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Weekly Crowdfunding Roundup: June 9 2024 29 ending soon (incl. Rebirth, Feudum) & 28 new this week (incl. Grimcoven, Return to the 7th Citadel)
2024.06.09 11:20 Perkelton Weekly Crowdfunding Roundup: June 9 2024 29 ending soon (incl. Rebirth, Feudum) & 28 new this week (incl. Grimcoven, Return to the 7th Citadel)
What is this?
This is a weekly crowdfunding roundup of new projects launched last week and projects that end the coming week.Google Docs
As an alternative format, the lists are now also available as a Google Docs found here: Weekly Crowdfunding RoundupUpdates
Expect new lists every Sunday between 00:00 and 23:59 CEST on the following platforms:Mastodon: @danielpervan@mastodon.social
Discord: https://discord.gg/dN4P4PZcU9
Reddit: /boardgames
Selection criteria
The criteria for the lists are as follows:Ending soon
- Sorted by number of backers
- Kickstarter projects ending in the next 7 days, that have at least 100 backers (or marked as "Project we love" by Kickstarter), will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and passed the filters:
- No DnD books
- No zines
- No 3D printing
- No dice sets
- No magazines
- No shirts
- No playmats
- No furniture
- No events
- Gamefound projects ending in the next 7 days, that will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and passed the above filters.
- (beta) Backerkit Crowdfunding projects ending in the next 7 days, that will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and have a matching BGG page.
Newly launched
- Sorted by number of backers
- Kickstarter projects launched in the last 7 days, that have had at least average 15 backers per day, have at least 100 backers or is marked as "Project we love" by Kickstarter and passed the filters (see above).
- Gamefound projects launched in the last 7 days and passed the filters (see above).
- (beta) Backerkit Crowdfunding projects launched in the last 7 days and have a matching BGG page.
Notable filtered projects
- Filtered projects from above lists that have more than 1000 backers.
Tags
🎉: Staff pick/featured💰: Funded
🔥: More than average 200 backers/day
🌱: Creator's first project
🌳: Creator's >5th project
🔄: Money back guarantee (Read more)
FAQ
I live in El SalvadoCanada/Colombia/USA, why are you posting on a Saturday?!Because I'm writing this from Europe in the future where it's already Sunday. Timezones be crazy.
Why are there a bunch of non-board games in the board game list?
Because the Tabletop games category on Kickstarter includes anything remotely related to board games and sometimes things slip through my filters.
Why is this future award winning board game and literal saviour of humanity missing from your list?
Sometimes my filters get a bit overzealous and discard actually valid projects. If you feel something is missing for this reason, leave a comment and I'll add it (maybe).
Can I donate all my money to you?
No
Can you help me promote my game?
Please no. I make lists. Nothing more.
Your list is full of errors and now I cnat spel amymor!
Indeed, this fine piece of code runs purely on single malt whisky, so anything can happen. Leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.
Ending soon (29)
| Name | Description | Backers | Pledged | Ends | Information | Tags | BGG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rebirth: Limited Edition | A brand new, tile-laying game from Reiner Knizia, set in a lush and hopeful future. | 5552 | €265,854.00 (1329%) in 19 days | 2024-06-12 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 45-60 min. | 🎉💰🔥🌳 | BGG |
| Feudum | Game-of-the-year winner, Feudum is back with the 7th anniversary collector's edition featuring an exclusive clockwork behemoth! Grrrrrrrrrr. | 2679 | $354,257.05 (1417%) in 26 days | 2024-06-14 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑5 players ⏱️ 150 min. Area Control | 💰🌱 | |
| Hex Effects: A Spellbinding Card Game | Hex Effects is a “take that” card game that involves beautiful artwork and easy-to-pick-up gameplay. From the makers of Side Effects! | 1413 | $55,457.00 (462%) in 24 days | 2024-06-14 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑8 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 20-40 min. | 🎉💰 | BGG |
| How to Save a World | Three desperate plans. One small chance... to save a world. | 1216 | CA$114,038.00 (190%) in 19 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 60-90 min. | 🎉💰🌳 | BGG |
| Village Pillage: Big Box + New Expansion | Magic makes its way to Village Pillage in the fourth and final expansion to the critically acclaimed game! | 1090 | $60,172.00 (301%) in 19 days | 2024-06-15 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑5 players ⏱️ 15-30 min. | 💰🌳 | BGG |
| BERSERKERS : Chaos Extension by Alone Editions | Berserkers is Back ! | 972 | €26,872.00 (413%) in 24 days | ⚠️ 2024-06-09 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Big Sur, Grand Central Skyport, Sand Art, & Wine Cellar | Mix and match your pledge from four new games across a variety of styles, themes, and player counts to elevate your next game night. | 893 | $42,936.00 (429%) in 12 days | 2024-06-14 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🌳 | |
| 🍁 Masters of Maple Syrup & Downstream 🛶 | Manage a maple farm and explore the riverbank in these cozy, pocket-sized games for two! | 835 | CA$47,616.00 (595%) in 19 days | 2024-06-10 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰 | |
| Greenlight | A game for people who will never make it in Hollywood. | 829 | $45,269.00 (453%) in 33 days | 2024-06-10 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| Thorgal: The card game | Thorgal: Card Game, where strategy meets destiny in a thrilling card-based adventure | 761 | €40,864.00 (409%) in 19 days | 2024-06-11 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 45-90 min. | 💰 | BGG |
| The Big Bad Wolf | Based on The 3 Little Pigs! Secretly pass the "Big Bad Wolf" then Entice & Persuade players into flipping it, to Blow Down their house! | 570 | $12,768.00 (365%) in 26 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 15-35 min. | 🎉💰🌱 | BGG |
| Catstronauts: The Board Game | The cooperative boardgame based on the hit graphic novels! | 492 | $31,506.00 (630%) in 26 days | 2024-06-14 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 30 min. | 💰🌳 | BGG |
| TOOTHEAD | Let's Get Ready To Rumble!!! Sneaky moves and a lot of fighting in an innocent setting. A family-friendly game, also great for parties! | 448 | €29,744.00 (372%) in 33 days | 2024-06-10 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑8 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 40-180 min. | 🎉💰🌱 | BGG |
| Amsterdam Board Game Design - season 1 | Three fun card games by different members of ABGD: Bable, Grachtenpand, & TimeZoo. May this be the first season of many! | 419 | €11,900.00 (397%) in 27 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| Guns of the Old West | Players compete in solo/co-op play or as a team with over 100 campaign paths. Each playthrough is a unique cinematic experience offering endless replayability. Players make strategic decisions and interact with each other to achieve their group and secret individual objectives, some of which involve… | 299 | £53,400.50 (107%) in 26 days | 2024-06-11 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑8 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 45-90 min. Card Game Wargame Dice Game Area Control Cooperative | 💰🌱 | BGG |
| DVG - Mustang Leader | The WWII Air War Over Europe Solitaire Game! | 284 | $54,294.00 (271%) in 19 days | 2024-06-12 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| GotchaCards: a rock-paper-scissors card game! | a thrilling RPS dueling card game for all ages by Pat Casao & pabloKM | 278 | $15,972.00 (86%) in 31 days | 2024-06-15 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🌱 | |
| EXPENDABLE EMPLOYEES | A Cooperative Miniature Skirmish-Extraction Game Inspired by Lethal Company, Content Warning & Helldivers 2! | 269 | CA$6,390.00 (256%) in 24 days | 2024-06-15 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Dabba Walla | The famous Dabba Walla invite everyone to join them on their daily journey through Mumbai! | 250 | $14,400.00 (288%) in 5 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 30-45 min. | 🎉💰🌳 | BGG |
| The Thinning Veil Cormac Mac Airt on the Other Side of Midnight | A solo dungeon crawl now featuring a 2 player mode set in the world of The Thinning Veil, and featuring Cormac Mac Airt, High King of Inis Fael! This game is the first in the Thinning Veil line and the Cormac series. | 243 | £34,126.74 (1706%) in 26 days | 2024-06-11 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑2 players ⏱️ 90 min. Dice Game | 💰 | |
| Freak War: A Card Game | A fun and simple pick-up-and-play card game—with unhinged rules and a hidden layer of intense strategy. | 227 | $15,544.00 (155%) in 26 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 6+ ⏱️ 15-60 min. | 🎉💰 | BGG |
| Dice Tales: Knight's Adventures | Become mighty Knight, live exciting adventures in this solo sandbox print and play roll and write board game with a dose of strategy. | 226 | €3,030.00 (3030%) in 10 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1 player 👶 10+ ⏱️ 20-30 min. | 💰🌱 | BGG |
| One Hour World War II | A fast playing game of all of World War II for 2 players. Actions and Reactions drive the game. Plays in....wait for it.....1 hour. | 224 | $20,955.00 (1080%) in 8 days | 2024-06-15 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| The 7 Seas: A New Start | Embark on a thrilling adventure in the world of The 7 Seas. Explore, trade, and fight to become a legend! | 218 | €20,600.20 (206%) in 24 days | ⚠️ 2024-06-09 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑5 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 30-90 min. | 💰 | BGG |
| The Dream of Gods: An Interactive Mystery Game | Speak with gods. Solve puzzles. Uncover secrets. An interactive mystery book with audio, puzzles and visuals. | 201 | €12,151.00 (608%) in 25 days | 2024-06-14 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| Of Popes & Plagues | The Game of Plague & Pestilence in the Middle Ages | 183 | $7,890.00 (158%) in 33 days | ⚠️ 2024-06-09 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑6 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 20-60 min. | 💰🌱 | BGG |
| Scare BnB - Spooky family fun for all ages! | Help guests flee from a Bed and Breakfast run by monsters! | 142 | $2,938.00 (94%) in 19 days | 2024-06-11 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 5+ ⏱️ 15-30 min. | 🌱 | BGG |
| El Camino de Belén (The Journey to Bethlehem) | The game that brings families together. Up to 4 teams, the first to get to Bethlehem wins! The game comes in English and Spanish. | 111 | $10,384.00 (103%) in 30 days | ⚠️ 2024-06-09 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰 | |
| WARLINE x Dragons War | Design the battlefield. Design your army. Design custom tactics. Craft your own path to victory in this sandbox fantasy warfare game. Now, Warline's head-to-head "Strategicraft" gameplay is bolstered with the new solo or cooperative army-versus-dragon expansion—Dragons War. | 99 | $10,085.15 (81%) in 10 days | 2024-06-16 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑4 players ⏱️ 45 min. Wargame Cooperative |
New this week (28)
| Name | Description | Backers | Pledged | Ends | Information | Tags | BGG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grimcoven | Discover our new boss battler game for 1-4 players, set in a dark Victorian universe where only the hunt matters. In the unique tactical gameplay of Grimcoven, you take up the role of a hunter fueled by Lament. | 9366 | $1,795,810.67 (3592%) in 3 days | 2024-06-27 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 90-270 min. Cooperative | 💰🔥🌳 | BGG |
| RETURN TO THE 7th CITADEL. Explore, build, YOU are the hero! | Get ready for new adventures in the Collapsing Lands! 1000+ minutes of exploration and adventure for 1 to 4 slave-gardeners. | 8031 | €837,720.00 (1077%) in 5 days | 2024-06-19 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🔥 | |
| 🧁 Apothebakery - The Culinary Alchemists | Forage resources, brew elixirs and bake cakes of salvation to heal adventurers on the brink of doom in this game for 1 – 4 players. | 3870 | £286,958.00 (820%) in 5 days | 2024-06-28 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 60-90 min. | 🎉💰🔥🌱 | BGG |
| Mythic Battles: Isfet | Explore Ancient Egypt or Norse Mythology, commanding gods, heroes, monsters and troops in this 2-4 player skirmish adventure game! | 3288 | €627,108.00 (314%) in 5 days | 2024-06-21 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 60-90 min. | 🎉💰🔥🌳 | BGG |
| Mine Turtle: It’s a blast! | An explosive game of truth or dare. | 2655 | £98,122.00 (981%) in 6 days | 2024-07-03 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🔥 | |
| Secret Villages & Santa's Workshop (+Related Story Puzzles!) | The first expansion to Merchants of the Dark Road, plus a deluxe edition of Santa's Workshop and our first two story-driven puzzles! | 2289 | $146,525.00 (488%) in 5 days | 2024-06-22 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🔥🌳 | |
| Agemonia Reprint + New Heroes! | From the publisher of Eclipse, a fully co-operative board game with challenging moral choices, set in an epic campaign for 1-4 players! | 1924 | €161,398.00 (461%) in 5 days | 2024-06-21 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 60-120 min. | 🎉💰🔥 | BGG |
| Yokai Septet Pocket Edition | Fan favorite trick-taking game is back with a smaller footprint and an official inclusion of 2-player mode! | 945 | $15,535.00 (518%) in 5 days | 2024-06-21 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Port Royal | A Miniature Skirmish Game set in the Searover's Caribbean | 558 | $72,324.00 (482%) in 4 days | 2024-07-05 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Pillars of Heracles - Awaken the Legends! | Lead your city-state through a monumental adventure in Ancient Greece in this epic civilization board game for 1-4 players. | 517 | $42,151.00 (211%) in 5 days | 2024-06-24 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 90-120 min. | 💰 | BGG |
| Imperfect Crimes: Pop-Up Escape Book | Solve an immersive, 3D PopUp Book crime escape game. Find clues, solve puzzles and explore each crime scene filled with hidden secrets. | 463 | €44,896.00 (180%) in 4 days | 2024-07-08 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Operation Barclay | Operation Barclay is a two-player game of low/medium complexity about the intelligence war between the Allies and their Abwehr counterparts in the Mediterranean theater in 1942-1943. | 461 | €15,244.85 (191%) in 3 days | 2024-07-04 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 2 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 25-40 min. Card Game | 💰🌳 | BGG |
| 2GM Tactics 🔥 France & Total War | 2GM Tactics series expansions. Fight in World War II! And become the best General. | 368 | €20,878.00 (418%) in 5 days | 2024-06-28 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌳 | |
| Fluffy Dragons | A bluffing game, where you'll use the force of the elements to fight your Fluffiest enemies to collect the most gems! | 357 | $16,827.00 (224%) in 5 days | 2024-06-29 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| Bunny Boom | Bunny Boom is a strategic game of bunny infestation! Manage actions, place cards, and pass the bunnies to your opponents to end the game with the fewest bunnies! 🐰💥 | 310 | CA$28,728.43 (144%) in 5 days | 2024-06-27 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 2‑4 players 👶 12+ ⏱️ 15-45 min. Card Game | 💰 | BGG |
| Cyberpunk RED: Combat Zone™ - RePrint and Vehicle MAYHEM | An introduction of vehicles to the Combat Zone featuring the Zetatech Herakles, sleek cyber-bikes, and more! | 310 | $83,971.00 (280%) in 4 days | 2024-06-28 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🌳 | |
| Clash - D-Day Special edition | Get ready for an immersive World War II experience, during the D-Day landings in Normandy, 1944. 'Clash - D-Day Special edition' is an accessible, turn-based, tile-laying board game for 2 players. You and your opponent will have to fight for every beachhead to win this war. This special 80th commem… | 308 | €25,105.99 (279%) in 6 days | 2024-07-03 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 2 players ⏱️ 45 min. Wargame Area Control | 💰🌱 | |
| The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow for Liminal Horror | The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow is a sandbox investigation for Liminal Horror. | 285 | $12,340.00 (123%) in 5 days | 2024-07-05 | 💸 Backerkit | 💰 | |
| Dabba Walla | The famous Dabba Walla invite everyone to join them on their daily journey through Mumbai! | 250 | $14,400.00 (288%) in 5 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 30-45 min. | 🎉💰🌳 | BGG |
| CASSETTE DUNGEONS! | A compact rogue-like dungeon crawl board game through a realm of metal and madness packed in a cassette tape case! | 196 | $2,955.00 (197%) in 6 days | 2024-07-03 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1 player 👶 13+ ⏱️ 5-45 min. | 💰🌱 | BGG |
| X: Seekers of Fortune | An Action-Packed Adventure Card Game | Hunt for lost relics and legendary sites while performing heroic feats to outfox your rivals in this tcg-like strategy card game. | 191 | $12,328.00 (123%) in 5 days | 2024-07-01 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 20-40 min. | 🎉💰🌱 | BGG |
| NAWALLI: The Aztec Card Game (Second Edition) | A strategic lane battle game based on Aztec mythology - become a Nawalli Sorcerer summoning Nawals and Spells to dominate the Arena! | 129 | $8,198.00 (410%) in 3 days | 2024-07-06 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰 | |
| Paw of Duty | Command a kitty squad to regain control of a war-torn city. | 102 | $2,832.00 (189%) in 5 days | 2024-07-04 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| TomeBound | The Game of Strategic Sorcery | 77 | $4,686.00 (134%) in 2 days | 2024-07-07 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🌱 | |
| Order of the Day: Normandy | A boardgame of the D-Day invasion, June 6, 1944, playable by inexperienced or veteran boardgamers. | 60 | $2,744.00 (62%) in 3 days | 2024-07-06 | 💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑2 players 👶 12+ ⏱️ 45-120 min. | 🌳 | BGG |
| Wrestling Cubes | A unique abstract strategy game about pinning your opponent's cubes. | 51 | $2,102.00 (42%) in 2 days | 2024-07-07 | 💸 Kickstarter | ||
| Fantasy Adventure Game LIGHT AND DARKNESS | Embark on a journey full of dangers, random locations, random encounters, watch out for traps, hunt animals, heal the sick, pay for services, trade. Enter the darkness and explore ruins, caves, or undergrounds. Keep your team in mind and meet their basic needs of thirst, craving, and sleep. | 19 | PLN 5,227.50 (7%) in 6 days | 2024-08-03 | 💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑3 players ⏱️ 180 min. | 🌱 | |
| Top Line Hockey | A fast paced table top hockey game that fits on a piece of paper. | 18 | $605.00 (151%) in 1 days | 2024-07-08 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰 |
Notable filtered projects (4)
| Name | Description | Backers | Pledged | Ends | Information | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC20 | The Next Great Evolution in Fantasy TTRPGs: A Fresh System with Epic Combat, Intuitive Gameplay, and Characters as Unique as Your Group | 10643 | $1,109,228.00 (5546%) in 5 days | 2024-07-02 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🔥 |
| Blade Runner RPG: Replicant Rebellion & Asset Pack | Fight back against Replicant oppression in this major expansion to the award-winning BLADE RUNNER RPG from Free League Publishing. | 4134 | SEK 3,612,769.00 (1445%) in 12 days | 2024-06-13 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🔥🌳 |
| Mörderin by John Blanche | John Blanche presents a new range of 32mm grimdark femmes miniatures based upon his artwork. | 1733 | £53,911.00 (2696%) in 4 days | 2024-06-12 | 💸 Kickstarter | 💰🔥🌱 |
| Mörk Borg Action Figure w/ Zine by Stockholm Kartell | Dread Risen - A fully articulated Mörk Borg Action Figure w/ Zine by Johan and Pelle of Stockholm Kartell | 1199 | $104,799.00 (210%) in 40 days | 2024-06-11 | 💸 Kickstarter | 🎉💰🌳 |
2024.06.09 11:14 ImpressionOwn5487 Confusion about bells theorem proof by mit ocw
Here is the link to mit ocw slides I will be referring to In that proof they took 4 axes a, a', b, b' where a=z, a'=x, b=-x+z, b'=x+z. In slide 34, "the fact of measuring b b' does not change the value of a and a'(that have outcomes ±1) then S k =±2 "
Here the way they wrote the the conclusion they assumed that spin of a and a' is independent from spins of b and b' which is not the case as they are correlated by factor of ±1/√2 because they are at 45 degrees to each other.
I am confused about this apparent inconsistency in the proof Can someone clarify it
submitted by ImpressionOwn5487 to AskPhysics [link] [comments]
Here the way they wrote the the conclusion they assumed that spin of a and a' is independent from spins of b and b' which is not the case as they are correlated by factor of ±1/√2 because they are at 45 degrees to each other.
I am confused about this apparent inconsistency in the proof Can someone clarify it
2024.06.09 11:02 user0243129638393928 i want friends but i feel drained when trying to maintain friendships
im supposed to meet up with some old friends soon, that i had known years back. we stopped talking bc my friendship with them became toxic and draining. i was depressed at the time and felt excluded a lot. even before i fell into depression, i never felt respected by them because i remember when they’d feel comfortable to insult me and laugh together. it always felt like them as a group vs me. it ended by me just deleting my socials and stopped trying to talk to them. i don’t like holding grudges or playing victim. and i do want to give this meetup a chance lol but im so tired by just thinking of when we do meet up. it’s not specifically them causing the draining, i just always feel both physically and mentally tired when making friends and socially interacting in general, with the anxiety i experience and all. so i want to tell them i can’t make it bc me forcing myself into social interactions with a low battery will def lead to no good. but i feel bad for flaking out. idk what to do. i have no friends besides my partner and a friend i met online but we’ve gone a bit distant lately too though. so i don’t want to regret not going. i also realized ive been avoiding things that give me anxiety so im wondering if i should just go and expose myself to it because this has helped before. but i have ptsd with bullying and it might trigger something in me too and i go hyper vigilant or some shit im a mess
submitted by user0243129638393928 to depression [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 11:00 WaveOfWire This is (not) a Dungeon - Chapter 3
First Prev Next Patreon Ko-fi Discord
PRs: u/anakist & u/BroDogIsMyName
- - - - -
It had been a few weeks since Altier was brought to the run-down shack that his black-scaled companion likely called home, and he could now comfortably say he was accustomed to the…household’s routine. The kobold typically left at the crack of dawn, returned a little after noon, and occasionally left again to forage until nightfall. When the weather was bad or there wasn’t a particular need for something, they half-heartedly chased their rabbit around for a bit, which usually ended with a bout of quiet petting while everyone got ready for the night. It was always amusing to see the energetic side of what he had come to know as a relatively lazy loaf of an animal. As for the routine of the ferrorabbit in question… Well…it was at least more interesting than expected.
Hoppit would begin his own series of activities as soon as his caretaker left—the first of which being a check of every nook and cranny in the shed. He sniffed at anything that caught his interest, varying from morning to morning, but he gave every object or corner its due attention. Once he was satisfied with that, he would eat some of the ragged plants that made up most of his diet, take a drink from his bowl, then jump onto the tro— table and plop himself down, his ears pivoting towards the door. It was hard to say if the lounging spot had been established before Altier’s arrival, but it was somewhat amusing to pretend that the little rabbit was standing guard over his core—if it wasn’t for one particular part of the morning ritual, that is.
Indeed, the ferrorabbit had a habit of licking the obsidian orb that sat in the middle of the room, which thankfully didn’t seem to perturb the system enough to give Altier a headache. He was confused when it first happened, but it was commonplace enough now that he barely acknowledged it. A part of him liked that he was getting attention as a core, even if it was delivered via a strange grooming method. The closest he got to being acknowledged as something other than ‘the dungeon’ was through an unfortunate misunderstanding that he could never properly rectify. He supposed that was hardly worth thinking about now, though; too much time had passed for there to be anyone left to correct. The little oddity of his mornings would have to suffice.
There wasn’t much to comment on as far as the rest of the day’s happenings. Hoppit would end his loafing by shaking his head and ears in a way that filled the silence with soft clacks, give the core a customary tongue bath, then jump off the table to nose his way out of the shed through a hole that was hidden by the storage cart against the wall. Where the rabbit went was anyone’s guess, but he always returned before anyone noticed he was gone, and often did so while covered in small cuts and scratches. Any blood from the lacerations was quickly licked off before it could be seen by the kobold, and in the event that the scaly caretaker happened to return earlier than expected, Hoppit would scurry over to the bundles of blankets to finish the cleanup in secret.
Today looked to be following the usual pattern. The kobold left bright and early with various gardening tools and a wooden pail, and Hoppit had since set off into the great unknown for one reason or another. Hopefully, he returned less injured than usual. It was frustrating to admit that Altier had begun to grow rather fond of the fluffy creature, and seeing the thing come back hurt was bothersome. Was it off looking for food? There wasn’t a whole lot given to it, so that was a possibility, and it could be getting into fights over whatever it found. That still didn’t explain why the animal was so thin, and Altier didn’t have enough to go off of to think of a potential solution. He wanted to help it in some way, like by summoning a creature to act as an escort, or maybe just by manifesting something edible like he once could. No, he could only stare at the ‘Synchronizing…’ that occupied his menu, wishing he had more information to work with.
He never thought he would miss the bombardment of notifications and their lingering presence that filled the edge of his mental vision; at least with that he could surmise enough to hazard some kind of action. Even knowing why the menu was acting the way it did would be a start. Yet, try as he might, there wasn’t a history for him to reference anymore, and he had nothing to work with. He was confident the last message had asked him to ‘accept’ something, then took his befuddled ponderance as an answer, but he was no closer to an explanation for what it wanted, nor why it prompted him in the first place. He just didn’t have another experience to compare against, since nothing like that had ever happened before. Not that he was ever in much of a position to allow it.
The entire purpose of having Altier inhabit a core was for him to become a dungeon of Decay, which entailed all the skeletons, poisons, acids, and whatever else came to mind when one pictured the concept. ‘Living’ creatures were something he only had the chance to experiment with near the beginning of his new existence, though he never dabbled past the first few insects before transitioning to the mindless undead. Having a thinking, feeling, breathing entity touch his core was a rite reserved only for the adventurers and soldiers that bested his trials, and that was usually a painful experience. Now, he had spent what he could only guess was hours being held by a kobold, followed by having a rabbit bump against him, and neither felt like what he came to expect. Instead, both had led to a completely novel reaction from the system. The strange circumstances put him at a bit of a loss as to what it all meant for him.
Sure, he could dismiss the deluge of errors from his companion’s involvement by pointing to the numerous ‘corrupted’ messages before it, and Hoppit was a part of mostly unexplored territory, but the lack of clarity nagged at the back of his mind constantly. Being exposed to activity after potential decades or centuries of unchanging solitude made him despise the informational dead end. If he couldn’t make sense of the rabbit’s circumstances, then he didn’t have much hope of deciphering the reason for why his system was misbehaving so terribly. He also didn't know much about the one who owned the decrepit holdings he was housed inside.
He still wasn’t sure what drove the kobold to take him from the cave. His suspicion of becoming traded goods fell flat after the first week or so, and he hadn’t noticed any cult-like behaviour, which was promising. Granted, a lack of nefarious behaviour didn’t mean there was a lack of nefarious intent, but he didn’t get the impression his companion held that either. The kobold itself didn’t seem quite settled on an opinion of his core, though it was up for debate if the hesitation was due to knowing what he was or not. They seemed to mull something over before bed each night, yet never reached a satisfactory conclusion, staring at the obsidian orb through weary grey eyes until they eventually forced themselves into sleep.
Whatever the underlying reasoning for his abduction was, he had observed enough to know that the kobold didn’t deserve to live in destitution. As beaten as the shed might be, they cared for it as best they could, and did so without a single groan or grimace of complaint. The floors were cleaned with a tattered rag and fresh water, dust was removed regularly, and any stray mess that Hoppit made was dealt with promptly. They even took the time to wipe off his core, which was possibly where the ferrorabbit got the idea to start licking him. The only time Altier had seen discontent from the kobold was when they didn’t find much during their foraging, and thus couldn’t give any treats to the excited and bouncy herbivore.
He wasn’t aware that a creature’s face could make such a painfully broken expression, and he was quick to decide that he never wanted to see it again.
Vexingly, his metaphorical hands were tied; a dungeon could only influence their Domain, and given the state of his system, not even that option was available to him. All he could do was glare at the rotting wooden beams that held up the roof and remember when such an issue didn’t exist. It would have taken a mere flicker of thought and a paltry sum of mana to mend the struts when he was a proper dungeon. He could even outright reinforce the structure by weaving in other materials, leaving the appearance as it was while making everything stronger than iron. Well, he once could. Working with other affinities was something that came to him after absorbing the coloured motes left behind by adventurers, and the accursed stone that stole his mana had taken that ability as well.
An attempt was made anyway, his will ordering the deteriorated wood to absorb any trace metals from the ground, but it was no use. He couldn’t feel the iron or stones beneath the shed like he would have been able to before, all but confirming his suspicion that his connection to the Earth element had slipped away. Nature was much the same; the only way he knew when Hoppit had returned most days was from the subtle noise and the essence of injury. The other attributes—Air, Flame, Luma, Shadow, and so on—were ones he never experimented with to any real extent, so it was less noticeable when he lost his grasp on them. Perhaps they faded early. Either way, all he had left was a waning cognizance of his own alignment, and that wasn’t of much use to him. If he had any appreciable mana income, then perhaps he could do something, but he wasn’t even sure what the upkeep of his current Domain might be. It was entirely possible that he was running on a deficit, which would offer a reason for why his system had been so—
[Do#$@n Ex@#d$%^&d! CRe@#r H-H-H-HoPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP—]
[Errrrrrr—]
[Sy$%^hroni%^$zing…]
[Creeee-tu— Hoppit ha@$ esttttb-hed terrrrrrr-ity f^#% t$e dun@&$n!]
- - - - -
“Well then,” he mumbled to himself, taking in the strange scene behind the shed. For one, he could actually view a small distance beyond the structure now, and two, there was a rather proud-looking Hoppit sitting on his haunches before a pair of significantly less prideful examples of the species. They looked quite a bit bigger than the lazy loaf Altier had come to know, yet they were more cut up and dejected than his furry friend. That answered where the injuries had been coming from, he supposed. Hoppit was probably running off to bash heads with whatever animal population existed here beforehand, and they had only just reached a consensus on who was in charge. Impressive.
One of Hoppit’s ears turned back towards the shed, his head following suit as he gave a lagomorph’s approximation of a ‘Look what I did!’ smile. Altier blanked out mentally, but didn’t have time to question anything before the new leader of the local rabbits imperiously pointed a paw towards the surrounding forest, which was equally surreal to witness. Most surprising of all, the…subordinates? The other ferrorabbits did as commanded, keeping their forms small as they took off into the foliage. Soft clacks came from Hoppit’s pleased shake of his head, then he too left the area with only a slightly lopsided bounce to his stride.
The man-turned-core could only gape at what he saw. Were animals always so…expressive? Had Hoppit heard him? What in the world was happening? Why had Hoppit’s personal conquest led to Altier’s Domain expanding?
He lamented not having fingers, nor temples to rub with them. His system was a garbled mess of errors and inconsistent messages, his residence was falling apart at the seams, his companion was someone who abducted him from the dungeon, yet never did anything past that, and his first real experience with an animal was turning out to be more confusing than he thought possible.
All of this was after an unknown amount of time spent commanding legions of undead to strengthen the very people who he would later learn had lied to and manipulated him, making him into a nightmarish entity just to bolster the power of their forces. He almost missed the days spent gazing out of a mossy window. At least then he knew what to expect.
Nothing made sense anymore.
= = = = =
The soft sound of roots ripping free from soil suddenly stopped, only to be followed by a dull thud of Ceele’s palm slapping against the ground to catch her fall before she landed on her rear. She righted herself with her tail and tossed the stubborn weed into a pile with the others. No matter how many mornings she did this, they always seemed to replace themselves faster than she could remove the pesky things. A sigh slipped from her muzzle as she set about grabbing the next one embedded in the vegetable garden.
Aches and spreading stiffness flared up, but went ignored as she neared the end of her duties, though she was well aware that they would come back with force once she tried to settle down for the day. The impending soreness was an inevitable byproduct of spending so much time working. Still, she knew that if it wasn’t for the kindly old couple that allowed her to call their shed home, she would still be sleeping beneath the stars while making sure nothing tried to get at her Hoppit. Even if it was just a part of the deal, they were owed this much in return, and she would see it done properly.
The sun bore down on her back as she did her usual tasks, which was a departure from the slightly overcast weather as of late. It looked somewhat promising when she checked in the wee hours of the morning, yet as her gardening duties dragged on, so too did the intensity of such a clear sky. A disappointed glance at the empty wooden bucket on the edge of the field was quickly corrected. She hadn’t thought to refill it at the river after watering the crops, and her parched throat was making its protests known, while also reminding her that there wasn’t much water left at home either. One more thing to take care of when she was done.
A gruff cough brought her attention towards the old kobold resting his back against a tree some distance away, safely shaded from the unforgiving rays beaming down. Her displeasure at having yet more to do was hastily wiped away. She was undecided on what to think of the detached audience, but looking so sour while upholding her side of the agreement wouldn’t reflect well on her. Hopefully, he hadn’t seen it. Not that she could tell if he did; he always had the same expression when he watched her work. The elder kobold’s arms were crossed, a finger tapping absently against his bicep, while his tail sat motionless on the grass, the muddy red colour of his scales standing out amongst the greens and browns. ‘Makis,’ was his name, assuming her memory served.
Makis had taken to observing her every so often, usually propping himself against this or that at a distance, the unwavering scowl being as unnerving as it was belying of his age. Somewhat loose skin sagged a bit around his jowls and neck, yet the rest of his face was still taut from how much time he spent examining red-hot metal, and his arms were marred with countless burns and cuts from his profession. He held an oppressive aura, though the crinkles around his eyes and muzzle suggested he smiled as frequently as he glowered, even if Ceele was yet to see the former. There was only the same judgmental expression aimed at her when he was around. She could only hope that he didn’t take offence to some unintended slight, but she didn’t know him well enough to say what might be considered one.
They hadn’t spoken since she took up residence on the outskirts of his land. His wife was the one to introduce them, but it was quickly established that he had no intention of being a chatty individual. He led Ceele to the shed hidden amongst the trees on the edge of the property, then dismissed her with only a grunt coming from the elderly kobold. She supposed that it was for the best. Her experience in socializing was centred around convincing others to employ her, and there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to expand her horizons while living a life on the road. If that had been the end of their interactions, she would have swiftly written the terseness off, but he appeared every few days, taking up residence beneath the shade as he watched her work, never speaking a single word. At least he didn’t openly protest her presence, yet she figured that would be easier to manage. He wouldn’t be such an enigma then.
There wasn’t a whole lot she knew about him besides his penchant for ‘supervision,’ and anything beyond that was what his wife had volunteered during the rare opportunity they had to chat. She was told that Makis worked the smithy out front, and although he had retired from doing so in an official capacity, she could still regularly hear his hammer as she tended to the garden, so she figured he kept himself busy most days. It made her wonder what was so interesting about a vagrant like herself, but when there was so little else to do, she could see how anything could be made worth the attention. It was just him and his wife living in the once bustling home, after all; the couple’s children had long since grown up and made families of their own.
She noticed his gaze shift elsewhere as she tugged yet another stubborn intruder from the soil, his arms falling from across his chest and the perpetually worn displeasure melting to that of curiosity. He wandered off shortly after, and she had to make an effort not to fall onto her tail as the pressure on her shoulders unexpectedly evaporated. Did something happen?
Ceele shook her head free of the distracting thought. It wasn’t her business if he grew bored with watching her work. As long as no one voiced any complaints, she could only assume that she was doing a satisfactory job. Maybe he finally decided that he didn’t need to be so watchful because she was doing well! That could be it, right?
A glance at the somewhat sloppily maintained garden erased the false confidence from her face, but she was just as quick to focus on finishing up, unwilling to allow darker musings to fester. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anything else that needed her intervention. The weeds were all uprooted, the soil was appropriately dampened, and her check for pesky insects or wildlife turned up nothing to worry about. She was free for the rest of the day!
…Or she would be free—as soon as she finished the last of her tasks, anyway.
The black-scaled kobold got up from her crouch unsteadily, shivering and wincing from the pins and needles in her legs. She would have to remember to stretch more often; it was far too easy to forgo that kind of thing just to make the overall work go slightly faster. Her hand reached out to grab the pile of weeds and put them into the bucket as she ran through what needed to be done before she could properly relax. Hoppit’s food needed to be washed, she needed to bathe, and they were running low on water anyway, so she would have to visit the river. Just the thought of dragging herself into the forest again made her muscles protest, but she wouldn’t have the energy to do it later. She forced the smile that had started to fall and took the first of many steps.
- - - - -
The river wasn’t too far away, only taking a few minutes of traipsing through the dense woodlands until she reached her destination. It was an idyllic little spot. The trees thinned out to allow a grassy bank along the water, and there was an appreciably gentle slope from shallows to depths, making for a convenient place to take care of various needs. She had discovered this place during her travels, and it was where a kind older woman found her.
Ceele was washing off at the time, with Hoppit safely taking shelter from the outside underneath the bundled blankets while he waited. The trickle of the stream brushing against rocks covered the sound of footsteps, so she was rather surprised when an aged voice called out to ask if she was okay. Her first reaction was to distance herself and apologize—the why didn’t matter, but she had learned that most people were more lenient of her presence if she seemed apologetic for it, and she usually was. The elderly kobold just laughed at her scrambling, tacking on an assurance that there was no need for modesty. The woman was blind, apparently, which explained how Ceele’s blackened colours hadn’t deterred her.
Strangely enough, there was a comforting sense of ease around the one who introduced herself as Hira. It was a sort of presence that Ceele could only vaguely remember, and it drew her close enough to speak as she finished bathing. The conversation wasn’t anything profound, of course—they hardly delved deeper than surface-level small talk—but Hira lost her smile as she listened to the younger kobold. By the end of it, the old woman posed a series of questions with a dark inflection to her voice, and Ceele struggled to find an answer.
‘Are you tired of looking for something that only slips away? Are you tired of running? Do you really want to be scared and alone?’
If the silence bothered Hira, then it didn’t show. She had simply held out a hand and offered Ceele a way of life that didn’t involve wondering where she would be spending the night, nor entailed cowering in the brush while fearsome predators roamed freely. It would be a simple existence of few fortunes, but it was safe, and it was honest. All she had to do was say yes.
Ceele denied it at first, partially because she knew most people despised Hobbit's species, and partially because she couldn’t shake the offer being too good to be true. Hira was quick to propose a compromise; Ceele could take residence in the gardening shed that had fallen from use, and to satiate the nagging sense of an unfair deal, she would be put in charge of maintaining the garden itself. All Hira wanted was to ‘see’ her favourite space bloom again, since she couldn’t take care of it anymore. The black-scaled kobold stared longingly at where Hoppit was, his little body shivering from the prolonged cold and fear that he would be hurt if he left the blankets hiding him. It was with a heavy guilt that she accepted Hira’s offer, keeping quiet about her true reason for doing so.
That was in the past, however, though she thought about it every time she stopped by and saw the smooth rocks where she and Hira first met. Eventually, she might gather the courage to admit that she was housing a ‘pest’ and beg for forgiveness. Until then, she would just work her hardest to prove it wasn’t a mistake to give her a home. That her endless efforts weren’t meaningless. That Hoppit deserved to be more than a ‘pest.’
That Ceele was more than something she had no control over being.
She cleared her head a bit and started on the reason she came all this way. Her dress was rather easy to wash in the meandering water, and the trees provided a suitable place for it to dry in the sunlight and light breeze. The weeds were fine with a thorough rinse near in the shallows, but taking care of her own hygiene required her to wade farther in, though it only came up to her chest in the middle of the rill. Still, she could scrub off the soil and grime, which was all she really needed. Perhaps some simple soaps would help rid her of the pervasive black that stained her skin and scales, but that was beyond her meagre means for the time being, as well as being mere wishful thinking.
She worked past the dreary mindset that settled in when she allowed it, focusing on how serene the river was. The soft birdsong from the trees helped make for a peaceful experience, and she could feel the somewhat chilled liquid basically pour into the aches and pains throughout her body, washing away the stiffness from spending so long under the unerring sun. It was nice to escape reality and let thoughts drift while held buoyant by calmer waters.
Yet the bliss was short-lived. Even if winter was gone, spring was still far from warming the waters enough for her to laze about for too long. She dragged herself from the soft current and fetched her dress from the low-lying branch she left it to dry on. It was still a touch damp, but it wasn’t anything a bit of time in front of the fireplace wouldn’t fix.
Ceele was only a short distance away from home when she heard a gravelly male voice, but it was the flicker of sight between the trees that made her drop what was in her arms and lunge into a sprint.
Makis stood just outside the gardening shed, a ferrorabbit held at arm’s length by rusty crimson hands placed on the scruff and haunch, the rabbit’s little ears flattened as fear filled its tiny face. Her eyes widened further when she noticed the small stains of blood in his light brown fur. They found out about him. Ephemeral claws of blackness clutched at her soul, ripping the very fabric she was made of as an unseen beast smiled, eager to take yet one more thing from her. Her Hoppit. Her baby. Her everything.
“Hoppit!” she shrieked, her words all but tearing out of her throat in desperation. Frozen blood coursed through her veins, yet poured into exhausted limbs. She broke through the treeline with no regard for the branches slashing against her flesh, panic making each sting fade before it could be processed. The grizzled glare of the older kobold snapped towards her, his usual scowl picking up an actual air of intensity that she never thought could be absent, the promise of violence lurking in his eyes. She skidded to a stop a few paces away, the lump in her throat threatening to clog her airway. “S-stop hurting him!”
“Didn’t,” he barked back, his tone even yet firm. “Cuts ain’t me. I’d’a done worse if’a had ta mind ta.”
The blatant declaration snapped her from blind panic, although his apparent anger didn’t do her fear any favours. “B-but… Then how…”
“‘Hoppit.’ Named it, did’cha?” he grunted, ignoring her confusion and bobbing the rabbit to get her attention again. His gaze shifted back to the animal, the flames of ire cooling slightly. “I was wonderin’ why yer plots ain’t dead yet. Suppose this critter’s why.”
One of her hands hesitantly reached out until she pulled it back, while the other clutched at her chest to stop her heart from hammering against her ribs. She couldn’t act rashly. Not while her baby was in his arms. “I—”
“Soft thing, ain’t it,” the elder kobold commented curiously, cutting her off.
“Y-yes?” she returned reluctantly, struggling to stop herself from lashing out to reclaim the ferrorabbit in his grasp.
“Like fine silk.” Makis tipped and tilted the animal, inspecting this and that with a deep-seated frown, all while Hoppit silently looked to her for help. The pit in her stomach grew. She needed to get him back, but how?
Ceele swallowed the dense dread as she tried to formulate some sort of plan, stumbling over her words and forced smile. “I-it’s nice! Isn’t it nice?”
His eyes snapped back to burrow into her own with hatred. “Wasn’t a compliment, girly.”
“B-but you—”
He released Hoppit’s lower half to jab a claw at the various spikes around his body, plying them with minimal force. “Look. See this? These’r suppose ta break bone. ‘Specially when he’s stiff like this. Ain’t no way I should be able ta bend ‘em. He’s barely more than a walkin’ carcass—all skin ‘n stick. He’s gonna get picked up by a wandering pecker if he keeps pissin’ about out ‘ere. It’s a wonder he’s still kickin’. What’cha feeding ‘em?” His gaze dropped from her face to the rest of her, disgust curling his muzzle into a snarl. “N’ver mind. I can guess.”
She felt the dampness build at the edges of her vision, unprepared to not only worry for Hoppit's immediate health, but also to face such harsh criticism while she was so vulnerable. “I… I try to make sure he has…”
Makis crouched to release the ferrorabbit onto the ground, Ceele dropping to her knees the moment he did. The terrified lagomorph wasted no time, bolting towards his adoptive mother and leaping into her arms, shaking uncontrollably. The rust-coloured ‘bold stared as she started soothingly stroking the animal’s back.
“Yer given’ em the weeds, aren’t ya?” he stated rather than asked. She gave a teary nod when her voice wouldn’t respond for her. The old kobold drew a breath, letting it go in an exasperated sigh as he stood back up, his expression becoming more impatient than antagonistic. “What else?”
“I— Um…”
“What. Else?”
“W-whatever I c-can find!” she sputtered out. Hoppit tried to hide against her neck, prompting her to tighten her hold. She couldn’t stop herself from shrinking, the guilt and confusion pulling her head down. “R-roots, vegetables, fruits… I give them as often as I can.”
His glare continued unimpeded, his cadence cold. “That it?”
There were a million things Ceele wanted to say. A part of her wanted to beg him not to kick them out of the first safe place she had in longer than she could remember, but she couldn’t find the words. She wanted to deny the judgmental tone that stabbed into her insecurity surrounding how good of a job she was doing with Hoppit, but the deadened void in her chest swallowed her pride whole. She knew he was right to critique her. That she was failing in the only thing that mattered anymore. That the feeling of loss would return.
“I try,” she whispered through the beginnings of a sob. “I try to find more, but he needs someone around, and I have to work the garden, so there’s only so much time I can spend looking. He won’t even eat all of what I bring back…” Tears dripped off her cheeks as she aimed a desolate smile at her furry friend. “He wants to make sure I have some too.”
“Yer killin’ em,” Makis pointed out plainly, crossing his arms. “He’ll be dead ‘fore the summer at this rate.”
“I know!” she shouted, forcing back the memories of insidious murmurs that lurked in the back of her mind, eager to creep into her ears again. The hate-filled stares that followed her, the rumours that arrived in towns before she had the chance to make an impression, and the guilt that loomed over her like an executioner's axe… “I know I am… I just… I don’t know what he needs. I don’t know how to make him happy…but I try. I’m trying…”
“…Yer an idiot, girly.”
She looked up to see the elder kobold walking away without another word. Her eyes fell to Hoppit, the ferrorabbit pressing himself against her as much as he could. He was small, thin, soft, and growing weaker by the day, but he never let it keep him down for long. No, he always showed his best for her, giving her joy that wasn’t provided anywhere else. She saw the thin cuts and dried blood, though she didn’t know where they came from, nor how he got out of the shed in the first place. But that was okay. Hoppit was okay, and she had Hoppit, so everything was okay, right?
…But how much longer would everything stay okay? How much longer until her efforts weren’t enough, and she was left desperately reaching for fading memories of what once was? How much longer until she killed her baby too?
How much longer until she was alone again?
Soft footsteps drew near, pulling her from the spiralling thoughts that threatened to gnaw at her soul. Damp, blurry eyes fell on Makis returning with a small wooden crate, the older kobold stopping a few steps away. He dropped the box, a deep, rattling thud produced as it impacted the ground, making Hoppit flinch in her arms. Ceele blinked as she kept him calm, then blinked again, looking up at the man for answers.
“The name, girly,” he spat in irritation. “Ferrorabbit. Ther’ Earth aligned creatures; they need metals. They don’t care where they get it, but they need lots of it. Iron, copper, tin, lead—raw crystal, if they can find it. You name it, they’ll take a chunk out of it. It's why they bother farmers so much; the best soil’s usually top’a gem deposits, ‘n the little bastards have no issue burrowing deep to get it. Dries up the element’s energy ‘n makes the crops weak.”
Ceele’s mouth opened and closed, each unsuccessful attempt to speak making her feel smaller and smaller. More and more lost. Why was he telling her this? How did he know? What was in the—
He kicked the crate with the side of his foot. “Scraps. Don’t’cha look at me like that. I’m a smith, girly. I might be old and retired, but I still work a forge. Now, this ain’t anything pure—it’s just slag and hunks—but I’m sure the critter won’t mind. Your little gardenin’ project pays off, ‘n I’ll see which of my contacts can get in some better ore.”
She ripped her eyes away from the box and met the perpetual scowl of the old kobold, seeing a warmth behind the hostility that she had never noticed before. “…Why?”
He scoffed in amusement, which looked somewhat menacing on such a hardened expression. “Yer a touch stupid, girly, but the missus adores ya, ‘n yer a good worker.” A shadow of a smile formed on his face. “Hira spent more evenings asking ‘bout how the plots are doin’ than I got time in the day. She’d bite my head off if I noticed a critter like that sufferin’ and didn’t lend a hand. ‘Specially when it’s obvious you ain’t tryin’ ta hurt the thing.”
“B-but the garden… Isn’t he a problem?”
Makis rolled his eyes, turning with a dismissive wave of his hand. “If he was, he’da killed it by now. I’d say he’s been keepin’ the others clear ‘n got scratched up for the trouble. That’s more reason to feed ‘em right in my eyes; pay the poor bastard his dues.” He paused after a few steps, shooting her one last incredulous glance. “‘N the rabbit’s right. You’re not much better off than he is. Eat. Before the missus takes my head, preferably. I ain’t need ta hear her worryin’ over you more than I already do.”
And with that, he walked off back to the house, leaving Ceele to sit stunned on the ground with Hoppit quietly nuzzling into her.
“Hoppit…?”
The ferrorabbit perked an ear and gently licked her collar. Fresh tears ran rivulets down her face, yet they didn’t weigh her down. They felt freeing. She adjusted her hold on the rabbit and held him out, taking in the small cuts and numerous other injuries she had never noticed before. He stared back at her with worried eyes.
“You’ve been busy, huh?” she cooed quietly, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. He shrunk in her hands. “I told you to stay home, baby. What if something happened to you? I wouldn’t know where you went, and…”
Her protests died out as she saw what was unmistakably guilt on his little face. She brought him back to her chest and cleared her throat.
“It’s alright, Hoppit. If… If you want to help momma, then we can work together, okay? Just…please don’t go off getting hurt… I don’t know what I’d do without you…” The rabbit didn’t reply, and she was pretty sure she had never heard him make any sounds that weren’t his happy little ear clacks, but she chose to interpret the nuzzling as an agreement. “Such a smart boy…”
She took a breath and wiped off the excess moisture from her cheeks, setting Hoppit down on the ground. “Let’s bring Mr. Makis’ gift in, and then I need to go get more water so we can clean you up, okay?”
He bounced his way to the door of their home, waiting patiently for her to lug the surprisingly heavy crate into the shed. He was even still behaving himself by the time she returned from picking up the things she dropped in her haste. There wasn’t a single protest from the ferrorabbit as she washed over his wounds with warm water, nor when she asked him to wait as she cut up a small salad for him using an extra portion of her rationed vegetables. Finally, once everything else was gone, she tentatively sifted through the box until she found a chunk of something that didn’t look so sharp, then offered it to Hoppit skeptically.
As startling as it was to see him bite through metal without issue, she couldn’t help but tear up again at how pleased he looked with the bizarre addition to his diet. He munched through the first piece, then stared at the box while pawing at the air, asking for more. She obliged through wet laughs, feeling lighter than she had since he first gazed at her from his burrow, alone and afraid, just like she was.
Her little baby was happy, and that made it okay.
Next
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A/N: Thank you to my Patrons, new and returning! No Thanks, Emmanuel, and Megathor join the others who get to read 1 chap ahead!
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PRs: u/anakist & u/BroDogIsMyName
- - - - -
It had been a few weeks since Altier was brought to the run-down shack that his black-scaled companion likely called home, and he could now comfortably say he was accustomed to the…household’s routine. The kobold typically left at the crack of dawn, returned a little after noon, and occasionally left again to forage until nightfall. When the weather was bad or there wasn’t a particular need for something, they half-heartedly chased their rabbit around for a bit, which usually ended with a bout of quiet petting while everyone got ready for the night. It was always amusing to see the energetic side of what he had come to know as a relatively lazy loaf of an animal. As for the routine of the ferrorabbit in question… Well…it was at least more interesting than expected.
Hoppit would begin his own series of activities as soon as his caretaker left—the first of which being a check of every nook and cranny in the shed. He sniffed at anything that caught his interest, varying from morning to morning, but he gave every object or corner its due attention. Once he was satisfied with that, he would eat some of the ragged plants that made up most of his diet, take a drink from his bowl, then jump onto the tro— table and plop himself down, his ears pivoting towards the door. It was hard to say if the lounging spot had been established before Altier’s arrival, but it was somewhat amusing to pretend that the little rabbit was standing guard over his core—if it wasn’t for one particular part of the morning ritual, that is.
Indeed, the ferrorabbit had a habit of licking the obsidian orb that sat in the middle of the room, which thankfully didn’t seem to perturb the system enough to give Altier a headache. He was confused when it first happened, but it was commonplace enough now that he barely acknowledged it. A part of him liked that he was getting attention as a core, even if it was delivered via a strange grooming method. The closest he got to being acknowledged as something other than ‘the dungeon’ was through an unfortunate misunderstanding that he could never properly rectify. He supposed that was hardly worth thinking about now, though; too much time had passed for there to be anyone left to correct. The little oddity of his mornings would have to suffice.
There wasn’t much to comment on as far as the rest of the day’s happenings. Hoppit would end his loafing by shaking his head and ears in a way that filled the silence with soft clacks, give the core a customary tongue bath, then jump off the table to nose his way out of the shed through a hole that was hidden by the storage cart against the wall. Where the rabbit went was anyone’s guess, but he always returned before anyone noticed he was gone, and often did so while covered in small cuts and scratches. Any blood from the lacerations was quickly licked off before it could be seen by the kobold, and in the event that the scaly caretaker happened to return earlier than expected, Hoppit would scurry over to the bundles of blankets to finish the cleanup in secret.
Today looked to be following the usual pattern. The kobold left bright and early with various gardening tools and a wooden pail, and Hoppit had since set off into the great unknown for one reason or another. Hopefully, he returned less injured than usual. It was frustrating to admit that Altier had begun to grow rather fond of the fluffy creature, and seeing the thing come back hurt was bothersome. Was it off looking for food? There wasn’t a whole lot given to it, so that was a possibility, and it could be getting into fights over whatever it found. That still didn’t explain why the animal was so thin, and Altier didn’t have enough to go off of to think of a potential solution. He wanted to help it in some way, like by summoning a creature to act as an escort, or maybe just by manifesting something edible like he once could. No, he could only stare at the ‘Synchronizing…’ that occupied his menu, wishing he had more information to work with.
He never thought he would miss the bombardment of notifications and their lingering presence that filled the edge of his mental vision; at least with that he could surmise enough to hazard some kind of action. Even knowing why the menu was acting the way it did would be a start. Yet, try as he might, there wasn’t a history for him to reference anymore, and he had nothing to work with. He was confident the last message had asked him to ‘accept’ something, then took his befuddled ponderance as an answer, but he was no closer to an explanation for what it wanted, nor why it prompted him in the first place. He just didn’t have another experience to compare against, since nothing like that had ever happened before. Not that he was ever in much of a position to allow it.
The entire purpose of having Altier inhabit a core was for him to become a dungeon of Decay, which entailed all the skeletons, poisons, acids, and whatever else came to mind when one pictured the concept. ‘Living’ creatures were something he only had the chance to experiment with near the beginning of his new existence, though he never dabbled past the first few insects before transitioning to the mindless undead. Having a thinking, feeling, breathing entity touch his core was a rite reserved only for the adventurers and soldiers that bested his trials, and that was usually a painful experience. Now, he had spent what he could only guess was hours being held by a kobold, followed by having a rabbit bump against him, and neither felt like what he came to expect. Instead, both had led to a completely novel reaction from the system. The strange circumstances put him at a bit of a loss as to what it all meant for him.
Sure, he could dismiss the deluge of errors from his companion’s involvement by pointing to the numerous ‘corrupted’ messages before it, and Hoppit was a part of mostly unexplored territory, but the lack of clarity nagged at the back of his mind constantly. Being exposed to activity after potential decades or centuries of unchanging solitude made him despise the informational dead end. If he couldn’t make sense of the rabbit’s circumstances, then he didn’t have much hope of deciphering the reason for why his system was misbehaving so terribly. He also didn't know much about the one who owned the decrepit holdings he was housed inside.
He still wasn’t sure what drove the kobold to take him from the cave. His suspicion of becoming traded goods fell flat after the first week or so, and he hadn’t noticed any cult-like behaviour, which was promising. Granted, a lack of nefarious behaviour didn’t mean there was a lack of nefarious intent, but he didn’t get the impression his companion held that either. The kobold itself didn’t seem quite settled on an opinion of his core, though it was up for debate if the hesitation was due to knowing what he was or not. They seemed to mull something over before bed each night, yet never reached a satisfactory conclusion, staring at the obsidian orb through weary grey eyes until they eventually forced themselves into sleep.
Whatever the underlying reasoning for his abduction was, he had observed enough to know that the kobold didn’t deserve to live in destitution. As beaten as the shed might be, they cared for it as best they could, and did so without a single groan or grimace of complaint. The floors were cleaned with a tattered rag and fresh water, dust was removed regularly, and any stray mess that Hoppit made was dealt with promptly. They even took the time to wipe off his core, which was possibly where the ferrorabbit got the idea to start licking him. The only time Altier had seen discontent from the kobold was when they didn’t find much during their foraging, and thus couldn’t give any treats to the excited and bouncy herbivore.
He wasn’t aware that a creature’s face could make such a painfully broken expression, and he was quick to decide that he never wanted to see it again.
Vexingly, his metaphorical hands were tied; a dungeon could only influence their Domain, and given the state of his system, not even that option was available to him. All he could do was glare at the rotting wooden beams that held up the roof and remember when such an issue didn’t exist. It would have taken a mere flicker of thought and a paltry sum of mana to mend the struts when he was a proper dungeon. He could even outright reinforce the structure by weaving in other materials, leaving the appearance as it was while making everything stronger than iron. Well, he once could. Working with other affinities was something that came to him after absorbing the coloured motes left behind by adventurers, and the accursed stone that stole his mana had taken that ability as well.
An attempt was made anyway, his will ordering the deteriorated wood to absorb any trace metals from the ground, but it was no use. He couldn’t feel the iron or stones beneath the shed like he would have been able to before, all but confirming his suspicion that his connection to the Earth element had slipped away. Nature was much the same; the only way he knew when Hoppit had returned most days was from the subtle noise and the essence of injury. The other attributes—Air, Flame, Luma, Shadow, and so on—were ones he never experimented with to any real extent, so it was less noticeable when he lost his grasp on them. Perhaps they faded early. Either way, all he had left was a waning cognizance of his own alignment, and that wasn’t of much use to him. If he had any appreciable mana income, then perhaps he could do something, but he wasn’t even sure what the upkeep of his current Domain might be. It was entirely possible that he was running on a deficit, which would offer a reason for why his system had been so—
[Do#$@n Ex@#d$%^&d! CRe@#r H-H-H-HoPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP—]
[Errrrrrr—]
[Sy$%^hroni%^$zing…]
[Creeee-tu— Hoppit ha@$ esttttb-hed terrrrrrr-ity f^#% t$e dun@&$n!]
- - - - -
“Well then,” he mumbled to himself, taking in the strange scene behind the shed. For one, he could actually view a small distance beyond the structure now, and two, there was a rather proud-looking Hoppit sitting on his haunches before a pair of significantly less prideful examples of the species. They looked quite a bit bigger than the lazy loaf Altier had come to know, yet they were more cut up and dejected than his furry friend. That answered where the injuries had been coming from, he supposed. Hoppit was probably running off to bash heads with whatever animal population existed here beforehand, and they had only just reached a consensus on who was in charge. Impressive.
One of Hoppit’s ears turned back towards the shed, his head following suit as he gave a lagomorph’s approximation of a ‘Look what I did!’ smile. Altier blanked out mentally, but didn’t have time to question anything before the new leader of the local rabbits imperiously pointed a paw towards the surrounding forest, which was equally surreal to witness. Most surprising of all, the…subordinates? The other ferrorabbits did as commanded, keeping their forms small as they took off into the foliage. Soft clacks came from Hoppit’s pleased shake of his head, then he too left the area with only a slightly lopsided bounce to his stride.
The man-turned-core could only gape at what he saw. Were animals always so…expressive? Had Hoppit heard him? What in the world was happening? Why had Hoppit’s personal conquest led to Altier’s Domain expanding?
He lamented not having fingers, nor temples to rub with them. His system was a garbled mess of errors and inconsistent messages, his residence was falling apart at the seams, his companion was someone who abducted him from the dungeon, yet never did anything past that, and his first real experience with an animal was turning out to be more confusing than he thought possible.
All of this was after an unknown amount of time spent commanding legions of undead to strengthen the very people who he would later learn had lied to and manipulated him, making him into a nightmarish entity just to bolster the power of their forces. He almost missed the days spent gazing out of a mossy window. At least then he knew what to expect.
Nothing made sense anymore.
= = = = =
The soft sound of roots ripping free from soil suddenly stopped, only to be followed by a dull thud of Ceele’s palm slapping against the ground to catch her fall before she landed on her rear. She righted herself with her tail and tossed the stubborn weed into a pile with the others. No matter how many mornings she did this, they always seemed to replace themselves faster than she could remove the pesky things. A sigh slipped from her muzzle as she set about grabbing the next one embedded in the vegetable garden.
Aches and spreading stiffness flared up, but went ignored as she neared the end of her duties, though she was well aware that they would come back with force once she tried to settle down for the day. The impending soreness was an inevitable byproduct of spending so much time working. Still, she knew that if it wasn’t for the kindly old couple that allowed her to call their shed home, she would still be sleeping beneath the stars while making sure nothing tried to get at her Hoppit. Even if it was just a part of the deal, they were owed this much in return, and she would see it done properly.
The sun bore down on her back as she did her usual tasks, which was a departure from the slightly overcast weather as of late. It looked somewhat promising when she checked in the wee hours of the morning, yet as her gardening duties dragged on, so too did the intensity of such a clear sky. A disappointed glance at the empty wooden bucket on the edge of the field was quickly corrected. She hadn’t thought to refill it at the river after watering the crops, and her parched throat was making its protests known, while also reminding her that there wasn’t much water left at home either. One more thing to take care of when she was done.
A gruff cough brought her attention towards the old kobold resting his back against a tree some distance away, safely shaded from the unforgiving rays beaming down. Her displeasure at having yet more to do was hastily wiped away. She was undecided on what to think of the detached audience, but looking so sour while upholding her side of the agreement wouldn’t reflect well on her. Hopefully, he hadn’t seen it. Not that she could tell if he did; he always had the same expression when he watched her work. The elder kobold’s arms were crossed, a finger tapping absently against his bicep, while his tail sat motionless on the grass, the muddy red colour of his scales standing out amongst the greens and browns. ‘Makis,’ was his name, assuming her memory served.
Makis had taken to observing her every so often, usually propping himself against this or that at a distance, the unwavering scowl being as unnerving as it was belying of his age. Somewhat loose skin sagged a bit around his jowls and neck, yet the rest of his face was still taut from how much time he spent examining red-hot metal, and his arms were marred with countless burns and cuts from his profession. He held an oppressive aura, though the crinkles around his eyes and muzzle suggested he smiled as frequently as he glowered, even if Ceele was yet to see the former. There was only the same judgmental expression aimed at her when he was around. She could only hope that he didn’t take offence to some unintended slight, but she didn’t know him well enough to say what might be considered one.
They hadn’t spoken since she took up residence on the outskirts of his land. His wife was the one to introduce them, but it was quickly established that he had no intention of being a chatty individual. He led Ceele to the shed hidden amongst the trees on the edge of the property, then dismissed her with only a grunt coming from the elderly kobold. She supposed that it was for the best. Her experience in socializing was centred around convincing others to employ her, and there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to expand her horizons while living a life on the road. If that had been the end of their interactions, she would have swiftly written the terseness off, but he appeared every few days, taking up residence beneath the shade as he watched her work, never speaking a single word. At least he didn’t openly protest her presence, yet she figured that would be easier to manage. He wouldn’t be such an enigma then.
There wasn’t a whole lot she knew about him besides his penchant for ‘supervision,’ and anything beyond that was what his wife had volunteered during the rare opportunity they had to chat. She was told that Makis worked the smithy out front, and although he had retired from doing so in an official capacity, she could still regularly hear his hammer as she tended to the garden, so she figured he kept himself busy most days. It made her wonder what was so interesting about a vagrant like herself, but when there was so little else to do, she could see how anything could be made worth the attention. It was just him and his wife living in the once bustling home, after all; the couple’s children had long since grown up and made families of their own.
She noticed his gaze shift elsewhere as she tugged yet another stubborn intruder from the soil, his arms falling from across his chest and the perpetually worn displeasure melting to that of curiosity. He wandered off shortly after, and she had to make an effort not to fall onto her tail as the pressure on her shoulders unexpectedly evaporated. Did something happen?
Ceele shook her head free of the distracting thought. It wasn’t her business if he grew bored with watching her work. As long as no one voiced any complaints, she could only assume that she was doing a satisfactory job. Maybe he finally decided that he didn’t need to be so watchful because she was doing well! That could be it, right?
A glance at the somewhat sloppily maintained garden erased the false confidence from her face, but she was just as quick to focus on finishing up, unwilling to allow darker musings to fester. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anything else that needed her intervention. The weeds were all uprooted, the soil was appropriately dampened, and her check for pesky insects or wildlife turned up nothing to worry about. She was free for the rest of the day!
…Or she would be free—as soon as she finished the last of her tasks, anyway.
The black-scaled kobold got up from her crouch unsteadily, shivering and wincing from the pins and needles in her legs. She would have to remember to stretch more often; it was far too easy to forgo that kind of thing just to make the overall work go slightly faster. Her hand reached out to grab the pile of weeds and put them into the bucket as she ran through what needed to be done before she could properly relax. Hoppit’s food needed to be washed, she needed to bathe, and they were running low on water anyway, so she would have to visit the river. Just the thought of dragging herself into the forest again made her muscles protest, but she wouldn’t have the energy to do it later. She forced the smile that had started to fall and took the first of many steps.
- - - - -
The river wasn’t too far away, only taking a few minutes of traipsing through the dense woodlands until she reached her destination. It was an idyllic little spot. The trees thinned out to allow a grassy bank along the water, and there was an appreciably gentle slope from shallows to depths, making for a convenient place to take care of various needs. She had discovered this place during her travels, and it was where a kind older woman found her.
Ceele was washing off at the time, with Hoppit safely taking shelter from the outside underneath the bundled blankets while he waited. The trickle of the stream brushing against rocks covered the sound of footsteps, so she was rather surprised when an aged voice called out to ask if she was okay. Her first reaction was to distance herself and apologize—the why didn’t matter, but she had learned that most people were more lenient of her presence if she seemed apologetic for it, and she usually was. The elderly kobold just laughed at her scrambling, tacking on an assurance that there was no need for modesty. The woman was blind, apparently, which explained how Ceele’s blackened colours hadn’t deterred her.
Strangely enough, there was a comforting sense of ease around the one who introduced herself as Hira. It was a sort of presence that Ceele could only vaguely remember, and it drew her close enough to speak as she finished bathing. The conversation wasn’t anything profound, of course—they hardly delved deeper than surface-level small talk—but Hira lost her smile as she listened to the younger kobold. By the end of it, the old woman posed a series of questions with a dark inflection to her voice, and Ceele struggled to find an answer.
‘Are you tired of looking for something that only slips away? Are you tired of running? Do you really want to be scared and alone?’
If the silence bothered Hira, then it didn’t show. She had simply held out a hand and offered Ceele a way of life that didn’t involve wondering where she would be spending the night, nor entailed cowering in the brush while fearsome predators roamed freely. It would be a simple existence of few fortunes, but it was safe, and it was honest. All she had to do was say yes.
Ceele denied it at first, partially because she knew most people despised Hobbit's species, and partially because she couldn’t shake the offer being too good to be true. Hira was quick to propose a compromise; Ceele could take residence in the gardening shed that had fallen from use, and to satiate the nagging sense of an unfair deal, she would be put in charge of maintaining the garden itself. All Hira wanted was to ‘see’ her favourite space bloom again, since she couldn’t take care of it anymore. The black-scaled kobold stared longingly at where Hoppit was, his little body shivering from the prolonged cold and fear that he would be hurt if he left the blankets hiding him. It was with a heavy guilt that she accepted Hira’s offer, keeping quiet about her true reason for doing so.
That was in the past, however, though she thought about it every time she stopped by and saw the smooth rocks where she and Hira first met. Eventually, she might gather the courage to admit that she was housing a ‘pest’ and beg for forgiveness. Until then, she would just work her hardest to prove it wasn’t a mistake to give her a home. That her endless efforts weren’t meaningless. That Hoppit deserved to be more than a ‘pest.’
That Ceele was more than something she had no control over being.
She cleared her head a bit and started on the reason she came all this way. Her dress was rather easy to wash in the meandering water, and the trees provided a suitable place for it to dry in the sunlight and light breeze. The weeds were fine with a thorough rinse near in the shallows, but taking care of her own hygiene required her to wade farther in, though it only came up to her chest in the middle of the rill. Still, she could scrub off the soil and grime, which was all she really needed. Perhaps some simple soaps would help rid her of the pervasive black that stained her skin and scales, but that was beyond her meagre means for the time being, as well as being mere wishful thinking.
She worked past the dreary mindset that settled in when she allowed it, focusing on how serene the river was. The soft birdsong from the trees helped make for a peaceful experience, and she could feel the somewhat chilled liquid basically pour into the aches and pains throughout her body, washing away the stiffness from spending so long under the unerring sun. It was nice to escape reality and let thoughts drift while held buoyant by calmer waters.
Yet the bliss was short-lived. Even if winter was gone, spring was still far from warming the waters enough for her to laze about for too long. She dragged herself from the soft current and fetched her dress from the low-lying branch she left it to dry on. It was still a touch damp, but it wasn’t anything a bit of time in front of the fireplace wouldn’t fix.
Ceele was only a short distance away from home when she heard a gravelly male voice, but it was the flicker of sight between the trees that made her drop what was in her arms and lunge into a sprint.
Makis stood just outside the gardening shed, a ferrorabbit held at arm’s length by rusty crimson hands placed on the scruff and haunch, the rabbit’s little ears flattened as fear filled its tiny face. Her eyes widened further when she noticed the small stains of blood in his light brown fur. They found out about him. Ephemeral claws of blackness clutched at her soul, ripping the very fabric she was made of as an unseen beast smiled, eager to take yet one more thing from her. Her Hoppit. Her baby. Her everything.
“Hoppit!” she shrieked, her words all but tearing out of her throat in desperation. Frozen blood coursed through her veins, yet poured into exhausted limbs. She broke through the treeline with no regard for the branches slashing against her flesh, panic making each sting fade before it could be processed. The grizzled glare of the older kobold snapped towards her, his usual scowl picking up an actual air of intensity that she never thought could be absent, the promise of violence lurking in his eyes. She skidded to a stop a few paces away, the lump in her throat threatening to clog her airway. “S-stop hurting him!”
“Didn’t,” he barked back, his tone even yet firm. “Cuts ain’t me. I’d’a done worse if’a had ta mind ta.”
The blatant declaration snapped her from blind panic, although his apparent anger didn’t do her fear any favours. “B-but… Then how…”
“‘Hoppit.’ Named it, did’cha?” he grunted, ignoring her confusion and bobbing the rabbit to get her attention again. His gaze shifted back to the animal, the flames of ire cooling slightly. “I was wonderin’ why yer plots ain’t dead yet. Suppose this critter’s why.”
One of her hands hesitantly reached out until she pulled it back, while the other clutched at her chest to stop her heart from hammering against her ribs. She couldn’t act rashly. Not while her baby was in his arms. “I—”
“Soft thing, ain’t it,” the elder kobold commented curiously, cutting her off.
“Y-yes?” she returned reluctantly, struggling to stop herself from lashing out to reclaim the ferrorabbit in his grasp.
“Like fine silk.” Makis tipped and tilted the animal, inspecting this and that with a deep-seated frown, all while Hoppit silently looked to her for help. The pit in her stomach grew. She needed to get him back, but how?
Ceele swallowed the dense dread as she tried to formulate some sort of plan, stumbling over her words and forced smile. “I-it’s nice! Isn’t it nice?”
His eyes snapped back to burrow into her own with hatred. “Wasn’t a compliment, girly.”
“B-but you—”
He released Hoppit’s lower half to jab a claw at the various spikes around his body, plying them with minimal force. “Look. See this? These’r suppose ta break bone. ‘Specially when he’s stiff like this. Ain’t no way I should be able ta bend ‘em. He’s barely more than a walkin’ carcass—all skin ‘n stick. He’s gonna get picked up by a wandering pecker if he keeps pissin’ about out ‘ere. It’s a wonder he’s still kickin’. What’cha feeding ‘em?” His gaze dropped from her face to the rest of her, disgust curling his muzzle into a snarl. “N’ver mind. I can guess.”
She felt the dampness build at the edges of her vision, unprepared to not only worry for Hoppit's immediate health, but also to face such harsh criticism while she was so vulnerable. “I… I try to make sure he has…”
Makis crouched to release the ferrorabbit onto the ground, Ceele dropping to her knees the moment he did. The terrified lagomorph wasted no time, bolting towards his adoptive mother and leaping into her arms, shaking uncontrollably. The rust-coloured ‘bold stared as she started soothingly stroking the animal’s back.
“Yer given’ em the weeds, aren’t ya?” he stated rather than asked. She gave a teary nod when her voice wouldn’t respond for her. The old kobold drew a breath, letting it go in an exasperated sigh as he stood back up, his expression becoming more impatient than antagonistic. “What else?”
“I— Um…”
“What. Else?”
“W-whatever I c-can find!” she sputtered out. Hoppit tried to hide against her neck, prompting her to tighten her hold. She couldn’t stop herself from shrinking, the guilt and confusion pulling her head down. “R-roots, vegetables, fruits… I give them as often as I can.”
His glare continued unimpeded, his cadence cold. “That it?”
There were a million things Ceele wanted to say. A part of her wanted to beg him not to kick them out of the first safe place she had in longer than she could remember, but she couldn’t find the words. She wanted to deny the judgmental tone that stabbed into her insecurity surrounding how good of a job she was doing with Hoppit, but the deadened void in her chest swallowed her pride whole. She knew he was right to critique her. That she was failing in the only thing that mattered anymore. That the feeling of loss would return.
“I try,” she whispered through the beginnings of a sob. “I try to find more, but he needs someone around, and I have to work the garden, so there’s only so much time I can spend looking. He won’t even eat all of what I bring back…” Tears dripped off her cheeks as she aimed a desolate smile at her furry friend. “He wants to make sure I have some too.”
“Yer killin’ em,” Makis pointed out plainly, crossing his arms. “He’ll be dead ‘fore the summer at this rate.”
“I know!” she shouted, forcing back the memories of insidious murmurs that lurked in the back of her mind, eager to creep into her ears again. The hate-filled stares that followed her, the rumours that arrived in towns before she had the chance to make an impression, and the guilt that loomed over her like an executioner's axe… “I know I am… I just… I don’t know what he needs. I don’t know how to make him happy…but I try. I’m trying…”
“…Yer an idiot, girly.”
She looked up to see the elder kobold walking away without another word. Her eyes fell to Hoppit, the ferrorabbit pressing himself against her as much as he could. He was small, thin, soft, and growing weaker by the day, but he never let it keep him down for long. No, he always showed his best for her, giving her joy that wasn’t provided anywhere else. She saw the thin cuts and dried blood, though she didn’t know where they came from, nor how he got out of the shed in the first place. But that was okay. Hoppit was okay, and she had Hoppit, so everything was okay, right?
…But how much longer would everything stay okay? How much longer until her efforts weren’t enough, and she was left desperately reaching for fading memories of what once was? How much longer until she killed her baby too?
How much longer until she was alone again?
Soft footsteps drew near, pulling her from the spiralling thoughts that threatened to gnaw at her soul. Damp, blurry eyes fell on Makis returning with a small wooden crate, the older kobold stopping a few steps away. He dropped the box, a deep, rattling thud produced as it impacted the ground, making Hoppit flinch in her arms. Ceele blinked as she kept him calm, then blinked again, looking up at the man for answers.
“The name, girly,” he spat in irritation. “Ferrorabbit. Ther’ Earth aligned creatures; they need metals. They don’t care where they get it, but they need lots of it. Iron, copper, tin, lead—raw crystal, if they can find it. You name it, they’ll take a chunk out of it. It's why they bother farmers so much; the best soil’s usually top’a gem deposits, ‘n the little bastards have no issue burrowing deep to get it. Dries up the element’s energy ‘n makes the crops weak.”
Ceele’s mouth opened and closed, each unsuccessful attempt to speak making her feel smaller and smaller. More and more lost. Why was he telling her this? How did he know? What was in the—
He kicked the crate with the side of his foot. “Scraps. Don’t’cha look at me like that. I’m a smith, girly. I might be old and retired, but I still work a forge. Now, this ain’t anything pure—it’s just slag and hunks—but I’m sure the critter won’t mind. Your little gardenin’ project pays off, ‘n I’ll see which of my contacts can get in some better ore.”
She ripped her eyes away from the box and met the perpetual scowl of the old kobold, seeing a warmth behind the hostility that she had never noticed before. “…Why?”
He scoffed in amusement, which looked somewhat menacing on such a hardened expression. “Yer a touch stupid, girly, but the missus adores ya, ‘n yer a good worker.” A shadow of a smile formed on his face. “Hira spent more evenings asking ‘bout how the plots are doin’ than I got time in the day. She’d bite my head off if I noticed a critter like that sufferin’ and didn’t lend a hand. ‘Specially when it’s obvious you ain’t tryin’ ta hurt the thing.”
“B-but the garden… Isn’t he a problem?”
Makis rolled his eyes, turning with a dismissive wave of his hand. “If he was, he’da killed it by now. I’d say he’s been keepin’ the others clear ‘n got scratched up for the trouble. That’s more reason to feed ‘em right in my eyes; pay the poor bastard his dues.” He paused after a few steps, shooting her one last incredulous glance. “‘N the rabbit’s right. You’re not much better off than he is. Eat. Before the missus takes my head, preferably. I ain’t need ta hear her worryin’ over you more than I already do.”
And with that, he walked off back to the house, leaving Ceele to sit stunned on the ground with Hoppit quietly nuzzling into her.
“Hoppit…?”
The ferrorabbit perked an ear and gently licked her collar. Fresh tears ran rivulets down her face, yet they didn’t weigh her down. They felt freeing. She adjusted her hold on the rabbit and held him out, taking in the small cuts and numerous other injuries she had never noticed before. He stared back at her with worried eyes.
“You’ve been busy, huh?” she cooed quietly, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. He shrunk in her hands. “I told you to stay home, baby. What if something happened to you? I wouldn’t know where you went, and…”
Her protests died out as she saw what was unmistakably guilt on his little face. She brought him back to her chest and cleared her throat.
“It’s alright, Hoppit. If… If you want to help momma, then we can work together, okay? Just…please don’t go off getting hurt… I don’t know what I’d do without you…” The rabbit didn’t reply, and she was pretty sure she had never heard him make any sounds that weren’t his happy little ear clacks, but she chose to interpret the nuzzling as an agreement. “Such a smart boy…”
She took a breath and wiped off the excess moisture from her cheeks, setting Hoppit down on the ground. “Let’s bring Mr. Makis’ gift in, and then I need to go get more water so we can clean you up, okay?”
He bounced his way to the door of their home, waiting patiently for her to lug the surprisingly heavy crate into the shed. He was even still behaving himself by the time she returned from picking up the things she dropped in her haste. There wasn’t a single protest from the ferrorabbit as she washed over his wounds with warm water, nor when she asked him to wait as she cut up a small salad for him using an extra portion of her rationed vegetables. Finally, once everything else was gone, she tentatively sifted through the box until she found a chunk of something that didn’t look so sharp, then offered it to Hoppit skeptically.
As startling as it was to see him bite through metal without issue, she couldn’t help but tear up again at how pleased he looked with the bizarre addition to his diet. He munched through the first piece, then stared at the box while pawing at the air, asking for more. She obliged through wet laughs, feeling lighter than she had since he first gazed at her from his burrow, alone and afraid, just like she was.
Her little baby was happy, and that made it okay.
Next
—
A/N: Thank you to my Patrons, new and returning! No Thanks, Emmanuel, and Megathor join the others who get to read 1 chap ahead!
2024.06.09 10:56 miniatureteapot Feeling lonely in my physics major
I’m currently in my third and a half year studying physics, but I’ve been feeling quite lonely lately. I struggle to find study partners or a group to do homework with. Making friends has always been a challenge for me because I’m autistic. I have a lovely boyfriend and he is my only companion at uni, but he is from computer science and he will be graduating next semester.
While I understand that autism doesn’t define me, it does affect my social interactions and i feel that i can't connect with people and it hurts me especially when I see others forming their "dream teams" to succeed together at uni :(
I've fallen behind in some subjects because I need to go at my own pace, which only adds to my feelings of isolation. I really loveeeee my major and i am determined to succeed, but it’s tough doing it alone. If I were brighter, maybe I could do it alone, but I'm not.
I’m reaching out to see if anyone here has gone through something similar or has any advice on how to connect with others in my situation. How did you find your support system or study group? Any tips would be greatly appreciated <3 I hope you have a great day or night :)
submitted by miniatureteapot to PhysicsStudents [link] [comments]
While I understand that autism doesn’t define me, it does affect my social interactions and i feel that i can't connect with people and it hurts me especially when I see others forming their "dream teams" to succeed together at uni :(
I've fallen behind in some subjects because I need to go at my own pace, which only adds to my feelings of isolation. I really loveeeee my major and i am determined to succeed, but it’s tough doing it alone. If I were brighter, maybe I could do it alone, but I'm not.
I’m reaching out to see if anyone here has gone through something similar or has any advice on how to connect with others in my situation. How did you find your support system or study group? Any tips would be greatly appreciated <3 I hope you have a great day or night :)
2024.06.09 10:55 redpanda1006 how do i get over her?
idk if im in the right sub pero i really need advice on how do i get over someone i never even dated? so for context, i knew her since my 12th grade cuz we were classmates but hindi kami close not until may 2022 where we finally met each other formally since we were not able to see each other in person yet kasi nga pandemic and i was a transferee in that school. her friends kept teasing her na crush nya ako ganun2 so i was confused at first kasi di ko alam if they were just tripping or talagang totoo. eventually, we became a little close and started exchanging texts from time to time. me and her never missed the chance to greet each other a happy birthday every 12 am. we are reacting and sometimes commenting in each other's posts and we were even mutuals in both of our dump accs in ig and fb. that went on for about a year and a half and of course medyo nahuhulog na loob ko sa kanya but we were nothing more than that, she never asked me out and i never did too. in my defense, one of her friend tried setting us up for a coffee date and she declined but i was okay with it infact, i was looking forward to it but yeah it didn't happen.
i tried understanding her situation because i know na she's still healing from her past kasi she was brokenhearted when she met me so i gave her enough time to at least heal before commiting with me so fast forward to aug 2022, we enrolled in the same college but in different course but dahil hindi match yung sched namin, hindi kami gaano nagkikita sa school but still our interactions went on until 2023. mga mid 2023 i started noticing na medyo di na sya gaano nag vview ng stories ko or kapag nag view man, no reaction unlike dati so i felt like ah baka medyo nawawala na feelings nya. i don't even know what to call our situation, is it situationship or just nothing but a social media mutuals? former classmates? idk what cuz kahit isa jan I don't think our situation fit into that i don't even know if what we had was real. I always felt like i was just a rebound cuz she might've just wanted the attention i was giving her during the time she was healing but when she finally healed, i felt like i was dropped not immediately but slowly. i know naman na she tried holding on to whatever our situation is but yun nga you cannot force yourself din naman and i understand that.
so in january 2024 i was sooo confused na cuz like i've been waiting so long for her if may plans ba sya na i pursue ako or kahit small effort lang ba na gusto nya ako makilala better but then wala talaga and during that time medyo nafefeel ko lang na iba na gusto nya which is classmate nya rin that's why mas naguguluhan ako if may lugar pa ba talaga ako sa kanya. i know that some people are just not ready no matter how much time i give them but the thing is hindi ako always andito para mag hintay and i know na i deserve more than uncertainty and i don't want to keep waiting on something na hindi ko alam if may patutunguhan ba or wala. i gave enough time naman sa kanya to prove na she likes me diba? one and a half year is enough but still, i felt guilty.
feb 2024, i finally cut her off in everything. it took a lot for me to do that but yung mali ko lang is i didn't tell her anything or left any explanation basta inalis ko nalang sya. i was just so upset na parang hindi sya bothered with my absence cuz im using something to check her stories without even following her but yeah i figured out na she wasn't bothered because she was with the other girl im talking about na feel ko yun na yung "bagong crush" nya kasi in her story, she was with the girl so i knew it since then na hindi na ako but not even a week later, i opened my messenger kasi mag babackread sana ako sa first chat namin and believe it or not but the exact time i opened our chat, yun din yung exact time na nag send sya ng long message apologizing how she could've done more to us and how her feelings were indeed genuine. i saw the message and i just cried and cried and i replied to her like 2 or 3 hours after. it's crazy how we ended before even getting started but then who am i to complain ba? hindi naman talaga naging kami but all i wanna know if valid ba yung nararamdaman ko kasi until now i can't get over her and siya masaya na dun sa other girl and ginawa nya pa ngang profile pic yung magkasama sila and the same pic na nakita ko sa ig story nya nung na stalk ko sya....i felt pathetic and used. ano ba talaga naging role ko sa kanya? i know she said na what she felt was genuine but that's not what it felt like. ang sakit lang na yung mga bagay na winiwish ko dati na gawin nya sakin is ginagawa nya na dun sa classmate nya like simple lang naman sana gusto ko to know na sincere sya kaso ni isa wala talaga and that was enough naman for me to know na she might've liked me but she didn't liked me enough for her to pursue and commit something real with me. i know na if i was the girl she really wanted, the communication and the efforts would've been different and easier but yeah sadly hindi eh :( i know na sana ako rin nag effort kaso in my part, sya yung unang nagparamdam na gusto nya ako but hindi pa sya healed and i think valid din naman if ang ginawa ko is nag hintay until mag heal sya and wait if she will pursue me kaso i got tired of waiting kasi ano pang point ng paghihintay kung sa iba na pala pupunta yung hinihintay diba?
so far sa kanya ako pinaka nasaktan kasi idk? straight ako pero hindi ko nga ni mind na same kami girl kasi basta alam ko i liked her too even if my whole family was catholic and completely against that pero for her i was willing to risk it sana. the moment i started liking her i never questioned na bakit babae rin nagugustuhan ko if straight ako? all i know is i like her. i liked her soul, her attitude and her heart pero since things didn't go according to what i wanted and what i expected im trying to forget her but di ko alam paano so pls any advice how do i get over her completely?
submitted by redpanda1006 to CasualPH [link] [comments]
i tried understanding her situation because i know na she's still healing from her past kasi she was brokenhearted when she met me so i gave her enough time to at least heal before commiting with me so fast forward to aug 2022, we enrolled in the same college but in different course but dahil hindi match yung sched namin, hindi kami gaano nagkikita sa school but still our interactions went on until 2023. mga mid 2023 i started noticing na medyo di na sya gaano nag vview ng stories ko or kapag nag view man, no reaction unlike dati so i felt like ah baka medyo nawawala na feelings nya. i don't even know what to call our situation, is it situationship or just nothing but a social media mutuals? former classmates? idk what cuz kahit isa jan I don't think our situation fit into that i don't even know if what we had was real. I always felt like i was just a rebound cuz she might've just wanted the attention i was giving her during the time she was healing but when she finally healed, i felt like i was dropped not immediately but slowly. i know naman na she tried holding on to whatever our situation is but yun nga you cannot force yourself din naman and i understand that.
so in january 2024 i was sooo confused na cuz like i've been waiting so long for her if may plans ba sya na i pursue ako or kahit small effort lang ba na gusto nya ako makilala better but then wala talaga and during that time medyo nafefeel ko lang na iba na gusto nya which is classmate nya rin that's why mas naguguluhan ako if may lugar pa ba talaga ako sa kanya. i know that some people are just not ready no matter how much time i give them but the thing is hindi ako always andito para mag hintay and i know na i deserve more than uncertainty and i don't want to keep waiting on something na hindi ko alam if may patutunguhan ba or wala. i gave enough time naman sa kanya to prove na she likes me diba? one and a half year is enough but still, i felt guilty.
feb 2024, i finally cut her off in everything. it took a lot for me to do that but yung mali ko lang is i didn't tell her anything or left any explanation basta inalis ko nalang sya. i was just so upset na parang hindi sya bothered with my absence cuz im using something to check her stories without even following her but yeah i figured out na she wasn't bothered because she was with the other girl im talking about na feel ko yun na yung "bagong crush" nya kasi in her story, she was with the girl so i knew it since then na hindi na ako but not even a week later, i opened my messenger kasi mag babackread sana ako sa first chat namin and believe it or not but the exact time i opened our chat, yun din yung exact time na nag send sya ng long message apologizing how she could've done more to us and how her feelings were indeed genuine. i saw the message and i just cried and cried and i replied to her like 2 or 3 hours after. it's crazy how we ended before even getting started but then who am i to complain ba? hindi naman talaga naging kami but all i wanna know if valid ba yung nararamdaman ko kasi until now i can't get over her and siya masaya na dun sa other girl and ginawa nya pa ngang profile pic yung magkasama sila and the same pic na nakita ko sa ig story nya nung na stalk ko sya....i felt pathetic and used. ano ba talaga naging role ko sa kanya? i know she said na what she felt was genuine but that's not what it felt like. ang sakit lang na yung mga bagay na winiwish ko dati na gawin nya sakin is ginagawa nya na dun sa classmate nya like simple lang naman sana gusto ko to know na sincere sya kaso ni isa wala talaga and that was enough naman for me to know na she might've liked me but she didn't liked me enough for her to pursue and commit something real with me. i know na if i was the girl she really wanted, the communication and the efforts would've been different and easier but yeah sadly hindi eh :( i know na sana ako rin nag effort kaso in my part, sya yung unang nagparamdam na gusto nya ako but hindi pa sya healed and i think valid din naman if ang ginawa ko is nag hintay until mag heal sya and wait if she will pursue me kaso i got tired of waiting kasi ano pang point ng paghihintay kung sa iba na pala pupunta yung hinihintay diba?
so far sa kanya ako pinaka nasaktan kasi idk? straight ako pero hindi ko nga ni mind na same kami girl kasi basta alam ko i liked her too even if my whole family was catholic and completely against that pero for her i was willing to risk it sana. the moment i started liking her i never questioned na bakit babae rin nagugustuhan ko if straight ako? all i know is i like her. i liked her soul, her attitude and her heart pero since things didn't go according to what i wanted and what i expected im trying to forget her but di ko alam paano so pls any advice how do i get over her completely?
2024.06.09 10:54 squarelolz Was my upbringing messed up / Am i saveable? - 22 m
A few conversations and an effort to be more self aware have recently made me rethink most of my past. I’ve had pretty muted thoughts on it, but now i’m starting to feel like it was realllllly damaging and i was way too sheltered to notice or care. Really would appreciate an outside perspective.
born in alberta canada (I guess this was the first mistake badum tss) Lived with my mom and two siblings while my dad worked and lived in nigeria to support us. we were very well off Never considered myself to be in a single parent household but by definition that’s kinda what it was. In hindsight my mother was grossly negligent despite being a stay at home, to me it was just fun to be allowed to be online/ playing games all day :P
The major issue of my life has been Selective Mutism, the triggering incident was when someone in kindergarten called me a slur and i didn’t know how to respond. From that moment til i graduated high school I never spoke a single word to someone my own age outside of my family/ adjacent. Looking back, any normal parent would’ve tried to do something about this. The most my mom would do was ask me if i made any friends at school a few times in 3rd grade. When my dad heard about it years later i got the craziest beating ever. Had someee friends from church and the neighborhood but most times my mother would tell me i’m not allowed to be friends with them due to “witchcraft” she’s schizophrenic.
In 2011, we visited dad in nigeria, my mother’s schizophrenia told her to say fuckit to the return tickets and have us begin a whole new life there without warning. This is messed up enough but what was more messed up was both my parents just acting like it wasn’t happening, without any explanation being given or like a shred of acknowledgement, all the kids could do was make jokes to each other n withdraw from life to pretend it wasn’t happening. Never knew if we’d go back to our old lives, shit was so freaky. I later learned that the trend in our enclave of society was to go to a western country for university so i figured id just do good in school so i could go back “home” with that method and start over. Otherwise, i had no motivation in life after that incident. It really was handled in a way where life felt so useless. Living with my dad was about the same as what i was used to, another negligent parent. Not much can really be said.
i never knew how to feel about my predicament, i spent all my free time distracting myself with Roblox and other games, and i would play in the loneliest ways i could find. Safe to say, high school was a blur. I also feel like i weaponized my mutism to affirm to myself that i wasn’t supposed to be living there? I just tried to do as little as i needed. I did make a few friends if you could call them that. I try to really examine that time but i find it really hard to grasp. You kinda look forward to your teenage years as a child, a lot is supposed to happen. Not much happened. After i graduated in 2020, i went to a nice university in ontario for one year (online classes era) before taking a gap year to figure things out. Ended up pivoting to doing Roblox full time. Honestly i looked forward to university a lot cause i felt like i knew it would help my social skills. I just had no motivation education wise, i simply had never seriously thought that far ahead. Honestly the only life plan i had since 2nd grade was to be gone by 20.
I found a lot of success in 2022 now living alone in toronto, so since 2021 i genuinely haven’t been in, like any real life social situations. I mastered isolation long ago and never figured that my financial freedom meant i could go outside and mingle and enjoy things. I don’t really know how to, i’ve never ever done that whatsoever. I definitely tried man. but looking back at 2022 the shell shock was still so real. I’m addicted to watching Twitch for social stimulation. One time i donated 50 subs i knew i had gone too deep bruh i signed up for therapy so quick… I only donated 6 today
Today I went to an amusement park. I’ve been trying to think of myself more as a normal person, but the more i observe people the more pain, regret i feel as i see countless normal interactions present such a stark contrast to the type of life i’ve lived. I just want to integrate into society, but i feel so alien. Looking at other people, i feel like i was failed by my parents and robbed of agency, purpose, confidence and the ability to enjoy life beyond music and a few other escapes. Going outside always feels like i got a gun to my head, idk how to describe it. people are so scary to me
Had two more siblings after 2011, their development is going pretty shit to be frank. My parents are like ghosts, they don’t do shit. you can barely get their rich ass to buy clothes for their growing kids. Living with them it was hard to notice, but i’m really starting to think about what the average parental relationship is, and holy crap my shit is so heartbreaking. I’m worried if those kids will also fail to assimilate into society. They have like 0 experience going outside bruh. Won’t speak for my other siblings situations but i’m basically doing the best, and i’m still doing crap
I’m committed to undoing the damage inflicted on me, been in therapy for more than a year. But to help my family, it’s a big burden on me, sometimes i just wanna leave them behind so i can have my own shit in peace man. Nowadays I try to push my parents to do more but they are just so lethargic
What’s really been pissing me off lately is my mother’s demands to be treated like a normal loving parent? Am i tripping or do i have the right to like, cut her out completely? A lot happened i don’t really need to go into here
submitted by squarelolz to self [link] [comments]
born in alberta canada (I guess this was the first mistake badum tss) Lived with my mom and two siblings while my dad worked and lived in nigeria to support us. we were very well off Never considered myself to be in a single parent household but by definition that’s kinda what it was. In hindsight my mother was grossly negligent despite being a stay at home, to me it was just fun to be allowed to be online/ playing games all day :P
The major issue of my life has been Selective Mutism, the triggering incident was when someone in kindergarten called me a slur and i didn’t know how to respond. From that moment til i graduated high school I never spoke a single word to someone my own age outside of my family/ adjacent. Looking back, any normal parent would’ve tried to do something about this. The most my mom would do was ask me if i made any friends at school a few times in 3rd grade. When my dad heard about it years later i got the craziest beating ever. Had someee friends from church and the neighborhood but most times my mother would tell me i’m not allowed to be friends with them due to “witchcraft” she’s schizophrenic.
In 2011, we visited dad in nigeria, my mother’s schizophrenia told her to say fuckit to the return tickets and have us begin a whole new life there without warning. This is messed up enough but what was more messed up was both my parents just acting like it wasn’t happening, without any explanation being given or like a shred of acknowledgement, all the kids could do was make jokes to each other n withdraw from life to pretend it wasn’t happening. Never knew if we’d go back to our old lives, shit was so freaky. I later learned that the trend in our enclave of society was to go to a western country for university so i figured id just do good in school so i could go back “home” with that method and start over. Otherwise, i had no motivation in life after that incident. It really was handled in a way where life felt so useless. Living with my dad was about the same as what i was used to, another negligent parent. Not much can really be said.
i never knew how to feel about my predicament, i spent all my free time distracting myself with Roblox and other games, and i would play in the loneliest ways i could find. Safe to say, high school was a blur. I also feel like i weaponized my mutism to affirm to myself that i wasn’t supposed to be living there? I just tried to do as little as i needed. I did make a few friends if you could call them that. I try to really examine that time but i find it really hard to grasp. You kinda look forward to your teenage years as a child, a lot is supposed to happen. Not much happened. After i graduated in 2020, i went to a nice university in ontario for one year (online classes era) before taking a gap year to figure things out. Ended up pivoting to doing Roblox full time. Honestly i looked forward to university a lot cause i felt like i knew it would help my social skills. I just had no motivation education wise, i simply had never seriously thought that far ahead. Honestly the only life plan i had since 2nd grade was to be gone by 20.
I found a lot of success in 2022 now living alone in toronto, so since 2021 i genuinely haven’t been in, like any real life social situations. I mastered isolation long ago and never figured that my financial freedom meant i could go outside and mingle and enjoy things. I don’t really know how to, i’ve never ever done that whatsoever. I definitely tried man. but looking back at 2022 the shell shock was still so real. I’m addicted to watching Twitch for social stimulation. One time i donated 50 subs i knew i had gone too deep bruh i signed up for therapy so quick… I only donated 6 today
Today I went to an amusement park. I’ve been trying to think of myself more as a normal person, but the more i observe people the more pain, regret i feel as i see countless normal interactions present such a stark contrast to the type of life i’ve lived. I just want to integrate into society, but i feel so alien. Looking at other people, i feel like i was failed by my parents and robbed of agency, purpose, confidence and the ability to enjoy life beyond music and a few other escapes. Going outside always feels like i got a gun to my head, idk how to describe it. people are so scary to me
Had two more siblings after 2011, their development is going pretty shit to be frank. My parents are like ghosts, they don’t do shit. you can barely get their rich ass to buy clothes for their growing kids. Living with them it was hard to notice, but i’m really starting to think about what the average parental relationship is, and holy crap my shit is so heartbreaking. I’m worried if those kids will also fail to assimilate into society. They have like 0 experience going outside bruh. Won’t speak for my other siblings situations but i’m basically doing the best, and i’m still doing crap
I’m committed to undoing the damage inflicted on me, been in therapy for more than a year. But to help my family, it’s a big burden on me, sometimes i just wanna leave them behind so i can have my own shit in peace man. Nowadays I try to push my parents to do more but they are just so lethargic
What’s really been pissing me off lately is my mother’s demands to be treated like a normal loving parent? Am i tripping or do i have the right to like, cut her out completely? A lot happened i don’t really need to go into here
2024.06.09 10:52 rovered1234 Why does God make peope ugly
By ugly, I mean physically unattractive. And yes, pphysically unnatractive people exist even if you want to say "beauty is subjective", because when you see a deformed person in the face the first reaction in 99.9% of people is wanting to look away or feeling uncomfortable at the victim. Now apply this same logic to ugly people and it's obvious that being ugly is a real burden that people face and isn't just some self made problem, and I fail to see why it is a thing. Why did God decide to make me and others so ugly? I don't see the reason in it, and it feels like the biggest curse I could ever have in the world. I would rather be a poor man with a good or average face than my current situation. I have never felt comfortable going outside once I was aware of my ugliness as a teenager and people have always made fun of the way I look. It's led me to be a basement dweller who has no social interaction and now I'm just contemplating on why God decided to make me into such an ugly failure. I don't know if I will ever even be able to work a job in my life, I might just be destined to remain a NEET for life since even during interviews the interviewers start acting weird when they see my face and I always get rejected. It feels like noone can actually relate to the ugliness I feel and the shit I've been through, and that they just treat is like a made up issue. But it's not, it's real and these days I struggle to think about how I will manage to live another 40+ years with a body and face like mine. I feel handicapped and limited in life and I don't know why God has created me in such an ugly manner. It just seems so unfair. So why are some made beautiful and others ugly? Majority of my life problems would be solved if I had a good face.
submitted by rovered1234 to Catholicism [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 10:43 Medical-Ad-1931 17 year old, need advice.
I'm nearing the end of tutorial mode and about to graduate high school, and it dawned on me that I should probably fix a couple flaws I've got and I was hoping for some insight into what other ENTPs had to say.
There will be some off loading of trash that has been in my head for a while and just going to be honest with all the ugly thoughts I have, as ruminating with these thoughts without ever sharing them and letting them run rampant is going literally make me insane, probably.
CONTEXT(maybe important, maybe not. probably just skip to SITUATION ):
family is screwed(immigrants). somewhat desensitized but I can still recognize how dysfunctional my parents are. I've watched my parents fight and wreck the house for as long as I can remember once a week. one time I said to my mother after a particularly retarded fight and she was also in the wrong, If she called my dad a bastard but then does the exact same type of behavior she is no better and wouldn't she be calling for self a bastard also? I was only thinking that by using her own words and thinking, she could have no logical counter argument to this and concede. instead she tried to kill herself by popping 20 pills and sent to a psych ward and blamed me afterwards :) I've never been able to hold an intelligible conversation with them either, they make statements and claims without proof or any critical analysis.
I can't thank my family for anything except feeding and clothing me, at least I'm not in some temu factory so i guess it could be worse.
I wasn't really socialized, so I had a difficult time in school. I'm probably a tad on the spectrum so it didn't come natural either. the one friend a had, his mum only felt bad for me, which everyone knew. I was bullied for most of primary school but its probably good at that point considering how many issues I had. I was in between being a people pleaser for people who showed me a drop of kindness, and acting out because "since no body like me why should I like them".
during high school I think i gained self awareness and realized I can't keep blaming the world, (like my parents) and by critically thinking about what other may considered common sense, I somewhat domesticated myself and stopped acting out and learnt how to socialize and not polarize everyone. I stopped debating and using mental gymnastics to mess with people as payback and mocking people. No longer a social pariah and most people like me (as long as I my distance) and not get close.
people who know me before I changed think I'm smart but an asshole. people new people I've met think quiet and reserved.
SITUATION
I'm about to graduate and I've gone a long way to solve several glaring problems but they are mostly behavioral but not mental as I still think the same way. I'm always playing devil's advocate in my head for literally everything, which makes me think I'm quite objective, but I also not because I don't even have opinion anymore, just perspectives.
My main issues I've been using a persona for a long time. I don't debate people or argue with them. I barely even speak and I'm mostly reserved. however its impossible to form a relationship under the pretext of a persona, as the relationship is with the persona not me. I want to be able to integrate who I am and what i really think with a set of behavior patterns that is socially acceptable. I crave interaction with people and it is not lost of me it's because I'm always pretending so I'm dissociated and not actually getting interaction and its all a game in my head, but if I drop it I'm not ever sure what more "natural" personality is anymore. (advice)
Most conversations to me seem meaningless and It's not that I don't like to talk i love to. I love debating and exploring ideas, even if arguing just for the sake of entertainment, but people don't. most conversations around me that I have to engage have no substance. people say "how are you" even though they really don't care (believe me when I first was learning how to socialize I took this as face value, they in fact do now what to know how are you). how do I talk with people naturally, especially small talk when it a. confuses me and b. bores me unless the conversation has a purpose or topic?(advice)
I'm probably also somewhat narcissistic. I don't think I'm are narcissist because I don't wish harm upon others, at least not anymore, but I can't help but see what people do with first intention in mind. its like I think everyone else is a narcissist, which probably means I am a narcissist who's just projecting. I can't tell when people are being nice to me and why. To appear altruistic so others treat them better, because that definitely works I've noticed, or to satisfy their own ego as a "good" person so by being nice they affirm themselves. A lot of the time, after interactions with people I automatically start assuming the worst of intentions they have just to be safe. The things they say I analyze in more perspectives that I can count but settle with the worst just to be safe and not get screwed over. what is actually going on?!(advice)
Now to a somewhat comical issue, I had no idea how to talk to girls. There has been multiple times I've fumbled relationships served to me on a silver platter catastrophically. every conversation I've had with a girl has mean drier then the Sahara desert. "wyd", "doing anything this weekend?", "do you have siblings?", "you hair is soft, can i touch it?!?!". like what am I even supposed to response with, or they realistically expect me to say? "nothing", "yes", "yes", "no...?!". I know Its probably over for me, but I can't even talk to a girl in general its like they operate on a different social system. Sometimes they just get angry at me and yell at me. I don't even know anymore.(advice)
I make fast friends with people all the time (guys), but they always vaporize after a while when I get tired of saying the right things and playing my cards to their interests, so I'm acquaintances loads of people but none close.
As I've said I've mostly taught myself how to appear "normal" but It is not in fact normal, and I'm probably going to give myself schizophrenia if I don't learn to fix these problems. I don't want these issue to compound and try to fix them when I'm 30 and my find is not plastic enough to make these changes, so any honest and object advice, or even different perspective would be appreciated. I don't want to turn into my parents.
submitted by Medical-Ad-1931 to entp [link] [comments]
There will be some off loading of trash that has been in my head for a while and just going to be honest with all the ugly thoughts I have, as ruminating with these thoughts without ever sharing them and letting them run rampant is going literally make me insane, probably.
CONTEXT(maybe important, maybe not. probably just skip to SITUATION ):
family is screwed(immigrants). somewhat desensitized but I can still recognize how dysfunctional my parents are. I've watched my parents fight and wreck the house for as long as I can remember once a week. one time I said to my mother after a particularly retarded fight and she was also in the wrong, If she called my dad a bastard but then does the exact same type of behavior she is no better and wouldn't she be calling for self a bastard also? I was only thinking that by using her own words and thinking, she could have no logical counter argument to this and concede. instead she tried to kill herself by popping 20 pills and sent to a psych ward and blamed me afterwards :) I've never been able to hold an intelligible conversation with them either, they make statements and claims without proof or any critical analysis.
I can't thank my family for anything except feeding and clothing me, at least I'm not in some temu factory so i guess it could be worse.
I wasn't really socialized, so I had a difficult time in school. I'm probably a tad on the spectrum so it didn't come natural either. the one friend a had, his mum only felt bad for me, which everyone knew. I was bullied for most of primary school but its probably good at that point considering how many issues I had. I was in between being a people pleaser for people who showed me a drop of kindness, and acting out because "since no body like me why should I like them".
during high school I think i gained self awareness and realized I can't keep blaming the world, (like my parents) and by critically thinking about what other may considered common sense, I somewhat domesticated myself and stopped acting out and learnt how to socialize and not polarize everyone. I stopped debating and using mental gymnastics to mess with people as payback and mocking people. No longer a social pariah and most people like me (as long as I my distance) and not get close.
people who know me before I changed think I'm smart but an asshole. people new people I've met think quiet and reserved.
SITUATION
I'm about to graduate and I've gone a long way to solve several glaring problems but they are mostly behavioral but not mental as I still think the same way. I'm always playing devil's advocate in my head for literally everything, which makes me think I'm quite objective, but I also not because I don't even have opinion anymore, just perspectives.
My main issues I've been using a persona for a long time. I don't debate people or argue with them. I barely even speak and I'm mostly reserved. however its impossible to form a relationship under the pretext of a persona, as the relationship is with the persona not me. I want to be able to integrate who I am and what i really think with a set of behavior patterns that is socially acceptable. I crave interaction with people and it is not lost of me it's because I'm always pretending so I'm dissociated and not actually getting interaction and its all a game in my head, but if I drop it I'm not ever sure what more "natural" personality is anymore. (advice)
Most conversations to me seem meaningless and It's not that I don't like to talk i love to. I love debating and exploring ideas, even if arguing just for the sake of entertainment, but people don't. most conversations around me that I have to engage have no substance. people say "how are you" even though they really don't care (believe me when I first was learning how to socialize I took this as face value, they in fact do now what to know how are you). how do I talk with people naturally, especially small talk when it a. confuses me and b. bores me unless the conversation has a purpose or topic?(advice)
I'm probably also somewhat narcissistic. I don't think I'm are narcissist because I don't wish harm upon others, at least not anymore, but I can't help but see what people do with first intention in mind. its like I think everyone else is a narcissist, which probably means I am a narcissist who's just projecting. I can't tell when people are being nice to me and why. To appear altruistic so others treat them better, because that definitely works I've noticed, or to satisfy their own ego as a "good" person so by being nice they affirm themselves. A lot of the time, after interactions with people I automatically start assuming the worst of intentions they have just to be safe. The things they say I analyze in more perspectives that I can count but settle with the worst just to be safe and not get screwed over. what is actually going on?!(advice)
Now to a somewhat comical issue, I had no idea how to talk to girls. There has been multiple times I've fumbled relationships served to me on a silver platter catastrophically. every conversation I've had with a girl has mean drier then the Sahara desert. "wyd", "doing anything this weekend?", "do you have siblings?", "you hair is soft, can i touch it?!?!". like what am I even supposed to response with, or they realistically expect me to say? "nothing", "yes", "yes", "no...?!". I know Its probably over for me, but I can't even talk to a girl in general its like they operate on a different social system. Sometimes they just get angry at me and yell at me. I don't even know anymore.(advice)
I make fast friends with people all the time (guys), but they always vaporize after a while when I get tired of saying the right things and playing my cards to their interests, so I'm acquaintances loads of people but none close.
As I've said I've mostly taught myself how to appear "normal" but It is not in fact normal, and I'm probably going to give myself schizophrenia if I don't learn to fix these problems. I don't want these issue to compound and try to fix them when I'm 30 and my find is not plastic enough to make these changes, so any honest and object advice, or even different perspective would be appreciated. I don't want to turn into my parents.
2024.06.09 10:35 CandyTraditional5551 Roommate harms my health in the name of his 'healing'. What should I do?
Sorry if this doesn't fit in this subreddit, I don't really know how this app works yet.
My roommate claims to have every "popular" disorder that there is, anxiety, depression, bipolar, adhd, ocd, autism, ptsd, you name it and he would claim to have it. IN ALL SERIOUSNESS.
The problem is, he believes that just because he thinks he has these disorders, it it somehow okay for him to do anything that he wants as part of his "healing" process, including hurting others.
I have severe migraine (excruciating headaches) and he intentionally elicits my attacks for fun, like playing painfully loud music, etc. even when he's not in the room. How do I know that he's trying to harm me and not just playing music that he likes? Well, because he said so. For months me and my friends have requested him to stop but the only answer we've gotten is "You don't know what I've been through in my past. Finding weakness in my friends and exploiting them is my way of handing my past trauma. I will not change because it's time I put myself as my priority." His words, not mine.
Now you might be wondering that why don't I fight or do anything about it. To that, I have my reason, and here it goes : once my friends tried to talk to him and request him to adjust by saying "He has migraines, and you have asthma. What if he starts to invite some smokers into your room and cause you asthma attacks like you cause him migraine attacks?" To which he said "I want that to happen. I wish someday I would get an attack at 3am and not even have my inhaler." Again, his words, not mine. When we were on talking terms he once confessed to me that he craves attention in these ways. He wants people to blame his apparent "suffering" on. That is why I don't take any action, for the fear that he might do 'something' and blame me for it.
Well, and he's also gay. Now, that's not a disorder, but he somehow still thinks that it gives him a special right to be obscene. It's one thing for boys to joke around and completely different for someone to be so sexually inappropriate in his actions, words, intentions, interactions, etc. I don't have words to describe how utterly uncomfortable and disgusted and unsafe I feel in my own room. Like, just because you like men doesn't mean you can become some sexually perverted creature with no sense of social manners.
I'm currently under treatment for migraine, and have a appointment scheduled to check for hearing loss. I don't see anything improving in the future, because there's no free room in the hostel and no one wants to switch with me to share a room with him. I've talked to the administration multiple times. Everytime they tell him and he behaves for a couple days then resorts back. I've asked him if I've done something wrong unknowingly, to which he says no. What do I do???
Tldr: Roommate intentionally tries to harm my health because he believe it's his way of "healing his past trauma"
submitted by CandyTraditional5551 to Advice [link] [comments]
My roommate claims to have every "popular" disorder that there is, anxiety, depression, bipolar, adhd, ocd, autism, ptsd, you name it and he would claim to have it. IN ALL SERIOUSNESS.
The problem is, he believes that just because he thinks he has these disorders, it it somehow okay for him to do anything that he wants as part of his "healing" process, including hurting others.
I have severe migraine (excruciating headaches) and he intentionally elicits my attacks for fun, like playing painfully loud music, etc. even when he's not in the room. How do I know that he's trying to harm me and not just playing music that he likes? Well, because he said so. For months me and my friends have requested him to stop but the only answer we've gotten is "You don't know what I've been through in my past. Finding weakness in my friends and exploiting them is my way of handing my past trauma. I will not change because it's time I put myself as my priority." His words, not mine.
Now you might be wondering that why don't I fight or do anything about it. To that, I have my reason, and here it goes : once my friends tried to talk to him and request him to adjust by saying "He has migraines, and you have asthma. What if he starts to invite some smokers into your room and cause you asthma attacks like you cause him migraine attacks?" To which he said "I want that to happen. I wish someday I would get an attack at 3am and not even have my inhaler." Again, his words, not mine. When we were on talking terms he once confessed to me that he craves attention in these ways. He wants people to blame his apparent "suffering" on. That is why I don't take any action, for the fear that he might do 'something' and blame me for it.
Well, and he's also gay. Now, that's not a disorder, but he somehow still thinks that it gives him a special right to be obscene. It's one thing for boys to joke around and completely different for someone to be so sexually inappropriate in his actions, words, intentions, interactions, etc. I don't have words to describe how utterly uncomfortable and disgusted and unsafe I feel in my own room. Like, just because you like men doesn't mean you can become some sexually perverted creature with no sense of social manners.
I'm currently under treatment for migraine, and have a appointment scheduled to check for hearing loss. I don't see anything improving in the future, because there's no free room in the hostel and no one wants to switch with me to share a room with him. I've talked to the administration multiple times. Everytime they tell him and he behaves for a couple days then resorts back. I've asked him if I've done something wrong unknowingly, to which he says no. What do I do???
Tldr: Roommate intentionally tries to harm my health because he believe it's his way of "healing his past trauma"
2024.06.09 10:33 jujuonthatbean Community College Counselor harassed by student
Community College counselor sexually harassed by student
Hi all. Not sure if this is the best place for this but I’m in need of guidance and wanted to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation. Apologies in advance for rambling
I am a community college counselor in CA .I specifically work with formerly incarcerated/justice impacted students. Sometimes my students are coming straight from being incarcerated to school. They are dealing with a myriad of issues including addiction, recidivism, homelessness,trouble finding employment ,mental health issues.. the list goes on.
As a young female counselor, I have from time have my students make flirty comments or ask for my number or social media. I find these instances fairly easy to shut down by saying that I am not allowed to share my private contact info with students or any kind of social media. I make sure to emphasize that it would be inappropriate. I had one incident in November that escalated somewhat but nothing compared to what happened a few weeks ago.
I had an appointment with a young man, about 20- this was my first time meeting with him. His energy seemed slightly off( I assumed he may have been high) but I proceeded with the appt. The first red flag was the he pulled up a chair to sit right next to me. My desk is pushed up against the wall and there are chairs to my left side and one behind me. I have a double monitor set up- Usually students sit to my left , and I turn the one monitor towards them so I can show them relevant info/work on their ed plan. That day my second monitor wasn’t displaying so I thought maybe that’s why the student got so close. Throughout the appt he was very fidgety and kept brushing up against my leg and turning my office chair( the spiny kind) towards him. The movement was just slight enough that I stupidly gave him the benefit of the doubt. I also felt “frozen” in the momen. Anyway we wrap up the appt and I ask him if he had any questions or if there was anything else I could help him with. In that moment, he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me. I immediately tell him to get the fuck out of my office and run over to my supervisor.
That day I filed a report with the campus title IX office. Just this week I got a letter of how things will proceed: interview me,him witnesses, a hearing and then a resolution n.
If you’ve made it this far I guess I’m hoping to receive any type of advice from professors, counselors, advisors, administrators etc who have been sexually harassed by students . What did you do? If you also went through title ix, what was the outcome. Did you press charges through the police??
Thanks in advance for any advice. Maybe I’m being dramatic but this has been tough for many reasons
submitted by jujuonthatbean to CommunityColleges [link] [comments]
Hi all. Not sure if this is the best place for this but I’m in need of guidance and wanted to see if anyone else has been in a similar situation. Apologies in advance for rambling
I am a community college counselor in CA .I specifically work with formerly incarcerated/justice impacted students. Sometimes my students are coming straight from being incarcerated to school. They are dealing with a myriad of issues including addiction, recidivism, homelessness,trouble finding employment ,mental health issues.. the list goes on.
As a young female counselor, I have from time have my students make flirty comments or ask for my number or social media. I find these instances fairly easy to shut down by saying that I am not allowed to share my private contact info with students or any kind of social media. I make sure to emphasize that it would be inappropriate. I had one incident in November that escalated somewhat but nothing compared to what happened a few weeks ago.
I had an appointment with a young man, about 20- this was my first time meeting with him. His energy seemed slightly off( I assumed he may have been high) but I proceeded with the appt. The first red flag was the he pulled up a chair to sit right next to me. My desk is pushed up against the wall and there are chairs to my left side and one behind me. I have a double monitor set up- Usually students sit to my left , and I turn the one monitor towards them so I can show them relevant info/work on their ed plan. That day my second monitor wasn’t displaying so I thought maybe that’s why the student got so close. Throughout the appt he was very fidgety and kept brushing up against my leg and turning my office chair( the spiny kind) towards him. The movement was just slight enough that I stupidly gave him the benefit of the doubt. I also felt “frozen” in the momen. Anyway we wrap up the appt and I ask him if he had any questions or if there was anything else I could help him with. In that moment, he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me. I immediately tell him to get the fuck out of my office and run over to my supervisor.
That day I filed a report with the campus title IX office. Just this week I got a letter of how things will proceed: interview me,him witnesses, a hearing and then a resolution n.
If you’ve made it this far I guess I’m hoping to receive any type of advice from professors, counselors, advisors, administrators etc who have been sexually harassed by students . What did you do? If you also went through title ix, what was the outcome. Did you press charges through the police??
Thanks in advance for any advice. Maybe I’m being dramatic but this has been tough for many reasons
2024.06.09 10:32 reddog342 I have read the posts theaters are not needed to see movies. While that may be true , it is a half truth.
We as human beings that need to be around other people. We could exist if we ate alone, slept alone, worked alone. But in this great experiment, create the panic and sell the cure. We discovered we needed each other ,we needed human touch, shared emotion, to laugh and cry together. We learn from each other, we live for social interaction. The latest generation is slowing learning, hookups are empty and shallow. Friends are important, and sharing experiences is bonding , to laugh to be scared together in the safe confines of a theater. Socially it is a great thing to do, you share an experience,bond by talking about it after. I see kids to day at dinner together never looking up from their food.as they text and post pictures of what they are eating. They need acceptance . Never realizing the person next to them is who they should be sharing it with. They said theaters were dead when television was in it's infancy. They said it again over and over first with betamax, laserdiscs, VHS, blue ray and each time they were wrong. Well they still are , as streaming services all scramble for your dollars. I see more and more services combine to be able to get your dollars. Theatres should demand longer run times on block buster movies. I know myself I have missed movies important to me, because my schedule restricted me from getting to the big screen. I will not watch a blockbuster movie at home. Too many distractions, in a theatre I have made the commitment, to devote all my attention to what's before me. I have committed to a shared experience. I have before me treats, that I limit myself from having at home . I am there to arouse my sensei's to immerse my self in the experience. AMC is not a dead cat, but a crouching tiger ready to pounce , as people are rediscovering the theatre experience , and AMC is exploring , new money ventures, showing art films, concerts and other thing, Their theatre popcorn expands it's reach monthly, investing in the experience, having restaurant quality foods available. It's offering its own premium candy line. The ability to have adult drinks and cocktails in the safe environment .Ownership in a promising gold mine. Things like Taylor swift and jay Lo's concert films show there are many venue opportunities. They picked the wrong target as Apes, and ants tout the reasons we go to theatre's. This went from a quick money play on their part to a drain on their books. I came for the quick cash and realized along the way how smart of an investment I made. I wait till cell before I sell.
Just a couple reasons I hold.
submitted by reddog342 to amcstock [link] [comments]
Just a couple reasons I hold.
2024.06.09 10:32 adulting4kids December Prompts Emotions
**Prompt 1:
Dépaysement (French) - Feeling like a Foreigner in One's Surroundings**
Mudita (Sanskrit) - Genuine Joy for Others' Success**
submitted by adulting4kids to writingthruit [link] [comments]
Dépaysement (French) - Feeling like a Foreigner in One's Surroundings**
- What specific aspects of your character's surroundings make them feel like a foreigner, stirring the emotion of dépaysement?
- Can your character pinpoint a moment when they first experienced dépaysement, and what triggered that initial sense of disorientation or enchantment?
- How does dépaysement manifest in your character's interactions with locals, and how do these encounters contribute to their feelings of being a foreigner?
- Are there particular cultural nuances or customs that intensify your character's sense of dépaysement, and how do they navigate these unfamiliar elements?
- Describe a setting where dépaysement is particularly potent for your character, and how does it shape their emotional state in that moment?
- In what ways does your character find beauty in the disorientation of dépaysement, and are there moments of joy or discovery amid the unfamiliarity?
- How do your character's thoughts and emotions evolve as they gradually acclimate to their foreign surroundings, and does dépaysement transform into a deeper connection or appreciation?
- Are there certain elements or experiences that your character embraces to cope with dépaysement, such as seeking solace in familiar habits or finding joy in the uniqueness of their new environment?
- How does dépaysement influence your character's personal growth and self-discovery, and are there aspects of their identity that become more pronounced or obscured in this foreign context?
- Reflect on a specific event or encounter where dépaysement plays a pivotal role in your character's journey, and how does it contribute to the overall narrative arc?
Mudita (Sanskrit) - Genuine Joy for Others' Success**
- Can your character recall a specific moment when they first experienced mudita, that pure joy for someone else's success, and what triggered this emotional response?
- Explore the nature of your character's relationship with the person whose success sparks mudita, delving into the dynamics of their connection and the foundation of their shared joy.
- How does mudita manifest in your character's behavior and expressions, both outwardly and internally, when they witness the success or happiness of others?
- Are there specific achievements or milestones in the lives of others that elicit the strongest mudita from your character, and what qualities in those moments resonate most deeply with them?
- Delve into any internal conflicts or struggles your character might face when experiencing mudita, considering aspects of envy, comparison, or personal aspirations.
- Explore how mudita influences your character's relationships and interactions with the person whose success they celebrate, as well as with others in their social circle.
- Can your character find moments of self-discovery or personal growth through the experience of mudita, and how does it shape their perspective on their own aspirations and achievements?
- Reflect on how your character's past experiences, both positive and challenging, contribute to the depth and complexity of their emotional response to others' success.
- Consider the cultural or societal influences that might impact how your character expresses mudita, and whether there are external pressures that shape their reactions to others' achievements.
- Imagine a pivotal scene in your narrative where mudita becomes a driving force for your character, influencing decisions, relationships, or the overall trajectory of their journey.
2024.06.09 10:29 LifeAsRSO Job-Seeking Troubles & Life Updates
I expected to have gotten myself into a different job by now, being the middle of 2024 already, but that did not pan out as expected. I've had a lot of mental wellness issues at the forefront and trying to get through the semester of college. There was a local fair chance job fair a few days ago and I went, hoping to find some options to get out of the low-level foodservice type of stuff, but it was about what I was expecting- warehouse, construction, foodservice, etc. I'm still dishwashing at the same place and I am ready to move on due to lack of training of staff and low pay for how much chaos I deal with. When I browse jobs online, I'm filtering specifically by jobs labeled as fair-chance or felon-friendly, and I'm wondering if I'm shooting myself in the foot by restricting myself to that category and not even trying to go for jobs that do background checks and stuff. I have a pretty strong support team and they do what they can to help me, but there's only so much that can be done. We may potentially look into a program that helps disabled people find jobs, as I was recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (level 2) and I am thinking about applying for social security once I am able to talk about it with my support team.
It may help me to try and make friends and get out into the community, but I am petrified of being in public because of the labels over my head. When I go shopping, I will avoid any area where there are people that look remotely like they could be under 18 out of the fear of what-ifs because I fear being known and accused of things for just existing in the proximity of them. I just want to get my groceries, but I always feel like everyone is watching me and judging. I want to attend some of the downtown Pride events here, I know some social interaction would be really good for me, but again, my past and my actions and the labels on my head make me feel undeserving and expecting of rejection and the negative spiral of feeling like you'll never be a normal person among others.
I've made a lot of progress with my mental well-being, but I feel completely stuck socially and job-wise. I want a better job and I want to make friends and exist outside my home, but my fear and anxieties in those two things are holding me back, and I don't know how I should progress in regards to them.
submitted by LifeAsRSO to SexOffenderSupport [link] [comments]
It may help me to try and make friends and get out into the community, but I am petrified of being in public because of the labels over my head. When I go shopping, I will avoid any area where there are people that look remotely like they could be under 18 out of the fear of what-ifs because I fear being known and accused of things for just existing in the proximity of them. I just want to get my groceries, but I always feel like everyone is watching me and judging. I want to attend some of the downtown Pride events here, I know some social interaction would be really good for me, but again, my past and my actions and the labels on my head make me feel undeserving and expecting of rejection and the negative spiral of feeling like you'll never be a normal person among others.
I've made a lot of progress with my mental well-being, but I feel completely stuck socially and job-wise. I want a better job and I want to make friends and exist outside my home, but my fear and anxieties in those two things are holding me back, and I don't know how I should progress in regards to them.
2024.06.09 10:22 Miss_Njaah I can't stand being alone and I feel like a failure bc of that
A bit of a long story but please stay with me:
I moved out of my parents house a year and a half ago. When I lived with them I had plenty of space and freedom but I moved out because I believed that since I can afford it (it's not easy but I know that people are managing with even less) and since I'm past 30 it's just something I should do. I also started a relationship a bit before I moved out and that made the thought of having all the freedom and privacy to hang out with my SO very appealing.
Quickly after moving out I realized that I don't enjoy solo living at all. I miss having someone around I can share my thoughts with or just quietly hang out. Also the little things like having someone buy milk and bread and turning the water heater on for me when I'm getting home from short travels that I sometimes do and stuff like that. Basically I need to feel like I'm not all alone in the world.
It was working out more or less fine until recently because (with a lot of effort and energy) I managed to organize my days so I'm having someone over nearly every day and when I don't I go out at least for a coffee with some of my friends or go to lunch at my parents house. That helped with the feelings of lonelyness but with a pretty big price since I made a lot of compromises when it comes to choosing how I spend my time and with who since it always seemed that it's better to accept any sort of activity than just sit around alone.
That eventually brought me to a bad place mentally. I started to feel very tired and depressed because running away from lonelyness made me into somewhat of an addict chasing my next dose of social interaction and not leaving room to care for myself, losing my interests as I heavily adapted to what others cared for and it all added up into me being less and less fun and more and more desperate that in turn made me a less interesting company for everyone.
Now, my relationship is changing and we're becoming more friends than partners and that means we're starting to spend less and less time together and I'm afraid that he will cut it of completely because I'm no longer have much to offer and I'm probably starting to get needy. It's not at all helping that I'm currently going though a health crisis and in a week or two I will have to go to surgery I'm very scared of.
Now I feel like a shadow of who I was. I gained some weight I can't lose before I fix my health (do surgery) and I don't really feel mentally and physically strong enough to go to that journey at the moment. I'm depressed and feel like crying basically all the time. I'm even having some suicidal thoughts in the moments when the bad feelings become too strong and I just feel I won't be able to continue like this much longer.
I don't know would my parents take me back if I wanted to return now. Even if they did, I would feel like I mega failed in being an adult. Staying in my place alone, sick, sad and watching everyone slowly abandon me seems like a hell that would push me over the edge.
I don't see any other option tho so I'm wondering if there's anyone else who feels this way, any advice on what could I do. Maybe there's some third option I'm just not seeing. I'm grasping for straws now so here I am on Reddit sharing my deepest thoughts and fears with strangers on the internet hoping for I don't know what.
submitted by Miss_Njaah to Adulting [link] [comments]
I moved out of my parents house a year and a half ago. When I lived with them I had plenty of space and freedom but I moved out because I believed that since I can afford it (it's not easy but I know that people are managing with even less) and since I'm past 30 it's just something I should do. I also started a relationship a bit before I moved out and that made the thought of having all the freedom and privacy to hang out with my SO very appealing.
Quickly after moving out I realized that I don't enjoy solo living at all. I miss having someone around I can share my thoughts with or just quietly hang out. Also the little things like having someone buy milk and bread and turning the water heater on for me when I'm getting home from short travels that I sometimes do and stuff like that. Basically I need to feel like I'm not all alone in the world.
It was working out more or less fine until recently because (with a lot of effort and energy) I managed to organize my days so I'm having someone over nearly every day and when I don't I go out at least for a coffee with some of my friends or go to lunch at my parents house. That helped with the feelings of lonelyness but with a pretty big price since I made a lot of compromises when it comes to choosing how I spend my time and with who since it always seemed that it's better to accept any sort of activity than just sit around alone.
That eventually brought me to a bad place mentally. I started to feel very tired and depressed because running away from lonelyness made me into somewhat of an addict chasing my next dose of social interaction and not leaving room to care for myself, losing my interests as I heavily adapted to what others cared for and it all added up into me being less and less fun and more and more desperate that in turn made me a less interesting company for everyone.
Now, my relationship is changing and we're becoming more friends than partners and that means we're starting to spend less and less time together and I'm afraid that he will cut it of completely because I'm no longer have much to offer and I'm probably starting to get needy. It's not at all helping that I'm currently going though a health crisis and in a week or two I will have to go to surgery I'm very scared of.
Now I feel like a shadow of who I was. I gained some weight I can't lose before I fix my health (do surgery) and I don't really feel mentally and physically strong enough to go to that journey at the moment. I'm depressed and feel like crying basically all the time. I'm even having some suicidal thoughts in the moments when the bad feelings become too strong and I just feel I won't be able to continue like this much longer.
I don't know would my parents take me back if I wanted to return now. Even if they did, I would feel like I mega failed in being an adult. Staying in my place alone, sick, sad and watching everyone slowly abandon me seems like a hell that would push me over the edge.
I don't see any other option tho so I'm wondering if there's anyone else who feels this way, any advice on what could I do. Maybe there's some third option I'm just not seeing. I'm grasping for straws now so here I am on Reddit sharing my deepest thoughts and fears with strangers on the internet hoping for I don't know what.
2024.06.09 10:15 EditofReddit2 Warning to all
Be careful who you interact with on here as there are some who simply are not prepared to be on social media and will attempt to get you banned if you don’t bow down to their neurotic whims. This happens way too often on reddit and the moderators don’t seem to mind. I hate to advise people to interact less on a platform made for interacting but it’s the world we live in now I guess. Choose your conversations wisely.
submitted by EditofReddit2 to millenials [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 10:05 Shi144 Egotism vs Altruism
Dear Broadchurch fans, I have posted a series of rewatches of season 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadchurch\_series\_1) of Broadchurch. Now I find it is time to review some of the prevalent themes within the series. Please be aware that I will discuss season 1 as a whole, so there may be spoilers ahead.
If you enjoy reading this essay, feel free to stop by my AnalysisVault to see if you find some more of my work to your liking. Please note that this subreddit is read only and comments should be made with the original posts rather than the cross-posted ones.
Egotism vs Altruism
One of the more prevalent themes in Broadchurch is the question of egotism vs altruism. I will give you a short overview of both concepts as well as the spectrum they represent, then speak about their implementation in the series and finally make a statement about why the makers chose to make it a central theme.
Wikipedia states:
Basically, egotism vs altruism is the Captain Kirk vs Mr Spock discussion. Spock says: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”, goes into a highly irradiated engine room to save the Enterprise and dies in the process. Kirk says “The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many” and risks war with the Klingons because he can’t live without his buddy.
However, every action has aspects of both in them. Each action every person takes has both egotistic and altruistic nuances to them. The interesting part is where the balance falls. I will let you decide for yourself which way the pendulum swings on the following examples.
Some examples:
The healthcare worker who overworks themselves acts in an altruistic way because they support patients and help them get better. But they are also egotistical in their own way because being “the supportive one” strokes their ego.
The person who drives the gas guzzler acts in an egotistic way because they pollute the environment unnecessarily, take up a lot of space with their vehicle and probably stink up the place with their fumes. But they might also have an altruistic aspect because they need to move large groups of people, feel they are supporting an industry that gives jobs to workers or even further the economy by spending money.
The person handing out food but not taking any for themselves can be very altruistic but depending on the person they can be very egotistic instead, for example when they decide to hog the table, demand ever-lasting gratitude for their “sacrifice” and/or post their actions on social media for clout.
Finally, a person who writes lengthy analyses and posts them on Reddit may appear altruistic because they attempt to enrich the lives of others with their observations and (hopefully) witty posts. They may also be egotistic in an attempt to garner attention and positive reinforcement through the community they choose to post in.
Implementation in the series:
One of the great things about the series is the fact that they are aware of the different sides of egotism and altruism and allow the viewer to form their own opinion. Hardly ever is anything said bluntly, most of the time we are left to figure out things of our own. We see the way the characters act, we see the way they interact and are interacted with and we are left to make our own decision. Hardly ever are things black and white, hardly ever are we given the one true answer ™.
This is one of the main reasons the series is as emotionally impactful as it is. Because life is messy. Life isn’t neat. Life isn’t simple. Stories with simple and clear answers are not realistic because life doesn’t work that way. Think about it. In the last decade or so there were a lot of shows and movies looking deeper into the question of fairy tale villains and whether they were villains at all. Star Wars does this masterfully by looking at Anakin Skywalker’s arch. He seems like a clear-cut villain in episode 4, the first to hit the screens, but as more of his story is revealed, he becomes much less cartoonishly evil.
In fact, the idea of egotism vs altruism is the driving factor in the various aspects of the investigation the detectives conduct. Look at the different suspects, if you will. All of them have (at the very least) some very egotistical behaviors. Steve Conelly, con man and maybe psychic is getting a feeling of importance when passing on his “messages” to the great expense of Beth Latimer, among others. Mark Latimer is so very much wrapped up in his selfishness he neglects just about everyone around him unless caring for them fulfills his needs. Nigel Carter engulfs himself with righteous anger against Jack Marshal, not for the community but seeking Mark’s approval. Paul Coates revels in the attention he and his church gain from the case. Susan Wright is so eager to protect herself, she harms others pre-emptively. Jack Marshal, the man who slept with a child, then married her. No 40-year-old man would do that for selfless reasons.
All of the suspects we are presented in the show are – in one way or the other – selfish. And that’s perfect. Murdering a child is an inherently selfish action. The true joy of the show comes with finding out that the murderer is a man who we are made to perceive as deeply selfless.
Let’s take a look at Joe Miller and how he is portrayed on the show. As I have stated in the various rewatch posts, most of the time Joe Miller is shown as loving, caring and genuinely supportive parent and partner. As u/Vioralarama stated so well in my post about episode 5, “He's got the plot armor of the supportive spouse who handles all the emotional work for the person working the crime.” On the surface, he does. Every time we see Joe Miller, he is seen with a member of his family. And every time he is seen he is doing some sort of supportive work for them.
Case in point, when Joe and DS Miller invite DI Hardy to their home for dinner, Joe does it all. Puts the kids to bed, prepares dinner, does the dishes. He tries to mediate between DI Hardy and DS Miller, too, and makes a great effort to lighten the mood.
Once you look below the surface, though, things look entirely different. We see glimpses here and there that things are not what they seem, mostly through things we DON’T see rather than the things to DO see.
Joe Miller shows some worrying signs of being a neglectful parent and partner quite early on in the show. To pick up the example of the dinner experience, when DS Miller leaves the room, Joe Miller uses the time he has alone with DI Hardy to probe him for information. If he truly were the supportive husband the show wants us to believe, he would’ve used that time to help both find common ground in their working relationship. DI Hardy is the one who brings that up and asks about whether DS Miller likes him. The conversation is cut short though as Joe Miller filled the narrow time slot with questions about the case and didn’t leave DI Hardy enough to ask about how to improve his working relationship with DS Miller. Case in point, DS Miller keeps complaining that DI Hardy addresses her as “DS Miller” instead of “Ellie”. This would have been a great talking point for Joe Miller in that moment, asking “why” and mediating between them. Also, did Joe Miller make a dinner invitation to help DS Miller and DI Hardy form a working relationship or did he do it to garnish information?
More examples:
When DS Miller and Joe Miller tell Tom Miller about Danny’s passing, both leave him alone in his bedroom. Neither offer a shoulder to cry on. Sure, DS Miller is just as responsible as Joe here but Joe is the stay-at-home parent and therefore the more direct caretaker than DS Miller. Also, over the course of the show we never see Joe actually engaging with Tom, there is no attempt at comforting him, not even when he is obviously distraught. Joe Miller lets Tom out of his sight at the Arcade in episode 5, right in the middle of the “pedophile panic” surrounding Jack Marshal. Just in general, Tom spends a LOT of time wandering the town alone. This image doesn’t sit well with the façade of caring, loving, altruistic father.
Indeed, the filmmakers are pulling one over our eyes with Joe, who turns out to be one of the most egotistic persons in the town. Joe spends time and family money on Danny, he breaks into a holiday hut to do so, manipulates the boy with abuser language and, when threatened to be deprived of his attention, gets so angry he strangles the boy. Whom he still believes to be his son’s best friend. And who is his best friend’s son. The same best friend he then begs for praise because he didn’t drop the body into the ocean so he didn’t have to spend years wondering what happened to the boy.
But why do the filmmakers do this? The series REVELS in red herrings, side plots, dead ends and misdirection. The greatest misdirection they can give us is showing us the “perfect” man and making him turn out to be the most terrible one of all. It’s an emotional gut punch and the type of storytelling that works really well with the type of story they want to convey. Because the story of Broadchurch is not about Danny’s murder, it’s about the fallout that follows. A community like this learning that one of their “best people” is indeed a child murderer has to have a terrible ripple course through it, upsetting it deeply.
With so many other characters filling the “egotism” bill, we are offered a view beyond the picturesque coastal town in Dorset, England, where things look perfect, harmonious and just lovely. The series revels in showing us this image and dissecting it piece by piece, looking deeper and deeper into the cesspool of secrets and bad decisions. As such, the viewer is given the change to observe the deep hurt inflicted upon the more altruistic characters – most of which happen to be women – by the egotistic characters – many of which happen to be men. It is the direct and even more terribly indirect hurt that is inflicted upon the altruistic ones that gives the story the emotional impact it has.
Case in point, Beth Latimer and DS Miller both are exploited by their husbands and end up not only dealing with the direct fallout of their respective actions but hurt to a point they cannot even rely on each other anymore. They are both stripped of the delusion of happiness and family being their haven. They are also both stripped of a friendship which could supply each with a friend who “gets it”. Heck, just for the fun of it the makers toss in Susan Wright, a woman who has been so terribly hurt by her husband that she became jaded enough to “join the other team”. She has become the egotistic abuser her husband was simply because she (probably) used to be altruistic. Her experience with her husband, the police and the loss of her kids have kicked her to the other side of egotism simply out of a deep need for self-preservation.
Before the question comes up, no, the series is not about men vs women, or men = bad, women = good. And neither is this post. There are egotistic women in the story, like Karen White, Susan Wright or Becca Fisher. There are altruistic men in the story, too, like DI Hardy. But the trend is quite distinct. In my own personal experience this comes from the general societal expectation that women should be altruistic and work for the group. An expectation that is not socialized as thoroughly in men. The show picks up on this and showcases it to great effect, placing a great emphasis on the price some women are made to pay for following this expectation.
Finally, the question of egotism vs altruism is a thinking point the viewer is left to ponder with beyond the end credits of the last episode. The discussion of who is what and how much can keep the viewer’s mind busy for some time. Several people on this sub posted they hated Mark Latimer’s selfishness, and many commenters agree. If you ask me, this is a great result for a series, making the viewers contemplate things such as this beyond the actual viewing experience.
submitted by Shi144 to Broadchurch [link] [comments]
If you enjoy reading this essay, feel free to stop by my AnalysisVault to see if you find some more of my work to your liking. Please note that this subreddit is read only and comments should be made with the original posts rather than the cross-posted ones.
Egotism vs Altruism
One of the more prevalent themes in Broadchurch is the question of egotism vs altruism. I will give you a short overview of both concepts as well as the spectrum they represent, then speak about their implementation in the series and finally make a statement about why the makers chose to make it a central theme.
Wikipedia states:
Egotism is defined as the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself and generally features an inflated opinion of one's personal features and importance distinguished by a person's amplified vision of one's self and self-importance. It often includes intellectual, physical, social, and other overestimations. The egotist has an overwhelming sense of the centrality of the "me" regarding their personal qualities.In essence, egotism is the personal philosophy of “me first”. A person with strong egotistical tendencies will make sure their own needs are met before those of others. Think, if you will, of the people who will take the best slice of cake for themselves or drive a gas guzzler out of convenience or cut the line at the airport to get the best seat. All of these are egotistical actions. On the other hand, some egotism is warranted for self-preservation. The parent who gives their all for their children but runs themself ragged in the process may need to exercise more egotism. The health care professional who routinely skips their break to care for never-ending patients may want to be more self-preserving by being more selfish. Things like that. In general, society views egotistic action and unfavorable while oftentime people with egotistical traits tend to be more successful in certain areas of life.
Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.In essence, altruism is the personal philosophy of “others first”. A person with strong altruistic tendencies will make sure the needs of others are met before their own. Think, if you will, of the people who will hand out food to others happily but forget to get any of their own, take great strides to pick up trash in a local park or offer up their seat for a disabled person on the bus. All of these are altruistic actions. In general, society views altruism as beneficial and a trait to strive for while oftentimes people with altruistic traits tend to be less successful and may feel taken advantage of.
Basically, egotism vs altruism is the Captain Kirk vs Mr Spock discussion. Spock says: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”, goes into a highly irradiated engine room to save the Enterprise and dies in the process. Kirk says “The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many” and risks war with the Klingons because he can’t live without his buddy.
However, every action has aspects of both in them. Each action every person takes has both egotistic and altruistic nuances to them. The interesting part is where the balance falls. I will let you decide for yourself which way the pendulum swings on the following examples.
Some examples:
The healthcare worker who overworks themselves acts in an altruistic way because they support patients and help them get better. But they are also egotistical in their own way because being “the supportive one” strokes their ego.
The person who drives the gas guzzler acts in an egotistic way because they pollute the environment unnecessarily, take up a lot of space with their vehicle and probably stink up the place with their fumes. But they might also have an altruistic aspect because they need to move large groups of people, feel they are supporting an industry that gives jobs to workers or even further the economy by spending money.
The person handing out food but not taking any for themselves can be very altruistic but depending on the person they can be very egotistic instead, for example when they decide to hog the table, demand ever-lasting gratitude for their “sacrifice” and/or post their actions on social media for clout.
Finally, a person who writes lengthy analyses and posts them on Reddit may appear altruistic because they attempt to enrich the lives of others with their observations and (hopefully) witty posts. They may also be egotistic in an attempt to garner attention and positive reinforcement through the community they choose to post in.
Implementation in the series:
One of the great things about the series is the fact that they are aware of the different sides of egotism and altruism and allow the viewer to form their own opinion. Hardly ever is anything said bluntly, most of the time we are left to figure out things of our own. We see the way the characters act, we see the way they interact and are interacted with and we are left to make our own decision. Hardly ever are things black and white, hardly ever are we given the one true answer ™.
This is one of the main reasons the series is as emotionally impactful as it is. Because life is messy. Life isn’t neat. Life isn’t simple. Stories with simple and clear answers are not realistic because life doesn’t work that way. Think about it. In the last decade or so there were a lot of shows and movies looking deeper into the question of fairy tale villains and whether they were villains at all. Star Wars does this masterfully by looking at Anakin Skywalker’s arch. He seems like a clear-cut villain in episode 4, the first to hit the screens, but as more of his story is revealed, he becomes much less cartoonishly evil.
In fact, the idea of egotism vs altruism is the driving factor in the various aspects of the investigation the detectives conduct. Look at the different suspects, if you will. All of them have (at the very least) some very egotistical behaviors. Steve Conelly, con man and maybe psychic is getting a feeling of importance when passing on his “messages” to the great expense of Beth Latimer, among others. Mark Latimer is so very much wrapped up in his selfishness he neglects just about everyone around him unless caring for them fulfills his needs. Nigel Carter engulfs himself with righteous anger against Jack Marshal, not for the community but seeking Mark’s approval. Paul Coates revels in the attention he and his church gain from the case. Susan Wright is so eager to protect herself, she harms others pre-emptively. Jack Marshal, the man who slept with a child, then married her. No 40-year-old man would do that for selfless reasons.
All of the suspects we are presented in the show are – in one way or the other – selfish. And that’s perfect. Murdering a child is an inherently selfish action. The true joy of the show comes with finding out that the murderer is a man who we are made to perceive as deeply selfless.
Let’s take a look at Joe Miller and how he is portrayed on the show. As I have stated in the various rewatch posts, most of the time Joe Miller is shown as loving, caring and genuinely supportive parent and partner. As u/Vioralarama stated so well in my post about episode 5, “He's got the plot armor of the supportive spouse who handles all the emotional work for the person working the crime.” On the surface, he does. Every time we see Joe Miller, he is seen with a member of his family. And every time he is seen he is doing some sort of supportive work for them.
Case in point, when Joe and DS Miller invite DI Hardy to their home for dinner, Joe does it all. Puts the kids to bed, prepares dinner, does the dishes. He tries to mediate between DI Hardy and DS Miller, too, and makes a great effort to lighten the mood.
Once you look below the surface, though, things look entirely different. We see glimpses here and there that things are not what they seem, mostly through things we DON’T see rather than the things to DO see.
Joe Miller shows some worrying signs of being a neglectful parent and partner quite early on in the show. To pick up the example of the dinner experience, when DS Miller leaves the room, Joe Miller uses the time he has alone with DI Hardy to probe him for information. If he truly were the supportive husband the show wants us to believe, he would’ve used that time to help both find common ground in their working relationship. DI Hardy is the one who brings that up and asks about whether DS Miller likes him. The conversation is cut short though as Joe Miller filled the narrow time slot with questions about the case and didn’t leave DI Hardy enough to ask about how to improve his working relationship with DS Miller. Case in point, DS Miller keeps complaining that DI Hardy addresses her as “DS Miller” instead of “Ellie”. This would have been a great talking point for Joe Miller in that moment, asking “why” and mediating between them. Also, did Joe Miller make a dinner invitation to help DS Miller and DI Hardy form a working relationship or did he do it to garnish information?
More examples:
When DS Miller and Joe Miller tell Tom Miller about Danny’s passing, both leave him alone in his bedroom. Neither offer a shoulder to cry on. Sure, DS Miller is just as responsible as Joe here but Joe is the stay-at-home parent and therefore the more direct caretaker than DS Miller. Also, over the course of the show we never see Joe actually engaging with Tom, there is no attempt at comforting him, not even when he is obviously distraught. Joe Miller lets Tom out of his sight at the Arcade in episode 5, right in the middle of the “pedophile panic” surrounding Jack Marshal. Just in general, Tom spends a LOT of time wandering the town alone. This image doesn’t sit well with the façade of caring, loving, altruistic father.
Indeed, the filmmakers are pulling one over our eyes with Joe, who turns out to be one of the most egotistic persons in the town. Joe spends time and family money on Danny, he breaks into a holiday hut to do so, manipulates the boy with abuser language and, when threatened to be deprived of his attention, gets so angry he strangles the boy. Whom he still believes to be his son’s best friend. And who is his best friend’s son. The same best friend he then begs for praise because he didn’t drop the body into the ocean so he didn’t have to spend years wondering what happened to the boy.
But why do the filmmakers do this? The series REVELS in red herrings, side plots, dead ends and misdirection. The greatest misdirection they can give us is showing us the “perfect” man and making him turn out to be the most terrible one of all. It’s an emotional gut punch and the type of storytelling that works really well with the type of story they want to convey. Because the story of Broadchurch is not about Danny’s murder, it’s about the fallout that follows. A community like this learning that one of their “best people” is indeed a child murderer has to have a terrible ripple course through it, upsetting it deeply.
With so many other characters filling the “egotism” bill, we are offered a view beyond the picturesque coastal town in Dorset, England, where things look perfect, harmonious and just lovely. The series revels in showing us this image and dissecting it piece by piece, looking deeper and deeper into the cesspool of secrets and bad decisions. As such, the viewer is given the change to observe the deep hurt inflicted upon the more altruistic characters – most of which happen to be women – by the egotistic characters – many of which happen to be men. It is the direct and even more terribly indirect hurt that is inflicted upon the altruistic ones that gives the story the emotional impact it has.
Case in point, Beth Latimer and DS Miller both are exploited by their husbands and end up not only dealing with the direct fallout of their respective actions but hurt to a point they cannot even rely on each other anymore. They are both stripped of the delusion of happiness and family being their haven. They are also both stripped of a friendship which could supply each with a friend who “gets it”. Heck, just for the fun of it the makers toss in Susan Wright, a woman who has been so terribly hurt by her husband that she became jaded enough to “join the other team”. She has become the egotistic abuser her husband was simply because she (probably) used to be altruistic. Her experience with her husband, the police and the loss of her kids have kicked her to the other side of egotism simply out of a deep need for self-preservation.
Before the question comes up, no, the series is not about men vs women, or men = bad, women = good. And neither is this post. There are egotistic women in the story, like Karen White, Susan Wright or Becca Fisher. There are altruistic men in the story, too, like DI Hardy. But the trend is quite distinct. In my own personal experience this comes from the general societal expectation that women should be altruistic and work for the group. An expectation that is not socialized as thoroughly in men. The show picks up on this and showcases it to great effect, placing a great emphasis on the price some women are made to pay for following this expectation.
Finally, the question of egotism vs altruism is a thinking point the viewer is left to ponder with beyond the end credits of the last episode. The discussion of who is what and how much can keep the viewer’s mind busy for some time. Several people on this sub posted they hated Mark Latimer’s selfishness, and many commenters agree. If you ask me, this is a great result for a series, making the viewers contemplate things such as this beyond the actual viewing experience.
2024.06.09 10:03 Pretty_Secret_2954 what is difference between on page and off page seo
Discover the SEO Secrets: difference between on page and off page seo Find out how improving the content, architecture, and speed of your website through on-page SEO directly raises your search engine rankings. Discover how off-page SEO increases the authority and visibility of your website through social media interaction, backlinks, and online mentions. Recognize the main variations and how becoming proficient in both can dramatically improve the functionality of your website. Take a look at our guide and start improving your SEO now!
submitted by Pretty_Secret_2954 to u/Pretty_Secret_2954 [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 10:00 AutoModerator CHAT Community Thread - Sun Jun 09
*** Comments mentioning anything related to treatment, trying to conceive, or family building measures in this thread will be removed via our OFF TOPIC rule. Consider if you were taking a break from treatment because you were exhausted and sad - treatment (yes anything related to it) goes in treatment **\*
Coping with infertility is complex, and it is our imperative to create places where we can honor the distinctly unique needs created by infertility. Sit beside us and share what’s on your mind and going on in your life. This is a great place to get to know your fellow members outside the gravity of treatment. Discussion here includes, but is not limited to:
Example of the difference between the Treatment and Chat Thread:
Comments for the Treatment Thread
Last reminder - this is the CHAT thread. Not the place to discuss anything focused on treatment, TTC, or family building measures.
submitted by AutoModerator to infertility [link] [comments]
Coping with infertility is complex, and it is our imperative to create places where we can honor the distinctly unique needs created by infertility. Sit beside us and share what’s on your mind and going on in your life. This is a great place to get to know your fellow members outside the gravity of treatment. Discussion here includes, but is not limited to:
- Venting about the impact of infertility on our lives/relationships/careers
- Non-IF Rants of all kind – marriage, career, societal, social media, friendships, mental health, and yes… politics too. It doesn’t need to be infertility related!
- Discussions around dealing with the influence of infertility – therapy, coping methods, finding supportive friends, getting lapped by a friend, dealing with pregnancy announcements, pushy parents, people that don’t understand, etc. The big picture stuff.
- Sharing stories and parts of your life (pictures of pets always welcome!) outside of infertility
Example of the difference between the Treatment and Chat Thread:
Comments for the Treatment Thread
- Literally anything that involves or mentions treatment, trying to conceive, or any family building measures: paying for it, being exhausted by it, fighting about it, telling other people about it. If anything about your comment has anything to do with treatment or TTC, it belongs in the treatment thread. Also including diagnostic tests, medication, lab results, or lifestyle measures taking in the hopes of improving treatment outcome.
- I'm in the TWW, and I'm glad I scheduled a vacation as a distraction!
- I'm trying to decide if I should delay my egg retrieval cycle because this is a big work month for me.
- I told my parents about IVF, and they were incredibly supportive. I feel really grateful.
- You can of course still discuss infertility in the chat thread:
- I am super bummed about being lapped by a friend.
- I have two currently pregnant coworkers, and I am losing my mind with all the pregnancy discussion.
- Today is the anniversary of my loss, and I'm really struggling.
- Or you can discuss things unrelated to infertility:
- Whoa, my dogwalker taught my dog to roll over.
- There's this donut place next to my work that sells donuts for $5 each, but the WILD thing is that they're worth it!
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- Positive HPT or Beta Results (including Beta Hell) should only be posted in the Results thread as per the rules (except for confirmed loss): https://www.reddit.com/infertility/search?q=flair_name%3A%22Results%22
- We recognize that the AM/PM distinction doesn’t match up with every time zone in our global community, we ask that you pick the most recently posted thread wherever you are.
- Standalone culture here is saved for complex topics, usually including detailed conversations around scientific studies, or asking multi-part complex questions around treatment plans. We strongly recommend posting in the community threads first. If you aren’t sure, ask in the daily threads first!
Last reminder - this is the CHAT thread. Not the place to discuss anything focused on treatment, TTC, or family building measures.
2024.06.09 09:49 Life-Weird6971 Feeling that my commucation/behavior is creepy even when I'm talkative
Does anyone feel the same? Even when I'm outgoing and talkative with someone or a group I feel like something is wrong, I don't know what it is, it's as if my way of interacting is different from others and I tend to make abnormal expressions/gestures. I also feel that people notice my weirdness. I know when to speak and I know when others are not interested on the subject, but it's more complex than that, it's as if I'm incapable of socializing naturally like others, everything sounds mechanical, robotic, I just can't be spontaneous.
submitted by Life-Weird6971 to socialanxiety [link] [comments]
2024.06.09 09:47 notawisemanforsure I think I'm not the brightest bulb but what are your thoughts on my cognitive profile?
 | When I was a kid I was forced to unknowningly take WISC IQ tests and a porteus labyrinth test due to poor school performance and disability suspicion arising from that, they were surprised that I have scored 126. submitted by notawisemanforsure to cognitiveTesting [link] [comments] English is not my native language probably that doesn't matter anyways. My first IQ test in life was when I was 6 years old it was a test about labyrinths (porteus labyrinths) I scored a 96 out of that. The paper also had a psychiatrist note in bottom like this: - Physical development: Normal - Mental development: Normal - Social / Behavioral development: at the level of a 4 year old, abnormal Second IQ test (WISC-R) was when I was 8 years old which I scored 115. Third one (WISC-R) was from when I was 12 years old which I scored 126. In none of tests I was aware it was an IQ test I was just told it was a quick exam that was required for my schooling. Fourth one (WISC-IV) was from when I was 14 years old the only IQ test I was I'm aware of I was taking an IQ test I was never told my score but based on their reaction after they talked to my parents probably it was upper average. This wasn't a WISC-R but a WISC-IV instead. All of those tests were required because of extremely low academic performance ( I was under performing in mathematics compared to peers and after some point I started to under perform in language/grammar too), they never figured out what was wrong with me eventually I got a dyslexia diagnosis which was later revised to Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis and since many people think Autism = intellectual disability in my country they generally give Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis for people with normal IQ. I recently got a hold of my papers;
I was exposed to lead dust from dad which he worked with while he did wash his hands little he knew that his work clothes would bring the dust to house and spread it to everywhere including my toys, my food. I never had lead poisoning nor my blood levels were checked but for sure I was exposed. Food I ate was cooked in an oven with presumably cadmium paint, it was made in 1980s with no regulations in place. Russian no brand cookware and pottery, probably don't want to know what those bright red glazes made from. I wasn't able to eat enough meat due to misuse of money by parents and my B12 levels were abnormally low, low B12 wasn't treated until I was 17 at the time of treatment I had a B12 level in blood around 90 pg/mL. Mother smoked a lot while she was pregnant, she would smoke a pack per day draining a hole in their pocket and harming me. I don't think any of my IQ scoring holds to this day, I believe I'm in lower average end simply having poor working memory makes everything irrelevant, It's something that I need most but I can't. I'm tired of having to bring paper and pencil everywhere when a calculation is required. I can't calculate even simple numbers really ask me what is 9 + 9 no answer I have to count in my head to find out. When I was 7 years old I really loved mathematics I enjoyed it so much but when the multiplication went in that was the time I basically quit mathematics. I can't hold multiplication table in head It's straight up impossible I had to go in long 2 years of rehabilitation centre for the "disabled" to do mental math to some extent and what's the outcome? I forgot it, I can't do mental math. Even though I can't do mental math I can grasp logic behind something pretty well eg: I don't know answer of 9 + 9 but I figure out why they would add let's say a given number in a formula so that made me get into programming even without being able to do mental mathematics I was able to figure out things like how to do 3d projections without all those messy complicated maths (though without trigonometry knowledge I made fake rotations using skewing which didn't end up looking best) and write software that rendered 3D pictures as fun little side projects. I was practicing coding since that time but my enjoyment in this hobby also lost lately because I wanted to do something different than this. I would spend time stimming and imagining about inventions/objects I would create, I imagined a factory to make them and imagined objects spinning showing all their glorious details from production to packaging I would imagine it those may be a smartphone, a tv remote, a display technology using good ol phosphors with an uv light hitting them with specific angles creating a "crt without crt just phosphor", imagining about designing user interfaces for product screens, showing the glossy glass and their micro scratch markings on them it was the most enjoyable thing for me while it caused me to stim a lot by flapping my hands together sometimes resulting in cuts due to fingernails going fast through skin (I explained people that I was feeling my dreams when I did this they found it weird but many people around me accepted it without an issue as "kids these days") Lately I noticed further degradation of my working memory I'm no longer able to keep a song in head and perfectly remember it's lyrics without distorting or making up something or mentally remember a place with good accuracy and not that related to working memory but ability to mentally spin objects that I imagine also become harder and more stressing. I took the CAIT online digit span test and I scored 3 backwards 4 forwards. Without good working memory being able to reason about something has no value thus for long time I thought I had to make something that would make people progress further because there's absolutely no mission in real life we make the "game", I guess I wouldn't able to fulfill my dreams I've had as a child as a person with no friends whatsoever and liked to be alone just imagine future projects I could been made this has devastating results, I have now a diminished mental health as result of bad working memory I know nothing I imagine will happen. Clearly I'm not smart at all, whatever caused this I'm not sure but possibly irreversible, living with poor working memory is low quality life with low chances of success. I took multiple online IQ tests (mostly unrelated to wm). Symbol search 100 Mensa Denmark 129 Beta 4 matrices 105 (with an error margin of 8) Mensa Norway not in the range < 90 Ravens progressive matrices clinical edition 112 CAIT digit span ~80 Not an IQ test but HumanBenchmark has a relation to working memory which is correlated with intelligence: https://preview.redd.it/x7a3p3su1i5d1.png?width=896&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9dd072b1d94667d87e175ec7732a3e685554420 Note: I did rush through matrix tests without giving enough attention until time runs out. TL;DR: I have working memory deficits and childhood proctored IQ test score of maximum (WISC-R) 126 and minimum (Porteus Labyrinths) 96 never had a proctored IQ test as an adult. I'm only good at block design, coding and matrix reasoning nothing else. |
2024.06.09 09:30 AutumnFanatic 22 [M4F] Illinois/Anywhere/Online - Hi! Nerdy guy who loves autumn looking for a genuine intimate connection
I have a fear of speedbumps, but I'm slowly getting over it..
Hi and welcome to my post! Wanted to start off with a funny to me dad joke.
Nice to meet you, I'm Dylan!
I love autumn way too much and I can't wait for it! It makes me so excited. We had a much cooler day here for once and it felt like October so I was burning a lot of candles.
To put it simple, I am a single 22 year old man who has been pretty lonely in life and lacking human connection. And part of what comes with that is the desire to be intimate with a person. I am very mature for my age and will always be respectful of your boundaries and feelings, especially with anything sexual. Lately all I have is myself when it comes to sexual desires, so I would like to have someone to keep company with in that regard too.
I'm just relaxing on my days off this weekend and burning a woodwick candle. I love candles! 🕯️ Sometimes a campfire outside on a fall night or a crackling WoodWick candle is a relaxing constant among our busy and hectic world. It's nice to just disconnect, feel grounded and happy in your own little cozy space. Feeling calm and collected and at peace. Something that fewer people take the time to do these days.
I am seeking a woman around my age or older to build a close connection with that could possibly lead to a something intimate which includes the possibility of teasing/sharing pics etc. but only when we were comfortable. Figured I would be open in my Intentions as that's the best way to be.
You:
Kind, respectful, and easy going.
Comfortable with the idea of eventually sharing intimate things together.
Willing to eventually move off of Reddit.
Want something genuine and fun!
Are honest in your intentions and a good person to be around!
That's about it, we will get along great I know it.
I've been feeling a little bummed out lately. I always try and stay happy and see the best in things. But.. I've just been so alone. Most of my whole childhood and adult years have been spent feeling lonely. I grew up surrounded by cornfields which was peaceful but also has a lonely aspect to it. My family never really were close and never did anything as a family really. And part of it too is the fact that I never had any neighbors my age to interact with. But aside from that, my adult life has been very lonely. I'm just always by myself. I barely have any meaningful adult relationships or experiences, or even any friends.
I work a 3-11 job in building maintenance at my company world headquarters building which I love, but again it's very lonely. I work the off shift so the building is always empty. I don't get normal social interaction with people my age or a chance to build relationships. I only have 3 older men as co-workers and we are mostly in the basement away from any people on the floors from knowing our existence. I always walk the floors and see office people laughing and chatting with their coworkers and I just don't have that kind of experience. And just.. no one knows I exist really. Everyone probably assumes I have a lot of friends, but I'm struggling inside with being so alone and trying to meet people and get past the "hi how are you?" "I'm good thanks" stage. Most people don't seem to want to talk beyond that. And most women are already in relationships and thus it would seem weird to approach them in an office setting trying to get to know them deeper. But man those "hi how are yous" are the only real interactions I get during my day.. so thus I decided to come here lol. Rant over, sorry! I promise I'm not a downer. 😅
Now for some things about me!
As you can tell, I am very mature for my age and am polite and have good grammar which unfortunately not everyone my age does anymore lol. I am not active at all on social media/internet culture really and don't know much about all the slang the younger people these days use. I feel like I'm 50. 🤣
I am left handed which is pretty cool. I'm not much of a party person or a drinker, I much prefer a quiet night at home and maybe a beer or two on a weekend but that's about it. I am simple and stay out of drama and trouble and don't get much into politics or other things that cause drama with people. I much prefer a relaxing campfire and a night at home and to just let the world keep on turning haha. I consider myself pretty intelligent and mature, especially for my age which is why I'm open to older ladies.
Physically I'm 180 pounds, have brown hair, green eyes, and a typical build.
Some of my hobbies are:
• Photography
I have a Nikon D200 and D5500 that I love to shoot with. I love nature scenes, abstract, black and white/goth kinda photography, sunsets, etc. it's so fun to just let your mind explore. It's not about what camera you have, but those who are behind the camera!
• Cooking and baking
I loveeee to cook and bake! I enjoy making various meals but also love to just have a frozen pizza once in awhile or something like that. I recently made homemade chili which turned out great. I love to bake, especially in the fall! I love pies, cakes, pastries, cookies, etc. I restored a vintage KitchenAid mixer that needed tbe gearbox rebuilt. Eventually I would love to practice home canning my own food.
• Music
Oh my gosh, I like so much!! Alternative rock, punk, post punk, electronic, synth pop, psychedelic rock, hard rock, etc. I am very non judgemental and open when it comes to music. My three current favorite bands are Type O Negative, Joy Division, and the Cure.
• Nature walks and camping
I really enjoy camping, making fires, and relaxing by a campfire. I love to take walks outside and just enjoy the beauty and simplicity of nature. It's wonderful, especially in a world so focused on everything digital.
• Repairing things
I'm a maintenance guy and one of my hobbies is electronics repair so I am good with my hands and just all around good at troubleshooting and fixing all sorts of things around the house. Last week I helped my elderly neighbor get his tractor started, it needed a new component in the starting circuit. So I'm pretty handy which... Comes in handy! 😂
• Autumn 🍁
This isn't a hobby per say, but man do I love the fall!!! It's my absolute favorite time of the year. Oh my gosh. The beautiful colors, crisp cool air, misty and foggy days, rain, lack of bugs, being cuddled up with a candle or by the fire drinking a tea, etc. I love it! There's only two seasons for me. Fall, and waiting for fall! Haha.
• Scented Candles and incense
Going along with my love for fall, I absolutely love candles! I have like 30 something lol. 😂 Currently my favorite are WoodWick, which are owned by Yankee candle. They have such a soothing crackle and the scents are great! I also love to burn incense from time to time as well. I have cottagecore hippie vibes.
• Old houses and architecture
I love old houses! Especially 1900s and Victorian era homes. Old homes have so much character to them and are just so beautiful from a time when people took pride in their craft. I strongly dislike the modern cookie cutter cheap construction of homes today. I would love to live in an old home one day. I also love their architecture and uniqueness, as well as architecture of old cathedrals and other buildings.
• Relaxing
Basic I know, but sometimes on the weekend I just love to get cozy in bed and relax and put on a YouTube video or an album! 😊
That's about it for me, I'm a pretty laid back and simple person. My ideal person is someone who is respectful and honest! I am very straightforward and open minded and would hope that you are as well.
If I seem interesting to you at all I would love to hear from you!
Thank you so much for reading.
submitted by AutumnFanatic to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
Hi and welcome to my post! Wanted to start off with a funny to me dad joke.
Nice to meet you, I'm Dylan!
I love autumn way too much and I can't wait for it! It makes me so excited. We had a much cooler day here for once and it felt like October so I was burning a lot of candles.
To put it simple, I am a single 22 year old man who has been pretty lonely in life and lacking human connection. And part of what comes with that is the desire to be intimate with a person. I am very mature for my age and will always be respectful of your boundaries and feelings, especially with anything sexual. Lately all I have is myself when it comes to sexual desires, so I would like to have someone to keep company with in that regard too.
I'm just relaxing on my days off this weekend and burning a woodwick candle. I love candles! 🕯️ Sometimes a campfire outside on a fall night or a crackling WoodWick candle is a relaxing constant among our busy and hectic world. It's nice to just disconnect, feel grounded and happy in your own little cozy space. Feeling calm and collected and at peace. Something that fewer people take the time to do these days.
I am seeking a woman around my age or older to build a close connection with that could possibly lead to a something intimate which includes the possibility of teasing/sharing pics etc. but only when we were comfortable. Figured I would be open in my Intentions as that's the best way to be.
You:
Kind, respectful, and easy going.
Comfortable with the idea of eventually sharing intimate things together.
Willing to eventually move off of Reddit.
Want something genuine and fun!
Are honest in your intentions and a good person to be around!
That's about it, we will get along great I know it.
I've been feeling a little bummed out lately. I always try and stay happy and see the best in things. But.. I've just been so alone. Most of my whole childhood and adult years have been spent feeling lonely. I grew up surrounded by cornfields which was peaceful but also has a lonely aspect to it. My family never really were close and never did anything as a family really. And part of it too is the fact that I never had any neighbors my age to interact with. But aside from that, my adult life has been very lonely. I'm just always by myself. I barely have any meaningful adult relationships or experiences, or even any friends.
I work a 3-11 job in building maintenance at my company world headquarters building which I love, but again it's very lonely. I work the off shift so the building is always empty. I don't get normal social interaction with people my age or a chance to build relationships. I only have 3 older men as co-workers and we are mostly in the basement away from any people on the floors from knowing our existence. I always walk the floors and see office people laughing and chatting with their coworkers and I just don't have that kind of experience. And just.. no one knows I exist really. Everyone probably assumes I have a lot of friends, but I'm struggling inside with being so alone and trying to meet people and get past the "hi how are you?" "I'm good thanks" stage. Most people don't seem to want to talk beyond that. And most women are already in relationships and thus it would seem weird to approach them in an office setting trying to get to know them deeper. But man those "hi how are yous" are the only real interactions I get during my day.. so thus I decided to come here lol. Rant over, sorry! I promise I'm not a downer. 😅
Now for some things about me!
As you can tell, I am very mature for my age and am polite and have good grammar which unfortunately not everyone my age does anymore lol. I am not active at all on social media/internet culture really and don't know much about all the slang the younger people these days use. I feel like I'm 50. 🤣
I am left handed which is pretty cool. I'm not much of a party person or a drinker, I much prefer a quiet night at home and maybe a beer or two on a weekend but that's about it. I am simple and stay out of drama and trouble and don't get much into politics or other things that cause drama with people. I much prefer a relaxing campfire and a night at home and to just let the world keep on turning haha. I consider myself pretty intelligent and mature, especially for my age which is why I'm open to older ladies.
Physically I'm 180 pounds, have brown hair, green eyes, and a typical build.
Some of my hobbies are:
• Photography
I have a Nikon D200 and D5500 that I love to shoot with. I love nature scenes, abstract, black and white/goth kinda photography, sunsets, etc. it's so fun to just let your mind explore. It's not about what camera you have, but those who are behind the camera!
• Cooking and baking
I loveeee to cook and bake! I enjoy making various meals but also love to just have a frozen pizza once in awhile or something like that. I recently made homemade chili which turned out great. I love to bake, especially in the fall! I love pies, cakes, pastries, cookies, etc. I restored a vintage KitchenAid mixer that needed tbe gearbox rebuilt. Eventually I would love to practice home canning my own food.
• Music
Oh my gosh, I like so much!! Alternative rock, punk, post punk, electronic, synth pop, psychedelic rock, hard rock, etc. I am very non judgemental and open when it comes to music. My three current favorite bands are Type O Negative, Joy Division, and the Cure.
• Nature walks and camping
I really enjoy camping, making fires, and relaxing by a campfire. I love to take walks outside and just enjoy the beauty and simplicity of nature. It's wonderful, especially in a world so focused on everything digital.
• Repairing things
I'm a maintenance guy and one of my hobbies is electronics repair so I am good with my hands and just all around good at troubleshooting and fixing all sorts of things around the house. Last week I helped my elderly neighbor get his tractor started, it needed a new component in the starting circuit. So I'm pretty handy which... Comes in handy! 😂
• Autumn 🍁
This isn't a hobby per say, but man do I love the fall!!! It's my absolute favorite time of the year. Oh my gosh. The beautiful colors, crisp cool air, misty and foggy days, rain, lack of bugs, being cuddled up with a candle or by the fire drinking a tea, etc. I love it! There's only two seasons for me. Fall, and waiting for fall! Haha.
• Scented Candles and incense
Going along with my love for fall, I absolutely love candles! I have like 30 something lol. 😂 Currently my favorite are WoodWick, which are owned by Yankee candle. They have such a soothing crackle and the scents are great! I also love to burn incense from time to time as well. I have cottagecore hippie vibes.
• Old houses and architecture
I love old houses! Especially 1900s and Victorian era homes. Old homes have so much character to them and are just so beautiful from a time when people took pride in their craft. I strongly dislike the modern cookie cutter cheap construction of homes today. I would love to live in an old home one day. I also love their architecture and uniqueness, as well as architecture of old cathedrals and other buildings.
• Relaxing
Basic I know, but sometimes on the weekend I just love to get cozy in bed and relax and put on a YouTube video or an album! 😊
That's about it for me, I'm a pretty laid back and simple person. My ideal person is someone who is respectful and honest! I am very straightforward and open minded and would hope that you are as well.
If I seem interesting to you at all I would love to hear from you!
Thank you so much for reading.