doubt for the Ninth house may have been very deep but unlike Gideon she understood that showing loyalty was the way to avoid being destroyed.
And her hatred of the Bureau is very interesting. I wonder if she had BOE sympathies after what she saw in combat, honestly. And whether she came from the Ninth or somewhere else.
I’m glad she’s back and curious as fuck to see where her loyalties are now.

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2024.05.24 00:12 OneConfusedLilGirl I had AI write a story where Anton goes against his nature for one special girl 🥰 Just for fun, don't laugh.

In a desolate corner of West Texas, Anton Chigurh, a man known for his cold, calculating demeanor and ruthless efficiency, wandered a remote desert road. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. He walked with the unhurried pace of someone who knew exactly where he was headed, though anyone who observed him would struggle to discern his purpose. His eyes, dark and inscrutable, scanned the empty landscape.
As he neared an abandoned gas station, Chigurh heard a soft sobbing. His instincts sharpened, and he approached the source of the sound. There, sitting on the cracked steps of the station, was a maiden with a tear-streaked face illuminated by the fading light. Her small frame shook with each sob, and she wore a faded pink dress, her dark hair tangled and dusty.
Chigurh's initial impulse was to ignore the girl, but something stopped him. He crouched down, his imposing figure casting a long shadow over her.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice low and controlled.
The girl looked up, her wide eyes filled with fear and sadness. "I-I can't find my mother," she stammered.
For a moment, Chigurh felt an unfamiliar sensation—a flicker of empathy. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief rather than his usual coin, and offered it to her. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Eliza," she replied, taking the handkerchief and wiping her tears.
"Eliza," he repeated, as if testing the sound of it. "I'm Anton. I'll help you find your mother."
Eliza nodded, her fear slowly giving way to a tentative trust. Chigurh stood and extended his hand to her. She took it hesitantly, and they began to walk together down the desolate road.
Days turned into weeks as Chigurh and Eliza traveled together. They moved through small towns and empty landscapes, always searching, always moving. Chigurh, who had once been a solitary figure driven by his own dark code, found himself changed by the presence of the young woman. He protected her, fed her, and even taught her to read and write with a small notebook he had taken from an abandoned store.
Eliza, in turn, grew to adore him. She clung to him for safety, her trust in him unwavering despite his grim appearance and the aura of danger that surrounded him. She laughed and played, her joy a stark contrast to the grimness of their surroundings.
As the months passed, their bond deepened. Chigurh's ruthless nature remained, but it was tempered by his affection for Eliza. He would still eliminate threats with cold precision, but now, he did it to protect her.
One day, they found themselves in a small town where a woman recognized Eliza. She ran to them, tears streaming down her face as she scooped Eliza into her arms.
"Mom!" Eliza cried, clinging to the woman.
Chigurh watched the reunion with an inscrutable expression. The woman looked up at him, gratitude and fear mingling in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered.
Chigurh nodded once, a gesture of acknowledgment. Eliza, however, was not ready to let him go. She broke free from her mother's embrace and ran back to Chigurh, hugging him tightly. "Anton, please don't leave me!"
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "You need to stay with your mother, Eliza. You'll be safe with her."
Tears filled her eyes as she looked up at him. "But I want you to stay with us. Can't you stay, Anton?"
Chigurh's gaze softened as he considered her words. The idea of leaving her now seemed impossible. He looked at Eliza's mother, who was watching the interaction with a mixture of emotions.
The woman stepped forward, her voice tentative but hopeful. "You can stay with us, if you want. Eliza talks about you all the time. You've taken care of her...and I can't thank you enough."
Chigurh hesitated, the conflict clear in his eyes. He had always been a lone wolf, a man who thrived in solitude and darkness. But now, there was something different—someone different—who had changed him in ways he couldn't have imagined.
Finally, he nodded. "I’ll stay," he said, his voice resolute.
Eliza's face lit up with joy, and she threw her arms around him. Chigurh felt a warmth in his chest, a sensation that was becoming familiar yet still surprising.
As the days turned into weeks, Chigurh settled into a new kind of life. He stayed close to Eliza and her mother, helping them in ways he never thought he could. He protected them, but he also learned to find small moments of peace and joy in their presence.
In the quiet moments of the night, as Eliza slept peacefully, Chigurh would watch over her, a silent guardian who had found something he thought he had lost forever—a sense of purpose, a connection, and perhaps even a semblance of redemption.

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2024.05.24 00:11 jarhead839 [fully lost] Pilot Episode of MTV's Parental Control

Happy Thursday y'all!
I am currently on the hunt for the pilot episode of MTV's Parental Control circa 2005. As it stands the only seasons you can get legally are seasons 6 and 7 through streaming on Paramount Plus, and the less than legal means also turned up nothing. Trust me, I went deep down that rabbit hole. No torrents, no steams, nothing. It is listed online as episode 0 and the only synopsis I could find lists it as such "A girl was to interview five boys, and after a set of about five questions for each person or an activity of some sort, the father will eliminate one of the contestants. This continues until one contestant remained."
IMDB says the pilot came out on November 1st of 2005, while Wikipedia says it aired during MTV's Spring Break 2005. It also says the pilot was quite different from future episodes, but its description is brief (see above)
Doing some research MTV is pretty notorious for not having archives of their shows, at least publicly available. Searching this sub I even found a post from looking for something similar to what I am hunting for.
The only real lead I have is from Survivor. On my podcast we are going through a complete watch/rewatch (no spoilers please) of all of Survivor and between seasons we record a bonus episode of different media related to . We just finished season 12 Guatemala and one of the contestants, Jamie Newton, was apparently in this pilot episode so me and my cohost were hoping to find a place to watch it and ran into a bunch of dead ends.
The wayback machine to the series episodes redirects to a dead link. MTV Vault has a few episodes but not the pilot. I know it is a long shot, but does anyone have this? Maybe someone that affiliated with the show, or someone who happened to archive it locally? After hours of searching this is becoming my Moby Dick...

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2024.05.24 00:10 TheOriginalRandomGuy Discord ‘Gurl’ starterpack

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2024.05.24 00:10 KyleKKent OOCS, Into A Wider Galaxy, Part 011

(... I think I need to finish our Visit with Wu for now, I’m having a harder and harder time writing it. Have no excuse today. It just didn’t come out. So back to our previously scheduled Madness. And I'm extra stupid today, I made a mistake in the title so I had to delete and repost. Sorry.)
~First~
RAK and Roll!/Shadows of Centris
“And boom goes the dynamite.” Amadi notes as the cultist guards suddenly realize that they’d been firing on non-existent police officers while the real ones were rushing in from the side. It was those kinds of life altering revelations he just adored to see.
“Hmm, well I guess I need to put this away then.” Reggie notes calmly as he starts breaking down the mortar he’d set up ‘just in case’. After getting his training for the thing the man had been itching to use it, but hadn’t had any opportunity for some indirect fun.
“Probably for the best.” Koa remarks.
“I know. Still...” Reggie admits as he collapses the components down and tucks them away into an expanded pocket. Amadi smirks at the sight. Yes, he’s technically the adept of the three, but do you really need that when the other guys are pocket artillery and a walking weapons platform?
“Ah well, who wants to eat? Lunch rush is finished and it’s cheaper to hand out the overstock than use stasis.” Amadi asks.
“Sure, the area is mostly stable anyways so...” Koa states before suddenly turning and his rifle is held out at the figure he can’t fully see. “Identify yourself.”
“The sun is shining.” The Cloaken woman states.
“But the ice is slippery.” Amadi glibly replies and the invisible hand of the woman has a data-chit balanced upon it. “Thank you.”
“You’d think that would calm down a little with all the cults actively fighting and moving hard.” Koa notes.
“Not really, more excitement means more notes are getting passed around. So it should break about even, sure, most of the everyday silliness is being set aside but the sheer urgency means other things are running out and...” Reggie tries to explain his thought process with a few gestures before a Metak blurs past him and he now has a pair of data-chits in his hand. He holds them up between his fingers. “As demonstrated.”
They have a slight chuckle as Amadi lets his illusions finally fade to allow the police to fully pounce on the kill crazy women who had decided to come out guns blazing when their little country club was pinged. “By the way do you guys know exactly who this gaggle of idiots are?”
“I think they’re called the... the... Starts with an M.” Reggie says snapping his fingers as he tries to recall things.
“Mamaluk?” Koa throws out.
“No, no. It was M Y? Myats? Mycorin? My something.” Reggie asks. “Oh this is bugging me.”
“I thought it was M I.”
“Milaluk! The Milaluk!” He says with a smile before pausing. “I don’t know what it means.”
“Neither do I, but does it matter? The Milaluk were being moronic so we meddled and matched em. Now let’s mosey my men!” Amadi says with a smile.
“Hmm... he’s getting better at those. It didn’t even sound like that much of a stretch.” Koa notes as he stores his massive rifle and all three men get moving.
It doesn’t take long for them to make note of police cruisers soaring overhead and heading to a very different place from the one they just assisted in, but since their communicators are silent they’re not being tagged in to help. And often unwanted help can be worse than none, so they don’t follow.
“So do you think that...” Koa begins before all three of their communicators go off simultaneously. “Oh boy, here we go.”
“Stand by for communications with Observer Wu.” Amadi reads out loud. “Why would he want to talk with us? We’re three guys who wander around and bumble about, what’s so interesting?”
“You mean besides the fact that we’re basically scouts and patrol officers on an alien world that routinely go to many different spires with massively different laws, populations environmental expectations and...” Reggie begins to list off.
“I was being sarcastic.” Amadi says.
“Oh. Well no reason then, probably random chance.” Reggie amends and Amadi rolls his eyes a touch.
“He’s an Observer. He wouldn’t be much good at his job if he didn’t at least glance at everyone. He likely regards the list of Humans outside of Cruel Space as a check list to personally interview, one after the other. Right now he’s just getting his bearings and balance I’ll wager.” Koa considers out loud.
“To say nothing of the idea of him following people with a pair of binoculars and just watching them.” Amadi says conjuring the image of binoculars that he holds in front of his eyes. The wide end of them seemingly a gigantic pair of blinking eyes that Reggie swipes through to dispel the image.
“His title is Observer, not Stalker.” Reggie says.
“The difference between the two is governmental approval and little else.” Amadi says and Reggie just concedes the point.
It takes a few more minutes for them to get to the car they used to get to this spire and a few after that to fly to the one where Amadi’s girls were. The first they ran into was actually Abigail, the cousin of the August Speaker of The Council was clearly excited to see him if the fact she swooped down into his arms and locked up his lips with her own.
After she showed no signs of wanting to stop both other men walked around them and into the diner. There are some enthusiastic greetings from the girls inside and the quick pointing outside has the Rabbis working the till and the one waiting the tables rush out to get some sugar from their man.
“There’s a reason we put the more energetic ones on the outside.” One of the cooks notes. The small warren of Rabbis liked to work things in a total of six shifts and took two each day. That way there was always a full staff and they got all the rest they needed to keep the diner open endlessly and efficiently.
“No kidding. So, how much overstock is there today?”
“Not as much as normal. A lot of girls are struggling to find time to cook for themselves for some reason.”
“Funny that.”
“Yes, it’s almost like everyone’s really busy for some strange reason. I wonder what could cause such a thing.” Koa asks.
“Yes, I wonder...”
“Classified.” Reggie states.
“Right, because a massive scan of the entire planet can be classified. Everyone knows something scared someone higher up. But what was it?”
“Classified.” Reggie taunts.
“How are your girls holding up.”
“Shireen and Misty are on ‘Official Business’ on The Dauntless to get them both the hell out of dodge. They’re nervous so a bit of work as a new set of eyes on our holodeck coding and a fashion consultant for our potential future uniforms gives them both a distraction in a safe place.”
“It’s adorable that you pulled strings to get them both into safety.” The cook notes.
“You had a similar offer. I saw Amadi make it.” Koa remarks.
“No one’s going to bother with us. We’re not important enough for the crazy people to notice.”
“Crazy people are just that, crazy.” Reggie remarks.
“They are, now a quick heads up, there’s going to be...” Koa begins to say before their communicators start going off. “Crap. New ship is coming and on it is an Observer who wants to talk to us apparently. Mind if we take a corner booth?”
“Go ahead, the rush is over and most people are ordering out.”
Amadi has to rush in to sit next to them as they set up the communicators.
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“Somewhat sir. We’re often on patrol around Centris and we received are warning a fair way away from The Dauntless, we are however in a trusted and safe location.”
“Very good, I need to know more about the world I’m heading to. What is the on the ground perspective of Centris?”
“Could you be more specific about what you’re looking for? There are all sorts of different things to consider, is it security? Culture? Language? Fashion? Local laws? Something else?”
“I’m looking for how it compares to an Earth city or town.”
“Well, they’re very much a city with towering buildings that can induce a sensation of being among giants. There are few places without large crowds and innumerable different building styles, but there’s always reliable walkways and general driving and soaring areas as well. So jaywalking isn’t as much as an issue as it is in most cities, you won’t interrupt traffic unless they’re coming in for a landing. The roads are more... landing strips and parking areas with walkways next to them.” Reggie explains.
“I see.”
“There are also areas where they seem to randomly have roundabouts or sudden turns to avoid specific areas, but once you learn more about them you realize they’re basically walkways for those that can naturally fly or jump so powerfully that the line between a jump and flight is more academic.” Reggie continues.
“Hmm, and culture?” Observer Wu asks.
“Well culture shifts around a lot depending on the area your in. The galaxy at large has one where men are often protected to the point of coddling, or possibly suffocating them... If you’re looking for a man in public, look for an oddly dense bit of crowd that seems to be defensive. Because their families are protective.” Koa explains this time.
“Or look to those who are followed by a crowd because they’re lashing out as they try to find some kind of purpose. It’s not universal, more than half of the men of the galaxy easily find enough in life to be content. But those that don’t... well... if it’s not petty it’s dramatic. The Undaunted sees a lot of them, they have preferential recruitment.”
“Why?”
“Because less than half of one percent of a galactic population is a recruiting pool so massive that the name tags of their uniform could strip mine entire continents with ease.” Koa answers and Observer Wu nods.
“Oh please, get them all together after a few years of recruitment and it would have a gravitational pull strong enough to replace the moon around Earth.” Reggie remarks. “I’m not kidding by the way, I did the math on my spare time. Recruitment is going up and up an up and there are enough to recruit that quintillions are on the menu.”
“Quintillions...”
“Centris is one of the more population dense worlds in the galaxy. But not the most, and there is not an insignificant number of worlds like this. To say nothing of less overdeveloped ones which are in much higher numbers and with each level they go down in development the more worlds there are.” Reggie says.
“Quintillions, and that’s if one is only considering one half of one percent...” Observer Wu remarks as he looks off. “Our population is in the billions, a thousand more for each person gives us trillions, doing it again is quadrillions and then we have to do it again to get quintillions.”
“Kind of hard to consider, isn’t it?” Reggie asks.
“It is.” Observer Wu notes. “Everything we do that doesn’t fizzle and die will rapidly grow beyond anything humanity has ever accomplished.”
“Yes. In some ways it already has. It took people like Genghis Khan decades to shape the world. It takes some of our teams weeks if not days or even hours to affect even more people over a wider area.” Reggie says.
“Oh calm down, there’s no need to get so dramatic.” Amadi remarks as he reclines a little more. He waves his hand and the image of a spire with all it’s tiers appears. “Of course we can do more with higher numbers, literal magic and immensely powerful technology. Grade school math is harder to figure out than that. A world with giant abstract Christmas Trees for city structures with all the shiny bits and lights and decorations? Well duh it’s different!”
Amadi’s little sculpture of a spire is now shining with lights, the glass windows of sky scrapers and the lights and images of the traffic around them until the literally shining manors at the very top of spires shine like a star on top of a Christmas Tree. “It’s a whole world of this silliness. With great big fake continents flying above the planet like a shining ring. All full of girls so desperate for a man that all he has to do to get more tail than he’s ever even imagined is to say yes. Calm down, things are weird but fun.”
“Don’t forget that the modern hobby is conspiracy, even if it’s a dark garden club about the best way to grow tomatoes.” Koa remarks as he pulls out the data chits and chips he had been given. Reggie then stacks them up and it stands next to the image of the spire and actually rises above it. “Granted, ninety nine times out of a hundred they’re completely harmless like that.”
“But there are so many that they tower above the spires themselves.” Observer Wu states.
“Both on this table and in real life. Throw a rock in a crowd and hit three people, you’ll have also hit seven cultists or conspirators.” Amadi says with a grin. “Makes it fun when you start to poke at them. You get all kinds of hilarious reactions.”
“I can imagine.”
“I doubt it, this is the kind of crazy that needs to be seen first hand.” Amadi says before nodding as he sees another ‘courier’ run in, check to see what’s going on. Clearly consider them as their drop off target and then dismiss it before leaving. “It’s a lot of fun though.”
~First~ Last

submitted by KyleKKent to HFY [link] [comments]

2024.05.24 00:08 EncyclicalUnderpass The Mortheimer House, part 1: "Through the Window"

You ever look into a window and wonder what’s on the other side? I mean, a room, obviously, but what’s in it? Who lives there? How do they live? For as long as I can remember, that was my fascination. It started innocently, if creepy; I used to peek into people’s windows when I was a little kid, back when I had to get on my tiptoes to peer in through a kitchen window. I’d see the light reflecting off tile and appliances, and sometimes people would be moving about, living their lives. In a sense, it’s sort of like an ant farm; the windows people use to see out provide a small vertical slice of their inside life. I never got caught or scolded when I did this, even though I instinctively knew it was wrong. It was the same reason my parents chided me for peeking in the door when they’d use the restrooms; people liked their privacy.
But you know what happens when a bad habit is allowed to fester, don’t you? It escalates. When I was twelve years old, I broke into a house for the first time. Not for criminal reasons, mind you, I simply wanted to get a more… tactile appreciation for someone’s life. It was a house that had overgrown grass and sometimes had a beat-up old Buick out front that needed a wash. I’d never met whoever lived there, but I knew they did.
There’s a fatal flaw with burglar alarms: the infrequent nature of burglary. Potentially 365 days of a year, the homeowner is paying for a service that ideally won’t be used. But the device, it never sleeps unless you let it. Eventually, turning it on in the morning when you leave for work or off when you come home becomes such a hassle that in some neighborhoods, people just use the sticker as their ward against burglars. This person was one of those people. And he was also one of the people who failed to lock their windows.
It didn’t smell great in that place. I let myself in through the kitchen window and I just stood there, taking it all in. It was cluttered, lived-in, but not hoarder-level crazy. There was a fat stack of shitty self-help books on the dining room table, and more than a few pizza boxes crammed into an overflowing trash bin. The floor was once, presumably, a nice carpet, but decades of neglect had rendered it crusty and brown. In retrospect I recognize the smell as marijuana, but at the time I thought it was a skunk. I could almost see the guy who lived there wandering around, mired in the detritus of an unkempt house. I could imagine him pouring over those dog-eared self-help books, eating pizza for the fifth time this week, wondering how his life went so wrong.
There wasn’t much to do. Like I said, my intentions were curiosity, not theft. So I went back out the way I came. That night, when the shitty old Buick rolled up onto the driveway, I watched the guy. He was shorter than I’d imagined, and he had thick glasses and thinning hair. He wasn’t super fat, but he wasn’t skinny; all in all, a fairly normal individual. Yet from that moment I spent in his home, I knew so very much about him. I think that’s where the problem started, really.
I got really, really good at it. Sneaking into people’s homes. Walking through undetected. Again, I never took anything, just explored the place and drew connections about their life. Creepy, yes, and very illegal, but I rationalized it at the time as being functionally identical to being invited in. It’s not creepy when a guest looks around, and since I wasn’t doing anything untoward, I was basically a guest, right? I even got so good I could do it when they were home. A lot of close calls, but those were the most exciting. Again, at this point I had yet to steal anything. I was chasing the high of just sneaking around, going where I wasn’t supposed to.
When I got into high school, however, I started wanting things. I wasn’t poor, but there was always something I wanted that was just out of reach. Well, I made the logical leap that my hobby and my desire could aid each other.
I prepped by “mock-robbing” my own house. When my parents were out, I combed through their things, looking for stashes of goodies. Naturally I wouldn’t steal from THEM, mind you; I hadn’t done that since I took a five-dollar bill out of my mother’s purse when I was six. Sure enough, I found the classic sock-drawer with the stash in it. Wasn’t much, just a couple documents. A xerox of my birth certificate, a copy of my grandparents’ will, some insurance papers, and a single hundred dollar bill, all rolled into an old black tube sock at the back of my father’s sock drawer. My mom’s nightstand held a bunch of her old expired credit cards, receipts for purchases deductible as work expenses, and her old earrings she’d worn before her earlobes had healed over. The kitchen junk drawer tended to be where lost coins were deposited, and by quarters alone I reckoned around 50 dollars had accumulated over the years. Finally, under my parents’ bed, I found the real stash: bonds given to them by my grandparents, the deed to the house itself, and my grandfather’s old ring. Worthless to me, obviously, but it proved that humans and dragons both choose to sleep atop their riches.
I chose my mark well; a large house, and one I’d already familiarized myself with on the inside. Once the geriatric woman had left to go do whatever octogenarians do on Thursday afternoons, I stole into the building and rifled through her things. It was a completely different experience to go in with the intent of robbery. I felt heightened. Paranoid. Instinctively I shied away from windows and lights like a scuttling rat, and any time the house shifted or settled, I dove for cover, cramming myself into cabinets or closets. The place was big, but sure enough, I found the old cigar box under the bed. It didn’t have money or jewels, but rather pictures. Grainy, faded, black-and-white pictures of a man in a naval officer’s dress, and a girl in a skirt with frizzy brown hair. I realized with a start that it was her, and who I could only assume was a late lover. There were family pictures on the walls, but none of them featured her with a man at her side. An elderly spinster, clinging to a love who no doubt was long gone. When I discovered that, I shook my head. No way I was going to rob her, even if I’d found gold bullion in the box. So I tidied up the place, making sure to wipe away the places where fingerprints could have been even though I was wearing latex gloves, and put her secret box back where it belonged.
For a few weeks, I didn’t do any B&E. Truth be told, I was disgusted at myself. Every house I’d snooped through, every life I’d reverse-engineered in my head… to think that I’d rob them, make those pristine little lives worse for my own benefit… I couldn’t stomach it.
Looking back, I wish I’d just abandoned that moral hang-up. Because it was that morality that led me to the Mortheimer house.
In the state of California, where I live, burglary is a felony. I think it’s that way in most places. Now I didn’t consider myself a burglar, because in order for it to be such, I had to be entering with the intent to do a crime. As of yet, save for the old woman’s house, I had never entered for any reason save to observe, so in my mind I was not a burglar.
I heard about the Mortheimer house from a friend. He said it had been owned by the bank for some time, after the owner had lost everything to a gambling addiction and shot himself in the building. It wasn’t called the Mortheimer house at the time, though; that wouldn’t be until Jason Mortheimer moved in and bought the old, buttress-ridden house for next to nothing. For weeks, my friend said, they had done construction; as to what they were doing, he couldn’t tell. Aside from cleaning, repainting, reshingling, and repairing the windows, the old house looked practically unchanged from the outside. Yet power tools could be heard from dawn until dusk within the old place, and construction teams came and went with clockwork regularity. Jason Mortheimer was an oddball in the neighborhood; he was never seen during the day, save peering out from his windows to watch people on afternoon strolls. By night, he’d wander and be cordial to passersby, but he walked stiffly, leaning heavily on a mahogany cane. Between the constant noise of construction and the leery glances he was caught giving joggers from behind heavy curtains, it was safe to say Jason Mortheimer was unpopular.
My friend wanted to know what was going on in the house, nothing more. We’d talked about my interests and he’d been understanding; on some occasions, he’d paid me to snoop on romantic interests, to find out their sexual preference and availability. Usually, I’d take his money and not even break in, simply observing the individuals and using the key context clues that he so clearly had missed. His current boyfriend, who like him will remain unnamed, was a closeted individual who I’d been hired to snoop upon; now he was out of the closet, and happier than ever before. Good for the two of them. But this was the first time my friend wanted me to snoop for anything approaching a benign curiosity, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also curious.
It wasn’t until the construction had stopped, about a week after the last team had left, that I made my move. I was going to enter the Mortheimer house, I was going to take this rich eccentric menace for everything that I could, and I was going to satisfy my curiosity.
The smell was, as it often is, the first thing I noticed. In most places, it’s a very human smell; scented candles, food, soaps, or even unwashed individuals sweating in the summer heat. This place, however, smelled sterile, and vaguely metallic. Like the smell of dentist’s tools, fresh from the sealed pack.
The interior was lavish, but just as odd as the man who inhabited it. Oil paintings of gargantuan scale leered down at me, Bavarian dukes and kings with severe faces glowered from antiquated frames. The floor was mostly granite, covered by a single crimson velvet rug that spanned the various landings. Dim halogen bulbs lit the corners of the halls, leaving the rest of the walk in murky near-darkness. Only the front of the house, as I would come to learn, had windows; the rest of the rooms were the same tiled, featureless rooms with odd decor. I passed no less than three bedrooms, each pristine and untouched, and entirely identical. Even the paintings began to loop, but those were more noticeably wrong, as the individual texture of the brushstrokes would differ between rooms.
The upper floors to the house were bizarre. Dining rooms and redundant kitchens on second-floor landings. An attic with a bathroom in it. Bedrooms so close as to be functionally adjoining. And all of them without so much as a sign of life. I checked three separate refrigerators, and while they were indeed cold, there was not a crumb of food in any of them. Drawers in the bedrooms would be completely empty, just varnished wood staring up at me where some evidence of habitation should have been. The attic bathroom was functional, I was surprised to see, and I marveled at the sheer ridiculousness of it. How much pipe the drains must have had.
When I reached the ground floor once more, I saw him. Jason Mortheimer, staring out the window as he always did. He was hunched, lame almost, as he peered from curtains of the same velvet as the rug. Without a sound, I descended the stairs and entered the first sub-level.
Roland Wood died two years ago. I feel this is important. You must understand that Roland Wood, captain of the volleyball team, was struck by an 18-wheeler and given a closed-casket funeral two years ago. I was there. I hadn’t been close to Roland, or Rollie as he was called by his friends, but the family had invited my family and we weren’t so disrespectful as to ignore the grief of our neighbors. I watched the pallbearers put Rollie in the grave, heard his mother’s hysterical sobs as the burial continued, and saw the grave covered in the cemetery.
Roland Wood, two years dead, body irreparably damaged by the crushing force of an 18-wheeler truck, stood before me as I rounded the corner into the first room. He wore a dress shirt and pants, and he stared straight ahead, eyes glassy and unfocused. It was all I could do to not yelp in surprise as I saw the slack features of a dead teenager in the first room of this strange place. Thick, iron staples perforated the skin everywhere, and numerous discolored teeth shone unblemished white alongside the rotten and deteriorated others. His skin, usually so tan from the volleyball games in the summer sun, was pale and slightly blue, riven with lumps and thin patches where the impression of bone could be made out.
Rollie wasn’t alone in that room. A dozen others stood still, staring at the wall, similarly dressed in formal wear. Women wore elegant dresses and pearls, men wore dinner suits and tuxedos, and all stood like mannequins in the cold, bare room.
“Admiring them, are we?”
I spun as Jason Mortheimer limped into the room, looking straight past me at the ghoulish tableaux.
“I- I-,” I began, but he jerkily raised a hand and shook his head.
“Don’t speak, lad. I heard you on the stairwell. Now tell me, what do you think of my merry little gathering?”
I swallowed and looked back over the legion of corpses.
“Are they… alive?”
Jason chuckled and shrugged.
“In a way. Although you’ll find they’re quite poor conversationalists. Everyone,” he called out, clapping his hands together, “please greet our new guest.”
In unison, the corpses turned to face me, their jaws opening with a creak and their eyes locking onto mine.
“Greetings,” they all intoned, a single voice coming from numerous throats. It cared not for the gender of the body it spoke from; they were all the same dolorous rasp, forced from lips that did not match the words spoken.
“Listen, Mr. Mortheimer, I didn’t come here to-”
“-rob me? Oh, I don’t believe that, friend, and neither do you.”
“Please, sir, I’ll just leave, I won’t tell a soul what I’ve seen.”
Jason shrugged, a jerky spasmodic gesture.
“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t, dear boy. Nobody will believe you. So, you may go.”
I looked at him. He still didn’t meet my gaze, staring intently at his grisy arrangement.
“That’s… it? I can just leave?”
“Of course. I would prefer you to.”
“You’re not going to hurt me or something?”
Finally, Jason turned his gaze on me, an insincere grin twisting his features.
“Everything I can do has been done.”
With that, he turned away, jerkily climbing the steps. I ran past him, bolting for the door. It wasn’t far, and he made no move to stop me. I flung the old door wide and sprinted out into the daylight, gasping and shuddering as I ran. Confused passersby blinked as I stormed past, sprinting in the direction of home. Relief and terror warred in my mind as I reached my front door, and I threw it wide, startling my parents from the couch.
“Jacob?,” My father asked, “where’s the fire?”
I panted my excuses and sat at the kitchen table. I said I’d had a fright, thought I was being followed, because someone put a note in my locker.
“Speaking of notes,” said my father, gesturing to where the mail lay piled on the counter. There, a yellowing envelope had been opened.
“What’s this?” I asked, dread settling in the pit of my stomach.
“It was an invitation,” my father answered, “to a party. Fancy dress. It’s at that old… oh, what’s the name of the guy who owns it now?”
“The Mortheimer house?”
He nodded and smiled.
“That’s the one. Your mother and I are planning on going at the end of the month. Do you want to come along?”
I smiled weakly, my mind racing.
“I… I guess.”

submitted by EncyclicalUnderpass to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.05.24 00:06 Waking-Devils I bought a hog farm from a retiring swineherd. There’s something wrong with the pigs.

“So, how much?”
I didn’t know Charles well, but well enough to guess that the grizzled hog farmer was a talented salesman. ‘No lowballs,’ I imagined him drawling, waggling his finger, and speaking over his exceptionally jutting chin.
“Three-hundred fifty for the land, the pen, and the house,” the man said. He spat, hard, and the tobacco-black phlegm stuck to the side of the fence post and slowly ran down the side in three rivulets.
“Then another twenty grand for the hogs. Two-hundred thirty-three of ‘em, not a large passel. Price of swine is goin’ up, I’ll tell you, so t’s the best I can give you for what you’s gettin’.”
I had expected to hand him even more money. Charles and his wife had a small operation, but big enough to matter, with a beautiful two-story farmhouse to accompany it nicely. I wasn’t getting a better deal anywhere else. At least not anywhere I wanted to be. I’d longed to live as a farmer in Tennessee ever since my family’s entire property burned to the ground back in the fall of ‘68. It was dry, and we’d just fertilized after the harvest.
Not a living thing was left untouched by the flames, not even my father, who ran back to get the horses after the barn shot up with a pillar of fire. We never found his body. Or maybe we did, but the charred dust of the barn, the corn, and the animals we called our lives and the blackened remains of the man that was my world were all reduced to ashes in the end. And when the wind came, they all blew away just the same, forever to leave me, my two sisters, and my mother behind.
I held out my hand to Charles and we shook on it.
It wasn’t the life I envisioned for myself. Not when I got my engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Not when I began work at a small engineering firm. Not even when I saw the hog farm for sale less than an hour from my house did I realize that was the world I lost that I needed back. My wife didn’t care; in fact, it brought her work commute down to forty minutes from an hour ten.
After we moved there and I began consulting part-time to make allowance for the time I needed to spend raising the hogs, caring for the land, and tending to my now-pregnant wife, the fulfillment I sought seemed that much closer. But only that. Closer, yet still out of the reach of my yearning clutches. It wasn’t until two years after I bought the farm, almost to the day, that the chips seemed to fall on my side with her.
“Micah?”
Jackie was calling from the cubicle over. Then I heard footsteps coming towards my own office space.
“Hey, yeah, did you finish the drainage plans for the floodplain you were working on? If so, I’d happily review and sign off on them.”
Jackie had come here a couple of years after I did. She was an intern at first, and everybody loved her cheery smile and sharp intellect, so she was hired on after she finished her degree. The youngest of our crew, she lived by herself in an apartment, but her lack of experience didn’t keep her from coolly sharing her opinion on matters of work when she knew she was right. And she was always right.
Jackie had always taken a liking to me in a way she didn’t seem to show toward the others. I never became sure of why she did, but I had my suspicions. Trauma and mystique go hand in hand. Maybe she saw me as broken in the same way she saw herself. After all, it didn’t take a psychologist to tell Jackie had her own skeletons in her closet. She just had that aura, the one that neglected children and broken adults share with each other. Nobody knew what life she walked out of and nobody cared. She did her job, and that was all the company cared for. But not me.
I turned away from my computer screen towards the opening of my cubicle and she was there, half silhouetted by the light behind her, staring me in the eye. Jackie trailed a finger down the edge of the cubicle wall, her mouth open barely enough for me to see her tongue flit deftly over her perfectly-aligned incisors. Ignoring my question, she continued.
“Your wife, I take it?”
She gestured with an outstretched palm toward the wedding photo I had framed on my desk.
“Yeah. Hard to believe we’ll be a family of three soon. Ha!”
I chuckled, nervously. Slightly excitedly, too. I can’t tell if Jackie knew that the latter was for what I knew was coming rather than what I had already said, but I don’t think she would have cared one way or the other.
“Say, she must be lonely waiting for you at home? I know that feeling. Being lonely.”
She took a step towards me and I glanced down at my feet. Looking back, it felt like an eternity, that looking down, that knowing what was happening and making a decision. It was a choice. And while it felt like it stretched for minutes, hours, I knew it was but a moment. Yet it only took a moment to make my descent into sin.
“I know it too. Well. Too well. She’s on a business trip - a long one. Say, I raise hogs. Prize swine, there’s good money in them. What’d you say about coming to see my farm sometime?”
It had been two hours since Jackie had left the farmhouse and was almost one-thirty in the morning, yet I wasn’t tired. According to my doctor, I have insomnia. According to my mother, I have “bad juju.” According to myself, well, I guess I just don’t feel like sleep is worth the trouble sometimes. That night, though, I didn’t sleep at all until the sun shone through my window in the early hours of the morning.
Living among swine never gave me a lot of grief before then. Some people hated the stench - my wife among them - but the manure never bothered me, and, come to find out, it didn’t bother Jackie, either. I would have asked if she had been on a farm as a child, but her demeanor and attitude told me that she wasn’t interested in the slightest in my life and that I shouldn’t be in hers, either. I suppose I wasn’t - not in the one outside of our affair, at least.
But that night, when the stars were out and shining like eyes in a limitless black sea, and when the wind rustled through the trees, a gigantic army moving across the land like a plague towards destinations unseen, I started to feel bothered in a way I never had before.
I had been sitting on the back porch in view of the pig pens after having just finished the chores. I knew I wasn’t drunk, I was only on my second beer, but sitting outside, half-empty bottle in hand, I suddenly wished I could be completely wasted. I’d never been one to believe in those types of things that you can’t touch with your hand or see with your eyes. The hair stood up on my arms and the taste of metal lapped my tongue as if a storm was coming. No, I didn’t believe in the things you couldn’t really feel, but I could sure as hell feel something now.
Unsettled, I was turning around to go get another beer before something caught my eye in the pig pen that made me glance over.
All of the pigs visible from this side of the house could be seen, through the metal fencing, staring in my direction. The ones who were blocked by the lumpy bodies of the other swine stood on the hind ends of the others to see. With their combined mass, the pigs strained the metal of the pen stalls until each stall’s fencing bulged out in the middle where the weight was distributed.
Most unique of all was the unanimous behavior of the swine. Not one fell out of sync. Each one, eyes glowing like headlights in the dark, bodies silhouetted against the light of the moon, was without noise or disturbance. Once all of the pigs were in position, they all stayed ominously still.
As I watched, one by one, hundreds of eyes closed, and a wave of darkness spread over the pen as no more eyes were open to reflect the light. I swore for a moment that the stars did too and that the world around me plunged into complete darkness, but I cannot be for certain, because at that same moment, I involuntarily blinked.
I say involuntarily because, frozen in place, the scene was too strange for me to willingly turn away from. I do not know if the same force that caused the swine to flicker their eyes caused me to do the same, perhaps a gust of wind - or of something less tangible - but upon opening them, the pigs had returned to their discord, with several having already gone to sleep. Deeply disturbed, I went inside the house and drank until the morning came and I finally found sleep.
My wife returned from her trip soon enough and without much ado upon her arrival. For the next month or so, the two of us were together, and our lives were lived without significant discord. None that she knew about, anyway. I never told her about Jackie and I certainly didn’t mention the times I saw my coworker after my wife returned, either. And while I did float an innocent question to her asking if she had noticed any of the hogs’ strange behavior, I didn’t enlighten her as to the motivation for my interrogative manner. She never appreciated being in the company of swine as it was, and turning her disdain into disgust wasn’t on my agenda.
Almost as abruptly as she had returned, my wife left, again, to be gone for the next week and a half on another trip. Probably best for her, too, because the hottest days of the year hit western Tennessee when she wasn’t there to experience them. And no sooner had she gone than Jackie resumed her nightly visits to the farm. Each time, she showed up without much notice, if any at all, and left just as abruptly.
Funnily enough, I didn’t care much. I felt no more and no less empty after she left than when she was here. So after I spent my days with my eyes on my screen and my nose in my boss’s ass, I spent my nights staring up through the bottoms of bone-dry bottles, faintly wondering if the path I walked down could’ve been just a little warmer or just a little brighter if things were different.
In spite of my catering towards my boss’s every wish at the office, he didn’t return the good-will in kind.
“What do you mean you’re asking for a raise?”
I swallowed and continued.
“I mean that it’s been five years, Glenn. I simply asked that my pay might increase to match inflation.”
My boss folded his hands across his desk and sighed. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed at a couple of beads of sweat running down from his brow. We were in the heat of summer, and the air hung thick and humid around us. The office had air conditioning, but the unit was old, and the fan whistling away in the corner didn’t do much good against the record-breaking heat pressing in around us.
“I’m sorry, Micah. It’s just that you’re consulting, now, and… I can’t afford you those kinds of benefits-”
“What do you mean benefits? I’ve been here long enough I’m owed at least that, Glenn! What the fuck do you think I’m still here for? Pot lucks?”
That was the first time I had lost my temper at my boss; at least, the first time since he ripped up one of my drafts for a project several years back. That had been a long day for both of us. Now, Glenn sat back and scowled ever so slightly, and only for a brief moment, an indication that his inhibitions keeping his attitude in check were wearing thin. Nonetheless, he put on a smile, and chuckled coldly.
“Micah, look- you always were my right hand man, but you’re here so little now. One could say you’re more like my right thumb man, now.”
That was a long day too. The heat didn’t help. Somehow some bugs got into the office. Somebody probably left a door open to quash the heat, fruitlessly.
No wonder the AC’s shot, I thought to myself.
By the time it was the hour for me to leave, there were moths flitting around the lights, flies eating the stale food in the cafe, gnats alighting on every exposed surface in the office- insects were everywhere. I figured that door must have been left open most of the day.
Gotta be pretty stupid bugs, if this is where they want to be.
The time came for me to leave and I did so without a fuss. As little as I could manage, anyway. I took time to complete some errands and returned home, only to realize the heat wasn’t much less oppressive there than it was at the office, even if there weren’t any insects. If anything, it felt oddly empty without them, even after Jackie showed up. The rest of that evening was a blur of empty bottles and used cigarette butts littering the porch.
At some point — two in the morning, three, it didn’t matter — I was pulled out of my drunken slumber and forced into sobriety by a noise I could no more determine the source of than what I had eaten for dinner a year ago from the day. I sat up with a jolt and listened, suddenly feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The sound, if it could be called that, was discordant, unnatural, wrong — and yet, I couldn’t remember another thing about it. It wasn’t a sound heard through your ears, a vibration in your skin, nor even a sensation of one’s physical brain; it was a thought processed through one’s sleeping soul, something that certainly cannot be described with words without diminishing the weightiness placed; without negating, in full, the sense of abject horror at its state of being.
I had sat atop that precipice between reality and unreality; sleep, the abyss, where devils absently play amongst the nightmares of men. I told myself it was just that, a dream, but I know now that the place I was and the places I was soon to go were gateways between the waking world and the one beneath it. Before I had time to process what I had just felt, I heard another sound, this one very much real, and resembling a dying animal. Slowly, I made my way out of my crumpled bed and opened the blinds. I almost wished, upon doing so, that I was back on the precipice.
Thirteen of the hogs stood in a circle on the lawn; how they had gotten out, I don’t know. Each stood perfectly still, equidistant from the next, and faced a quivering shadow in the middle of them all. I could make out faint features: a scraggly beard, a bottle- whether the man was a hiker or a drunk, I couldn’t tell. Nonetheless, he had wound up on my property, and found himself caught in a circle of pigs.
I watched the man’s motions and noted with rising horror that as he walked in one direction, the circle of pigs shifted to keep him at the center of the ring, and all the while they drew nearer to him. The man was clearly intoxicated now; it was almost half a minute before he stumbled, fell, and no sooner squelched in the dirt than thirteen squeals rang through the night and the animals blotted out his body from sight with their unified mass.
The man let out one scream but could manage no more than one. The ring was a blur of motion. I saw little but I saw enough; one pig reared its glistening head and I watched part of a scalp fly from its gaping mouth, arcing dark liquid as it trailed across the yard. Another couple chunks of meat rolled away from the pile and reached a stop several feet away in the yard; once the pigs were through with their feast, they broke off from the previous site, now nothing but a red stain on the earth, and gobbled up the pieces that had got away.
It took me the next four hours to get the pigs back into their pen, but I managed it. And, none had to be shot in the process, though I surmised I should come with a gun readied. A cleanup wasn’t necessary either; it was a hog farm, so it’d be getting dirty again soon. I considered another individual might find the stain, but there was no proof it was human blood, and I had no intention of calling the police out there.
That morning, my boss was late to work. I suppose that’s to be expected, though, when one has had their tires slashed. He was livid, and I didn’t correct his supposition that his ex-wife had committed the act, though I’m sure he would have loved another reason to fire me. After all, I was nothing more than a right thumb man.
The day had gone quicker and cooler than the former, and the low droning of the rain made the day seem just a little less lonely. Of course, I was slated to see Jackie that night, and after lunch I had left work, gone off to purchase more drinks from the local liquor store. I remember having gotten enough to fill the passenger seat of my truck, and felt almost as if the pile of liquor was a singular being, watching me; the silently judgemental friend. I had a twinge of anxiety, and half wondered if I was going insane; at that, I laughed.
The air was cool when Jackie got there. My mother always used to call that the first breath of autumn, when the reaper opened his eyes and cooed softly to his crop before the inferno was snuffed out by the frigid winter. As a child, I didn’t pay much attention to her words, but as I grew older I felt the cold in my bones, and tonight I felt it in my soul, a faint whisper of death like the mark of the beast. I watched Jackie’s hair whip to the side, a black flag in the wind, as she approached the house. On the doorstep, we embraced, and I recall she said she needed to talk.
“You’re an awfully successful man, Micah. And I know you’ve got a lot of money. Maybe you’re not wealthy, no, but you’re richer than me, and there’s enough to go around. It’d be a damn shame if your poor wife found out about me. No, I haven’t said a thing yet, and I know you know that, for the poor thing couldn’t take the stress and might just die. But I could say a thing, and maybe even a little more. And a nasty thing it’d be, too. I’d just ask for $1,000 a month, but times are tough, so I’m inclined to say $2,000 would be enough to keep my mouth shut. And, of course, we could continue seeing each other. . . if you’d so please.”
Some say they see red when they’re angry enough, but I still remember how I saw even less; the next five minutes of my life were no clearer to me than several brief glimpses of reality, interspersed by periods of unreality before the next glimpse. A scream, and then another. The thought: she’s got a knife. A bone snapped: mine, hers, it didn’t matter. Blood; spattered on the carpet, on my shirt, and the drip-drip of a glistening red globe, smashed in through the side like a cracked egg. I remember the silence before the adrenaline eased and I felt pain, and I remember the pain before the squelch when I issued one last kick to the body, lying on the ground.
It had been time for me to feed the pigs. Jackie usually helped me with the feeding when she came over, always with a coy look, and often it was short lived and I needed to finish the job on my own after she left. I was betting that she could help me again. Hoisting her up onto my shoulder wasn’t difficult, though I supposed she was lighter than usual. I stooped to pick up the last few pieces that didn’t come with the rest of her and took the two of us to our yard.
The part of the brain we, as people, already understand cannot possibly encompass every sensation which we, as people, feel. Scientifically, maybe- but that feeling that makes dogs bark at empty rooms; that makes cats stare into walls before jumping away, frightened; that feeling exists in humans, too. Call it a sixth sense, or ESP, it’s there, and I felt it when carrying Jackie. The birds had stopped calling, the trees had ceased rustling, and a low, droning buzz resounded outside the pig pen. It rose in volume and pitch, and as I dropped Jackie’s lifeless corpse onto the ground, it blocked entirely the noise of the world around me.
I didn’t even hear the thump. Nor did I hear the pigs, for it wasn’t until I looked up from her body, panting heavily from the effort of what had transpired, that I saw that we stood on the fringe of a gathering of the pigs. I couldn’t see if any remained in the pen, but I could see that at least a hundred gathered here outside the pen, all staring at me with glassy eyes and salivating mouths. Some stood on the haunches of the others to see, and many were covered in blood, having been left uncleaned since the events of the previous night. Even through the foggy daze I was in, my fear registered on a guttural level and, in horror at the unreality of what I was seeing, I backpedaled, eventually tripping over a rut in the earth and falling to the ground.
The next moment, each of the pigs had turned to look at what was left of Jackie. For a couple of seconds, they stared at her, and I realized that the droning in my ears had stopped, replaced with nothing but an ominous silence. That silence was short lived, for in one, unanimous, ear-splitting squeal, the pigs raced each other to the body, and carnage ensued.
The hogs in front no sooner reached the body than were ripped apart by the pigs behind them. Huge flaps of fatty skin hung in ribbons from the napes of their necks and blood sprayed in all directions as necks, limbs, tails, and extremities were mangled with the reckless abandon of a pack of wild dogs. I suppose that’s what they were; even if I treated them like domesticated creatures, they were animals, and they were out of the control of any constraints that civilization wanted to place on them.
The mass of flesh moved rhythmically and dripping bodies were flung like oversized rag dolls from the fray to land wetly and lifelessly on the earth. Occasionally, I would hear a crunch as bones were rent and snapped under the pressure of the fray, and squeals as the broken limbs stabbed through the fleshy bodies of the animals atop them. Hooves, teeth, and bones carved the flesh of the other pigs, and while blood and feces sprayed freely, chunks of gore rolled out of the fray like meaty baseballs.
The pleasant temperature drop had undone itself, as the wind had stopped blowing, and the stench of the scene hung thick in the hot and heavy air of late summer. I vomited, over and over, bent over in the shit and the blood, eyes watering from the smell, and blood dripped from everywhere on my body. It ran off my body in rivulets and pooled around my feet. Some was mine, but more was Jackie’s, and more yet was the remains of the pigs. Blood dripped from my mouth onto the dirt, and I could no longer tell if I was looking up towards the cruel stars, down at the earth, or witnessing the slaughter before me, for my sight was veiled by a coating of blood, and my senses were clouded by the rush of adrenaline, though I could do nothing but sit in shock.
Breathe.
A chunk of meat smacked me in the shoulder.
Breathe.
An ear bounced off of my forehead.
Breathe.
An opened artery sprayed blood across my face in a line.
Breathe.
My eyes recognized four pigs on the fringe of the conflict abandoning their course for what was left of Jackie and I saw turn to me, each foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. I saw two get ripped away by two other pigs, but the remaining couple charged. The one that reached me first clamped its maw around my leg not a moment before the next reached it, bit into its neck, and thrashed it back and forth.
I couldn’t hear my own screams above the countless squeals of the hog pile and the constant wet ripping that resounded through the dark sky. Eventually, the pig that had bit me gave out with a squeal, but not before the lower half of my leg was snapped with one, final pull, and the pig behind then buried its face in the body of the dying hog before being dragged back into the conflict by another. I failed to even hear my cries of pain over the sounds of the fray; I knew I screamed only from the burning in my throat.
Breathe.
A second later, I was thrown by the arm and crashed against the soggy earth several feet away from the conflict. For a moment, I wondered if I was alive, or if the world I was seeing around me was really Hell, and I was a damned soul being punished for my sins. At that, I blacked out, and entered a timeless, dreamless slumber that sent the world back into the buzzing mayhem I had felt before the carnage.
I opened my eyes some brief time later to find that the buzzing persisted in my ears while awake. Perspiring heavily from the heat, I found I was lying on my back on the ground, facing the burning remains of my house. The buzzing was really the rush of flames lapping at the sky and the crackling of embers as the roaring fire pulled them out of sight.
“Swine,”
The voice, which rang impossibly clear in the noise of the night, above the roar of the inferno and the sounds of the approaching sirens, had come from but a few feet behind the back of my moist head. Even after all that had transpired, the word made my hair stand on end, for it was spoken with a voice that could snuff out the stars if it were to say that they ought to stop shining.
I turned my head to face behind me, groaning sharply from the pain, to see a man atop a mountain of hundreds of mutilated hogs. The pile ran with a constant stream of blood and feces, which dripped slowly over the terraced stack of corpses to form a small lake underneath, the edge of which lapped my face with miniature waves of gore.
“. . . they never learn.”
Then, the man smiled, and I realized with horror that his legs resembled those of ruminants.
And atop his head rested two ebony horns, glistening in the moonlight.

submitted by Waking-Devils to nosleep [link] [comments]

2024.05.24 00:05 kychleap A Letter to the Newcomers

A Letter to the Newcomers
There’s a place in Indianapolis that calls us home each May. That patch of land lies west of downtown and calls the bravest of souls face it challenges, to defy what was once considered impossible. It has a fairly simple layout: 4 left-handed turns and 4 straightaways. But she is anything but simple. If you’re not careful this beast will chew you up and spit you out without a second thought, and remind you of one fact while she does it: You’re not special.
On that Sunday at the cusp of summer, we gather in a town that should’ve died when Main Street did. We gather as 33 of the bravest men and women strap themselves into a proverbial rocket ship. At their feet are suspension elements that can easily impale them. At their back, a 2.2L twin turbo V6 engine filled with flammable fuel and they must control the steering, shifting, braking, and acceleration. They have to maneuver this rocket ship at 230 miles an hour, covering two and a half miles in less than 40 seconds. Now do it again. Again. And again. For 500 miles.
Oh, and there are 32 other drivers breathing down your neck the entire time because they are chasing the exact same thing you are: immortality.
There isn’t a race on this planet where man and machine are asked to go this fast for this long. Finish first and you’ll join one of the most elite clubs in all of sports. Finish second and no one remembers your name.
I arrived in 2001, in the shadows of the hundreds of thousands that had made the pilgrimage before me. 7-year-old me had no idea what was about to happen, that I was about to lay eyes on my first love. I still remember the first time I walked up to the gate. I could see the water tower while walking down Crawfordsville Road, my dad telling me that was about how far we had to walk. Then, as the trees broke, you could see it.
Mecca.
A massive grey wall of bleachers that seems to blend with the sky. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. I have since asked my dad about what led to him dragging a kid to the largest single day sporting event on the planet. “I asked and you said yes. And that was that,” he says.
“You know, looking back it probably wasn’t the smartest parenting choice I made.” I couldn’t care less. That dumb parenting choice has led to a 24-year love affair with that plot of land at 16th and Georgetown and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’ve seen drivers whose names will one day be thought of as legend. People will say that they wish they could have seen them race. I’ll be able to say I did.
If you’re coming in for the first time, do yourself a favor and stop for just a second. Take everything in. Take in the sights (the family taking a photo together behind the pagoda, how the cars glisten as they’re being rolled to the grid, or the sea of color once the grandstands fill) the sounds (Dave Calabro and Alan Bestwick over the PA or the whistles of the yellow shirts directing traffic in Gasoline Alley), and smells (the tire smoke, the engine exhaust, grilled meats, cigar smoke, the sunscreen, or some borderline-erotic combination of them all). It’ll be something you crave going forward, like a druggie trying to figure out how he’ll get his next score.
Ask anyone who has been to that place and they’ll be able to tell you the first time they were there and the first time they knew what that place was all about. I went five years just going through the motions. 2006 rolled around and I experienced something I still can’t quite describe. 350,000 people and 20-some odd cars had no business being as quiet as they were when the checkered flag flew. The appreciation has only gone up through the years as I have experienced some incredible things.
· I’ve seen a woman lead.
· I’ve seen two rookies shock the field.
· I’ve seen a rookie lead in turn 800, only to finish second. Twice.
· I’ve seen a world champion expose this race to a new continent.
· I’ve seen a three-time winner come up short on the once-elusive fourth by less than a quarter of a second. Twice.
· I’ve seen a fan favorite finally have his number called.
· I’ve seen middle fingers at 220 miles per hour.
· I outran a tornado (seriously, that happened).
· I met a man who was fulfilling his lifelong dream, at the age of 56, of attending the 500.
And that’s only 23 years. Imagine what you could see in 30. In 40 or 50. Maybe even 75.
But you know what blows my mind the most? This place was built for cars to go 80, not 230.
This place has a weird trait about it. She will suck you in and won’t let go, but I’m okay with that. I think we all are. It’s why we come back each year. There’s an excitement in the air that is unmatched anywhere in the world. The euphoria of Back Home Again. The somberness of Taps. That thunderous roar of the flyover. The electricity that courses through the air as those six simple words are projected over the PA system, making every hair you have stand on end.
Whether you’re here to watch the race from the seats or rage your fucking face off in the Snake Pit, you’ll be with 350,000 of the closest friends you’ll never meet.
Join us, won’t you?

submitted by kychleap to INDYCAR [link] [comments]

2024.05.24 00:03 TransManGraham Eyes?

I’m trying to figure out how I want to do the eyes for my head. I really enjoy the look of Starpup Studio’s “Jelly the Canine V2” and want to aim for something similar. I’m mainly struggling on placement and shape. Did I make a mistake getting circular? Should I have gotten some that were already shaped? This is my first suit so I’m definitely learning but I’ve watched tutorials and still feel stuck. Any advice is appreciated!

submitted by TransManGraham to FursuitMaking [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 23:50 Impossible-Dog6857 AITA for considering not attending my childhood friend's wedding?

English is not my first language, so please feel free to correct me
I (25, female) am part of a friend group with four other girls (Nayla 25, Laura 24, Laila 29, and Anna 27). Anna and Nayla are sisters, which is relevant to the story.
Nayla is getting married, so we recently celebrated her bachelorette party. I was part of the planning group along with Anna, Laura, Laila, and another friend (Hannah 26). However, Laura wanted to control everything, so there were many plans we were not involved in because she didn't include us, only asking for money. We ended up spending about $500 per person in the planning group plus about $150 from the other participants. That means a total of approximately $3100 for her bachelorette party because Laura insisted we rent a house for three days.
However, my other childhood friend was getting married on one of those three days, so I attended her wedding. Hannah did the same because her family member was getting married. We informed the others in the group, who repeatedly told us how disappointed Nayla would be. One evening, Anna called the group and scolded us for half an hour because we were attending a wedding on the second day. She specifically addressed me, saying that I have known Nayla since kindergarten. I told her that I would be there all of the first day, half of the second day, and all of the third day. I also said that this was not a conversation I should be having with her but with Nayla if she felt the same way when she found out. However, they didn't stop and continued to text, asking me to cancel my other childhood friend's wedding.
Skip to the first day of the bachelorette party. Anna called early in the morning to ask everyone to arrive exactly on time to help decorate. I arrived ten minutes early, but everyone else was thirty minutes late, meaning I had to wait for forty minutes. When we were about to drive, I was told they didn't want to ride with boring people. So, I ended up in a car alone, and Hannah ended up in a car with two people she didn't know. I ended up parking my car at home and joining another car with two people I didn't know because they offered me a spot.
At dinner, Nayla asked which wedding Hannah was attending, even though Hannah hadn't told her, indicating that the others had told her we had to leave on the second day. After dinner, Anna decided to go home for the rest of the day and only came back on the second day.
When we drove to the rented house, I was there earlier with Hannah and another person. We were supposed to surprise her at the house, but she was in another car with Laura and Laila. Everyone else who attended had gone home because they couldn't take three days off their calendar. When Nayla arrived at the house and we yelled "surprise," she asked us to stop and then gave us the cold shoulder. We all went to bed, where they forced Hannah to sleep with Laila, whom she had just met, even though I offered to sleep with her because I had met her more times than Laila had. However, the others were not interested in that, even though Hannah was clearly uncomfortable. While I was lying in bed, I could hear Laura and Nayla in the other room talking badly about me and practicing what they would say when Nayla officially found out I had to attend a wedding the next day.
On the second day, I got up at 6 am, even though we went to bed at 3 am, because I was writing my master's thesis due in two weeks and a research article due to be published in three months. The others woke up at 12 pm because Anna came with her baby and scolded me for not having made breakfast yet (which I hadn't done because the others were still sleeping). Then everyone woke up and started making breakfast while Anna went into a room with Nayla to talk badly about Hannah and me.
Later that day, I told Nayla I had to go to a wedding. She began scolding me in front of everyone, saying all the things I had heard her practicing with Laura the night before. I told her that I was glad she was sharing her frustrations with me, but I was not interested in having the conversation with an audience. However, she was not interested in talking to me alone.
When I was about to leave, I gave everyone a hug and said, "See you later." Nayla, Anna, and Laura told me that if I couldn't be back before 12 am, I shouldn't come at all. They knew that was impossible because of the driving distance. Nayla ended up sending me passive-aggressive messages all night.
On the third day, Hannah called me and asked if I dared to go to the brunch we had planned. I told her I was nervous but was getting ready to go. Additionally, my boyfriend's sister had gone into labor, but I still chose to attend the brunch. Hannah asked if we should go together because she was also nervous. We ended up being five minutes late because Hannah's husband was sick and needed some medication. When we arrived at the café, only Laura, Laila, and Nayla were there. They didn't greet us but said they had ordered shared food for the three of them and that we "could do whatever we wanted." Hannah and I ended up ordering food to share.
The others ignored us when we spoke to them and only talked to "us" once when they asked Hannah how the wedding she attended the night before was. After an hour, they said they were tired and wanted to go home. They ended up going to Laura's place to try on bridesmaid dresses without Hannah and me, even though we are also bridesmaids and had agreed to try on the dresses together the following weekend.
I found it a very unpleasant experience, and I am very disappointed with how my friends treated me. Everyone tells me I shouldn't attend the wedding and should drop the friendship. However, I am unsure. What do you think? - This is not the first time they have treated me poorly.

submitted by Impossible-Dog6857 to shxtsngigs [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 23:49 Drunk_Cartographer Cervus Non Servus [Low Fantasy - 2,800 word Prologue]

Cervus Non Servus [Low Fantasy - 2,800 word Prologue]
Cervus Non Servus [Low Fantasy - 2,800 word prologue]
Hi.
I posted this a while back and didn’t get much feedback so I would like to try again.
My story explores what it is like to be a young person who becomes radicalised by an ideology. A fairly modern concept I am trying to insert in a fantasy world.
My prologue is aiming to set up the conflict that is yet to come with a few unanswered questions as well which would come to light later in the story.
I would really like some general feedback on my writing please. Before I was told my pacing was the main issue so I would like to know if this is still something I haven’t mastered. Any other tips always appreciated.
The POV of the prologue is a fifteen year old girl. I have never been a fifteen year old girl so it would be great to know if it did the teenage female gaze okay or if this screams written by a man.
I was also told the way I ended it before wasn’t clear so it would be helpful to clarify your opinion on what happens at the ends so I can gauge if it’s clearer now.
Thanks. Short exert below to hopefully get me over the word count.
““THERE!...I FOUND HER!” The cry rang out. She turned her head. She saw the source of the commotion. Three menacing figures. Clad in chainmail. They bore down on her with grim determination. These were no ordinary revellers - they were soldiers of the city watch and they were after her. Orla searched her mind frantically for an explanation. Had they seen her conjure the stag’s head? The house mother…had she sent them after her? Her legs went to jelly beneath her, and she let out a whimper that barely escaped her throat. Her hand instinctively sought the satchel hidden beneath her cloak, her fingers trembled. Surely they did not know about this. Ciaran, where are you? “
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EGIh9gQYqIkLp0aLz2zNaaYvoVUE2STs9rgISkKfh1w/edit

submitted by Drunk_Cartographer to fantasywriters [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 23:48 Livid_Pound9881 Army recruiters told me I don’t look committing enough ??

Bruh that was crazy I’m signing next week. Just cause I told him I was only going to sign for five years and it was solely for my parents. Yeahhh, I worked my butt off for two years, maintain my physical appearance for Basic, put school on pause for a year to commit to my medical waivers, mentally prepared for this moment, and I even reached out to different military recruitment because they wouldn’t answer me yet I’m not committed? Crazy I am very committed. I’m a petite Hispanic girl doing this for her parents and just because I didn’t want that college bonus. They told me otherwise. Im well off so I see no point in that 6 years bonus.

submitted by Livid_Pound9881 to rant [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 23:47 Successful_Type3416 Phase 2 whyyy

The update changed my shit😭😭

submitted by Successful_Type3416 to csgo [link] [comments]

2024.05.23 23:47 FreeMeFromThis- My little sister isn’t a missing person anymore, because something else came home in her place

I know I should have been ecstatic.
My mother’s eyes swam with gratitude and yet mine were always cast to the ground, burning holes into crayon-ridden patches of carpet we refused to clean. We’d barely dared to dream during those silent dinners without Willow, the jarring sound of clumsy cutlery echoing through our now too-empty house, conversation seeming pointless without her skipping around the dinner table begging for the attention I gave her too little of, thumbs ghosting over my phone instead.
I want to reach back in time and wrench my head from my shoulders when I think of her begging to show me a cartwheel, watching myself roll my eyes instead of grabbing her up and memorising her face because she would be dead soon. Days of torture turned to weeks and Willow was gone, lost to someplace only our terrible imaginations could conjure up. She was dead but we were ghosts, haunting our own house with pale apparitions of ourselves, eating to live and speaking only to fill the silence. She was colour and the world redrew itself in black and white for the three of us. Life was over.
Until it wasn’t.
The news she was missing had never really caught on outside the walls of our little town, so when the local policeman came to our doorstep, it was without fanfare. On the very first day she vanished, the officer leading the investigation found a small pair of gloves - her gloves - by the treacherous river that wound through the woods. To them, the investigation was over before it even began, no need to alert the press or sully the town with sad posters. The world chugged along without us, utterly unbothered, and we crumbled into thousands of pieces.
But, as the rain-soaked policeman uttered on a Tuesday evening, Willow had returned, found in a patch of woods smeared with mud and blood and asking to come back to our home. She led the police to this house, and as everyone yelled in unison, she's back. It’s what my parents choked out in desperate, relieved sobs I’d never heard fill our house up before. It’s what all the paperwork stated, endless days of making sure everything was above board.
It seemed I was the only naysayer staring into this girl’s eyes and knowing with every fibre of my being that this was not my Willow sitting cross-legged on our family sofa. She looked like her - eerily so. But it was off, it was wrong. Her chin a little too pointy, her gaze a little too cold. She was not my bright, bubbly little sister dressed head to toe in pink.
But she said she was. She said it with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, eyes which sparkled just a shade or two off Willow’s. Her voice was a semitone lower, but that’s because it’s been two years and voices change, my mother insisted. Her chin-length hair now flowed far past her shoulders in that same chocolate hue, a length Willow would gasp at if she saw. This stranger wandered straight into our house, pulled on my sister’s too-small clothes and played pretend, pulling the strings on everyone but me.
The first night was something out of a horror movie, the heaviest sense of dread settling like lead in my stomach. Bile rose into my throat as she skipped into the living room, settling herself in Willow’s seat and tugging impatiently at the hem of my sister’s favourite dress. I’d bought it for her on a spontaneous shopping trip, watching her eyes light up at all the little sunflowers lining the collar. She’d been giddy, and now a stranger’s fingernails dug into the fabric, leaving marks I’d never get rid of. No longer would that little dress smell like Willow, because it was going to smell like her.
“Come to the table,” my mother insisted in a too-jovial tone, eyes more alight than I’d seen them in years. My father nodded a silent agreement, perhaps a bit more muted than she was, and I had to swallow down my fury, my confusion. I had to. Six eyes bore into mine and the chair scraped as I sat down and this wasn’t my sister. She stared over her plate at me with a hollow smile, eyes devoid of any real emotion. Her fingers drummed on the mahogany, a disjointed rhythm I’d never heard despite sitting across from my sister for nine years.
“I missed you.”
Her words were sickly sweet, head tilted slightly to the side. Her gaze felt almost challenging, but my mother’s eyes brimmed with tears as she nodded vigorously, fork hanging in mid-air.
“Oh gosh, you wouldn’t believe-” she gulped her words down, overwhelmed, “you’ve dreamed of a family dinner, haven’t you, love?” she regarded me almost desperately, fingers trembling. And I had, of course. I’d cried a thousand tears for my baby sister, but the girl swinging her legs inches from mine sitting in my sister’s clothes was not the girl I’d sobbed for. When her foot brushed mine accidentally, thousands of goosebumps erupted over my skin because it was new, wrong.
“I’d love to hear where you’ve been,” I dared whisper into the silence. My mother gasped, fork clattering noisily onto her plate.
“Mr Matthews said-”
“Yeah, and if Willow ever turns up, I’ll keep quiet about it,” I snapped, eyeing this wild animal before me. She sucked in a mighty breath, and I swore I felt her gaze prickle me. But it was only seconds before her eyes became doe-like; wide and comical.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she uttered sadly, looking to my mother for reassurance. Her lip quivered, hands shook. It was almost laughable how overzealous her performance was and yet my father admonished me, snapping at me to leave while my mother gathered up the intruder in her arms, clutching at her so she’d never leave. I watched the family before me, new and being invented before my eyes.
As I left, she smirked right at me.
Nobody believed me. Not on the second day when I walked in and saw her doing perfect cartwheels in the living room, something Willow had been utterly hopeless at. She must have learned my mother chirped, scrubbing dishes so vigorously I swore she was leaving cracks. Nobody blinked on the third day when she locked herself in the bathroom and claimed to be too sick to head to the station to kickstart the rigorous medical testing. But it was the fourth night that haunted my dreams, driving me even closer to the edge I’d been dancing along. I’d largely managed to avoid her, other than the odd lingering gaze as we crossed paths in the hallway or a wry smile as we brushed shoulders.
Until there she was at 2 am, standing over me as I slept.
I didn’t scream. Didn’t startle her into dropping her soulless smile as she gazed upon me, staring straight down mere inches from my face. So close I could feel her hot breath on my nose, feel the animosity coming off her in waves. She didn’t move when I clocked her, didn’t take a step back or pretend to be doing anything other than pressing her face into mine in the dead of night.
“Why are you here?” I whispered, and we both knew I meant more than standing in my room. She laughed, a little giggle I’d never heard leave Willow’s mouth.
“I wanted to come home, silly,” she hissed back, breath tickling my cheek horribly. I swallowed, desperate not to show the fear which was beginning to course through me.
“You aren’t Willow,” I gritted my teeth and only then did she pull back a little, mock-hurt lining her features.
“That’s a shame,” she frowned, “You’re my favourite big sister.”
My hands trembled under the covers. “And how many sisters have you had?”
She paused then, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Oh. Lots.”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt as unsafe in my life as I did in that moment, watching her eyes glimmer with something truly evil, a sick sort of pride. I didn’t find my voice for a long time but when I did it was small and timid, a shadow of my confidence from only hours earlier.
“And what do you want with us?”
She thought on it for a moment, tilting her head back and forth as though the question was funny. Even in the dark, she looked wrong, as though someone had built her to look like my beloved Willow and misremembered her slightly, getting the angles and details wrong. She lay her fingers on my forehead, painfully drumming that same pattern on my skin as all those days ago. Shamefully, I was too scared to move, even as her fingers jammed into my skull.
“I like your Mum,” she mused, giggling childishly as she caught her mistake, “Our Mum. I think she’s going to like me more than your sister.”
But before I could react, she was gone, skipping towards the door in the wrong nightclothes, only turning back to casually ruin my life.
“She’s dead, by the way,” she murmured into the silence, shrugging, “It was painful, too. Sorry for your loss.”
And she left, leaving me aghast as I festered in my blanket, desperately grabbing Willow’s teddy bear from beside my bed and clutching it to my chest. I sobbed myself to sleep that night, face buried in her favourite toy and knowing for sure that she was never coming home.
It only got worse.
One day, I came home and my father wouldn’t speak, only managing to stare at his new daughter as she smirked at him from the shadow of Willow’s bedroom. He startled at me in the hallway, scurrying back into his study. When I called for him, he shook his head. “Hang out with your friends, go back outside,” he’d ordered, voice cracking. He slammed the door behind him and that was that. I was left to stare into Willow’s room, locking gazes with a pair of empty eyes sneering at me from under the bed, dark shadows only giving me a glimpse at her little limbs all cracked at the wrong angles as she twisted herself to fit where she shouldn’t.
When I tried to speak to my mother, she grew more and more irate, once physically covering my mouth with her hand.
“Mum, please see that she isn’t who she-” but she muffled my words out of existence with a trembling hand, sending me a subtle no with a quick shake of the head. She pleaded towards me with her eyes but I realised quickly that her steely gaze had fallen behind me. I didn’t need to see the parasite in my peripheral to feel her gaze burning holes into the back of my head. And I wasn’t imagining it - my mother was fearful, finally turning back to me with a steely resolve.
“Everything is fine,” she murmured, speaking a thousand words with only her eyes and voice dropping to a whisper, “we will make it work.”
That night, the stranger wearing my sister’s favourite bracelet gleefully pushed a piece of paper to the centre of the dinner table, eyes lit up with glee. “I drew us!” she cried, greedily watching for our reactions.
My mother gave nothing away, only visibly swallowing as she drank in the paper, white-knuckled grip on her spoon. My father stood from his seat, striding from the table and slamming the front door behind him as he left us, perhaps for the last time. I, however, dared pick it up, regarding every horrific line and frantic scratching before me.
It was us. Except the people labelled mummy and daddy were standing without heads, rivers of blood dripping down their torn torsos. My double sat in the corner of the paper, a pair of gouged-out eyes lying on the floor next to my terrified frame. Our stranger stood smiling with a large rake in her hand, head bent to the side and wearing my sister’s dress. But somehow, worst of all, was the picture of a little girl crumpled in the corner, a frown etched upon her face. Willow the scrawl above her stated, and I could hardly bear it.
I don’t remember much of it now, just the screaming and crying, lifting whatever wasn’t nailed down and hurling it across the room, watching it splinter into a thousand pieces. My mother cradling me as she dragged me upstairs, letting me bawl into her familiar sweet-smelling cardigan, clutching her as though she’d leave me too. The swirling wrongness engulfing our house, swallowing us back into the clutches of grief. But my all-encompassing comfort disappeared because when that horrible little thing downstairs called a desperate ‘mummy?’, my mother went rigid.
“You don’t have to go,” I pleaded through bleary eyes, but her sad smile told me that she did.
“I prayed two years for my baby girl to come home,” she’d said in a thick voice, clutching my hands as if begging me to understand. I’ll always wish I tried harder to keep her in that room with me, because the moment I loosened my grasp, I sealed her fate. The thing downstairs called and she offered me a sad smile, fingers brushing mine before she disappeared through the darkness of the door.
I never saw her again.
Before my eyes closed and sleep claimed me, I saw the head of Willow’s beloved bear discarded on the floor across the room, three feet from its body. My heart sank into my stomach and I drifted off into nightmares, feeling somehow, it was all over. When I awoke, slick with sweat and dread, she was there in the darkest corner of my room. Almost-Willow.
Nighttime shrouded her but I could see the blood, even in the dim light. Something glinted in her hand under the glow of moonlight, and her eyes blazed with something bigger than the both of us. Twelve minutes passed and she didn't move, her relentless, empty stare locked onto me as she swayed back and forth.
I knew that the second I moved she was going to lunge. Somehow, I knew that’s what Mum did. That’s why the room fell into such uneasy silence, because I was utterly alone, and when I held my breath, I swore could I hear the shift of fabric. Yes, she was definitely closer to me than she had been five seconds ago. If I squinted, I could see her feet shuffling towards me, in time with my erratic breathing.
I ran, of course, limbs jelly as I sprinted past my parents' room, practically choking on the stench of blood. She locked all the doors, sealed all the windows. I don’t even remember how I made it to the hospital, sodden and picking glass out of my skin as a kind nurse led me to a room, concern etched into her features as she promised to return for me as soon as she called the police. It’s hard to type with blood trickling down my phone, fragments of the upstairs window jammed into my flesh.
It’s over, I’m sure. But somehow, with every second that passes, I feel closer to my sister. The real one. Not the one with her face pressed into the third-story window of my hospital room, face contorted in bloody, evil glee.

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2024.05.23 23:44 OneWishGenie69 Post anything related to RACINO ROCKS event here!

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2024.05.23 23:43 Throwaway-70928 Well, she blocked me. It was a tough battle but I fought to the end. A recap of our near-5-month journey, equating to 148 days of highs and lows.

MAY 23, TODAY -- Long journey, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible. Before I begin, I want to make it known that me and my ex were unofficially in a relationship. We did argue sometimes, but it only occurred over texting. In person it was a completely different relationship. It was LITERALLY PERFECT. However, It's very difficult to understand each other behind a screen as you can't physically or emotionally touch and feel one another, or depict what the other's emotions are. It's something I've explained to her but we'll reach that point later on. Anyways... I started talking to this beautiful and amazing female two days after Christmas 2023 (on Dec. 27) and we both fell in love with each other within a day of talking. We've had countless conversations about how we were going to plan our future together. We did all the lovebird talk and showered each other with compliments telling how perfect the other person is and hoping to spend the rest of our lives together. Hmph. Only one can dream, right?
Fast forward 32 days later (Jan 28, 2024), we plan to meet for the first time and go on our first date. It went well, but there were some nervous moments within the first 15 minutes. After that we got a lot more comfortable with one another and hooked up (no sex) for nearly an hour on a snowy afternoon. Due to circumstances out of our control in which I blame the god awful weather, we had to end the date early, which lasted about a good 3 hours. The very next day I receive devastating news as I was told she realized she still had feelings for he ex after he messaged her saying that he spotted us "kissing in the car". Mind you, this guy also cheated on her for six months during the time they've been together so what do you have to hold onto? Besides that, this fucker lives 30 minutes away, and you mean to tell me he came here to follow us everywhere we went ON THIS DAY SPECIFICALLY? I think not. Whatever.
Four days later, I decide to take a step back and not message her for 3 days (from February 1-4th) as I needed a couple days to collect my thoughts and think stuff over. We remained in contact and still talked everyday but it was a lot of crying on both ends. There was light flirting here and there, but we were not trying to do it on an obvious level. Think of it as breadcrumbing but not exact. The entire month was a rollercoaster of emotions and deep talks. We argued a few times here and there but they were never anything serious or harmful to our relationship. We did have a personal talk on the 20th and better understood our emotions, but nothing's improved much. Not much eventful stuff happened, so moving on to March...
March 1st was the day she confessed she never stopped loving me and still had strong feelings but was too afraid to show them. She tried pushing herself away after thinking I hated her and told me that she cried everyday and thought about me and how we handled the situation was taking a toll on her mentally and emotionally, stating she doesn't like showing anyone that side of her. She recommended we take a break from talking which only lasted exactly a week (until 3/7). She broke NC at 5 in the morning stating, "I thought you said we were on good terms." replying to a story I posted. Basically another girl was jealous of my relationship with my ex, but that's irrelevant here. Five days later (3/12), My ex's ex-boyfriend's FRIEND doxxed her. Early in the morning at around 3:30 AM (3/13), she explains the situation to me and sends me screenshots of their conversation and he happens to gets a hold of her message logs on Snapchat (some type of data breach he installed in his computer) and threatens to harm her and pull up to her house (which he did show up three days later that Friday and drove past her house at 2 in the morning with his lights off, yeah, weird motherfucker). I do all the comforting letting her know that I'll do whatever it takes to protect her from them and she suddenly grows a newfound love and appreciation for me, getting over him completely. March 16, early Saturday morning after midnight hours, we get on the phone and FaceTime from 1:01 AM to 9:33 AM (I have the logs, I know I keep track of a lot of our milestones) talking about life and what we'd expect moving forward together. It was honestly the happiest day of my life after reconciling with her. It marked the second time we started dating as we haven't ended on bad terms prior. A week later on March 23, we hung out for the first time in two months, marking the second time we've seen each other in person. It was a really bad snowstorm that day here in Upstate NY so we decide to drive back to her house canceling our plans of going on a date which would've been our second. We ended up getting stuck in the snow on the way up the hill, and it was pretty fun trying to get out. We ended up having great makeup sex and it was our first time being intimate on that level. A day later (3/24), I get a long wall of text of her pouring her heart out to me which made me tear up a bit. That moment made me realize she was the one for me (or that I thought of...). Five days pass by and on 3/29, we get to that second date and spent 11 and a half hours of our day together. We went to her favorite diner, went on a 40 minute drive for edibles up until watching the sunset until 7:47 before going home. On Easter two days later, we had our third date, which is personally a favorite of mine. We went to the movies, the arcade, to the pet store to pick out a snail for her tank, dinner, and so much more. I'll spare you the remaining details this time.
Come the month of April (2nd), she had asked me to come over to her house to hang out before she head to work. Two days after (April 4), we go on our fourth ever date, it was a relatively short one but we still were so obsessed with seeing each other that it didn't even matter if it was for twenty seconds (which literally happened March 30th haha). April 5th was our third time hanging out and for 4 and a half hours we basically had sex the entire time on six different occasions and cuddling watching a movie and a few YouTube videos. That very same day is when she started crying in my arms when we were cuddling and I asked her what's wrong and she would always tell me, "It's nothing, I'm fine." I knew that wasn't the case. It wasn't until I realized that our past arguments before we started dating again was taking a toll on her mentally, and she was having fears of being hurt again. She's had a lot of trauma in her past two relationships and I've done everything to reassure her that she'd have nothing to worry about because I really loved this girl. I never did anything to hurt her. Three days later (Apr 8), we were supposed to go see the Solar Eclipse together but she went with her friends instead and I kinda got upset over it so as a result, I didn't message her as much that day as I usually do and she sensed something was off about me. I didn't make it known so I played it off as nothing too serious. She did send me a message and as I was in the middle of sending a reply, I accidentally ended up leaving her on read and got back to her 52 minutes later after waking up. I knew she was pissed off at me because she began sending me 2-3 word replies and I instantly picked it up as she used to do this during the entire month of February and half of March after we ended things between us romantically. I decided to give her the rest of the night to herself regarding space and not text her back until early the next morning I get to work (Apr 9). I apologized to her and she tells me she thinks we need to end things for the better of her mental health and that we'd try again someday when she's ready and able to. I told her my reasonings and she tells me that I need to "man tf up and speak what's on your mind". Mind you, If I do that, it'll only hurt her feelings and she'll start crying. She's very sensitive so I try to be mindful of her feelings. That's that, and come four days later on a Saturday (Apr 13), we go on another "date" post-dating. we go to get some Taco Bell then camp out in a parking lot with sad music playing in the background. She stares at me but I can tell that she's fighting back tears. I do the same thing but for no more than 5 seconds then I turn my head to look away and out the window, letting out awkward giggles. Eventually my emotions overtake me and I throw myself towards her and hug her tightly while breaking down crying. I told her that I love her so much, and she then said she loves me as well. She immediately starts sobbing herself and I wiped every tear off her cheek as they rolled down her face and I kept my arm wrapped around her the entire time and even after we got done weeping. We spent the better part of 5 minutes with our foreheads pressed against one another's and I went in and kissed her and she let out a slight laugh after. After that, our post romance "date" lasted about an hour and a half as she would be busy the rest of the evening. We said our usual "byes" and gave each other a long, intimate hug after. Little did I know this would be the last time I'd see her in person as of this moment. The next day, we have a talk saying how much we appreciate each other, how I'll never neglect her and that I'll always be there for her when she needs it, and she says the same and thanks me for caring about her despite all she's put me through emotionally. The rest of April goes by and we're still doing everything we've done while we dated such as falling asleep on FaceTime together and talking for long hours (I'm talking 10-18 hour phone call sessions), or playing games together such as Call of Duty and Among Us for hours at a time. Apr 22 comes around, and I have suddenly entered a really dark place mentally. I get so upset that I'm brushing off friends, and even the girl I've come to love with all my heart. I haven't contacted her for three days after but once I did, I apologized and explained to her what I was going through at the time. She was obviously upset with me and thought I was over her and she spent every hour of the time she was alone crying and it made me feel like a complete asshole. I definitely had a reason because this is the second time I'm going through a heartbreak with her and it just happened so unexpectedly. April 28 comes and I tell her that I'm ready to just end talks completely, and I wished her a happy life. She promised me she was going to stop and try to fix things between us, and me feeling bad, I obliged because I felt terrible and I still loved her of course, but her actions of wanting to make things work didn't last a long time. I gave her an ultimatum that for the final few days of April, we'd try to work through our issues and go into May with a clean slate. Once again, she started to get distant with me shortly after and her long texts would become shorter and shorter to just one word replies, the phone calls would stop and I basically had to ask her more than once if she'd like to talk over the phone because it's a better way of communicating, and eventually we FaceTimed eight days later (May 4)...
May 4th we call each other at 2:57 AM and talk for a few minutes before falling asleep on call. We wake up at around 5 AM and talk about nonsense until 7 AM. It was her idea to hang up, she got emotional over something I must've said, I'm not sure...? She then says she would text me later, but the remainder of the day goes past and I get no message, no call, nothing. I'm upset and she caught wind of it and apologizes to me the next day at nearly 5 in the morning. We had an argument over texting and that was the final nail in the coffin for us. She suggested things to be over for us and it left me devastated because I just don't know what I've done to get treated like this. I did every nice thing for her, I never disrespected her, manipulate, act hostile or possessive at all. I was the complete opposite. I'm not one who likes to face adversity nor am I confrontational. I avoid any problems I may have to face. We go No Contact, but stupid me breaks that just 11 days later (May 16) sending a 1,259-word iMessage about all the shit we went through the last couple of months. I made sure to let her know my love and appreciation for her. I told her how we should've given space to each other before our situation got to the point that it got to. She replies three days later stating she didn't know what to say and apologizes for taking long to respond. She says she doesn't want to risk a relationship again because she's scared due to the way she used to talk to me disrespectfully when we tried being friends through all of our issues. four days later which is May 23 today, she goes OFF on me and cursed me out like I've never seen from the likes of her before. I did my best remaining calm with her throughout the entire encounter. I apologized multiple times for how I made her feel but it just wasn't enough I then get blocked.
I really found it hard to be "friends" with her through all of this until we can work ourselves up into a REAL relationship. I'm at a loss for words. I lost someone who meant so fucking much to me. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so torn. Haley, you were the best I've ever loved. I thought I finally found my soulmate after being done so wrong in the past. I'll always love you, forever and always. I'm gonna miss the late night calls, your beautiful smile, your gorgeous eyes, and your amazing presence around me. I'm even gonna miss that annoying ass dog of yours and that perverted cat that used to watch us make love on the same bed he laid on during it. I hope someday we can make our way back to each other. I hope this isn't goodbye, but see you later.

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