Yesterday I commented this on a post on this subreddit regarding someone’s bad experience with some guy she’s been talking to on Reddit.
“Babe, stop talking to men on Reddit fr. I’m yet to come across a single decent Indian man on Reddit. Most of them lurk here and drop weird messages about how they want to be friends. For real?”
Unfortunately, I had opened my messages up because I was discussing skincare with a woman and forgot to turn it off after the conversation was done. An insecure and irrelevant man, u/jeemogger sends me a message saying “Randi.. wanna be friends.. Randi”
u/jeemogger, I know you’re reading this. Freaking lurker you’re a disgrace to your family. The mere fact that you created an account to send me that filth shows how fucking low you are. You’re jobless and add nothing to this society. I hope your mum and sisters never come across a man like you. Illiterate lurker that knows nothing better than hiding behind anonymity and harassing people online because you don’t have the balls to talk to a female in real life. I hope you find something productive to do in life and grow a pair. Get well soon, because the way that you are is a terrible way to be.
Go die in a ditch, loser. You’re the reason indian men have such a bad rep everywhere. Thanks for proving my point, Indian man on Reddit.

Hi, another iOS user thinking of going back to android. My iphone 11 has been suffering from a lot of lagging and battery issues (77% max capacity), even though I love its camera.
The latest iphones have been extraordinarily expensive in my country, and apple has dropped the ball hard with the 14 and 15 - overpriced and boring shit all around.
So this made me reconsider going back to Android, cause there has been a drop in the prices of s23, mainly the 256/512gb models. Last Samsung i had was an A30 and it left a sour taste in my mouth - phone lagged a lot after one year of use. Are Samsung's flagships like that also?
Do you guys think it's still worth it to get an s23 coming from an iphone 11? Would it also be worth it to wait a little and get the ultra version? I'd really like to try the S pen even though I know it's a gimmick lol and I don't like Xiaomi neither Motorola, so please don't tell me to get them lmao.
What I look for in a smartphone: - 120 hz OLED screen - good battery to last for a day - good performance, no stuttering and lagging - great camera, comparable to iphone 11 at least - longevity for at least the next 2 years - seamless integration with an affordable smartwatch/smartband (i love exercising and i miss my broken used Apple watch but I'd never pay what they're charging for the new ones lmao) - good performance for gaming and emulation would be a plus
I THINK the s23 has all these things and the Galaxy watch 6 has been getting cheaper in my country to top it all off. Do you guys thinks I'd miss the mark here or would I make a good choice? You can be brutally honest.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

Hey guys I wrote two versions of the first fight scene of dumb machop isekai and would like your opinions on which you think is more engaging, more interesting, better written, whatever. Let me know.
Obviously there is prior context to the scene missing, but basically our boy is in the middle of the woods when an Abra walks up to him, generates some weird distortion in the air, and makes it clear its time to throw hands. This is our boys first fight of the story.
I tried making the second draft a little less verbose in areas where I felt it was unnecessary, but you let me know if the missing, added, and rearranged detail makes it better or worse, and in what ways. I also added an injury at the start of the fight and made the ending more violent for emphasis. Not injuring the Abra makes the MC seem crazy, risking himself like that to bask. More understandable without an injury to spur his fear in that first draft, but still, I think a more complete incapacitation seems the way to go either way. Feel free to point out grammar mistakes, they are drafts for a reason. The rewrite divergence point begins at the arrows.
Isekai machop vs abra, drafts 1 and 2.
Draft 1:
I didn't know what that distortion was. Maybe it was a landmine, maybe it was a tripwire that would let Abra attack from two angles if I got between it and them. Maybe it was the beginnings of a battlefield coverage move, or a bomb, or an arbitrary marker in 3D space that would help Abra orientate itself, or the anchor by which it was now pushing itself off the ground and levitating with. But another possibility rested at the back of my mind, a possibility with an obvious path to victory, if it were true. I chose that path.
Fighting types were weak to psychic types, I knew this. I also knew that psychic powers were fucking scary. Strong and invisible and without any startup, in theory. In some fictional stories they didn't even need to see you, and they could do things like directly modify your thoughts. If there weren't strict limitations to a power like that then it would just be unreasonably strong, so strong that psychics should have wiped every other species off the face of the planet. The fact they hadn't, I hoped, meant that I still had a chance. I would make decisions based on the assumption I did.
First things first, testing the waters. If this failed, I would run away. That Abra was walking until it saw me, implying flight took some kind of energy. I probably had more endurance than this thing's flight, and more speed than it did in two legs. I could probably escape if the need arose.
I crouched to pick up a hefty rock, a little larger than my hand, and started to run sideways at top speed, circling my opponent from a distance. Its eyes began to glow as it tracked me in place, like it sat on an invisible swivel chair. I tensed in preparation to be struck with sudden pain, either from a killer headache, twisted muscle, or full body hold. Then I saw it, a faint purple haze snaking its way between us, so faint that I certainly only noticed it because of my enhanced senses, fast as a bullet.
→I dropped to my knees and slid beneath it, before I launched myself behind the nearest tree. My chest thrummed with excitement! I can do this! Psychic energy has travel time! It couldn't just bridge gaps in space arbitrarily, and its speed wasn't like a particle of light or something equally ridiculous. This Abra was nothing more than a glorified turret.
I tore off an impressive chunk of wood from the tree, and crushed a handful into smaller chunks with a squeeze. I darted out and shotgunned them at the floating fox. A middle chunk of the wood seemed to waver and slow, apparently colliding midair with whatever attack it had sent my way. The remaining wood shrapnel flew fast enough and in a cone wide enough that the abra simply couldn't dodge, though its attempt revealed its prodigious speed. Holy shit it could fly. It was hit, and though I half expected a skewered fox, all I got was a disorientated psychic. Good enough, I rushed it down myself, bashing rock still in hand.
As I bore down on its position, stuck choosing between a pressured retreat and close quarters combat with me, it chose a third, less risky option. The instant its body distorted, I turned around and hurled the rock with all my might. The moment Abra appeared at the distortion it placed earlier, it was struck by something nearly its own body weight moving at the speed of a musket ball, directly against its forehead.
Abra was launched away at speed, flipping backwards violently. Abra seemed to try and correct its orientation with its levitation powers, but that proved a mistake, because it only served to toss itself sideways into a tree waist first, eliciting a proper yelp. It flipped like a beyblade now, having hardly killed its initial speed. Soon afterwards, its remaining momentum was focused into another tree to the head. Instead of sending it sprawling, it started to finally stabilize in place. Abra began to float slightly higher while its upper body was pushed over its lower, forcefully orienting itself into a sitting position.
It was from this position that Abra was finally able to see the Machop two strides away, eyes opening wide in reaction. I never drop the follow through. By the time I was airborne in my first stride, Abra was floating up fast. By the time I landed, I had already understood its reactionary choice, and leapt. Though it started earlier, I rose faster. I caught its leg in as iron a grip I could muster. My forward momentum and weight shot us out of the sky before I sledgehammered the thing full body into the dirt.
I shot forward and down to grasp its thin neck just tight enough that I could wring it with a bit more force, and held my other fist ready to pummel. Normally this is the part where I would finish it, but instead I grinned and waited. Fucking do something. Its head was bleeding, though far less than I would have expected, as it looked into my eyes with its own, now wide, peepers. Even across the species barrier its sheer terror was palpable.
It was at this point that the littlest bulbasaur appeared above ground, looking at us with its mouth agape. "You won!?"
Draft 2:
I didn't know what that distortion was. Maybe it was a landmine, maybe it was a tripwire that would let Abra attack from two angles if I got between it and them. Maybe it was the beginnings of a battlefield coverage move, or a bomb, or an arbitrary marker in 3D space that would help Abra orientate itself, or the anchor by which it was now pushing itself off the ground and levitating with. But another possibility rested at the back of my mind, a possibility with an obvious path to victory, if it were true. I chose that path.
Fighting types were weak to psychic types, I knew this. I also knew that psychic powers were fucking scary. Strong and invisible and without any startup, in theory. In some fictional stories they didn't even need to see you, and they could do things like directly modify your thoughts. If there weren't strict limitations to a power like that then it would just be unreasonably strong, so strong that psychics should have wiped every other species off the face of the planet. The fact they hadn't, I hoped, meant that I still had a chance. I would make decisions based on the assumption I did.
First things first, testing the waters. If this failed, I would run away. That Abra was walking until it saw me, implying flight took some kind of energy. I probably had more endurance than this thing's flight, and more speed than it did in two legs. I could probably escape if the need arose.
I crouched to pick up a hefty rock, a little larger than my hand, and started to run sideways at top speed, circling my opponent from a distance. Its eyes began to glow as it tracked me in place, like it sat on an invisible swivel chair. I tensed in preparation to be struck with sudden pain, either from a killer headache, twisted muscle, or full body hold. Then I saw it, a faint purple haze snaking its way between us, so faint that I certainly only noticed it because of my enhanced senses, fast as a bullet.
→It didn't work. I failed to dodge it. I should run. Can I run?
On earth, my body was simply more fragile than my will. It's all too easy to push your body to its end. Humans spend more time working around limitations than they do pushing their limits. And every time you find something worth pushing your will to its fullest for, your body will inevitably fail. Because of this, the greatest combatants use only as much as is necessary, push their bodies as far as they are worth pushing and no more. If that isn't enough, they fill the gap with schemes and techniques. If that too, isn't enough, they can simply escue all their limits, use up everything their flesh will give, and die. Put it all on one moment.
Seems most people never found whatever they'd push that hard for, or at least were never put into a situation where they had to fight for it. I was. Some people think their lives have value beyond what those lives can bring to them. Existence is just a net. Every step is a sway through the waters of experience, to capture it, that moment. You only get one. Because the body can't handle more.
It was only now, as my thigh turned into pulp, ripped to the bone, my body screaming at me, that I was possessed of a revelation so strong it rippled through my whole being.
Now, there's no gaps to fill, now, I can push as hard as I want, now, I can experience that moment as many times as my will can reach it.
Half a moment after I was attacked, I bent my remaining leg and catapulted myself behind the nearest tree. By the time I hit its cover I was laughing. By the instant I left it, I was squeezing a massive wood chunk ready to throw. I chucked it hard, a portion of the shrapnel losing its speed and wobbling midair against the Abras follow up attack. The remaining splinters shotgunned forwards and met flesh.
Instead of a skewered fox, I got a disoriented psychic, but that's fine. I was already galloping forward on a leg and its opposite arm. When my enemy recovered, I was already bearing down. My senses were so close to their peak that I realized Abras next move at the same time they made it. When I bore down on it for long enough that it should have started moving, should have several instances beyond enough time to react with at least something panicked, and it had not, I knew what it was about to do.
The fact that it hadn't tried to create distance or panicked told me that its startup was at least fast enough to save them from the rock I was slamming down upon them right now. So I adjusted my muscles, and burned them to plow right through Abra and around again. As the abras form wavered, it disappeared. Then they reappeared at the distortion they placed when this fight began, and was immediately blasted in the skull by the rock I had cannoned behind my swing.
By the time they'd hit two trees trying to correct with levitation, and beybladed through the air thanks to sheer velocity, I was nearly upon them. As they regained control. Their eyes opened in fear. Without their little fallback, they really couldn't run now. They began to float higher, my foot hit the ground, they created distance, I closed it. Though they began earlier, my leap rose faster, I caught their leg in a grip akin to a garbage compactor and a raccoon that just didn't know any better, let my weight and sheer momentum tear us from the sky, and hammered them into solid bark covered root.
I didn't stop now, everyone knows what you do to zoners who get in range. I struck, though the force was great, there was hardly any damage. I struck, the Abras eyes were alight with panic, it helds its hands towards me. I felt what it was about to do, and let the gravity of my acceptance hold my heart and mind steady for the shock of having my kidneys blown out. It didn't come. I struck, and this one was different.
When I hit it with the wood, it seemed little different from taking a push and some dust in the eye, when I hit with my rock, it bled and flew, but nothing more. When I struck once and twice, with the might of ten men, it seemed to take it as the blows of one. Now, its skull cracked audibly, blood vessels burst out to open air as an eye swelled from hidden pressure. I struck, the other side transformed into something more horrible than the first, Abra engulfed air with a staggered rhythm, like a reverse whoopee cushion, the pitch and tone of the intake close to what a child's sobbing would be.
I gathered its wrists in my hands and destroyed them as easily as making a fist. Its discordant gasps were now constant, burbling and choking on its panic. Not a thought in that head. I smiled. I laughed. I flipped my opponent over and sat on its back, relaxed as my hand descended to grace its neck, ready to crush at the slightest provocation.
Before anything else, I saw that runt of a bulbasaur moving from its shelter with trepidation in its step, and purpose in its eyes. When it saw me, the weight left its gaze, it froze, mouth hanging open. "You won?!"

So I (24f) went out with two friends and a mutual friend a couple of months ago (sorta felt like an unspoken double date) the mutual friend was cute . He expressed to my friend after that he thought I was cute and have a cute butt. But we never shared contacts. So awhile after the same type of hangout incurred, on somewhat of a more boozy outing on a Friday night. We were having fun conversations, and me and the guy were hitting it off. After drinks I was supposed to be leaving alone for more drinks with my other friends. He asked to join me as we left the mutuals. He ended up meeting my core friends and we had a blast of a night, danced and partied and made out and sexual chemistry was through the roof. He tried to get me to come home with him but I told him we’ll meet some other day and said goodbye.
A couple of days later, he reaches out to hangout. But I was kind of busy and plans were in the air and told him I’ll be hanging out with the (mutual friend) at some point. I didn’t end up communicating with him and joined them at some point, and we all hungout together very casually. He was acting like a friend during hangout not paying me a lot of attention which I didn’t mind. The hangout ended early so he was like do you wanna leave together, and I agreed. So we chilled in the car for a bit and he suggested to go to his place (he has a home theatre and I am a filmmaker) so I agreed a bit reluctantly as he’s a new guy and I wasn’t sure about sleeping with him just yet. Eitherways we got there and I realized I forgot my phone and we quickly left to get it. His car stopped working and we had to switch to his dads car, and he was giving me attitude which made me feel twice as bad given I wasn’t familiar with that area of town and I was in a new situation that is out of my comfort zone. This made me want to compensate and make the situation better so on our way we were flirting and I suggested we stop for a bit (when I really should’ve focused on just getting my phone and going home) but the whole thing threw me off and made me act out of character. We made out and kind of hooked up in the car and I stopped it midway but he didn’t want the case of blue balls so I just gave him a blowjob and he came in my mouth without warning, which I expressed annoyance at. As we’re leaving and got my phone and all I expressed that I am also blue balled at this point and eitherways I got home and I felt like shit about the whole thing.
He texted me a few days later, and I expressed that the night was a flop and he said it was unexpected but it was still fun for him. And I told him that I didn’t feel good about it and that it kind of disoriented me.
He asked me to illustrate and I told him, I was panicked over losing my phone and instead of making myself feel better I opted to make him feel better to make the situation okay again.
He joked saying oh he also expected we weren’t gonna do anything and just call it a night after getting my phone and that if it is any consolation I did make him feel better lol. I got kind of annoyed and told him I needed a friend in that moment and that he lost booty points and we will need to reset.
He apologized and said he doesn’t understand how I needed a friend. I told him I’ll talk to him over the phone about this, we chatted the next day and I told him the whole thing in my perspective, that I felt attitude from him and it made me feel bad and wanna make him feel better because I thought he was bummed about not going to his place. He told me to immediately stop this train of thought because he is not that type of guy and that he was following my lead and any attitude I felt was because he was pissed about needing to fix his car which had nothing to do with me.
I told him I understand and thanks for clearing it up and he asked me if we’re good and I said yes.
Today he texted me telling me he’s thinking about me and we chatted a little bit as he’s traveling for a few days.
I need advice because I have been out of the dating loop for a little bit. And I realized that I don’t want to sleep with people until a bit later. However I only have the summer left in the country as I am moving soon.
Should I end it? Do you think he’s only after sex? How should I proceed given i don’t want anything serious but I also don’t want to be one night stand and need more trust in a dynamic before I am okay with pursuing sex? What should I do next?
I think we have great chemistry and he’s a fun guy that I would like to see more often and even if we don’t end up dating I will still hangout with him as a friend. But I am a bit hesitant.

We Need A Pinned Post Lottery Offseason Thread
Detroit Pistons 2024-25 Depth Chart
PG - C. Cunningham, M. Monte, M. Sasser
SG - G. Trent Jr, J. Ivey, D. Knecht
SF - A. Thompson, C. Levert, H. Ingram
PF - S. Fonteccio, I. Stewart, C. Osman
C - I. Hartenstein, J. Duren, M. Muscala
Notable Issues from last season
Three Point Shooting (Spacing) / Interior Defense Specifically (Shot Blocking) / Turnovers / Generating Steals
Notable Positives
Rebounding / Rim Pressure (Slashing) / Mid-Range Scoring
Out
James Wiseman - Had maybe one good stretch where he was affective over five games, but struggled the majority of the season. Decent shot blocker and had a good enough motor, but still lacks a ton of court feel and often doesnt know where to be. He has a team option on his rookie contract and the team should not be looking at bringing him back under any circumstances.
Troy Brown - Doesn't do much to impact the game on either end and was pretty much invisible during his stint in the rotation. His contact ends this season and they should look to upgrade.
Malachi Flynn - Didn't show the ability to get his teammates open consistently and was particularity bad as a lead guard in the Pick & Roll. Despite the 50 point game, he struggled at pretty much every other moment while he was in the rotation. If they do think about bringing him back, it should be on the minimum for one year and they should still look at getting a true back up point guard to help ease the turnover issue the team has.
Evan Fournier - Has a team option contact worth 19 million that should be declined. Not particularly special or consistent in any one area, but had his occasional moments as a shooter. If he is brought back it should be on a drastically reduced contract, otherwise they should allow him to walk.
Chimezie Metu - Had his moments, but I question what his actual position is. Not big enough to play C and not consistent enough of a shooter or quick enough laterally on defense to play on the wings. Wouldn't be mad if they brought him back, but I feel like they should attempt to find his replacement.
Taj Gibson - Past his prime, didn't really play a ton. I don't have much else to say about him.
Quentin Grimes - One of our only decent trade assets outside of our young core and he could get us at least a decent vet role player if combined with some future 2nd rounders. Wouldn't be mad at all if he's on the roster next season, despite the fact that he struggled during his short stint with us. Could fit very well next to Cade, Ausar, and Ivey and provide versatility to our bench.
Jared Rhoden - Two-way guy didn't play alot, but wasn't affective when he was on the floor.
Buddy Boehim - Two-way guy, who I struggle to see ever making the jump to the league. Little athletism and a target on defense.
Tosan Evbuomwan - Two-way guy with good effort and motor, but he's not particularly affective at the moment. Wouldn't be mad at them giving him one more year on a two way contract.
Monty Williams - Consistently went away from lineups and plays that were affective in favor of playing his guys (Killian, Livers, Flynn). Didn't get handed the greatest hand obviously, but would frequently disrupt any flow our guys had in favor of 5 man substitutions, that would see 15 point leads gone in the span of a few minutes, and our good lineup faced with a near 10+ point deficit once subbed back in. Also didn't adjust his game plan nearly enough.
Troy Weaver - NO WORDS NEED TO BE SPOKEN.
In
Potential Coaches
Chris Quinn
Jarron Collins
Kenny Atkinson
James Borrego
Terry Stotts
Trade Pistons Get: Caris Levert/ Pick 30
Cavs Get: Quentin Grimes/ Chimezie Metu/53rd Pick/
Celtics Get: 2027 2nd Round Pick/2030 2nd Round Pick
Free Agents (That I Would Sign)
Isaiah Hartenstein - Really good defender who knows when to negate the roller and when to step up to cut off the ball handler, which is great for a young team who has its lapses in the pick & roll. Would provide a great starting option while Duren continues to develop off of the bench. Also a pretty good finisher and connective playmaker for his size. Could front load his contact and provide a significant pay raise to lure him to the team. I like him just a little more than Nic Claxton (who I believe will be resigned by the nets) because of his strength, but would be fine with either. Also would be willing to pay him more than stated seeing as New York can't offer anywhere near as much money as we can.
Gary Trent Jr - Prolific Floor Spacer. Not the greatest defender or playmaker, but shouldn't be as big of an issue next to Cade and Ausar. We will have to overpay for him though, seeing as Toronto has the money to keep him.
Or
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope - AN ACTUAL THREE & D guard next to Cade which is what this team desperately needs until Ivey is ready to play that role consistently if he ever is. Not a lockdown defender, but has a very good defensive iq and knows where to be in order to be a good team defender next to Ausar. Would obviously be a good floor spacer. Could also front load his contract to attract him to the team seeing as he's in the same situation with Denver as Hartenstein is with New York.
Monte Morris - Should not have been traded in the first place. Good playmaking option of the bench who also had one of the better AST/TO ratios in the league. Would help to cut down on TO's for a team that often lost games soley because of them.
Simeone Fonteccio (Resign) - Played very well next to the young core and was very affective from the moment he got to the team. Was practically a way better defending / slightly worse finishing Bojan. Cade played his best basketball next to him.
Mike Muscala - Good floor spacing big.
Cedi Osman - Decent wing depth vet
Other Options Nic Claxton (C) Malik Beasley (SG) De'Anthony Melton (SG) Malik Monk (SG) Royce O'Neale (SF) Bruce Brown (SG) Gary Trent (SG) Markelle Fultz (PG) Isaac Okoro (SG) Derrick Jones Jr (SF) Caleb Martin (SF) Jonas Valanciunas (C) Taurean Prince (PF) Kyle Andersen (PF) Cam Payne (PG) Jordan McLaughlin (PG) Isaiah Joe (SG) Cedi Osman (SF) Lonnie Walker (SG) Patty Mills (PG) Jalen Smith (PF) Daniel Theis (C) Thomas Bryant (C) Lamar Stevens (SF) Delon Wright (PG) Matt Ryan (SF)
Draft
Pick 5 - Dalton Knecht (Good Floor Spacer, who can also finish at the rim. Won't be asked to create a ton for himself. Not worried about his defense when played next to Ausar.) We could also trade back in the draft to get him while picking up an extra asset.
or
Matas Buzelis (Could be very affective if his high school shooting numbers translate to the league and he's able to get stronger. Biggest ? In the draft, but worth the risk.)
Pick 30 - Harrison Ingram (Good-not-great defender who may struggle to defend speedier guards, but has very good hands and can help to generate more steals while also being a good team defender. He can also space the floor consistently and could add more wing depth and length at the SF position.
Let me know what you think.

I 33F thought I would shoot my shot as a woman and texted someone I know through work out for drinks. Didn’t even get a reply and now I’m a ball of anxious energy. Was 100% prepped for rejection but this is a different feeling I have 2 weeks off work so I don’t have to show my face there but have I messed up? Edit: I’m not actively trying to date at the moment, I am trying to have a baby on my own and now I like this guy so thought I’d put myself out there

Ohk so I'm 17 (F) new to delhi I was born here but (Army brat) yk so after 17 years of my life we're here settled in Delhi my experience in Delhi metro has been good until today A guy boarded the metro two or three stations after I did so I got a seat and sat it was near the door that guy stepped in and stood infront of me legit his dick was few inches away from my face popping out of his jeans and I was so uncomfortable that guy didn't even flinch as if that jerk was waiting for me to give him a BJ and as it got unbearable I acted settling down properly and hit my elbow on his balls that pervert screamed and I was like omg I'm so sorry are you okay? Ashamed and embarrassed he got off at the next station So genuinely I didn't mean to hurt him but he was smirking all that time and I could sense his intentions so I did what came in my mind Let me know if he'll get back to kill me 🫠

No video games No talking about something No thinking of a faction, or affiliation with anything
Like what am I? What can I talk about for myself? Like - If video games, characters, current events, teams, balls, anything is off limits to talk or think about
What am I? I have nothing really No religion, no faction, no country, no association
Just myself, no friends either I spent some time most days scrolling feeds, it's always some guy talking about another guy's problems, a girl whining she can't find the right guy, a girl talking about her hookups, a Muslim guilting other Muslims, some anime guy talking about an anime
I don't know, I don't like it I don't like much of anything these days
It feels empty - I am 25 years old today, and still I feel lost. Very lost. I'm not sure about anything and I don't know what to do. I give and I give, I am a giving person but it just makes people treat me wrong. I've been treated very poorly and was told to just fuck off. Makes me wish I had time travel to take back all my kindness from those people, it bothers me quite a lot.
But it's a lesson to repeat if I don't learn - Don't ignore red flags, don't put yourself in a one sided relationship
I do have this book called the 48 laws of power and I think I remember a part that talks about friendships.. I guess that book now makes sense on friendships for me.
My heart feels a bit of pain, and my head is just full of anger over it. If time travel was real, I'd reverse all the good I did for others. What's the point of treating others good if I'm just going to be disrespected if they're comfortable. They don't even feel sorry but find faults in me to blame for this.
(I should do something - make a video on giving? Regret after you've been wronged?, I think that'd be a good video but again, not sure of that)
I would like to do YouTube - I've been longing for some time I don't get many views (well does it matter? No it doesn't, but should still go through with it)
I don't like my life right now - I'm just wasting time

I found this novel through a YouTube story recap but this guy never posts the name of the novel he recaps, and most of the time I have to go to the comment to find other people who know the name, but nobody seems to know the name of this one, or at least they not sharing it.
Novel Description/Summary-
The main protagonist, Qin Chen picks up a Centurion Black credit card and awakens the Tiandao system that rewards him with both wealth and power as he completes tasks all while attending college to complete the main mission of the system. He was originally a poor student with no family background and upon getting this system that rewards him with both wealth and power, his whole demeanor changes to that of a big shot who can't be touched, and through completing these side quests he is given rewards like a first-class villa, or 100% shares of a fortune 500 company based in the US which results in the people of wall street trying to short the company to force him to sell it back to them because they can't accept the idea of a Chinese man owning an American company (It backfires bigtime!) he also was rewarded with level 4 martial arts abilities, which adds a cultivation aspect to the novel, and where the video stops is where he uses this Eclipse Yacht that he was rewarded to allow a friend to host a party in Magic City where he beats up some idiot young masters and shows them who the boss is, and then one of them who acts as if he is loyal tries to set him up by calling people to tell on him as well as call a woman in charge of a gambling house to siphon Qin Chen dry when Qin Chen offers his friend to win back a debt of 10 billion that he was scammed into taking through the people on this private gambling island, and once again shows his ability by winning back millions with only a starting capital of 100 dollars in chips that ultimately screwed over the slime ball who tried to trick Qin Chen into losing all his money and being forced to borrow just like the other guy.
Sorry for the long explanation, but I want to give as much detail as I can in hopes of finding someone who knows the name of the novel. I really want to continue where it left off from the video as the recapper hardly ever makes part 2 videos even when there are a plethora of chapters which is just stupid in my opinion.

Ove the last few months I've been doing some work to try and understand the extreme anxiety I have been experiencing which is 9/10 triggered between dates.
This is less about her and more about me and my neediness, past traumas catching up to me, hypervigilance to any small sign of a potential drop in attraction etc. That being said she is not the most needy or expressive girl I've ever dated. Before anyone immediately assumes that's some sign of a lack of attraction or an indicator of low interest - I have experienced girlfriends who are needy and will constantly love bomb and be in contact expressing their undying love for you, right up until they put their phone down to cheat on you with the guy they invited over behind your back... so no, i dont think measuring texts is a wise way of measuring their interest....yes, I'm sure I have trust issues, yes this has affected my ability to stay calm and relaxed. But the point I'm trying to make is that this isn't about HER making me uncomfortable. It's MY anxiety at play and I'm trying to sort through that.
9/10 when I have shared a text exchange I've had with her to someone familiar with ccw they tell me I must be confused because her messages are anything but dry, she is the one reaching out 9/10, she is the one pushing to see me 8/10 and inviting herself over. But there are uncertainties surrounding the relationship (as is totally normal to some degree, you never have full certainty) which seem to be amplified in my head when she is taking longer to respond, seeming a bit more dry, being even just slightly less affectionate in return to something I've said etc.
By this point, the subject of the anxiety is probably at question... it's fundamentally all revolving around texting. I'll be totally fine after we have seen eachother and then she reaches out and my brain does backflips trying to decode the meaning of her messages, what does she want? Did I say enough? Did I say too little? Is she losing interest? Is this all just a lie? Why does she seem so disinterested/sure of herself?
I can't read the tone, I can't see her facial expressions - and I always have the awareness in my mind that I might say something and not get a response for hours and sometimes it's even been days (unless I'm asking a specific question), in which case I just keep matching and mirroring and sometimes being spontaneous too. If I sense low effort I back off... if I sense her wanting my attention and validation I give a little and then try close the conversation. I know this is where I'm supposed to set a date or invite her over but experience with her has told me that she is not necessarily trying to make immediate plans by reaching out and we have a bit of a pattern where I tend to make more legitimate dates and she invites herself over during the week after work so I don't think I'm "missing an opportunity" or something. I think she just wants some of my presence in these moments.
There seems to be no clean etiquette around texting... you can "end" an exchange but there are no rules about how to end it, how to restart it, who should be restarting it etc. I really despise the pressure cooker that is texting. When we are together things are really good.... and then bam! Texts come and I'm back to this state of mind. Every text feels like a loaded gun in which I may miss or hit the target. If I don't respond, I have the NEED to respond in the back of my head, or following me like a dark shadow. If I haven't received a response I go into fight or flight panic mode waiting for a truck to hit me. It's so over the top.
I know this is extreme overthinking but that is where I am at. Let me try give an example of an anxiety inducing episode I'm experiencing now:
She messages, I message back, we make plans for weekend, she says something playful, I tell her something playful but sweet, she responds with a playful and sweet message (no questions or clear indication it requires a response) and it's late at night.... so I think to myself "ill respond tomorrow"
Tomorrow was yesterday and I realised I just have no energy to say anything in return... the more time went by the less natural a response would have seemed, then I thought maybe I could send her something else random if I came across it just so she doesn't feel "ignored" but I never came across anything not did I feel like it. I just had nothing and no energy to text her back.... it stresses me out feeling as if I'm being cold or that she might stubbornly get butt hurt by this. But what's crazy is that she has initiated silence like this before and it sends me spinning out.
Guys this sounds crazy enough, I am aware that this is ridiculous, that I'm supposed to not even have the energy or time to focus on shit like this but that's why I'm calling it anxiety and not just fear, it's totally irrational and overwhelming - I'm not stupid, or ill informed - just possessed by these thoughts and feelings that something must be resolved so I can relax again.
I guess if I had to turn this post into some questions they would be:
Is it fair of me to not want to text? Is it okay to be the one who goes quiet and non responsive or should we always leave the ball in their court? Am I doing the right thing by not forcing myself to keep communication going despite being overwhelmed? Should I focus solely on our time together?
What are some blind spots I might be missing due to my confusion/exhaustion? What standa out from what I've said?
EDIT: I forgot to add that sometimes I also just feel like I need space to get my head right or focus on other things going on in my life - and I just don't have the energy to keep making sure I'm saying enough/just enough/being attractive enough/not missing cues etc.... it is totally draining me and I don't understand why?

What do I do? I met this guy back in june and we hit it off great at first but there was some disrespect and we had some fights about it that led to us breaking up a couple months later.. a week or so later I found out I was pregnant with his child. I was alone my entire pregnancy and was single. It was extremely rocky with him because at first he didn’t want the baby and was saying horrible things to me and about me and our son. At the end, he wanted to be involved and we got back together. I found out he lied about being in a 2 month relationship with this one girl during my pregnancy while we were not together. Claimed he loved her etc.. but she broke it off with him bc she didn’t want our son in his household with her kid( she wanted it to be them only). I found this out a couple weeks ago. Our son was born a month and a half ago and I moved in with him a couple hours away from family and friends to be with him and have our family together. At first he was great, but he would still do disrespectful things that I did not approve of and he knew I wouldn’t, and it has kept on going on and on now … every single time I bring up how I feel or how he hurt me or something along those lines, it always turns into an argument. He calls me a dumbass, stupid, says he hates me and hates being with me sometimes, threatens me to go back home where I was before, physically pushes me ( too many times to count), told me he wished he had a gf who is not like me, called me a bitch a couple times and a cunt and just so much more verbal and emotional abuse. Tells me my feelings are not right and that I should not feel the way I do. He never listens when I talk to him about how he hurts me or disrespects me and he chops it up to me being the problem every single time. He never wants to talk and discuss things that need to be… and just so much more. He eventually apologizes and tells me he loves me but he keeps doing the same stuff and saying it during every fight, I am stuck because I want to be with him. And I don’t want him taking my son from me, he is a police officer and he has connections to take him from me bc I do not have a car or a home or anything right now. I just don’t know what to do.. I know I deserve better, but I want to be with him because I seen his good side but he does things that hurt me. But we have a newborn and I want our family together.

I’m a trans bisexual male. Me and my crush of 8 YEARS, went to the same school till year 8. We don’t go to the same hs but I see him online and around the neighbourhood. I always have sudden urges to see him again or hit him up. bc I have dreams or daydreams about us. But the thing is we HAVENT TALKED since 4 years ago, so wouldn’t it just be awkward if I just popped up. But seeing him again would put these emotions away.
I was about 8-9 years old when I met him. Over the past 8 years I’ve been with other people, I’ve liked other people. But my mind is always brought back to him. I’ve never liked someone for so long and wanted somebody this desperately. And it wasn’t like we had a close friendship, we were just classmates in most situations. The first 2 years my feelings for him were strong, and he knew I liked him since my friends would tell him. Whenever he’d ask tho I’d say no. I had a feeling he did like me back at some point but we never got anywhere bc I’d always run away like an idiot.
I saw him just two days ago taking a run (he lives just down the road from me.) he looked EXACTLY the same and I’ll be real, I stopped just to watch his back run off. He’s always running around the neighbourhood bc he’s a sports freak. A soccer addict guy. I went and searched him up on Insta on my alt acc. (All he posts is soccer.) The urge to dm him on my main account, just to talk or to hangout with him is rising slowly. But I’m hesitating.
Why do I think I even have a chance with this dude. Why do I think he’d even want to talk or hang out. Our friend groups are so different and he’s probably busy all the time. He’s probably not even gay or bi or ANYTHING, and yet there’s this small sliver of hope that he’ll like me back even if I’m a guy now. Since he’s never dated anyone, atleast not that I know of…maybe he likes a girl, I think about that all the time. If I STAYED a girl would he like me back? Nope. Before I came out transgender I was the most masculine girl around. but I don’t feel jealous or mad, knowing he probably likes girls. The only emotion I feel rn for him is need. Even if he just wants to be friends I’m fine with that, I crave him in my life after so much years of wanting him.
How the heck do I start up a conversation with him tho? I’m thinking of all the worst things that will happen. Do I just say “hi do u remember me, we use to go to school together. Oh yea and also I’m a guy now..” DO YK HOW AWKWARD THAT IS. (ik that’s basically what I have to say) I’m stupid for still liking this guy who probably doesn’t even think about me anymore bro.
How do I tell him I’ve been thinking about him, that I still miss him, he’ll be weirded out and I’ll look like an idiot. Telling him I still miss him after just…not speaking to him in 4 years. Do I just ask him “do u want to hangout?” I’m the last thing he’d even care about. He’d rather date a soccer ball then an actual human. If I told my friends about him they’d just tell me “there’s nothing special about this guy all he does is play soccer?” AND I KNOW THAT. How the heck do I still like this guy? We don’t even see eachother anymore and we don’t text. But he was my first gay crush. What do I do I’m an idiot.

With the official opening of the Intercounty League today - Thursday, May 16, 2024 - we've finally arrived at long last to the moment these fans have waited for as the summer collegiate season begins today in North America.
Canada's oldest summer league will today kick off a five month season of action across this part of the world with its players ready not just to help their team fight for a championship but also for them to show the world their readiness to step on the shoes of legends as they prepare for the call from their future teams at the MLB Draft in July. And come September, these guys too will close out the season the last after the rest of their leagues.
They, together with the Western Canadian and West Coast leagues, which compose the Canadian summer ball scene, are preparing to welcome fans and online viewers eager and excited to see them play this summer no matter where they play and who's playing in their teams for this year.
To all the fans in Canada may the glad tidings of this brand new season of summer ball be upon you all!
To all of the fans in the United States, your summer ball season begins in a week from now!
John

Okay, so let me just start off by saying I'm not one of those guys who always says, "This is gonna be my summer," or "I'm gonna have such a glow-up this summer." I actually started improving myself at the end of December and have been losing a lot of weight and putting on a lot of muscle at the same time.
It all started when I was at a friend of mine's birthday party, and we all randomly decided to go play basketball. Of course, after about 30 minutes of a 3-on-3 game, my dumb-ass self decided to fall off the side of the concrete basketball court and shatter my ankle. I immediately wiped out on the court, sitting there in agony, and all my friends had to carry me to the car, where they then drove me to the ER, meeting my mom. After 4 x-rays and 3 hours later, the swelling started to calm down, and they put a boot on me that I've been wearing since. When they first got me out, I assumed that it wasn't that bad, and I would be back to working out every morning and trying to get better at ball, but no. I just had a follow-up appointment today, and they said that I would be out of commission for 2 and a half months. And I'm not even gonna lie, I've probably cried 3 times a day since I first got hurt because I knew I wasn't gonna be able to be physically active for a while and started to feel really depressed, and now I'm gonna get fat, slow, and extremely unathletic, and I'm gonna miss out on basketball camp. I'm really upset writing this. Feeling like a total loser. It sucks, man. It really does.

Hey everyone, I'm back for yet another daily guide! Sorry I didn't get around to one the last couple of days - I tried on the 14th and oh boy was that hard. I gave up half way through because I ran out of time! Thankfully this one is much better because I still had my sanity by the end!
As we've previously found, reloading the browser makes changes to the rng, so now I have notes when the browser has been reloaded so you can reload it too :). As per usual, sorry about the reloads - it'd be much easier if there weren't any, but I had some issues and instead of being able to restart I had to reload. Also there's at least one place where I've said to quit to menu and continue - I don't think this is the same as a reload, so maybe don't reload and just quit to menu instead?
Also, as we've found out, it looks like different browsers have different RNG. I use firefox when making my guides, but if you use chrome, there may be some small differences here and there. If you do use chrome and have some differences, let me know - I'm trying to get some evidence so I can figure out what the changes are and see if there's a way to nullify them so we can have a single guide for any type of browser :)
One thing is that I've got a test run happening in the background - I've tested this guide up to 16 so far (updated as I go) to make sure I haven't missed any notes, but that's as far as I've gone so far, so from stage 17 onwards there might be some reloads missing. If so, let me know and I can update it, or if I get time to do more testing I'll update this note as I go.
ALSO ALSO: we're still trying to figure out exactly what the relationship with reloading is. For now, if when you need to reload, reload once you've chosen your pokemon for the battle, as, on average, that's when I would reload. I don't know if it'll make a difference, but it can't hurt to try and see what happens :)
As per the others, I'm still learning about all this, so sorry for any mistakes I've made - I probably missed at least a couple of reloads, but hopefully I got the majority of them.
A couple of things to note: There's a DNA splicer on wave 38 rewards. I've never used it before and asked the discord who would be some good options to use it for, and people were saying it probably wasn't worth it. If you want to fuse some things together though, go ahead! I will say that if you do, I got offered a Garchompite on wave 41, so if you want to fuse two pokemon together, make sure to do it with garchomp first. That said, taking the DNA splicer may change your rng so you may not get the garchompite, but I'll leave that as an experiment for you to test :)
Lastly, it seems like there's a bug in the game - I've heard it's best to change the "EXP Party Display" to "Normal" as if it's not on normal, sometimes moves you've learnt will disappear when you exit to the menu.
There's also a few waves where there's some max IV stat pokemon:

Pokemon	Max stat (31)	Wave
Camerupt	HP	21
Scovillain	Sp. Atk	24
Orthworm	Sp. Def	38

The table above represents the pokemon I catch in the guide with a max IV stat, however others have played through it and have gone off the guide to catch other pokemon, and through those actions we've found a few more max IV stat pokemon. Note that if you do catch one of the below, the rest of the guide might be off by a bit:

Pokemon	Max stat (31)	Wave
Alakazam	HP	44

I think I got all the unique mons for the candies except one (silly brambleghast didn't want to be caught?), but I might have missed some.
With the below steps, if I haven't said to take a move when one is offered, that means to not learn it. For the table, there's two columns relating to moves - one for moves to take and one for moves to replace. For example, if the "Move(s) to take..." column has Headbutt and the corresponding row in the "... by replacing move(s)" column has Wrap, it would mean you need to replace wrap with headbutt at this stage when it's offered - and if during that stage a different move is offered, don't take it if it's not on the list. Also if there's multiple moves to be offered, the moves offered in the table are listed from top to bottom of the order you get them - so if you have something like the below, it means that Crunch will be offered before Headbutt will, which will be before Firethrower (and their associated replacements):

Move(s) to take...	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Vine whip
Heatbutt	Astonish
Firethrower	Water gun

Also, if there are multiple waves back to back that have the same pokemon (or are within a few waves of each other), I'll label them as 1 and 2 - i.e. Linoone 1 and Linoone 2. This is to help avoid confusion if you're looking back and forth and trying to figure out where you're at
Lastly, with the steps below, if I don't say to switch out to a pokemon, that means you use the pokemon that's come out automatically.
With that, here's the guide:

Stage 1

Wave 1: Swablu
Steps:

1. Ancient power
2. Pokeball
3. Transfer charcoal from glimmet to raboot

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 2: Fletchinder
Steps:

1. Confuse ray
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Venoshock	Rain dance

Reward: Potion swablu
Wave 3: Swablu
Steps:

1. Ancient power

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion swablu
Wave 4: Pidgeotto and Spoink
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: So when I started this fight, Spoink got poisoned from toxic spikes somehow (though I can't remember how?) It felt weird, so I exited to the main menu and continued, and it removed the spikes and the poison, so you should too.
Steps:

1. Switch glimmet with fletch and clauncher with raboot
2. Flame charge x 2 on pidgeotto
3. Flame charge x 2 on pidgeotto
4. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Acrobatics	Growl

Reward: Ultraball
Wave 5: Trainer Joren and Myra
Steps:

1. Acrobatics and flame charge seviper
2. Flame charge x 2 mawile

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Mega bracelet
Wave 6: Pidgeotto
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Flame charge
2. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion fletch
Wave 7: Swablu
Steps:

1. Acrobatics x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 8: Staravia
Steps:

1. Switch to clauncher
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 9: Geodude
Steps:

1. Aqua jet
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion fletch
Wave 10: Shieldon
Steps:

1. Switch to raboot
2. Double kick
3. Pokeball x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end

Stage 2

Wave 11: Swablu
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to fletch
2. Acrobatics x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Rare candy fletch
Wave 12: Goomy
Steps:

1. Switch to swablu
2. Dragon breath x 2
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion swablu
Wave 13: Goomy and Goomy
Steps:

1. Switch claunder with fletch
2. Dragon breath and acrobatics left (L31) goomy
3. Dragon break and acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Atk
Wave 14: Gabite
Steps:

1. Dragon breath x 3
2. Pokeball
3. Ultra ball
4. Replace swablu with gabite

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Headbutt	Baton pass

Reward: Potion gabite
Wave 15: Trainer Trisha
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Acrobatics
2. Switch to glimmet
3. Spikes (glimmet dies here)
4. Bring out fletch
5. Acrobatics
6. Switch to raboot
7. Heatbutt x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Water pulse	Snore
Rest	Splash
Power gem	Growl

Reward: Potion talonflame
Wave 16: Jangmo-o
Steps:

1. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Slash	Sand attack

Reward: Potion talonflame
Wave 17: Goomy
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Exit to menu to remove spikes
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll, Super potion gabite
Wave 18: Drampa
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Pyro ball	Flame charge

Reward: Reviver seed talonflame
Wave 19: Goomy and Drampa
Steps:

1. Acrobatics goomy and double kick drampa
2. Talonflame dies and revives
3. Acrobatics and double kick drampa

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Aerial ace	Flail

Reward: Great balls (ps: you might be wondering why I would possibly choose great balls over the revive I so desperately need. Well, I was too excited to get the revive I accidentally went too far over and picked up the great balls :( )
Wave 20: Trainer Drayden
Steps:

1. Switch to gabite
2. Dragon breath x 2
3. Switch to grumpig
4. Rest
5. Psybeam (grumpig dies here)
6. Bring out talonflame
7. Acrobatics x 3 (talon dies here)
8. Bring out gabite
9. Dragon breath (gabite dies here)
10. Bring out clauncher
11. Smack down
12. Rest (claunder dies here)
13. Bring out cinder
14. Attact
15. Headbutt x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end (sheesh, what a fight)

Stage 3

Wave 21: Camerupt
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This camerupt has max (31) HP stat
Steps:

1. Switch to clauncher
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Snore	Psych up

Reward: EXP All
Wave 22: Sinistcha
Steps:

1. Switch to glimmet
2. Venoshock x 2
3. Pokeball
4. Replace grumping with sinistcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Rock slide	Confuse Ray

Reward: Potion glimmet
Wave 23: Sandslash and Dugtrio
Note for this wave: (this is a tentative note until I can prove it, but in the meantime maybe try reloading here just to be safe) I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch glimmet with claw and cinder with talonflame
2. Aqua jet sandslash and acrobatics dugtrio
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Mortal spin	Rock slide

Reward: Ultraball
Wave 24: Scovillain
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This scovillain has max (31) Sp. Atk stat
Steps:

1. Switch to cinder
2. Headbutt
3. Pokeball x 2
4. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion cinder
Wave 25: Trainer Yvette
Steps:

1. Pyro ball x 2
2. Double kick
3. Switch to talonflame
4. Acrobatics
5. Switch to glimmora
6. Mortal spin
7. Venoshock x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Dragon claw	Slash
Power gem	Ancient power
Aura sphere	Rest
Stength sap	Matcha gotcha

Reward: Potion cinder
Wave 26: Mudsdale 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I exited to menu here so the spikes disappeared
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Mega drain x 3 (this kills mudsdale, but we get another one on W29)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Sinistcha
Wave 27: Scovillain
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Aerial ace x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Hyper potion Sinistcha
Wave 28: Donphan
Steps:

1. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 29: Mudsdale 2
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Mega drain x 2
3. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Bite

Reward: Great balls
Wave 30: Trainer Clay
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Strength sap x 3
2. Mega drain x 4
3. Switch to claw (claw dies here)
4. Bring out garchomp
5. Bulldoze x 2
6. Crunch x 3
7. Bulldoze x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Shadow ball	Hex

Reward: Stage end

Stage 4

Wave 31: Drapion
Steps:

1. Pokeball
2. Bulldoze
3. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Bounce	Aqua jet

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 32: Sandslash
Steps:

1. Switch to claw
2. Water pulse

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 33: Rabsca
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Dire hit
Wave 34: Sandslash and Brambleghast
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Sorry, I couldn't find a way to catch brambleghast no matter what I tried
Steps:

1. Switch cinder with claw
2. Aerial ace bramble and water pulse sandslash (this kills them)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Steel wing	Aerial ace

Reward: Super potion claw
Wave 35: Trainer Sonia
Steps:

1. Switch to garchomp
2. Crunch x 2
3. Bulldoze x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Rarer candy
Wave 36: Orthworm 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it, but we get one one W38
Steps:

1. Switch to cinder
2. Pyro ball (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion garchomp
Wave 37: Brambleghast
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Brambleghasts do NOT want to be caught today - sorry
Steps:

1. Pyro ball (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Dire hit
Wave 38: Orthworm 2
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This orthworm has max (31) Sp. Def
Steps:

1. Double kick
2. Headbutt
3. Switch to talon
4. Ember
5. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion garchomp - note: there IS a DNA splicer here, but I haven't used it before. I asked around and people in the discord said it might not necessarily be worth it for these guys, but if you want to try for yourself, go ahead! It may change the RNG as discussed above, but it could be pretty fun!
Wave 39: Rabsca
Steps:

1. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion garchomp
Wave 40: Trainer Gordie
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Switch to claw
3. Water pulse
4. Aura sphere x 2
5. Water pulse
6. Aura sphere x 2 (claw dies)
7. Bring out sinistcha
8. Mega drain

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end

Stage 5

Wave 41: Xatu
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This one is killed but we catch another one on W48
Steps:

1. Shadow ball (this kills xatu, but we get one on W48)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Garchompite on garchomp
Wave 42: Alakazam 1
Steps:

1. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll, Super potion sinistcha
Wave 43: Sigilyph
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to garchomp
2. Pokeball
3. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Enigma berry garchomp
Wave 44: Alakazam 2
Steps:

1. Crunch

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: PP Max garchomp's bulldoze
Wave 45: Trainer Walter and Janie
Steps:

1. Bulldoze and swap out claw with talonflame
2. Bulldoze and acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll x 2, X Sp. Atk
Wave 46: Claydol 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This guy just self destructs ASAP, but we do catch another one next wave
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistra
2. Pokeball (claydol self destructs and dies)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Ganlon berry garchomp
Wave 47: Claydol 2
Steps:

1. Mega drain
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Speed
Wave 48: Xatu
Steps:

1. Pokeball
2. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: PP Up cinder's double pyro ball
Wave 49: Grumpig
Steps:

1. Mega drain
2. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Speed
Wave 50: Dialga
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late. That said, for this wave it probably doesn't matter, but better to be safe than sorry.
Steps:

1. Strength sap x 4 (sinistcha dies here)
2. Bring out garchomp
3. Bulldoze x 4 (garchomp dies here)
4. Bring out claw
5. Aura sphere
6. DAILY DONE

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Daily done!
That should be it! Enjoy your egg vouchers and I hope you get good things! As usual, any changes or anything let me know - I'll be doing a test run in the background when I can to hopefully catch anything else, but if you find waves that don't make sense or reloads that are needed let me know and I can add them in! Also like I said if you find any differences between this and your run and you're playing on a chromium browser, let me know as well :)

1- Jaylin Williams. I love him, but he is just bad. Like really really bad. 2- Kenrich Williams. If he can’t get minutes this series, he never will. Personally I think he should play, but clearly Mark and the F/O don’t. 3- Josh Giddey. Literally had to take him out the starting lineup because he is a liability on offense and defense. I do feel bad for him though because the only way he can succeed is with the ball. His time in OKC is coming to an end. 4- Hayward. He sucks and won’t be on the team next year so it doesn’t really matter.
Now here are some guys I’m on the fence about. 1- Isaiah Joe. Literally can’t think of a game where he shot well and we won. He continues to disappear in big games. 2- Aaron Wiggins. I think he’ll have a big role on this team and will most likely be rewarded with a hefty contract this offszn. However I could see him as a piece in a trade for an elite role player. We need a microwave scorer off the bench and we just don’t have that.

Welcome to the series of Changes to be Made to the Super Smash Bros. Playable Fighters. First, we are going with the playable fighters of the original game, Smash 64. Now this topic has been done before, though it'd to make my own version. Plus, while some did get some proper changes, the original 12 are still the biggest offenders when it comes to bad or outdated choices of Movesets, animations, aesthetics, etc. Here is a list of them.
Mario:

• Mario will now have his voice from Kevin Afghani instead of Charles Martinet due to the latter retiring from his acting career.
• He is now able to crawl.
• His Fire Mario & Wario Alts. return.
• He now has a water meter from Super Mario Sunshine, where by using the shield special button. the water meter refills after usage.
• Down-Tilt - Roll: Performs a forward Roll.
• Side-Smash - Hammer: Swings his hammer forward.
• Up-Smash - Super Jump Punch: Does a jumping uppercut in place that produces Star Coins or Metro Kingdom Special Coins on contact.
• Neutral-Aerial - Spin Jump: Spins himself around.
• Down-Aerial - Ground Pound: Butt Stomps downward, bouncing on & meteor spiking opponents.
• Neutral-Special: Name is changed to Firebrand.
• Side-Special - Cappy: Tosses Cappy forward like a boomerang and/or can jump on him like an extra platform.
• Up-Smash - Wing Cap: Spawns a Wing Cap & shoots up into the air before gliding.
• Down-Special: F.L.U.D.D remains here and functions the same though it can now damage opponents and can turn into nuzzle form while in the air and help mario into the air.
• Final-Smash: Name is changed to Ultra Fireball and functions like in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.
• Up-Taunt: Returns to his old one, where he briefly grows in size as if obtaining a Mushroom.
• Left Victory Pose: Jumps to the top of a flagpole, slides down it, then hops off and happily poses.

Donkey Kong:

• Donkey Kong will now have his voice from Takashi Nagasako instead of the stupid & bland realistic Gorilla Grunts.
• His white alt. has a blue tie to accurately represent Super Kong.
• Neutral-Special - Coconut Shooter: Takes out His Coconut Shooter, then fires a Coconut.
• Side-Special - Barrel Throw: Throws a barrel across the stage, which just like with the normal Barrel item, it can be picked up and thrown by other fighters.
• Up-Special - Barrel Cannon: Enters a barrel cannon and fires himself in the direction that is input.
• Up-Taunt: Still pounds his chest, but now hollers wildly while doing so.
• Idle Animation #2: He quickly sit downs and pull out a Nintendo Switch and play on it, based on an idle pose from the Retro Donkey Kong Country games
• Left Victory Pose: DK rapidly punches and kicks a Slot Machine Barrel from the Retro Donkey Kong Country games, breaking it and releasing a bunch of bananas; once he's done, he lands on the ground and smiles for the camera, while giving a thumbs-up
• Right Victory Pose: He still pounds his chest, but just like his new Up-Taunt, hollers wildly.

Link:

• Link will not just use the Master Sword, he will also use the Ancient Axe and Guardian Spear.
• Side-Smash - Spear Thrust: Performs a straight-forward stab with his Spear.
• Up-Smash - Vertical Spin: Jumps and Spin slashes upwards, which at 0% damage can shoot a sword beam.
• Down-Smash: Spins his axe around while charging, and then slams his axe onto the ground.
• Neutral-Aerial: Spins the Axe in a circle.
• Forward-Aerial: Thrusts the spear forwards.
• Grab - Magnesis: Picks up a Magnet, then Fires two whips to grab an opponent, which can be used as a tether recovery.
• Neutral-Special: More arrows than just wooden ones, which he can pull from the Menu.
• Fire Arrows: Deal fire damage.
• Ice Arrows: Freeze opponents when at high enough percentages.
• Thunder Arrows: Make a bolt of lightning strike the opponent hit, dealing electric damage.
• Bomb Arrows: Explode on contact.
• Light Arrows: Goes through opponents when fully charged.
• Ancient Arrows: Creates a massive blue explosion of energy.
• Up-Special - Sailcloth: Pulls out the Sailcloth, then goes in an updraft and afterwards goes straight down without changing direction.

Power Suit Samus:

• Her default outfit is now her Metroid Dread Varia Suit.
• Her green alt. is replaced by a blue and white skin, based on her default suit from Metroid Dread.
• Now moves slightly faster and has more air speed.
• She now has the option to switch between the Default & Ice Beam Energy Modes with the Shield Special Button.
• When using her Side Special, she only has 10 rockets at the beginning of the match, but they do reload when not in use or after getting KO'd.
• Jab - Cannon Kata: Starts with a straight punch, then thrusts her arm cannon forward for the second hit and fires a small energy blast.
• Up-Tilt - Melee Counter: Swings her arm cannon upward.
• Down-Tilt - Slide: Performs a forward sliding kick.
• Dash-Attack - Dash Melee: Swings her Arm Cannon upwards while running.
• Side-Smash - Diffusion Blast: Releases an area of effect blasts at Close-ranged.
• Up-Smash - Overhead Blast: Same as Side Smash Attack but upwards.
• Neutral-Aerial: Her old Up Special, Screw Attack, is moved here.
• Forward-Aerial - Spazer Beam: Fires a blast that splits into three lasers.
• Pummel - Grapple Voltage: Deals Electric Damage and heals herself somewhat.
• Back-Throw - Wave Beam: Swings the opponent behind herself & fires an energy blast in a sine curve at them.
• Neutral-Special: Also adds Ice Beam, where She fires Ice Beams, dealing ice damage & freezes opponents.
• Side-Special: Functions the same if tapped, though can now fire 5 or 10 missiles if held.
• Up-Special - Shinespark: Launches herself in any inputted direction as a gold shine emerges.
• Down-Special: Also adds Freeze Field, where she summons 3 spinning ice projectiles that block attacks, deal ice damage & freeze opponents.
• Final-Smash - Hyper Beam: Charges her arm cannon & fires a large beam of energy, which can be angled & can go through opponents & walls.

Yoshi:

• The Black Yoshi alt. returns.
• They can carry a max of 6 eggs they create with their Neutral Special.
• Grab: Functions the same though now also functions as a tether recovery and ledge clinger.
• Neutral-Special: Same changes as Grab, though, it can also now grab items and projectiles.
• Side-Special: Their old Up Special, Egg Throw, is moved here and now has reticle which is an angle for the eggs to be thrown in that direction.
• Up-Special - Wing Flutter: Small wings emerge from his back as he flaps into the air.
• Down-Special - Ground Pound: Function is the same, though the name is changed and it can now also bounce on & meteor spike opponents.

Kirby:

• Kirby's gimmick now consists of the Copy Abilities from the Kirby games rather than Copied Neutral Specials.
• Down-Tilt - Slide: Performs a forward Sliding Kick.
• Dash-Attack: Gets back his Brawl and Smash 4 Dash attack, Break Spin, and functions the same in said games.
• Side-Smash - Staff: Swings the Staff forward.
• Up-Smash - Yo-Yo: Spins the Yo-Yo upwards, then brings it back to him.
• Down-Smash - Bell: Performs a spin and then strikes on both sides of him with his bells, creating 2 damaging soundwaves.
• Neutral-Special: Functions the same though now can also spit opponents and items like a projectile.
• Side-Special - Circus Somersault: Does two short somersaults and backsaults back to where he started the attack.
• Up-Special - Hi-Jump: Jumps high into the air and turns left or right and can collide with opponents along the way.
• Down-Special: Same Move though it gets tweaks such as it can also now temporarily slide when kirby dashes.
• Final-Smash - Paint Out: Sprays blobs of paint all over, causing damage and knockback to opponents.

Fox:

• Final-Smash - Arwing: Says "It's go time", then hops aboard onto the Arwing, then goes into First-Person perspective, with the Arwing firing either Arwing Shots or Smart Bomb.

Pikachu:

• Pikachu mostly now has alternate colors, although its libre costume remains. Its alternate colors are Blue (Marill), Dark Orange (Raichu), Gray (Togedemaru), White (Pachirisu), Brown (Patrat) and Purple (Rattata).
• Up-Tilt - Thunder Punch: Punches with large fists of electricity upwards.
• Dash-Attack - Wild Charge: Shrouds itself in electricity and smashes into the opponent. This also damages it a little.
• Up-Smash - Iron Tail: Functions the same though the tail also becomes whitish-gray in color and hits a bit harder.
• Neutral-Aerial - Discharge: Strikes opponents by letting loose some electricity.
• Neutral-Special - Electro Ball: Still shoots a ball of electricity after being created from its cheeks, though it can be fired forwards and can no longer stick on stages or platforms.
• Side-Special - Zippy Zap: Charges up electricity as it's surrounded by electricity after charge. If charged, it goes farther faster dash forwards. If Uncharged however, it makes a quick short dash forwards.
• Final-Smash - Volt Tackle: Electrifies its entire body and blast forwards like a super-charged projectile and If it manages to hit an opponent, a large electrical explosion comes upon impact, launching nearby fighters, also dealing electric damage.

Luigi:

• Like Mario, Luigi will now have his voice from Kevin Afghani instead of Charles Martinet due to the latter retiring from his acting career.
• Luigi is now able to wall jump.
• Luigi has a meter each of the Elemental Medals, where by picking a certain element, he uses that element though can be refilled by using the shield special button.
• Side-Smash - Hammer: Swings his hammer forward.
• Down-Smash - Burst: A burst of wind propels him upward, startling him as a wind circle emerges around himself.
• Neutral-Aerial - Spin Jump: Spins himself around.
• Down-Aerial - Ground Pound: Butt Stomps downward, bouncing on & meteor spiking opponents.
• Neutral-Special - Thunderhand: Fires an electricity ball from his right hand, dealing electric damage.
• Side-Special - Spin Tornado: Winds Up and Spins Forward, generating a tornado that covers him completely then dealing multiple Hits toward opponents in the way before launching them.
• Down-Special - Elemental Medals: Picks one of the Element Medals and uses one of them from a Menu.
• Fire: Deals fire damage.
• Ice: Deals ice damage & freezes opponents.
• Water: Deals water damage.

Ness:

• When using his Baseball Bat while fully charging it in his side smash, the SMAAAASH!!!! text box appears.
• Down-Smash - Paralysis: Deals stun damage with his PSI.
• Neutral-Special - Slingshot: Pulls out the Slingshot, then fires a projectile, which can be aimed forwards, upwards or downwards.
• Side-Special: His old Neutral Special, PK Flash, is moved here and now fires it forward.
• Down-Special - Lifeup: Heals damage taken with his PSI.
• Final-Smash - PSI Rockin Ω: Fires a PSI burst forward & creates several psychic fireworks on any caught opponents before releasing a larger burst.

Captain Falcon:

• Neutral-Special - Pistol: Pulls out a Pistol, then shoots energy out of it, dealing electric damage.

Jigglypuff:

• Jigglypuff will now have alternate colors instead of Headwear. Its alternate colors include Black (Gastly), Purple (Koffing), Blue (Marill), Beige (Rowlet), Green (Solosis), Light Yellow (Togepi) and Brown (Hoothoot).
• Jab - Double Slap: Performs two alternating slaps forward, which can be used five times.
• Side-Tilt - Uproar: Causes an Uproar, making sound waves come out of its mouth at the opponent.
• Up-Tilt - Mega Punch: Performs an upward strong punch with its right hand.
• Down-Tilt - Round: Takes a quick breath, then fires a high-pitched blast of sound from her mouth.
• Side-Smash - Zen Headbutt: Headbutts opponents with psychic willpower.
• Up-Smash - Drain Punch: Punches with its fists upwards, then drains their health, healing itself.
• Down-Smash - Frustration: Slams its hands onto the ground in anger.
• Neutral-Aerial - Gyro Ball: Gets surrounded by a metallic aura, then spins rapidly and slams the opponent.
• Forward-Aerial - Brick Break: Performs a forward swing chop.
• Back-Aerial - Mega Kick: Performs a strong swing kick with its right foot.
• Up-Aerial - Icy Wind: Releases a wind of Ice from its mouth upwards, dealing ice damage and freezing opponents.
• Down-Aerial - Body Slam: Falls downward towards the opponent, meteor spiking them.
• Pummel: Its old Side Special, Pound, is moved here and now it just punches the opponent.
• Forward Throw - Focus Punch: Briefly lets go of the opponent to punch them with a high amount of force, launching them away from it.
• Back-Throw - Fling: Picks up the opponent, then throws them backwards.
• Up-Throw - Psychic: Picks the opponent up with its psychic power, then launches them up.
• Down-Throw: Its old Neutral Special, Rollout, is moved here and now turns into a boulder, then pins the opponent down and rolls on the their back.
• Neutral-Special - Disarming Voice: Lets out a Charm Cry that does emotional damage to the opponent.
• Side-Special - Dazzling Gleam: Emits a Powerful Flash.
• Up-Special - Bounce: Jumps into the air, then lands back on the opponents or stages, bouncing on the opponent and/or stage, which when landing and bouncing on the opponent, it can use other attacks, but when landing on the stage instead of opponent it can't directly attack again.
• Down-Special: Its old Up Special, Sing, is moved here.
• Final-Smash - Hyper Voice: Inhales a bunch of air, inflating her balloon-like body a bit, before letting out a loud attack that uses sound waves & blasts opponents backwards quite a distance.
• Side-Taunt: The animation remains exactly the same, but sparkly energy now surrounds her body.
• Up Victory Pose: Jigglypuff twirls around like a ballerina as sparkly energy surrounds her body, before hopping on one leg and posing for the camera.

And, there you go. This took a little while, though i hope to hear your feelings about these changes (as long as your reasons for your feelings are good). Any changes that you want to see to the original 12 that i didn't mention and did i misplace some moves? or did i add a change that was unnecessary? It'd be cool to see what other people can come up with.

In college, my friends and I took pleasure in bullying gay guys. Back then, I would have justified it as “teasing”, but honestly the way we spoke to frat recruits or guys at our party was harsh.
As much as I would love to say that I’ve changed for the better, I still spend a lot of my time degrading and humiliating men online. My wife has no idea what I do on my phone at night. She assumes it is work (always work) but there are times I feel like I can’t hide how horny I get. I wonder if she looks at me sometimes and wonders my I’m biting my lip or squeezing my cock through my pants.
Anyway, last weekend my friends and I met for the first time in over three years. We had been good at keeping in touch for a while but COVID made it hard to see each other and a few of us became new dads recently.
We all arrived, one by one to the beach house we rented for the weekend. The atmosphere was different than it had been in the past… a lot of the guys complained about their marriages or work. I was surprised at how satisfied I was in life.
The end of the first night looked a lot like our college days: Tommy was half-naked, drunk, and annoying everybody around him, and the rest of us were drunk enough to love him anyway.
“Does anybody remember Quintin?” Ricky slurred and the room fell silent. We hesitantly glanced at each other across the room. Nobody wanted to remember Quintin.
When I wasn’t discovering my humiliation and degradation kinks around my boys, I was practicing on Quintin while my cock was in his mouth. He took every insult with pleasure, begging for more. I always felt bad for how badly I treated him in front of others.
I held my breath, wondering why Ricky was bringing him up so many years later. He reminisced about a few parties he attended and how Quintin always seemed to like me and Ricky the most.
“Anyway, he used to suck my cock before home games!” Ricky blurted out, laughing as he swigged his drink. The room fell silent and I could feel the other guys share glances. I stared at Ricky for a moment before cracking up, relieved at his confession somehow.
I told them that Quintin used to suck my cock too and I would choose his outfits most days. I remembered that somewhere I must have pictures of him in his thongs, posing for me. Ricky drunkenly begged me to see them.
As the two of us shared stories, the other three men eased up. They slowly inched toward us, intently listening to our stories. Not to be fucked up, but the other three were the type of men I’d want to use: Quiet followers, submissive but they don’t even know it. That’s why I knew they wouldn’t object when I unzipped my pants and started stroking. Ricky watched for a moment before he followed my lead.
“I had no idea you were gay…” Tommy interjected and although I don’t know who he was referring to, I, of course, told him I wasn’t.
I watched as the rest of the guys slowly joined in, one taking a lot longer than the other two. Before long, five fraternity brothers stood in an AirBnb with our cocks out, stroking as we watched each other do the same.
For the most part, words weren’t exchanged. The occasional grunt or moan echoed in the house until I finally broke the silence.
“spit on it,” I nodded toward Tommy. His eyes widened but he didn’t object. With hesitation, he bent toward my cock and spit on it. I could see the shame on Tommy’s face as he backed away, the way he hesitated to stroke now.
I spit on each of them, hesitating before leaving Tommy for last. He watched me in horror, probably thinking I’d neglect him. The rest followed my lead. As I edged myself, we all spit on the other’s cocks. I watched as each one of my friends came, staring at their twitching bodies, the post-nut clarity as they looked around, and the cum-stained rug we stood on. I couldn’t help but think about all of the times we could have had in college.
I came shortly after Ricky, as the rest of the guys cleaned themselves off. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel the shame or guilt I expected. What happened that night was nothing more than men being men, blowing off steam together. Nobody even touched one another. As for my wife, there’s no reason for her to know and no way for her to understand.
I can’t explain the particular sensation to my wife: The ecstasy of feeling no guilt when the majority of the men around you are regretting every decision, the saliva dripping down your balls as you watch your friends stroke their throbbing cocks, the humiliation of a room full of straight men wondering how the fuck they just spit on several men’s cock…
Looking back on the night, I wish more happened. I think we all could have experimented more if Ricky and I would have tried to convince the others. Besides the occasional glances, the rest of the two days happened as if everybody suffered from amnesia on the first night.
I’m considering letting Ricky in on the truth about me, Quintin, and his tolerance for my… kinks. I imagine Ricky has some dark secrets as well. Out of all of us, we had always been the more dominant pair.
Now my wife wonders why I want her to spit on my cock so much and why I am so eager for another “boy’s trip” in the Fall.
\Commissions: If you enjoyed this story, I offer custom erotic stories based on your own preferences/plots/characters/kinks. DM to inquire\**