Cool pic made by keybored

First of all, I'm a first time poster but long time lurker. I recently agreed to terms on a used, 28k mile Canyon Red R1S Launch with 22" Sport Dark that I pick up on Tuesday. I feel like I got an insane deal, and the butterflies still haven't worn off. Even though I've spent practically months crawling through this sub as well as the Rivian owners forum, I still feel the need to get some feedback from the community on what to expect...perhaps I'll pick up on something I haven't considered yet.

1. VIN concerns...or not? I think all 2022's would be considered 'early build' at this point, especially with Gen2 fresh in our minds, however I just realized last night that I'm dealing with a 00010X vehicle here. Should there be some alarm bells going off? I feel that after 27k miles, any fit & finish issues / software bugs would be resolved by now.
2. Used car registering with Rivian: It is my understanding that the previous owner's profile will still be associated with the vehicle, so I won't be able to use the app for more in-depth functionality yet. I assume a pic of the sales contract and a 1-2 week long wait for Rivian to reset the profile is what I should expect.
3. Profile-less RAN Charging? I assume I should avoid the RAN network chargers for the first couple of weeks, given it won't be able to sync with my payment method / profile yet? Ironically, I'm picking up in Dallas and driving home to Houston, and the PERFECT spot to stop on the way is a RAN charger at the literal half-way point. There are several EA / Shell Recharge options in between but I just wish I could keep it 'in the family' on my first trip.
4. Truck-to-SUV trade-in: I'm trading in a 22' F150 PowerBoost in this transaction. Every time that engine fires up and the associated vehicle shake, it grates on my nerves. Driving my wife's Model Y is such a pleasure, but its a bit small for me, and with 2 kids its nice having a larger vehicle for longer trips. I'm ready to say goodbye to owning a truck, which I use for 'truck things' 3-4x per year, mostly large loads of mulch / taller items like plants. The other 98% of the time the bed space is wasted and it turns into a low-mileage suburbia errand boy taking kids to school, soccer practice, grocery-getter and 2-3 short road trips per year (San Antonio, Austin, Galveston). I'm generally not one for buyer's remorse, but has anyone else made this truck-to-SUV transition and regret it?
5. Sight-Unseen and Test Driving an R1T as a Surrogate: Yes, I'm buying this sight-unseen having never driven an R1S...they're RARE here in Houston still, but there are enough R1Ts on lots around here that I went to test drive one of those...and it was everything I was expecting and more. I've watched plenty of reviews of people's opinions of the differences in ride experience between the T and S, and I feel like any concern I might have had was covered in my R1T test drive. I've been perfectly happy with the sporty feel of my wife's Model Y, and a little bored with the boaty feel of my F150...but other that what I consider the 'two extremes' I don't have a discerning palette when it comes to ride feel...am I crazy doing this transaction sight-unseen?

I feel like I've answered most of the other frequently asked questions myself that many first-time Rivian owners ask...I'm comfortable with charge apps and the user experience (nervously looking at you, Electrify America...), home charging, etc so I will not bore you all with a 10-point questionnaire. Thanks in advance and any advice and insights are appreciated. I can't wait to be part of the Rivian community.

As the sun sets, painting the sky in fiery tones, I waited by the roadside as you instructed. That’s when I heard the rumble of an old Bronco. As it quickly approached me with its top off, my eyes were glued as the rugged driver was revealed. During our conversation prior to this meet up you had sent me pictures but I had no idea how attractive you’d be in real life. You stop right next to my car and signaled me to get in. No questions were asked. No words were exchanged. I immediately feel a rush of excitement and anticipation as I hop into the vintage ride, ready for a casual encounter. I sat in your passenger seat as the fresh, cool spring air brushed against my skin. You mentioned a hidden spot and I trusted you. So I sat back and enjoyed the ride when suddenly, without warning, you veered off the road, jumping the curb and going around a gate blocking car access. The sudden movement caused everything, including me, to shift in your car, and instinctively, I found myself grabbing onto your thigh. You remained focused on the road, flashing a smirk as my hand lingered there. Before I could retract it, you guided it up to your crotch. I couldn't help but notice the thickness beneath your pants as my hand rested there. What turned me on more was the heat radiating from the blood pumping through your veins. My mouth watered…. The sun had completely set. The road, flanked by trees casting shadows, your old bronco left a trail of dust behind us as we hurried along. My anxiety spiked as we approached a sharp curve, fearing we might end up in a canal. Thankfully, you began to slow down just in time, revealing a clearing near the curve. Stopping at the sharp curb, you backed into the clearing surrounded by trees. The last couple of minutes seemed chaotic but now we were surrounded by calmness. I glanced up and noticed a splatter of twinkling lights, adding a touch of magic to our adventure. "Hop to the back," you instructed, drawing my attention to the worn-out leather seats. But before I could comply, you paused, pulling out a blanket and spreading it out for me. Typically, encounters like these were quick "cum and go" affairs, but this felt different. I moved to the back, settling in the middle as you requested, my nerves tingling with anticipation. Without warning, you leaned over from the front seat and kissed me passionately, igniting a fire within me. You sensually held my face as your warm tongue brushed up against mine. I felt flushed, motionless, and ready to be yours. You stood up, you began to undress in front of me, prompting my curiousty, "What are you doing?" I had never encouraged full nudity for public play; it felt too risky. “We're good, no one drives back here," you reassured me confidently, leaving me no choice but to trust you. You place both feet beside me as you prop yourself up, placing your elbows on the back beam of your Bronco and lean back. Dangling in front of my face is your long semi hard, uncircumcised dick. You close your eyes, lean your head back and tell me, “show me what that mouth can do." I wanted to tease you a bit, so I spent some time kissing your thighs, getting closer and closer to your balls. You let out soft moans as my mouth traveled all over your lower body. Then, I put one of your balls into my mouth, swishing it around inside before switching to the other one. Meanwhile, I stroked your thighs with my hands. Your breathing became heavy as I managed to fit both your balls into my mouth at once. Tenderly, I licked your balls while warming them up with my hot mouth. Using my tongue, I moved them all around, my lips completely taking your entire sack, up to the root of your cock, which had become hard as a rock. My hands began to stroke your cock. I pulled your member up with one hand and held it against my lips. It was dripping in glossy precum. I brush your head against my lips tasking your bitter-sweetness. I pressed my lips against your head and push your skin back as your cock traveled down my throat. You let out a loud moan letting me know how much you were enjoying my mouth. I look up as I feel you looking down at me. I pull your drenched cock out of my mouth and swipe my tongue over your pee hole. Keeping my eyes locked on yours, I slip your head back into my mouth and push down until my lips press against your base. This drives you insane! “I can tell you love sucking dick.” I grab onto each side of your hips and guide your body toward my face. I want to ensure your entire shaft is snugly nestled down my throat. Your head breaks past the throat barrier. You're so deep in my mouth that your balls are slipping inside my mouth. "Oh fuck!" you shout. "You like this dick, don't you?" Holding your dick down my throat, I couldn't speak, but I did verbally answer, "Mhm," slowly and as loud as I could. This sends vibrations through your cock, even making your balls tingle. "Oh fuck, you're going to make me cum." You have the perfect bubble butt, and I wanted to make sure to rim you for the first time. I grab your hips and signal for you to turn around. You pause for a moment, nervously turning around. Your perfectly smooth butt is ready to be tongue-fucked. I'm afraid I might be suffocated by your ass. I asked you to lean forward while I spread your cheeks, looking for your puckered hole. I lean in and take my first lick, before pushing my face forward deep in between your cheeks as my tongue circulated your hole all while I played with your dick. A few seconds later I heard you say, “oh I fucked up” I was confused what could have gone wrong. I didn’t stop making out with your hole, when I felt your hot-gooey cum on my hand. You were embarrassed to admit you had cum, and cummed quickly. You stood there motionless for a moment. Then you collapsed next to me and apologizing. I didn’t care, I had done my job. You quickly began to dress yourself when I asked, “can you rate my mouth?” You embarrassedly answered, “Are you kidding? You made me cum quick. I’d give you a higher score than 10 if I could.”

Umm… it’s a long story I guess. TL/DR at the bottom.
Sometimes I really want to divorce. But I also really don’t. I do love my husband a lot and we have had such incredible times together and built a really amazing life. I don’t want to leave it all behind, to start over with someone new, blow up my life and start with literally nothing, but man am I hurting right now. I feel so lonely in my marriage that sometimes I feel like it would just be easier to actually be alone. I don’t like how I’m being treated and I don’t like that I’m asking for bare minimum and not even getting that. Sometimes I feel like I am growing up and outgrowing him/our dynamic and things feel stagnated (I want kids, he wants to drink and party).
My husband (30M) and I (29F) have hit a rough patch, except I’m not even sure if it’s just a rough patch anymore or if we are truly falling apart. Together for nearly 6 years, married for 3. It makes me sick to think about because I feel as if my husband is a totally different person now. I’m so confused because our relationship has never ever felt this wrong or hurtful, I used to believe our love was so healthy and nurturing; my husband used to communicate and be open and loving and now he’s just passive aggressive (he’ll even admit it), hot/cold and mean to me.
He has said some very hurtful things but will never take accountability or apologize for what he has said to me, he often times will spin things around and blame me for all the ways I’m hurting him and never acknowledge what I have come to him with; like I will raise a concern and somehow by the end of it, I’m left apologizing while my feelings were never acknowledged. Or he just goes “ok!?” Like ok so what??? A lot of DARVO and defensiveness, he will twist my words and insist I said something when I know I didn’t. If I call him out, I just get a “sorry I misspoke” from him. If I tell him he hurt my feelings, he says it’s a me problem. That he has no problems. That I should just be happy and move on. In his mind, we wake up the next day and be happy and all is well because we choose to be better (ok sure, fine) but with no apology or repair attempts, I have a hard time “just moving on”. It’s hard to forgive a person that can’t even admit they hurt you or show remorse for how they have done so. I have gone to bed sobbing next to him and it’s never brought up or talked about the next day and he wonders why I’m growing distant. He has zero compassion and empathy for my feelings and I feel really alone in that.
Last year, we were long distance for the whole year (military). Our fights started in September when I went to visit and I felt he was disrespecting me, mocking me, not taking me seriously, disregarding my suggestions in front of our friends. One night, he started picking fights with me at a bar and insisted we go home “because I wasn’t having fun”. I never expressed that, though the bar scene is not my thing, I still went with him and our friends and was enjoying our time. I told him to go have fun, dance, hang out and I’ll enjoy my drink. He kept saying I wasn’t having fun and we needed to leave and I kept insisting I was totally happy to just be there (that was the truth). A lot of times he will project his own interpretations of my feelings onto me and assume he knows what I’m thinking/feeling without asking. We left that night without our friends and grabbed dinner on the way back to the hotel, except he completely ignored me and stonewalled me the entire time. I tried to make conversation but took the hint, let him know I don’t feel welcome in this interaction since he wasn’t engaging in return, and that I was going back to the hotel alone since he clearly didn’t want me there. His defensiveness is usually cold and silent, he has admitted that he “stonewalls me because he’s done talking with me”. He refuses to talk a lot of the time or will say there’s nothing he wants to talk about.
After I had come back home, our fights continued. I asked him a handful of times to please send me the pics we took on our vacations and it took him over a month of me reminding him to please just do it. Finally he became angry and BLEW UP on me and sent them, only half, and I reminded him that there’s more and he spit back at me “THAT’S ALL I HAVE, WE’RE NEVER TAKING PICTURES ON MY PHONE AGAIN” when I knew there were more. What a stupid, petty thing to get mad at me over?
Another time, he completely disappeared on me for 3 whole days and I hardly heard a word from him. I knew exactly where he was (drunk in his dorm playing video games, on a complete bender with his friends online, only taking breaks to go to work drunk/hungover and come back to drinking again). I attempted to reach out, say hi, stay connected, because I feel that’s important long distance? To make an effort to communicate? Because we have a responsibility to each other? I don’t feel like I’m asking for much here, but he was just gone for 3 days. When I finally heard from him and let him know how hurt I was because I felt like he didn’t have time for me (I have often felt second to his online friends, I spent a year and a half going to bed alone and existing without him because he would stay up drinking with them), all he said was “sorry sometimes I just fuck off into my own world”. Like dude you have a wife that you need to be involved with too? I have a really big problem with his drinking and his online life as it’s taken a higher priority over me a lot of times. For a long time, all I saw him do was go to work, come home, drink and game.
Between September to now, things have only spiraled and gotten so much worse. In January, we moved abroad. I knew it would be a hard adjustment for me as I’ve never left home, am incredibly close to my family and overall just a big change, plus I had all my luggage and our two pets to drag through airports and onto flights with. I needed help. I wanted to do it together, as husband and wife, I wanted his support and for us to be doing this new thing in life together… except I had to BEG him to come pick me up. I knew I would need him as my heart was aching over leaving home. There was so much resistance from him though, he said I’d be fine and to just meet him at our next duty station. That it’s such a big waste of time and money to come get me from Asia (he gets a free flight home though??), just to fly back to Asia. Then he started talking about going home to his home state before our move, to see friends and family, and I asked, ok so if you’re in the states already, why not just come up to me and pick me up and we go to Japan together (also, he has time and money to go them but not for me?)? At this point he came unglued and hysterical, insisting again how it’s a waste of time and money and who is going to pay for him to go home? Me? (I’m like, wtf why would I pay for you to go party but you can’t make time to pick me up for a big transition???) he let me know how much I frustrate him and honestly the whole fight just turned into something so bizarre and vague, I wondered what we even were fighting about anymore (as often is the case). I was sobbing and so hurt that he clearly wasn’t choosing me when I needed him, and we fell silent on the phone while I just cried and cried. All he could say was “yeah I know you’re pissed at me”.
Since moving, our sex life has completely declined (my fault). I’ve been depressed, stressed, tired and honestly so hurt by him that I don’t want to have sex with him, especially when he won’t even acknowledge that he has hurt me or apologize. That’s not someone I want to be intimate with. So I have rejected him a couple times, letting him know I’m feeling really insecure about us. I have tried SO HARD to not reject him because I know how hurtful it is, and sometimes in the past, I was just tired. Not in the mood. It doesn’t happen frequently at all (maybe 3 times in our time together), and the times I have said no, he literally will throw himself over in a tantrum like manner and it’s so gross and childish to me. Now, since things have gotten worse, he just goes cold. He told me that if it weren’t for us being married, my couple of times saying no recently would’ve been enough for him to be done with me. And that hurts, because not once has he even attempted to ask what’s wrong, why am I feeling this way, what can we do differently, how is my heart? He can throw everything away over that without even talking to me first? I told him I’m straight up depressed/homesick and having a hard time since moving, not to mention our lack of connection, and he never expressed concern, only his hurt feelings for how rejected and ugly he feels because I won’t have sex with him. He makes weird, off handed snarky comments about how he sometimes “considers going to the gym and getting in shape just to attract some attention and that he never would do that, but he’s thought about it”. The weird comments have happened here and there over a few subjects, leaving me dead in my tracks thinking “what the fuck was that? Where did that comment even come from?”
I have begged him to meet me half way outside of the bedroom, because I don’t feel emotionally connected anymore and that we really need help, and he’s still so dumbfounded that I won’t have sex even though I’ve clearly laid out the ways in which I’m hurting and feeling like we are falling apart. I can’t even remember the last time he told me he loved me first, that he appreciates me, is proud of me, feels lucky to have me, but he used to say those things.
At one point, I wrote him a very long, heartfelt letter stating exactly what was hurting me and why I was feeling the way I am. He read it and didn’t speak to me or even look at me for a week. LITERALLY. When he finally responded (opposite shifts and never any time to talk, a lot of our conversations have been letters or texts lately, because there’s no time/we never see each other and our in person fights derail anyways), he told me he “read my note and felt nothing and that he didn’t care, but knows that he should care so he’ll consider how he should feel.”
I have asked for counseling, to which he insisted he was never going to do again because it’s just a crying/shit-on-the-husband-fest (he is divorced once, I assume he went with his ex), he told me there’s nothing wrong with him, he doesn’t need someone telling him how to live his life, he’s happy with who he is and will not go to counseling. I told him it’s not an option anymore and so we went once (didn’t go well) and he reminded me more than once how stupid it was. I told him I want a husband that has a growth mindset and someone who is wanting to work on things with me, who takes me seriously when I say we need help, someone who is open to talking and communicating. He took offense that I don’t think he’s growth minded because of his spiritual journey and personal growth but I asked him, how are you showing up as a husband? He tells me “we don’t need to be checking in and talking about things”.
He says I’m trying to change him and want him to be different (because I’ve asked him for help around the house but he doesn’t see the mess the same so it doesn’t matter to him? But to me it does because it’s his mess too and we exist together, therefore we both need to be making an effort? I have taken on 90% of the household chores for a while now and let him know I need help and suddenly he’s saying I’m trying to change him and asking him to “put on his husband mask”, what does that even mean?????) I’ve asked him to attempt to speak my love language more (touch and words), as there’s hardly any intimacy between us (no hand holding, cuddling, hardly any affection outside the bedroom) and that’s asking him to be someone he is not?? Because he’s not touchy feely? He will slap my ass or grope my boobs (huge pet peeve and I’ve expressed that) and when I ask him for a hug instead, there’s push back? He gets mad and guilts me when I won’t drink with him (I don’t need or want to drink every night at home, sorry). One time he was poking and pinching at my sides and I asked him not to as it was making me uncomfortable (struggling with binge eating at the moment) and he got irritated and defensive because “he’s just playing and why can’t I have fun”.
Through all of this, I feel like I am the one saying I want to work on things, I love him and our life and let’s do better, let’s fix things, let’s grow together, I’m the one still making an effort to bridge the gap even though we are hurting, and all I’m hearing from him are all the ways he doesn’t like me: he thinks I’m boring (because I won’t drink with him), that I can’t do anything for him that he doesn’t do for himself (yes he literally said this, what do I even offer him?), that he fell in love with me for my independence and what am I doing now? (I uprooted my entire life and moved to another country to support him, I got a job within 2 weeks of being here and have since secured a government position, I’ve bought and paid off a car in 3 months, I go out and travel in a country where I can’t even speak the language, made friends, and he says I’m not independent?? WTF), that he doesn’t need me or this relationship and only fears I’m wasting his time. He can’t think of a single thing he appreciates about me (his words) when I feel I have given up everything and bend over backwards for him to care for him and our relationship. I really feel he doesn’t like me or respect me, but he’ll say he wants me around. He insists I don’t love him or like him, but I feel that is his own projection onto me. We are long distance again and I have expressed multiple times that it’s important to me to stay engaged and check in at least once daily, to say hi, and I’ve been doing that despite being incredibly busy myself, but he ghosts me constantly and is hardly reciprocating effort. I have hardly heard from him in a month, despite my efforts (I’m starting to feel like a damn fool by continuously reaching out, if I don’t text, we don’t talk, I’m tired of the games and have since pulled back but that feels so shitty to even have to do???). I want someone that WANTS to say hi to me and see how I’m doing???
I don’t feel I have a friend in him, as he never asks about me, my life, my inner world, what’s going on with me, does not express interest in my new jobs, new friends etc, when I am constantly interacting with his world and engaging with him. I have expressed to him I feel like I am his friend but he is not mine because he doesn’t express an interest. We do a lot of what he wants and not a lot of what I want.
I told him I want to go home for my 30th birthday in July (it’s a big deal to me!) and I asked him to meet up with me in my state (he will already be in the states for a work trip). He told me he doesn’t want to come hang out with me on my birthday and was instead thinking of going to a big get together with his online friends in a different state to party and drink with them. That really hurt me. Do I not matter to him at all???
I have a big problem with his drinking (he has driven drunk at least 3 times that I know of, 2 of which I was in the car with him, once my family was also involved), I have expressed my concerns about his drinking and he says “I don’t think it’s a problem”. I told him I don’t want our future kids thinking it’s ok to wake up and pop open a beer for breakfast every day and he dismissed it.
We are not agreeing or seeing eye to eye on our next 5-10 years together: we want kids, but I want to be in the states closer to home so we can have our families be involved with our kids too, meanwhile he wants to live abroad as long as possible and retire out of the military overseas. He wants nothing to do with his family and doesn’t care to be close to them. I knew this, and thought I would be ok with it, but I’ve since realized that it’s actually really important to me to have our families involved and not be on the other side of the world at the moment. We can’t find a way to meet in the middle on this, but I don’t want to be this far away for too long (current trajectory is 3-7 years). He says he isn’t sure if he can compromise because he’s always done for others and not himself. Meanwhile, I feel like: maybe you should’ve thought about that before getting married? Aren’t your spouse’s feelings enough to move you in a direction that would be fulfilling for both of us, not just yourself? I agreed to 4 years overseas when I really didn’t want to, and now that I’m asking that we go home after, now it’s an issue?
We went to a marriage retreat that only further revealed what I have been hurting and expressing concern about: that I don’t feel connected and that we need to be digging deeper and investing more into our relationship. I cried so hard when we returned from that retreat and all he could tell me was how frustrated he was that he took us there only for me to come home and cry about it.
He is ok with pushing my boundaries and disregarding my feelings: example of this a couple months ago, I let him know multiple times and many hours in advance we had dinner reservations (we need to leave by 7). He gets ready around 630. I tell him, ok time to go. He says, just 5 more minutes (on his pc gaming and drinking). I say, ok it’s been 5 minutes, let’s go. He says, wait just another minute. 20 minutes pass and I’m now visibly irritated and telling him, I’m leaving, now we’re going to be late. He gets pissy and storms behind me, I let him know that it’s really important to me to be on time for things and I felt really disrespected by him making us late. He told me with attitude that “it’s fine” and it’s “not a big deal because we’ll still be there and we’ll get there when we get there”.
In the store, I will ask for his input on groceries and he will mutter under his breath to leave him alone, only to admit later that he did that and it was disrespectful: but just as an admittance and matter of fact, nothing more, like he’s ok with disrespecting me and declaring it??
Honestly there’s still so much to this, but it’s getting long - bottom line, I just really feel he doesn’t respect me or like me. I don’t feel like he loves me as a husband should or how I envision a marriage to be. I feel a lot of disinterest and complacency. I wonder if he could ever even properly be there for me in the ways I would want my husband to be (what happens when my dog or parents die, is he just going to dismiss my feelings then too and tell me to get over it? He is very emotionally avoidant, numb and dismissive). I don’t feel loved, supported, heard or understood, I feel so incredibly lonely in our marriage. I feel I am reaching a breaking point and it hurts deeply. He was NEVER like this, our relationship used to be so good and I have no idea what happened or why things changed but I am deeply unhappy now and don’t see a way forward with an unwilling partner who will not participate or sees nothing wrong. I deserve better and I want a husband and partner in life that is just as invested and just as loving and interested in me and willing to grow, as I am to him. I’m a damn good wife and I know that, I know what I have to offer, and I want someone that sees that and appreciates that. I feel my husband is very childish and immature and emotionally unavailable, I have wondered but whether or not he is manipulative doesn’t really matter and I don’t think labels are helpful, at this point all I know is I’m hurting and this isn’t working for me.
Of course this is only my side of the story, and no I have not been perfect. I have found myself in a dark, contemptuous state of mind towards him and tried my best to turn that around and reflect and do things differently. I am reading books, listening to podcasts, going to counseling, trying to model to him real apologies (sincerely too). He will say that I criticize him (I do have a harsh start up at times but have since tried to communicate softer and take more responsibility for my feelings and not find fault in his actions), that I want him to be someone he is not (he says I want him to put on a husband mask??), that he feels ugly and rejected because I won’t have sex with him, that I’m hurting him (but I’m honestly confused as to how because he can’t give specifics when I ask how or what I can do differently).
Sometimes I just feel so done with this and like it’s not worth it. I gave up everything to be in another country with him, I gave up friends, family, a career that I wanted to pursue, EVERYTHING, and this does not feel worth the pain I am feeling being so far away from the things that bring me joy outside of him. I feel deeply unfulfilled day to day.
We used to be so happy. He was so sweet and nurturing and cared for me, took interest in me, prioritized me. We had a wonderful life and home together, supported each other’s dreams and desires, used to communicate openly without defense or combative behavior. This is so left field for him/us that it’s left me deeply confused and feeling so much ambivalence. I used to feel #1 to him and now I just feel like his roommate.
Jesus this is long, if you read it and have any advice, thank you. I feel so alone in these feelings and don’t want to dump on my family and friends more than I have already. I am in individual counseling and that helps but I just needed to get it out of me and into the void.
TL/DR: basically I feel like I started challenging some bad behaviors and speaking up when my feelings were hurt (previously I guess I was the “cool girl” and chill and wouldn’t speak up and now I have resentment), and our relationship has become toxic. I am constantly torn between should I stay or should I go? I really don’t have much optimism anymore as my husband will spin things around and blame me, and I’m really not trying to act like a victim here, but he doesn’t take accountability or step up into being a leading man or husband and I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting, feeling sad, being long distance from my family and life in what feels like a failing marriage and not feeling like I’m being met half way on repairing/moving forward in a healthy manner.

Hey! It’s been a while since I’ve done anything resembling dating, and regular dating apps are exhausting so shooting my shot on here! I have made posts in the past and although I’ve met and spoken with some great people, nothing more really came of it, and I am nothing if not a trier, and am hopeful my person is still out there somewhere!
I would prefer to exchange photos sooner rather than later, as although physical attraction isn’t the only important thing, I think it does play a part in the beginning. I wouldn’t say I have a type, but I do love a strong nose and some nice facial hair, neither are a deal breaker however.
~A bit about me:~
· I live by myself, I’m self-sufficient and very much enjoy my own company. However, I have noticed myself putting up a lot of barriers when it comes to getting close to people and have gotten into a bit of a rut, and hope by putting myself out there and meeting someone, I will feel more ready to try new things! I have a small group of friends and am introverted, but with familiar people my social battery depletes a lot slower.
· I work with teenagers who have additional needs in a mainstream secondary school, and I’m also currently half way through my training to become a qualified children’s therapist. I have an arts degree too but since studying counselling and therapy, I truly believe that it is my ‘calling’ (if such a thing exists). (Disclaimer: I am a naturally empathetic person and although I will always be there to listen and support, I am not going to therapize you!)
· In my freetime, I enjoy sewing and felting, and other crafty things. I also like walking my families dog and like most other humans, music and films are a big part of my life. I was very much an emo kid in school but this still plays a huge part in my life (I have a my chemical romance tattoo). More recently, I have been identifying myself as ‘indie trash’ (which is a term of endearment), but listen to all sorts! I’m not a gamer by any means but I do enjoy classic wii games and the sims.
~Possible turn offs:~
· I have been in therapy for the past 3 or so years, and will continue to be there whilst I am practicing as a therapist myself. I am very in touch with my feelings and emotional intelligence is something I really value in a partner.
· I am on the chubbier side and have tried all sorts of diets and regimes and I’m not interested in trying any more. I am actively trying to make healthier choices, but am well aware that this does not happen over night.
· I do have a few tattoos and hope to get more.
~A bit about you:~
· Aged 25- 34: this is a fairly set boundary for me, but I could maybe sway a year either way if you think we’d be a good couple!
· Somewhere in the UK or Europe, for ease of meeting and time zones etc.
· Kind and caring and able to make me laugh.
· Someone who has their life together and has interests and hobbies and a career of their own.
· Willing to voice call- I really like getting to hear people’s voices, it feels a lot more intimate.
~A bit about the future:~
· I’m not tied down to living anywhere in particular, so would be willing to relocate. However, given the nature of my work, it would most likely be in an English speaking country.
· Hopefully a dog!
· I don’t know if I’d like children. If I do end up a parent that’s cool, but if I never have kids, that’s cool with me too.
I told myself I wouldn’t write too much but here we are! There is obviously loads more I’d like to say but I think this is hopefully enough to go off! I am looking for something long term and ultimately to settle down, and I’d ask that if you’re just looking to have a quick fling, don’t message me. If you’ve made it this far, I’d love to hear from ya, especially what stood out in my post, and a fun fact or two about you :)

Right I’ll just get to the story. Me F was about 13 at the time and my friend M was about 14 at the time we’ll call him Kia (not his real name)
This was a couple years ago when I was in year 9 (8th Grade for the Americans) I got sent to a school for special needs kids in year 7/8 For autism and ADHD and they had this sensory room with padded walls and lights and stuff and me and my friend Kia would sit in there when we had a terrible lesson because we were told to.
There was this lad that joined in at the start of year9 we’ll call him Lucas (not his real name) and he went to primary school with Kia and they didn’t really get along. The first day he came he insulted me because kia was telling me he knew him and he was a bit of a dick and I said he seems like it and I wore eyeliner and dyed my hair red(more pink but anyway) he made fun of that by calling me ‘emo’ and shit but i guess he just didn’t like me after that witch was fine I didn’t know him and he was in a different class because our class got split in two because they put the people who needed more support in one class.
When me and Kia were in the sensory room we were sitting on our phones and I was scrolling through my photos finding old messages of pedos and there d pics and me and Kia we’re making fun of them. Kia is gay and he was on twitter and there was porn on there obviously it’s twitter well X now but Lucas came in the room to use his vape and he was asking what we were looking at and we said just d picks of people and just scrolling on twitter and Lucas came up behind us and looked at out phones and saw what we we’re looking at.
Later me and Kia got called down to the office to talk with teachers separately with our parents there because apparently it’s classed as CP even tho the people in the photos were 18+ but then my parents wanted to go through my phone or the teachers and it’s not like I haven’t gotten other things to hide that aren’t bad but I would get in more trouble for it but I let them go through it which they didn’t find anything because they didn’t really know what they were doing but it caused me and Kia refusing to go In to school for a couple days because why would we and they got scanners to check for phones which we didn’t want to hand in.
So I want to know was me and Kia the bad ones in this story?

One of my favorite pass-times is to watch streams from people who've never played any FF or FF7 Compilation, and they begin their journey with Remake.
It's interesting because we get Sephiroth visions so early on, and it's interesting how we have entire chapters, and long stretches between seeing him again.
Seeing a gameplay video and after the plate falls, Cloud sees sephiroth briefly but because it's been SO long since he's had a vision of him, it's cool to watch these people react and be reminded that he's acting as a looming shadow in this game.
It's also kind of wild to see people react to the plate-fall itself. It's such a devastating moment and was made better by the devs expanding midgar to make the build-up much longer, so player reactions are equally as devastated.
Then they learn about the Ancients from tseng and Elmyra and it's so cool to see the look of epiphany as they realize that there is a MUCH more grand and sinister narrative at play.
Lastly, finishing the game with the players getting a glimpse of Kalm after just battling, yet not officially defeating Sephiroth, and that there is an entire world to explore moving forward is so magical.
I won't bore anybody with how these new players react to Rebirth but they view it wide-eyed, and talk about how Remake was essentially just the intro to that massive narrative.
Anyway, just some fun stuff

Title says it all and I need help like very badly. I did pay a load of cash. Via instagram and snap. Maybe some guidance on how I should approach. I have developed a plan that may or may not work. My approach is based on a passive aggressive stance. My snap doesn’t contain any personal contacts with others.
I might go by the following steps in order:

1. I made an agreement with scammer which he agreed to talk to me at 10pm pst to resolve some issues sending cash online because I came up with an excuse of being busy with classes. (Not sending anymore cash and don’t plan on further contact). I will report him either way but I feel like this is gonna block him.
   
2. Told my followers on instagram to block the scammer on instagram claiming he is a stalker generating random ai pics of me.
   
3. In the meantime I will change username and personal info of my other unaffected accounts not connected to insta
   
4. Once user is banned from instagram (main personal contact), Change usernames of all my social media accounts. (I hope there is a way to expedite this process and I’ll watch closely for most parts of day) I will move onto the following steps.
   
5. Wish me luck
   
6. Maybe discuss with bank a way to reclaim some of fraud afterwards
   

Is there a way to report this issues? Maybe law enforcement. Maybe something about hash which I still have no idea about.
This is probably a really stupid plan and I feel really depressed right. Idk man I kinda wanna talk to someone that can help me…

While Israel-Palestine drama is basically cheating as far as this subreddit is concerned, this drama is unique as the freeing of hostages is objectively good news. People were kidnapped by Hamas during the October attacks and have been held in secret locations since. Some have died, some have been killed deliberately and by accident, but this is the first time that this many hostages have been freed in one go. In particular, the woman hostage is familiar to those who have been following the conflict as the girl who was snatched on a Motorcycle in the kidnap footage (Noa Argamani). The biggest issue with the operation to rescue them was that it incurred lots of casualties, as the hostages were being held in a civilian camp.
The hostage situation has caused mounting pressure on Israeli leadership, and the liberation of hostages goes a long way in calming and reassuring the Israeli people, whose leadership is becoming increasingly unpopular both internally and across the world.
Not everyone is pleased at the news. The raid itself has a significant casualty pool even if some of those were terrorists. While we don't know the exact figure, rumours say over 90 people have been killed in the raid. Israel's actions in the conflict have also been extremely controversial, with many accusing Israel of conducting ethnic cleansing or genocide under the guise of fighting a terrorist organisation. Whether earned or not, some see Israel as the 'bad guy' in the conflict.
Was the hostage rescue 'worth' the casualties? Did Hamas treat them well? Is it 'appropriate' to celebrate hostages being freed when Israel is killing people? Is this a good or bad thing? Will freeing hostages allow Israel to do worse things? Does Reddit support Hamas? Is it hypocrisy when Israel holds many prisoners without trialing them? Will this victory cause Israel to double down on it's extreme actions?
----- Pics ----- (A Father embracing her daughter who was rescued from captivity after 250 days) Locked. 76% upvoted.
Wasn't this girl who got taken by a motorcycle?
Watch how pro-terrorist will try to spin this beautiful reunion into something horrifying justifying her kidnapping. If you justify the murder, gang rape, torture, and kidnapping of kids, teenagers, and civillians including women and elderly, youre on the wrong side.
Strawman much? Literally no one is justifying any of the kidnappings. You’re making up arguments in your head to get mad about.
Hamas shouldn't have captured/killed/raped 300 innocent civilians from multiple nations of the world
Already seen a lot of people angry about this
Did people just want her to die or something?
Happy shes free and safe, lets hope to see the day when the Palestinians hostages are free and safe too.
How does someone that's been captive for 250 days by the worst group of people in the world have no scars, no bruises, clear healthy skin, and doesn't look like they've lost a pound that whole time??
----- Global_News_Hub ----- (55 civilians killed in refugee camp, 4 hostages saved: Report)
Zionists doing what they do best. Killing civilians and finding reasons for it later or play victim.
Originally, the Zionists didn't even know there were hostages there. They just wanted to kill civilians.
Epic levels of cope
55 Arab Lives are not important to Zionists. They are animals to Israelis.
Maybe Hamas shouldn’t hide their hostages in refugee camps? It’s almost like they want their civilians to die to gain international sympathy
Despicable! The IDF should let Hamas kidnap, rape, torture, and murder without any consequences!! How dare they rescue the very few surviving hostages
----- MadeMeSmile ----- (Footage of hostage reuniting with family)
Israel killed over 200 palestinians today. This is not a day for smiles
She looks very healty. Thats how hostages should look like at the end. Not like the ones israel and russians are holding. We clearly can see who are the real terrorists. Good she made it back like this and is able to smile
And isnotreal killed 210 to “rescue” her
Saved four and killed 150 Palestinian civilians. What a heroes
Makes me sad, not smile: 1200 upvotes after 6 hours. The state of mind of Reddit users.
Big mistake to sort by controversial - what the heck is wrong with some of you?
And you really trust Hamas?
More than "israel"
As much as one should be happy about it, Palestinians continue to be under a Genocide. Israel has Palestinian hostages 26 times more than what Hamas has Israeli hostages. Israel has dropped bombs on Gaza more than what were dropped in World War II.
The entire kidnapping was absolutely awful on every level. What Israel is doing right now is absolutely awful on every level I’m happy that she is back safe with her family. All things can be true at the same time
What kind of shitty, hateful comments, especially on such a wholesome group.
----- IsraelPalestine -----
Cool, I wish that all hostages get released from the captivity of Hamas. It’s a big shame that Netanyahu is refusing any ceasefire and is continuing this war, and I hope that we eventually get a ceasefire so that all the hostages can return home.
Ahhh when success is refusing a deal to release all hostages because your adversary is evil and your response is checks notes using aid vehicles as troop convoys (a crime you've accused Hamas of) to rescue four hostages and in the process kill two hundred people, thus showing that Palestinian civilian life has lesser value than Israeli Nothing like committing repeated war crimes to show you're the good guys, right? It's a good thing US taxpayers are bankrolling THIS as opposed to dealing with inflation or healthcare. Seriously, what blackmail does Bibi have on Biden?
Great news for the families. But the pictures of the hostages post rescue (not the one above) are very telling. - basically Hamas are kinder, gentler hostage takers than Israel
Genuinely good news for the hostages and their families. I'm happy to hear they were found in good health. Unfortunately this will send the message that the current IDF strategy is worth it, and many more people will die as a result. Small victories I guess.
Up to 200 people killed on that operation, lots of innocent Palestinians. Local hospital was overwhelmed with insured and killed people.
----- InternationalNews ----- (IDF rescues 4 Gaza hostages: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv)
So we're now at what? 7k dead Palestinians per hostage?
Get yourself ready for propaganda interview videos...
oh it's already in full force, saving 4 hostages is now being used to justify the killing of hundreds. Since we know these ppl don't think Palestinians are humans, they are going to not care one bit about the 47 innocent civilians (so far, more injured as well) killed in this "special operation". Israel will 100% use this to further try and justify killing more people in Rafah and probably to refuse the ceasefire deal on the table right now.
So, now we'll have four Mossad agents posing as freed hostages telling us horror stories of their brutal treatment. "They gang raped my severed baby head!"
There’s video of Noa being abducted on Oct. 7.

I'm 51 and have rarely had in-person friendship interactions. My Mom is partially to blame because she said "Wait to be invited" but I was never cool enough or interesting enough in High School or Grade School to have people calling me to see how I'm doing or invite me to go places. College wasn't as bad but I still never got invited. I was bullied more in 7th grade in a small school, so most people wouldn't know about it transitioning to a larger High School, so I feel my lack of trust in some people plays a big factor.
I had one friend since 20 but he's been flakey, takes too long to get ready for an event like a car show that there's never been enough time to browse and I would feel rushed. There's more drama with him that's irrelevant to my situation but I've stopped replying to him. He never made an effort to drive 30 minutes or so to see me when I was married. And when in relationships and was married my partner didn't typically have a girl's night out, as it was usually us with or without her friends.
I learned young that being funny and making people laughed really helps, but I have yet to see true results. My Dad told me to treat others as I would myself, and to put others ahead of myself to go around in life, but all that's done as hold me back as I have yet to see lasting results. I read an article on Lifehacker a decade ago about how to make friends in your 30's and one of the suggestions was Meetup.com, which did help as I made acquaintances and did meet others at events, but I understand people change.
My gf of 10 years knows my struggles, so she encouraged me to get out when I have a chance at meeting new people. We don't always have the same interests either so I appreciate her willingness to adjust. Going against my Mom's advice I would tell people where I would be going and ask if they'd be interested days in advance, but nobody seems to have the time, or they have so many friends (proving it can be done) that nobody considers me a priority. They enjoy my caring and giving nature, my ability to help with computer stuff, but I picked up that they only seem to reach out to me for that, and I feel I'm not good enough for anything else.
I befriended an older woman months ago at work who keeps pushing me to do stand-up, as I'm always making her laugh, and have been there to listen as her brother is in the hospital. I offered to hang out but she feels uncomfortable and doesn't want to look suspicious as she knows I have a girlfriend. I was upset about it but then she wishes she would have changed her mind when I spoke to her the next Monday.
This past week there was a street fair in a big town as my gf was there doing tarot readings, and that the street fair has eclectic items and draws a huge crowds with food vendors and entertainment. I mentioned this event to said coworker, a friend from Grade School I just reconnected with, my female friend from Meetup (no reply, and she lives with her bf closer to the event) and my ex wife who I get along with. The ex wife wasn't sure as she always was in bed by 9 (an issue in our marriage). After I told the coworker Friday about the event, she said on the day of the event that she made plans elsewhere. The friend from grade school seems to be going through issues and doesn't seem reliable, like everyone else.
I'm not a beealcohol drinker, was picked last or near last at gym so I'm not into sports, and I dont have the typical guy mentality; so it's easier to do me to be friends with women. One of my other female friends says "Life gets in the way" but if that were true why do a lot of FB posts show them with friends and best friends? That envy and comparison was why I only go on FB to buy and sell stuff. Do those friends and best friends not have lives, and is that why they're able to do things?
So at this point in life is it better to accept my fate and move on? Was I simply taught wrong when I should have learned morals off the street? Is everyone just not reliable enough? I keep telling myself that if you're not already in someone's inner circle that there's no chance of getting in now, and I'm starting to think that's true. I've tried being the catalyst with no results. Even this morning I read a story on here of a Mom who got RSVP's for her 5-year olds b-day party but got cancellations days leading to the event, so i know im not alone. Maybe this is best posted over at /MaleMentalHealth but wanted other's inputs here. If being funny, caring, and considerate isn't enough or more than enough, what am I lacking?

I have noticed this weird phenomenon of white people harrasssing mixed race individuals who are mixed with white. This hasn't just happened with me but I've seen it happen to others. Basically someone who is half white will post something like a pic of themselves and a white person will harrass them in the comment section screeching that "you're just white". When the mix person starts defending themselves the white person will attempt to use "white slurs" to trigger the mixed person. 99 percent of the time this doesn't work and the mix person just throws back the slurs at them which triggers the white person. It's hilarious to see the white person get upset when you call them a "colonizer" and see you have no reaction when they try to do that to you.
Yes I've seen monoracial POC people do this too to mixed race people but at least I can understand why they do that unlike white people bullying mixed race people. I believe whites think mixed people are a gateway for them to release their deep hatred of poc because they know they can get away with it that way if they are light skin or white presenting.
It's just creepy. Last night I had a white woman harrass the fuck out of me and call me a fat white woman and when I threw back the insults she lost it and made multiple accounts to harrass me. It's just so weird and creepy to be that obsessed. Had her reported and blocked but damn I hate being mixed sometimes.
Edit: she was some weird white liberal thinking she would be picked by POC if she kept spamming my posts saying I was "erasing" my people because I'm half white and I should die or not claim my other half lol

Yeah I'll let those who judge the title first judge just by the title. I don't mind.
I know I screwed up and heck I'm not blaming anyone. This is all me I just want to put this somewhere. Not asking for validation or anything like that. Just need somewhere to rant.
My boyfriend broke it off with me after I mentioned using OF as a starter platform for VTubing. Honestly I heard about OF's "reputation" but didn't know how serious it was. My brother had mentioned that OF was used for other things besides the mainstream pornographic content - and hearing about how much people make on OF I started having this TWISTED ahh conception that I could do VTubing there and hopefully gain more attention than on Youtube or Twitch. Let me make this clear; I would never sell my body for money and all I wanted to do on OF was play music on the ukulele, sing, and draw. That was it. (note: I've wanted to be a VTuber for a long time. Even before I met my ex. Originally considered Twitch but thought maybe OF would be cool. Obviously I was wrong on so many levels and yeah I know that very well by now. I really don't know wtf I was thinking.)
Mentioning my idea to my ex was a huge mistake on my part because he broke up with me immediately and told me he didn't care what my intentions were - he cannot think about his potentially life-long partner considering OF in any shape or form. Regardless of whether I was selling my body or not. I went against those terms and I acknowledge it.
I love this guy a lot. A LOT. I would never think about cheating on him or selling my body. I seriously love him. Would do just about anything for him. We never had sex but I cared about him through and through. I loved him even while we were still friends in the beginning (imo love means caring for someone and being there for them as much as possible - my love for him turned romantic when we started dating). We talked about a future and everything went so well. He embraced most of my flaws. He gave up a lot of things for me and there was never a day in our romantic relationship that he didn't tell me he loved me. I love him for every single thing he did for me no matter how small. I told him everyday that I loved him.
Though now he's told me that maybe the whole thing wasn't even love - just a chemical reaction between two animals. That broke something in me. Then at the same time I refuse to think it wasn't love. It was just me fucking things up and I made him stop believing in our love. (or maybe he's right - who knows.) He's wanted to be "single and alone" for the rest of his life until he met me. And now seeing his new Spotify playlists, I think he's back to that again.
After the breakup message I asked him what exactly it was (besides the obvious) that he hated so much about OF. And he told me it was people selling the only real thing they own and not respecting themselves enough.
Thinking about that made me feel like yeah, even though my intentions on OF were not of selling my body but putting OF aside, I felt like I still don't respect myself as a person. The day he first asked to break up I was throwing myself at him, crying, apologising, and begging him to take me back and that I would be willing to throw out my own dreams as a content creator for him if it would keep him. I told him I would rather have him over fame. I would rather have him over my own dreams. And those were actually true. I was even ready to give him my passwords to all my socials. Shit, it all seemed like the end of the world that day.
And that was a huge mistake. I was confirming to him that I was a desperate, self-disrespecting, and needy person who was tossing my own life aside just to keep someone with me. Throughout the relationship, I was usually the "rational calm one" and he told me many times he has no idea how I manage to put up with his shenanigans and still love him despite everything he's ever said or done. In reality, I was just constantly keeping all my upsettedness away from him because I didn't want him to think he wasn't good for me and then break up with me as a result of it. Even though I had good intentions - still self-disrespecting AND disrespecting HIM.
Anyway, in the end, I surrendered. We wished each other good luck and allat, I told him (SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID THIS PROBABLY) we could talk again as FRIENDS after a while of space and he appeared to wholeheartedly agree, and then after some back and forth heart emote spamming (which is something we do to end most conversations or end the day), we stopped talking. Didn't unfollow or block each other on any socials, just didn't talk. (besides that one time 2 days after the NC initiated I accidentally added a reel to our shared save folder on insta and apologised and he texted back saying it was alright and added that I was in his dreams n asked me to get outta his dreams 🙄)
It's been about 2 or so weeks since the breakup. I've been going no contact with him, turned my socials statuses to invisible and used my socials less. Thinking of maybe contacting him after 2 or more months (when I'm ready to face the fact that he may not ever want to get back together). Hopefully I'll be able to get over these weird yoyo-ing thoughts and emotions. And I hope he's doing okay too.
Dam I still miss him. He was a seriously unique and amazing person and I know I ruined my romantic relationship with him.
Thinking again, maybe I don't really mind him being just a friend. Idk sometimes it swings this way and that. We were pretty good friends before the whole thing - inside jokes, personal rants and all. Maybe I'm not even ready for any romantic relationships at all. Yeah. Given my reaction to the breakup, I am and was definitely not ready. If I genuinely do love him, I'd just let him do whatever he wants to do. Should be doing that. But in all honesty, I still wonder if I ever have a slightest chance of getting him back in the far off future. Maybe yeah maybe no. I mean I did fck up badly with the OF thing and I will definitely need to wait for a long time before I'm ready for any romantic relationships at all.
Post-breakup note; I can eat normally now, crying less, and can do certain things I loved doing again but my thoughts and feelings regarding him and the whole thing is still all jumbled up. I still whisper-talk to myself imagining I'm talking to him (I do this a lot even before the romantic relationship), yapping about all the stuff I wished I told him or just as a convo in general and it always ends with the final thought, "I fucked up. Would have been able to tell him all this/actually have this convo with him if I didn't ever think about OF." It's hard to stop thinking about him. And yeah I def deserve this after all I did ngl.
I'm so sorry if this rant long and a tad bit disorganised and strained your eyes 🙏 Have a good one.
PS: After the whole thing, regardless of how the breakup went, I absolutely refuse to start an OF. And I don't really want to VTube anymore either. Just reminds me of the breakup.

—
“.....”
Rika stared at her hand, at the backside of her palm, her skin color is that of an overripe and sweet sapodilla. She doesn't know what that thing is, but that's what her dad used to call it, apparently some sort of fruit, but she doesn't know what fruit is either. it’s slightly blue now, stained by the blood of a… thing. She looked at it, the… she doesn't know what to call it, pink thing… pink… pinky? Sounds good enough for her, she looked at pinky.
“hmm…”
Pinky is… weird? She's seen some weird things in her life, an irradiated wasteland can always hold a surprise, but this is… peculiar. In a way she couldn't really put her finger on, more so because she can't touch pinky for too long because they are really cold. But she wants to touch pinky, pinky is interesting. Pinky has four eyes, no hair, and a beautiful skin, she's almost jealous.
“.....”
Her curiosity took over and she scooted over to where pinky is, laying on her bed, with bandages on their tummy. She's honestly not sure why she instantly knows that pinky is bleeding, when she found them in that fire pit, created by that blue light that came from the clouds. Actually, she remembers it quite fondly. She remembered her dad coming back home, bleeding from his tummy, and asked her to fetch some bandages. He told her it was done by bad guys.
Poke
“Pinky? Are you awake?”
Poke
He told her bad guys don't like her, or dad, and want to kick them out. Dad said don't listen, and fight back, since then she really hates bad guys, and thought everyone but her and her dad are bad. She got a lecture for thinking that, and her dad told her not everyone is bad, some people are good, friends he called it, Rika never had friends before but she would love to have one someday.
Poke
“Hello?”
Poke
As Rika continuously poked Pinky, she wondered if Pinky is a bad guy or friend, or maybe they got hurt by a bad guy, are there bad guys in the clouds?. Pinky looks nice, they don't look like bad guys, but who knows, once her dad said that bad guys sometimes lie and make themselves look like friends.
“Wow…”
Pinky’s skin is cold, very cold, it hurts if she touches it too long, but if she touches it for just a few seconds, it’s actually comfortable. So Rika did just that, occasionally putting her palm on Pinky, and enjoying the cold. But suddenly Pinky doesn't feel as cold anymore, she was wondering why when Pinky woke up, and slapped her.
—
“AHH! Get away from me!”
“@#!”
Ciro’s not having it today, she just woke up, and expected maybe the white and yellow of her ship’s medical bay, the feeling of a soft bed on her back, hoping maybe all that she saw before is just a very long and weird dream.
“Shoo! Shoo!”
“...?”
It isn't, unfortunately. She woke up to the brown and black of a cave, and the feeling of what barely passes as a bed laying on rough sand and pebbles on her back, it is not in fact a very long and weird dream. It is, in fact, reality, reality is terrifying as they say and she would agree, as she immediately sees the creature again the very next second of her eyes opening.
“Shoo! Get out of here! D-d-don’t hurt me!...”
“€π?”
“W-what?”
It spoke…? In language she doesn't recognize, it seems… confused? She's not sure if whatever the creature is doing with its face counts as an expression. But it does seem… curious, undeniably so, it tilted her head at her, and looked at her with its curious brown eyes before leaning forward. That, of course, scared the soul out of Ciro.
“Eek! Stay away!”
Now it looks surprised, kind of. It backs away slightly, with their back facing the entrance of the cave, a harsh ray of sunlight peered through the cave’s mouth and some violent wind can be heard. It still stared at her, with that… admittedly… beautiful brown eyes, she's never seen it before. She found herself locking gaze with the creature, feeling a strange sensation as she did.
“Uhm…….. hi”
She suddenly strangely relaxed, as if she didn't just experience ejecting out of her exploding ship and meeting a foreign alien right after. But it got her mind calm, and more rational, now that she is, she should probably stop calling it creature, it's undoubtedly sapient. It had clothes, a terrifying helmet as she recalls, and clearly some decent technology, looking at… gnarly looking weapon resting on the wall next to them.
“π¥! ¥^# £¥¢@!”
It- no… they spoke again, it kind of sounds like an introduction, but it's not like Ciro knows what it means so who knows, could be a threat. They kept staring at her, rather inappropriately. Their eyes wandered to somewhere on Ciro’s lower body, and pointed at it with one of their five clawed fingers. She was about to think about the predatorial implications that the claw gave her, but she's too busy panicking about the wound on her stomach right now.
“Oh God…”
It’s patched up, neatly and appropriately, but also rather tightly. The moment she became aware of it the pain came rushing through like a busted dam. She held her stomach as she curled to a fetal position, tears coming out of her eyes.
“Argh…!”
That's when a hand grabbed her shoulder, she looked up to see the… she should really give it a name, the first thing to come out of her pained mind is critter, and she stuck with it. Critter was staring at her, they seemed to be worried, Critter looked around, before getting up and running towards a dark green colored backpack. Critter rummages through it, before finding what they were looking for, signified by them going what Ciro assumes to be “AHA!”
“Huh?”
They ran up to her and presented it in their hands, an assortment of what look like pills, they're giving her medication?
“I… i can't, i don't know what's in it, it can- ergh!... Mmph… it can kill me…”
Critter insisted, all the while looking at her with all the worry in the world, for a second she wanted to question why it’s so… passionate? The amount of compassion shown to someone they probably have never seen before, it’s kind of sweet. She would appreciate it, if she's not in great pain right now, with a shake of the head she refused the pills, leaving Critter confused and even more worried.
“Sorry… i can't”
Ciro closed her eyes, maybe if she can get her mind away from it the pain would recede. She got nothing, even though her kind is known for how well they can handle their own minds she can't seem to suppress it. But when something touched her head she calmed down, it felt warm, and comfortable, and soft. She opened her eyes again to see Critter…
“...?”
“Uh…”
Are they…. Are they petting her? They are, and it… it feels good, oddly so.
—
Rika caressed Pinky's, they seemed to be in pain and when she offered them painkillers, they refused, she was at a loss at how to calm them down, until she remembered something. When she was little, she found a stray kitten that wandered near her home. It was crying and she had no clue how to calm it down, until she touched the kitty’s head and petted it.
“Okay? Are you okay?”
Her dad didn't like kittens, made him go achoo achoo, he calls it… al… ler… gi…? Something like that, she's not very good at spelling. Doesn't matter though, Pinky looks to be enjoying it, they're not crying any more, that's good if you ask her. A couple of minutes pass, filled with nothing but oddly awkward silence and the sound of someone being petted.
“Hmm?”
When she was done Pinky had completely stopped crying and holding their tummy. At the same time they seemed to snap out of a trance, and looked at her, she replied with a smile, after remembering that Pinky doesn't speak like her.
“Hi!”
She tried anyway, surely anyone knows what a "hi" is right?. Surely, as sure as the lightness in her head, she felt it suddenly, it was unpleasant and it felt like someone was poking the inside of her head.
“Ow…. That hurts”
She laid down on the cave floor, and wondered why she's like this all of a sudden. She looked at dust carried by the wind outside. It might be that the air can be kind of funky sometimes, she should really cover the cave with a tarp. She did just that, though making sure the tarp’s color can blend in with the surrounding is a little hard when she can barely even focus from all the lightheadedness.
“There… set and sound… ow…”
She's still feeling it, even more severe now. Probably because it already got to her, oh well, what can she do? It should pass soon enough, she's been through more, a headache is not going to take her down, maybe. She sat down next to her rifle and sighed, messaging her head as she did, it relieved some of the pain, but didn't make it go away.
“Hmph…”
Maybe she should go back trying to talk with Pinky, maybe that can calm it down-
“Hey…”
“Huh?”
—
One thing Qo’kvells can do other than telepathically communicate with each other is… look into the mind of a non-Qo'kvell. Unethical, dishonorable, despisable, medically problematic, since it hurts anyone who isn't mentally capable, which everyone who is not a Qo’kvell. But… it can help, in some things. Like… knowing the ill intentions of others, or a problem in their mind, or getting to know them, or… learning their language.
“Ow…”
And she has never seen a language so complicated it hurts her head just thinking about it. Not until she probed Critter’s head, to see if there's a way to communicate, it visibly affected them, but they handled it far-far better than anyone else, most would pass out in the first 3 seconds, Critter seems mostly unfazed. From it, she knows a lot, but understands few, she did learn Critter is a she, so hey, fellow girls at least.
“Mmh… oh… I shouldn't have done this…”
And her intent is well, she's trying to help her, the pills she offered were painkillers, and she saved Ciro from her pod’s burning wreckage. She suppose she can thank her, but learning a language takes some time and brain effort, and it certainly hurts, so she holds off for now. Critter’s memory is hazy, and hard to reach, it’s almost like her brain is actively fighting against her telepathy.
Maybe I should say something… hmm… this is… a word for introduction right? I hope, please don't be a slur or something’
“Hey…”
“Huh?”
‘did it work?’
“H-hi…”
From Critter's memory, she learned that waving her hand seems to be some sort of introductory gesture, so she did that. She was expecting shock, but what she got was a very happy Critter, who seemed to instantly forget about their headache.
“you can talk!”
“A… small-”
‘wait, no that's wrong’
“Me… mean… little?”
‘That's also wrong, what in the lands below is this language?!’
“Who are you? What's your name? I'm Rika! I’m friend!”
She can barely understand that wall of words, she did hear a name… Wi… no, Ric… e? No, wrong again, Ri… ka…? Sounds… correct-ish. She also noticed she was being asked her name, she tried her best to piece it together using the strange letters of Rika’s language.
“am… Ce… ehm, no… Ci… Ciro”
“Ciro? Oh man… Pinky is not right at all”
She has no clue what Rika is talking about, and it’s probably best she doesn't question it. But now she has to ask the important questions. She tried her best to form a sentence in her head before trying to speak. She could just try and probe again, but her head’s not having it so neither does she.
“When… no, me mea- no… I mean… Where… am… i?”
“Hmmm? oh, we’re in a cave”
“I… know… I mean… what place?”
“What? Uh… Oh! Yes, you’re not from here, sorry, we’re in a desert! My dad calls it wasteland, i don't know why, i don't a see a lot of trash out here”
Wasteland? Desert wasteland? Ciro was curious, what kind of species prefers to live in a desert? Wasteland no less?
“Why?”
“The whole world is like this, dad calls it end of the world, i don't see anything ending out here, so i don't really know”
End of the world… Ciro realized the grim implications of that sentence and frowned, with a bit of pity towards Rika.
“”stranded in post apocalyptic planet, great””
“What? You speak weird again”
“Oh… apologiz- uh, i mean, sorry, it is n-native… mouth”
“Oh, i’ve heard of that, dad used to tell me other people can speak another way, can you teach me?”
Rika’s eyes light up, she seems oddly innocent and childlike in… well… apocalypse, for gods know how long. She suppose education isn't as strong as it used to be in that condition, but shouldn't Rika be a bit more… aware?
“N-no, it… hard”
“Aww… it’s fine, you can speak like me anyway, how do you do it?”
“I…”
She's not sure what to say, Rika probably doesn't know what telepathy is, or maybe and she does, Ciro’s got nothing on her culture.
“Just… special… thing, i can do”
“Ooh!... What is it?”
“Difficult… explain… t-to explain, i mean”
“It’s okay… are you good? You’re wounded, i took care of it but you were still hurt”
“Am… fine”
She's really not, but she's functional which is good enough, Rika’s work on her wounds was surprisingly exceptional.
“Great!... Hmm… do you want to go with me?”
“W-where?”
“Hold on! Let me get it!”
Rika ran to her bag again, and took out some sort of… square? It unfolded to a large rectangular shape, is it made of… paper?
‘Her species still uses paper?’
She was a bit confused, if they can make advanced medicine then shouldn't they be way past that? Then she was reminded by the sound of the violent wind outside.
‘oh yeah… apocalypse’
She ran back to him all excited, Ciro can practically taste the thick naivety of this girl as she spoke with the largest smile she has ever seen.
“We’re here, not too far away from my home, but that's not where I'm going! I wanna go here! Look!”
She pointed to a drawing that resembles a mountain.
“It’s a really tall mountain! My dad’s been there before! He said it looks very pretty!”
“What… for?”
“To meet someone! My dad said there's someone very special there! That I should meet them! He said it’s important for everyone too… but he wanted to tell me first!”
Rika kept mentioning this “”dad””, and Ciro is going to go out on a limb to guess this dad is her parent.
“Is… dad mother?”
“Wha? No! My dad is a man! Strongest man ever!”
‘so a father?’
“Where is… dad?”
All the light in Rika’s eyes disappeared, replaced with something that made Ciro uneasy. Even when only partially connected, she can feel a strong feeling of sorrow from Rika, if she was probing her head Ciro probably would have been dead or atleast incapacitated from the sudden emotional overload.
“I…. Sorry”
“It’s okay… but he told me to go here, he gave me everything he has, and taught me everything, he said it can save me, everyone, i don't know what he means… but i’ll do it, for him, it’s all he always wanted”
Her voice wasn't as energetic as before, far from it. Ciro noticed that Rika glanced at the terrifying looking weapon on the wall, it seems it's more than just a tool of self defense.
“Ah… anyway, do you want to come with me?”
Ciro weighted her choices, she doesn't know this planet, she doesn't know how it is like after whatever happened to it, she doesn't know if others of Rika’s kind are as friendly as her, or if they even consider her approachable at all, she doesn't know how to survive, she's not that kind of person. At this point, she's not even worried, she nodded in response to her question, and perhaps, in a pleasant turn of event, Rika lit up once again, back to how she was.
“So you want to be friends?!”
“Y-yes…”
‘that feels regrettable in the long run’
“Yeeee! First friend! Uhm… oh, i forgot to ask, where are you from? Why are you riding that light?”
“What?”
“I save you, from a burning pit, light from the sky landed there, are you from up there? Why are you here?”
Ciro decided it doesn't hurt to just tell Rika, she would probably be more impressed and excited than terrified that there are other civilizations out there.
“Am from… uh… space, above sky, i am a…. Ko’k ehm… Q… Qo’kvell…”
“Above the sky? In the stars?”
Ciro was right, she looks absolutely excited.
“Yes… my kind… explore stars, am explorer”
“Oh! Are you exploring down here? What is it like up there?”
“Hard… to explain, explain… later”
“Aww… okay… let's go now should we? Storm is smaller now, we can go”
Rika was right, the wind outside had calmed down.
“Shure… S-sure, i mea- AHH!”
Rika pulled her up from her sitting position, and tore through cover protecting the cave from the winds outside. Outside was… bright, and hot, unpleasant, they seemed to be in a valley between two mountains. All Ciro can see is a dry landscape where trees used to be, hinted by the dry stumps barely poking out of the gravel and sand. A complete terraformation is she has to guess, something hit this planet hard.
“Wait here! I'll go get my stuff first!”
Ciro wondered how Rika managed to survive all this, but the more time she spent with her the more it seems to her Rika grew up in all of this, not forced into it.
‘how long has it been?’
“Let's go! We’re still far from it!”
Rika came out of the cave, bag on her back and weapon in hand.
“Where… is… vehicle?”
“Oh! It’s right here!”
She walked up to a large rock and pointed to it, Ciro was confused until Rika grabbed it and it turned out to be some sort of camouflage cover. It was nearly invisible, blending in with everything else, and it's clear why that is, her vehicle isn't the most discreet. Two wheels, all black, armored plates for the front and rear were welded to a long metal pole which itself is bolted on the vehicle’s side, acting as a mount for the armor.
“Hmm…”
“Cool right? My dad made it himself! He said it can’t ever go down!”
“Good… protection”
The mostly rubber wheels are slightly spiky, and have large ridges, probably to get better grip on smooth sand, and spikes for snow maybe?. It has two seats, one in front, one in the rear, surprisingly comfy looking seats despite all its brutal aspects. Rika got on it, and inserted a metal key, and the vehicle let out a fearsome roar. A mechanical Ignition tells Ciro that Rika’s kind probably isn't incredibly advanced.
‘no offense Rika…”
“Come on up! Another storm is probably coming soon! We don't want to get stuck!”
“O-okay…”
She got up on the back seat, it’s apparently leather, she wondered what kind of animal it came from.
“Ready?”
“Ye- EEK!”
Rika accelerated without warning, causing Ciro to almost fall off, she held onto Rika by hugging her, it felt inappropriate, but she seems fine with it. Ciro’s fine with it too, she's oddly comfortable to hold, maybe it’s just the heat from her body, she noticed that in the cave when she was being… petted, Rika's kind must be hot blooded.
‘Sigh… stranded in a wasteland planet, with a species never encountered before… How lucky am i?’
It would be any star mapper’s wet dream, that's for sure, she just wishes it went a little different, less explosions and less being stranded.
‘if only you’re here, mom’

This was originally posted by u/ObjectivePea516 and u/RhinoRev40 who posted to relationship_advice
Original Post May 2nd, 2024
u/ObjectivePea516
My boyfriend of 9 months purchased a home and said he bought it with “me” in mind as we have talked about a future and wanting to have a family. We have had many serious talks about our relationship and we’ve both met each other’s families. He previously lived in a home for several years and has always thought about changing his living situation and also wasn’t sure if he even wanted to stay to live in the same city. To my surprise, he went to see a house without me knowing and put in an offer. Long story short his offer was accepted and he’s made comments about how he thought about this house for us eventually. I’m not sure how to feel about it, I’m really happy that he got a house he really likes and at the price he got it for. But I feel we’re not there yet to move in with each other. Also, in no way did I have a say in the decision of this house or the location so I don’t think him to say he got the house with “me” in mind is fair. He hasn’t considered the commute for me to travel to work or anything that would be considered specifically to actually having me in mind. He bought this home one block away from his previous house as he will be renting out that home now, so this home by default is a great location for him overall. I’m not sure how to feel about his comments and his expectations with me and the house.
Additionally, I am a student and the closing of his house happened to be the very busiest week of exams and assignments I had due. We had conversations about how I could not help him move and there seemed to be an understanding, that week consisted of working on a presentation, studying for an exam and working on a paper. Any other free time I had I invested in self care such as working out or doing yoga. However, on one of those days I posted a selfie where I was proud to have accomplished so much in the morning before going into work and he got extremely upset about this. He went on to say I didn’t care to help him move and that I didn’t want to help him move essentially and made a huge deal about it as he bought this house with “me” in mind. What do you think of this?
Edit to give more context:
​

• The house was bought entirely with his money. I have zero financial contribution to this.

​

• We never talked about a specific time frame when I would move in. It was a discussion about how it’s something we both would want eventually

​

• We did talk about how I would contribute when that time comes, in which I mentioned expenses such as hydro, utilities, internet etc..I also made it clear that in no way was I expecting a free ride and not to contribute anything. That’s just not my character.

​

• The selfie that was posted was a close up shot of my face with sunglasses on and enjoying my coffee! I had made a list of accomplishments of tasks I did that day and wrote it in this picture: “meal prep ✅, work out ✅, coffee ✅, sunshine ✅… great way starting my day so far!”

UPDATE: How would you feel if your boyfriend (M38) of 9 months purchases a home and says it’s for you (F34)? We Broke Up! May 17, 2024
Original post
https://www.reddit.com/relationship_advice/s/qlMCWJePi8
I realized that when we talked about the reality of me moving in with him, I mentioned that I could sell all my furniture but would want and need to keep my desktop computedesk, his response to me was that he wouldn’t let me have my own room for that and to get a laptop instead. The man has an entire room dedicated to his sneakers. When I also mentioned the commute and how I’d have to pay for parking, as I take the subway to work currently, (not a big deal in comparison to paying for the mortgage, but still an expense) he said there could be days he could drive me, then followed it up with “but you don’t ever drive me to work”.
He did not buy the house with “me” in mind at all. It’s clear that this is HIS house and he wasn’t going to share his space in any other way besides how he wanted it.
We had plans for me to come over on a specific day but had also fought. I admitted and apologized that I could have put my anger aside and came to help. However, I wanted reassurance that he understood that if I have my own priorities and we discussed this, he cannot throw it in my face and tell me I did not meet his needs. I’m not saying of course that in any in case I would not drop something for my partner in an emergency. I did not feel that he understood this. And when I tried to explain this he said that I was “retracting my apology”..I just kept feeling constantly misunderstood and having to defend myself in this relationship with other issues as well. That was the end of that. Better to cut it off sooner than later and before taking the relationship to the next level of commitment. It definitely sucks.
AND I showed him this thread in which he of course was upset, says he felt betrayed. He called me “entitled” as he thinks I am saying I he bought it FOR me, which I am not in any way. He’s missing the point for this post in which I think he doesn’t want to take accountability for not acknowledging he was wrong for throwing it in my face. The main point was guilt tripping and using the “I bought it with you in mind” response. Because clearly, even if the commute was not in mind (currently, I live in an expensive area so to not buy a house here is a valid point), the ability to actually live with him was not with me in mind! He really absolutely did not care about me as a person and my needs or even can understand what a real relationship is. He skimmed through all 565 comments and screenshotted the best ones that validated him and sent them to me to prove, he’s a “good guy”.
MY SIDE: My ex ( 36 not 34F) made a post saying I ( 42/M) told her I bought her house and has blocked me from commenting. How about I share some context? May 18th, 2024
u/RhinoRev40
Her post: https://www.reddit.com/relationship_advice/s/ooTwyFNwWk She only showed me this a few days ago, but for the past couple of weeks my now ex gf has been curating the truth to extract as much validation as she can from this situation, and has prevented me from commenting or sharing my side.
She admits that I actually said - that I bought a house with us in mind. I did say that. When i first met her, I was moving away to LA. I had already lived in a home that was paid off for 12 years, but when i met her; i decided that maybe it's best and continue to build a life here, and should things work out, we could figure out a future together.
I had been looking at the market and one day, an amazing house came on the block, for 300k less than it was a months ago. I pounced and went to see it. That night i told her i saw a place, i even sent her the photos and said, i'm going to place an offer, which i did.
She seemed to love the place and see how much of an upgrade it would be from my current place - this is a 2M house, with 4 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and most importantly, a garage as my cars kept getting stolen since i didn't have one at my current place.
There was never mention of us moving in together right away, at the time we were together for 6 months, wayyyy too soon. We weren't even saying "i love you yet" - and i did say that once actually, and she just didn't return it anyways.
That being said, since we spend 95%% of our time sleeping at my place when we see each other once a week, figure this would be good for us, and when it is time, we could move in together there and go from there.
She loved the place, from what she said, this was supposed to be a positive.
Now let's rewind though.
3 months into the relationship, she asked to borrow 4000$. I was not comfortable with it, but as usual, she made herself seem so much in need, that I couldn't say no and just break up with her there, but now I realize i should have. She guilted me sayinf that couples have to work together and be there for each other and all that jazz.
The fact is, within those first 3 months, i had brought her to LA while i had to be there on business and the total cost of the week that she was there was around 3K. Then, over xmas, we went to another city, another 2-3K, as well as a punta cana vacation for 7K. So after all that is when she decided to ask me, and you don't need to be a genius to realize thst she chose me because clearly, she pinned me as having the money to.
Had this been my wife or long term gf, this wouldn't of been an issue, but 3 months in - this was a big flag and i talked to her about it. As usual, and as a pattern throughout this relationship, she would get extremely angry, lose her cool and make me feel bad for "questioning her character".
So, fast forward to me actually moving into this house over a 3 week period. She helped none whatsoever, never offered and my own family, friends, and people who were working at the house asked me about it apl the time. Oh she has school, oh she texts me though and so on. Completely MIA until of course friday or saturday night where she wanted to go for dinners or go to shows - that we did, of course.
One day, once her exams had tailed down and she told me she was waking up early to write a photo, i saw that she posted a sunshine kissed selfie saying: yoga! Meal prep! Coffee! Sunshine!
And i wrote her privately: " you know, i feel you could have at least offered to help in some way today". Again, she loses it, tells me : " you know you don't have to tell me something just because it bothers you" and then eventually she says, and i will never forget this ever : " don't you think you're expecting a little much of me for 7/8 months of dating"?
I was shocked. For some reason, pressuring your bf for a 4000$ loan 3 months in, but offering help in any way over a 3 week period is too much.
I called it off, decided i don't need her and this relationship wouldn't work with this set of values we don't share.
A couple of days later, after trying whatever she could to flip this whole fight on me, constantly chaging the goal post as a pattern i had identified and made her aware of repeatedly over those 7/8 months, she eventually showed up unannounced, apologizing profusely, and apparently seeming to genuinely recognize that it wasn't right, and she could have offered.
I took some of the responsibility once she did, and said that maybe, i could have been more direct as to when and how.
We resolved, we started to laugh again, this was a fight that we would "learn from" we both said.
Well, last week we disagreed for another simple issue, and she blew up as she does, yelling, calling my life chaotic, calling me eveything she can think of, and then says she resents me for wanting her to help with the house when she had exams!
Basically she took back the apology fully and stormed out of the house, i did not chase her. I did not text her, and i did not want to negotiate at all anymore.
The next morning she said she acted like that because i told her she was fucked. Tbh, i don't remember saying that, but i probably did as she was having a massive blow up.
I apologized for saying that she is fucked because afterall, whatever i do is in my control and tried my very best to get her to see that blowing up like that, is her behavior to be accountable for.
That's when she shared the original thread... again - no words, shocked that for a couple of weeks in the background she had been farming all these comments about me, sharing our personal stuff and curating it in a way to make herself look like, you guessed it, a "victim" whose boyfriend "bought her a house"?
We met off hinge. She asked to borrow 3K from me 3 months in, and I told her since then that it just didn't look good at all, and I'd hate to have something like that i couldn't even share with my friends / family.
The facts are that she only shared as the relationship went on:

• she is over 40k in debt

​

• Got fired from her nursing job because the educator had it in for her

​

• Missed out on receiving funding from the school because of their online portal

​

• Wasn't able to apply to graduate because the school didn't let her know properly

​

• Hates her parents even though they gabe her a car, paid for her exams and other failed attempts at schooling in the past

​

• Told me that her last relationship was "toxic" and she didn't see a future with him but stayed with him for 3 years and when they broke up, he threatened to jump off their building, same building she currently lives in - where 1 bedroom costs more than my previous mortage did for the 12 years that i paid it.

Overall, yes i had reason to play it slow with her. I didn't want her moving in on a technicality, or making me responsible for all her bills or getting trapped if things didn't work out.
I didn't buy her a house, i bought my house, in cash, paid in full and she was well aware that.
I bought a house because I had settling down in my current city in mind after meeting and had hoped it would work out.
But here she is complaining about if she would have an office in it, for...nursing?
A shoe room? I have 25 pairs of shoes in a closet. The spare bedroom would be for a baby's room, possibily if my future half is comfortable with that. Discussions would be had but i realized that discussions would never be had with her.
She has rage in her mind, a wild sense of entitlement and at present time is currently getting evicted from her apartment, and has no full time job but all the time in the world to make reddit posts for validation.
This problem is solved, she is not going to move in, and i am accountable for my house and hope she becomes accountable for "her house".
I welcome any comments / questions but i know I was dealing with a highly problematic person who will never truly realize her ways.
I am not the original poster. Please don't contact or comment on linked posts

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WaveOfWire Edits :D
- - - - -
Harrison’s vision was still foggy from waking up, several blinks failing to clear the tears from his drawn-out yawn. He just escaped the encompassing embrace of his four-armed guardian, leaving their shared bed for the bathroom, where he would have to say goodbye to his beard. If he was going to travel out of the settlement, a proper seal on his gas mask was a must.
It was a shame. The slow buildup of the hair over the last month or so was a representation of his growth in a way, building up alongside his experiences in this hellhole, be they life-threatening or informative. It was almost like wiping the slate clean, even if cutting some chin scruff didn’t really change anything at all—he’d never be able to forget anything he had seen here for as long as he lived.
And there was no telling how long that’d be.
The engineer sighed, splashing the lukewarm barracks water into his face from one of the many wall-attached sinks, allowing him to fully open his eyes and size up the damage done to his favorite black blood-and-sweat-stained t-shirt. It always stayed in good condition with washing and fabricator repairs, but somehow Shar’s talons always found a way to make small holes in it. She wasn’t trying to, but with the way she fully wrapped her arms around him, the tips of her sharp fingers sometimes ended up poking into the fabric and causing some cuts.
It was such a small issue that he never considered bringing it up to her. Plus, she’d probably do her whole guilty talon-tapping thing with puppy eyes and all… He shook his head, letting the stray beads of water on his face drip into the sink.
His palm ran across his beard while his other hand reached for the razor. There wasn’t any shaving cream or the like, but he’d make do. At least he had one of the proper tools for the job. He went into the task, the blade driving through his scruff, slopping off wide areas of his hair from jaw to chin for a few seconds before it was interrupted.
A short ‘woosh’ of the entrance caught his attention.
“Aww, you’re shavin’ it off?” Tracy commented dejectedly through a yawn, the lazy drawl reinforcing the fact that she just woke up. “Th’ beard was sorta growin’ on me.”
He eyed her through the mirror, his voice coming out in a dull tone. “Yeah. I feel the same.”
She squinted under the bright bathroom lights, rubbing an eye with her wrist as she walked up to the sink beside him and started her own morning routine. “Mmm… Womp womp. Why though?”
“Need it to get a gas mask seal,” he stated flatly, focusing on the task at hand.
The technician stopped momentarily, the gears turning in her head before she gave him a downcast frown. “You’re still set on going for the vehicle bay? You know we can just send some long-range drones out there, right?”
His short exhale echoed throughout the tiled room. The engineer closed his eyes, already mentally withdrawn from the conversation. They've had this discussion twice now. “It’s to be better prepared for any chemical, biological, or radiological surprises that might come up—not just for the excursion. Even more importantly, there’s no guarantee the module is in perfect shape. If I’m there in person, I’ll have the means to get through anything for those blueprints. Plus, it should only be four days, so the only issues we have are my beard and finding a way to protect the Malkrin from the radiation while we’re out.”
Tracy looked like she wanted to say something back, but bit her lip and cast her eyes down at the sink in front of her, twisting the knob before mumbling a quiet response. “I don’t think you need to protect them from radiation at all…”
“Hmm?”
She stared at him meekly, his dismissal of her worries having clearly dampened her mood. Guilt tugged at the back of his mind before her words further caught his interest. “I think they’re immune… or resistant or something. Radiation immunity is the whole reason they were sent here. You’ve added up the pieces together too, right?”
He stared down at her, running a hand through his hair with tired exasperation depressing his voice. “Tracy, I’ve been trying my hardest to just make it another day on this God-forsaken planet, not dig into their religion. So, no. I have not spent the time to add up the pieces. Enlighten me, please.”
“…S-Sorry. I just, you know, get a lot of time to think when working on drones, and Cera has been drawing all kinds of representations of these things.” Tracy paused, gesturing toward the engineer. “Okay, so you remember the whole backstory for why the Malkrin are on the mainland in the first place?”
“Pseudo-eugenics?” he commented dryly.
“Yeah.” She nodded, a sense of excitement leaking into her voice. “And what were the parameters of banishing someone?”
“Not getting sick from a rock.”
She eyed him feverishly, brows raised with a sudden zeal. “Aaaaand that rock represented the Sky Goddess’ wrath, which did what?”
“Uhhh…” He looked upward in thought, recalling his conversation with the paladin. “I think Shar mentioned nausea, vomiting, blisters, skin melting… off…” He froze, the pieces forming. “Wait, you don’t think…”
“I do. Those symptoms could mean a lot of things, but the anomaly field was the real kicker. You know that Shar just straight up didn’t have any lingering radiation effects or anything while you were nearly put… six feet under…” Her voice quieted momentarily, the speed of her speech outpacing her train of thought. “Sorry. Um… so, I was gonna say that she, uh, I mean the scanner mentioned she had damage from ‘alpha particles’ on her skin, but nothing else happened to her organs or anything.”
Harrison squinted at her for a moment, mouth slightly opened and prepared to give some alternative reasoning besides ‘immunity.’ Maybe her armor protected her from it? No… she didn’t even have full protection, radiation would have certainly gotten around her eyes or snout. What about her height? What if… No.
He didn’t just want to believe that somehow the Malkrin could just evade a force of nature, but he didn’t have any way of proving or disproving it on hand… Well, no humane way of testing it.
“I… guess?” the engineer grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Even then, they still need armor and gas masks. The worst part of the radiation isn’t even the ionizing part. It’s the trace elements that get into your lungs and decay there. So it doesn’t hurt to use some CBRN filters.”
“Fair… but it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Tracy beamed. “Like, what kind of evolutionary factors lead to radiation immunity? Why do only some of the Malkrin have it and others don’t?”
The only real cause of radiation he could think of would be a massive nuclear proliferation of some sort. Maybe the anomalies? He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the lingering thoughts away. “I wouldn’t know. You could always ask Sebas to bring up some papers about it or generate some theories when you get the chance.”
“I probably will at some point… Maybe while I’m working.” She poked him in the bicep. “You’re still helping me with the mule, right?”
He bobbed his head, loose beard hairs itching up his chin. “Sure am. Gimme a bit to shave and test the fifty-cal ammo, then I’ll be free to assist.”
“Kay Kay.” The tradeswoman smiled and returned to the sink, washing her face.
- - - - -
“What the hell did you do to your shield?” a stunned Harrison asked the paladin, his face scrunching up in concern… and confusion.
Sharky proudly held up her once grungy orange shield with a smile, looking at its new… paint job? “Artificer Tracy has s—n to imbue my bulwark with the crest of the Sky Goddess herself! Observe the b—utiful wings that cover it!”
The engineer had just got back from setting up and overseeing the automated mule’s first excursion to the mine and back. It was a grueling task, requiring him to reset its pathing several times before it was able to make a round trip without input. Now, the maroon-skinned Malkrin in front of him had apparently gotten her massive aegis laser imprinted with crossing wings in the two hours or so he’d been gone. The areas between the black feather decals were colored with white and blue paints, contrasting with the new dark gray background.
A small weight was placed on his shoulder, Tracy’s forearm suddenly appearing atop it despite her being nearly a foot shorter than him. She beamed, staring up at him with all-too-proud eyes. “The scout regiment symbol looks good on it, right? Cera helped me with the laser engraving.”
“I…” His brows raised in perplexity. “The scout regiment?”
She shrugged, watching the paladin observe her shield from all sorts of different angles underneath the workshop’s light fixtures. “From an anime I used to watch. Men and women who were sent out to battle against massive titans for the greater good of the last settlement of humanity. Somewhat fitting, and fuckin’ awesome on her big-ass shield! Matches the bird’s wings on her armor too.”
He loudly sighed. “You wasted materials on imprinting wings on Shar’s shield? Really?”
“Hey!” Her brows furrowed into faux-annoyance, a smug grin betraying it. “It’s not a waste if you were never gonna use the paint we had on hand. Plus, we’ve got energy to spare with all the wind turbines and power cells you’ve been printing out.”
“Those paints probably could have been used for important designations… or something…” he grumbled.
“Doesn’t matter.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, want me to put some scary teeth or something on that big ‘ol fist-sized muzzle break on your shotgun?”
“No?” he took an incredulous step away from her, letting her arm fall off his shoulder and to her side.
“It’s okay to admit you’re jealous of Shar’s awesome decals, bro,” Tracy teased, her smugness growing tenfold. “No need to get defensive.”
He groaned, figuring there wasn’t a point in staying to bicker with the tradeswoman, leaving the two vanity-focused females to their devices. He still had to figure out how to fabricate armor and gas masks for the Malkrin and himself.
“Hey! Where ya goin?” the technician called out, clearly disappointed that he hadn’t indulged in her taunts.
“Work.”
Short taps against the hard floor sounded out as she caught up to him. She leaned forward and curiously looked up at him as she walked, holding her hands behind the small of her back. “What kind? Can I help?”
“Just need to take some measurements and compare options. Right… Speaking of which.” He turned around and cupped his palms around his mouth. “Hey Shar! Get over here, I need your help!”
The addressed Malkrin perked up, snapping out of the small haze of admiring her new shield and happily making her way toward him. She stood at attention, her tail oscillating side to side. “What n—d do you have of me?”
“Just a quick task,” he briefed her, grabbing some measuring tape from his desk… that Tracy had decided was her new chair. He sighed and turned his attention back to the paladin. “Can I bother you to lean down for a few seconds while I take some measurements?”
“Of course. Pl—se, take your time.” She stepped forward and kneeled, her head brought down to his height. Her face wore that simple content look he was growing all too accustomed to by now—slightly vibrating frills, a little curl upward of her lips, and warmly glowing eyes.
He wasted no time getting to work, noting down the various distances around her jaws, snout, eyes, and ears, already piecing together how he could cobble together some gas mask designs to fit the dimensions. She sat there quietly, sometimes leaning into the accidental head scratches adorably. It contrasted heavily with the cold-sweat-inducing layers of razor-sharp teeth within her muzzle as he measured the angle her maw opened at, bringing an idle curiosity prodded his mind.
“Say, Shar, do your teeth grow back if they fall out?” he poked, absently observing the dozens of triangular bone protrusions in her mouth as he held the underside of her jaw.
“They do,” she confirmed, the way she was able to speak despite not moving her mouth still messing with his head. “Do y—rs not?”
“Nope. Only once.”
She attempted to tilt her head, but quickly returned it when it left the embrace of his palm. “Only once?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sometime a few years after birth. They’re replaced with the teeth I have now. Don’t get any new ones, so we gotta take care of ‘em.”
“Birth?” The Malkrin’s eyes widened. “You were not cr—ted as you are now?”
A shock of stress poured down his spine like a bucket of ice water, raising the hairs on his back. Fuck. How did he let that slip? He was supposed to have just appeared from the sky to her, right…? He was doing so well for so long in keeping that in. God, had he really gotten so comfortable with the paladin that he simply forgot what he was to her? His teeth clenched, a huff of air escaping his nostrils as he lightly shook his head. It was a bit too late to backtrack. It could be explained vaguely and brushed off, right?
“Yeah. I was born,” he affirmed flatly. His hand dropped away from Shar’s muzzle, her head falling an inch or two before she registered that she couldn’t keep leaning into his touch. “That’s it for measurements, so you’re free to leave.”
A frown carved through her small smile. “I… See… F—give me if I have brought up someth—g improper.”
His exhalation burned through his frustration at himself, his hand running through his hair to wash away the spike of anxiety. “You’re fine. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Th-Then I shall take my leave,” the massive alien stated softly.
He nodded, feeling a little regretful for pushing the kindhearted Malkrin away as he shuffled back to his desk. Tracy was still sitting atop it, giving him a disappointed reaction with low brows, forcing a pointed reaction from him. “What?”
The technician took a long inhale before shrugging. “Nothin’.”
“…Alright.”
The rolling chair squeaked lightly as he rested himself, his hands already going through the motions of opening the computer and the blueprint folders. There were plenty of tabs open of sensors and motor assemblies he hadn’t closed from the previous night. That wasn’t even mentioning the pile of notes he had on proper radio-protective methods, their corners bent from his frequent flipping through them.
“Soooo…” The short black-haired woman leaned forward from her perch atop the only clear part of his desk. “Can I help you with your ‘comparing options’ work, mister busyman?”
“Sure…” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, raising a brow. “How much do you know about armor?”
- - - - -
“No way. The back support is a must, so you can have extra plating over your shoulders and chest.” Tracy pointed out from her seat beside Harrison’s, all but forcing him to pause his Malkrin gas mask designing to give her argument his full attention.
He calmly took his hands off the mouse and keyboard. “A back support needs leg assistants, which means I’ll need to have at least a fifteen pound battery pack somewhere. Those kinds of exosuits are either all in or not at all. You can go full armor and engine, or lightweight protection and simple limb support.”
“So you’re just gonna go out there with normal armor? Just run-of-the-mill plates and gear? Those fucking things would go through that shit like butter! I know we can’t make synthetic muscle yet, but at least consider wearing something a bit more. Please. Even Sharky has heavy armor!”
Harrison pinched the bridge of his nose, his brows furrowed. “Do I look like a several-hundred kilogram monster of pure muscle to you? I’m more than willing to put on a few extra kilos for protection, but I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of putting on more armor rather than more equipment. I’d rather fifty pounds of magazines and ammo than fifty pounds of armor. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah yeah… You and your storage space…” she mumbled, swiping through a few more images on her data pad when a familiar Mars-pattern suit showed up, catching his eye.
“Hey, wait, pull that one up…”
She rotated the tablet for him to see a little better—despite already being shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “This one? What’s so special about it?”
He analyzed the few pieces of equipment on screen, noting the rusty-orange and tan color scheme, the old Martian-American flag attached to its breastplate, and the iconic quad-nod integrated helmet. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s… We have that in our blueprints?”
She raised a brow, clearly confused. “Whaddya mean?”
“That’s an Orbital Drop Ranger’s standard kit,” he stated slowly, a simmering sense of awe bubbling up—why the hell was it in their blueprints folder? “It was used during the Sino-Venusian incursion of southern Mars. It still has the Old Earth American flag embedded into it, so you know it’s pre twenty-two-hundred C.E.”
“Oh shit… Pre-St.Loual’s construction? This is ancient, then, huh? Would it be any good?” She leaned in closer to him, eying the tablet further.
“Does it have the assembly view of the armored pieces?”
“Mmhmm.” She tapped a few icons, showing an isometric, exploded view of all the parts and their individual components.
It was a piece of history alright. The armor was produced just about the time when Mars was connecting their orbital stations and ground colonies to work in tandem, allowing for specialized forces to be trained in space and launched anywhere across the planet from drop pods in mere minutes, leading to common nickname of ‘Minutemen’ given to the troopers. The suits were expertly designed to withstand the harsh environments of Mars and give the soldiers the ability to engage with enemy combatants for several days before extraction, though the adept units usually completed their objectives within twenty-four hours of their landing.
The helmet was very angular and blended in with the expected rocky terrain of Mars, each component taking on a sloped frontal design with rectangular prisms flowing behind—radio, breathing apparatus, and vision modules all sharing a sleek, yet bulky look in their own right. It reminded him of some in-atmosphere ships, with the overhanging visor above the quad-nod viewport being the only non-aerodynamic pieces.
The chest and legs were a bit different, following the design of late twenty-second-century operators with tan lightweight rigs, and ammunition pouches alongside armored plates that ran from the shoulders to wrists in segments. There was a rusty-orange undersuit beneath it all for the purpose of keeping air in, which required some sturdy polymer structures to ensure it didn’t rip. Then, of course, there were the classic shock-absorbing leg supports. They weren’t too far off what Tracy was asking about earlier, but these ones didn’t provide any assistance in moving with any motors—just straight-up structural reinforcements.
Hell, the blueprints on screen even had the mag-grip gloves used to scale domes, buildings, and satellites alike. There was no doubt that the Orbital Drop Rangers had some of the coolest equipment on Mars, especially considering that it was the last to keep the ‘operator’ look… It was such a shame the government decided the orb-like helmets and rounded bubble armors were more effective.
“Hey, you know what?” he asked the technician, a shot of excitement in his voice. “This might actually work out as a suitable armor replacement.”
She perked up, her brows raised. “Oh? Actually?”
He shrugged, trying to play off the smirk plastered on his face. “Wouldn’t need a horrible amount of changes to work for our purposes. Just need to remove the oxygen converter on the back and put a gas mask replacement in the front portion of the helmet. Plus, we could probably get rid of the airtight aspect and just keep the undersuit for scratch protection. And, most importantly, it’s radio-protective.”
“Meets all your criteria, then?” She tapped through some UI interfaces, sending the armor assembly to Harrison’s monitor, which he accepted quickly.
“Sure does.” He readily clicked through the different parts and systems to differentiate what needed to be kept. “We have the resources for it, and all it needs is a layer of cadmium plus a few replacements. Definitely doesn’t need the heads-up display since there’s nothing for it to interact with either, so that’ll save on print time and materials too. Shame I cut up the beard… the Orbital Drop Rangers were allowed to have some cool ones.”
The tradeswoman scooted in even closer, practically resting her chin on his shoulder and watching him sift through the working parts. “Yeah, rest in peace, beard. Still, your armor situation is solved. What about the Malkrin?”
“I’ll be working on their gas masks, then I was thinking I’d use another one of your modeled armors for their protection since they’ve helped Shar a hell of a lot. Do you have any recommendations?”
“Mmmmm…” She looked up in thought, a smile forming along her cheeks. “You know, until we can make them any real power armor, I was thinking just some regular phobos-pattern armor. Could color ‘em based on their skin too.”
“Phobos-pattern armor?” he hummed to himself, clicking through the folder to find it. It was just as bulky as Shar’s armor, except it appeared a good bit smoother, with more rounded edges compared to her horns-and-spike-lined gauntlets and pauldrons. The blue suit Tracy was proposing didn’t have the four-armed protection compared to the chaos version, but it certainly had the same thickness of its metal plates. “Looks like it’d work pretty well. Does it have any electric components or anything?”
“No…” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not so good with designing that stuff in the modeling program I did the WarHarberd stuff in. Could add in more sophisticated leg support or whatever if you gave me time, but for now it’s just maneuverable slabs of alloy.”
“I think that’s all we need for the time being.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want the others to be vulnerable to getting cut up by the little spider-crab grunts.”
“As long as it works for what we need, then.” Her elbow poked into his arm. “Here, how about I take care of that armor stuff while you finish up the gas masks? They need the extra arm slots too, yeah?”
“I’d actually appreciate that a lot.” He offered her a back-palm fist bump, to which she eagerly took, taking on a grin that he mirrored. “Thanks, Trace.”
“Don’t mention it. I wish work was always just doing my hobbies like this.”
\= = = = =
A grand pylon of metal construction taller than the mightiest female’s frills stood atop the beach. Blue-scaled surfaces extended near the foot of the tower, gathering the power of the sun itself. The lattice layering upon their sides hid the weaving wires and Goddess-blessed machinery. A staff the same as Shar’khee’s peeked from its top, the glass eye on its side given a wide view of the sandy environment it resided on, the defense it now provided becoming absolute. The aura it exuded as a creature of pure metal was awe-inspiring, its mere presence a showing of Harrison’s might and domain.
No abhorrent would dare step foot upon the meadow’s rolling hills, for such a mistake would ensure their immediate execution for encroaching upon his settlement—the ‘fifty-cal-e-bur’ bullet is not one to rend any beast with only simple injuries, especially with three hundred of them available at once.
The maroon-skinned paladin treaded up the hill, having completed her task of setting up the last turret. The craftsman, the juvenile, and the lumberjack had also assisted with its setup, pulling their weight in both mind and muscles to piece the components together. They completed a few others around the modules already, but this one was done without the star-sents’ oversight. The four Malkrin had practiced and learned enough to be entrusted with such.
The idea of Harrison having enough confidence in them sparked much conviction in the group, each of them more than eager to prove him right—none more so than Shar’khee herself, of course.
She finally returned to the workshop, the sun’s last rays pressing into the back of her head and frills as she crouched beneath the doorway, a small gnawing hunger for dinner digging within her stomach. The cacophony of machines soon reached her ears, the sounds of their efforts almost working in tandem with the strange melodic music playing from an unseen source above her.
Tracy was in her corner, working on new beings of metal as always. The bright lights above were turned off in favor of smaller, warmer emplacements atop her surrounding circle of desks. A hard worker, that star-sent was, though both of them were like that, the paladin supposed. Their kind was certainly intent on keeping their hands busy.
Shar’khee passed through the snakes of machines, finding her way to Harrison’s desk with an increasingly strong sway in her tail. He was working with a black object with light gray accents. It appeared to be partially flexible, yet firm in other places—notably, a large glass fixture on one side of it. There was very little she could make out about its purpose, but with the delicate touches he applied, it appeared to be quite important.
Her tongue clicked twice, garnering the attention of the Creator. He paused his work, swiveling his chair to face her and revealing a long blue-leaf jutting from his mouth. Her male appeared quite tired, but his voice did not show it.
“Oh, Shar, what’s up? Did y’all need any help with the last turret?”
She shook her head. “We do not n—d such, for it is completed. Would you care to join me for din—r? The rest of the settlem—t is enjoying their meals as of now. ”
He raised his brows before looking back at the myriad of notes, tools, and materials atop his cluttered desk. “Well, I’m kinda busy, but…” His jaw rolled around in contemplation. “Here. Let’s just test this thing real quick.”
Her head tilted. “What sh—l we be testing?”
“Your gas mask… er, well, a Malkrin gas mask. Kneel down real quick, I’ll run ya through putting it on.” He stepped off his chair and grabbed the equipment, uncomfortably rotating his shoulders. How long was he sitting on that chair? The male approached her and she did as requested. “I had the sewist help me with some of the design. Never considered you guys would ever wear hats.”
She nodded. “It is unh—lthy for one to have their frills touched by the sun for so long. Adequate shade is a must, and trees are not so p—valent along farm land.”
“Mmhmm. Shame this is just a mask… Alright, this might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’ll do the job.”
He stepped forward and slipped the black apparel onto her snout, pushing it over her face until it pressed against the sides of her head. A cool material rubbed against her skin, locking her into its embrace. It was encapsulating, surrounding her wholly.
Her breaths strengthened as she allowed the mask to cover her, a short shock of nervousness riding down her spine. She was only now registering how vulnerable she was, allowing him to possibly suffocate her… but she stayed put, keeping her four palms rested within her lap as he continued to apply the straps around her ears. She would allow it. She trusted him with her life. She would not falter.
The cords around the back of her head were tight, a few of which went along both sides of her frills, pushing up against their sides. He kept going, ensuring a ‘seal,’ but it was getting much too—
Pop.
A lightning bolt of pain rolled throughout the top of her head, sending her reeling. It stung for the briefest of moments, but its effects rebounded through her entire body, short sparks pulsing from its origin. She felt nothing but its agonizing hold for several more moments as the rest of her body caught up.
When her eyes opened once more, she found herself on the floor and staring at the ceiling. The star-sent rushed to her side, appearing to ask many questions while looking over her head, but all she heard was a piercing ring and the gruff vocalization he made whenever he shared his intent. No words reached her mind, only the now faint phantom pains from where her frills met her skull. It put everything in a haze, her eyes barely settling on her dearest’s, despite how nauseous she had become.
His deft hands quickly worked to loosen the straps, practically ripping them off until his voice suddenly reached her, like breaching the surface of the water. His voice was deep, attempting to be calculating, yet despite his calmly created stoic demeanor… she could feel his panic, his sheer worry almost flooding her senses through practiced medical queries. She slowly sat up on the floor, holding herself with two arms while the other pair quelled the kneeling male, assuring him that she was alright with their weight resting atop his shoulders.
“I am well, dearest Harrison. Do not fret for me. The straps were simply too tight.”
His anxious breaths barely slowed, narrowly allowing for his exclamation. “Too tight? Shar, you practically blacked out!”
“Too tight upon my frills, I mean. There was a pain there for a few moments, but it has passed,” she returned calmly, softly kneading his stiff shoulders with the joints of her digits.
He exhaled sharply, matching her gaze with regret in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Shar. I should’ve known. I was just trying to see how…” He paused, resting his palm atop her forearm. “Nevermind. I just… Are you alright? Should I get you to the med bay for a quick scan?”
“I do not believe that to be necessary, no.”
His guard finally fell. “If… If you say so. Guess I have to redo the straps then. Definitely gotta make sure they’re not pressing on your frills like that.”
She smiled, appreciating his dedication. “Would you like my assistance?”
“As long as you don’t have anything else to do.” He shrugged, his shoulders barely moving upward against her massaging hands.
“There is no greater wish of mine than to be by your side,” she stated warmly.
He was frozen, the soft ministrations of his digits along her arm slowly stopping in contrast to the red flush growing from his cheeks to his ears. The crack of a smirk on his face finally with a short, heart-warming chuckle brought the statue back to life after a few moments. “You know… that’s probably the sweetest thing I’ve heard for years.”
Her brows raised in subtle surprise at his response. “It… was not intended to be such… However… you are more than welcome. You must understand by now that I am speaking only the truth.”
The two of them sat there in relative silence amongst the desks and machines; her half laying on the ground with her hands on his shoulder, and him on his knees by her side, a singular hand running up and down her comparatively large forearm. She felt… weak, in a way. A vibrating sensation rummaged through her stomach, attempting to pull her muscles and nerves astray.
It was warm, just like his palm, each motion of his hand sending lightning through her skin. The upward curl of her lips into her cheeks was suddenly an insurmountable force, incapable of being put down by a thousand females. There was a tear within her to either look away or… close the distance, and she suddenly found looking anywhere but his curious green eyes to be a waste of her time.
Her talons wrapped further around his shoulders and his back, ever so slightly bringing him into her embrace—
“A-HEM.” A voice cut the moment down to its knees. “The fuck happened here?” Tracy’s swift interjection caused the paladin to flinch backwards, allowing her to see that Harrison’s other hand had been hovering right beneath her snout. The female star-sent wore a furrowed brow and crossed arms, looking down at them. “I heard a crash and came over. Are you two alright?”
Harrison cleared his throat, ever-so-subtly scooting away from the paladin. “Uh, yeah. Shar fell because, um, I tied the gas mask a lil’ too tight.”
The artificer wore an expression that told of her disbelief. “She fell because of the gas mask?”
“It was something with her frills.” The male returned with a shrug, picking himself off the floor before offering the paladin a hand up.
She took it, despite not requiring it, and wiped off some loose dust from her pants. The three of them quickly returned to work soon after, with both her and the black-haired star-sent joining Harrison in his quest to produce the gas mask. She was much less… What did the Creator call it? Bubbly? Yes, that was it. She was much less bubbly than usual, sometimes sending a cold yet emotionless glare toward Shar’khee… Nevertheless, the two females offered input on the design and applied help where they could, eventually creating the final piece of equipment.
Tracy commented on its looks, apparently drawing inspiration from the Leviathan itself, as she believed it to be like that of a ‘Sea Dragon’s.’ The maw-covering portion held two cylindrical canisters on the adjacent sides, the bottom portion being capable of distention, so that the user’s mouth may open somewhat. Its motion created what the female star-sent believed to be ‘the coolest teeth design on a mask’ she’d ever seen with how the separation formed alternating triangles.
The monster-like appearance was furthered by her own frills and horns that peeked out from behind the mask. That was not even mentioning the see-through visor that formed a malicious glare of sharp brows. The paladin looked through a hand-held mirror, finding it difficult to disagree with the look. She could imagine the horror on a fisherwoman’s face as such a terrifying creature approached from the depths.
And yet, despite its nightmarish visage, it was apparel designed to save lives, not take them—much unlike the unassuming metal rods that spewed fire with a mere flick of a lever. Curious indeed. The star-sents were seemingly never out of surprises. They even spoke of grand robots and firearms larger than Shar’khee herself as possible future projects.
Only time could tell what machinations of alloy would be birthed from their hands.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Under The Milky Way

Former Sprint customer here, ported everything over to T-Mobile post-merger, so my current plan is Magenta Max w/ a Samsung S22 Ultra that I got directly from T-Mobile.
I sometimes spend time in upstate NY (Eastern Catskills) at my family's home. The coverage map for the area shows a pretty solid 5G/LTE area, and right at the house I'm covered by '5G Extended Range', but real-workd service at the house is almost non-existent (lucky to even get one bar). I do have Wifi Calling enabled, but even that is somewhat flakey. I.e. - Yesterday, I was trying to send a MMS message w/ a pic. The first time, I got a failure message. I tried to re-send and the message went through, but without the pic.
About a year ago I was in that area for a week and my phone was basically useless. When I called TMobile (via a VOIP line), I was told there was a tower in the area that was having a problem. From what I can remember, it does seem like they've updated the coverage map for the area since last year, so I'm assuming they fixed the 'tower problem' and made other 'improvements' in the area.
Are there certain bands/channels/frequencies used in rural areas that my Samsung S22 is not capable of using? Would I see an improvement w/ a newer phone (I have no other reason to upgrade).
Also, should I expect TXT/MMS messages to work normally when on Wifi Calling?
My phone is generally up to date w/ software updates, and I will do the reboot / Airplane mode dance to try to get it to log onto the signal, but no dice.
Anything else I can do? If TMobile's coverage was anything like the coverage map, I'd probably be looking to add Home Internet, but that doesn't seem to be an option at this point.

https://preview.redd.it/i5unoao7jj5d1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=02b7ba33a6f401b71e6747e95598017c0f8650db
the game has ended for 2 months but i still want to rant about my hate on Sarafa because i feel too digusted and full of angst.
starting from arc 2,Sarafa keep ruining others' love life by giving bad results to them,and make them angry.Her master asked her to stop,but later there are some rioters dismantled the master's booth but Sarafa just laughed.(one of the Chinese fan said it must be Sarafa ordered the rioters to do this!)
Also Sarafa asked her servent to pretent as her in princess mode,for testing is Yudil being faithful or something.however Yudil being stupid (sorry,Yudil is my favorite but sometimes i have to rant about him because he is too absent-minded) and JUST thought the servent is the princess and took her to escape.then Sarafa found out and later on she just forced Yudil to die for love with her??(even though,Yudil still dont know what's really going on,Sarafa thought she can "together forever"with her love.)
now Arc 3,Yudil finally found out Sarafa is actually the princess,and he got heartbroken,because the person he loved lied to him for sooo long.BUT LATER ON HE STARTED WORING ABOUT SARAFA AND HE HAS TO FIND HER AND FORGIVE HER???(dude,this bitch lied to you and hurted your feelings.being deceived by the person you love is hard to heal and to forgive,if i were you,i would never do that and leave them alone!)
and they ended up in a FORCED happy ending.
i ranted about this at a chinese forum and some of the Nier fans alsoed agreed.one of them said Sarafa is fucking crazy and she doesnt deserve a happy ending!
i would prefer Yudil can find Sarafa at arc 3 but instead of forgive her,he can just never speak to her again and move on.also he could find the slave girl he met in childhood!
p.s.i have saw someone has made a pic of Yudil and Sarafa kissing by the 3D viewer in the game.it burned my eyes and made me freak out!

TL:dr at the bottom. Asking for a friend who isn’t on Reddit. She’s early 40s, lives near a populated city, and has been off and on the apps for about 3 years now. She’s pretty much only encountered guys who were only interested in hookups, and the standard, as soon as you start taking asking for nudes pics, sending nude pics, and asking her to come over to their place late at night. Not a single one asked her on a date.
After a round of bad matches recently, I asked if she’d like for me to help with her profile to see if changing some key words might get her better algorithm matches. She said yes. Turns out she was only using Bumble and Hinge, which I didn’t realize only lets you write like 2 sentences about yourself. My reaction to that is these are definitely geared more towards hook-ups because there’s not enough info to even decide if someone could be a match. I suggested she try something like Match, which may also have more people in her age range, and she agreed.
We created a new profile. I selected her photos and wrote an excerpt for her bio. The same day she created the new profile, she had a match by a guy who had a lot in common with her. She liked that on paper he checked most of her boxes, and though she wasn’t initially attracted to him based on his pictures, she decided to give him a chance to see if the attraction grew. They texted for a month before both being available to meet. He asked her to dinner. She arrived a few minutes early and got a table. He texted he was about 5mins late, then again and said “parking”. 20 minutes later, he still hadn’t come into the restaurant. She thinks he walked in, saw her, then left.
I’m just so baffled by this. I went through a lot of bad dates and such years ago when I was on the app, but nothing to the extent of what she’s dealt with. The assumption being that she is heavyset, so maybe that’s why guys are treating her like this. But trust me when I say, she is absolutely gorgeous. Like she has a couple of face photos that are like, wow bombshell! And when I picked her photos for match, I made sure to select full body, so it’s not like this guy could claim she misrepresented anything. And it’s not like this guy looked like a movie star himself.
This is extra devastating since it was supposed to be her first “date” in many years. Additional info: she is a professional with a stable career, a nice place to live, well educated, and the cleanest person I know.
So what do you guys think? Anything she could try? Any new dating trends that are in-person?
TL:dr friend who is gorgeous but overweight is getting treated horribly by guys on dating apps. Only wanting hook ups and most recently, stood up at a restaurant after the guy texted “parking” and did a drive by.

I'm gonna be real: I hated this. There were interesting concepts, and had they been utilized differently and written by literally anyone else, it could've been an actual good book.
writing. The writing in The Deer and the Dragon is miles better than in The Night and its Moon. It's still not good, but it's better if that tells you anything. The first-person POV mixed with modern-day speak works so much better for Piper's capabilities. It was much easier to get through, but it was still a huge slog for me. Honestly, what are the editors at Bloom even doing? There were still way too many typos and sentences with missing words. Piper still misuses the word dredges after using it in THREE(+?) BOOKS. HOW DO YOU STILL NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DREDGES AND DREGS? Dregs are the sediment of a liquid, so what's at the bottom of your coffee cup. Dredge is when they scoop up mud from the bottom of a river. TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. The word broach is also misused in this book TWELVE times, and it's PART OF THE CENTRAL PLOT OF THE BOOK. You mean to use BROOCH, PIPER. They're pronounced the same, but they mean two different things. Again, what the hell are the editors at Bloom doing?
characters Really, the only character I can talk about is Marlow because this book is just about Marlow and how amazing, special, perfect, and genius Marlow is. I fucking hate Marlow. If I ever met Marlow in real life, I would beat her up. Marlow is the most unlikable person ever. The story opens up with her on a date with a guy she's not interested in and can't remember his name; when she gets it wrong, and he corrects her, she continues to call him the wrong name all the way to the end of the book. She mentally berates him for mixing wasabi and soy sauce and cannot let it go. She’s also an AWFUL friend. It seems like her friend's only real purpose is to support her and tell her how amazing she is. She never bothers to make plans with them or inform them about anything that’s happening in her life. When she goes missing for a good chunk of the book, and they're blowing up her phone worried about her, she doesn't even bother to call them to calm them down. She doesn't think about them at all. She's far more concerned with herself and finding her imaginary boyfriend, who she only just decided was real. Her editor tells her she's at risk of losing her job if Marlow doesn't deliver her work or update her on what's happening, and Marlow just...doesn't care. She's like, 'No excuse I can give will be enough, so I'm just not going to say anything at all because I'm afraid of confrontation'. Grow the fuck up?? Her friend Nia only became her friend because she obsessively messaged her on social media until Marlow 'gave in', and now they're family? Somehow? Yet Marlow doesn't think about Nia once or bothers to comfort her when Nia has to call Marlow's abusive mom to ensure Marlow isn't dead. Kirby has allegedly been Marlow's friend since childhood, but does Kirby know anything about Caliban at all? Does Nia? Does Marlow tell her friends anything? If they know about the abuse her mom put her through, do they know how that abuse started? When Fauna shows up and freaks out over liking Kirby’s name so much, Marlow takes it upon herself to tell Fauna the story of Kirby’s name, scornfully informing Fauna that Kirby isn’t their real name the second Fauna expresses interest in it. (Like what, are you jealous that Fauna likes Kirby’s name, you fucking insecure freak??) The story revolves solely around something traumatic that happened to Marlow and how she and Kirby sat and played Super Smash Bros. Kirby liked their character so much that they adopted the name. Which…okay, choosing the name because you liked a video game character, okay, fine. But the whole story preceding this was so unnecessary and just made Marlow come off as suuuuch a whiny baby. “Oh, you want to know about my friend’s name? Well, first, let me preface it with this long woe-is-me story all about ME before I tell you how they chose their name because basically everything revolves around me.”
The way Marlow talks about rejection is so juvenile. You're in your thirties girls, get over it. Life is full of rejections. Someone telling you they didn't to play with you when you were eight years old isn't something you should form your whole life around. Like Marlow doesn't want kids because she doesn't want them to face rejection. Oh my god, Marlow. I also can't empathize with her trauma with her mom at all because I feel like I didn't really see much of it. I'm sure some of the things she says might hit with other people, but I wanted an actual flashback of a super intense fight or conversation instead of an overview of what happened.
plot. It took a while to get to the actual plot. About 100 pages in before things start really happening. I would’ve liked a little more exposition on Marlow’s relationship with Caliban at the beginning of the book. I get that some of the reveals needed to come more towards the end, but I kind of wish that maybe the fox had spoken to Marlow, too, which would’ve helped with why she’s so sure she’s insane. Foxes don’t talk! In all honesty, I wish this story had been restructured entirely. I think it would've been substantially better if we'd started out in Marlow's childhood. We can see how her day to day life was before Caliban ever appeared, how things were with her mom, who can also see through the veil. Maybe she notices some strange things about her mom that she just brushes off, which she later sees in herself and understands why her mom responded that way. Then something actually traumatic happens instead of some little kids not letting Marlow play with them, instigating her starting to see Caliban. I also would've liked to see flashbacks to Marlow's previous lives. While she's busy trying to convince herself Caliban isn't real, those flashbacks would add to her thinking she's losing her grip on reality. Maybe she'll be doing something innocent, like washing the dishes, and then suddenly, she sees herself standing in the middle of a raging battle, wearing long, elaborate robes. Do you see what I'm saying? This could've been cool! Instead, I had to read about Marlow jerking off about herself for 600 pages.
At some point, Caliban shows up to Marlow looking like a human. She's a teenager at this point, but they eventually start sleeping together, and like...idk something about that feels icky to me. It feels like grooming. Because he's clearly thousands of years old, he probably stays the same age while she's a teenager. What age did he wait for her to turn before their relationship turned sexual? Also, she doesn't even think he's real, and he does nothing to convince her that he is. Yeah....just no thanks. I'm good. Marlow tells Caliban when she's 21, she doesn’t want to see him anymore, so she literally physically cannot see him, but she can hear and feel him, and he still shows up, and like they keep having sex. So she’s just having sex with her imaginary demon friend for like five years before she’s finally like, all right, this is weird; maybe we should stop. And then she immediately regrets that when he stops showing up and then the rest of the book finally happens.
We also get flashbacks to when Marlow first starts escorting, and tbh, I hated this depiction of sex work. I keep hoping since Piper claims to be an advocate for sex work and is a former SWer that, we might get some actual depth to this plot. Maybe learn how Marlow was able to mold herself into the person she needed to be for each client, how she’s able to play people, etc. But no. She meets some random girl in a foreign country where she’s teaching English to children, and the girl is like, OMG, you’re too pretty to BE A TEACHER. COME HANG OUT ON MY YACHT. Now, I’m going to be so real. I feel like any woman with a speck of intelligence in their brain would have red flags going off right about now. If a random woman I met in a foreign country invited me to her yacht five minutes after meeting me, I’d immediately assume this woman was about to try and murder me or kidnap me or traffick me or something. But not Marlow. She is like fuck it, why not. She flies on over to wherever this yacht is(literally, she has to get on a plane and fly there) and makes some new besties who introduce her to the wonderfully glamorous non-dangerous life of escorting, where they hand her clients and set up the appointments for her and blah blah blah(also, wanna point out that Marlow even tries to say that she built this sex work empire herself. bitch no you didn't. it was all handed to you). I don’t feel like I really need to go further about why this is a really poor, dangerous rose-colored glasses-type depiction of sex work. It’s just not the reality.
Flash forward five years later, and Marlow is now a top-selling author writing about South African folklore as a white woman, trying to date other men, still having sex with her imaginary friend, calling her nonbinary friend a horse girl, the usual. Her escort pals are nowhere to be seen, and we have no clue what happened to them. We never hear from them again; they just vanish once Marlow gets what she wants from them, just like Nia and Kirby vanish once Marlow finds Fauna and Azrames. One day, Marlow’s at a book signing and sees the ONE bad client she had(because in all the years/months fucking strange men you meet in a foreign country, only one time does it go bad. okay, sure) He somehow finds where she lives, breaks into her home, and tries to murder her. An angel shows up and murders him instead, and then Caliban finally reveals his face and explains to Marlow that he has marked everyone who’s ever wronged her. (Wronged her in what way, tho. Like if someone accidentally shoulder-checked her on the street, are they now marked for death?) I thought it was kind of weird that she’s not like…focused on the fact that her hallucinations have extended to two people and another person dying. She’s still convinced Caliban is a figment of her imagination even after she sees this happen, and Caliban explains to her that he couldn’t save her because there’s some type of contract with her that forbids him from doing anything under her roof without her permission. But she still gets mad and banishes him, and now he can’t come back, and now she’s like, but wait, no, I didn’t mean it. Thus begins the search for Caliban.
Now, I could sit here and outline the rest of the book, but I won't because it's so boring, and nothing of substance really happens. So, to summarize. Marlow searches for Caliban fruitlessly for months and finally makes some progress when she decides to go to the house of the guy who tried to kill her and finds a parasitic entity that she continuously calls a Cheshire Cat. then Silas, the angel, shows up to save her again. Silas maybe wants to fuck Marlow, I can't tell. He waffles between abandoning Marlow to die and stalking her and her mom to force Marlow to bond with him for no seeming reason at all. Everyone and their mom wants Marlow to join their religion, and I don't know what the fuck makes her so special. Marlow is such a popular author that everyone recognizes her name, reveres her, fawns over her, and has multiple copies of her two books in their offices. She's so good that she inspired millions to switch religions. This book was so exhausting to read because it was just about how amazing Marlow is LMFAO. I'm pretty sure they even try to say she's the reincarnation of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world. Like....wow.
Marlow goes to Hell with Fauna to escape bonding with Silas, where they meet a literal stolen character design. this guy
(my original review has these images but I am an idiot and don't know how to post them so instead I'll share the links)
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1717860981i/35597445._SY540_.jpg
Don't believe me? here's the commissioned character art.
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1717860929i/35597423._SY540_.jpg
Anyway, his name is Azrames and he and Fauna are long time lovers and they go and bone while Marlow is in the next room and Marlow fucking masturbates to the sounds of them boning. So...I was forced to read about that, and I hated it. And then, at the end of the book, five chapters before it's over, we learn the bad guy who's been holding Caliban captive the entire time is a fertility goddess. Just out of nowhere. No mention of it previously. So, no one tells Marlow the actual plan, and instead, they send her into this fertility clinic the goddess is working out of and have her pretend to want to get pregnant. So the goddess drugs her without her consent and puts her in a room full of half-naked men, hot stereotypes from every ethnicity, while she's SUPER horny. One of the doctors tells her that 'mixed babies are all the rage right now'. The men all tell her how hot and amazing she is and how lucky they are for the chance to get to fuck her. Then after she chooses one of them, she grinds all over him while he just stands there, then they take him out and bring Caliban in and decide he'll fuck her instead. I just wanna point out that this, all of this, would be rape. Marlow didn't consent to being drugged, and if she didn't know who Caliban was, they basically just took the guy she "agreed" to have sex with away and brought in one she didn't agree to for no reason whatsoever. It doesn't matter that she's saying yes to it; she is drugged. She can't consent. Anyway, Caliban sticks his dick in Marlow and just leaves it there, unmoving, and then makes out with the fertility goddess before stabbing her in the heart and cutting off her head, even though five chapters earlier, they said it's super hard to kill a god. I'm just...wow.
Marlow gets taken back to Fauna's apartment by Silas while Caliban and Azrames are stuck fighting more Cheshire Cat demon children that I imagine look like the spider baby from Toy Story. Marlow is still high, so she's putting the moves on Fauna. She's kissing her throat, rubbing her thigh, trying to suck on her fingers. Let me tell you rn, if one of my friends showed up at my place high af doing this shit to me, I'd be livid. Because I guarantee you, Marlow will not apologize for doing any of this to Fauna.
Fauna tells Marlow that they can be sunflowers. The book ends.
I will read the next one because I like to suffer, but...I hated this. I give it 2 stars because the writing is better than TNAIM, but it was not a hit for me at all.

TL:dr at the bottom. Asking for a friend who isn’t on Reddit. She’s early 40s, lives near a populated city, and has been off and on the apps for about 3 years now. She’s pretty much only encountered guys who were only interested in hookups, and the standard, as soon as you start taking asking for nudes pics, sending nude pics, and asking her to come over to their place late at night. Not a single one asked her on a date.
After a round of bad matches recently, I asked if she’d like for me to help with her profile to see if changing some key words might get her better algorithm matches. She said yes. Turns out she was only using Bumble and Hinge, which I didn’t realize only lets you write like 2 sentences about yourself. My reaction to that is these are definitely geared more towards hook-ups because there’s not enough info to even decide if someone could be a match. I suggested she try something like Match, which may also have more people in her age range, and she agreed.
We created a new profile. I selected her photos and wrote an excerpt for her bio. The same day she created the new profile, she had a match by a guy who had a lot in common with her. She liked that on paper he checked most of her boxes, and though she wasn’t initially attracted to him based on his pictures, she decided to give him a chance to see if the attraction grew. They texted for a month before both being available to meet. He asked her to dinner. She arrived a few minutes early and got a table. He texted he was about 5mins late, then again and said “parking”. 20 minutes later, he still hadn’t come into the restaurant. She thinks he walked in, saw her, then left.
I’m just so baffled by this. I went through a lot of bad dates and such years ago when I was on the app, but nothing to the extent of what she’s dealt with. The assumption being that she is heavyset, so maybe that’s why guys are treating her like this. But trust me when I say, she is absolutely gorgeous. Like she has a couple of face photos that are like, wow bombshell! And when I picked her photos for match, I made sure to select full body, so it’s not like this guy could claim she misrepresented anything. And it’s not like this guy looked like a movie star himself.
This is extra devastating since it was supposed to be her first “date” in many years. Additional info: she is a professional with a stable career, a nice place to live, well educated, and the cleanest person I know.
So what do you guys think? Anything she could try? Any new dating trends that are in-person?
TL:dr friend who is gorgeous but overweight is getting treated horribly by guys on dating apps. Only wanting hook ups and most recently, stood up at a restaurant after the guy texted “parking” and did a drive by.