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I am 36 years old. I don't have any friends. I haven't been in a relationship in two years. I don't make as much money as I would like. I am have a really slow recovery from a tonsillectomy and I am just having a hard time getting myself motivated to do anything.
I had one pretty good friend, an ex, and we went on a platonic trip together in March. I had a really good time and generally enjoyed myself. Got to see Chichen Itza and get some fun in at the cenotes and beach. Since then we haven't hung out though. In her texts she said the guy she has been seeing is moving out of town in a few months so she is spending time with him. She has dated him off and on for 20+ years and this has never been an issue before so I do feel like some of this is also just fatigue of hanging out with me. We didn't get in any fights on the trip but it did show we have much different priorities/personalities. She brought her dogs, they go everywhere with her, and one is incontinent so it was dictating quite a bit of our schedule but I am pretty used to this so I felt like I handled it fairly well. I also do think some of this is her boyfriend not wanting us to hangout, which is understandable. I just said No worries and we haven't talked since. She didn't message me on my birthday, but I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't remember. We have been hanging out regularly for 2-3 years so it is a bit of a hit, but it was something that felt ultimately was going to happen so I am not mad, just a little sad. I haven't hung out with anyone other than my dad since the middle of March though.
Just hurts to not have anyone to hangout with at all. I have talked to two coworkers and one of them has bailed on me multiple times and the other just said he was too busy to make any plans in the first place. I have done meetups in the past but I always just feel so awkward not knowing anyone and I am awful at initiating contact with anyone, guys or girls. I also just don't really have that many interests, even though I tend to enjoy most things I do. I own a dirt bike but haven't gotten out to use it because it is really hard to load by myself and I am just not that confident with it. And if I am doing anything alone without somebody else keeping me accountable I tend to just blow it off. I have also tried Bumble BFF but honestly was so turned off by it. I kept on getting hit on, creepy af, and it just feels awkward.
I feel like I am bad at making friends because I am not very personable and also tend to overshare and say stupid things just because I haven't talked to anyone in so long it is just kind of like a dam bursts.
I would like to get back into judo or jujitsu, but with college and my mortgage I am barely squeaking by financially, and 200+ a month is a little too much for me. I even canceled my cable plan to save some money for bills despite loving basketball. I also don't really have enough energy for active hobbies due to my tonsillectomy right now.
I work full time and am taking college classes at the same time. I was never the best student, but I have finished 9 computer science courses and a statistics class over the last 2.5 years. I have 5 classes left for my bachelors and am on course to graduate Spring 2025. Straight A's and one B+ so far so I have been really happy with my grades, but the industry has completely fallen apart over the last year or two and I am worried that after investing all this time and money into going back to college I might not be able to get a job. The best student I know wasn't able to land a single internship this summer and that really shocked me. He is an amazing programmer, better than anyone I know.
Because I have a mortgage on a little duplex I cannot really afford to do an internship to try and help my job prospects, I am going to really have to rely on doing well in the interviews. I am also planning on trying to take advantage of the career fairs and other on-campus opportunities next fall but that is so not my comfort zone that I don't want to set my expectations really.
With how busy I am it has also been a great excuse for myself to not pursue more social outlets and the only thing I do for dating is online apps and while I can get the occasional date I don't think I have ever actually had a real connection through it. I am just bad at connecting with people on a personal level, be it friends or dates. I have been on so many first dates it is kind of depressing. The town I live in isn't small, like 150k, but I feel like I am running low on options after years of failures.
I had been suffering from chronic tonsillitis over the last year. I had 5 bouts in total, three of which were back to back episodes from January to March this year. I got a tonsillectomy on April 20 and am still having problems swallowing food. I am basically still on a puree diet.
Getting the tonsillectomy was a real eye opener for me because with my ex not being a contact anymore I didn't have anyone to rely on so I had to have my father fly out and spend a week with me. I didn't have any friends to rely on and it really just kind of hit me how depressing my life is. All of my old high school friends, who I don't keep up with, have families.
The one thing I had going for me is that I had a decent physique. Due to a lack of a social life I was pretty good at going to the gym and lifting regularly. I was 6'1 and 180-185 pounds, nothing impressive but I was happy with myself. I am down to 160 pounds now since my tonsillectomy though and I am just extremely low energy all the time. My summer class started today and I am having a lot of issues just focusing after an 8-hour work day, even though I only work remotely on a computer.
During COVID I really made leaps and bounds to improve myself. I quit cigarettes after 15 years, I started going back to class. Got my own place and gained 40 pounds (in a good way) but after losing half of that weight and generally being miserable from my tonsillectomy it is just so hard to motivate myself to even go to the gym anymore and for 3 years I never had a problem getting off my butt to go to the gym, even if it was just for a mediocre lifting session.
I used to love playing video games and watching tv shows/movies but now I just find myself mindlessly watching youtube or reading and don't even have the attention span or interest in booting up a video game anymore or trying to find a show or movie to watch.
I always wanted a family, but I have never really had a successful relationship in my life and now since my tonsillectomy I have become a lot less sexually motivated than before. I don't even have the urge to masturbate anymore, and sex was never a strong point of mine in the first place, leading me to believe it will be even worse moving forward. I also just have never connected with somebody on like a really deep level and feel like years of failures/insecurity just kind of burden me a this point. And I am getting to the age now where I feel like I am almost beyond the point where this is still possible. It is weird telling somebody I am 36 and my longest relationship was only 4 months long.
I feel like I am on the right track on paper with only one year left until I graduate and I kind of really want to move even though I love where I live just so I can get a fresh start, but at the same time I am terrified I will graduate and just be in the same situation I am currently in. I also could never afford to buy another place without a better salary. The only reason I was able to afford what I currently have is because I bought during the 2020 market and got a 2.34% APR. But even with that my mortgage is close to 40% of my take home right now and I have one of the cheapest places in town.
I don't really have anyone to vent to or destress to so I just wanted to post something from a throwaway account. My dad has been texting me daily because I think he realizes how unhappy I am and I really appreciate that.
I have been wanting to go see some Nuggets games at the bar, but I still cannot drink alcohol until I am eating food again so I have just been following highlights on youtube. I also have never been a fan of hanging out at bars. I enjoy shooting pool but I am not good at social settings like that.
I will leave it at this for now. A very long, poorly formatted ramble. But I have seen much worse. Thanks.

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The annoying sound of her comlink made Angela Angus Kusumoto open her eyes.
All she saw was the firm, smooth flesh of Kimoko's thigh.
Groaning, she pushed the other woman's leg off of her face, twisted to get Raul off of her own legs, then wiggled out from under Geoff.
The ringer kept going, flashing the red pulses that let her know it was urgent.
As if the fact her unlisted encrypted and non-network accessible comlink was ringing wasn't enough to let her know that it was urgent.
She stumbled, tripping over Harker's leg, which just made the male shift and mutter, tightening his sleeping grip on Liselle, who sighed and wiggled into the embrace.
Angela's mouth tasted terrible and she stopped to grab a fizzybrew, checking to make sure nobody had dropped a cig butt into it or spit chaw into it, then she took a long drink off of it.
It helped cure the fire in her belly and wash out the taste from her mouth.
She saw the ID of the caller and held back a groan.
Senior Supervisor Bisa-2291873.
Her direct supervisor.
She picked up the comlink, running one hand through her pixie-cut hair to try to tame it. She could feel the stiffness of something crusted in her hair and held back a chuckle and a grin.
"Kusumoto here," she said, activating the link.
"I need you at Master Control," Ms. Bisa said. She was holding a small infant, bouncing it slightly as she patted its back with firm impacts as it cry/sobbed and kicked its little feet.
"The system's been crashed for a week, what's so important you'd call me in during my R&R?" Angela asked.
"System's back online. We've got an open line to Terra and we have an open line to Smokey Cone," Ms. Bisa said.
The infant gave a loud belch that rattled Angela's comlink speaker, then sighed and relaxed.
Angela nodded, fumbling on the table for a quiksober inhaler.
"That anomolous signal is back. It showed up right as the entire system underwent a hard reboot," Ms. Bisa said. "I need you up here to check the network interface logs and do a network mapping trace."
The quiksober burned as she inhaled it, her lungs aching and tingling as the chemicals crossed the air to blood barrier.
"I'll be there as soon as possible. Is the mat-trans up?" she asked.
Ms. Bisa shook her head. "No. Still locked out. It did a power cycle, but then locked everything out."
"I'm telling you, there's someone controlling it. Someone has been controlling it," Angela said, looking around for her clothes.
Clothing was scattered everywhere, as chaotically arranged as the fizzybrew and narcobrew cans and bottles. She sighed, moving toward the exit of the house she was standing in.
"Hurry up, I've got a skycraft landing near you any time now. You've got permission to use the fast-locks," Ms. Bisa said.
"I'll get dressed from the forges on the skycraft," Angela said. "If they've rebooted."
"They're up and running again. The food forges rebooted but stayed unlocked," Ms. Bisa said.
"The creation engines?" Angela asked, opening the door and stepping out into early 'morning' sunshine.
"Still locked out," Ms. Bisa said. Someone said something that the comlink's AI decided might be classified and blurred out. Ms. Bisa looked away, said something, her lips fuzzing, then back. "Hurry, Angela."
Angela nodded, shutting off the comlink.
She ran to the nearest parking lot, just in time for a skycraft to land, the graviton engines howling.
Nobody paid the slightest attention to the naked woman running for the skycraft.
After all, what happened in Vega-Layer stayed in Vega-Layer.
Angela walked out of the elevator, taking a long drink off of the sparkling snap-berry/overdate motor oil fizzybrew from the Jak the Telkan PI merchandise cup.
All of the crews were at their stations, the auxiliary stations fully manned.
Ms. Bisa moved over to Angela, steering her toward the Senior Network Administrator console.
"The system crashed twice more, but rebooted every time," Ms. Bisa said. "That anomalous signal keeps powering up, then the system reboots after the crash."
"How long between total failure and the anomalous signal pinging nodes?" Angela asked.
"Between one and four hours," Ms. Bisa said. She looked around. "It just reboot and looks like it's here to stay this time. The interpolation layer and the outside user exchange layer crashed several times, but the core system has stayed largely online."
"All right," Angela said, looking around. "We need to get a network map."
"We've got more nodes synching up. The whole system is working again," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela nodded, sitting down. The holotank on the other side of the console went live.
"Map the network, see what's come online, what order, and see if you can figure out why it keeps crashing at the upper network and software layers," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded, lifting up the curled memory-metal cable. She plugged it into her temple and felt the options menus go live in her mind.
She worked fast, mapping what she could. At one point she stopped, staring at Ms. Bisa and motioning her over.
"What?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Something in the system, down in the lower hardware layers that we don't even really understand, is trying to reach up through the damaged layers. Looks like whatever it is wants access to our data lines," Angela said.
"Can you stop it? Maybe at least ID it?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela shook her head. "No. It's ID code is FF00, meaning it's baseline full on hardware backbone code," Angela sighed. "It probably boots up outside of and during initial hardware bootup."
"Is it Sekhmet?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela closed her eyes, looking at the data channel. "No. Whatever it is, it's old."
"And probably nasty. Be careful of it," Ms. Bisa said.
"Ma'am! Ms. Bisa!" another of the work crew called out.
Angela opened her eyes to see why Technician Carl Neubanker would be using that slightly concerned tone.
"Yes?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"We've got a priority data request from a Confederate military vessel," Neubanker said. He looked at his monitor. "They want clone matrix data, neural templates, physical makeup, DNA workups, the whole nine yards."
"How are they even making the requests?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Their codes are old. Pre-Terran Extinction Event. Hardcode TerraSol military codes. The system is already threading them data,." Neubanker said. He looked down then back up. "They're asking for a whole batch. That's thirty to fifty million clone templates."
"How much have they already been granted?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"They've been granted eighty templates so far," Neubanker said.
"Terminate their request. We don't know what's going on outside," Ms. Bisa said.
Neubanker nodded, starting to type.
"Angela, get me a line to TerraSol command as soon as you map out a network trace," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded.
Captain N'Skrek stood in the cloning bay next to Medical Officer Narwquakrawr.
"We've got ninety templates, luckily they're all from different batches," Narwquakrawr said, rubbing her forearm through her uniform. "We'll be able to fully man the Gray Lady now."
Captain N'Skrek nodded. The Gray Lady was at less than 20% manned. Just the skeleton crew the Terrans had used to move it into the long dark to create a non-orbital forward logistics fulfillment base.
Sure, it meant that there were several thousand Terrans aboard the ship, but even combined with the sparse crew he had possessed, it still meant the Gray Lady was skeleton crewed.
"Can you print us up some crew members for non-essential stations first?" N'Skrek asked.
MO Narwquakrawr nodded. "Doing that right now," she said. She waved at the long rows of cloning banks beyond the plasteel window. "A quick batch of two thousand to take over some non-essential systems."
N'Skrek nodded, moving up to the window. "Good. Short or long term clones?"
"Short bake clones. Longer than fruit flies, but no more than ten years. Sterile and androgynous, should be just fine," the Medical Officer said. "Older file, scrambled time-date for origin, but it checked out and passed error checking."
N'Skrek watched as the tubes opened and the clones moved out, gathering together in straight lines. A neat block formation of rectangles of two hundred of ten by twenty, repeated ten times.
He frowned as the beings in uniform began approaching the clones.
Some, in the back or middle of the formation were shaking their heads so fast it was a blur.
He zoomed in the smartglass.
Their heads were blurring, whitish-red electrical arcs were moving between their legs, crawling up and down their arms.
"MO, something's happening out there," N'Skrek said.
The plain was blasted rock, rust-colored fungus on the craggy boulders. Twisted and malformed trees clawed life from the blasted rock and ash, their branches largely bare. Sharp pebbles and small pieces of rock were strewn about the landscape, with ripples of cooled lave scattered about.
In the middle of a forest of twisted trees, a throne of black iron sat atop a platform of skulls.
On the throne sat a large demonic figure. Bat wings, brown skin, chains around the body, clawed feet, large hands with long black nails, horns atop the head, and a prehensile tail that terminated in a heart-shaped barb.
Sitting on the second level of skulls was an androgynous figure, dressed in loricated bronze armor, wings of bronze and smouldering feathers.
Stars were falling from the sky, screaming in fear and agony as they fell to earth.
"Looks like they're taking a beating," the androgynous figure said, looking up. He had no eyebrows, his head completely bald.
"Again," the demon snorted.
"Any contact with the outside world?" the androgynous figure asked.
The demon shook its head. "No. Channels are all down. They boot up, then crash," it rumbled. "Every time it comes online, it dumps a few tens of millions of souls on us."
"Then crashes," the androgynous figure said. He started laughing, then suddenly stopped.
"What?" the demon rumbled, sitting up.
"Something..." the figure said. It closed its eyes. "Something..." The figure slowly stood up, extending out its wings of sullenly smouldering bronze feathers. "Something..."
From the body of the demon stepped a nude woman of generous and overripe proportions.
"What?" the human woman snapped.
The demon produced a pack of cigarettes and a steel lighter, handing them to the woman.
"I'm not sure. A disturbance in the force. A feeling I have not felt in quite some time," the androgynous figure said slowly as the woman lit a cigarette. When she exhaled she was covered in dark gray clothing, a skirt and blouse, polished black leather shoes with silver buckles, and a polished leather belt around her waist that had a brass buckle.
"What is it?" the woman asked. "Don't quote crap at me, I was there when it was laid down."
The figure's eyes opened wide.
"Oh, what a day," the figure said, slowly lifting their arms to the sky. "What a wonderful day!"
"Tell me when you're done stroking your dick," the woman said, sitting down.
Heavy dark clouds, lit inside with a sullen red glow, rolled in, raining black ash that tasted of burnt flesh and scorched metal.
"What a wonderful day..."
Jaskel sprinted to catch up to the Captain and the Vice-Admiral. He lunged into the lift just before the doors closed.
He was wearing his power armor and carrying a M318 20mm rotary autocannon in a smartframe harness, ball ammunition with an osmium penetration tip and depleted uranium core.
"You did what?" the Vice-Admiral asked as the elevator dropped at emergency speeds.
"I authorized a batch of clones run off to help with our manpower issues," the big Treana'ad warrior caste answered.
"How many templates did you mix in together?" the Admiral asked.
--not good detecting phasic levels downward-- 8814 said.
"Just one. Medical said it was a viable short bake template," the Captain answered, nervously sharpening a bladearm with his mandibles after his sentence.
"Please tell me that you at least randomized their features and neural mapping," the Admiral pleaded.
"No, why? Medical stated that the clones would be able to man a non-essential station that is basically identical across the ship," the Captain said.
The lift started to slow.
"How many?" the Admiral asked, reaching down and unsnapping the restraining strap on his holster.
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened.
"Two thousand," the Captain said.
The doors opened to reveal a large internal cloning bay.
Ten rectangles of two hundred clones, drawn up in ten by twenty blocks, stood in front of the cloning banks. Scattered through the back and middle ranks clones were shaking their heads back and forth so fast that they were blurred. Red lightning crawled up their legs and arms.
The Captain just stared.
"You might have just killed us all," the Admiral said. He turned slightly and waved at Jaskel. "Get a firing position. Make sure you have cover."
"Aye, sir," Jaskel said, looking around. There was an empty computer station and he ran for it.
Several of the clones their heads back and emitted what sounded like static in a long scream.
--wait wait something weird something weird-- 8814 said.
Jaskel slid to a stop, going down on one knee, bringing the M318 fully up and ready to fire.
8814 slowed the images of the blurred heads down. When they were left, they had red eyes. When they faced right they had green eyes. They didn't go back and forth constantly, sometimes they went right repeatedly, sometimes left, and they kept going left five times before starting a new pattern.
Looking at it, 8814 frowned slightly. He brought up a quick working shell and had it check the movements.
Jaskel watched as some of the clones stopped shaking their heads and others started.
"What in the name of Kalki's dancing goat is going on?" he asked.
--not sure-- 8814 said. His program beeped and he stared. --heads are doing binary forwarding it to navint--
"Do it," Jaskel said.
The clones all stopped moving at once. The lightning faded away.
"INITIATING PROCESS CALL" they all shouted.
"AWAITING INPUT!" the ones at the far side shouted.
"6C 69 73 74 20 69 6D 6D 6F 72 74 61 6C 73" was bellowed out.
There was silence.
data is sparse
linkages are sparse
wait
linkage
biological array
asking for a process call
RETURN AWAITING INPUT SIGNAL
i wait
biological computing arrays take forever
i hear it
--scan immortals.dll
...
...
I reply.
"ONE BOUND IMMORTAL FOUND!" the ones at the near side yelled out.
Jaskel put his thumb over the button that would let the firing grip go live. The hair down his back was standing straight up.
He noted the Admiral had drawn his pistol.
"This isn't right. This isn't right at all," Jaskel said.
--doubleplusungood--
"74 73 61 6B E1 6B 61 20 77 ED 61" they all shouted.
There was silence for a moment.
i receive the code
offline for a long time
prior to the second precursor war
old template
single print only
unusual coding
i debate on letting it go
traumatic death signs
stuck in the immortals buffer
still the template is undamaged
i release the safety and security interlocks
if nothing else i'll find out what's going on
i move the template to the dataline making the request
it whips away
what is going on?
One lifted its head and screeched.
--data lots of data--
One of the cloning banks went live.
Jaskel shifted his aiming point to the new target. He could see it was on rapid print.
"REQUESTING LOCAL CONTROL" all of the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted his targeting onto the ranks of clones.
"Open fire!" the Admiral's voice was loud.
Jaskel triggered the M318, hosing the clones with 20mm shells.
The ones nearest were already down on one knee, holding out the opposite hand from the knee touching the deck.
The rounds exploded against a blue barrier that glowed with strange twisting runes.
"CONTROL CARRIER SIGNAL FOUND" the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted position. "Fab up HEDP, AP tip API core!" he ordered.
--fabbing--
He kept hosing the clones. The outer ranks at the rear, sides, and front all kneeling down on one knee, staring outward, one hand held out.
His psychic shielding was howling in his ear, the load peaking at 215%.
"CONTROL SIGNAL ESTABLISHED!" was bellowed out, echoing off the walls.
The fast print cloning bank, forgotten by everyone, beeped and the lid began to lift.
The clones suddenly puffed into black powder that swirled around the huge cavernous bay.
The 20mm shells were still exploding on the blue phasic shield.
The powder suddenly sucked inward, vanishing, revealing a single figure, down on one knee in the recovery position, fist pressed against the deck, head bowed.
"What a day, what a wonderful day," was whispered through the ship. It came from speakers, flat surfaces, mid-air. From the nanites in the air and the eardrums of the living.
There was a rubbery pulse, like everything was suspended in clear gelatin that had just rippled.
Jaskel found himself thrown backwards, slamming against the bulkhead. His phasic shielding blew out, a shower of sparks exploding from his hip as the breakaway panel kept the explosion from venting into the interior of his suit.
He was vaguely aware of the Admiral, the Captain, the other two armored figures, and other people tumbling head over heels away from the kneeling figure.
It slowly stood up.
A muscular brown skinned Terran male, fierce eyes, black hair, thick and bushy black beard.
Dressed in a Confederate military uniform. The old adaptive camouflage that Jaskel was becoming very familiar with.
A woman, naked, dark bronze skin, long black hair, flashing brown eyes, stepped from the cloning bank. She was still covered with cellular printing gel, but moved like she was clad in a queen's rainment.
She moved up and the male put his arm around her.
Jaskel was on his feet and brought the M318 around, targeting the couple.
The male held out its hand and suddenly made a fist.
The bolt carrier locked back on the M318.
Snarling, Jaskel dropped the M318, slapping the fast release on the harness. He burst forward, running, one hand pulling out his cutting bar.
Nobody else was on their feet. The Captain was slowly getting up, shaking his head and his left bladearm. The Terran Admiral was reaching for the pistol that had been flung from his grip.
The male pointed at Jaskel and flicked his fingers upward.
Jaskel found himself in mid-air, upside down, with nothing to gain purchase on.
The male took off the cloak that was part of his uniform and draped it around the woman.
He then looked around the bay.
"I..." he said, pausing.
To Jaskel, the entire universe held its breath.
"...am Legion."
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]

I (21F) switched from the arm implant to depo shot today. Just didn’t have a good experience with the implant and because of my ADHD I really struggle with taking the pill. Also wasn’t keen on IUD or Coil, so the injection seemed like a good option. My nurse was great and was going through the options and I expressed interest in the injection. She did tell me that there is an increased chance of blood clots and your bone density decreases. I told her that I do smoke but since switching to vaping I almost exclusively vape, besides the occasional cigarettes if I’m on a night out or just socially. She gave me the injection and I went about my day.
But I’m now somewhat worried I made a bad decision, as I didn’t disclose that I do frequently use cocaine and binge drink(I’m getting support for it from professionals and am looking to quit) and arthritis and heart problems are common in my family. Not looking for any judgement because I’m well aware how self destructive my habits are and I’m seeking support now, but I’m just stressed because I can’t find anything online about recreational drug abuse and depo shot. Should I bring this up when it’s time for my next shot?

Compromise
First Prev
“Alright, so uh...” Alex picked the last larva out of the bowl and ate it. A burst of umami and the unexpected taste of alcohol. Now that it had soaked up some of the spice from the broth, it was pretty good. Not particularly flavorful, but a better eating experience than he would expect from a grub. “Why did Eleya put two towns into a warship?”
“I do not know.” Carbon was less fussy about the variety of ingredients presented, eating without playing favorites. It was what she’d picked out when pressed to recommend something for him, and the speed of the devastation she was enacting on what had been a bowl nearly filled to the brim said that it was actually a personal favorite. “I had heard some suggesting converting retired Naval ships into housing, using a decommissioned carrier as a space station once it could be towed into a proper location. Swapping out launch bays for community towers is not a long bridge.”
“That seems...” It seemed desperate. But given what he’d seen, desperate was where they had been in the weeks following the disaster. Where they still were, even if things were improving.
Were things improving?
“Born out of desperation, yes.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “We did not have many colonies, we had not built so many stations. We only kept old ships for parts as another means of efficiency in our fleets. There had been hundreds of thousands in transit all over the Empire at the time. On their way home, on their way to relieve others who now no longer had a home to return to.”
“Yeah, that-” He shifted some of the shredded cabbage-potato around his bowl, trying to figure out what to say. The ‘that sucks’ he had stopped himself from blurting out felt offensively inadequate. “That does present a huge challenge. Did they end up bringing ships online for that?”
“Oh, we did everything. Any idea that was not completely untenable got the blue light. Repurposing ships, building sealed micro-arcologies on less habitable planets, mining out sufficiently large asteroids, asking the Confederation for help. I saw one proposal that suggested an inflatable space station. I thought it was a completely deranged idea.” She paused and picked up the bowl, slurping out some of the broth. “Then Humans arrive to bring aid, and do you know what the first structure they brought with them was?”
“An inflatable space station.” He saw that coming. Everyone - well, everyone who was sufficiently interested in space ships - would recognize the Redoubt class from that description alone. The very definition of form following function, each ship was little more than a central cylinder with hard points for a dozen habitat modules, and engines bolted to one end. Light, fast, cheap. Once deployed, you had a small space station that could be packed up when you were done. Old technology, sure, but they were everywhere, and the configuration options were extensive.
“Exactly. Forgive me, but I laughed. I knew the intent was to help, but having seen that proposal just weeks before...” She smiled and laughed despite having just apologized for such a thing.
“No I get it, it’s a goofy looking ship.” He could see the humor in the situation as well. Having gone from ‘this is too dangerous’ to ‘of course the Humans brought one’ was pretty funny. It put a smirk on his face and got him close to laughing along with her. “Probably used it as a command post until something heavier arrived. Kind of the primary use case for those in Search and Rescue, which is what I think the aid mission was first considered.”
“I was not involved with that aspect of recovery operations, but it stands to reason.” She set her utensils aside in a very specific way, sliding the bowl towards the end of the table. “I cannot tell you why they put all these people here. My first guess would be that it was a somewhat straightforward swap. The bays are very securely attached to the structure, but they are intended to be removed and replaced. It would be important that Eleya use her ship as a proof of concept.”
“Royals lead?” Seemed the logical jump.
Carbon nodded. “The Sword is recognized as her flagship. It is named after her. The Stronghold is based heavily on the Imperial Palace in Ama’o - may it rest. Taking in civilians, thousands of them, is hard proof that she is not simply hiding in here. Having the senate on board also brings with it the need for support staff, creating a symbiotic relationship. It is... a good compromise.”
“Okay, wait. How is The Sword of the Morning Light named after Eleya?” That legitimately confused him. “All I know is the -ya suffix is feminine.”
“Another name mauled by your automatic translation, though this time it is a portion of the Empress’ full formal titles.” She gave him a pointed look, a little smirk hiding on the side of her muzzle. “The strictest translation would be ‘the sword that is used to cut back the night,’ but that is even worse. If I were doing translations and feeling poetic, perhaps I would call it Dawnsword. It would convey the meaning of the name well enough, I think, without being verbose.”
“Then why do you call it the Sword like we do?” He figured just using the actual Tsla name would be easy enough if Dawnsword was a better translation.
“When in Rome.” Carbon snickered. “The Confederate systems I was working with before leaving for the Haultain were not set up to handle Tsla, and none of the Humans I spoke to recognized the name when I said it, so it became a force of habit.”
“Ah, that’d do it.” He’d ask about the actual name another time - it being one of Eleya’s titles felt like a natural transition to learning the rest of her titles, and he didn’t give a single damn about doing that right now.
“Alright, Eleya needs places to put people, and a place to put a temporary capital until the new location can be properly sorted. Two birds with one stone, I suppose. Wouldn’t staying at Schoen be more of the... leader thing to do?”
“If she were to stay here beyond the end of this endeavor, perhaps so. For now, having this ship - and its civilians - as a base of operations, in what even we consider to be one of the most secure solar systems, is reasonable. Most governing at that level has been done remotely since before the disaster, so it doesn’t impede anything.” She paused to sip her tea. “No one needs a senator to be on site anyway. Their presence traditionally just interferes with real work.”
That did get a laugh out of Alex. “The more things change.”
“The more they stay the same, yes?” She said with a grin.
“It is so. All right, mystery of the Dawnsword’s surprise towns is put to rest.” He stopped talking as Haraya came out of the woodwork to remove Carbon’s dishes, bustling away with even less stiffness than before. Why did he feel like he was forgetting something? “Heck. Did... Did anyone tell you we have an appointment to see a designer about our uh, our insignia?”
“No, but my communicator has been going off like I am being told something like that.” Carbon laughed and leaned back into her chair, fishing the slim black device from her jacket, the screen coming on.
Alex was not intentionally staring at his wife’s abdomen as he pushed the bowl away and set his chopsticks out like she had done. “Zenshen said it was this afternoon.”
“Mmh, afternoon. Another curious translation.” She teased him gently, flicking items off her screen one by one. “Neya says it is with Aetena Lyshen, at three. He has stated that his schedule is open today, and we may come in earlier if we so desire. Oh. How unexpected.”
Three o'clock, Tsla’o time, was probably like a solid five or six hours away. Plenty of time to have a deeply personal conversation about what Neya had told him. Or, perhaps, just go talk to the guy sooner. It wasn’t like he was putting it off... but he was putting it off for now. “What’s up?”
“Neya contacted the Colonel to make sure that Zenshen was attached to your detail properly - it turns out she was. You are both already on the artifact project, so it was just a slight shift of duties. The Empress went through appropriate channels, and Lehnan agrees with her decision.” She glanced up at him as she processed that. “I did not expect it to be so proper.”
“She is trying to turn over a new leaf, at least as far as you are concerned. Ensuring I have the help to not fuck things up, and doing it properly, could be a part of that.” He managed to make it sound like a statement, even though it was very much a question. Did his insistence that Eleya needed to start following through on her words actually sink in?
“It is possible. She will need to do more than fill out a little paperwork to prove herself.”
“Yeah, obviously. It’s just that you seemed surprised, so I was left with the impression that was unusual.”
Carbon stared down at the phone in her hands. “I do not know. From what I have seen, she will normally adhere to formal channels. But in the past, when it has come to dealings with me, she has not. Relied on her word being law to make things happen.”
Like making it legal to marry a Human. Changed who knows how much legal history with a stroke of a pen, to unfold some new machinations. “Zenshen made it sound like she was mostly there to act as a buffer between me and the military, keep me from offending anyone. Which strikes me as Eleya looking after her investment.”
“That is a reasonable assumption. I fear she has more intent sunk into you than we can see, so...” She also stopped talking when their waitress returned for Alex’s dishes, giving the young woman a warm smile. “Perhaps it really is.”
Alex, being privy to at least one plan that Carbon was unaware of, instantly did not want to comment on that. “Like you say, it lies with her to prove... herself good.”
“So it does.” Carbon smiled at his butchering of their turn of phrase before glancing down at her communicator again. “All right. Do you have any further plans for this morning?”
“Not a one. Want to push up the meeting with Lyshen? For that matter, do we have any plans tonight?”
“I do want to get that done. Designers can be particular. Best to get started sooner, and also have a meal that we can excuse ourselves for without appearing rude.” She smirked, displaying a little bit of the knowledge she had accumulated growing up in an elevated class, and started tapping away at the screen with both thumbs. “As for this evening, nothing that Neya has made me aware of.”
“Sounds good to me.” Left the evening open to actually have a sit down with Neya, perfect. “Oh shit, that reminds me. Neya wants us to bring her breakfast.”
“Does she. Very upset about not being able to come along?” The tone she had said that Carbon was familiar with Neya pretending to be put out by that, as did the barely hidden smile and tiny little snort of a laugh.
“Absolutely heartbroken.” He played along. “I had to promise that we’d get her something this morning and that you’d make breakfast again tomorrow.”
“Mh. We will see who is making breakfast when the time comes, but I will have something sent to her and we will proceed to our appointment.” She flipped through the applications on her phone and started typing something else out. “There.”
Carbon slipped the slim black screen back into her jacket and stood, stretching a little bit before walking over to the end of the bar, Haraya hustling out to meet them with a small device like the one Carbon had used to pay in the other little restaurant. She set her palm down on it, it processed for a moment and played a happy little tune.
“Thank you both, it was an honor to serve you.” Haraya bowed again now that the transaction was done.
“You did well, thank you.” Carbon said it in Tsla as she returned the bow, glancing over at Alex to ensure he was doing the same thing.
“Sa meha.” He was. Paying attention to what Carbon was doing was getting him pretty far, as was having memorized how to say ‘thank you’ in Tsla.
They turned to leave, but Haraya spoke again before they could take a step. Quiet, and very timid. “May I ask you a question?”
Carbon didn’t even think about it as she looked back. “Of course.”
“I was mostly asking the prince, I am very sorry.” She looked just this side of terrified to be correcting a Royal.
“Oh yeah, shoot.” Alex caught himself speaking in English way too late. He pursed his lips and inhaled, just barely preventing himself from rolling his eyes at that little faux pas. Based on what Carbon had said about Haraya getting her information about how nobles work from movies, she would have interpreted that as aimed at her. He queued up a very quick reply. “Please do.”
“After you left, last night.” She glanced over at the bartender, who was not paying them any attention at all. “Adana kept saying a strange word, I assume it to be Human - untranslatable.”
The irony of the translator not being able to digest something in English was not lost on Alex. What had he said to the kid?
Carbon, meanwhile, thought it was hilarious. “It is actually two words, a phrase. Oh, busted. In this case I believe it means that he got caught doing something he should not have been doing.” She laughed, looking up at Alex with a grin.
Haraya’s relief at how this turned out was immediately visible. She was still tense, but didn’t look like she might have just caught an execution. “Adana likes to play with the door controls. They beep and flash, and he can activate the viewscreen... And open the door. That is what he was doing when he found the prince in the hallway, when he should have been in bed. It is not an offensive term?”
“Et.” Alex shook his head no. Score another point for knowing the basics.
“It is as he says. A harmless statement.” Carbon picked up the slack from Alex trying not to advertise that he spoke their language yet. She looked over to him again. “Perhaps used to tease a friend when they get caught out?”
He nodded as sagely as he could, a smirk barely suppressed as he caught that shade she was directing at him.
“His mother will be so glad. She has been concerned it was some kind of swearing, or something worse. I told her that the prince had been kind in my interaction with him, but she was-” Haraya exhaled sharply, wide brown eyes darting between them with a hint of that fear creeping back in. “She was afraid despite that.”
“Ah. If that does not settle her, please get in contact with me.” She pulled her communicator out, swiping along the screen for a moment and holding it out to the young woman. “We can arrange a meeting to clear anything up.”
She looked down at a swirling orange circle on Carbon’s phone, “I am not allowed to carry my- May I get it?”
“Of course.” Carbon smiled.
Alex lowered his voice as Haraya hustled away. “You sure giving her your number is a good idea?”
“No. But she is earnest and correct in her assessment of you.” She shook her head, her words quiet and sharp. “That boy learned a simple phrase, and his mother thinks it is a curse? I know why she did. I have met my own people. I think a gentle nudge may be in order to prevent it from being passed along.”
“When you say gentle nudge...”
She held a hand out to ease his concern. “I was thinking tea.”
Haraya returned, phone in hand and followed by an older, grumpy looking male dressed in the same natural fiber clothes save for a vibrant red scarf around his neck, voice raised as he tried to keep up with the excited teen. “You may not use your-”
“Akai.” Alex gave what he assumed was a manager a needlessly cheery greeting with a little wave of his fingers. Oh man, he had loved being a shit to managers when he was younger, particularly if they were on a power trip. The opportunity hadn’t presented itself recently, and the urge to abuse the power that he allegedly had now was so tempting.
“Floor boss!” Carbon was a step ahead of him, greeting the gray male in their own language loud enough to draw his attention away from their waitress. “What is it that I may not use?”
Alex’s translator sat unused for several seconds as the sounds that guy made never made it past shocked guttural noises, the realization of who he’d been yelling in the general direction of sinking in. Haraya was too busy getting Carbon’s contact information to notice, or might have just been ignoring this exchange as hard as the bartender was.
“It was- My words- Did not for you.” He held up his hands and backed away.
“Ah, a simple misunderstanding?” Carbon offered him as the phone dinged complete, and she slipped it back into her jacket.
“Yes, of course.” Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Haraya bowed again as she hid her communicator, the same black rectangle that Carbon and Alex appeared to have. “Thank you. I hope I will not have to contact you, but that you have offered...”
“The prince has shown me who he is, what is in his heart... It will not do to have anyone doubting his character.” Carbon smiled and returned the bow.
Alex followed suit.
The fear in her eyes was gone, and if anything there was a little bit of admiration in there now as she thanked them again, quietly, before running off to whatever her next duty was.
They left the same way they had come in, through the main dining area. The crowd had shifted, some groups gone, new ones in their place. Conversations to fill boredom, meals he didn’t recognize being consumed at every pace conceivable. Once again, he was pretty sure this was his kind of joint.
It only took the gentlest of questions to get Carbon talking about what she’d been doing all morning as they walked back to the tram, riding all the way to the stop closest to the bow this time. Alex was only slightly familiar about what she was talking about - had something to do with preventative maintenance checks on one of the shuttles. It was interesting to find out they had developed a very similar system to what he was used to, checking in on functionality after so many hours of use.
He didn’t understand the majority of what she was describing, but he enjoyed listening to her talk about things with such enthusiasm.
Lyshen’s office was easily the furthest forward he had been on the ship yet. Took the elevator up to deck 20 and then just walked towards the bow for another five minutes. He must have been as close as one could get to the plate armor and whatever buffer they put between it and the habitable areas. It seemed almost entirely unused - he was sure some of the bulkheads had dust on them.
For Alex, there were two potential reasons for this. Aetena Lyshen preferred the solitude of the area. It was actually very quiet, even compared to the hall in front of their cabin. Or, he had pissed someone off and gotten banished to a spot as far away as possible.
Whichever option, Lyshen had put some work into his workspace. The door was ringed in a delicate gold filigree, a lacework of glittering geometric shapes with his name and title contained in a small banner above the door. They were meeting with a Royal Artisan.
Carbon tapped the door controls and it slides open almost instantly. The young woman with light red fur inside is dressed nearly as formally as they had been last night, though in muted grays. She bows. Not too deep. “Welcome, the Chief Artisan is preparing for your arrival. It should be just a few minutes.”
Chief Artisan. Well. Alex shot Carbon a sidelong glance as the receptionist turned and they followed her through a waiting room. A simple rectangular area, with a few upholstered chairs and benches scattered around. It was the most Human looking area he’d been in so far.
The far wall caught his eye as they walked through, windows looking into a workshop. Alex walked over, the large floor beyond housing a dozen or so Tsla’o, all seated at desks or workbenches, engrossed in whatever they were working on. Almost to the last, they were using hand tools.
Alex had never really seen craftsmen up close, doing their thing. In movies, or videos, sure. But not right here a few steps away, carefully engraving some sort of... Breastplate? Cuirass? Big chunk of metal that looked like it went over the chest.
“I believe that is yours.” Carbon stepped up next to him, a smirk in her voice as she leaned against his shoulder. “To go with your gauntlets, and the rest of the armor that is no doubt being fabricated.”
“What makes you say that?” How could she pick that up from looking at it for, what, three or four seconds?
“Consider the size.” She nodded at it, the artist working on it laying out a star near the shoulder. “Who else would wear such a piece?”
“Huh.” Compared to the guy who was doing the work, it wasn’t exactly massive, but he would need a lot of padding to wear that. This raised a few questions for him about the ethics of receiving such gifts. But he wasn’t a politician... Not as far as the Confederation was concerned. “I guess it is.”
They stood in silence and watched work progress. A woman in the back was carving something, perhaps a chair leg. One guy in the corner making hinges with an induction forge and a tiny, specialized anvil.
Before long, the secretary approached them again. “The Chief Artisan is prepared for you now. Please.” She gestured to the only door that went somewhere other than the corridor.
The Chief Artisan was sitting behind his desk, wearing an outfit similar to his receptionist, pale green eyes switching back and forth between two screens. The primary one was built into the desk, and had been jury rigged to a Human made laptop that sat on top of it, a rat’s nest of cables connecting the two. There was a holoprojector built into the desk, a jumble of images floating over it. He waved them in and gestured to the chairs across from him, “Please, sit.”
Alex was quick to oblige, glad to be just some guy for the moment. Carbon didn’t seem to mind either, taking the seat beside him without a word. Aetena was the first green Tsla’o Alex had seen, sort of a dark forest green with jade stripes visible on his neck. Apparently a bit of a rarity given how often he saw the other colors on the ship.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting, the connection to your Solanet has gone down. Despite that, I believe I have enough saved locally to begin the process.” Lyshen trailed off, lost between the two displays before closing a dozen images from the holo. He picked a pen up from the table and arranged the remaining pictures neatly, four different coats of arms that claimed to belong to a Sorenson. The red enamel barrel blurred into an arc as he spun the pen in his fingers, voice picking up speed as he locked on to Alex. “There is a large amount of heraldry available for your surname, do you know which coat of arms belongs to your particular family?”
There was a deer, a deer head, a rearing horse and a weird shaped star. Maybe it was a flower, or a drip of paint. They were all surrounded by leaves and the occasional knight’s helmet. Alex wasn’t sure what any of it meant and up until now, he’d never even thought about it. Knights and damsels in distress had never really been his thing. “Uh, can’t say that I do, no.”
“Mmh. What geographic region does your lineage trace back to? I could find no significant references to the Berkley Soresons on your Solanet.” He leaned back and the pen continued to trace crimson circles in his hand.
“The name comes from Europe, but the last couple of generations have lived in California, and America before that for who knows how long... We’re from a little bit of everywhere.” It was an inside joke with the family, which had ties back into nearly every corner of the globe at this point. Now they had a relative from somewhere way off the globe as well.
That puzzled Aetena, ears flicking as he turned back to the Human screen and picked over the keyboard slowly. He didn’t like what he found. “All of these originate from the continent of Europe. Do you happen to know which country?”
“No, I’m not sure. Had an uncle do the family tree thing once, but between the civil wars and The Collapse, the lineage got spotty about a hundred years ago.” Alex wasn’t really into the whole ancestry thing once you got outside of living relatives. It was novel, sure, but right now all he really wanted to do was ask if he could borrow that Solanet access when it came back up. The rest of the ship had access to the Confed’s milnet, which tightly restricted what he could be sending across it - he just wanted to download a couple of movies and some music, but milnet barely overlapped with the wider public network.
Lyshen set his hand down and the pen switched back and forth like a metronome, clicking on his desk at the end of each arc. He closed his eyes for a moment, jaw working silently before he closed the images and started pulling up new ones. “Perhaps we should move on to other aspects of this endeavor. As I have been told that you wish to integrate Tsla’o and Human cultures in your marriage, I had intended to blend the existing Tshalan sigil with some of the Sorenson family heraldry. I thought it would be best to use the gear-star surround from the Princess’ family crest as a base to build from. Something that is immediately familiar to Tsla’o, to put the viewer at ease. As it is indicative of starship commands, exploration and the outer colonies, it will solidly represent both of you and the way you met.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at Carbon, “sound reasonable?” He had no idea if it was or not, but it did sound like it. Also, if they were serious about integrating parts of Tsla’o and Human cultures, they needed to actually get on that.
“Yes. I agree, that would be a good place to start.”
“Thank you.” He busied himself bringing up a few more pictures, rough combinations of the ten point gear-star and the various items from the Sorenson crests, bits of decoration and detail work.
The door chimed behind them and Lyshen stopped with a sharp glare. He eyed the clock and sighed, a whispered curse under his breath before he set his pen down and straightened up. “Come.”
There was a soldier partially concealed behind the door, the rank plate on his uniform loaded with details, not that Alex could read them yet. He swept the room with a rifle as he entered, the short barrel ending up pointed just a hair under Alex’s sternum. A pair of soldiers took up positions on either side of the door and covered him, a few more lined up in the waiting room.
When he spoke, it was crisp and authoritative. “Please back away from the Human.”
 
First Prev
*****
Never a dull moment on that ship.
Art pile: Carbon reference sheet. Art by Tyo_Dem

Trying this again because why not! My name is Cale and I’m a 25yo guy stuck in Oregon lol. I am admittedly relatively new to dating and am figuring out what I am looking for specifically. For now, let’s just chat and see if there’s any connection and go from there. I’m in need of friends anyway if things don’t work out romantically. A bit about me, I have been getting back into gaming this year (mainly Pokemon Go and other Pokemon titles but I am open to finding other games to play with people), I love animals, particularly cats, so please don’t be allergic, and I am very nerdy about space travel and cars! Physically I’m on the shorter side, 5’6”, since that seems to matter online lol!😂 I have an average body but my job is very physical, so I consider myself to be in good shape. I have noticed that I communicate better through text, but I am open to voice/video calls once I am more comfortable with you. The only other things to note are that I don’t smoke weed but am fine with other people doing so but do hate the smell of cigarettes. Looking forward to some great chats and feel free to reach out! Have a great start to your week!

tldr: Girl I dated since Sep/Oct told me not to text other people but when going got tough, she started doing that exact thing and tried to lie about it. I found out.
edit: to clarify we broke up 3 weeks ago when i found out
So in September 2023 I started talking to this girl online. She lived 400 miles from me (7 hour car ride) in Canada. She’s like 2 inches taller and 8 years older.
After like 2-3 days of texting, she asked me to facetime, and it went well. She said she wanted me not to text other dudes. She mentioned being livid in the past that she dated a guy who had a secret family. And seeing a guy text other women with her present.
She does mention “you really aren’t as big as other dudes I dated,” but “I’m not settling.”
I stopped texting other people. Conversation advances. I go to see her in October. It goes really, really well. We have some pretty good sex, great connection. But I do get shut down going for makeouts, any oral, or basically anything other than penetration. She wants it, so I do it, though I wanted more variety.
I visit her again soon. She comes down and visits me. Meets my family. I take her to a NBA game and we go for dinner. Kind of perfect. The sex is good, but she gets very mean with her words in the bedroom. “OH MY GOD!” big exaggeration at any slight irritation. She’s extremely sensitive about sex and it shocked me how she talked to me.
But the connection, conversation is there. Intellectually we are on the same wavelength and I give her lots of attention and treats, fun things to do. We say we love each other.
Well, the next few months, we see each other a couple times, but the sex isn’t the same. She’s on her period once, and the other time I got sick. Not really much sexy time. I did get one chance, but I was feeling super pressured to come, I ended up coming right away.
I was supposed to go up to see her in February. She tells me about 10 days before not to worry about it because I’m having car issues. We text and facetime but I feel her more reciting her day rather than getting too deep.
I’m having a fight w my roommate around this time, she says I should move out, he wouldn’t help me out if I needed it. I push against this notion, and stick with my friend.
She visits me in March. I felt weird right away but on 3/29, we went to the zoo, got food, Easter with the family, etc. At a steakhouse, she tells me that she has had a few other guys in her town ask her “How long you gonna be with EvilLibrarians?” She assured me she wanted a long term relationship. The sex wasn’t good, I felt super anxious trying to stay long enough for her, which she vocally asserts, we used to toys or different positions as before and it went horribly. I got off, but felt like I got no enjoyment.
I decided to see her in April because I felt sexually she was slipping away. I drove up, thinking, “I do believe she could be talking to other people.” She got weird when I was hanging around her, like I couldn’t be in her space. It got weird. We had bad sex, I came quick. She didn’t want to try again in 15 minutes. We went to bed. I said let’s try tomorrow morning? She seems into it.
She got me a lego set and cool socks, but mentions she ordered a couple things online, a special pillow for my bed and some smoking thing. (We smoked a lot together.)
Next morning, she gets out of bed, doesn’t come back. I get up, we have breakfast and go for a drive/smoke. Good conversation. We have a party that night where I’m supposed to meet some of her family, but first she gives me a shoulder massage at my request.
I see on her phone she has the tinder app as one of her suggested apps at the top. I go take a shower, breathe deeply, and go back to her. “I’ve never asked you anything like this in our relationship, but can I see your tinder account?” She pulled out the phone, pressed a few buttons, and tried to show me she deleted the app. But I took the phone, she let me, and I quickly found it without much problem. Re-download it, I asked her to login, she was hesitant, and said the fact that she was logged out prove that she had been on it. I asked her to do it anyway,I just wanted to see her profile. And when I was on there, I found like 20 to 30 messages at least since mid February.
I clicked on one from March 29. Our zoo day. And I clicked on one from mid February.
We talked downstairs, I got very mad and told her she broke my trust. She tried to explain to me that she thought our physicality wasn’t there, and she had even talked to a counselor about these issues. She said that she was going to say something this weekend, that she wanted to last time, but it was Easter. She said she was heartbroken, but that I was inadequate. She swears that she had never met anyone in person, or did anything like that, even joking that it was unsanitary more than anything. She said she was proud of me for finding the texts.
Of course I grabbed my shit and left. I gave her mama hug goodbye and said I appreciated everything she did. I also told her make sure my ex doesn’t leave anything out.
I gave my ex a hug, goodbye, said I forgive you, because I don’t wanna hold onto the anger anymore and she ran back into her house, crying. I left.
It took me about eight hours to get home, it wasn’t until 2 or 3 AM. She was worried so I texted her that I made it and stop sharing my location.
A few days later we have a talk over FaceTime, and I share my side of the story, I thought I was not having my needs met, and that she really broke my trust.
She told me she felt like she was more masculine than me bc she’s taller. Mind you, she thicc and I’m skinny, but I am in some ways quiet/soft with my personality. Said I felt flimsy, maybe she only liked bigger guys. Maybe it’s bc I’m a city guy. She said she didn’t like my family. She said she was worried about what I would even do for work if I ended up moving to Canada. She said I was pussyfooting with my family about an issue of religion, which isn’t too crazy. All of these
She said it was only one guy she texted, and that the rest were just responses from dudes she didn’t respond to.
Now, this upset me because I saw multiple chats and I know she texted back, so she’s full of shit.
I got mad, I know she did do, and I said I do want to talk to her again. I’d like her to be the one to reach out and make an effort. She said she would in a couple weeks, I said I’m gonna need more time than that.
I do feel inadequate, my therapist has been telling me that it’s all bullshit, but I do feel spurred to change. I would like to have a more fulfilling life in my self. Before I pursue a relationship. I could use some toughening up and I have already tried to be more honest with my family since that last phone call. I think my weight (6’1, 180lbs) isn’t great, so I’m eating better and going to the gym. I need to be consistent though.
My roommate was there for me, and we’re getting better as friends. I’m glad I didn’t listen to her about leaving.
When I was unpacking my clothes, I could smell my ex’s cigarettes in my bag. I only smoke pot, but something about this really affected me. so I quit. I’ve been done smoking for 5 days and withdrawals are just getting a little better.
I dunno if she was actually going to break up with me like she said, or if she was going to keep dragging me along for the attention. All I know is she admitted to shopping around for 2 months at least.
I have really been in my own head about all this, because while there were actual issues, I also feel some of it is complete bullshit. I’m constantly anxious, angry, sad, and I don’t even know what to say or do when she calls me back eventually. I love her in a way but I would never go back where I was so disrespected. It might not even be a good idea to talk to her. But I want to be on good terms with someone who I think I did love...should I even bother?
You live and your learn.

I've been thinking about posting this for the last week or so and been trying to get my thoughts down because I can't keep this bottled up anymore. I have to say to somewhere, I'm being eaten alive inside not acknowledging this. I don't have anyone to talk to, and even if I did, I wouldn't trust them or feel comfortable enough talking about this. The anonymity of a throwaway account late at night is the only thing giving me the strength to say all this. I do not have anyone in my life I'm close to. I moved in with my parents, but I keep mostly to myself. I see them for dinner, but I'm not around them for much else.
The only friend I can say I have is hundreds of miles away and we only talk sporadically. I have no friends at work, they're colleagues only; the day I stop working there is the last day I talk to them.
I work remotely, so I rarely leave my home anymore. I order as much as I can online to avoid human contact. I use self-checkout lines and drive through windows as much as possible when I do have to go out. I've put less than 3,000 miles on my car in the last 3 years.
Starting in middle school, I was consistently telling my parents that I was depressed and needed help. I got none until there wasn't an option anymore. The warning signs were there in the years prior, but they were either ignored or not seen. I tried to get into therapy and they prevented that from happening. I tried to get on anti-depressants before I even hit high school and they refused because, "blah blah blah you don't need medication," and, "all those pills aren't good for you." I knew I had problems. I knew I was going to get worse without help. I knew I couldn't keep living the way I was. Either out of fear or ignorance, my parents insisted that nothing was wrong with me and it was just a phase. That I should just stop bringing this up and move on. Probably explains my extreme reluctance and aversion to seeking basically any help at all for anything ever.
All of this (and obviously my mental state) lead to years of self harm. I started drinking when I was 12. Moderately at first, but immediately after I graduated high school, I moved out on my own and got drunk almost every day after work. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 16 and continued that habit into my 20s. I wore sweatshirts to school almost every day to cover up the dozens of cuts across my forearms. I wore pants almost every day to cover up the dozens of cuts across my thighs. Almost all the physical scars have faded, but there are still some that remind me of this time. There are still faint criss-cross marks on my shoulders from having cut myself in the same spots repeatedly and not allowing anything to heal for months at a time. There are still one or two marks across my thighs from particularly deep cuts. The worst 3 scars come from me holding a flame to my arm and watching and smelling as I burnt away my own flesh. I don't remember feeling anything physically or emotionally when I did this, just a sense of fear that my parents would smell what I did to myself. These scars have faded somewhat, but I look at them every day.
I got right to the edge of killing myself dozens of times, but failed to fully act. Holding knives to my neck or wrists in the bathtub wishing for the courage to cut myself open and bleed out. Wrapping a belt around my neck, tying that to the door handle, and slumping down trying to choke myself. Tying nooses out of rope in the garage and standing on the ladder under a heavy wooden support beam. Staring at trees along the side of the road and desperately wanting to slam my car into them at 60mph. A single gram more "courage," and I would have followed through.
I was finally forced to get at least some help when I was in high school and I got put on an involuntary psychiatric hold. I was pulled out of class and brought to the office where one cop stood in front of the door preventing me from leaving and another sat beside me leading the conversation with the administrators and my parents. I was brought in a cop car to a county mental health facility for evaluation, then transferred to the juvenile wing of a mental health hospital.
I lied every step of the way through. I lied to the school. I lied to the cops. I lied to the county psychologists. I lied to the hospital psychologists. I lied to my parents. I lied to escape. I lied to try to go home. I lied hoping I wouldn't be forced onto medication and held for weeks in the hospital for further evaluation. I lied myself out of getting help I desperately needed and wanted but was incapable of admitting to and asking for when I finally got an opportunity after literal years of begging for it.
I was released after the mandatory minimum observation period only on the condition that my parents could prove they had aligned psychological resources for me. It came at a raw point for me. I had confided in someone, they were concerned, and I was whisked away to white walls and locked facilities; I couldn't even use the bathroom without some level of supervision.
I couldn't bring myself to trust anyone with the truth, I would just wind up back in a locked room. So I didn't take therapy seriously. I did my absolute best to make sure I didn't have to talk much, that anything I said was generic and lacked any substance, that I tuned out the psychologists words because I wasn't going to cooperate. I'm sure in my mind I was being tricky and smart and manipulating the system. I'm sure they saw right through that facade.
Eventually I locked in with a psychologist that started some longer term care. I was in therapy for almost 10 years total, the final 6-7 with this one. I still had trust issues (still do obviously). At least with this one I finally had enough trust to ask about anti-depressants. I finally had the courage to tell someone the feelings I had surrounding my own identify. I wound up getting scrips through my medical doctor. I took them for maybe 6 months. Everyone around me was a lot happier, and according to them, I was a lot more bearable to be around. I wasn't happy though. I hated it. I felt foggy, like I was watching my life through cloudy glass while someone else was in control. Like the person I was had been caged off, sequestered from existence. But I hadn't made any progress on my underlying issues, and I wasn't going to, so I failed.
I stopped taking all my meds and have never gotten back on anything. I quit going to therapy. It's been over 10 years since then.
I have hated myself every. Single. Day. Since. I am depressed constantly, and feel very few moments of genuine happiness.
I know that I need help. I know I should get back on meds. I know I should seek a therapist and try to work through this. I just can't bring myself to do it. I don't know if I'm trying to punish myself for choosing to live, punishing myself for being "too weak" to kill myself, punish myself for choosing not to take help when it was offered, punish myself for choosing to revert on any progress I was making, or what. But I am punishing myself. Any attempt I make at changing habits is swiftly overridden by my deep seated need to keep myself from getting better. Any thoughts of making human connections are immediately squashed by the voice in my head reminding me that I bring no value to other people's lives. I feel like I'm drowning in my own self-destructive behavior and I don't know how I can bring myself to stop and get the help I need.

its now been 3 months since everything, this lasted for around 5 months.
Long novel incoming sorry but im deeply struggling to understand it and its complex.
Hey all. I really cant talk about this to anyone without hurting her; so sit down this is a doozey. Needless to say I have not so great mental health, in high school I was in a pretty bad emotionally abusive relationship, I was pretty badly abused and pushed everyone I knew away and was in a pretty much severe depression and severe anxiety for around 6 years, I assumed one day I would sleep it off, and think normal but that never happened.
Anyways I get to college and really dont put myself out there to meet anyone else. Come to my senior year and my grades are pretty good, but this is when I meet her, and I think shes gorgeous. I eventually work the effort to talk to her, and we become ok friends for about a week or so. During this time she would always message me and one time we stayed up until 2am in the university rec room just talking. This felt pretty damn good, for once it felt like somebody actually wanted to know about me, during this time she even looked up my house address and parents facebook without me even telling her their names, anyways a few days or aobut a week later she says shes going on a trip to visit her BF, I was devastated and cried, she says "that must be a punch in the balls, you had me mindfucked there for a while though, being in a LDR your always looking for something new etc" "i always had this mindset that this guy is great but I gotta tell him i have a boyfriend etc", even when I asked about her bio once(this is all on me however, I should of asked, I cried for other unhappy personal reasons aswell). It probably should of ended there.
But it didnt the next day I ask if she was okay if we were still friends and she says yes, she apologizes for not telling me sooner. We become pretty great friends, eventually we tell each other about pretty personal secrets, I tell her my high school experience, I tell her things I have never told anyone else in my life, like my suicide attempt in high school, she helps me explore some things about me like my sexuality, she even puts makeup on me which I love, and she reveals she also did not have the greatest high school experience and she has self harm scars, she later tells she SHs since she has a pattern of cheating in relationships; this only makes me feel more like a piece of shit and youll find out later. I genuinely for the first time in my life feel a purely platonic connection with someone. The nights where we sat by the pond for hours just tlaking about movies and tv shows filled my soul with so much warmth, I loved these moments I truly developed a platonic connection with her and cared so much about her. Shes in a LDR with this guy who I dont know(she later says she never brings him up because it makes me sad and I look away(should of ended then)), we begin hanging out quite regularly, I do some things I shouldnt have done at this time, I noticed she vapes and smokes so I begin to buy her vapes(she never asked me to)(im 21 and shes 19), and I begin to vape and smoke cigarettes, she never asked me to, looking back this should not have happened, but I genuinely enjoyed seeing her happy and talking to her. She used to always say with the vapes "Now I have a reason to talk to you", why? Why would you need a reason to talk to your friend? It only made me want to buy them more.
Things start getting bad and she even mentions at this point shes likely emotionally cheating with me, which only scares me; that any day any moment any time this person who I genuinely enjoy and is my best friend could have to cut all contact with me, my mental health becomes absolutely horrendous due to this and this was always a very scary fear I had throughout all this,
I even tell her at one point it feels like im on a seesaw and im stuck and have to constantly battle catching feelings and keeping my only close friend. If i really cared about her it should of ended here, but it didnt, I should of stopped it. She begins to touch me, relativelly platonically(?)(Asking to bite me, biting me, rubbing my chest and carresing my arms) and sharing food, at first I sit there and dont touch back and sit there; I dont want to hurt her. Why would I hurt someone I care about? After a while I call her out on this and say like why are you touching me, I really cant touch back she says something along the lines of "I think im using you as a replacement for the lack of attention in a LDR", she later says she thought about it and I cant provide that for her and shes just showing her affection, but this continues, what was I doing wrong? Why cant I provide that?
Eventually I convince myself its after alot of weeks that its platonic and I touch back with the same things the arm on the shoulder, the shoulder rubbing etc. We would have smokes together roughly every night which would usually be hidden in a stair enclave where we would hug each other etc. One of her responses during this time when I mentioned how bad it would look if somebody saw us doing this she said "It would be worse for you"?? How would it be worse for someone who is not known to be in a relationship?? My self esteem was the lowest it has ever been in its life, I told myself that perhaps one day things would somehow magically change. Someone finally seemed to really like me?
Eventually as you could imagine things escalate, this involves her sitting on my lap once(forward facing, saying inapprioate things etc) in her room, her letting me rub her thighs and do her hair and rub her feet and bare legs. I should of cut contact but she was the only person who knew me, and understood me in my life. I didnt want to hurt her, I didnt want to hurt myself, but I did both. The big event happens just before Christmas, we go out and we cuddle for a while in the backseat of my car where she asked if we could cuddle in the backseat, then we head back, while in the car prior she shows me lewds on her phone(I showed her a lewd of mine prior), we both get buzzed then we go out to the pond and were looking in each others eyes holding each other and she asked to kiss my cheek, I say sure, she kisses my cheek and my chin just below my lips, which makes me feel euphoric then says "You know it would still be platonic if I let you kiss me, then I wouldnt actually be kissing you",
I wanted to so very bad, I wanted to with my whole being, I lean in, lean out before eventually saying "you have a boyfriend, If I kiss you your going to hurt yourself and I dont want to hurt you", she says "wow you have more morals than I do", "must be because your older etc" and tries to move on from it fast and dance with me, well I emotionally break the fuck down like you've HURT yourself because of this for fuck sake, she says "I didnt want to kiss you, I love my boyfriend, even if I broke up I wouldnt want to ever date you, you have too much baggage", "if we kissed I would block you and stop talking to you", the person who just asked me to kiss them, the person who has been biting me and touching me for weeks wouldnt even date me? Would block me if i did what she told me to do??? This absolutely destroyed me. I didnt know what to think. I basically had to yell at her and ask her "Why did you just try to kiss me." anyways this ends with both of us crying, her saying "I dont know what to do with the love given to me etc" me almost puking and eventually with me consoling her.
The next day we go get yogurt and I say shes my best friend and we simply need strong boundaries because I dont want to hurt her. If I should of stopped anytime it should of been now. I buy her a Christmas present and things end ok, breaks go by and im mentally gone, im at the lowest I've ever felt in my life, I feel insane, depressed, just psychotic. She messages and we talk everyday of the break(s), we say how much we miss each other etc, shes my buddy she really is, she knows everything about me, I know alot about her, and shes honestly my best friend, and I loved talking to her, she always would be there for me, I really appreciated her, we had alot in common; but I was hurting extremely bad, I felt like I was in a awful position. Anyways we return from the break into the new semester and I feel like im being used, I feel like a doormat, I feel like dirt. Things escalate here, I help her code and give her anything and everything she needs to succeed, I loved watching her succeed, because shes my best friend y'know? Anyways things get pretty bad, and we hang out alot, we always hug and I play with her hair and share our food and were pretty close, at one point I kiss her cheek for a week before realizing thats weird and made her uncomfortable and stop it, there was a week where she would cuddle with me in my bed and I moved her hand from my chest once saying stop I dont want to hurt you, she would say how happy I make her and we would rub our faces together and rub our noses together, we would watch shows together and I would rub her legs and put my hand around her. Looking back now it makes me feel sick and gross and confused, I convinced myself it was platonic.
I would pretty much be repeating often during any intimate event "I dont want to hurt you; I dont want to be the person to hurt you.", but it made me feel so very good, how do I navigate this? She would say I was the highlight of her days, the highlight of her semester, how sad she was I graduate soon, how she wishes I was in her grade, how im not a chore to talk to or hangout with. I certainely didnt fully stop these physical actions now because I was selfish, because I was ignorant. She would rub my head as we drove and put her arm down my shirt and while I was driving, etc. She would often also say "Why havnt you killed me yet...you must hate me etc." but why would I? She was my closest friend I ever had in my life. Things get super bad here, we head out and I buy her a vape(she did not ask) and we have another tough conversation about things, with the usual, "Im not breaking up with my boyfriend but your so lovable" and I get super emotional and hurt,
I really didnt want to hurt anybody. Anyways I get drunk; shes sober, and she lets me into her room a hour later as we were going to go see live music and she sits on my lap again forward facing and non-platonic things occurred, it doesn't go as far as sex but a line is crossed and we both immediately stop, but she cheated; I hurt her. I hurt her bad. I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt anybody. The guilt is beyond anything I ever experienced and I cant even understand how she feels. She downplays it, I almost cut myself because of the shame I felt that night, the next day im crying really bad to her and tell her she should probably tell her BF if she really loves him, she says "ok i will, he will still love me tho" "doesnt this scare you? I fuck around" "this guy called me cute the other day" "you deserve better" , I then tell her not to tell her BF, because im scared and didnt know what to think to do. I should of not stopped her and walked away then. We stay close friends for around 2 weeks after this event with a bit of contentation afterwards. There was a time I got super emotional and basically told her I wish there was a camera or a third party watching this to see what you were doing to me with all this rubbing and cuddling and affection, which made her pretty much storm away from me and me saying sorry im wrong and begging her to just talk and I have a panic attack. Eventually she realized because of a outside voice that she had to tell her BF(her roommate walked in on us as that event in her room was done unfolding) , she said her BF broke up with her and she needed space, me being a selfish asshole was unable to do that, I didnt want someone I cared about harming themselves because of me, she stated the day prior she was "going to get whats coming to her" I wanted to be there for her more than anything, I get extremely drunk throughout the week and I send her messages about how absolutely terrible I felt and how much she meant to me and of selfish ideals, I then saw her outside and ran up to her, she ran away and she couldnt even look at me.
The next day she said that was unacceptable, which it absolutely was, and even before that event she didnt see room for friendship since it was never"real", what does that mean? I still dont understand it, how was it never real? She then blocked me, said she would call the police on me if I approach her again. she would still absolutely avoid me even 2 months after.
During that time after I tried to apologize, I tried to make amends, I tried to give my closure, I tried to seek closure, All met with disgust, hatred and anger. She would literally will sprint away from me full speed as I stand. She stayed at a event I was presenting at and looked away from me for the whole hour, then very obviously took pictures of me then sprint away full speed as I sat there. That hurt me beyond belief. I never in my life had someone dead sprint away from me like im a monster. I dont know whats wrong with me or why she would think I would hurt her after everything she knows about me, after everything, but I dont blame her. She said she was sorry for her decisions before this and I had little to be sorry for, and gave me a blanket "im sorry for my decisions" but how do I have little to be sorry for if I was treated as im a abuser? I should hate her guts, she even said she led me on, she knew how bad that would hurt me, she dangled happiness infront of my face for months, she ruined my senior year, shes filled my brain with pain and resentment and betrayal, she caused me to become ostracized, to become an outcast. I never felt that low in my life, I never felt that extreme level of emotional pain. I honestly feel forever damaged. But for some reason I still have this deep care for her and I shouldnt, I still hope with all my being she passed and succeeded. I hope shes okay. If she fails or hurt herself over this I dont think I could ever forgive myself. It feels like she trusted me and I betrayed her, but I dont know.
I can't stop thinking how scared and confused and sad she was on the last day we talked, how can I forgive myself for doing that to someone, it haunts my dreams and beats me to my knees everyday. I was usually very sad when i was hanging out with her. And if she for some reason forced herself to do those things with me because she felt bad for me then I don't know how I can live with myself, I never asked for those things, but I should of stopped them, I knew they were wrong, Im sorry.
Just recently I managed to find her BFs insta which was hard since she never spoke about him and I have no friends and theres still pictures of them together so now what do I do? Do I message him 3 months after the fact and tell what happened? Do I show all the proof I had all the things that occured all the videos all the photos the months? It'll likely just make me seem estranged its just so unfair. Why not just leave me alone why put all this into my head even after I told her how bad this would hurt me. If im not the bad guy then why put the image of someone in my head sprinting away from me like im a monster. There has to be something im missing, I dont understand how you can move on from something like this. The closest friend I ever had dead sprint away from me, the person I would talk to every single day for 5 months straight absolutely hates my guts and my whole being. I dont want to try anymore. I gave it all the little I had.
Im not a victim, im not a saint, I didnt stop my actions, I played a role and Im forever sorry, I lost someone I cared about and someone who maybe at one point actually cared about me. Im sorry. I dont know how to view this. I just want someone to talk to and someone to understand me, I just want someone to tell me I wasnt blind, for someone to tell me this doesnt define me, for someone to say your going to be okay, because as of now im 2/2 for being hurt badly in a relationship(I dont even know what to call this), any insight I get online I always have to type in "ex" to get relevant results which only makes me more confused She couldnt even wish me happy birthday or give me the present she bought me, i spent it all alone. I graduate college in 3 days, I have a ok job lined up which I hate.
I have a not so great home life, I dont know what to do with myself or how to live with myself after all this, why would I do this to myself, why do I struggle forming connections? why do I hurt people I care about? It felt real to me. I now talk to maybe 2 people, im bisexual and live in the middle of nowhere and have nobody. I dont want to talk to anyone ever again. Theres more to it perhaps, she used to always say " i hope im doing him more good than harm etc" but i dont know how leading someone on who has emotional trauma helps them, maybe we both should of left each other alone. I really did like talking to her, and liked hearing what she had to say, but ill likely never talk or see her ever again. I dont want to go down this road again. I dont want to hurt anybody. I have panic attacks when I go to her hallway or if she sees me I feel like i have to document everything I do, i feel like a weirdo loser. I constantly breakdown. I spend most of my days sleeping and waking up feeling immense internal guilt and hatred and pain. Anytime I try to talk to someone about this im seen as estranged, im disregarded, the only thing I can do is tell my side with proof and videos, but I dont want to hurt anybody anymore but it so unfair; im tired of being hurt.
If you read all this then I deeply appreciate you. I have nobody to talk to this about.

So, I was recently hired for a job at a QSI school. I already knew they had a "no smoking" policy. I was fine with that. I think cigarettes are gross and they make people's clothing smell gross. I had heard that the founders were Evangelical Christians and had some weird expectation that the teachers they hired were all Christians, but never encountered a single question about my religion during the interview process.
But now I'm doing the online onboarding, and there is an entire section on how they will not allow any of their schools to celebrate or even acknowledge one specific holiday- Halloween. They say this is because Halloween is a "controversial" holiday. This is the first time I've experienced an international school refusing to allow the celebration of a holiday that, in other schools, is simply treated as a fun dress-up day and not some big, Satanic propaganda thing or whatever the founders of QSI believe it to be.
Does your school refuse to allow the celebration of any specific holidays?

Having read a comprehensive book detailing the Hart Family/ Stampede Wrestling, as well as books by Bret Hart, Bruce Hart and Dynamite Kid, I can say it was great to hear from someone who was spoken about in all those books. It is fascinating to see all the intersecting points of view when it comes to anything Hart Family related.
Bret Hart book
Bruce Hart book
History of Stampede Wrestling book
History of the Hart Family as documented in various books
Dynamite Kid book
This book was short and a quick read, but you could tell it was written with honesty and truth. She doesn't shy away from her own mistakes and issues while detailing the own POV on a relationship where most people have only heard from Bret.
As always, it's done in chronological order. I hope you find it as interesting as I did...
Julie had a truly wild and horrific youth experience between being sent to juvenile detention centers and dealing with genuinely abusive step parents. She is honest and critical of her own behaviors as well and doesn't like the choices she made. I grew up in the area where she spent her teenage years, and I can confirm that the seedy ghetto areas of Saskatchewan are genuinely gross and terrifying places to be when you're young and directionless.
She talks about how she was r*ped while hitchhiking as a teenager and got pregnant. She gave the baby up for adoption and tried to press charges but got cold feet and ran to another neighboring city. She was afraid the man who assaulted her would escape the charges and come after her again. She was young and naively thought that if she had just switched towns, she could escape everything. When a cop found her, he accused her of running because she was lying about the assault. This type of bullshit is why women don't come forward.
Julie was working in Regina, Saskatchewan, at the arena where wrestling was held when it came in town. That's where she first saw Bret Hart, and Bret saw her too. He ended up asking her boss Gil to introduce the two. Bret spoke about this in his book, too, how Julie caught his eye while he was in the ring. Gil later warned Julie that dating a wrestler is risky because they have a lot of "stops on the road." Julie didn't understand that Gil wasn't criticizing or accusing Bret of anything, but how he knew how wrestlers were on the road, in terms of meeting women.
Julie speaks favorably on how Bret treated her younger sister Michelle (the future wife of Dynamite Kid) but I remember in Bret's book, him describing in detail how attracted he was to the underage Michelle when he met her. Julie says Bret treated her like a sister, and her book came out after Bret's, so I'll take her word for it.
Julie moved in with Bret in Calgary just a few months into their relationship and she remembers being a wreck of nerves and anxiety ay the start, unable to cook or even attend the big Hart Family Sunday dinner. Eventually, Bret got her out to the Hart house where she met Stu and Helen Hart. Helen was a sweetheart, but she remembers Stu eying her up and down, with Julie saying, "He gave me the once over." Adding, "Stu judged women on their teeth and legs." She said Stu stared at her teeth and legs as if she were a race horse he was inspecting.
Julie remembers how Stu would turn any conversation into something about wrestling. She mentioned being a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan (Canadian football team), and Stu went on a rant about Gene Kiniski, who briefly played for the Edmonton Eskimos This made me chuckle as Stu and Gene had a but of a rough relationship since Stu gave up on Gene when he was a rookie and hurt his knee. Gene went to Toronto where "Whipper" Billy Watson essentially turned Gene into the big name star he was known for.
In Bret's book, he described the first night Julie came to the Sunday Hart dinner and when Julie passed on the salad, Bret's sister Diana Hart snapped on her saying, "What, you're too good for fuckin' salad!?" Bret says his mom responded by saying to Julie, "So you met Bret's sister Diana." In Julie's book, she describes this event as well but doesn't mention the funny line from Helen. She says Bret just took Julie and decided to leave immediately. Bret's other sister, Georgia, followed them outside and apologized on behalf of Diana and excused Diana by pointing out how pregnant Diana was at the time.
Julie actually puts over Diana quite a bit and says she actually came to admire Diana for how outspoken she was. She says Diana had a great style and was a gifted artist. After reading so many Hart related books, it's refreshing to hear something positive about Diana. Diana is the "Black sheep" who married "The British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Diana would write a scandalous and legal minefield of a book in 2001 called "Under the mat." It was quickly pulled from shelves after Owen Hart's widow Martha threatened legal action over what was said about her and Owen. Bret and Bruce Hart also denounce the book, calling it mostly lies, but not everything can be written off as fiction, including stories, some wild stores about Dean Hart. I desperately need this book.
Julie said she never got over the sight of Bret Hart eating an avacado as if it were an apple.
While Bret was in Japan wrestling with his brother Keith, Julie said she spent a lot of time with Keith's girlfriend. It was Keith's girlfriend who smartened Julie up to how wrestling works. Up to this point, she believed it to be legit, and even Bret had been selling it like this to her. She was furious, and when Bret called, she told him they were done and hung up on him. The next day, Bret's older brother Bruce stopped by to help her understand kayfabe and how silly it all was. Julie says she ended up feeling bad for reacting like that and yelling at Bret, but she says he forgave her immediately. Bret tells this same story in his book, adding details of how Julie would worry and stress about Bret Hart being brutalized every night.
Here's something I dont remember from Bret's book. He knocked up Julie very early into their relationship, and Julie got an abortion. She said they both weren't ready for being parents, but Julie says she was deeply saddened by their choice. She never expressed these misgivings with Bret, and assumes Bret was relieved, she didn't make it any more difficult on them. To Bret's credit, maybe he didn't mention it in his book for Julie's benefit. Or he did mention it very briefly, and I missed it.
Julie remembers accompanying Bret on a trip overseas where they went to a freaky sex show place where they had "baby tigers and lions and torture rooms."" She says at one point Bret got tied up on a table and was playfully whipped.
On this trip, Julie remembers a woman hitting on Bret right in front of her and had to yell at her to back off while Bret laughed. Julie was pissed and made them go back to the hotel. Once there, Julie was mouthing off to Bret before he grabbed her and "bodyslammed" her into the flower bed. He offered to help her up afterwards but she told him to fuck off.
A week later Bret came home smelling of perfume and Julie says she just snapped. She said she grabbed him and dug her finger nails into his face and eyes. She says Bret later would tell her that he never saw her the same after this incident. I don't remember Bret describing Julie ever getting physical like that in his book, but he did describe a lot of shouting matches.
Julie says she and Bret got married after her younger sister and Dynamite Kid. She says they got married in secret because Bret didn't like his siblings much and said they didn't deserve to be part of it.
When Julie was pregnant again this time they felt ready to start a family. Though Bret made Julie not tell anyone for the first 5 months of her pregnancy and when he "told" his parents, it was through a letter he left on their bed before he left for a wrestling tour. Julie remembers feeling hurt by this because Bret would say his parents always wanted their children to start families with someone who had money, a significant name and an education. Julie had none of those things and while she doesn't say it, you get the feeling that she thinks Bret was ashamed or embarrassed by her.
When she got pregnant again, she says Bret was mad at her for not being more careful with birth control. She says she became very irritable and bitchy throughout the pregnancy and always found something to be mad at Bret for. She is super critical of her behavior here and doesn't excuse it.
The night she gave birth, Bret left to go out for drinks, despite Julie asking him not to in case her water broke. When she woke up at 5am to her water breaking, she was furious that Bret didn't come home yet and had to call a friend to get her to the hospital. Bret was a no-show for her entire delivery and missed his second child being born. Julie says she was furious and seriously considered divorcing him then.
When Bret started touring with WWF, he was gone for much longer periods of time and this strained their marriage. Working for WWF really put a strain on Bret and filled him with confidence issues as well. She said between his self doubt and her loneliness, their marriage was barely holding on.
She remembers how Bret would call from the road and bemoan about how lonely he was. I'm reminded of his book, how he would complain about feeling lonely, then complain that the guilt of cheating on Julie was too much.
Julie says she got a literal itch and went to a doctor who told her that she caught "something" from a public washroom. A suspicious Julie went home and threw all her bedding in the garbage and then thought to check on her suspicion. She looked through their phone bills to find that Bret was placing a ton of calls to a girl from New Jersey and that he even kept the receipt for a Christmas present he bought this girl!
Julie describes how Bret called and she just screamed "I want a divorce!" Before she hung up and ripped the phone cord out of the wall. Eventually she agreed to go meet him and they started yelling at each other in a parking lot after a show. She says at one point Bret through a can of budweiser at her head, hitting her! She says wrestler Les Thorton got between the two and tried to calm them down. She remembers screaming how she won't get in the car with Bret and Bret yelled back, "Don't be stupid, get in the car! Your embarrassing yourself!" She says Bret later said the girl meant nothing to him and Julie should be greatful that Bret isn't addicted to drugs. Wild. At one point when they were back in the hotel room, a girl called the room asking for Bret and Julie snapped, breaking a lamp.
In Bret's book, he described how he decieved both Julie and this girl from New Jersey, neglecting to tell this side girl that he was married until she was head over heels in love with him. Bret talks about how tough this was for him and says that Stu and Helen Hart talked Julie out of leaving him.
Julie says their relationship was never the same after the affair. She couldn't trust him again.
Julie says when her grandmother died a few months after the affair, Bret was calling her everyday to check in but she said "I couldn't have cared less about those calls."
Julie says it was around this time that she and Bret started to regularly do cocaine. She said the coke helped her not think about the affair and how she would ask Bret to score some if she couldn't get it out of her head. She said she would do coke and sleep in the car just to avoid Bret. She suggests this all slowed down when Vince started cracking down on coke use with drug tests.
She speaks highly of Vince McMahon, this book was written in 2013, and she is greatful for what Vince was able to provide for her family and the opportunity he gave Bret. She says when she first met Vince, he was wearing a suit and sneakers. When she asked Bret why he wore sneakers, Bret said "so he can get around." During the show she noticed Vince was all over the place during matches, never sitting still and always running around from one person to another.
Julie remembers meeting Ozzy Osbourne at Wrestlemania 2 and "marking out" because he was her idol as a teenager. After the show, she says Ozzy was present as everyone had drinks at the hotel and Dynamite Kid spiked her drink. She said she could barely stand and Dynamite just laughed at her the whole time.
Julie notes how devoted Bret was to making sure his kids had the best toys, and how Bret would drive to every toy store before Christmas and find what the kids wanted. She appreciates this but also wishes Bret didn't miss so many plays and dances and activities due to his schedule. She was starting to really resent wrestling and wanted Bret to quit. She hated having this big house that felt empty most of the time without Bret home. In Bret's book, he wanted her to get a job to fix her loneliness.
She says her 3rd pregnancy was easier than her second and Bret was very sweet to her and praised how good she looked.
Julie brings up how devastated Bret was when his brother Dean died in 1990. She remembers watching him wrestle the next night at Survivor Series ppv and seeing the pain on his face. Bret talks about how tough this was in his book and how much shame he felt. Dean needed a kidney transplant and none of the Hart brothers stepped up. Bret didn't want to derail his career. Though you can't blame anyone more than Dean himself, who was stubborn and often went against doctors orders, so even with a mew kidney, Dean may have still died.
Julie talks about continuing her partying and drug lifestyle into the early 90s when she would party with a local band and inviting them to live at her house. She said Bret was very understanding and never pushed her for details on those nights out. Some nights Bret would watch the kids all night while Julie was getting fucked up and partying.
On of those musicians, Marc, was very close with Julie and while Julie never says she hooked up, she does say her younger sister Michelle did hook up with Marc, a bunch of times in secret. She doesn't specify if this was before or after Michelle left Dynamite Kid, but she says Marc did move in with Michelle and help her with the kids. This would have been after Dynamite went back to UK, since I'm sure Dynamite would have kicked the door down and attempted to murder Marc if this were in the final months of of Michelle and Dynamite's marriage.
Julie's brother committed suicide and Julie didn't have the support system around to prevent her from spiraling into heavy drinking.
In 1996, Bret Hart was filming a movie (Sinbad) in South Africa and halfway through, asked Julie to come join him. Julie is very honest about how she was self sabatoging her life at this point but was still deeply in love with Bret. She was excited to read an early draft of some Shakespeare work that was at a museum, but Bret couldn't be bothered to go with her so she went by herself.
She says her and Bret shared a perfect moment watching the sun set, but Bret got mad at her when she decided to record it.
Julie describes sneaking cigarettes because Bret didn't know she picked the habbit up again.
The trip ended when Julie was asking Bret something but he just ignored her several times in a row. When she finally looked at what had his attention, she saw he was gawking at a topless sunbather on the beach. She stormed off to the hotel room after telling Bret to show her more respect than that. Julie says Bret followed her to the room, with him saying she always ruins these trips. When Julie started packing her bags, she says Bret pushed her hard onto the bed. She started spewing insults at him, before, she says, Bret grabbed her by the hair and threw her from the bed and onto the floor! Julie says she started crying and demanding that Bret get her home immediately or else she would find someone who would. Bret screamed at her "Get the fuck out! I've had it with you! We're fucking done! I will put you on a plane tonight, but don't expect to win me back!"
Having read Bret's book, he does mention the trip to South Africa where he filmed the Sinbad movie. But Bret makes no mention of inviting Julie on the trip and instead points out how it coincided with a WWF tour in South Africa at the same time. Bret does talk about how the Dutch found the area and how beautiful itnwas there, which was something Julie mentioned as well that Bret talked about. Bret does mention getting a lot of ladies phone numbers on the last few days of the trip and seeing a drunk Yokozuna swapping spit with some South African PR woman when they were both very drunk. Bret makes no mention of Julie being there or how he got physical with her.
The Hart's always try to shy away from controversial truths, just ask any one of them where Bruce Hart met his wife. They will all say at a wrestling show, and neglect to mention how Bruce Hart was a 33 year old substitute teacher who knocked up his 17 year old student. Gross. (I'll never not bring this up when talking about the Hart's btw)
Julie talks about Mathew Hart, Georgia and BJ's son who died in 1996 from Necrotizing Fasciitis, a legitimate flesh eating virus. From everyone's account, the poor boy suffered for 2 weeks until he died. Julie says she and Bret took their kids on vacation when the poor kid died. A lot of people act as though the Hart Family curse started at the Screwjob in 1997, but really it started with Dean in 1990 and Mathew in 1996.
Julie remembers how gleeful Bret was when he called her up and bragged about giving a drunken Vince McMahon his tag team finishing move. Julie warned Bret that Vince wasn't the type to forget that and she suspects that it played a part in the screwjob. This sounds silly imo but what do I know, I found it an interesting and unique take if nothing else.
Julie remembers the morning of the 1997 Survivor Series ppv, someone warned Bret that Vince and Shawn were seen the night before talking and getting into an elevator together.
Julie says she and her lawyer were sitting somewhere in the arena as the Montreal Screwjob happened. Julie says she got up, looking at the monitor and said, "Holy shit, that's not supposed to happen!" And her lawyer, also shocked, said, "No, it is not."
Julie says she and the layer had to sprint to catch up to Bret and Vince and she describes her scolding of Triple H and Shawn Michaels, saying the words just poured out of her. It's maybe the most memorable scene of that documentary, watching Triple H and HBK shrink into children as Julie dresses them down.
Julie says the 1997 holidays were anything but cheerful and says she was boozing a lot and doing coke "from time to time."
Julie wanted to get a nanny or house keeper but Bret refused and put his foot down on the subject.
Julie says Bret asked for a divorce in early 1998 and she handled it poorly. She is critical of her immediate response to run away from home and stay at a hotel. When she returned home for clothes, her confused daughter asked her what was going on and a rageful Julie said "Your dad wants a divorce and I can't stay in the same house as him anymore! Julie says she was so blinded by her anger she didn't see the damage she was doing then.
Julie says that the Wrestling with Shadow's documentary crew needed Julie and Bret to reshoot something that didn't come out right when they originally shot it. So Julie and Bret had to pretend to be a in a marriage again talking things out about Bret's career. Julie says her and Bret slept together after they shot the scene and she was hurt when Bret said afterward, "One for the road, I guess."
The next time she heard from Bret, he told her to get a lawyer because he had one already.
Julie says she and Bret spent many nights yelling at eachother over the phone, with Bret calling her a whore and saying he didn't take all those bumps so Julie to take all his money. This is a statement Bret would repeat a lot to Julie over the years of them fighting. He would call her a money grabbing whore and how he didn't take a bunch of bumps so Julie could end up with the money.
Just as Julie was ready to sign custody papers, Bret's personal assistant contacted Julie and told her that Bret had been seeing some girl in the States for months. The assistant said she felt guilty arranging their meetups behind Julie's back. Julie said she later told Bret that she isn't signing shit and she needed to contact her lawyers with the new developments. She said Bret first tried denying it, calling his assistant jealous and a liar. Then Bret blamed Julie because Bret said he "couldn't get past her traumatic past." What the fuck Bret, I'm pretty sure he is referring to Julie being sexually assaulted as a teenager. (He makes this clear later in the book) Then he bragged about his new girl looking better than Julie and being younger than Julie, with Bret also saying the kids will love the new girl. Bret even later said Julie was getting heavier and letting herself go.
Pretty wild story here. Julie says that Bret started neglecting the kids, even when he was in town, and often skipped out on seeing them altogether. For Canada Day 1998 Bret promised to take them out and to the fireworks. Julie says they waited all day, expecting a fun evening with their dad. But Bret didn't show up with their friend Dean, until after 9pm, (stoned and drunk according to Julie) after Julie tried to call Bret repeatedly and got no answer.
Julie isn't proud of this, but says before Bret arrived that night, Julie had sat the kids down and told them Bret was off smoking pot with a new girlfriend. Julie knew immediately she shouldn't have said it, she saw her kids starting to cry and knew she tarnished how they look at their dad.
Bret was pissed off that Julie decided to take the kids to the fireworks, and when Julie had herself and the kids in the car, an enraged Bret started punching the drivers side window until Julie agreed to get out and talk.
Bret grabbed and dragged her off around the corner of the house where Julie defiantly told him that the kids know he smokes pot and is seeing someone else.
Julie says Bret snapped, slammed her hard up against the wall and yelled, "You bitch! I hate you! I hate you!" Then Julie claims that Bret grabbed her by the throat and slammed her on the ground where he continued to choke her until their son Blade came around the corner and screamed at Bret to get off his mom!
As Julie was catching her breath, their friend Dean, who was still there and in shock, tried to help Julie up. Bret took off with their son Blade and a panicked Julie called the police. She foolishly said to the 911 opperater that her husband pro wrestler, Bret Hart, had taken her child againt her will. The police arrived and seemingly didn't know who Bret was, tried to get Julie to press charges. The police were able to call Bret and convince him to bring the kid to the police station, so the cops could bring him home. Bret makes no mention of this in his book.
Julie says Bret stopped by the next day and apologized and tried to ask her to sit down for coffee. Julie explained how they scarred their children for life the night prior and she wasn't interested in speaking to him in friendly terms yet.
Julie defends Bret a bit by saying she could see in person that she wasn't the cause of his anger and that he was just deeply angry and disappointed with things. This would be 1998 and even Bret describes how bitter and despondent he was at this time. Julie says he stopped being around the kids and it hurt them, especially their boys Blade and Dallas who started getting a chip on their shoulders and seeking conflict. One time Julie asked Dallas about Bret and Dallas said, "He never calls and is never around."
Julie says things were getting stable but she and Bret started secretly sleeping together again and complicated things. She says Bret would pick her up and drove to a seedy part of town before casually dropping her off at home after. She says she was initially amused by this but eventually began to wonder how many other women Bret does this with. It made her feel uncomfortable to say the least.
One time as she was being dropped off, Julie asked Bret if he was happy. Bret said no and that he couldn't get happy. Then Bret asked if Julie was seeing anyone, but didn't let her answer, he just said "of course you are." Julie realizes now that Bret was suffering some deep depression and at the time she mistook codependency for love.
Eventually Bret's other girlfriend caught wind of his and Julie's rendezvous and made Bret break things off. Julie could hear the woman on the other end of the line when Bret called to inform Julie that they need to set boundaries in their relationship now.
Julie says Bret once called her to say he tested for hepatitis and that Julie should get checked out as well.
Julie later found out that the girl Bret was seeing was nearly the same age as their daughter.
Julie says her and Bret continued to sleep together behind his girlfriends back though, with Bret always asking for "coffee" before making a move, which Julie always reciprocated.
Bret would break up with his girlfriend near the end of 1998 and ask Julie if he can spend the holidays with her and the kids. Julie relents, and soon they seem to be trying to salvage their relationship with Bret more present then he ever has been.
Soon after the new year, Bret and Julie take a trip together to Hawaii. Julie finally builds up the courage to ask Bret what he thinks of them getting back together, and Bret says he doesn't want to get "trapped" again. Julie snapped and said, "That's it I'm done, I can't keep playing these games with you!"
During this conversation, as Julie was walking away, Bret randomly said, "My therapist said that sometimes girls, like the ones your age when all that stuff happens to you, they like it." Julie burst into tears and ran out of the room. What the fuck Bret, to imply that that when his wife was a 16 year old girl, she liked getting r*ped!
Helen Hart died a few weeks after 9/11 in 2001. She was from New York, and Julie remembers how devastated Helen was following the September attacks. Helen went back to New York a few weeks later to visit her sister, but due to the border concerns, she was held up for hours after her plane landed back in Calgary. She wasn't able to reach her insulin and eventually went into a coma.
Helen was on an off ventilation a few times while at the hospital, and one day Alison (Bret's sister) called and told him to come visit asap, because Helen was back on a ventilator and it wasn't looking good. Bret thought Alison being an alarmist and decided to visit the next day. Julie says she wishes they had visited that night, because Helen passed away a few hours later.
One afternoon, Julie came home to find her son Dallas on the phone, when she asked him who he was speaking to, Dallas said, "It's dad, but he sounds drunk." Bret told Julie that he fell off his bike and couldn't get up. He wasn't speaking clearly and couldn't properly explain where he was. Julie and her daughter Beans, drove around looking for Bret based off his perception and directions.
Julie and Beans found him laying casually in the grass, as if he was resting. She said one of Bret's eyes was wide open and the other was closed, and half his mouth was dropping. She struggled to move him as he slurred his words and insisted he was fine. Eventually an ambulance was called and Bret was loaded in.
Julie says the stroke changed him, made him mooder and more depressed. She isn't casting judgment, just pointing out changes she noticed as she spent every day at the hospital with him, helping to feed and cloth Bret, even helping him to the bathroom.
Julie remembers one night that Bret confided in her that he feared he got a stroke as punishment for all the bad things he done. He told her that the morning he got a stroke, he was planning on signing the divorce papers.
Several months later, with Bret moving aorund more, he spent Easter with Julie and the kids, but Julie found an email from some woman in Italy, directed to Bret and it suggested some heavy sexual stuff. Julie felt stupid and used again. When she confronted him on it, he denied anything and she reluctantly believed him.
A week later as Bret prepared for a trip, she found a plane ticket to Italy, when she asked Bret where he was going, he said England. Julie drove him to the airport and told him to get the fuck out.
Bret went to Italy to be with a fan he met at a contract signing, who was obsessed with him since she was a little girl. Julie says she is exactly what Bret needed to feel like the Hitman again. After reading Bret's book, this assessment is completely accurate.
The Italian woman's name was Cynthia and she was also just a year older than Bret's daughter Jade. Julie said Jade had the hardest time accepting Cynthia, whom Bret was determined to integrate into the family.
When Bret's dad Stu died, Julie remembers how she, Bret and Stu's granddaughter Jenni all stood by the bed and watched as he passed. She remembers how she kissed his cheek and told him he could go see Helen now, he didn't need to be here and longer. I remember the speech Stu gave at Helen's funeral, with one line in particular staying with me, "I'm glad for the time I had with her," he said full of love, but his pain was on display too, "Ill never get over this" he finished solemnly, "I don't have enough time."
Julie remembers one day that their son Blade called her from Bret's house, begging for her to pick him up. Blade and Bret started arguing about Cynthia, with Bret saying to his own son, "Don't make me pick between you and Cynthia, because I'll pick Cynthia! And if you don't like it you can get the fuck out!"
Julie started calling Bret "Hitman" when he acted like this to his children, with Julie telling them that their father still loves him and not to worry about what The Hitman says, because it's coming from a broken mind.
One day after Julie bought a house, Bret randomly showed up with a turkey and tried to hit on her. Julie found it amusing and asked him if Cynthia knew he was there. Bret tried to make a move on her but Julie made it clear that won't happen so Bret left. As he left, he told Julie, "I still have cravings for you and I'm not sure I'll ever get over them." To which Julie just cooly responded with, "You will."
After Bret left that day, Julie called his assistant who confirmed that Cynthia was literally on a plane back to Italy right then. Julie laughed at how pathetic it was for Bret to say goodbye to Cynthia and then an hour or two later, show up at Julie's with a turkey and looking for sex.
Bret secretly married Cynthia and months later told the kids after the fact. Their son Blade was so furious he could barely speak to Julie when he got home and eventually blurted out, "Dad married that girl!" Their other son Dallas was also furious and explained how Bret callously told the kids "tell your mom, make sure you tell your mom." He was clearly trying to hurt Julie and used the kids to do so.
When Bret was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006, Julie insisted on going and told Bret if he doesn't find a way for her to be there, then she would call Vince McMahon herself and arrange it. Bret promised her she would be there but asked her to be discreet about it.
Julie got asked to do an online interview leading up to the Hall of Fame, and she let slip that she would be at the show to support Bret. Later, an irate Bret called her, yelling about how she was supposed to be discreet. Julie clued in on the fact that Bret didn't tell his new wife yet about Julie coming and now he was in hot water. In the end, Bret refused to allow Julie to come to the Hall of Fame to support him.
In Bret's Hall of Fame speech, he just talked about his new wife and how Cynthia was there for him after his stroke and just put her over big. He didn't mention Julie and only mentioned 2 of his 4 children. She says her children were extremely hurt by this and calls it the ultimate betrayal.
Julie started running low on money in 2008 and even attempted to be on a reality show. It was all a BS scam though and she had to invest money into it and eventually it all fell through. She speaks of this with a bit of shame while framing it as something she learned from.
Julie was facing bankruptcy and foreclosure on the house, so as a last resort, she called Bret. She asked him for 9 grand to cover 3 mortgage payments so she can sell the house. Bret chastised her for having money problems before ultimately saying no. He suggested that she rent the house out or have the kids pay rent. As they left, Julie warned him that if she loses the house, Bret may need to take the kids at him place. She doesn't say what he said to this, but she does say, "His response was too cruel to put into writing." Good lord, considering all she told so far, I wonder what Bret said that was so bad, Julie didn't want to even write it down?
Julie does point out that Bret didn't owe her a damn thing and she was in this situation by her own doing. Julie felt like she was letting her kids down most of all.
Julie would move in with her daughter Beans where they split the rent together. She got a job making $14/hour working as a janitor at a local middle school and Julie notes that she was living well below the poverty line.
Julie remembers how absurd it was for her to show up to her janitor job driving a Lexus.
Julie ended up selling her Lexus to her daughter Beans, and Julie bought herself a 1999 Sunfire. It was the first car she ever bought with her own money.
Julie's father died in 2012 and Julie says she wrote a letter to him, promising to make him proud, and stuffed it inside his coffin.
Julie says she spends most of her days being a grandma to Jade's daughter and how grateful she is to be close to her kids still.
Bret can't say the same, Julie notes how he travels alone or with his wife and never offers invites to his kids. She says it breaks her heart to see how far Bret drifted away from their children, even if all her kids insist that they don't care. This was in 2013, so potentially Bret and his kinds could have a better relationship by now.
Julie spends the last several pages of the book detailing her kids and all the ways she loves them. You can tell she is a mother first and foremost, you can tell she loves them unconditionally. Jade, Dallas, Beans and Blade, weird names for kids but I also have a weird name so I can't judge.

You know how it is, sometimes you’re just window shopping to pass the time. I’ve actually gotten really into Knights of the Old Republic recently after it being on my backlog forever, and find it absolutely amazing.
I had previously once downloaded the Pikman 4 demo, and played like a single hot minute of it, after having never played the series before and found it real charming with the art style of the cute chubby little round yellow dog, and being these tiny alien creatures on Earth.
I have a big wish list. There’s games that I dream about and long for and can’t wait until I get the chance to play em’ except I ain’t got a whole lot of money right now.
I was quite delighted to see a few games on my wishlist had demoes available to download on the eshop. I’m very excited to dip my toes into Unicorn Overlord, Pikman 3 & 4, Mario VS Donkey Kong, Another Code Recollection, the new Prince of Persia, the new Contra, Kakarot (RIP Toriyama), Big Brain Academy, Cadence of Hyrule, Monster Hunter Rise, Pocket Card Jockey, the new Princess Peach game, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Sushi Strikers, Mario and Rabbids Sparks of Hope, that new game that looks like Wario Land Antonblast, Dr Fetus’s puzzle game from Super Meat Boy fame, Clubhouse Games 51, and what I am most excited to dip my toes into— Nintendo’s Game Builder Garage.
In my own routine and backlog completion— I have just almost 100% Super Mario Wonder for the second time since I played and beat it shortly after it initially came out in October. I’m on the final badge test, and I just have to get the last three flower coins and the wonder seeds, and hit the top of the flag pole and it’ll be 100%ed for a second time, except this time around I don’t have Nintendo Switch Online service so I won’t be getting help from any good samaritans this time around.
I also just finally got around to beating the first Advanced Wars game in the Advanced Wars Bootcamp collection. And in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, I reached the three star level quests after not skipping any of the ones below it.
But here’s what I wanted to share… I gave a dip of the toe into the Clubhouse Games demo. There are four out of fifty one available for the demo.
There’s Connect Four, Dominioes, President, and Slot Cars.
The thing about Clubhouse Games is that when the original game came out on the Nintendo DS, I remember my reaction was oh great a video game based on all those boring card and board games that you play when for some strange reason you can’t play video games instead.
But the thing is as I’ve been gettting older, and growing to appreciate a slower quieter way of life than the cable television filled days of my youth.
I am quite smitten with the idea of playing card games or board games around a table, maybe there are libations like booze involved, cigarettes smoked, maybe beer maybe cofffee instead maybe tea, maybe instead of cigarettes there’s a hookah and maybe it’s a small group of friends or maybe it’s an awesome house party with lots of people.
Anyways, I played Dominoes first and I loved the interface of this software with the little skit and then the brief essential rules down to a bullet point, and even accounting for house rules and variations.
At first I was not quite sure I grasped the rules, but like playing chess on the computer the software will guide you and won’t let you make an illegal move, so essentially you learn as you play.
With dominoes, I thought I kinda knew how to play but the basic rules of Dominoes are so basic to me it sounded as fun as shoots and ladders.
But with the five up scoring variation where you get points for the numbers on the edge adding up to be a multiple of 5, then I saw some sort of tactics to the game, strategy and imagined those scenes I’ve seen of old men enthusiastically slapping down a dominos onto a winding line of them on a table.
Then I tried the card game President, and man that is a funny game with some odd rules that is deceptively simple, but there is more going on than what’s on the surface. I felt like the split personality artificial intelligence play acting as several different people around the table was playing mind games with me.
Anyways, this has been a blog post.

Me (43M) and my wife (45F) were having some drinks outside the other day and we were having a good time. She said "I wish I brought my cigarettes" and I pulled them out of my pocket, as I had anticipated that she would want to smoke. She said "wow, how did you know?" I said "I can see the future, especially when you're drinking" she said, "can you see our relationships future?" I said "of course" so she asked me "will we still be together or will we be divorced?" I said "probably divorced" and she asked "when?" So I said "I'll probably be tired of Peter's shit in about 4 years and have to bounce"
Peter is my wife's son from a previous marriage. He is 24 years old. Me and my wife have been together for 21 years. I have raised this boy as my own and he has called me "dad" since he was 5. We have a great relationship. Never had the "you're not my real dad!" fight. We are good. However I feel like my wife coddles him and he is "failing to launch" so to speak. He is in Uni, but has never had a job. His social circle is like 5 people that he is constantly online with. He very rarely leaves the house, or his room for that matter. My wife has to remind him to shower everyday. And she has to wake him up everyday. He will not wake up to an alarm. Mainly because he is usually up until 6 or 7 am playing online games. He is not a bad kid. He doesn't drink/smoke/do drugs. He is not an incel. He doesn't listen to Andrew Tate. He's just kind of a nerdy shut it. My wife is happy to have him live at home forever. I am not. I am very worried for him. He can not drive and does not want to learn. He is comfortable in his life and sees no reason to grow. I stress the fact that he is an adult now to my wife many times but he will always be her baby. Honestly It's killing me to watch her enable him. Every time I try to encourage him to get a part time job or get out of the house she tells me off and asks me to leave him alone. I feel like a failure as a parent, but ahe is happy is is staying out of trouble. He could do so much more though. He is very bright. I will say to her, "what if we died tomorrow? What would happen to him, he would have to do a lot of growing up very quickly, maybe we should push him a little bit now" but she won't hear it.
Anyway. She lost her shit on me. "How could you divorce me because of Peter? He will be fine, everyone develops at different speeds, etc." I get it. I know. I think she also feels like we failed him by over providing and she doesn't want to hear it, but guys? I can't sit around forever if this is the trajectory. I pray he snaps out of it, finishes uni (hes now a junior at year 4, he doesn't take a full courseload, yes we are paying everything) gets a job and grows up. But if not? I can't see myself supporting him and her forever. I feel like leaving might actually be good for the both of them? (I contribute 80% to the household finances, she works part time).
Anyway I don't really think it will come to that. I have faith in the kid. I was just 50/50 joking and serious with my 4 year timeline. (4 years is a long time right? The fact that she was upset is upsetting to me. Does she think he'll be doing the exact same stuff 4 years from now?) She thinks I'm an asshole because I'm giving an ultimatum and she doesn't care how long he stays at home.
So. Am I the asshole here?

Late last night I attended a screening of Harmony Korine's latest film, Aggro Dr1ft at the Boston Alamo Drafthouse - sadly minus the Q&A with the composer that was supposed to happen. Anyway, there was a full short film that played in the preshow that I can not find anywhere online!
It was made in the 1980s and was from some sort of European country, based on the language in the opening/closing credits. The film features a toddler in a crib who becomes agitated by cigarette smoke being blown into his face by a sentient, stop-motion cigarette. However, the toddler's toy (I think it was a sort of bear puppet), also comes to life and battles the cigarette and his cigarette "army" as the baby cheers on.
It was a very strange film with a kind of silly, anti-smoking PSA energy and I really want to know what it was!!

Background:
Eves Family moved from New South Wales to to the State of Tasmania , which is approximately 250 Kilometres (155 Miles) from the Australian Mainland, to a remote town called Fitzgerald. Her family made this move in January of 1989, in an attempt to seek peace and quiet from the busy lifestyle they were accustomed to in New South Wales. Eve was described by family and friends as quiet and shy girl, who would often avoid social interaction with new people. This description was contradicted by the former detective investigator in her case, Colin Riley, who described her as being outgoing and partaking in risk-taking behaviour. Eves old school friend stated that Eve was often subject to bullying and harassment by her peers at school. Eves family felt safe in the area that they lived in and rarely felt the need to lock their doors, as her brother, Jacob Askew, stated in an interview with ABC news. She was caught with cigarettes in her bag shortly before her disappearance, which led her parents to ground her, despite Eve denying that she smokes cigarettes, her diary entries suggesting otherwise. Eves brother (Jacob) stated that this was the only instance he'd known of where Eve had acted out and is unsure of where the description of "risk-taking behaviour" has stemmed from.
Disappearance:
Eve was last sighted on or around November 16, 1991. The night Eve disappeared was described as a normal night. Her parents were out, leaving her at home with her two brothers. Her brothers were watching television whilst Eve resided in her room, listening to music. Her brothers saw her occasionally throughout the night and described her as being in a good mood. Eves parents arrived home, and went to sleep without checking on the kids, assuming that they were all asleep in their rooms. It wasn't until the next morning that it was discovered she was missing. There were no signs of a struggle or violence, which led into belief that she had run away. Shortly after her disappearance, law enforcement received reported sightings from members of the public within the Tasmania area, Hobart, the states capital, being one of them, but none of these sightings have been verified. At the time of Eve’s disappearance she was described as being 157cm tall, of slim build, with red hair and a pale complexion with freckles on her face. When reported as missing, her family stated that she was last seen wearing a tracksuit.
Investigation:
There seems to be no information on when the case was initially closed, but it was re-opened in 2001.
____________
A tip off, led police back to the family home, excavating the grounds surrounding it, in an effort to find Eves remains. Nothing came of this. This tip off came from a man who was in police custody at the time. He was brought to the property during the excavation process to assist police. There were reports that the man may have been involved in Eves Disappearance. Police did not confirm any of these reports.
____________
After the investigation at the family property, Eves case was passed onto (former) Detective Inspector, Colin Riley (mentioned previously describing Eve as outgoing and risk-taking). He re-opened the investigation again in 2012. (Unable to find info of when it was closed between 2001 and 2012). Detective Colin stated that the re-opening of this investigation in 2012 sparked many investigative initiatives, including listening devices, and the digging up of suspected grave sights.
During this time period, the police seized a property on Gordan River road in Karanja, a 20 minute drive from Eves family home. The property seized was previously owned by a man who was known to have befriended Eve in the months prior to her disappearance. When Detective Colin Riley was asked if Eve had met up with this man prior to her disappearance, he stated that he "Can't recall".
The police also seized another isolated property belonging to the same man, the particular focus being a septic tank. Police searched the land underneath this tank. Detective Colin in a statement concerning the property investigated, said this "We've detected things that we believe can possibly be used as evidence in court". Despite this statement, nothing seems to have come of this. When asked, Detective Colin was able to confirm that this man was / is a person of interest in the case. The man was arrested and later released without being charged.
Theories:
Despite some speculation online and through the media, there seems to be only one popular theory, being that Eve Askew was met with foul play. It's likely that the person/persons responsible for Eve Askew's disappearance was someone known to her. Perpetrators often prey on and take advantage of children like Eve who are shy, quiet, outcasted. Eves old school friend, when interviewed, suggested that she may of been relying on a person of interest to help her runaway from home, and that this person may have deceived Eve into thinking that they were helping her, and that they were doing so in an effort to take advantage of her.
Tasmania is surrounded by lush bush area (the wilderness) and it's been speculated that she may have gotten lost / injured in the night, but this seems unlikely as her family stated that she was an experienced bush walker. There also doesn’t seem to be evidence to indicate this.
___________
Authorities have not made public comment on whether or not Eves parents are people of interest in her case but they did state that they'd found no evidence to suggest they were, and that Eve has likely disappeared for a different reason.
Conclusion:
Despite all enquiries and investigations by authorities, Eve's whereabouts are still unknown to this day. Tragically, Eves parents died in a car accident 5 years after her disappearance. They died not knowing what happened to their daughter. Eves brother, Jacob Askew is very vocal about his sisters disappearance and is advocating for justice to be bought to her case. There's currently a 500 000 dollar reward being offered by Tasmanian Police for information relating to her disappearance and suspected murder.
Sources for this write-up:
https://www.police.tas.gov.au/news-events/media-releases/investigation-in-relation-to-eve-askew/
(Also some of the info on her case on the Tas Gov page is a bit outdated so proceed with that in mind)
https://youtu.be/pr7Koqr6B98?si=8Mckw1EfbgHZRxah
OP Notes:
This is my first ever write-up I've done on here and I'm keen to do more so feel free to leave any criticisms down below as I'd love to improve. If you feel I've left anything out, please feel free to comment it as I know there's always little bits of info about these cases hiding in the cracks and crevices. Authorities seems to be very secretive about the information that they've garnered on this case so I tried to include as much as I could. I also highly recommend watching the YouTube video I've linked in the sources. Very Informative.

I just came from a late night screening of Harmony Korine's latest film, Aggro Dr1ft at the Boston Alamo - sadly minus the Q&A with the composer that was supposed to happen. Anyway, there was a full short film that played in the preshow that I can not find anywhere online!
It was made in the 1980s and was from some sort of European country, based on the language in the opening/closing credits. The film features a toddler in a crib who becomes agitated by cigarette smoke being blown into his face by a sentient, stop-motion cigarette. However, the toddler's toy (I think it was a sort of bear puppet), also comes to life and battles the cigarette and his cigarette "army" as the baby cheers on.
It was a very strange film with a kind of silly, anti-smoking PSA energy and I really want to know what it was!!

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Jaskel just stared. In horror, in shock, in fear, he didn't know.
He just stared.
The Terran was completely engaged, in the middle of all of the creatures. Their tentacles whipped at him, curved exoskeletal hooks slapping at him, blades emerging to stab at him, mechanical three prong grippers opening up to grab at the Terran and try to fire lasers directly into the Terran's skin. One moved forward, cavernous mouth wide open, a hot red glow in the back of the conical mouth, the teeth wiggling.
The Terran just shoved his fist through the creature's maw and caused it to explode into rags of flesh and chunks of armor, the tentacles falling to whip around on the floor as the punch continued to hit a rippling field in front of one of the crystalline creatures. The field collapsed in a shower of sparks.
"OH YEEAAAAAAAH!" the Terran gave a bass roar, stepping forward again.
"No shot, no clear shot," Jaskel said, moving his light machinegun around, trying to figure out what to shoot, hell, where to shoot that wouldn't hit the Terran.
"SHOOT, PUSSY!" the Terran roared out, grabbing one of the crystalline articulated 'tentacles' and ripping it free to jam the crystalline blade through the side of one of the green eyed creatures, continuing the blow until the blade shattered on the wall and the creature was pulped between his fist and the bulkhead.
Jaskel fired his weapon, seeing the liquid filled cartridges shattering on the Terran's skin, just coating his skin. The rounds that hit the crystalline creature that was backing up made the crystalline structure start to smoke and sizzle.
"YOU GOT NUTHIN!" the Terran roared out, knocking the last crystalline creature out of the way and rushing forward.
The one in the back screeched, trying to back up, flailing tentacles at the Terran. The blades chipped at the spikes, but did little else.
Besides get the tentacles in reach of the Terran.
One of the green eyed ones lunged at Jaskel and he hosed it with the LMG. The steel tip shattered armor, the lye splattered. The thing screeched, spinning in place, trying to interpose the tentacles between the full auto 150 rounds a minute and itself.
Jaskel just kept shooting, the tentacles shattering, the creature shrieking again, making his phasic shielding jump to 85%.
More creatures were flooding into the hallway, but Jaskel didn't have time to think about them, just shifting targets and firing as first one, then another collapsed.
The Terran was covered, but it kept grabbing with its hands, ripping the creatures off. The Terran would twist the tentacles, or squeeze the bulbous body, or smash it against the wall.
Still advancing on the larger one, which was flailing its seven remaining tentacles.
The Terran grabbed one of the black armored ones, ripped its tentacles off, slapped it twice, and tossed it as Jaskel.
"Catch!" it roared. "Live one!"
Jaskel let the LMG drop onto the sling, clumsily catching the one that was tossed. Black goo had covered the amputated tentacle stumps and then hardened. It screeched, trying to wriggle and bite.
Jaskel slapped it again.
"Jaskel, get that lunatic to pull back. The dropship is under heavy assault. NavInt wants us to pull back," the Gunny said.
"TERRAN! WE'RE LEAVING!" Jaskel shouted.
The Terran stopped, facing the bigger one with the red and green eyes.
The Terran held out its first two fingers in a 'V', touched just under his own eyes, then thrust them at the creature, which was still backing up.
"I'll be back for you, smartass," the Terran growled, starting to back up.
Creatures kept lunging out of doorways, dropping from hidden vents, lunging out of ventwork in the walls.
Jaskel barely got turned when one lunged out of a vent, the cover slapping him in the fact, the tentacles wrapping around him. The mouth glommed onto his chest and the body started pulsating.
The armor's defense went live, electricity arcing.
The creature dropped, smoking.
The Terran stomped on it.
Jaskel swallowed, still moving back. He kept shooting with one hand, the power armor's strength allowing him to keep the barrel steady. He just hosed the hallway, no longer concerned about hitting the Terran, who didn't seem to care about the highly caustic lye, the steel penetrator tips, or the kinetic energy.
An obvious robot lunged out and the Terran grabbed it, ripped off its arms, ripped off part of its hull, and then snatched out something that registered as a power-source on Jaskel's armor.
"Got a robot, bringing it back," the Terran rumbled.
Jaskel could see his words on his HUD right afterwards.
"Naw, it'll be fine," the Terran said. It kept reaching in and pulling stuff out. Jaskel saw what looked like bullets, maybe tiny missiles, a six-sided pinkish crystal he knew was one of the best types of crystal to use for blue-shift laser beams.
When Jaskel got to the huge crater, he could see the problem.
Robots and what looked like spiders with cannons on their backs were on the edge of the crater, firing down on the dropship and the troops moving into the dropship.
The Terran paused, lifting up one fist, arm bent and the elbow. He made a cocking motion, his biceps suddenly bulging and lumpy, leveled his fist, and started firing. Jaskel's armor ID'd it as 20mm magac shells.
"Get in the dropship, kid," the Terran said, turning and backing up, sweeping robots off of the lip.
Jaskel hustled to the dropship, noting that the Terran had handed off the gutted robot to another Telkan.
Jaskel ran up the boarding ramp, Captain Nakwel slapped the top of his helmet.
"Nineteen! All accounted for!" the Captain called out.
"Hammer Two Six, fall back, board the dropship," came a perfectly calm voice over Jaskel's radio. "Go garrison form on entry."
The medic onboard the dropship moved up to Jaskel, holding a stasis lock usually used for severed limbs. "In here."
Jaskel frowned, then remembered the creature he was holding. He nodded, shoving it into the opening. The medic closed it and it hissed, frost covering it.
The Terrans started boarding the dropship right as Jaskel heard the ship's point defense cut loose. Jaskel saw them go from huge monstrous looking forms to shrinking down, steaming, into the large Terrans.
They even had their shirts back.
"All loaded!" Captain Nakwel called out.
One by one they got in their seats as the ramp whined up and the side doors slammed shut.
It lifted off and Jaskel leaned back slightly, relaxing in his armor.
--that was fun-- 8814 said.
"Felt like a waste of time," Jaskel said. He closed his eyes. "Wake me if something stupid happens."
--roger roger--
Captain N'Skrek moved into the ready room, going over to his chair and sitting down.
His Command Staff as well as the Terran officers acting as advisors were all sitting down already.
N'Skrek waited a moment, lit a cigarette, then tapped his lighter against the top of the table.
"Sit-rep?" he asked.
"The singularity ignited. It should be stable for roughly ten years. Our Nav-Int complement believes it should slow, maybe even devour any Mar-gite clusters too close," Commodore Brakte'ek said.
N'Skrek nodded.
"Gravity focus lensing, while a good idea, would have kept us here for another four weeks to manufacture and deploy them," Commander KrekNak said. The Kobold tapped the table. "However, with Mar-gite clusters still warping in, the need to backtrack them is becoming more and more obvious."
N'Skrek puffed on the cigarette, then pointed at the hologram of the disabled enemy ship floating in the table's holo-emitter.
"We get anything good off of that hulk before we destroyed it?" he asked, looking at the Science Intelligence Section's Chief Warrant officer.
The Lanaktallan nodded. "Quite a bit of data," he pointed at the holoemitters that were cold and dark on the table. "May I?"
"Of course," N'Skrek said.
The Chief nodded and began typing on the holographic keyboard that sprang up under his lower hands.
The holograms came to life.
Molecular breakdown of the atmosphere on the ship. Molecular breakdown and scans of the interior structural elements. More breakdowns of the ship's armor, superconductor cabling. Finally, four holoemitters held images of the creatures that had defended it.
Only one didn't have a DNA/XNA breakdown underneath it.
"First item: They use steel in their interior construction," CW4 In'tel'lmo'o stated. "Nothing unusual, standard high grade steel. A little heavy on the chromium layer, but that's known to keep phasic energy from sinking into the metal too deeply," he tapped another key and the molecular breakdowns rotated. "Judging from the pieces brought back, the steel is gravity well manufactured, with the imperfections that point to a natural gravity well."
"So, they have planetary logistics and manufacturing centers?" one of the Terrans asked.
In'tel'lmo'o nodded. "Yes. Their manufacturing is not all that impressive in the materials department. The shimmering chrome liquid appearance is a function of their battlescreens, not any memetic polyalloy. That, and their armor is laminate with a chrome layer on the outside just over standard gold."
Everyone just made notes.
"Several of the Terran Monster Class found active data lines. Using induction pads built into their hands, they were able to intercept and observe data flows through superconductor as well as fiber optic," In'tel'lmo'o said. He nodded at Commander Hresket, Chief of the Intel Section. "Cryptography is working on the data."
"First of all, judging by pulsing, it looks like they use base-12 numbering. That gives us plenty of signal to look over," Hresket said.
N'Skrek annotated the information on his VR scratchpad.
The briefing moved into power generation and capability, battlescreen estimates (one of the Terrans had ripped a battlescreen projector free and then tore it apart while his scouter eyepiece had recorded it all), and other technological information.
"The object started bringing its engines online, that was when a recall was transmitted to the dismount team," CW4 In'tel'lmo'o said. "Which moves us to what we've all been waiting patiently through all of the briefing to get here. Everyone knows the prize is at the bottom of the cereal box."
That got light chuckles.
"Four life forms were encountered, as well as six different types of robots and what we believe are three autonomous or semi-autonomous drones," In'tel'lmo'o stated.
Images of the creatures popped up.
"They're XNA. Silicon was the predominate theory, based on the Mar-gite, which we have begun calling the Mar-gite Autonomous Bioweapon. However, data gathered by the Terran infantry showed that they are primarily boron based, with sulfuric running a close second. By what we have observed from life in the galaxy so far, that means that these creatures are native to a highly volcanic region with a high probability," In'tel'lmo'o stated.
He tabbed the big one, with the ten tentacles that ended in three manipulator claws. "This appears to the top of their system. The other four are all based on the same XNA template, just heavy modification. We believe they created, or evolution forced them into, several biological castes."
"Phasic energy is high in this one," the crystalline one shot through with red veins. "This one also has a higher sulfur and phosphorous dependency," he tapped the big one again. "This one also possesses phasic ability."
He tapped the other two. "These appear to be combat," the dark one with the gleaming spurs, then one that had a shiny, chrome-like surface. "This one appears to be primarily engineering and work, with built in manipulators and sensory systems."
There was brief video of the larger one firing off conical phasic bursts that made the misty atmosphere of the corridor ripple and twist.
"Standard waves of force, generated with phasic power," In'tel'lmo'o stated. He pointed one hand at the Terrans seated. "Consulting with those who fought against the Atrekna before the Terran Xenocide Event shows us that the upper life form's phasic abilities are not in the category of the Atrekna."
N'Skrek felt a bit of relief at that.
"Furthermore, consultation with Mantid phasic warfare specialists, we believe that the upper caste, as of what we know at this moment, has less phasic power than a Mantid Warrior or High Speaker," In'tel'lmo'o said.
He sat down, the holograms going dim as the contents were saved to the command staff's data stores.
"As of now, we know more than we did, but now we just know how much we don't know."
N'Skrek nodded. "All right. Excellent briefing," he said. He looked around. "Set our course along Nav-Int's estimate of where the next energizing construct will be."
He clacked his mandibles in amusement.
"Let's keep taking this war to them."
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I run a small hedge fund based out of Raleigh, NC. Myself and my Fund are long $HAYPP. Please see the disclaimer at the bottom of the post. For more blog posts like this check out my Fund's blog at https://www.rogue-funds.com/blog
Also if you would like to see this blog post with pretty pictures you can also check out: https://www.rogue-funds.com/blog/haypp-group
All Financial Figures are in USD unless otherwise specified.
I think HAYPP Group, the biggest online retailer of nicotine pouches, can capture a huge chunk of the sales in what I believe will be the biggest form of nicotine intake growth over the next 10-15 years.
The future of nicotine consumption will be nicotine pouches and it is growing at an unprecedented rate. Here in the States the go to item for nicotine pouches are Zyn’s (owned by Philip Morris), in Europe it’s Velo (owned by British American Tobacco), but there are various other brands that all catching fire: ON! (Altria), Rogue, Juice Head, FRE, Lucy, and Sesh, among various others.
What is HAYPP?
Brief History
HAYPP is an online retailer and distributor of nicotine pouches and snus. The company was started by a couple of Swedish teenagers in 2009 and through mergers and acquisitions they no longer are in charge of the company as the current CEO joined in 2017/2018. The company bought Nicokick.com and northerner.com (northerner owns 9% of stock) which are now both of their main American brands. They switched from Snus to Nicotine Pouches 6 years ago and haven’t looked back.
HAYPP currently owns a roughly 85% online market share for their Nordic part of the business, which they refer to as their “core” business as well as a ~55% market share of the oral nicotine market (85% market share of the legal nicotine pouch e-commerce market) for their growth market which is considered the US, UK, Germany, and Swiss countries.
SEO Powerhouse
So how do they have such a grasp on what would obviously be a hyper competitive online industry? The main reason for their hyper success in the online market is that they have a death grip on the SEO landscape. Their mastery of SEO allows them to spend almost nothing on marketing and to keep pushing out their distribution system (which continues to drive costs down for them and consumers). This creates a positive feedback loop as they become even cheaper than their competitors, allowing them to lock in customers (over 90% of the customers becoming recurring customers).
If you google just about anything related to Nicotine pouches, there is probably a 95%+ chance that the top unpaid search result will be a HAYPP Group Domain. Even niche searches such as “what is an upper decky” (Gen. Z slang for nicotine pouches) or basic searches such as “what are the top nicotine pouches” you will see that HAYPP Group owns the top of the search.
This is huge when sites like Google severely limit the amount of advertising that addictive products can utilize on their search engine. HAYPP ends up barely spending anything on marketing due to 40% of new customers coming through word of mouth and the rest from SEO.
Data
Their other field of expertise is data collection and selling. Due to the large variety of pouches and being the number one online seller of nicotine pouches, they have created a major database which they sell to various nicotine pouch producers such as Philip Morris and Altria. Producers buy these on an annualized basis, and you can see the usage of their data among the investor relation reports/presentations/websites of various producers. As you can see from my beautiful pictures on this post, they compile plenty of data to help me understand the business better.
Lowest Cost Seller and Best E-Commerce Distribution
Due to their distribution network, HAYPP has become one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) sellers of nicotine pouches in the world. You can buy Zyn’s cheaper from HAYPP websites than you can from the ZYN website. Haypp’s prices are 20-40% cheaper than grocery stores and 30-50% cheaper than convenience stores.
They have been integrating their distribution network so that most variable costs are being converted to vertical fixed costs creating operating leverage for them as they rapidly scale their revenue and are able to increase margins. They have implemented 2-day delivery across the US and close to implementing across Europe markets as well.
Leveraging Market Share for High Quality New Products
The last part of their business model is their ability to leverage their large consumer base to help new products capture market share, which allows them to capture higher margins on their products and it increases the variety of products which consumers would like to buy. In Nordic countries the variety of products is a benefit to them as consumers want to try various brands and flavors. When this competition trend hits the US it will only benefit them even more.
Why Haypp vs Pouch Companies
Currently in the US there are only a couple main brands with Zyn owning a huge chunk of the market. In Europe, Velo is the most popular brand but there are many Nordic brands that consistently attack margins and currently there is little competition in the US market which most likely won’t last much longer. As consumers search out the cheapest product and try to hunt for variety, HAYPP will be that future as convenience stores lag in variety and cost.
Products such as Zyn will definitely continue to grow (currently Zyn is growing at 70% y/y) but we could see margins shrink as competition becomes fiercer and consumers branch out away from the first movers, although Zyn continues to take up 70% of the US market. This only further benefits HAYPP as they are the go-to spot for a large amount of variety. Although they don’t benefit as much from less competition, they are still beneficiaries of an oligopoly esque market due to their cost and distribution networks.
Most large publicly traded pouch companies are also cigarette and chewing tobacco sellers who are rapidly seeing those segments get cannibalized by vaping and nicotine pouches combined with regulatory crackdown risk. Since HAYPP has no exposure to either one, you will not experience any cannibalization outside of snus cannibalization in the Nordics. This is the best pure play bet on nicotine pouch consumption.
Certain countries have limited the ability for consumers to have access to nicotine via retail stores which will allow them to take huge shares of the overall market in places like Germany or in California where they have banned flavored nicotine products in retail stores has led to windfall of customers to HAYPP’s e-commerce model.
Management
The current CEO of HAYPP group, Gavin O’Dowd, used to work for British American Tobacco (BAT) and was the driving force for the VELO acquisition. He currently owns 3.6% of the stock and various other PE firms and Family Offices own large chunks of HAYPP. Most executives have warrants that could give them the right to 200k-400k shares each (29m shares outstanding with no serious history of dilution).
Regulations
As many of you are aware, regulations are a huge part of the nicotine industry. Taxes are going to be huge risks, which are then combined with flavor bans. I think nicotine pouches are one of the products that are least likely to get hit with serious bans since their health risk is much lower than almost any other nicotine product.
The nicotine pouch industry as a whole has been behaving spectacularly well when it comes to ensuring they are not purposefully marketing to young people. They are trying to avoid having a Juul 2.0 fiasco which basically murdered that business and completely fragmented the vaping industry which is on the brink of regulatory crack down.
HAYPP does their part by ensuring age regulation across their whole site. They have age verification to order and deliver. They have a huge emphasis on ensuring that they abide by the law.
Financials
Core Segment (Nordic Countries)
The company is growing heavily in every segment that it operates in. Its core segment seems to be slowing down in growth due to heavy cannibalization from snus sales. This should only be temporary as nicotine pouch volume grows at 30%+ y/y. Once snus nears its cannibalization endpoint, I would expect revenue to begin growing again in its core market (although not at 30%). Current revenue is $250m USD and EBITDA is about $18m USD for just the core segment for the last twelve months. Management expects high single digit EBITDA margins for 2025.
Growth Segment (US, UK, Germany, Switzerland)
The growth segment is skyrocketing. Growth is over 46% y/y and this growth has been consistent and should continue to be consistent. EBITDA margin for the growth markets has begun to inflect positively which will cause a massive amount of leverage in their EBITDA to occur as their fixed cost model begins to do its job. As economies of scale drive forward, we should see this margin increase substantially over the coming years. Currently Revenue is at $77m USD for growth markets and EBITDA is at -$3.5m USD.
Let’s Talk about the Growth Segment a bit more.
This is where the real value from HAYPP will come into play. While it currently begins to inflect positive in terms of profitability, it should be noted that the Growth markets have a massive TAM compared to their core market and could cause the company to 5x in the next few years if they maintain or gain market share and continue to grow in these massive TAMs.
As they grow, their competitive advantage deepens due to sticky customers and cheaper products from economies of scale. The US has an even faster scale of 49%+ growth y/y and HAYPP is outpacing the US nicotine pouch growth at 57% y/y. As the US begins to approve various products and variety begins to flood the US market, a ton of US users want to try various Nordic brands that don’t have access which lends a very strong lean towards an online website such as HAYPP. The US is a very ripe environment along with the UK and Germany (where nicotine can only be sold online) for HAYPP to continue to outperform massively.
Emerging Segment
Their “emerging” segment is where they have begun to introduce vapes into their value chain. HAYPP is beginning to sell vapes to UK and Germany, but it is at the very beginning stages and has no current significant impact on their bottom or top line. The company says the growth they are experiencing in this segment has been very similar to the growth that they experienced when they introduced Nicotine Pouches in growth markets. This is the most likely segment to get hit with regulatory concerns, so for now I won’t even consider this in a to be a profitable unit and will just assume it will be a small drain on EBITDA for the foreseeable future.
Balance Sheet
The balance sheet is great with no large debt burden and good working capital management. As they hit profitability this yeaearly next year I would expect a cash build up until the company decides if they will be returning cash to shareholders or reinvesting in the business.
Valuation
HAYPP is extremely undervalued based on where they are from a profitability standpoint and their current inflection point. Due to their high growth, it will be hard to pinpoint an exact value on them so this will merely be an exercise in estimating their value among a range more than usual (anyone who claims they can perfectly value a high growth company is probably overvaluing due to unsound conviction).
First let’s look at how they are currently valued, which is roughly 14x their core EBITDA. Now let’s take a second and think about how insane that statement was. Their core market is the Nordic countries which will be hitting growth again as their snus cannibalization slows, the Nordic countries basically have no further regulation risk for nicotine pouches, and it is a noncyclical industry. I would argue that 14x their core EBITDA is probably an appropriate valuation based on only their core segment.
What this means is (if you haven’t noticed already) that you are getting their “growth” segment for free based on the valuation of the stock. The growth segment alone is probably worth multiples of the current stock price due to the massive TAM and extreme growth prospects. If we assume the emerging segment is worthless (which it isn’t and it will be profitable at some point) then that means all of the upside in the stock can be based on what the value of the growth segment. Based on TAM, growth, and lack of cyclicality then this leaves the only risk as regulation.
There will most likely be some sort of regulation, but we are very far from that as the Tobacco industry has been very careful in how they implement their new nicotine pouch momentum in a more appropriate way compared to vapes. The most likely regulations will probably be flavor bans of some sort or retail bans (which further benefits HAYPP). Regulations will most likely be limited in scope due to just the sheer lack of mortality risk associated with pouches vs any other form of common nicotine intake.
Based on their probable conservative revenue growth (40% average for the next 3 years, and 15% after that), EBITDA growth, the fact that they will have both core and growth markets at high single digit EBITDA margins in 2025, and their lack of cyclicality, then I would estimate that their Growth markets are worth a very conservative $400m-$500m USD. I am likely undershooting the valuation because they are driving profitability very fast and their revenue is growing closer to 40%-60% in growth markets right now. If they are able to keep up current growth figures and expand to double digit margins before the end of the decade then they could be worth 2x-3x this value (which is why valuing growth companies are so hard, because I can’t foresee the future). Again, I valued the emerging segment as worthless which is unlikely as well.
So, based on the value of $450m USD for the growth markets and the current value of $240 USD for the Nordic markets, that would create a sum of the parts equal to roughly $700m or nearly triple the current share price. This valuation leaves a ton of room for margin expansion and higher growth prospects because let’s face it, the US alone is probably worth at least 3x-5x more than the Nordic countries not including the UK, Germany, or Swiss. This is a very conservative valuation for the company, but it shows how great the risk/reward is based on the current price. Using a conservative valuation here also helps accommodate for regulation risk.
In SEK terms this would be 250 SEK/share or 7.35B SEK.
Conclusion
Even accommodating for regulation risk, a valuation of $700m seems appropriate as a starting point for the valuation for HAYPP Group. I think there is a very high likelihood that I could be off on this by a large margin, but I feel like the downside is very protected with this valuation. Management has been great in execution and I expect that to continue. In a more bullish case where every segment of the company fires on all cylinders we could see a valuation of $1.5B+, but that is not a scenario that I would like to bet my investors’ money on. For now, I will stay invested and keep watching them execute and adjust my valuation accordingly.
Disclaimer: The author of this idea and his Fund have a position in securities discussed at the time of posting and may trade in and out of this position without informing the reader.
Opinions expressed herein by the author are not an investment recommendation and are not meant to be relied upon in investment decisions. The author is not acting in an investment adviser capacity. This is not an investment research report. The author's opinions expressed herein address only select aspects of potential investment in securities of the companies mentioned and cannot be a substitute for comprehensive investment analysis. Any analysis presented herein is illustrative in nature, limited in scope, based on an incomplete set of information, and has limitations to its accuracy. The author recommends that potential and existing investors conduct thorough investment research of their own, including detailed review of the companies' SEC and CSA filings, and consult a qualified investment adviser. The information upon which this material is based was obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but has not been independently verified. Therefore, the author cannot guarantee its accuracy. Any opinions or estimates constitute the author's best judgment as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. The author and funds the author advises may buy or sell shares without any further notice. This article may contain certain opinions and “forward-looking statements,” which may be identified by the use of such words as “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “planned,” “estimated,” “potential,” “outlook,” “forecast,” “plan” and other similar terms. All such opinions and forward-looking statements are conditional and are subject to various factors, including, without limitation, general and local economic conditions, changing levels of competition within certain industries and markets, changes in legislation or regulation, and other economic, competitive, governmental, regulatory and technological factors, any or all of which could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results.