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I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ThrowRA-lanadelcray posting in relationship_advice
Concluded
**Mood Spoiler -*\*shes is now single
1 update - Medium
Original - 21st April 2024
Update1 - 22nd April 2024

1 New Update
Thanks to u/Various_Possible_527, u/-trout, u/keiciii and u/TeddyBearT800
for pointing out the new update

Update2 in the same post - 27th April 2024

I (25f) kissed another man when I was drunk. Should I tell my boyfriend? (28m)

This past Friday my friend threw a huge party for her 26th birthday, it wasn't a particularly significant birthday but her father always indulges all her requests and her parties are always one of the highlights of the year.
This year she was inspired after watching The Fall of the House of Usher on Netlfix and wanted to throw a party in an abandoned building and her father made it happen. I wasn't too involved with the planning this year because work kept me busy so when I first heard the idea I was skeptical but she pulled it off spectacularly.
A little backstory on my boyfriend and I, we met at uni when I was 18 and had been close friends, slightly lost contact when we graduated and I got engaged, my fiance died when I was 22 and he was great support to me during that time and after that since he moved to a city 4 hours away we'd only exchange the occasional text. Well, until Feb of this year when we both got slightly pissed at a another party and slept together. He asked me out after that and we slowly transitioned into a relationship.
Anyway moving on, I woke up today with vague memories of what had happened the night before but my body felt...wrong. I know I got insanely drunk and stupidly said yes when I was offered ecstasy. I've only ever smoked weed in the past and that was during uni, the UK is very strict about drug usage and my job requires a pretty intense background check, even being in the vicinity of substances might get me fired.
At the party I hung about with my friends towards the beginning of the night but I turn into a social butterfly when I'm drunk and I wandered off and ended up chatting to a friend of a friend I barely knew. He was quite flirty and I remember mentioning pretty early on that I had a boyfriend and he said he was just 'bantering', now I can't remember who initiated it but I remember kissing him. I don't for how long but it felt pretty intense.
After beating myself up and having a shower I asked any of friends if they had witnessed anything and one of them said she was the one who has dragged me away from the other guy after seeing me making out with him. She said as she grabbed me she could tell I was ridiculously drunk and had no idea what I was doing and took care of me the rest of the night.
She had chosen not to say anything to me if I didn't remember since it was just a drunken mistake and my other friends agree with her. They said it's not worth blowing up my relationship with something like this since it doesn't mean anything and I barely remember what happened. She told me nobody else saw since we were in quite a secluded corner and this secret would stay in between us but I'm not sure how to proceed.
He texted me this morning asking how I was and hoping I had a nice time and if my friend liked her present since he helped me shop for it and I haven't been able to reply to him. I've got no words until I sort out what I'm going to do.
I know these girls would never tell a soul what happened but the guilt is killing me. I don't know how I'm going to face my boyfriend the next time I see him even if I choose not tell him.
And if I do then how do I deal with everything if he chooses to leave? I know I'll never do anything like this again because I'll never let myself be put in such a mindless state but would it be absolutely horrible of me if I choose to just move on from this without telling him? I need objective advice because I know my friends are always going to try and protect and help me. I know I exhibited supreme lack of judgement and would not mind any criticism but don't slutshame please.

Comments

OperatorValueson
Tell him and accept the repercussions as the cost of this mistake. There is no way out of it. Learn from this and grow as a person.

OOP: I think this was definitely the wake-up call I needed about how I'm living my life

Gatorman042755
You think your secret will be safe with your friends, but this kind of thing always gets out eventually. So, you have a choice between the following:
Coming clean with your bf now, confessing your mistake and promising never to get that sh\t faced again, and because you're being forthcoming, honest, and regretful, having the possibility that he will eventually forgive you, and maybe save your relationship.*
Having him find out a month, 6 months, or a year down the road. At that point he will know that you hid it from him, lied by omission, and have a hard time proving and documenting what actually happened. He will never forgive you or trust you again if he finds out about it this way, and it is almost certainly a death knell for your relationship.

OOP: The possibility of him not forgiving me is what is terrifying to me but you're completely right about it being worse if he finds out down the road. I don't think there's going to be a magical perfect outcome for me here

Update - 1 day later

Thank you everyone for the advice left, especially the comments calling out my behaviour. While they initially stung, you made me see the way I was trying to justify what I did instead of taking accountability. I got a dozen messages from people who had been in my boyfriend's position before and I want to apologise if my post was triggering in any way. So I listened to the majority and told my boyfriend.
I texted my boyfriend that I missed him a lot and he said that he could drive down and stay for a couple of days since he could work remotely if he wanted to but I don't have that option. He basically left as soon as I asked him to and it takes him about four hours to reach my city in which I had enough time to get the full story of that night.
I asked a friend of mine if he could find out from the guy what happened without making it obvious I was asking and he agreed, I asked him to call me when he did so me and my friends could listen in. I wanted to know exactly what he said so I knew what to tell my boyfriend.
My friend is closer to the guy than I am and they game together so him going over to his flat wasn't an uncommon occurrence. Initially he was worried that he wasn't a 'good actor' but I told him exactly how to bring it up and he did pretty well tbf.
He said he had seen me and him kissing and asked what was going on. The other guy laughed the whole thing off, saying he didn't think I'd be such a slag and that my friend was a 'c*nt' for dragging me away. My friend said the situation was pretty fucked now since I had a boyfriend and the other guy said if I didn't want him to kiss me then I shouldn't have hung around him all night but my friends told me I wasn't around him for more than 20 minutes in total.
At least now I know I'm not the one who initiated the kiss and he was much more sober than me since he recalled things I had no recollection of saying. In my previous post I said I remembered mentioning my boyfriend and he said that too so I am trusting the little memories I have of that night. A couple people messaged me saying I had been taken advantage of but I honestly can't say that since I did kiss him back. That is a huge accusation to make and I can't remember enough even say that.
Everything that guy said just confirmed to me that I needed to tell my boyfriend. I am furious with him for the way he talked about my friend and I but I'm not going to waste anymore time on him.
While my boyfriend was driving down I texted him that I needed to talk to him about something important as soon as he got here so I wouldn't chicken out. I live with two of my girlfriends and they cleared out until I had talked to him so I had no excuses. He looked so worried when he arrived, I think he thought I was going to break up with him since I was crying as well. He was being so unbelievably sweet and hugged me tightly and said he wanted to work it out and just wanted me to talk to him.
So I sat him down and told him not to interrupt me and to let me finish. I told him everything, taking ecstasy, kissing another guy and waking up not remembering anything, I even told him that I contemplated not telling him anything, what the guy said on the phone. Absolutely everything.
He was holding my hand tightly in the beginning and by the end of it he had his head in his hands as he listened to me finish. He just sat there in the end and stared at the floor. I knew I needed to give him time but I don't know how long we both just stared into space. I had no clue what he was thinking. I would've preferred if he just yelled so we could atleast talk, I wanted to shake him into saying anything.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded soft and hurt. He asked me if I actually did want to see him or if I made him drive four hours just so I could tell him I kissed someone else. I said I did miss him but knew I needed to tell him what had happened and didn't want to do it on the phone.
I told him that I wanted to take full accountability and that as drunk or high as I was that was no excuse and I was so very sorry for hurting him this way. After this I know I can't trust myself to drink in a responsible way and that I'm going to cut back on it. I've planned to go fully sober for one month just so I know I can and that nothing like this happens again.
He replied that this had just confirmed every insecure thought he had about our relationship. He said he always felt like I had one foot out the door and that he had pressured me into this relationship and maybe what I did was a way getting out of it. I said it was a drunken mistake and it didn't mean anything further. He said it meant he loved me but I didn't love him and had this been any other girl in his past he would've been out the door but he couldn't do that with me just yet.
And I couldn't fight him on that. I couldn't say I loved him right now, I cared for him alot and I could see myself being in love with him in the future but I'm not there right now. I haven't been in a relationship since my fiance and it's been difficult for me to open up my heart to someone else. I'm terrified of being left by someone else I love.
I asked him if he could see himself ever forgiving me and he said that he didn't know right now. I know I'm not the victim here but hearing that was so painful I just started sobbing and being the amazing man that he is, he comforted me and I felt so disgusted with myself for hurting him. He held me against his chest, stroked my hair and let me cry it out.
And then he left, saying he was going to get a hotel and come back tomorrow so we could talk when we're not so emotional and after he decided what he wanted moving forward. I told him he could stay in my room and I'd sleep on the sofa but he said he didn't think he could be around me right now and make a rational decision.
Right now I'm fighting to urge to go to him and make him stay any way I can. I know there's no magical words that'll fix this. Also has anyone ever been through anything like this and how did you and your partner worked past it?

Comments

Independent-Library6
Had him drive 4 hours so you could tell him you cheated, lol. Jesus, you're insufferable.
lookingforpc
Harsh, you know she did it in goodwill in a panicked state, but I'll admit it must not have helped the situation

WominjekatoNaarm
Guess who is currently on his way home right now. OP. It'll be a miracle if you ever hear from him again. You might want to check your socials and see if he is still on there. If he isn't, he won't be coming back.

Update 2 - 5 days later

Sorry I forgot to update this but this past week has been pretty shit. I wrote down everything that happened but wasn't in the mood to post it until today.
My boyfriend came back the next day and his demeanour had completely changed. I tried to hug him and he side stepped me and asked if we could go on a walk to talk since he didn't need my friends as an audience.
Before he could speak I apologised again and promised to do whatever to make it up to him and he said I didn't need to do that. He said he thought about it all night and came to the conclusion that we never should've started dating no matter how in love he was. That the conception of our relationship was from me being drunk and sleeping with him and that he should've treated it like a mistake rather than the start of a relationship. He said he was tired of feeling like a second thought and apparently I made him feel that way.
I kept on saying I wanted to be with him even though I know he deserves better and that I knew what I was doing when we got together and in what circumstances did I make him feel like he didn't matter? He said he's seen me in relationships when I care and love the person and he didn't get any of that.
After my fiance died, he was the one that pushed me to go to therapy and I always refused since I didn't think I needed it and he brought that up as well and said my life would continue to be a mess and I would continue to hurt other people until I broke my destructive patterns and actually dealt with my emotions.
I just had no clue what to say. I admit I'm the one that fucked up but it's one fuck up, it's not always indicative of some larger problem. A mistake is a mistake sometimes.
He said he still loved me but knew carrying on with a relationship right now would cause more problems between us later down the line and he didn't want that. I told him I didn't understand, if he loved me how could he leave me? I still don't understand. He said just because we wouldn't be together didn't mean he'd disappear from my life. He said anything that happened between us right now would be tarnished and he wanted a relationship without guilt and that wouldn't be possible right now. I saw how painful it was for him to say all of that to me, I'd never seen him cry before.
He left after that since I couldn't talk to him anymore. I just felt so hurt and abandoned and then felt guilty for feeling like that since I was the one who fucked up and it was just a vicious cycle. He kissed me when he said goodbye and said he'll check up on me soon.
He texted me the next day, just asking how I was and I didn't know how to reply so I didn't. He still messages everyday, asking how I am and that he really wishes I would text back since he's worried about me. I cant find it in me to reply. I know he's asked my friends about me but they said he just seemed concerned about me.
I still can't believe he ended it.
The only positive is that I've not drank any alcohol in about a week and it's much more difficult than I initially anticipated but I'm going to carry on and try and finish a month.
I'll update if anything else changes but it probably won't

Comments

Longnumber (before the update)

Also has anyone ever been through anything like this and how did you and your partner worked past it?

Yeah, I'll share, but I don't think it will help you get back together.
I'm now mid 30s. I've been with my wife since we were 20. We were long distance off and on for the first years. We never really set clear boundaries on what was and wasn't over the line. Dancing with other people when we went out was never discussed although making out/anything approaching sex obviously was off limits. I would wingman with friends and talk/dance with girls but never let anything escalate. Felt like it was harmless fun.
One night 2 years into the relationship, I was very drunk and essentially got ditched at a party where I knew no one and with no way home except to wait for a ride that wouldn't be for over an hour. I thought, "fuck it, I'll meet people and dance". I ended up dancing with a girl which escalated into making out. She was talking about getting me back to her place. When we split to go to the bathroom, I sobered up, realized what I was doing and went outside and waited for my ride.
There were no witnesses, no way for me to ever get caught. But, I felt guilty. And, I knew with roles reversed, I would want my girlfriend to tell me. So, I told her. And said I realized that it was easy for dancing with other people to escalate so I'd cut it off.
She didn't like it, duh, but it wasn't even a fight. She asked for reassurance it wouldn't happen again and I gave it. Then we said "I love you" and had sex. We moved on. And, over a decade later, I haven't done anything else that approached cheating.
Factors that i think worked in our favor for getting over this that you may be :

I didn't blame being fucked up and gave a concrete plan for never repeating the mistake.
it was clear there was no way she could have found out without me telling her. No friends around.
we are both rational people and knew and had discussed being in love and getting together didn't mean no one else could be attractive
I gave verbal and physical reassurance and did not give "space" unless it was asked for.
I told her at a convenient time and did not make her drive 4 hours to hear my confession.
I didn't make her comfort me
we had already discussed being committed to each other and planning to spend our lives together. There was no question about whether I actually loved her or had "a foot out the door". I was able to tell her I loved her and mean it.

All in all, I think this is something you could get over if you were otherwise committed to this guy and if the story here is really the whole thing. But, bottom line, you couldn't tell him you loved him and mean it. I think it's over.

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

1.6 Stardew Valley 1.6.0 was released on 19 March 2024. New content & features Added new festivals and events: The Desert Festival is a three-day event in spring which can be accessed after the bus is repaired. Two mini fishing festivals: Annual trout derby and SquidFest. A new environmental "event" in summer. Added a "mastery" system, accessed via a new area, which grants powerful perks and items… Added a new farm type: Meadowlands Farm. It has a chewy blue grass that animals love. You also start with a coop and 2 chickens. Added many new NPC dialogues. That includes... custom gift reactions; dynamic dialogues which react to things that happened; custom flower dance acceptance dialogue; restored missing dialogue (like Emily and Shane's flower dance custom accept-dance dialogues when married to the player, Shane's dialogue when browsing the Saloon vending machine, Lewis congratulating female farmers after their wedding, a line in Maru's 14-heart event, three dialogues from Sam related to Kent, two randomized dialogues when an NPC buys an item you sold to a shop, two speech bubbles from Marnie and Robin when you enter their shop building, and a fortune teller dialogue for your potential spouse); and more. You can now get multiple pets (after getting max hearts with your starter pet). Added a world map for Ginger Island, visible when visiting the island. The world map now shows your actual position within the world in real-time (instead of showing you at a fixed point for each location). In multiplayer, you'll see other players' positions in real-time too. Pets that love you will sometimes give you gifts. NPCs now have winter outfits. Festivals now have map and dialogue changes every second year (except the night market and desert festival). Added a golden Joja parrot, which you can pay to find all remaining golden walnuts on ginger island. Added perfection waivers, a new Joja way to bypass perfection challenges. Added a prize machine in Lewis' house. You can collect prize tickets as a reward for completing quests and special orders, and from repeated egg/ice festival wins. A bookseller now comes to town twice a season. Added mystery boxes. Added a big tree, with a quest line which ultimately gives you some new neighbors. Added four new crops (carrots, summer squash, broccoli, and powdermelon) which can't be purchased at the store, and two new giant crops. Added four new home renovations: dining room, attic, expanded corner room, and cubby. Added new items: Big Chest, which has almost double the size of a regular chest. It can also be placed "onto" a regular chest to upgrade it. Dehydrator, which turns fruit into dried fruit and mushroom into dried mushrooms. Mushroom Log, which produces mushrooms and interacts with nearby trees. Bait Maker, which can produce fish-specific baits. Heavy Furnace, which can process more bars at a time, and yield bonus bars. Fish Smoker, which produces smoked fish, doubling the value of the fish. You get one by default when starting a new riverlands farm. Text Signs, which can be written on. Anvil, which allows you to re-roll trinkets. Mini-Forge, which acts as a Dwarvish Forge. Statue Of Blessings, which grants a random blessing each day. Statue Of The Dwarf King, which allows you to select one of two mining buffs for the day. Tent Kits, which allow you to build a tent which can be slept in for one night. Treasure Totems, which spawn a ring of diggable spots. Mystic Seeds, which grow a unique tree which can be tapped. Mystic Syrup, a valuable tapper product. Deluxe Bait, gets fish biting faster than regular bait. Challenge Bait, which allows for up to 3 fish to be caught at once, but loses 1 each time a fish leaves the bobber bar. Deluxe Worm Bin, which upgrades the regular worm bin to produce deluxe bait. 19 unique Books Of Power, which grant special perks. Skill Books, which grant experience in a skill. Book Of Stars, which grants experience in all skills. Moss, a new resource type which grows on old trees. Mixed Flower Seeds. Sonar Bobber, which shows the fish on your line before you catch it. Raisins, which have a special use. Sea Jelly, River Jelly, and Cave Jelly, a new item that you can fish. 7 Trinkets, which grant powers related to combat. Red, Purple, and Green fireworks. Stardrop Tea, which makes an excellent gift for anyone. 25 new hats. 280 new furnitures. New unique furniture catalogues, which contain themed furniture sets. 41 new floor styles. 24 new wallpaper styles. Golden Animal Crackers. Mannequins, which can be dressed. Spouse Portraits which can be purchased after reaching 14 hearts. Butterfly Powder, which allows you to remove pets... Blue Grass Starter. Moss Soup. Secret items. Added Goby fish. Added some new remix bundles. You can now place hats on cats and dogs. You can now upgrade the copper pan into steel, gold, and iridium pans. You can now enchant pans with Archaeologist, Generous, Fisher, and Reaching. Added a "Special Items & Powers" tab to replace the wallet. The wallet area now tracks a selection of progress markers. Added an animals tab that shows all your pets & animals. You can now build pet bowls in Robin's shop, with three variants. The farmhouse and pet bowl can now be moved through Robin's menu. The farm computer can now be used anywhere to see a summary of that location, instead of only the farm. The mini-jukebox can now be used on the Ginger Island farm. Added a new interaction with your horse. Added a new side-tunnel to the quarry mine. The community center fish tank now becomes an actual fish tank when you complete it. Added more secrets & easter eggs. Added two new cat and dog breeds. Added turtle pets. Added 8 new achievements. Added 4 new cabin variants. Added a few more accessory options in character creation. Added a new bobber machine in Willy's shop, with 39 bobber styles to choose from. New styles unlock by catching new kinds of fish. Added a cameo appearance to Maru's 14-heart event. Emily has a new rare "socialize" daily quest if you've completed the introduction quest. You can now add anchors, treasure chests, and pearls to fish tanks. Pierre now sells a few random items at the winter star booth (at a markup!). Added a jingling sound when running with the cinderclown shoes on. Baby toss now has a chance to crit. Added a skull cavern statue that can be used to toggle hard mode in the skull cave (after completing Qi's challenge). Added additional chests to Skull Cavern levels 200 and 300. Added unique skull cavern chest appearance for level 100, 200, and 300 chests. Added a high note (C5) to flute block. Added iridium golem to wilderness farm. See changes for mod authors. Visual improvements around the valley Added waterfalls. Added more holiday decorations in winter. Added more pathstones to various maps. Added jack-o-lanterns after the Stardew Valley Fair in fall. Added seasonal world map variants. Added a new rare ambient critter. Added some rare summer butterfly variants. Added an uncommon little brown bird variant. Redrew the world map to better match the in-game locations and be more detailed. Boat journey textures are now seasonal and reflect the latest valley map. The bus stop now has a wider map, though the distance to traverse it is the same. (This is to prevent black bars from appearing at the sides of the screen.) Jelly, pickles, wines, and juices are now colored based on the ingredient item. Many town trees are now actual tree objects, though you can't cut them down. Slight adjustment to the way items pop out when dug from the ground. Updated volcano gold ore node sprite. Some trees have a chance to lose their leaves in the fall. Riverbanks and lakeshores in the mountain, town, and forest areas are now less jagged in some places. Graphical improvements to building interiors. Improved the art of George & Evelyn's roof. If you destroy a mines chest, it now shows some graphics debris. Added special backplates to fortune teller TV show if you get a perfectly good or perfectly bad luck day. Lighting changes: It now gets dark an hour earlier in winter. Night tiles (e.g. town lamps) now activate an hour earlier in all seasons. Indoor daytime lighting now smoothly transitions to night lighting over the course of two hours. Night lighting in non-farmhouse indoor locations is now slightly darker. Farmhouse lighting on rainy days is now slightly moody, and lights stay on all day. TVs and trees of the Winter Star now give off light at night. Added light sources to window light glows so there are no more "dark but lit" windows. Made some improvements to the intro bus drive cutscene. At night, hats are now drawn at the night-time color in the game menu portraits. Removed lighting quality option. It's now permanently set to ultra quality. The submerged fishing bobber is now recolored automatically to match the water. Multiplayer changes You can now have up to 8 players on PC. Many improvements for multiplayer performance and stability. That includes: Steam players will now use Steam multiplayer authentication, potentially improving connection issues significantly. Large multiplayer packets are now compressed, reducing bandwidth usage and latency. Internal optimizations to data syncing. You now need the same build number (in addition to version) to join a multiplayer server. This prevents crashes due to game changes between builds. Accepting a Qi challenge that increases mine difficulty now only kicks other players out of the affected mine type, not all mines. Purple shorts no longer show a chat message when placed into the Luau soup. Jump down mineshaft sound now plays for all players in the level rather than just the jumper. Balance changes Added a box with three tent kits to the Ginger Island jungle. Weapons found in the wild now have a chance to come with a basic "innate enchantment". You can re-roll "innate enchantments" (if the weapon could have one) at the forge using a dragon tooth. Slime Hutches are now significantly smaller (11x6 → 7x4). Farm animals now gain a little happiness if you close the animal door behind them at night. Grass now survives in the winter, though it won't spread. However, cutting grass during winter is much less effective. The mushroom cave now comes with a free Dehydrator. Changed recipe skill requirements for: charcoal kiln (foraging 4→2); cookout kit (foraging 9→3); survival burger (foraging level 2→8); tapper (foraging 3→4); and worm bin (fishing level 8→4). Price changes: Most home renovations now cost money, which is refunded if you undo the renovation. (The game knows whether you bought it though, so refunding a pre-1.6 renovation won't give you free money.) Reduced fairy dust sell price (500g → 300g). Reduced tea sapling sell price (500g → 250g). Reduced life elixir sell price (500g → 250g). Building cabins no longer requires materials, only the 100g price. Raised price of second house upgrade (50,000g → 65,000g), but reduced number of hardwood needed (150 → 100). Reduced worm bin's hardwood needed (25 → 15). Increased cost of warp totem: farm in casino (500 → 1000) Raised price of bombs in dwarf shop. Raised some hat prices from Hat Mouse. Shop changes: Put limits on some casino stock. You can now buy all brazier recipes in Robin's shop at once instead of in sequence. Item drop changes: Chopping down a fruit tree now yields the appropriate fruit sapling. If the tree is mature (i.e. the fruit quality is > basic), it will yield a sapling with the same quality as its fruit. The higher the quality, the faster the sapling will mature. Chopping down a tea bush now gives back a tea sapling. There's now a small chance to find cosmetic items and other goodies while doing random tasks. Snake vertebrae are now easier to get. Train cars which carry wood can now drop hardwood. Santa's train car can now drop gifts. Reduced prismatic shard drop rate from iridium nodes (4% → 3.5%). Rare yellow slimes now drop money. Brown slimes now drop wood (doesn't affect the copper slimes in the quarry mine). Botanist perk now applies to items dropped from trees (e.g. coconuts). Reduced chance of fishing void mayonnaise at the witch swamp. Gift taste changes: Adjusted gift tastes for several NPCs. Treasure chests are now a universally liked gift... except by Linus. Skill XP changes: Mushroom Logs and Mushroom Boxes now grant 5 foraging XP on harvest. Harvesting berry bushes now grants 1 foraging XP per berry. Harvesting forage crops from wild seeds now give much less foraging experience, but grant some farming experience. Monsters on the farm now give combat experience, but it's 1/3 of normal value. This excludes slime hutch slimes. Adjusted combat: Extended the area of effect of downward facing melee attacks (and slightly extended the side attack of daggers). Topaz ring now gives +1 defense, rather than the unused precision stat. Raised insect head's damage (10-20 → 20-30). Raised kudgel's critical attack power (+4 → +50). Bombs now affect terrain features (like trees and crops) within the round explosion radius rather than a square area. Slightly increased rate at which skeletons throw bones or shoot spells. Adjusted Junimo Kart: Added grace jumps in Junimo Kart: when you run off the track, you can still jump for a short time to recover. Your score is now saved if the minigame forcibly exits while playing endless mode. Noxious gas emitting mushrooms no longer appear in pairs. Reduced bubble spawn rate on whale level. Adjusted machines: Worm bins now need a lower fishing level (level 8→4) and produce more bait (2–5 → 4–5). Loom now has a higher chance of double cloth when processing quality wool. Fish ponds now have a chance to produce extra roe whenever they produce roe. Geode Crushers no longer require coal to operate. Adjusted penalties when knocked unconscious: You can no longer lose the Golden Scythe, Infinity weapons, or tools. You can no longer lose more than three items. The amount of money lost now scales to how much you have. It's now less punishing if you don't have much money, but more punishing if you have a lot. This also raises the maximum lost from 5000g to 15000g. Adjusted food buffs: Joja cola now gives a very short speed buff. Green tea now gives +0.5 speed. Mine and dungeon changes: Added coal nodes to the volcano dungeon. Barrels now spawn on skull cavern levels divisible by 5. Reduced the maximum possible effect a bad luck day can have on finding a prismatic slime. Reduced number of bugs to kill for monster slayer goal from 125 to 80. Bundle changes: Made remixed specialty fish bundle (and analogues) reward 5 Dish O' The Sea, to make it consistent with the classic bundle. River fish bundle now gives deluxe bait. Improved some community center rewards. Adjusted crafting recipes: speed gro now requires 5 Moss instead of 1 Clam . deluxe speed-gro now requires 5 bone fragments instead of 1 coral. quality fertilizer now requires 4 sap instead of 2, but produces 2 per craft (still only requires 1 fish). Spouse changes: Spouses now have a seven-day "honeymoon" period after marriage which prevents them from laying in bed all day due to being upset. Kissing your spouse, and giving them a gift on the previous day, each reduce the "minimum heart level threshold" for a bed-ridden day by one heart (12→10 if you do both). Friendship gain is reduced by 33% for spouses. Rebalanced the crop fairy event: the chance no longer depends on the number of planted crops, it can no longer happen on the last day of the season (to avoid growing crops that might die overnight), and it can no longer choose dead crops to grow. Increased the shaving enchantment's effect on giant crops. Each giant crop now has a 60% chance of dropping an extra six crops while the shaving enchantment is equipped, spread across the number of hits needed to break it. For example, a base axe which breaks the giant crop in three hits gets three 20% chances of dropping 2 crops. The mushroom cave now provides mushrooms every second day. It was unintentionally changed to daily in Stardew Valley 1.5. You can no longer plant trees in the beach farm tunnel. Randomization no longer produces simple repeating patterns in many cases (e.g. clay farming, mushroom level prediction, crab pot fish offset, etc). (You can enable "Use Legacy Randomization" in the advanced save options to use the old randomization, though some specific patterns may still change due to the underlying changes. That option is mainly intended for speedrunners; most players should keep it disabled for the intended experience.) Spreading weeds can no longer destroy artifact spots. Increased the number of monsters that daily monster quests will ask you to slay (in some cases). Added more custom quantities, for example Dust Spirits will ask for 10-20 kills. Tilled dirt on the island farm now decays in the same way as the regular farm. Slightly increased time you have to push against farm animals before passing through them. Slightly boosted quarry output. Daily quarry output now increases each year, up to a limit. You can no longer plant trees in town. Secret notes are no longer created during festivals (except passive festivals like the night market and desert festival). Adjusted fish variety in ice fishing festival. Quality of life changes Performance improvements. NPCs now shove chests out of their way instead of destroying them. If Pam won't be coming to the bus for any reason, she now leaves a sign informing you and you can drive yourself to the desert. Audio changes: Made more sounds positional (mainly players, tools, and machines). Positional sounds now fade with distance when off-screen, instead of cutting off abruptly. Softened the bomb fuse sound. The music now "ducks out" and then resumes when certain sounds are played, instead of stopping. You can now "strafe" while charging a watering can or hoe, allowing you to reposition your tool hit area without changing your facing direction. You can now refill slingshot ammo by right-clicking it with the same ammo. Previously that would just swap the item stacks. Planting cactus seeds on the farm now fails with a message, instead of the seeds dying overnight. Holding a tea sapling or seed over a garden pot now shows the green/red placement tile. You can no longer pick up rugs if there's something on it. Checking a pet bowl will now show a text bubble with the pet's name. Added a new post-fishing sparkling text to indicate when you've caught something for the first time. Torches can now be placed on sprinklers. You can now sit in chairs during festivals. You can now move filled chests by hitting them twice with a heavy tool (previously only with bare hands). The chests will shift one space at a time. You can now place flooring underneath most buildings. Crystalariums now have to be removed and replaced before a different gem can be put inside, to help avoid wasting gems accidentally. Daily billboard quests now have a more informative tracker notification when you make progress on them. Added a small checkmark icon on special orders you've completed before (only on town special orders board). You can now skip the pet adoption scene, which causes you to adopt the pet. Reduced the amount of time you need to push against a pet before they start shaking and then let you pass through them (1.5 → .75 seconds). Reduced time for mini-obelisk warp (750ms faster). Male farmers are no longer forced into wedding clothes on their wedding day, so you can choose your own outfit for the wedding. Emptying a fish pond with fish still in it will cause the remaining fish to flop out of the pond. Slime hutch changes: You can now change the flooring of the slime hutch. You can now remove the starter incubator in the slime hutch. Slime balls no longer appear on crafted flooring. UI improvements: Added an hourglass cursor shown when you're waiting for something to load on the title screen. Notification messages in the bottom-left corner now last 50% longer before going away. "Sound in the night" events now show an icon on the screen to indicate that a sound is playing. Dialogue question selectors no longer remain selected when you hover away from them, to reduce accidental selections. Robin's building menu now shows how many days a building will take. If an item menu exits while you're holding an item, the item is now always retrieved. (Previously only some item menus like chests would do it.) Marnie's animal shop now centers the camera on an appropriate building when purchasing an animal. Marnie's animal shop now shows prices in the tooltip, in case the tooltip covers the price display. The achievement menu now lists all potential achievements. Hidden achievements you haven't unlocked yet are shown as "???". The museum reward menu now prevents picking up a reward that won't fit in your inventory. The museum reward menu now lets you exit while holding a reward. It'll be added to your inventory if possible, otherwise it'll drop at your feet. The save creation farm selector now has two columns instead of one, and no longer overlaps the back button on small screens. The shipping menu category pages no longer take up the whole screen, as long as the screen is beyond a minimum size. Inventory tooltips for food that gives a buff now shows the buff duration in the tooltip. The map now closes when you press the map button again. Exiting the Junimo Note menu from within the game menu now returns to where you were in the game menu rather than exit the menu. Shops now truncate item names which would overflow the menu width. Shops now have a slight delay before you can buy/sell items, to help avoid double-clicks doing it accidentally. Deleting a save on PC is now much faster. Significantly reduced save loading time when there are many custom locations. If a default farm building (like the greenhouse) is somehow removed, it'll now be rebuilt next time you load the save. "Menu background" is now a drop down option, which includes "Standard", "Graphical", or "None". Attempting to put something in a machine but failing will no longer cause you to try and consume or activate the object you're holding. Kent intro event and Robin flute block event are now skippable. (PC) You can now shift + right-click an item on the toolbar to throw it out of your inventory (if possible). (PC) You can now press the Y or N key to confirm or cancel the "leave festival" confirmation box. (PC) Holding left-shift + left-ctrl + 1 when buying from a shop will attempt to buy a stack of 999. Other changes Adventure guild now stays open until 2am, though the music will not play after midnight. Gender-specific clothing variants can now be worn by any gender. If you have 12 hearts or more with your spouse, the chance they'll say a neutral dialogue in the afternoon (which sometimes comes across as negative) is significantly lower (25% → 5% chance). Penny's forest picnic event and Leah's forest picnic event now only happen if it's sunny. NPCs now try to avoid walking through trees and other terrain features. Cabins have been combined into one entry in Robin's menu. Replaced pet icons on the inventory tab with the current date. The “Organize” button now sorts items in a more intelligent way. You can now drink mayonnaise and jelly, and eat pickles. Some colored objects now count as their color for qi quest and dye menu. Clam is now considered a "fish" just like all the other shellfish. Added more descriptive titles to daily quests. Added Cyrillic sprite text and some translated world pixel art text. Adjusted the date/time/money box in Chinese. The about page now shows the build number. Skull caves now have a chance to also play music from the upper mines. Changed parrot flap sound to be different from bat flaps. Pans now have a chance to yield bone fragments. Made the character randomization a little less random, and added some of the newer hairstyles and accessories to the mix. Pan no longer yields the same thing if you pan in the same spot twice in a day. The about page no longer hides the version if a tip message is shown. The order that you'll get forge enchantments is now unique per player rather than per farm. The Ginger Island shrine item pedestals are now normal items. Modded players can spawn them to display items decoratively (though they're not obtainable in vanilla currently). Map no longer closes if you click on an area of interest. Fixed some NPC schedules that weren't previously applied: Lewis visiting the library on winter Sundays; Maru and Penny hanging out on summer Sundays; Maru tinkering on summer Mondays; After reaching six hearts with some NPCs, they won't visit their rival love interest anymore. This affects Alex visiting Haley, Elliott visiting Leah, and Haley visiting Alex. Gameplay fixes Fishing fixes: If you're fishing when the pirate cave changes to pirate mode, you will catch your fish. Fixed artifacts found in fishing chests not counting for the collection tab. Fixed fishing crash if a treasure chest appears while the player has a large number of stacked fishing buffs.

I can't explain it, but the butterflies seem to know where the bodies are.
I've been a park ranger since I was eighteen, and after five years, I really can't imagine doing anything else. I was in the scouts when I was younger, and I've been an avid hiker all my life. Time spent in the woods is time well spent, and the ability to work there every day is honestly a dream come true.
Being a park ranger, you see your fair share of bodies in the woods. People come out here to hike and swim and forget that there are things here that will kill you. They run afoul of animals, they get sucked under in the rapids, they don't pack enough food or water, or they just get lost and aren't found till someone chances upon them.
Spring two thousand twenty-three was the year that we got some help from the butterflies.
It started with the death of Angel Myers, but it certainly didn't end there.
Angel Myers was what you would call a minimalistic camper. She would come in with a few essentials and a blanket, just kind of camp wherever she decided to drop down. She knew which plants would kill her and which ones would nourish her, which was good. She also knew which plants would get her higher than airplane wings, which was bad. We had called the police on Angel several times, but they always cut her loose after a few months, and the rangers refused to toss her a lifetime ban from the park so she just kept coming back.
When a pair of hikers told us they had found a body in an area we knew as The Meadow, we supposed this would be the last time we called the police for her.
She was naked, and it wasn't the first time any of us had seen her in this state. She wasn't bad to look at, but it was always a little weird to find someone stark naked in the elements. She was splayed out, spread eagle, in the flowers that grew in the meadows, and her eyes and tongue were missing. That wasn't terribly uncommon either, not with all the varments in the park, but the little black growths on her skin were definitely something I had never seen before. She had three rows of perfect little spikes, each of them about three inches long and each line about nine spikes long.
Other than the spikes, the strangest part of the whole scene were the butterflies.
They were not a species I was familiar with, and they were bone white with light black patterns on the wings. They were thick over the body, and I assumed they had been what had drawn the hikers. They were circling in a thick cloud, the whites easily seen against the green canopy around them, and I was as amazed by them as I was the weird protrusions on her skin.
"What the hell are these?" I asked, reaching out a finger to test if they were sharp, but finding them squishy and full of green liquid.
"Pallida mors," said Rico, one of the rangers who worked with me.
"One more time in English, for the rest of us," I said.
"Pale Death," he said, pointing to the butterflies, "They're rare, I don't think I've seen one in the flesh. They're supposed to live in the deep woods, and they only come out once every few years to lay eggs."
I pointed to the little row of black spikes running up her thigh, "On corpses?"
Rico nodded, "That's why they call them Palida Mors. They lay their eggs on corpses, though it's usually of animals. I have heard of them laying eggs on human bodies, but it's rare. I guess they found the corpse before we did."
The hikers said the same when we questioned them. They had been hiking to the meadow, his fiance wanting to see it in spring, and as they came to the end of the trail, she had noticed the swarm of pale butterflies and wanted a closer look. She had thought they were so pretty, but as they came closer, they had seen the body and realized what they were swarming around it.
We called the station and got some guys from the coroner's office down to pick her up.
We hoped she would somehow be the last body we found that spring, but I think, even then, I knew this wouldn't be the last body I saw taken from the park that year.
The next one was a hiker named Marcus Dray, and his death was truly terrible.
Some campers had gone fishing in the Conusquat River, the waterway that runs through the park, and as they chased the trout who were beginning their journey to the spawning grounds, one of their kids came across a grizzly sight. He said it looked like a scaled claw was sticking out of the river, and he ran to get his mother, thinking it was a monster. She had expected a rock formation or maybe a stick with some moss on it, but what they found was an arm covered in the black spike pods the butterflies left behind.
"They looked like scales," the mother had said, still a little shaken by the experience, "and I could understand why he thought it was a monster hand. It wasn't until I got closer that I realized it was an arm jutting up from the foam."
At first, we thought the guy had just fallen into the river and gotten stuck between the rocks after drowning. When we pulled him out, however, we got a better idea of the extent of the damage. Something forced him into the small space between the two rocks, and they hadn't done it gently. His shoulders were broken, like snapped in the middle and just folded up. He was crumpled up like a suit coat in the hole, and that wasn't all.
Something had eaten his face.
Not like Angel, where her eyes and tongue were missing. They had eaten his entire face off, down to the skull, and there was nothing left but ragged flesh and scored white bone. If it hadn't been for the arm sticking up, we might have never found him until someone panning for minerals found a finger or a skull.
The butterflies, the Pale Death, presided over the whole thing as we managed to get him onto the shore.
After that, we found four more bodies in a month.
One was left on a mountainside, its hands missing and its nose and lips chewed off. He had been climbing the low-grade mountain we have on the grounds, and when he'd gone missing we thought it might be a small avalanche due to snow melt. When a fisherman found him laid out on the lowest peak of the mountain, however, we knew it was something much worse.
The second was a woman who'd gone into the woods to relieve herself during a picnic and was found in the low branches of a tree, well, half of her was. The other half was high up in the tree, and something had eaten her legs. The husband had to be hospitalized after he identified the top half of his wife, and I felt bad for her kids. They had been here to enjoy a picnic in the park, and something had taken that away from them.
The third was, unfortunately, a child named Kaitlyn Mills. Kaitlyn would have been six in July, but she never got the opportunity. Kaitlyn was the strangest and also the easiest to identify. Kaitlyn had left her parents campsite in the night, but it appeared that whatever had found her had taken an interest in her. Something had taken care of her in the woods. Something had fed her, something had changed her clothes, something had made sure she drank clean water, and then, unfortunately, its care had lapsed. Kaitlyn hadn't died because her face had been eaten off, she had died because her skull had connected with the ground and cracked. It was pretty clear she had fallen out of a tree, but the coroner said she would have needed to fall from a pretty steep height. She was stretched out too, as if something had made her comfortable as she lay dying.
The fourth was the worst, and the reason for what came after.
The fourth was Ranger Franklin Carpenter, and he had gone missing after going to check one of the pump stations. We had six pump stations, things we used to bring clean water to the campgrounds, and he had been responding to a call about a malfunction in station four. He had gone out before lunch, and we found what was left of him the next day after he never came back. If he hadn't died wearing his name tag then we wouldn't have known who it was. His arms and legs were missing and believed to have been eaten. His face was gone, as was the top of his skull and what lay within. Something had gnawed his chest, eaten his buttocks, and chewed his genitals off for good measure. He was just a torso and part of a head when we found him on the edge of the woods, and a lot of us got pretty scared after losing one of our own like that.
Over all four bodies, the butterflies held sway, and their eggs were in evidence.
I expected a visit from the Head Ranger, but when he arrived with a man in a dark suit the next day, we should have known something was about to happen. He had a few other men in similar attire, and Rico lifted an eyebrow as we took our seats at briefing. None of these guys were dressed for more than a slow stroll over concrete paths, but I doubted that was their intention.
"Agent Lee has been gracious enough to come and help us with our little problem. We will be splitting all of you into groups so you can canvas the woods. We need to find whatever is doing this before summer starts, especially with one of our own being a recent casualty. We have a lot of ground to cover, so, Rangers will be splitting off with two of Agent Lee's boys to show them the trails and help them bring this to a close."
So, that's how I found myself in the woods with Agents Fiest and Agent Martin. Agent Lee might have looked like an investment banker, but these two had traded their Brooks Brothers suits for camo and assault rifles. We had broken out the shotguns that we used for putting off angry wildlife to supplement the firepower the Agents had brought, and the three of us proceeded through the woods. Agent Fiest wasn't a big talker, but Agent Martin made up for it by asking questions about what we had seen. I told him about the bodies, the parts that had been eaten, and the butterflies that seemed to hover around everything.
"Butterflies?" Fiest said, and it was probably the only thing I had heard him say in the hour we had been walking.
"Yeah, Rico calls them something in Latin that basically means Pale Death. They show up around the bodies and just kind of mark where they are."
Fiest gave Martin a look and the two nodded knowingly.
"Have you seen anything near the sights? Footprints or scales maybe? Stuff like insect skin?"
I shook my head, "No, mostly just dead people."
I was preparing to ask them what they thought we were looking for since they clearly knew something, when we came through a dense stand of trees and into an open space that was anything but open. It seemed invested with the pale butterflies, and as we stalked in, they fluttered around us almost gladly. The two Agents took this as a good sign but I wasn't sure what to think. These things had been a pretty foul omen in the last few months, and finding a huge number of them now seemed less than ideal.
As we moved into the cloud of butterflies, it also seemed like something was stalking us. Through the thick wave of insects, there was a large shadow that stalked us. It almost appeared human-sized, but the longer I watched it flit through the swarm, it seemed to grow. It may have had as few as two arms, or as many as eight, but the wings I saw stir its smaller kin were what worried me.
They were tall and white, just like the others, and it seemed to be using them as a blind as it lured us deeper.
"It's close," Martin whispered.
"Steady," Fiest said. "If we spook him, he might fly away before we can take him out."
"What?" I half whispered, talking too loud, but too scared to care.
Fiest looked at Martin, shrugging at something in the other's face.
"You've heard of the moth man? Well, there are counterparts to that thing. The people of Joplin talk about how many of their children were saved from a tornado by these "butterfly people," but they assume those who were lost were taken by said tornado, and not the same creatures who saved them. We call them Lycaenidae Bipedus, and they are extremely," but he never got to finish.
Suddenly the cloud of butterflies enveloped us, their small bodies clinging to us as they struck. Our vision was cut off, and as the automatic weapon chattered, I hit my belly and started crawling. I wanted to get out of the swarm, to get away from the wild bark of the gun, and as I crawled, I heard people yelling. The wet sound of something being torn cut off some of the screaming, but the gunfire persisted as I kept making my way out of the cloud of insects.
I kept crawling until I made it out of the clearing, and once I was no longer being buffeted by butterflies, I got up and started running.
I could still hear the gunfire behind me, but I knew that what I wanted was to live.
I knew that if I stayed, I'd be dead, and I still very much wanted to live.
I ran until someone yelled at me to stop and shoved a gun in my face.
It was another one of the Agents, and as they all coalesced, I was ordered to take them back to the spot where I had left Agent Fiest.
As little as I wanted to go back, I agreed.
By the time I found it again, Fiest was sitting on something he had covered with a tarp. Fiest's left arm was hanging uselessly at his side, his clothes were ripped to shreds, but he was grinning like a big game hunter who's bagged the big one.
"Get it to the truck. Tell the boys back at base I had no choice but to kill it. It refused to come peacefully and forced my hand."
Martin was dead, his body covered in a slew of crushed butterflies. I saw him before they could tarp him as well. Something had torn his thrown out, and I assumed it was whatever was under the big tarp that Fiest was guarding. They took both the tarped bodies away, and when Fiest came towards me, I was worried he would be angry that I had fled.
He put a hand on my shoulder instead and nodded in understanding.
"Don't feel bad, kid. I would have run too if I'd had the choice. Both Agent Martin and I knew what we were getting into. You got us here, that's what counts."
They took it away, and the murders stopped.
We lost two more hikers that year, but they were both killed by the elements.
The butterflies left that same day, never (hopefully) to return.
I can’t help but think about that spring again as winter abates and the season gets warmer.
I tell you one thing, I’ll be keeping an eye peeled for butterflies from now on.

I can't explain it, but the butterflies seem to know where the bodies are.
I've been a park ranger since I was eighteen, and after five years, I really can't imagine doing anything else. I was in the scouts when I was younger, and I've been an avid hiker all my life. Time spent in the woods is time well spent, and the ability to work there every day is honestly a dream come true.
Being a park ranger, you see your fair share of bodies in the woods. People come out here to hike and swim and forget that there are things here that will kill you. They run afoul of animals, they get sucked under in the rapids, they don't pack enough food or water, or they just get lost and aren't found till someone chances upon them.
Spring two thousand twenty-three was the year that we got some help from the butterflies.
It started with the death of Angel Myers, but it certainly didn't end there.
Angel Myers was what you would call a minimalistic camper. She would come in with a few essentials and a blanket, just kind of camp wherever she decided to drop down. She knew which plants would kill her and which ones would nourish her, which was good. She also knew which plants would get her higher than airplane wings, which was bad. We had called the police on Angel several times, but they always cut her loose after a few months, and the rangers refused to toss her a lifetime ban from the park so she just kept coming back.
When a pair of hikers told us they had found a body in an area we knew as The Meadow, we supposed this would be the last time we called the police for her.
She was naked, and it wasn't the first time any of us had seen her in this state. She wasn't bad to look at, but it was always a little weird to find someone stark naked in the elements. She was splayed out, spread eagle, in the flowers that grew in the meadows, and her eyes and tongue were missing. That wasn't terribly uncommon either, not with all the varments in the park, but the little black growths on her skin were definitely something I had never seen before. She had three rows of perfect little spikes, each of them about three inches long and each line about nine spikes long.
Other than the spikes, the strangest part of the whole scene were the butterflies.
They were not a species I was familiar with, and they were bone white with light black patterns on the wings. They were thick over the body, and I assumed they had been what had drawn the hikers. They were circling in a thick cloud, the whites easily seen against the green canopy around them, and I was as amazed by them as I was the weird protrusions on her skin.
"What the hell are these?" I asked, reaching out a finger to test if they were sharp, but finding them squishy and full of green liquid.
"Pallida mors," said Rico, one of the rangers who worked with me.
"One more time in English, for the rest of us," I said.
"Pale Death," he said, pointing to the butterflies, "They're rare, I don't think I've seen one in the flesh. They're supposed to live in the deep woods, and they only come out once every few years to lay eggs."
I pointed to the little row of black spikes running up her thigh, "On corpses?"
Rico nodded, "That's why they call them Palida Mors. They lay their eggs on corpses, though it's usually of animals. I have heard of them laying eggs on human bodies, but it's rare. I guess they found the corpse before we did."
The hikers said the same when we questioned them. They had been hiking to the meadow, his fiance wanting to see it in spring, and as they came to the end of the trail, she had noticed the swarm of pale butterflies and wanted a closer look. She had thought they were so pretty, but as they came closer, they had seen the body and realized what they were swarming around it.
We called the station and got some guys from the coroner's office down to pick her up.
We hoped she would somehow be the last body we found that spring, but I think, even then, I knew this wouldn't be the last body I saw taken from the park that year.
The next one was a hiker named Marcus Dray, and his death was truly terrible.
Some campers had gone fishing in the Conusquat River, the waterway that runs through the park, and as they chased the trout who were beginning their journey to the spawning grounds, one of their kids came across a grizzly sight. He said it looked like a scaled claw was sticking out of the river, and he ran to get his mother, thinking it was a monster. She had expected a rock formation or maybe a stick with some moss on it, but what they found was an arm covered in the black spike pods the butterflies left behind.
"They looked like scales," the mother had said, still a little shaken by the experience, "and I could understand why he thought it was a monster hand. It wasn't until I got closer that I realized it was an arm jutting up from the foam."
At first, we thought the guy had just fallen into the river and gotten stuck between the rocks after drowning. When we pulled him out, however, we got a better idea of the extent of the damage. Something forced him into the small space between the two rocks, and they hadn't done it gently. His shoulders were broken, like snapped in the middle and just folded up. He was crumpled up like a suit coat in the hole, and that wasn't all.
Something had eaten his face.
Not like Angel, where her eyes and tongue were missing. They had eaten his entire face off, down to the skull, and there was nothing left but ragged flesh and scored white bone. If it hadn't been for the arm sticking up, we might have never found him until someone panning for minerals found a finger or a skull.
The butterflies, the Pale Death, presided over the whole thing as we managed to get him onto the shore.
After that, we found four more bodies in a month.
One was left on a mountainside, its hands missing and its nose and lips chewed off. He had been climbing the low-grade mountain we have on the grounds, and when he'd gone missing we thought it might be a small avalanche due to snow melt. When a fisherman found him laid out on the lowest peak of the mountain, however, we knew it was something much worse.
The second was a woman who'd gone into the woods to relieve herself during a picnic and was found in the low branches of a tree, well, half of her was. The other half was high up in the tree, and something had eaten her legs. The husband had to be hospitalized after he identified the top half of his wife, and I felt bad for her kids. They had been here to enjoy a picnic in the park, and something had taken that away from them.
The third was, unfortunately, a child named Kaitlyn Mills. Kaitlyn would have been six in July, but she never got the opportunity. Kaitlyn was the strangest and also the easiest to identify. Kaitlyn had left her parents campsite in the night, but it appeared that whatever had found her had taken an interest in her. Something had taken care of her in the woods. Something had fed her, something had changed her clothes, something had made sure she drank clean water, and then, unfortunately, its care had lapsed. Kaitlyn hadn't died because her face had been eaten off, she had died because her skull had connected with the ground and cracked. It was pretty clear she had fallen out of a tree, but the coroner said she would have needed to fall from a pretty steep height. She was stretched out too, as if something had made her comfortable as she lay dying.
The fourth was the worst, and the reason for what came after.
The fourth was Ranger Franklin Carpenter, and he had gone missing after going to check one of the pump stations. We had six pump stations, things we used to bring clean water to the campgrounds, and he had been responding to a call about a malfunction in station four. He had gone out before lunch, and we found what was left of him the next day after he never came back. If he hadn't died wearing his name tag then we wouldn't have known who it was. His arms and legs were missing and believed to have been eaten. His face was gone, as was the top of his skull and what lay within. Something had gnawed his chest, eaten his buttocks, and chewed his genitals off for good measure. He was just a torso and part of a head when we found him on the edge of the woods, and a lot of us got pretty scared after losing one of our own like that.
Over all four bodies, the butterflies held sway, and their eggs were in evidence.
I expected a visit from the Head Ranger, but when he arrived with a man in a dark suit the next day, we should have known something was about to happen. He had a few other men in similar attire, and Rico lifted an eyebrow as we took our seats at briefing. None of these guys were dressed for more than a slow stroll over concrete paths, but I doubted that was their intention.
"Agent Lee has been gracious enough to come and help us with our little problem. We will be splitting all of you into groups so you can canvas the woods. We need to find whatever is doing this before summer starts, especially with one of our own being a recent casualty. We have a lot of ground to cover, so, Rangers will be splitting off with two of Agent Lee's boys to show them the trails and help them bring this to a close."
So, that's how I found myself in the woods with Agents Fiest and Agent Martin. Agent Lee might have looked like an investment banker, but these two had traded their Brooks Brothers suits for camo and assault rifles. We had broken out the shotguns that we used for putting off angry wildlife to supplement the firepower the Agents had brought, and the three of us proceeded through the woods. Agent Fiest wasn't a big talker, but Agent Martin made up for it by asking questions about what we had seen. I told him about the bodies, the parts that had been eaten, and the butterflies that seemed to hover around everything.
"Butterflies?" Fiest said, and it was probably the only thing I had heard him say in the hour we had been walking.
"Yeah, Rico calls them something in Latin that basically means Pale Death. They show up around the bodies and just kind of mark where they are."
Fiest gave Martin a look and the two nodded knowingly.
"Have you seen anything near the sights? Footprints or scales maybe? Stuff like insect skin?"
I shook my head, "No, mostly just dead people."
I was preparing to ask them what they thought we were looking for since they clearly knew something, when we came through a dense stand of trees and into an open space that was anything but open. It seemed invested with the pale butterflies, and as we stalked in, they fluttered around us almost gladly. The two Agents took this as a good sign but I wasn't sure what to think. These things had been a pretty foul omen in the last few months, and finding a huge number of them now seemed less than ideal.
As we moved into the cloud of butterflies, it also seemed like something was stalking us. Through the thick wave of insects, there was a large shadow that stalked us. It almost appeared human-sized, but the longer I watched it flit through the swarm, it seemed to grow. It may have had as few as two arms, or as many as eight, but the wings I saw stir its smaller kin were what worried me.
They were tall and white, just like the others, and it seemed to be using them as a blind as it lured us deeper.
"It's close," Martin whispered.
"Steady," Fiest said. "If we spook him, he might fly away before we can take him out."
"What?" I half whispered, talking too loud, but too scared to care.
Fiest looked at Martin, shrugging at something in the other's face.
"You've heard of the moth man? Well, there are counterparts to that thing. The people of Joplin talk about how many of their children were saved from a tornado by these "butterfly people," but they assume those who were lost were taken by said tornado, and not the same creatures who saved them. We call them Lycaenidae Bipedus, and they are extremely," but he never got to finish.
Suddenly the cloud of butterflies enveloped us, their small bodies clinging to us as they struck. Our vision was cut off, and as the automatic weapon chattered, I hit my belly and started crawling. I wanted to get out of the swarm, to get away from the wild bark of the gun, and as I crawled, I heard people yelling. The wet sound of something being torn cut off some of the screaming, but the gunfire persisted as I kept making my way out of the cloud of insects.
I kept crawling until I made it out of the clearing, and once I was no longer being buffeted by butterflies, I got up and started running.
I could still hear the gunfire behind me, but I knew that what I wanted was to live.
I knew that if I stayed, I'd be dead, and I still very much wanted to live.
I ran until someone yelled at me to stop and shoved a gun in my face.
It was another one of the Agents, and as they all coalesced, I was ordered to take them back to the spot where I had left Agent Fiest.
As little as I wanted to go back, I agreed.
By the time I found it again, Fiest was sitting on something he had covered with a tarp. Fiest's left arm was hanging uselessly at his side, his clothes were ripped to shreds, but he was grinning like a big game hunter who's bagged the big one.
"Get it to the truck. Tell the boys back at base I had no choice but to kill it. It refused to come peacefully and forced my hand."
Martin was dead, his body covered in a slew of crushed butterflies. I saw him before they could tarp him as well. Something had torn his thrown out, and I assumed it was whatever was under the big tarp that Fiest was guarding. They took both the tarped bodies away, and when Fiest came towards me, I was worried he would be angry that I had fled.
He put a hand on my shoulder instead and nodded in understanding.
"Don't feel bad, kid. I would have run too if I'd had the choice. Both Agent Martin and I knew what we were getting into. You got us here, that's what counts."
They took it away, and the murders stopped.
We lost two more hikers that year, but they were both killed by the elements.
The butterflies left that same day, never (hopefully) to return.
I can’t help but think about that spring again as winter abates and the season gets warmer.
I tell you one thing, I’ll be keeping an eye peeled for butterflies from now on.
You never know when they, and a new horror, might show up again.

Occupation – Government employee
Age – 34
Location – Harare, Zimbabwe (VHCOL)
My salary – $800 (paid monthly)
Side Gig Income – $0
Other income – negligible amounts from dividends received from my stock portfolio
Housemates – none. I got a promotion, and had to move cities. I live alone in a studio apartment, and go home on some weekends and holidays (whenever I can)
Assets and Liabilities

Equity	$60,000 fully paid off
Retirement Balance	I contribute monthly, and employer matches fully. But because of changes in currency and hyperinflation, I don’t really count this as an asset
Savings	None (my savings went to my move and buying my new car which left me very broke)
Current account balance	$100
Car	I bought my new (to me) car for US$ 17,000. It’s a medium sized SUV with a few issues but got it repaired
Loans from family	US$ 1,400 I got a loan from my husband and my mum to add to my car purchase money, vehicle registration and insurance and fix some issues. No real rush to repay these according to them
Loan from employer	$130 (took a personal loan from work, because the interest rates are lower than rate of inflation and repayment is over 18 months. Loan was used to make improvements on our house, and what wasn’t used, I bought shares on our stock exchange, due to hyperinflation, the amount I owe in US$ has gone down) . Current repayments are US$ 3/month
Motor vehicle loan	I am entitled to a car loan with my new role. I got about US$ 13,000 (local currency equivalent) which I used to buy my car. The loan is paid back monthly in local currency. All loan repayments are automatically deducted from my salary
Investments (shares in various counters on our local stock exchange)	$1,186 (kinda shocked I have managed to invest that much)

My Expenses

Expense	Amount /period	Note
Car insurance and licensing	$300/annum	This is due end of February, and I pay for the entire year. But this will increase next year as my car is of a higher value than my previous one
Fuel	$120/month	Increased because I travel a lot now
Rent	$300/month	I rent a tiny studio 6km from work. It’s expensive but worth not sitting for hours in traffic. Electricity and water included in rental amount
Airtime/data	$20/month
Groceries	$60/month	My groceries as well as some items I buy for home whenever I go
Makeup/clothes/toiletries/ hair	$50/month	I need to cut down on spending in this category tbh, but I have to get my hair done more, and buy more work clothes because of my new role
LP Gas	$10/3 months	This is for cooking and heating my bath water
Spotify Premium	$2.99/month	My main source of entertainment
Super Duolingo	$1.99/month
WateElectricity	$15/month	Based on the last bill received. We do not get water consistently so bills are infrequent

Household Expenses

Expense	Amount/period	Note
Groceries	$200/month	Husband pays. Bulk grocery shopping of staple food items and toiletries
LP Gas	$30/approx. every 2 months	We buy when it runs out. Usually every 2 months depending on how bad the power supply is
Medical	$15/month	For OTC meds (painkiller, cough syrup, antacid stocked for emergencies) and any prescriptions
Pet expenses	$60/ twice a year	For vaccinations and checkups for 3 dogs. Pet food is covered under groceries
School fees for the kids	$300/ term	Both kids are at the same school starting this year
Nanny	$100/month	Less than before as both kids are now in school.
DSTV subscription	$37/month
Transport for kids to/from school	$100/month

Day 1 – 27 December 2023
01.35 – My alarm goes off. I quickly shut it off so it doesn’t wake up my husband P, and I head into the shower for a quick wash. I pop in my contacts, do my brows and get dressed. I used a hair band to push my *purple* knotless braids off my face
01.50 – I pack up my lunches and the smoked trout my mum gave me in my cooler bag. I go to kiss the kids goodbye. I will miss them but it’s only for a few days. I put my sister in law’s luggage, N, in the car and load her and my nephew in.
02.00 – I kiss P bye, and he lets us out. I put on a Spotify playlist for the trip, and start the 300km drive back to Harare. It rains quite a bit, so I have to be cautious. N and my nephew are asleep for the entire trip, and I drink some Ethiopian coffee to keep myself awake. I pay US$ 4.00 for the toll gates
0500 – I drop N off to where she will get public transport to their house. I head to my tiny studio and unload my luggage and settle in. I also text P to tell him I arrived safely. I read a novel and eat some NikNaks I raided from the kids’ stash until it’s time to head to the office
0740 – I wear my flat boots, and hooded coat because it’s raining and my cheap umbrella has died on me. I quickly run to my car, jump in and drive to work. I hate being one of the few people without an annual Christmas shutdown, but the pro is definitely the lack of traffic. I’m the first one in our wing, and I settle in after a week away.
0900 – I’m hungry so I have my brekkie of leftover fries and eggs from when we hosted family over Christmas. I have a sip of my coffee and realise that it’s now cold. I drink some water instead
1100 – I’m feeling exhausted so I have some fruity licorice to give me a sugar rush and wake me up. It doesn’t really help
1300 – Lunch is veggie rice and eggs scrambled with onions and tomatoes. I also have some Pringles and a milkshake box stolen from the kids’ snack stash. I take a quick desk nap
1500 – I realise I made a major mistake on some client work, so I do a memo requesting authority to fix it. I am really too tired to work today
1730 – I have finished all my reports for the day, so I shut down my laptop and head out. I decide to go to a mall in my neighbourhood to withdraw cash to pay my rent. I withdraw US$ 400. I decide to do some grocery shopping as well. I head into Pick ‘n’ Pay and buy wholewheat rolls, 6 eggs, cheese, breakfast sausages, 2 kiddie ready meals (cottage pie and mac n cheese), chicken livers in gravy, cerevita, lunchboxes with water bottles for the kids, frozen veggies, washing powder, soap, fabric softener, a mop, an umbrella, exfoliating gloves, window cleaner, shoe polish and some gum (US$89.72). It’s raining even heavier so I make use of my new umbrella, load my shopping in my car and drive home
1900 – I decide to pay my rent today before I spend the money. My landlord is not home so I wrap up US$ 300 in a scrap of paper and sellotape it shut. Then I search for a pen and realise I don’t have one, so I write my name using my eyebrow pencil. I give the rent money to the caretaker. I get back into my studio, pop out my contact lenses, and I settle in for a night of cottage pie, Duolingo and making my lunches for tomorrow. I fry two eggs, and cook more veggie rice. I make one portion of veggie rice and throw a smoked trout on top in one container, and make an egg and cheese roll and toss it into another. I chat on whatsapp with P until I blackout
Total spent – US$ 393.72
Day 2 – 28 December 2023
0600 - I wake up feeling a lot more rested than the previous day. I scroll on Reddit for a bit in bed before I get out. I put my bath water on to heat, and while that’s going, I pack my food in the cooler bag, and add some snacks and a juice box. I pop in my contacts, brush my teeth and then take a bath. I moisturize, get dressed in a long brown bodycon dress and black leather ankle boots. I pull my braids back today, and wear my custom birthday earrings (silver butterfly studs with a moonstone chain). I grab my hadbag, cooler bag, umbrella and car keys and head out into the rain. I have a bit of a struggle getting into my car because I cannot lift my leg enough to jump into my SUV, lol. Anyway, I drive to work with a new Spotify playlist featuring two of my favourite local female artists (Cynthia Mare and Feli Nandi).
0800 – I am not feeling too motivated to work today, so I switch on my laptop, make some tea and have my egg sandwich before having a gossip with my colleagues. I get back in my chair and crack on with work
1100 – I’m feeling exhausted so I have a mid-morning snack of fruity licorice. Then I crack on with work, though I keep having to hold on to some work as we wait for feedback on how to proceed with some issues.
1300 – I head to the kitchen to warm up my rice and fish. I eat at my desk while scrolling on Reddit. I also change my local currency to US$ because I need US$ more for now (ZWL$ 2,2m = 200US$)
1400 – More work as I snack on some Bermuda creams
1700 – I debate filling up my petrol on my way home and decide to do so tomorrow evening since I’m planning to drive home on Saturday. I head to my tiny studio and find out that because of the heavy rains, the roof in my closet is leaking. I text the landlord and she promises to have someone over to fix it tomorrow if I leave my keys with the caretaker. I resolve to look for a new place to rent in January
2000 – I do my daily Duolingo, make my lunches for tomorrow, eat dinner, chat with P on Whatsapp all while scrolling on Reddit until I pass out
Total spent – US$ 0.00
Day 3 – 29 December 2023
0100 – I’m woken up by really heavy rain. I pray my roof doesn’t leak more and fall back asleep
0600 – I wake up and scroll on Reddit for an hour. Then I get out of bed, warm up my bath water, put in my contacts etc etc
0750 – I take out my trash and give my studio key to the caretaker. Then I drive to work. My team mates are late, people are definitely choosing themselves these days. I have my egg and cheese sandwich and crack on with work
1000 – The printer is giving me problems, and I’m feeling frazzled. This is our busiest season at work, and I am feeling headachy. I pop two pain relief tablets and get back to work. Lots of client calls today, and I have to put out so many fires. Sigh. I also have a quick chat with my MIL’s friend who’s making snacks and a birthday cake for E’s 5th birthday next Friday. I paid for this in November when I paid for the same package for L’s birthday, so well done past me.
1300 – I have my lunch of veggie rice and chicken livers in gravy. I sprinkle some peri peri Aromat on top as it’s very bland. I also have a strawberry milkshake box and some Niknaks purloined from the kids
1400 – I have lost steam but I push through to finalise a client request and send to my grandboss. Then I start slacking off because I’m tired and my headache has started up again. I’m counting down the minutes to 5pm. The guy I used to change my money to US$ tells me he can’t come to my office which is not in the city centre so he will send by a mobile money platform (Innbucks). I’m ok with this alternative. I field more client calls and also call some of my clients so I can clear them off my to do list.
1600 – A post by my stepbrother reminds me it’s my sister R’s birthday today. I send her a quick happy birthday text. I will try to call her after work today (dear reader, I forgot to call her)
1700 – I’m out of the office like a bat out of hell. I head home, and get my key from the caretaker. He comes by later with the handyman and they replace my broken window, and also discuss how my roof needs new roofing sheets. I start packing up the stuff I will take home (mostly laundry and clothes I think are no longer my style, and some of the items I bought on day 1)
1900 – I heat up the last of my veggie rice and chicken livers and have that for dinner. I decide I will never buy pre cooked livers again as they were overcooked and felt so mealy. I make my breakfast sandwich for tomorrow as I am working, and do my dishes. I do my Duolingo, watch some TikToks, read my novel and chat with P until…
2200 – Bed
Total spent – US$ 0.00
Day 4 – 30 December 2023
0600 – I wake up with an upset stomach. I was diagnosed with peptic ulcers back when I was in uni, and they flare up in times of stress and bad eating habits. I scroll my local thrift store and try to decide if I want to take advantage of the sale they are having this morning. I screenshot a few pieces I’m interested in
0700 – I do my usual morning routine. Today, I also load up my stuff in the car and do some light mopping of my floors so my studio will be tidy when I come back on Tuesday morning. I pack my sandwich, a milkshake, a Coke, some corn puffs and an energy drink in my cooler bag. I drive to the service station close to my office and fill up my tank (US$46) and buy some engine oil because my oil is very low (US$14). I really didn’t want to buy engine oil because I’m on a tight budget, but my car is still new (to me) and I need to keep it well maintained until I sell it to buy my dream car. It’s a Toyota and can take some rough treatment, but a well maintained car is essential and I have several long trips I’m going to take in it.
I get to work and I’m the first person in today. Since I’m planning to skive, I’m OK with that. I have my sandwich and an instant mocha and respond to a few client queries. Then I update my money diary and scroll through Reddit. My team mate arrives at work and we try to see which manager is on duty with us today. There’s a really annoying one we hope isn’t in today, who we had for the last 2 Saturdays we were on duty.
0900 – My team mate and I discuss an aspect of our job we are expected to do today. We realise that we still need more guidance from the people spearheading the project, so we put the task on the back burner until Tuesday. I do some work, and run a few reports
1030 – I leave work. I first head to the thrift shop. I find 2 dresses and 2 tops of a total of US$ 15.00. Score. I start my drive out of the city and pay US$ 2.00 at the first tollgate
1300 – I make a stop to buy more petrol. I fill up my tank for US$ 30.00 and get back on the road. I narrowly miss hitting a tortoise that was trying to cross the road and a cow decides to stand in the middle of the highway. I see some people selling wild mushrooms along the road, but I decide not to buy, thinking that I will find more sellers closer to my destination. I obviously don’t find any wild mushrooms. I realise paying for the tollgates is cheaper using local currency. I pay US$1 equivalent at the last tollgate
1500 – I pass through an Innbucks to withdraw hard cash from my account. I manage to withdraw US$195.00. I buy more petrol when I get to my neighbourhood because I know I won’t have time to buy more before I leave on Tuesday morning (US$ 24.00). I’m finally home and my son E is ecstatic as usual to see me. We offload the car, put on my laundry to wash and I pack the kids’ clothes for our trip to my mum’s tomorrow
1700 – P goes out to hunt for the potatoes my mum requested. I eat dinner with E because I’m starving and I veg out on the couch for a bit. P comes back home sans potatoes. He has his dinner then we pack up our clothes and the things we think we will need for tomorrow’s trip. I do my daily Duolingo
2000 – A quick shower and bed because we are waking up early tomorrow morning
Total spent – US$ 133
Day 5 – 31 December 2023
0400 – I’m awake, scrolling on my phone, when P’s alarm goes off. We get up, shower, etc. We have a quick meal of cereal, then we pack our luggage in the car. I get a half asleep E to pee, before putting his shoes on him and putting him in the car. We drive to my MIL’s to pick up my older son L, my sister in law T and my niece C.
0530 – The road trip begins. We have a 300km drive ahead of us and its drizzly. I am in my passenger princess era and my job today is to control the playlist. Not to brag (totally bragging) in laws say I have the best playlists for parties and road trips.
I pay US$ 1 equivalent for the tollgate. P buys watermelons, pineapples, mangoes and potatoes along the way. I pay another US$1 equivalent for the last tollgate
0830 – We arrive at my mum’s house. She’s happy to see us, since if we hadn’t shown up she would have spent NYE alone. She’s disappointed that we didn’t come with my MIL. I cook breakfast, everyone eats, P and I do the dishes while T cleans up the dining room. I also marinate the meat for our braai tonight
1130 – I change the boys’ clothes and we all hop into my mum’s car. P is driving. We head to Mtarazi Falls, a very scenic spot in the Eastern Highlands. My mum pays for our entrance into Nyanga National Park, as well as for everyone (except my niece C) to do the skywalk. We take lots of photos and videos while waiting for our turn to be harnessed. P stays behind with C, while the rest of us go ahead. We start doing the walk, but E looks down and sees how high up we are. He cries until I take him back to terra firma. The people there tell us they don’t do refunds, so P makes the executive decision to have C put into her own little harness to take her across. We leave E, and go do the skywalk. Its scary and exhilarating seeing how far up you are from the ground. I have intrusive thoughts about falling, lol.
1500 – We head to a shop selling rainbow trout. My mum buys so much trout, as well as sweets for the kids. I buy a six pack of Ice Tropez and skittles for US$ 20 and crack open one as we drive back to my mum’s house.
1800 – We are finally at the house and start braaiing meat. I make some potato salad. We grill meat and eat it, have drinks and listen to music until midnight. I also text my cousin B for a bit since we didn’t manage to meet up today. I also do one lesson on Duolingo
Total spent – US$ 22.00
Day 6 – 1 January 2024
0100 - After midnight, people start drifting off to bed. P and I are the last ones to go to bed. We have a shower and hit the hay.
0830 – I wake up feeling surprisingly OK. No hangover unlike on Boxing Day. I brush my teeth, wash my face and wander into the kitchen where I see my mum and L almost done with cooking breakfast. I do the dishes and put on our bedlinen and the kids’ bedlinen on to wash while P takes a shower. I shower, get dressed and pack up all our stuff.
1000 – We have breakfast. I clear the table, throw trash away and pack away the leftovers while P does the dishes. Then I dry the dishes and put them away. I give the kids a bath, and get them dressed. Then I start pack all our luggage into the car.
1200 – We say goodbye to my mum and she tells us to come visit her when she’s working in a different city. We tell her we will definitely come if work allows us. P fills up the car with petrol and we start our leisurely drive home. We stop by the Hot Springs and Birchenough Bridge and take lots of photos and videos. E refuses to walk across the bridge so P drives him across. I pay US$ 2 equivalent for the tollgates
1700 – we are finally home. We drop off T and C at MIL’s house. The kids want to sleepover, but I remind them that I’m going back to work in the morning so I want to hang out with them for a bit. They grudgingly agree and we head home. Once home, I put on all our dirty laundry to wash, while the car is unloaded and everything put back in its proper place. I do my ironing and pack my stuff for my trip while P and the kids go to buy pizza for dinner. We have dinner and the kids tell me good gossip, lol. I do a lesson on Duolingo (so I think)
1900 – I take a shower and see P dozing on the couch. I tell him to go to bed, while I put the kids to bed. I kiss them good night and goodbye, and promise I will be back on Friday. Yes, this constant travelling is exhausting but I feel so guilty about not living with my kids, so I overcompensate by going home every chance I get.
2000 – Bed time
Total Spent – US$ 2.00
Day 7 – 2 January 2024
0130 – My alarm goes off. I switch it off, head into the shower and brush my teeth. I wear some sweatpants, a t-shirt and my croc dupes. I pack my stuff in the car and retrieve my energy drink. I kiss the kids goodbye one last time. The mum guilt is killing me. I kiss P goodbye and he wakes up. I tell him to go to bed but he insists on opening and closing the gate for me. Just as well because I try starting my car and the battery is flat. FML. We jump start my car
0230 – I’m on the road. There is very little traffic and conditions are great. I have a relaxing drive. I also pay US$ 2 equivalent for the tollgates
0530 – I arrive at my studio and unload my car. I find the studio flooded with water and I can’t figure out where it came from. I mop up the studio, and then change into my work clothes
0645 – I drive to the office, and I’m the first one in. But it’s OK because its busy season and I have so much to do. I make a head start on getting through my emails.
0800 – I have ginger tea and leftover pizza for breakfast then I get stuck into work. I’m fielding non-stop calls from clients and things get very hectic
1300 – Its finally lunch time, and I go to buy some food since I had nothing packed today. I buy rice, steamed veg and roast beef for US$ 2.
1400 – Back on the grind. I take a brief break to ask my boss if I can do overtime this week so I can leave work early on Friday, and I also asked to take some leave days next week. He says yes. I do a mini fist pump and get back to work
1700 – Everyone else heads home, but as I’m doing overtime, I continue working. I finish my to do list for the day and then try to decide what I need as groceries this week. I also update my money diary
1900 – I log out of work and drive to the Spar nearby. I buy bread, cheese, salami, juice boxes, a canned iced coffee, a cherry soda, jelly beans, chocolate chip cookies and toy tool sets for the kids for US$ 30.00. I drive home and offload my shopping. I change into my sweatpants and a t-shirt, and I start cooking. I’m making an egg, cheese and salami sandwich for breakfast, and veggie rice and sausages for my lunch/dinner. I start doing my Duolingo, and realise my lesson from yesterday was never updated. Curses. This is my first time using a streak freeze. I eat dinner, pack up the rest of my food and do the dishes
2100 – I pass out at some point
Total spent – US$ 34.00

Spending Summary
Food + Drink - US$141.72
Fun / Entertainment – US$ 0.00
Home + Health – US$ 300.00
Clothes + Beauty – US$ 15.00
Transport – US$ 128.00
Other – US$ 0.00
Grand Total – US$ 584.72

Reflections
I’m making a loss from having this new job, lol. My expenses have gone up and I’m far away from my kids. Anyway, this spending is pretty normal for me now. I need to find a way to cut down on some expenses though, maybe use public transport to go home rather than driving.

Okay here’s the insects/fish I have caught so far. I’ve gotten about 7/8 of each in every season I’ve played. The firefly only counts for summers list but I’ve seen it in all seasons so far (haven’t done winter and I’m a week into fall).
Also I asked in the discord for this game. For certain insects/fish you will need a friend with you in order to find them.
Finally, I will edit list as I go but like I don’t want this to be really cluttered if someone just wants an easy list. I am providing a link to where I and a few other have been discussing some bugs/fish. The 3rd one down is a continuously updated list (I will update this one too) of how we caught each bug/fish and describing the conditions in which they were found.
https://www.trueachievements.com/forum/viewthread.aspx?
Fish
Spring 7/10 - Dogfish - Flounder - Herring - Octopus - Pufferfish - Red Snapper - Sardine - Starfish
Summer 7/10 - Bluegill - Catfish - Crooker - Clownfish - Perch - Salmon - Sea Krait
Fall 7/10 - Eel - Goby - Jellyfish - Marlin - Squid - Trout - Tuna
Insects
Spring 8/10 - Assassin bug - Bully bug - Butterfly - Ladybug - Lantern bug - Lunar cricket - Matallyticus - Oil Beetle
Summer 9/10 - Atlas beetle - Cicada - Cyclops caterpillar - Eyed hawkmoth - Firefly - Grasshopper - Peacock butterfly - Weaver ant - Yellow Jacket
Fall 6/10 - Cricket - Orchid mantis - Skullbug - Sunset moth - Trapdoor spider - Walking stick

How to butterfly trout

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