A fanfiction of The Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/u19xpa/the_nature_of_predators/
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Memory Transcription Subject: Slanek, Venlil Space Corps
Date [standardized Earth time]: August 21, 2136
Walking into the lab, we were welcomed by a Pokemon that looked oddly familiar to me, a pink creature with predatory eyes and small wings that looked completely vestigial. It wasn’t until I saw the Human inspecting a large screen embedded in the wall that I recognised them. Lilith and Sara, who were among the first Terrans to have visited Venlil Prime. Lilith, whose species was the ‘Clefable’ if I remember correctly, gestured for the three of us to come further into the lab.
“Hello there, thank you for coming so soon after settling in! It seems a lot of Venlil are quite excited to do the Infinity Energy tests.”
I give a slightly nervous ear flick in response.
“I uh, really just wanted to get this over and done with.”
“Right, well in that case you’ll be glad to know that this takes no time at all. It’ll be over before you know it, and you’ll have your exchange partners beside you through the whole process.”
I look up at Marcel and Felix, who both give me further reassuring glances. Marcel seems a little nervous though, awkwardly standing just in front of the door and obviously having no idea what he should be doing. As the Clefable leads me over to a chair and gestures for me to take a seat, she passes over a piece of paper and a pen.
“This is the consent form, please read it out completely and carefully before writing your basic information and signature.”
Lilith then bounds away to converse with Sara, who is still looking at the large screen teeming with strange writing and graphs. As I read through the consent form, I only grow more worried.
‘Permanent Infinity Energy infusion.’
‘Monitored for remainder of Space Corps service.’
‘Possibility of previously unknown side effects.’
I look over to Marcel and Felix, beckoning them over with a wave of my tail. Marcel kneels down beside the chair, bringing the three of us to roughly eye level as Felix rests on his shoulder.
“Sorry, but can you two just… stay close? This seems a bit more intense than I was expecting.”
Felix nods furiously, followed by Marcel giving a small, closed mouth smile.
“Of course, we’ll be right here.”
“After this is over, we can all get some food from the cafeteria. A nice salad or something, alright?”
The Human’s suggestion sounds nice, and my tail sways in agreement. I sign the form after reading through it a second time, and Lilith soon comes over to collect it. As she does so, I see Sara walking over with some wires and wool clips. She places them on a nearby table before turning to finally address me.
“Hello Mr Slanek, sorry for the wait. It’s just, the data we’ve gathered so far from the other Venlil is beyond fascinating. It's an amazing opportunity to investigate how life not native to Earth reacts with Infinity Energy and uh… you probably don’t care, sorry.”
With a lightly red hue showing in her cheeks, she grabs the wires and clips, and gets started on attaching them to various points on my body. From my knees to my paws, snout, ears, stomach, chest, tail… almost everywhere, really. This all only makes my nerves grow even more.
“Now, just as a warning, this will probably hurt a bit. It’s only for a moment though, and it just means that everything is working.”
As Sara attaches the last clip to the wool on my back, she walks back over to large screen on the opposite wall, which I am surprised to find now displays a wireframe model of myself. I notice my paws are beginning to shake slightly, and I turn towards my exchange partners, hoping to find solace. Not so long ago, I would never have even fathomed the idea of looking to predators for comfort, but now…
I reach out a shaking paw towards them. After hesitating for a moment, a look of surprise coming over his face, Marcel reaches out and takes hold of it. Felix scurries down the Human’s arm and places his own small paw on top of mine as Marcel gives it a gentle squeeze.
Turning back to the rest of the lab, Sara is swiping her hand to rotate the wireframe model of my body, while Lilith is retrieving something from a large, formerly locked box nearby. She pulls out a small yellow crystal, and walks back over to me. Sara sidles up beside her partner, and double checks the wire clips one last time as the Clefable holds out the crystal to me.
“This is a revive, which will inject Infinity Energy directly into you. Make sure you hold onto it tight, ok?”
I take a deep breath, giving Marcel’s hand and Felix’s paw a gentle squeeze as I do so.
“Understood.”
I reach out with my other paw, and grab onto the revive. For a moment, nothing happens, but then the revive begins to glow. I shut my eyes tight against the blinding light, and tighten my grip on the crystal. A strange sensation, like waves of pressure, emanate from where the revive touches my paw. Through my arm, across my chest, up my neck and down my navel un-
“BRAKH!”
I cry out as pain suddenly engulfs my snout and legs. A loud beeping noise comes from the clips attached to them, which I silently pray means that everything is working as it should. It feels like my legs are trying to rip themselves apart at the knees, and I understand instantly why I’m sat down for this. My snout too lights up, as if on fire without the heat, forcing me to grit my teeth until my jaw starts hurting as well from the preassure alone. I tighten my grip on both the revive and my partners. I feel weight shifting, and Felix’s paw disappears. Not a moment later, something warm and fuzzy jumps up onto the chair beside me, reaching up to rest a paw on my shoulder.
“It’s alright, we’re right here.”
I go to wrap my tail around him, only to find something strange. My tail has gone numb. The mixture of sensations, from numbness to pain, continues for a little while. As the revive breaks down into grey dust, I can finally open my eyes and unclench my teeth. Steadily, the searing pain fades, leaving my tail numb and my snout and legs sore. I breathe deeply again, and I turn my attention to Felix and Marcel. I retrieve my paw from Marcel’s grip and Felix hops back down from the chair. The Human reaches over to lightly pat me on the back.
“There we go, all over now. You did great, Slanek.”
“Th-thanks.”
Lilith comes over and begins detaching the clips from my wool, while Sara is already tapping away at the screen, the wireframe model of my body now looking very different than it was before. The majority of it is now coloured a stark white, although notably my snout and legs are a dimmer shade of muted grey. The only splash of actual colour is in my tail, the entire limb a vivid purple, most intense at the tip. After inspecting it for a moment, Sara turns back around to address me.
“Thank you for coming, Mr Slanek. The full results of this test will be sent to your holopad shortly, but I’ll give you the most important information now.”
Sara taps the screen a few times, and labels written in Venscript appear as a key for the colours.
White – Mixed
Violet – Poison
Grey – Unknown
“Your results are consistent with what we’ve seen in all the other Venlil that have been tested so far. Most of your body contain a mixture of all Types of IE, similar to Humans. Different Venlil seem to have the Poison IE concentrate in different areas of the body, I’ve seen it in arms, abdomen, throat, wool and elsewhere. For you it’s in the tail, which so far seems fairly common. The grey zones are the most interesting, as they’re in the same areas for each and every Venlil; the snout and legs. Combine that with how this energy isn’t quite Normal but also not Typeless, not to mention it’s almost complete lack of reactivity to external or internal stimuli… it will certainly be an area of research I'll happily dive into soon.”
As Sara explains the results of the test, Marcel helps me to stand up again. At first, I’m a little unsteady as my legs still feel slightly odd, but leaning on his arm helps. The numb feeling in my tail slowly fades, and I experimentally shake it back and forth a few times. There is… Poison in it? It doesn’t feel any different, at least at the moment. After Lilith and Sara once again thank me for my cooperation, the three of us are ushered out of the lab, left standing together in the hallway as another mini herd files in after us. I turn to look up at my companions, a slight bloom making its way onto my face.
“Hey, uh, sorry for what happened in there. To predators it’s probably a show of weakness to need someone sticking nearby but-”
“Okay, we’re nipping that ‘weakness’ shit in the bud right now.”
Felix’s surprising angry voice catches me off guard, and for a second I’m worried that I said something to make him mad. I realise that, in a way, I had… but not for the reason I thought.
“Needing a friend ain’t weakness, Slanek. Just look at Marc and I!”
Marcel smiles at the Buizel, before turning his gaze back down at me. His predatory gaze seems stern, and yet somehow friendly, despite that being essentially oxymoronic.
“Slanek, if I’ve learned anything from my time in the military, it’s that ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ are meaningless words in isolation. People can only reach their full potential when they have others lifting them up, whether they be a Human or Pokemon. I doubt Venlil are any different.”
Something flashes through my mind, a memory that Marcel's words invoked. Of course. One of the first pieces of Terran media I saw after First Contact; 'The Power of Us'. Felix nods along excitedly, jumping down from the Human's shoulder to be a bit closer to my level.
“Never call yourself weak again, alright? Marcel and I were already growing stronger with just the two of us, but now we have a brand-new friend? The three of us together will be unstoppable!”
Marcel snickers slightly.
“Not really the angle I was going for, but sure. Anyway, that packet of chips wasn't nearly enough. Like I said earlier, let’s go grab something from the cafeteria, alright?”
Seemingly immediately forgetting the previous topic, Felix’s eyes light up and his tails whir into action.
“Oh! I hope they have Wacan berries!”
As Felix rapidly ascends back up onto Marcel’s shoulder, my own tail begins to sway back and forth again. The predators’ kind words lifted my spirits and cast aside the embarrassment I had felt, spurring me to happily step forwards and follow the Human’s lead towards the station’s cafeteria.
As we made our way through the halls, I paid more attention to the various pairs and trios we passed. The Venlil all ranged from bubbling with excitement, a spring in their step as they walked joyfully beside their partners, to barely containing their fear, shaking slightly as they stuck close to the walls and avoided looking at most of the more predatory looking Pokemon. I wasn’t at either extreme, though I was leaning towards the former. I strode beside Marcel with contentment, mentally thanking my past self for signing up for the program. I was nervous to meet them at first, but it took almost no time at all for me to recognise the friends I had already been speaking to over text for whole herds of paws at this point.
When we reached the cafeteria, the place was already alive with many Terrans and Venlil. Some sat just with their exchange partners, while others gathered into larger herds, with the countless conversations happening between them melding together with the clinking of cutlery. Even out here on this station, with by far the strangest creatures in the Universe, the sound of people enjoying each other’s company was oh so familiar.
The three of us collected our meals and decided just to sit by ourselves, eventually finding a spot near a rather short Venlil sitting with a large, purple serpentine Pokemon that was presumably their partner. As Marcel and I set our meals down on the table, Felix quickly grabs a pastry from Marcel’s tray.
“I call dibs on the Wacan muffin!”
Marcel has selected some sort of soup for himself, while I chose a simple bunt leaf salad, although my serving seemed to have some sort of fruit in it that I didn’t recognise. I prodded the yellow chunks around, trying to determine if I had gotten some underripe juicefruit or something, catching Marcel’s attention.
“That’s Shuca berry. Not really my thing, but it’s decently popular.”
“Oh, it’s an Earth fruit?”
“Yep, looks like the kitchen’s experimenting with mixing cuisines. This soup is… surprisingly spicy.”
Looking up at the Human, I find that his face has turned a slight reddish hue, the flush no doubt signifying that he was struggling. A quick peek at the contents of his meal provides an answer, making me whistle slightly in laughter.
“Ah, that would be firefruit. Fitting name, isn’t it?”
“Fuck, you can say that again.”
As I watch my Human partner gulp down his glass of water, I pick up a few bunt leaves along with a small chunk of the Shuca berry and pop them in my mouth. The yellow fruit goes well with the bunt leaves, providing a mild but nice sweetness with the slightest kick of spice. Though, obviously not nearly as much as Marcel’s firefruit. The Human soon excuses himself to refill his water, Felix throwing a teasing quip his way between bites of the muffin.
“Fire Type doesn’t suit you, Marc!”
While trying to stifle my laughter at my friend’s misfortune, a slightly alarmed, raspy voice coming from my right catches my attention.
“Ssssevik, are you alright?”
Turning to my right, I find the large serpent Pokemon sitting nearby looking at her Venlil partner with concern. He is holding a paw over his stomach and groaning slightly.
“Y-yeah Arbok, I’m fi-fi -hurk-”
He gives a horrible sound somewhere between a burp and a retch, grabbing the attention of a few other people around us.
“Wassss it the berriesss?”
“N-no it’s -hurk- I think is the Pois- -hurk-“
Thinking quickly, one of the nearby Humans passes the Venlil a plastic bag. He accepts it and tries to thank them, only for his attempt to be interrupted by more retching. Just as he seems to lose control of his meal completely, he cries out.
“Gastro Acid!”
Instead of the typically yellowy green, the Venlil expels a thick, deep purple fluid into the bag. After a single powerful heave, the Venlil looks back up, seemingly slightly dizzy. A moment later, a sizzling sound can be heard coming from the bag, the bottom of which soon breaks. The acidic substance spills onto the floor, having corroded through the plastic like it was nothing. For a while, nobody makes a sound, nor barely moves. Venlil, Human and Pokemon alike in our little section of the cafeteria are all staring at the poor little Venlil who in turn has his eyes glued onto the now useless plastic bag. As for the purple acid, it soon fizzles away into nothing, leaving the floor spotless with no evidence that it ever existed.
The sound of approaching footsteps makes me turn around with a slight jump, finding Marcel returning with a new glass of water. His eyes dart first to the silent crowd, then to the small Venlil, then finally to me and Felix.
“Uh, did I miss something?”
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~~~~~~~

NoPokedex

Humans - Typeless
Gojid - Steel/Rock

• Sovlin: Metal Claw & Rollout

Venlil - Normal /Poison

• Kam: ??? & Poison Jab
• Slanek: ??? & ???

Arxur - Dragon/???

• Isif: Dragon Pulse & ???

Tilfish - Bug/Dark
Zurulian - ???/???
Farsul - ???/???
Kolshian - ???/???
Yotul - ???/???
Mazic - ???/???
Dossur - ???/???
Sivkit - ???/???
Krakotl - Flying/???
Harchen - ???/???
Duertan - Flying/???
Thafki - Wate???
Sulean - ???/???
Iftali - ???/???
Drezjin - Flying/???
Jaur - ???/???
Letian - ???/???
Leshee - ???/???
Yulpa - ???/???

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

For a further back story…my dad and I had a rocky relationship and all that ended back when I was 15…I lied to him about something and he pulled over in the car and slammed me on his car and began suffocating me, the memories are somewhat blurry but I remember him slamming my head against his tire and kept doing so until he calmed down…we fast forward a couple of years and at age 19 I found myself feeling stressed about college and lit up a blunt of marijuana at night,m. My dad found out and confronted me however things escalated when he tried to grab my neck and suffocated me, my mind rewinded to when I was 15 and I fought him off me. I remember running to the front and him trying to grab me and I somewhat juked him out to get away down the street. I remember running down an alley behind our house when I suddenly see headlights reflecting the outline of my body…yes you can guess who it was…my father and he proceeded to try to run me over with his car i remember him speeding up and i remember jumping into someone’s back yard to avoid getting run over…as the years roll by I’m at age 22 feeling nothing but anger and resentment to him. My step mom has been nothing but sweet to me but she doesn’t truly see my dad for what he is. When he put his hands on me when I was 15 she was the one who separated him from me and told him she couldn’t be with someone who does that to his children and he yelled saying don’t intervene between me and my child and that night he tried to run me over unfortunately she didn’t see what he tried to do. I realize I’ve made mistakes but I never felt comfortable being able to open up to him as a child based off how he’d react and to make things even worse he’s one of those judgmental trump loving republicans (I am black btw) but I find myself wondering how someone who’s a believer in God can beat do that to their son at a young age and perform attempted vehicular manslaughter

Welcome back to a little more MARRIED Mary Mania before I wrap things up with The Abridged Goblinization. I decided that this bit deserved its own chapter. Some of you seem to be entertained by Mary (or at least entertained by your own loathing of her), so I hope this will prove amusing. In my life, I've encountered an inordinate number of low-key lolcows (probably because I was far too patient and far too passive for far too long), so I might as well throw just enough distortion on the page to protect the good guys and the genuinely reformed beards. But I'm also gonna shine a bright, unflattering spotlight on the lolcows, creeps, weirdos, pervs, and BEARDS, both neck and leg.
And I'll very, very cautiously tiptoe over the bit where I do a bunch of mental gymnastics, squint my eyes, tilt my head, and convince myself that dating Whisky might be a welcome change of pace. I have no delusions when I look back on it. This was a dumb move in retrospect, but all the mental gymnastics in the world can't bring me to a reasonable scenario where I was psychic and thus able to predict what he'd become once he stopped pretending to be a gentleman. Nor can the most elite, Olympic-level mental gymnastics execute a double salto layout with a half-twist perfectly enough to force me to concede the "logical point" that I should have spotted warning signs that I'd never freakin' seen before. Okay, that's enough saltiness for today. Don't worry. This chapter mostly focuses on Mary's mania. Whisky's just kind of... there.
So there I was... dating a guy who called when he said he would, remained constant in his affections, never asked for weird stuff in the sack (in fact, we weren't even intimate at that point), and claimed to be a secular humanist who practiced elements of Hinduism (as opposed to conveniently becoming born-again whenever it suited his needs to wallow in shame). And we seemed to have similar enough tastes in media, which made for pleasant movie nights and enjoyable conversations about nerdy stuff. It felt like a step up. It felt safe. At that point in time, I was content.
But here's a shameful admission for ya. My original intention was to make Whisky the "for now guy." I knew I could do better. I was formally educated, I was in shape, I was normatively attractive, and I tended to be successful in both my theatrical and academic endeavors. Plus, I was super friendly and good with people. Whisky was kind of a bump on a log. Sure, he seemed nice. He was sometimes able to make interesting conversation. To quote his favorite catch phrase, "Meh."
I knew he was mooching off his mysterious "big bro," and he wasn't doing this with the intention of saving up and eventually becoming self-sufficient. He just kicked up a fuss whenever he wanted something, and... it usually appeared. I still thought he was physically unattractive, too. I hate nasty-ass beards, I have a strong preference for shorter guys (they don't need to be as short as Dennis, but I don't exactly love being towered over), and Whisky had whatever the dude version of resting bitch face is. I admonished myself for being shallow and decided to soldier on. Date after date. And I did kind of get used to all the shallow things I objected to.
But, really... Dating Whisky at all was a dick move on my part. Then again, how many Nice Guy (TM)s want girls to do exactly what I did? Not attracted? Think he's kind of a bum? Find him a bit boring? Just give him a chance!!! Go on a crap-ton of dates with him until you like the familiarity enough to settle for him. That's the key to a healthy relationship!!! It never works. You could flip this around and apply it to Nice Girls who want pity dates, too.
Anyway. Lucy knew I was dating Whisky, and she thought it was great. She was honestly just happy to see that I was no longer pining over Dennis and that Whisky was no longer getting relentlessly stalked by Mary. Speaking of Mary... She'd had an imaginary dramatic breakup with Scumbanger not long after she crashed Lucy's brunch. Murky aside... The following summer, I'd do another show with the pervy pest and I'd find out that Mary had given the former Rum Tum Tugger a tug in the parking lot of The Imp and had let him motorboat her. When dozens of lewd messaged filled his inbox the following day, the most indiscriminate playboy I'd ever met in my freakin' life blocked that clingy legbeard's number and never had any further contact with her. But seeing as neither of them are especially reliable sources, my best guess is that the truth is somewhere in between.
After the dramatic "breakup" with Scumbanger, Mary immediately became obsessed with the new tech guy (and his wife). They allegedly had something of a throuple situation going on, but no one ever witnessed any hard evidence of this. And then Mary and Tech Guy's wife allegedly had a catfight in the middle of the fancy restaurant where the three spent their date nights. Mary did have a shiner and a scraped knee for a few weeks, and she intimated to me that Chuckie was actually the one responsible for her looking a little rough...
I believed her because there was something very different about her demeanor when she told me this. When she was in larger groups, she just screeched about how she thought the catfight was foreplay until Tech Guy ghosted her. Yet again, we'll never know the truth. But I err on the side of belief when someone tells me that DV is going on in their home, even if I generally regard that person as a delusional pathological liar. Plus, Mary had never badmouthed Chuckie before and she never made excuses for her philandering. She just felt entitled to any ding-dong she desired. Bottom line, I think there was an unfortunate incident, and I urged her to report it. She didn't; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
And, yes. I think we're allowed to show compassion for Mary if Chuckie did indeed do what she was accusing him of. She absolutely deserved to get dumped in a spectacular fashion. No one deserves violence, though. But I think we're also allowed to laugh at Mary when she's acting like a crank-crazed maniac.
Moving on to lighter topics! Mary claimed to be having a hot, steamy affair with the artistic director of The Imp. At first, this seemed outlandish. But he had been the one to hire her. And he repeatedly refused to replace her when she consistently failed to learned her lines, ran around naked, and contributed little more than muckbangs to the comedy (again, I personally found it funny when she did that, but I was in the minority).
Some skullduggery was definitely afoot. Was it "sexy time," as Mary enthusiastically claimed? Who knows. Chuckie might have been paying the dude to give Mary a hobby. But not long after Mary started boasting about boning the artistic director, he suddenly began calling her out on her unprofessional behavior. They "broke up," but Mary managed to avoid getting kicked out of the improv troupe, bragging that she could sue the director for sexual harassment if he fired her.
And then... there was the pièce de résistance of Mary's misadventures in mating. She met a biker dude at Filthy McNasty's. This guys was disgusting. Most of her previous dudes had been questionable, weird, or possibly imaginary. But we all saw this one. He was as fat as a Hutt, he smelled like a grease trap, motor oil, B.O., and a very specific type of cheese... The few teeth that he had were black and green, his fingernails were yellowed and a few of them oozed pus. Finally, the volume and crackly, bubbly properties of his frequent farts indicated to George Gay that he, "definitely had a virgin booty." Mary's lard-ass loverboy called himself "Hogg," which was probably a reference to the two-wheeled vehicle that he was very obviously too large to actually ride. Or it might have just been an obvious nickname for a filthy fat fuck.
But Hogg, like Tech Guy a few loverboys ago, had a wife. And she made frequent appearances at Filthy's as well. Hogg's wife was shockingly... kind of pretty. A little rough around the edges. Didn't smell the greatest. But she stood in stark contrast to her repugnant hubby, even with her fried hair, her sloppily inked tats, and her imprecisely applied eye makeup. Her teeth were free of obvious rot. She had a beautiful figure. And she had a carefree attitude that was probably attractive to a number of people. She'd fart right along with Hogg, she didn't shave her legs, and the profane compound nouns she came up with always cracked me up (lard-tard, smegma-booger, felch-belcher).
And Mary was once again claiming to be in a throuple with The Hoggs. But this time, there was hard evidence. They'd get busy in some corner of the establishment, and even got booted from the dive bar a few times for lewd behavior, offensive odors, and illegal drug use. On one particular night, Mrs. Hogg lit one of her hubby's gargantuan ass-rippers while Mary was doing her thing, completely shrouded by his big belly. The blue flame ignited some spilt booze on the dingy floor, and a small fire erupted. The staff were able to stomp it out, but the nasty throuple was unceremoniously banished.
Alas, management allowed Mary to re-enter the bar because she apparently had some sort of sway with one of the bartenders. Instead of meeting her...uh... "partners" for some more boom-boom, Mary decided to come back inside and gush about Hogg's majestic rooster to all of us. She smelled like D cheese, ammonia, and burnt farts as she plopped down at our table, already screeching about how much bigger her "new boo" was, compared to that vile turd of an artistic director.
George Gay: Fuck me, Mary!!! You reek. Go wash the uncircumcised methhead off your hands and then you can sit with us.
Mary started to protest. Lucy cut her off. "Your whole body is probably a veritable Petri dish from fooling around with those nasty-ass people." She handed Mary some Purell. "Was the junkie junk off, keep the bottle, and don't you fucking touch me when you come back!"
Mary's bottom lip began to quiver and she looked pleadingly at me. "Just wash up," I told her. "You're too pretty to go around smelling like that.”
Off she went to the dingy bathroom. Maybe I wasn't harsh enough, but flattery got results in this instance. And when she returned, she had managed to dilute the stench enough so that we could stand to sit at the same table with her.
Mary took a deep breath in preparation to gush about something that would have undoubtedly been disgusting, but George cut her off this time. "Mare. How do you even BANG someone with a belly like that?"
Mary (speaking a bit more quickly than usual): Oh, it just takes some creative positioning. We get him to lie down. If Mrs. Hogg is taking in the rod, I hold his bowl of jelly up with both arms and stick my cooter in his face. He eats it like his mommy made it! And when it's my turn to get blasted, the missus uses a bunch of yoga straps to hold it up. I have to take it from behind because my own little tiny bit of va-jiggle-jaggle bumps up against his bowl of jelly if why try to smash like vanilla people. It's so much fun, though!!! And then he props his bowl of jelly up on the coffee table and plays with himself while he watches his honey strap on a dil...
George: I so regret asking.
Mary: They're sooo fun to fool around with! I think they might be my forever partners! (Her hands were too shaky to slide down her body in unbridled ecstasy, so she clasped them together and hid them underneath her itty bitty little gunt.)
Lucy: So when are you gonna dump Chuck?
Mary: Well... Hogg and the missus don't have much scratch. And what they do have, they spend on smokeables. When I meet a real sugar daddy, I'll get rid of Chuckle. He pretended to be a baller before we got married. But he's just middle management and he's content to stay there. Pffffftt. No ambition.
Mary launched into another long, unnecessarily graphic gushing about her garbage partners and their nasty-ass boom-boom. So I decided this would be a good time to clear my conscience about dating Whisky. Mary hadn't so much as mentioned him in months. She was inexplicably smitten with The Hoggs. And her ultimate dream man was obviously some filthy rich dude (perhaps a literally filthy dude who was also rich), which took Whisky out of the running. I still think it would have been amusing if Mary had tried to date Mori...
I waited for her adult film star gasp to wind down before I finally interjected, "Wow. Sounds like you've got a fantastic sex life right now!"
Mary: I do! You need to get over that born-again weirdo and find a real man so that you and I can have good girl talk!
Me: Well... I'm not banging anybody, but I am dating somebody. Sort of. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm not even sure that I'm completely into him. But he's been super sweet to me...
Lucy put her arm around me, almost as if she knew I was about to need protection.
Mary: TELL ME!
I hesitated. "Well... It's Whiskers."
In an instant, George jumped up and grabbed Mary by the shoulders, lest she lunge at me.
But Mary got very quiet. Silent tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She gasped and buried her face in her hands, now emitting one seemingly endless, impossibly high-pitched whine.
George loosened his grip and began to pat her on the back. Lucy's grip tightened on me and she whispered, "Here we go. Overreaction sequence has commenced."
Mary lifted her red, tear-stained face and glared at me. "HOW COULD YOU???"
Me: Mary, I swear. I thought you hated his guts. I haven't heard you talk about him in ages. When he asked, I thought it would be good for me to give him a chance since he's always been really sweet to me.
Mary: But what about the way he treated ME??? He was such an asshole!
Lucy: Was he? Mary, you stalked the guy. If he was rude, it was only because you weren't taking NO for an answer.
Mary: He never told me he wanted to end things. He just kept ghosting me. But whenever I showed up at his house and jumped on him, we always wound up smashing. Eventually.
I didn't have the gumption at that point in my life to suggest to Mary that it's wrong on every imaginable level to coerce someone into intimate activity, regardless of gender. And even knowing what Whiskers would eventually become, he didn't deserve THAT. I should have called her out. Instead I tried to steer the conversation back to her current bedroom bliss and try to get her to resume thinking the disgusting thoughts that delighted her so much.
Me: Who cares what he's doing now?! Aren't you insanely happy with your fun new lovers???
Mary: NO! THEY STINK! HE'S FAT. I want my sexy Whisky-Boo Whiskers back!!! Give him back, Valley! Puh-leeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeease.
Me: I don't "have" him. I'm just seeing him. If he hurt you this much, why don't you try to sit down and have a real conversation with him? It might be good for both of you to clear the air.
Mary: He blocked me on everythi-iiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiing. Waaaaaaaaaah!
Me: Well, I guess that's your answer. You probably overwhelmed him. He seems like a bit of a softy. Personally, I need a softy right now. But I think you need a manly man.
Mary rose. She gave me an icy stare. And then she cooed in an unnervingly sweet tone. "I love you, Valley-Boo. I know you didn't mean to break my heart."
Me: Thank you, Mary. Really, I wouldn't have even considered his initial invitation if you hadn't been calling him "Satan," and telling us all that you hated him, and dating all these new guys. I didn't do it to spite you, I swear. It just happened.
Mary (still creepily, icily sweet): Yes. We're so alike, you and I. It's perfectly understandable that the same guy would go for both of us. But you owe me. You owe me big.
Me: I'm gonna disagree with that. If you think I slighted you, just tell me to fuck off. If you really do understand that these things happen, then you'll accept that there was no malice on anyone's part.
Mary: Mmmm-hmmmm. We'll see about that.
She jiggled her Jupiters, tossed her hair, and stalked out of the dive bar...

AND THEN SHE BANGED DENNIS.

Started talking with ex after 5yrs. We are mutual about being friends. Although I did state that the doors open if it went further but she says she’s completely uninterested which is cool. I respect that. I’m not looking foranything as I just got out of a 3yr relationship in January. She also went through a heartbreak recently from a situationship so she isn’t either.
We were getting along great and eventually decided to meet up to catch up on each others lives. Eventually the conversations got deeper although I was trying to avoid it out of respect that she said she’s not interested. She kept saying things like: “I wish we stuck together” “I wish you fought for me” “I wonder where we would be right now if we got through it” “If I could I’d stay in a world where we did stick together” “Your my favourite ex” “I care for you so much” “Each others very first loves” Till 2-3am in the morning. Eventually I give in and talk with my emotional side towards the situation and agreeing but acknowledging I have accepted it and we grew from that experience.
The “I wonder where we would be right now” conversation lead to a conversation about kids…yikes. I ignored that and she doubled back to it! We had a joke about how we would have to have triplets to make up for loss time ect ect. So I’m thinking to myself okay maybe she’s changed her mind? Maybe she’s interested? As we were having a lot of fun talking AND she even asked me if I had told my parents that we are talking again which would be a odd thing to even say if you weren’t interested with at least being more involved in someone’s life again.
I suggested seeing each other again…instant no! Big paragraph about how she feels that it’s a date and she doesn’t want that. How she’s still uninterested ect ect. Obviously I questioned everything she said about all the “I wish” things I listed previously and even how she STATED she would stay in a world where we stuck together because it’s a strange thing to say to anyone your uninterested in let alone to a ex….here’s the fun part.
She pinned it all on me. That I took everything she said wrong. That I shouldn’t feel lead on because she said she’s not interested early on. That she regrets saying those things. I never got attached mind you or even mentioned that it was a date it just all came out of no where because she FEELS I got attached and have feelings when it’s not the case at all. Eventually I just told her: “no I don’t want you. We’re friends. I just said if it happens it happens” She replies: “You said you MIGHT want to date me now suddenly I should go fuck myself?” Which I didn’t but besides the point. She hasn’t spoken to me or replied since I told her I don’t want her and that we can keep it mutual.
I’m confused. She liked it when I had the door open but soon as I decided to respect her decision she no longer wants to talk at all when the friendship was her idea? Maybe she just wanted me as an option for when she was ready to date again after her situationship heartbreak?
What do you guys make of it? I’ve never known her to be fake she’s always been genuine which leads me to think she’s confused or scared idk …I’m not gonna make excuses for someone else but I’d like to know what others think.

Obsessive spiraling thoughts about an ex friend
I will try to keep this as short and cohesive as possible but please forgive if it isn’t. I’m also not the best writer so please excuse rambling sentences, misplaces commas, etc. My wife (27) and I (25) had this friend for a while before we moved away, she was much younger than us(19 I believe at the time) and for a while I think we kind of looked at her as a young sister which is great because we’re both the youngest in our families so it was a nice dynamic. We mostly spent time at our house at the time and even took a 3 day trip to the Smokey mountains. It was a very short lived friendship but it felt very special, a kind of friendship I’ve never had before.
I can go on and on about this specific event but I will keep it pretty vague and to the point if you would like further details feel free to shoot me a DM. Basically I decided to take magic mushrooms one day when we were all chilling in the house. Obviously in hind sight this was a horrible idea, if you have never taken a psychedelic substance there are a few basic ground rules people should follow so they don’t end having a bad trip: don’t take it a whim (plan, plan, plan!) and don’t trip around people who have never tripped and don’t know what it’s like because they can say or do something minor that can throw you into a nasty head space and your trip can turn real bad real fast. Well that’s exactly what happened. She made a comment that was objectively kind of rude but she was just trying to be funny but that sent me spiraling and all of this trauma got unleashed that had been hiding in my mind for years. Memories of being sexually abused as a child, old insecurities and self worth issues I had thought I had gotten over, and the early death of my father. I have no idea why what she said triggered all of these things to come up but they did and my mental health took a hard dive. It’s been a little over two years since that trip and it still feels like it happened yesterday. After that day I just couldn’t see her the same way she became a trigger for me even though it wasn’t her fault I’m the one who stupidly decided to trip on a whim in front of someone who’s younger and didn’t know anything about the effects of psychedelics so I’m aware it’s completely on me.
I did finally talk to her about this (over text and not in person another ridiculous mistake) and at the end of the day it ended up with us deciding we just couldn’t be friends anymore. Meanwhile, my wife and her still remained close and would go to concerts together and then when we moved to another town she just stopped talking to my wife and they had a falling out (somewhat related to what happened with me and her but a few others thing too) so she’s no longer in either of our lives.
Again I left out alot of details just for the sake of the length, but I’m willing to fill in any gaps if it helps with feedback. Even though I have virtually no connection with her and we don’t really have any mutual friends she will pop on my social media sometimes and whenever I think I put it behind me it sets me right back where I was two years ago. To make things worse I recently started writing and preforming music as a cathartic way to express my feelings about everything and started playing gigs which helps but some of the venues I play I found out from another source that she frequents quite often which always sends me great anxiety when this is the one area that I feel like is helping me deal with this shit. I don’t know how to move on. I currently have no health insurance so I can’t get on meds or talk to a professional and I really wish I could just hate her honestly it would be so much easier to deal with anger than deal with hurt. I have so many mixed emotions towards the whole situation: anger and resentment for what happened to me, guilt and shame for how I handled the whole situation with her, and grieving a lost friend. There are days where I think about reaching out to her but I just can’t I know for a fact she feels really awful about the whole situation and I don’t want to bring her down with me.
Again I apologize for the messy writing I can’t sleep and it’s four in the morning and I just needed to express my feelings openly somehow. Any advice would help or just some overall feedback. Again I’m aware it’s my fault at the end of the day with the mushrooms that was very irresponsible of me so I just ask to not harp on that. Thank you ❤️

i recently posted on my close friends/private story about my preference for they/them pronouns. after a really jarring personal experience, i was just fed up and wanted to tell them. one of my closest friends saw it while we were hanging out and asked me about it while drunk. she’s always been super supportive of my queerness (though, at times, a bit ignorant), and i didn’t foresee any issue with it—especially since she works with multiple nonbinary people and has had no problem.
i confirmed that i would like her to use they/them pronouns for me. she said she would, but since then, she hasn't used them once. i thought it was because she was drunk when she found out and she forgot. after a couple of weeks, though, she brought it up (i was too uncomfortable to say anything), and apologized. she let me know that she’s been trying and will try harder. i just kind of laughed it off and said it’s fine because i thought it would be okay now.
that was a couple weeks ago, and nothing has changed. today we were playing a game with one of her trans friends and she used the correct pronouns for him and his nonbinary partner but not for me.
i don’t want to make things awkward—i’ve only shared this with my close friends and i have a really hard time talking about it still (trying to find a good therapist to help with this).
it just makes me feel that she and everyone else will always see me as the gender i was assigned at birth, and that i should stop trying to make them believe anything different. if i can’t even get a close friend to see me that way, then how will anyone else? i don’t want to force people to refer to me a certain way, i thought just asking would be enough.
i know the answer is to talk to her bout it but i’m just discouraged and i feel like there’s no point—we’ve already discussed it multiple times, i don’t know what i did wrong

Over the past few weekends I’ve been bringing my chess board to Northgate, sitting down in the tables in front of Dixie Chicken or The Backyard, and playing whoever sits down.
The reason I did this was out of love for the game, boredom, and desire to socialize. I don’t drink and am not very talkative so yes this was the best way to spend Friday and Saturday nights, obviously.
For reference, I peaked at 1850 ELO in chess.com. People who sat down could be any rating. I played people who were probably rated close to 100 all the way to people who must’ve been 2300+. If I had to guess, the mean rating was around 900 but with a very large standard deviation. I won more than 95% of the games. I must have played hundreds of people in total, with the vast majority being men. I only played against 3 women. I played people of all ethnicities but the majority were white Americans. The good thing about playing here was that it took a very short to play someone. The average wait between games was probably about 5 minutes. This made it by far the best time and place to set up a chess board in CS. I sometimes set up my board on campus in between classes but got nowhere near as many people to play then.
It was fun! The “rudest” comment I got was “congrats, you beat a drunk person, you four eyed nerd.” Most people were super friendly and amused at the idea of playing chess in a place that seems antithetical to it. What makes playing chess in person worth it is shaking your opponents hand and saying thanks for playing after. It feels very human and warm when compared to online chess. The problem is that talking while playing chess is hard. Calculating moves takes a lot of brain processing, so there’s little space to think about what to say in a conversation. This means that I had mostly just pleasant small talk before or after games.
Most people sat by themselves, but it was very funny when a group of people sat down. Sometimes people would cheer when a piece was captured. People walking by would holler a move (KNIGHT TO F5!!”). People would make a celebrity move then disappear. Others would take pictures. Illegal moves were seen: knights moving like bishops, pawns moving diagonally without capturing, castling in check, and moving a pinned piece so that the king could be taken. A girlfriend complained to her bf who sat down “babe you are NOT about to do this.” People told me about how they used to play chess with their grandfather. They said chess in person feels different and harder than online. I won $5 once. Somehow, I went on a date out of all of it.
I graduated this semester so I won’t be able to do this anymore. But it was honestly one of the best things I’ve done in college and I’ll miss it a lot. If any of the people I played reads this, thanks for sitting down and playing.

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

M 25 autistic. Didn’t realize I was autistic until I was an adult. My entire childhood, I would randomly start crying (involuntarily) whenever I got the slightest bit nervous or irritated or whatever. I never knew what it was or why it happened. As a child I called it the “crying curse” and blamed God. (Never really believed in god, as a kid I found Santa Clause slightly less outlandish tbh, but still went to church and therefore still talked to god anyway). Naturally, making me cry became kind of a fun game for the other kids in my school growing up. I was tormented, didn’t get to have friends as a kid or anything. Elementary school was a nightmare, middle school was worse, by high school I was dead inside. Had spent so many years trying to control my emotions, that I basically became stone-faced 99% of the time, and even then it STILL didn’t help, my breakdowns would still happen. I was in so much pain every single day that it’s a miracle I didn’t hang myself off the satellite dish of my childhood home. Parents forced me to go to college, I get there and suddenly I’ve got a fresh start. The #1 thing I focused on was making sure my crying and meltdowns were always done in private and never in the presence of anyone else. Let me tell you, the way I noticed people LOOKING at me differently was the most mind-blowing thing in my life. These people didn’t KNOW who I was, didn’t KNOW about my issues, and the actual look in all their eyes was completely different than what I was used to. People were finally seeing me as a HUMAN, who was on the same level as them. That being said, there was still a massive social learning curve for me. So eventually everyone kinda realized I was a socially awkward dude. But I was still respected and people were actually nice to me during that freshman year. Eventually though, I got drunk and broke down in front of a group of friends, telling them about my “crying curse”, about how I couldn’t make friends until now, and about how I still, as a grown adult, can’t control my emotions. People tried to be empathetic, like genuinely tried, but I could tell that they immediately didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I gradually lost touch with all of them after that. Sophomore year came around and I ended up being pretty lonely for the rest of college. At one point, I went home for holidays and my dad was whining about some of his dumb normie non-problems (as NTs often do), but then I quit paying attention and the conversation hard-pivots into him mentioning offhanded “your mom and I used to debate whether or not you were autistic”. At first I kinda laughed it off and didn’t think much of it, cause as unselfaware as I was, the possibility of me being an autist never even OCCURRED to my dumb ass. But eventually the thought festered more and more into the back of my mind, and MY WHOLE LIFE started making sense. I ended up doing research, figuring out that my “crying curse” was actually called “autistic meltdowns”… which sounds like a joke but apparently it’s a real thing. They’re involuntary tantrums that occur due to an autist’s mind getting overstimilulated in social situations. I immediately understood that I had just been ratfucked by life. Dealt a shit hand. Given an enormous social handicap. And that kinda made me feel better? Cause for so long, I assumed that my little “episodes” were MY fault, due to my lack of ability to keep my emotional shit tight. Everyone around me, kids, teachers, even my own dumbfuck parents had always BLAMED me for my breakdowns growing up, told me I needed to “toughen up”, etc. So it felt good to know that it actually was some stupid bullshit beyond my control and not some fault of mine. But then I kept doing more research, and THIS is when I really started to take the blackpill. I found out that the average autist lifespan is only like 57 years or something like that. Found out lots are unable to get jobs or even live on their own. And found out only 5% of autistic men get married (having a wife or even a girlfriend was always a dream of mine). At that point, I gave up. I remember sitting in this dumbfuck sociology class (yeah, my major was sociology because my dumbass thought it’d help me learn to blend in with the normals). The teacher handed out this “quality of life” self-assessment test. I scored an 18 and was like ok whatever let’s get this class period over with. But then teacher says “most should have scores of above 40 on this. If your score is below 30 you might be depressed haha” or something to that effect. Then he had us raise our hands. Dude said “put your hand down if you scored over 40” most in class lower their hands “Now put your hand down if you scored over 30” literally everyone except me puts their hands down. Then the dude kept going lower and lower until eventually I finally put my hand down with everybody just kinda awkwardly looking at me. And let me tell you, in that moment, it all HIT ME LIKE A TON OF BRICKS. I realized just HOW depressed I was compared to everyone else. How miserable my life was. How everyone else just gets things by default that I never did. Envy of others has always been my greatest sin, but in that moment, there wasn’t even any of it left anymore. I was empty. Gone. Going through the motions. Just looking forward to the food I’d eat and the hours I’d get to sleep (although I’ve been plagued by horrifying nightmares my whole life so sleep was miserable too). I end up taking some random social work class as an elective at some point. Now, the thing you need to understand about the social work field is that it’s FULL of moral do-gooders who want to help people. Any normie would be annoyed by this crowd, because they’re all “woke SJWs” or whatever. But not me. Honestly… I kinda respected it. I’d resigned myself to the fact that my own life was going to be unbearable. So I figured… why not just focus on helping others? Then I can at least die with a smile on my face, having lived a life I could be proud of. So my dumb ass ends up declaring SOCIAL WORK as a minor. That on its own isn’t terrible, but then I graduate college & parents force me to go to grad school, so apparently my last 2 brain cells, while in the middle of hatefucking one another, come up with the absolutely ingenious plan of me, a literal autist, pursuing a MASTERS DEGREE in social work. Now, it’s important to understand that “autistic social worker” is essentially an oxymoron. Meaning I had essentially fucked myself over in the grandest way imaginable without even realizing it yet. So I get to this masters degree program, and I immediately realize I’m screwed. With 0 social skills, I stood NO CHANCE of getting this degree. But I couldn’t just drop out cause my parents wanted to have “successful” kids that they can brag to their friends about or whatever. (Parents were lawyers so their whole obsession is with being well-liked and “keeping up appearances”… you can imagine that having a miserable fuckup of a son like me made them absolutely furious lol). But I couldn’t quit school cause there’d be a non-zero chance they’d finally decide to just up and murder me, make it look like an accident, and finally pin all their hopes on my douchebag NT brother lmao. So I slog through this social work program, which is supposed to take 2 years to complete, but ended up taking me 4 years due to me just being a colossal titan fuckup in every way. Finally clenched this masters degree like a week and a half ago. But now I have to get a job, which is almost certain to end in disaster. It’s not like there’s any point in saving for retirement, I won’t even fucking live that long. I no longer break down crying anymore, but as I learned from my field internships, it’d still be a massive fucking stretch to call me socially competent enough for ANY job, much less a social work one. I’m going to get some bullshit social work job, completely eat it, and get fired for incompetence. I heard that government jobs are less likely to fire you, so I’ve been sending applications out to them, but if anything I feel like it’ll be even more embarrassing when I DO get fired. And I’ll have to explain to my parents that I’ve been lying to them for years, and that I’m not, in fact, some socially well-adjusted dude who’s “overcome” his childhood emotional issues like I’ve been tricking them into believing for so many years now. My life is an eldrich nightmare /b/ros, what do I do?????

Rant time yey (Names excluded for obvious reasons)
Honestly I’m just damn upset about the whole thing cause what the actual hell?
There’s literally 6 of us running for exco and I’m the only one that doesn’t get a role? That already sucks shit, but to give the role to someone that wasn’t even running for it in the first place? He wasn’t even interested in the role? The hell? They make fun of someone who rage quit after they didn’t get the role in exco they wanted, but tbh at this point I want to do the same, like being in exco was the only thing that would keep me from requesting remote work, now there’s practically no point to me dedicating more time than strictly necessary to this.
I just can’t understand, is it because I’m in council? That’s their concern? Not my performance, my experience, was there something wrong in what I did throughout the selects process? They didn’t say shit about time or my commitments being a hinderance to me running for anything.
I just need to scream or cry idk, what makes it worse is that the role went to a fucking classmate, like bro I have to smile and be friendly while questioning why the hell they gave him the role. Sure you’re responsible enough to be competent, but you were running for a whole different fucking department, how the fuck did they assign you the role? I thought if I lost to someone with actual experience it wouldn’t be so bad, but someone that had zero interest in the role whatsoever? It’s bad enough I lost council elections, but CCA exco too?
My academics are already in shambles, I’m going to fail everything, and I have no leadership roles to speak of, how the hell am I supposed to use this for portfolio? Why couldn’t this one thing go right? I love this CCA, I do, but with no leadership role it’s just a waste of time I could spend studying.
People were fucking confused too, but they’re gonna forget this in like a week, I have to deal with this for the rest of my JC life. I really, really thought I might get the role, how fucking pitiful do I look to everyone? I don’t want to hate the guy, but I certainly question the seniors’ judgement, good fucking luck to us for the year ahead indeed!

This guy ended it because he’s not sure about us, he thought we had a great connection but he felt something is missing.
Am I petty for unfollowing and removing him from my insta followers? I just get triggered with the word “not sure about us/me” from my past relationship, and what I think is my right person won’t ever say that to me.
I told my friend about this. She was confused of why I went to that length, and she asked, “Do you not believe in right person wrong time? He might just be confused now” and she also said that I shouldn’t have fully closed the door in case it could work out in the future.
Now I’m kind of questioning my decision. Did I make a wrong decision? Am I too bitter handling this? He ever told me he would miss me and we had a great connection after he told me he wasn’t sure about us. But I also don’t want to wait around and if we still followed each other it would make it harder for me to move forward.

So it’s like this, I have a group of friends all playing games (we are nerds that goes out). I will speak about 3 people: -first friend (M-bully) -second friend (M-victim) -third friend (F-bully) Under twenty mean 17-18yo.
At first I created the group fine and all, with 3 members included M-bully, we were very mature, being in our twenties, except M-bully who just begins musculation, he tend to flex by repeatedly telling us at every topic, but we considered it was great to promote good health, and he was under twenty so isn’t that normal to be a little childish ? M-bully was tbh a bit shy, but he worked on it, and we could feel that he become more and more outgoing so it was a great thing.
Then time passed we recruited more friends, come the M-victim, he meet M-bully and became friend, also under twenty, he was extremely nice like all our members, and astonishingly he loved speaking with other, making lots of friend, and recruiting new game members, he is however not very socially skilled (he think so).
Then the F-bully come, she is shy, she just get recruited by M-victim, they become friend and speak about game and nerd thing. She is also under twenty so they can speak about a lot.
Here everything is great and all. Except, until the meeting between M-bully and F-bully. Their personality’s exploded… it’s hard to describe, but themselves named themselves degenerate, welp we are a group or nerd so it was totally common but yeah… they do tend to break the bottom line. Nvm, we are all like gossip, "are they a couple" some say "nah" welp "they just got the bff chemistry" "they are not a couple" and tbh yeah I can understand that 2D make our criteria of the other significant half way harder, like way way harder, but it’s another subject.
Then the bullying begins, at first everyone was fine, (now it’s only online, irl they won’t do it) the M-bully said the M-victim was gay, (not because of homophobia or anything else) at first we were like he is teasing right? Then F-bully started to follow and worsened the whole thing, calling M-victim Femboy, (it wasn’t really nice), and it was very regular, (at least 1 time per day) and we were already speaking about this on both the M/F-bully. I spoke about the fact that it make M-victim uncomfortable. Everyone say M-victim is a sensible person so don’t do it. Then there is an problem appearing, one of the F-bully friend (she is also nice) did an error, she said that M-victim was very very sensitive and M-bully when speaking the TRUE TO CORRECT MISTAKE?! shouldn’t be so rough.
So big problem, people misunderstood, think M-bully wasn’t bullying but is correcting mistakes be being rough?!?? I don’t understand what and why this happened, welp so I did speak with M-bully about stop "teasing" so much M-victim coz he take it seriously. M-bully reaction was denial, he said that: "it’s just teasing", "other do the same", "why are you all speaking as if I did nazi thing”, "I am only criticizing roughly coz it’s my personality I can’t change it", "I am always honest" , except all the outrageous thing he did say, he also includes a weird comment "criticizing to make people change" why did he put an entire different argument ? I can’t understand.
Well I was hoping that it get better afterwards, (they did stop) and irl they are like different person, the trio are very good friend speaking until 6ATM (mornings) we only speak about game, manga, movies and hobby.
But sometimes passed and they just begins again, now the main bully is mainly F-bully, we put so much attention on M-bully that the F-bully in reality did worse… I won’t say what she did but she do put a lot of effort to make 3min meme, only to say that M-victim is a femboy whore and gay(she is a fine lover of BL so yeah) welp it began again.
I directly called this cyber bully, it did stop them for 3 days, but it seem that it’s becoming less useful
I tried to make my group of friends more gray that black and white what is your pov in all that?

reposting the following as i've had only one response over a few webstes. that probably indicates some info is missing, or it's hard to say, but i really need to know because preparing for and taking the GRE would take a month or more. (so, if you really can't say, saying that would also be helpful.)
again, my main interest would be something like comparative political economy, things like looking at international markets and relationships between industry and government. i may also specialise in something like IPE or the political economy of development, don't know yet, but i will have a good idea by the time i'd apply, i think.
i really don't want to do a masters, because from where i am i can't get into any good politics/political economy masters (at least at schools where serious research is done, which as i understand it is critical because i'll need letters from good people). doing a masters in international economics at a good school is my only alternative, but i don't know if it's necessary; i think i've signaled my ability to do research pretty well already.
"i would appreciate some pointers on whether it's a realistic possibility i'll get into any phd programs - it'd be very good to know because studying for the GRE would be a big time commitment. i am in economics but planning to make the switch to political science, probably something related to (international) political economy and comparative politics.
i have a 1,2 average in a 3-year quant-oriented econ degree (the grade basically corresponds to a first's in the UK system). i have A's in statistics, maths, and econometrics courses and i'll do some empirical work in my thesis. it's one of the best german universities although it's pretty unknown internationally. i have about a year of RA experience and one semester of TA. will get letters from my bosses (one of which is a pretty famous economist), and my thesis supervisor. i plan to take the GRE.
i was thinking about applying to the following schools. basically (top15) - (top5) [of course, i'll look into individual school fit with my interests, but that's sort of the range i'm interested in attending.]

• Emory
  
• UCSD
  
• Chicago
  
• Ohio State
  
• UW Madison
  
• NYU
  
• Cornell
  
• UNC Chapel Hill
  
• Duke
  
• Chicago
  
• UCLA
  
• Michigan
  
• Berkeley"
  

This story was written and emailed to me by an anonymous source. And it’s one of the craziest most bizarre stories I’ve ever read. Ever! 😆 Enjoy the read. It’s long and ridiculously wild. ☘️ Also, in advance, no one can use this story. These stories are written and emailed to me for me to turn into a Video Narrative for my YouTube & TikTok channels. But I would like to share their tales as reading material as well. Thank you for understanding.
I hope you enjoy. 🫶
Story by - “Alex” & “Shane”
Okay so…
I went on vacation to Ireland with my brother last year. And had the most wildest experience of my life there.
Or should I say, we both had the most…wildest experience.
But More so me. And to Tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever go back again after what happened.
As a matter of fact, no, I won’t go back.
So, it’s a Sunday night and it was pretty much our last day of vacationing.
My older brother Shane, wanted to go out… And I’m quoting him - “let’s get fuckin wasted tonight!”
So… We’re on vacation right? Why not? We had rented an Airbnb for the week, we had a rental car - we had a great week so far and we were having…
A proper vacation.
He was already dressed up and ready to go. I wanted to take a quick shower and shave so I told him to head out and I’d call him when I was ready for him to pick me up.
He says cool. He leaves, and I jump in the shower. He’s the one that knows the hot spots in Ireland better than I do. I mean, this was my first time ever coming here. So…
I take a shower, shave, and I get dressed. As I’m about to call my brother, the front door to our Airbnb opens up.
And Its my brother with two bad ass Irish women! They both jump on the couch and they’re laughing their asses off and my brother is just standing there looking at me with a sly grin on his face.
He looks over at the ladies and says - “Give me a minute please” walks over to me, puts his arm over my shoulder and walks me to the bathroom. He then whips out a bag of mushrooms and smiles. Ya know… The psychedelic kind.
I look down at the bag and I shake my head.
He says to me - “come on bro. We got two hotties out there who are trippin and they want to party. Don’t be a flake. This is our last night. Let’s make it special.”
I don’t like disappointing my brother but I was kind of hesitant.
I opened the bathroom door and take a look at these gorgeous women who were both sitting upright now and both looking at me as I opened the door. Both smiling. I smiled back. Closed the door… I looked at my brother and said - “Alright dood fuck it! Let’s do it!”
He gives me a huge hug, kisses me on the forehead, pours me a handful of shrooms and does the same for himself.
We both looked at each other to see who would go first. He counted to three and down the hatch they went. But they were the most unpleasant tasting mushrooms I’ve ever eaten in my life. They were disgusting.
I ran to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of juice because I was having a hard time chewing these nasty things.
But my brother Shane? No, he’s a pro. You give that guy a barrel of hay and he’ll eat it faster than a horse. The guy can eat anything.
40 minutes go by and I’m still straight as a pin. However, my brother on the other hand? He’s already trippin.
I think he had already taken some beforehand.
But in the next 10 minutes… These shrooms hit me like a ton of bricks! It was like this intense wave of cool and hot went completely through my body.
And I’ve taken mushrooms quite a few times but have never felt anything like this before. It was so sudden!
And I feel fantastic!
The next hour went by so fast because we were having so much fun! And these Irish girls? Man… I had the sexiest one! A beautiful Redhead by the name of Katrina.
She was kind of short though. About 5’1” maybe? But good things come in small packages, right? Well, not really. And you’ll know why soon enough.
I don’t recall anything else that happened for the rest of the night after my brother left with the other girl. And before I continue with the rest of the story. My brother’s name is really not Shane. And the redhead girl I was with is not named Katrina.
You see I had to make up these names to protect me and my brother. Because what happened during the rest of the night? I don’t remember. But also, I’ll never forget either.
Okay so, let's get back to the story…
I do remember my brother leaving with… Let's just call her Gloria, Katrina’s friend? And me and Katrina, the redhead, stood behind. I do remember us making out in the bathroom together, but…Everything else after that? There’s nothing there. Nothing. I don’t recall anything from that point forward no matter how badly I try to remember.
This is what my brother told me he witnessed as he arrived back at the Airbnb five hours later with Gloria.
And until this day, I still don’t want to believe this happened. But according to my brother…
It truly did happen.
My brother is going to write this part of the story because he’s the one that has this locked in his memory for life. And for the sake of the story, my name will be Alex.
Here is my brother Shane’s point of view - his perspective on what he witnessed that crazy night. Wow man… This is so fucking nuts. So buckle up and be prepared. I understand you don’t know who I am, but I swear, I’m not a bad person. Okay.

• “Shane’s” story on what he witnessed.

Yeah so, I guess I’m Shane now. Unreal…
Okay. Here we go. Meat and potatoes.
We arrive back at the Airbnb and I see Alex outside in the front of the house wearing only socks and he’s running around on top of the grass like an animal yanking out handfuls of grass from underneath him.
I look at Gloria and we’re both baffled at what we just saw.
First thing I said was - “Oh yeah! This dood is off his rocker right about now - as I parked the car.
We both hop out of the car and walk up to the front door. I slide the key into the door, it unlocks, but there’s a chair behind the door and it’s tipped over blocking the entry way and only leaving enough space for a crack. We both awkwardly look at one another and as I’m about to call out for my brother, I hear someone sprinting towards the door and bang!
The fuckin idiot shuts the door on us.
I then knock on the door softly because It’s almost 1 in the morning as I don’t want to make too much noise. God only knows what this kid has been doing since me and Gloria left.
After I knock on the door a few times, I hear the chair getting pushed to the side and my brother slightly opens the door. I take a peek inside, and his nose is broken, lips are bubbled up and his left eye is completely shut, black and blue and swollen.
He then drops to his knees, and begins crying but no sound is coming out of him! You know… Like when you get smacked by your parents when you’re a kid and it shocks the soul of you? Yeah, that kind of cry.
I don’t react to what he’s doing to not scare the shit out of Gloria, because she’s right beside me. So I push the door open and tell Gloria to hang on a second and shut the door and lock it.
I pick his busted ass up and sit him on the couch. I look around the house and it’s in complete shambles. Our clothes are everywhere, there’s food all over the fuckin walls. It was chaotic. And my brother is now sitting up breathing frantically.
I ask him - “what in the fuck happened?”
He looks at me. Face looking like he got into a boxing match with Rocky Marciano and whispers to me.
“Dood… There’s a leprechaun in the bathroom.”
“A fuckin what now?” - I said with the most bewildered look on my face. I mean I must have… I wish I would have taken a picture of my face at that very moment. I should have taken pictures of everything so this idiot could see the havoc he wreaked on that night.
My imbecile brother continues - “I’m telling you. There’s a fuckin leprechaun in the fuckin bathroom and this little lucky charms motherfucker won’t tell me where he hid the gold!”
“A leprechaun in the bathroom. What the fuck happened to you?” I said as I felt my blood beginning to boil.
The Imbecile then says - “Don’t worry. Don’t worry! I hogtied that little bitch and stuffed my underwear in its mouth. It’s in the bathtub. But don’t go in there. Don’t go in there. This thing fucked me up!”
And now I can hear someone fumbling in the bathroom moaning very softly. I looked at my brother and said - “What in the fuck did you do Alex?”
He replies - “I’m telling you. It’s a fucking leprechaun.”
“Okay. Okay.” - I said. “Stay right here and just, don’t move. Don’t do anything. Just keep still.
His eyes were so huge and dilated. He was so fuckin high. He had heartbeat pulses pumping from the top of his head.
I rushed back over to the front door and told Gloria that my brother got into a fight with a couple of guys at a pub while me and her were out and that her friend Katrina left because she got scared. She told me that was the first time she met that girl tonight so she really didn’t care and shrugged it off. Which was a huge relief to me. I told her thank you for a wonderful night. She understood. W said our goodbyes. I shut the door. And now… What the fuck is in the bathroom? Or better yet, who, is in the bathroom? Because let’s face it. This motherfucker did not find and fight with a leprechaun tonight. No way. There’s just no fuckin way.
I rush over to the bathroom and my brother leaps at my legs, and he’s holding onto me for dear life, begging me!
He says - “Please don’t untie it! It’s got magical powers! PLEASE!!!
Now, at this very moment? I am sort of hesitant about opening the bathroom door. But I snap out of it and open it. What the fuck. A leprechaun? No, I don’t think so.
I open the door…
“Holy shit.” - I said while covering my hands with my mouth. The floor was smeared in blood as if someone was dragged, leading to the huge cast iron tub. Smeared bloody handprints were all over the tub. And now I hear the faint moan coming from the tub. My legs are shaking and feel like they’re ready to give out on me. I was scared shitless.
“What did my brother do? Who is in that bathtub? I pray to God Katrina isn’t in there right now.” - I said to myself completely freaked out.
I slowly walk up to the bathtub…
And sure enough, there is a hogtied person lying in it with my brother's underwear stuffed in their mouth with a ripped t-shirt tied around their head and mouth, but… It’s not Katrina.
It’s a little person. You know, a dwarf? And… He’s literally dressed up in a leprechaun costume…
And how, on God's green earth did he end up here?
He has no idea I’m standing above him. I reach down to begin untying him but he begins squirming and screaming. I told him to relax and that I was here to help him.
And then My imbecile brother Alex, rushes into the bathroom and tackles me down. Stands up and begins shouting at this poor bastard hogtied in the tub - “Tell me where it is you greedy little fuck! Tell me!!!
I jumped to my feet and slapped my brother back to his childhood. Grabbed him by the throat, tripped him and threw him to the ground and said - “are you fuckin crazy? Do you want to go to prison for kidnapping? What in the fuck is the matter with you? You dumb fuck!!”
He then looks up at me with this pessimistic look on his face and says - “It’s a fucking leprechaun dood. A leprechaun.”
I was absolutely dumbfounded and furious at this point. I have this stranger in my Airbnb rental, hogtied and gagged and squirming and screaming and my brother thinks that he’s a leprechaun…
I can’t make this shit up.
He was so fucking high on those mushrooms. He was absolutely convinced that this man was a leprechaun. So… I had to play the game.
It was the only way to help this poor son of a bitch that my brother had kidnapped and hogtied in our Airbnb rental.
I calmly whispered and told him to please leave the bathroom so I could interrogate the leprechaun and find out where he was hiding the pot of gold.
My brother slowly stood up to his feet, face busted up, his cock and balls all shriveled and tight, looked at the man dressed up as a leprechaun, smiled at him with an evil grin and just, walked away…
And as he walked away, I told him to go and please put some clothes on, lay down in bed, and that I would handle the leprechaun. That I, would find out where the gold was hidden…
And that’s all I’m saying. I’m giving the computer back to my dumbass of a brother to finish off whatever else he wants to write.

• Back to “Alex”

Pretty outlandish right? I know. I know. You must think that I’m bat shit crazy huh? Okay so, to make the rest of this long story short, my brother Shane never told me what he did with the poor guy I hogtied and, well… i don’t remember how this guy came to be in my possession. I really don’t.
The only thing my brother Shane told me was that he ungagged him, untied him, and that he was extremely pissed off. And that he had compensated him for his troubles.
Man, I felt so horrible. I felt so horrible…
What I do remember though is waking up that following afternoon with my face all fucked up. Dehydrated with a tremendous splitting headache. I had no clue as to why I looked and felt the way I did. It was terrifying.
All of our luggage was packed and my brother was just sitting there, legs crossed and his arms folded.
Hey man… Take it from me. Don’t do fuckin drugs.
Regards, “Alex” & “Shane”
Disclaimer- This story may not be used for anything other than reading, sharing your thoughts and enjoying it. It is now protected by the United States Library of Congress/Copyright Office. Thank you. ☘️

If you don’t like gamma. Go buy a ps1. Devs givith and can takith away.
If you weren’t here when the stone was carved you have 0 room to speak right now.
If you want to use a different EMU that’s fine. The public out-roar and disrespect is kinda out of pocket.
Half of you when retroarch comes out are going to ask some of the DUMBEST questions and will end up using gamma for convenience anyway.
When a dev drops an app (on their own or with limited team support), REAL FEEDBACK HELPS.
Pissing and Moaning doesn’t do a damn thing but make you all look like entitled sissy’s.
If you don’t like it code your own emulator without stealing code from AAA companies or without the basic understanding of how to even write “hello world”.
ZOD has been doing this shit since the beginning of time. Rather it’s perfect out the gate or needs small tweaks and updates to get peak quality under the restraints and chains that apple places on their devices (that mind you just got loosened a tad), some users are going to have issues on different models/devices.
Also keep in mind that the new IOS structure/Iphone models takes advantage of a lot more power but comes with just as many complications.
This man has BLED for you guys to be able to enjoy 5 mins of your childhood or even make new memories you never experienced.
If you don’t agree with what I’m saying that’s fine, let’s see you do better or sit back with your “ I just got here I want perfection” attitudes.
You are all disrespectful ingrates and you don’t deserve better emulation from other developers.
If you think they wanna hear you bi**h,piss, and moan, you’re dead wrong.
That’s why certain emus are only on TestFlight right now (ppsspp,folium) every single dev rn, they are tryin to enter the legitimate field that has been locked behind a steel gate for a LONG time.
The last thing any of us seasoned IOS vets wanna hear is you cry about things that you’ve in turn either don’t understand or don’t know how to fix yourself.
rant over

Thanks for being here in advance. This is really one of the few places I could share this and hope for a meaningful conversation without being told I'm crazy. Or if I am, you'd have a little empathy about it, right?
I walked off my job earlier this week. The business owner was on the phone with a customer and they started having a casual conversation about how they think China, Russia and Iran will inevitably invade and attack the US. And how "it will be a bloodbath." They were laughing about it too, as if they were talking about their neighbor drama.
My first thought was that I wanted to give them a whole disorganized speech about how wrong that was, but I was tired and really didn't have the energy to do that with someone so loud and set in their ways. It was just better to not let them make another dime off me, so I took my stuff and went home, haven't spoken to them since.
Last night, I was in a public place with CNN on the TV. The story was about tariffs on Chinese exports and how it would affect the US. Throughout the whole story they only used "China" and "the Chinese," several times, all in negative terms. They then went to compare things with Germany, using the term "German companies." Funny how in talking about a European entity they make it clear that they were talking about the businesses, not the people, not the government. Meanwhile Chinese civilians, government, and businesses are just one monolith.
I know these instances are nothing compared to what our people go through in their daily lives with direct bullying, verbal insults, violence, etc. But seeing a story like that, even from the left side of the media, makes it pretty clear how language from big platforms propagates that hate and fear. You could spend your life perfectly in line, never doing wrong, being perfectly quiet, and people will still throw that fear and hate at you. I wish more people with a bigger reach could call that sort of thing out, like "do better, Johnny Smith of CNN." It would at least be a starting place.
Tldr: yelling at cloud

Hi all, I wasn’t sure where to post/ask this. I use my Apple Watch to track my cycles, and also pay for Natural Cycles app because it works with my watch to give me more data. I’m due for my period in two days - and I just got this notification from Uber Eats. I’m pretty wigged out. This can’t be a coincidence?
Usually their notifications are like at 5pm and say things like “don’t feel like cooking? Check out these pizza deals near you” etc . And I’ve never bought feminine hygiene products from them.
Im surprised Natural cycles would share data like this, they seemed pretty secure and reputable. Would apple be doing it ? I also haven’t googled any feminine hygiene products or anything like that either
(I’m in Australia in case that makes a difference!)
https://imgur.com/a/uD6liKT

There was this girl we both decided to go out it was honestly the best date I've ever been one we spent hours talking we spent an entire 8 or 9 hours getting to know eachother despite me only assuming the date would last a couple hours but neither of us wanted it to end it really seemed like we were headed towards something serious and monogamous we even deleted our dating apps I didn't pressure her into this her stating " why would I want to be on those when I found someone like you they did their job now they are done" when I heard this I was of course was ecstatic and did the same everything truly seemed perfect the entire date it was fun and we clicked so well that while it's fast (yeah I'm a typical lesbian) I really wanted to ask her to make things official but I decided to wait since we had a second date planned relatively soon afterwards but she started not responding to my messages as quickly at first I chalked it up to her being busy but then she canceled our date saying that she was sorry but that she had something important come up now we have something scheduled coming up and I have no idea if she will even show but I just wish I could figure it out why did she make it seem like she wanted to be monogamous with me if she didn't? Did I do something somehow? I have genuinely no idea I'm a useless lesbian I don't know what I'm doing

Hey everyone,
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Why I Tried It
Let's be honest, guys. As you get older, things down there can start to slow down a bit. Stamina wasn't what it used to be, and let's just say keeping up in the bedroom was getting a challenge. I did some research online and stumbled upon Synergex 7. The reviews seemed promising, so I decided to give it a shot.
What it's Like
Synergex 7 comes in capsules, and the recommended dosage is two a day. I noticed a difference after a couple of weeks. My energy levels definitely went up, and I felt more stamina in the gym. Bedroom performance improved too - stronger erections and lasting a lot longer. My partner was definitely happy about that! There weren't any weird side effects that I noticed.
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Overall Impression
Synergex 7 wasn't a magic bullet, but it did make a noticeable difference. I felt more confident and my performance definitely improved. If you're looking for a natural way to boost your game, it's worth trying. Just remember, everyone's body is different, so what works for me might not work for you.