Sad stories that make you cry

i went into rotr basically 99% blind, all i had seen was that there was character creation and i wanted to make Felix from FE3H so i went and bought the game (and also a tv bc i didn’t have one before that… but i did have a ps5 already for other insane reasons) it’s my first team ninja game so i wasn’t at all familiar with the gameplay
and gosh i didn’t expect half of the features the game had, but i LOVE them. being able to design your character with any clothes that dont effect the stats is perhaps one of my favorite features in a game, i love dressing my characters. i was ecstatic to find out about the cats, i had to pause and write to all my friends that there’s a cat petting feature!!! it took like 30 hours of gameplay before i realized what the favor meter was for and then i was shocked that romance was an option (and bless them for not gender locking romance)
the story is great, though admittedly a little hard to follow and probably threw in a few too many unnecessary characters, but by the end of it i was pretty attached to most of them. i got so sad once it was over that i started a second playthrough and now i’m working my way through the pro-shogunate storyline. tbh for anyone who liked the game but hasn’t started a second run, i’d recommend it!! there’s so many characters who appear or are mentioned in the beginning that i didn’t even realize because you don’t officially meet them until later. i’m also just way better at the game now and not struggling with fights that i did in my first run lmao
i think i just wanted to gush bc this game has been my obsession for the past month and has gotten me through some rough patches with chronic illness, but i don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. i’d love to hear others thoughts or just chat about the game in general!! things you liked or disliked about it :)

Basically asking here for whether there's hope (or inspiring stories out there) of other eco nerds who found themselves in an office job that managed to transition back to field for at least part of the time?
TLDR; don't have much field experience in surveys but in field restoration. Physical limitations mean I can no longer do habitat restoration full-time. Have a project coordinator desk job in habitat restoration that I love except for the need to be stuck to a screen nearly all day with lots of administrative bs+ not really any outside time. Looking for stories, advice, thoughts.
Background: I've got an unconventional academic background, in that my undergrad was crim and psych with some bio thrown in, and I have an environmental studies masters that really helped me get footing in the field. I've never worked outdoors full-time doing survey work; I did work in landscape maintenance mostly municipally for parks for ~7 years prior to jumping in and doing analysis and species at risk policy work in-office. I found my dream job of doing habitat restoration in the field and then... injured my back and hip. Probably wouldn't have left the job otherwise but I have bills to pay, so I hopped to government species at risk policy and then, in the last year, made the jump over to fully remote project coordination with a well-respected Canadian eNGO doing habitat restoration in partnership with municipalities, conservation authorities (Ontario), orgs and others.
I am so grateful for my job right now as it's way better than the government hop; great team, remote environment, I fully believe in our work and it has actual results to show for it. I get to talk with people about pollinator planting (nerding out about this is great) and get to help make tangible impacts in my province. It's also a fairly long contract as far as this field goes (until Q3 2026) so I have that stability there.
That being said, I miss the field so much some days I actually cry lol. I'm not kidding myself thinking I'll be able to go back to full-time restoration and all the (almost literally) back-breaking work, but I really want something more than working with partners who get to do the fun projects. For context, I'm late 20s soon to be 30 (next year) which will bump me out of any positions that use the Canada Summer Jobs funding, which here is... a lot. And these would be the kinds of positions that might be more likely to take me on, somebody who has restoration and native plant info but not necessarily professional survey work in-field. In my current position most of the time when I'm out of office it's to go to outreach events, give talks, or (hopefully soon) visit partner sites to see what's there, provide feedback on methods, and get some pics for outreach. Again that's fun, but the administrative duties of my project coordinator role cause me so much anxiety some days, especially when I have to just be tied to my computer for long stretches of time. As somebody who worked for many years full-time outside, I hate it. So much. Which I'm sure many of you can relate to.
I'm not looking to jump ship from my current position any time soon, so I've been connecting with local groups about doing pollinator restoration and also doing some survey work with a local land trust to bump up field skills as a volunteer. That being said, I might go bonkers if my position after this one is also so largely computer-based (full time). I feel that my lack of field experience has hampered me with job applications in the past, but now I also have a physical limitation that wouldn't allow me to do habitat restoration as field crew, which is one way to get in with an org and move up. I've toyed with the idea of starting a native plant nursery, but that would require having land (we are renters here) and also upskilling a bit in my seed starting and rearing. I've thought about providing design services for native planting, but don't feel like I have enough knowledge or experience to do so. I've thought about parks since I've done interpretive hikes before and do community outreach, but don't see a whole lot around here (although I might look for seasonal positions once my current contract is up). I'm currently rooted where I'm located (in central Ontario) but it's a town that has our provincial government hubs for natural resource and environmental ministries, so there should be prospects, in theory.
Rambling over; any feel-good stories that got you away from the desk, at least for a time?

I've posted before, it's been a couple years but I still haven't found you. It's so weird. I've been sat here for almost an hour typing and retyping this- I don't know what. I didn't like it, it felt like writing some kind of personal resume, and starting over and over again not knowing what to say or how to say it. But now, when I'm writing to you, when I'm imagining that you'll read it, it just comes so much more easily. It's sad, in a way. I definitely felt it in my chest there, anyways. That realization that I have so many things to say, but I only want to say them to you.
I want you to know that I still think about you. You never really take a physical shape, but sometimes, a lot of times, as I fall asleep I linger in waking for a little longer just to feel you pressed against me, I feel your heart of kindness, I see bright eyes looking up at me. It seems pretty strange to me to imagine eyes like that, to remember the look, but never the color. I guess that's because I haven't met you, but I know that emotion, I can feel it, it's my own same as it's yours. I find a lot of strength in the those moments, in knowing that you're out there, somewhere, someone kind and beautiful who has her heart set on magic.
I want you to know that I still believe in that magic. I'll never stop believing in it. But I don't think I'll be posting anymore. I know you're out there. And I hope in a way that makes my heart ache that you find me somehow.
When I was a boy I believed that love was magic and it was all I wanted in life. Now the days are getting longer, and warmer, and soon the world will be overflowing with its own magic. I'll be out there and I hope you will too. It's all so beautiful, and I don't regret a moment of it spent alone. But it would be so nice if we found each other to enjoy it together.

Hi!
I wrote this query in kind of a rush as I’m planning to submit it to Berkley’s open call which ends in … one day.
But the small press I’m publishing another book with has also expressed interest—and honestly, I am wondering whether certain things about this book would make it un-marketable for a Big 5 publisher (or any publisher at all), such as the age gap between the MC and the love interest (18 and 32) and the fact that it doesn’t seem to fit squarely into YA or Adult territory (the protagonist is 18 but there are very adult themes throughout, both main characters are morally gray, etc).
Or the fact that it’s using a theme that I’ve recently learned is quite cliché (assassin falling in love with her target).
Well anyway, please tell me what you think. Thanks!
_____
Dear Berkley,
Myn is part of the Rimena clan, a once-proud people who were banished from the kingdom nearly twenty years before. When Myn is eighteen years old, her great-aunt reveals a secret she’s been keeping from her her entire life: Myn was born with the “light,” the ability to do magic. Now that she is an adult, she can finally fulfill the mission her great-aunt has been planning for her for years: to train with, and eventually assassinate, the reclusive, terribly scarred magician named Crow. As a young teenager, Crow was responsible for killing most of her clan and driving the rest out, and Myn sees this mission as a chance to gain glory in the eyes of her people, as well as to avenge her parents.
When Myn arrives at Crow’s tower, she initially finds him to be a stern and unpleasant teacher. But as the weeks pass and he slowly opens up to her, telling her stories from his past, she starts to see him as more human. The late King used Crow as a tool—much as how Myn’s great-aunt wants to use her. Myn begins to doubt that she can go through with her mission to kill him.
One night, soldiers sent by a mysterious lord attack the tower and attempt to assassinate Crow. At this point, Crow and Myn find themselves caught up in a plot involving the throne. As they attempt to unravel these threads, they also begin to develop feelings for each other, and Myn realizes that by throwing away her mission, she risks betraying her entire family.
CRUEL MAGIC is complete at 90,000 words and can be described as UPROOTED meets TO KILL A KINGDOM.
Sincerely,
me
_____________
First 300 -
Most of Myn’s family had died long ago. Her mother and father were fragments lost in the past, smoke escaping through holes in her memory. She had only her aunts, her great-aunts, her cousins, and a few dozen other stragglers from the once-proud Rimena who now lay scattered like a handful of dirt over the rocky hills of Lorlas. Ever since they had been banished from the kingdom nearly twenty years ago, their history had grown mouthless. No legends, no stories. At least not any stories that they could be proud of. Their nomadic hunter’s lifestyle was no longer a revered tradition, no longer something to be honored, but rather the mark of a people who were always a few steps away from starvation.
Growing up, Myn knew little of what lay beyond the river that separated Lorlas—the area known to the kingdom as the Wild Lands—from the kingdom of Xianthe. All she knew was that when the wind blew from the south, the air brought with it a charred, acrid scent, like the remnants of a cook-fire, mixed with something sharp and silvery. A clear, ringing scent. The way the stars might smell, if they were close enough.
One day, when Myn was little, and the wind was blowing from the south: “That’s Crow’s scent,” her aunt Lila said, wrinkling her nose. But Lila did not turn from the wind. She let it gust through her hair, lifting the greasy strands like the touch of a lover, and when she narrowed her eyes, Myn thought she saw tears in them.
Myn was so young then that she came to believe there was an enormous bird living beyond the river. For months she went to sleep thinking of it and woke still half-dreaming, with the rustle of wings at the back of her mind.

I’m an international student in my second year in Australia, recently had some time to think about my future but I got really confused.
I really don't know what my future holds, I have a lot of choices but I'm confused as to which path I want to take. I think the reason is that I'm not sure of the consequences of all the choices I've made, I can either work in Australia after graduation or go back to work in my country, or I can go on to do postgraduate studies, but I don't know where to apply to, whether to continue with my current program or not, and continuing with my studies means that I'll be able to continue with a Ph. D., but again, I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it, or maybe I'll start my own business, but how would that work out?
The recent news has made me feel disappointed in the world, why is there a war, I feel very sad and sorrowful to see people in war, but what can I do about it?
I've been thinking about philosophy since I was in junior high and high school, I like to observe other people and the world, and I also like to ask questions and reflect on myself.
My life is also very boring and I don't have much social life, should I make a change? How can I change? My spoken English is terrible and that hinders me a lot. I also don't have any particularly strong hobbies except for badminton and music , I don't really like my major that much, I'm skeptical about relationships, I'm bisexual but have never been in any relationship before because I'm afraid that it would take up too much of me and potentially hurt me, and I've always felt that my friends and family are the most important thing. But I also wonder if I can actually be faithful in a relationship even though it's the most basic. I probably need a sincere friendship more than a relationship.
I'm always changing, I was thinking today should I give myself a chance to go to graduate school in Europe, and if I stick it out I'll go on to a PhD, if not I can give up and go work at the UN? I love children I also want peace and equality in the world and I want to be able to contribute to that.
Can you guys give me some advice, I'd love to hear from someone with a lot of experience. I met two really good friends on reddit and we still chat every day, if you don't have any advice for me then it's ok to chat and make friends, I love hearing other people's stories because like I said my life is so boring!

We matched on Bumble in October of 2023; it was a great time in my life. Things were finally looking up, we matched, and we chatted, but it was not a good time in your life. You were taken by work, no time for dating and definitely no time for me. SO, the conversation fizzled, and we stopped chatting, having never met.
Life got in the way, and I moved 6 hours away, I was starting over, talking to other guys and mercury was indeed in the microwave. Then I woke up to your text, “hey” you said I replied with “a blast from the past”. You told me you’ve been thinking of me, I even appeared in your dream. Over and over, I said “this is a bad idea, and this won’t work” you convinced me otherwise. I was the fool who fell for your game. Every time I said distance was hard and required effort, you said you’d put in the effort. You called me, messaged me every morning, wished me goodnight. I was quickly falling, not in love, but definitely in like. You were interested in me; you admired my work ethic and you wanted to get to know me. You had even changed jobs so you would have more time.
Then, you took a 12 hour round trip train to come see me, name one girl that wouldn’t be in awe of that, bet you can’t. You came to visit me, spent the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three days of pure bliss filled with fun, laughter, and sexy time. I don’t regret any of it, it was an amazing weekend even though that was the beginning and the end. We went out, we had good food, we got to know each other better. You shared childhood stories, and I did the same, you bought me a rose and a hat (that I will keep because it’s actually great) needless to say it was super-duper romantic.
I dropped you off at the station, you kissed me and said, “see you soon”. AGAIN, name one girl! We continued to chat for a week, still in the like bubble, then it started; the decline, the reduction, the stalling, the ignoring, the one-word answers. We had set a couple of times to chat on the phone and you never called. You told me you’d visit me again, you never showed. Communication had tumbled down the hill and pushing it back up required hard labor.
However, I’m maturing so instead of playing your game, I set my expectations. I told you what I needed. Communication, communication, communication! We finally spoke on the phone, and I laid it out. I explained that going days without even a “what sup” was out of character and that it was not what we had been doing. You explained you’ve been “busy” which is also A-OKAY I’m not a monster nor clingy, I understand both have lives, what I needed was “Hey, I’m swamped the next couple of days, I’ll try to message you when I get a moment” Honestly, below the bare minimum if you ask me!
You actually agreed! You apologized, you explained why you were engaging in this behavior, and you said “I will do better” I could see the light at the end of that tunnel, it was fixed, our problems were resolved, and we were back baby!
WRONG, our problems were resolved for a mere 24 hours and then, poof, back to the same behavior. I should’ve known there was no changing you. But it’s not that I wanted to change you, I just wanted you to put in the same effort I was, but that was never the plan. A week after that phone call, you had officially ghosted me, my last text was seen but never answered. A phantom of my past.
Looking back at it now I can’t help but think that this was your plan all along, get in my pants, get your fill and disappear back into your life. We had this discussion before, we talked about how I wanted more than a hookup, I wanted a foundation, a relationship with someone who was into me as much as I was into him. But all you ever wanted was a couple nights of fun and then erase me from your memories.
The truth is, I’m not sad; I’m disappointed in myself for falling for your act. I’m angry at you for using me. I’m confused because I don’t understand how anyone could do that. The length you took for some sexy time baffles me. The energy you put just so you can mess with me is unmatched, I’ll rate your performance an A+.
I’m also hurt, and I feel used. I told you what I wanted, and you ignored it and did the one thing I asked you not to do. Perhaps it was a game, see how easy it would be for you to get me. You played your role well, convinced me it would be different and probably laughed on your train ride home.
You only gained from our time together, as for me, I’ve just built my walls up higher, making it harder for the next person to break me. You left me thinking, maybe I’m not wanted, maybe the problem is me, maybe there will be no love in this lifetime because every time I get closer to thinking “oh he could be the one” a man like you proves me wrong.
I want to wish you misery but that would mean I continue to think of you and frankly I don’t want you to ever cross my mind again. It’s damn hard though because every time I’m feeling alone, I think of how you ripped a piece of my sanity away. Don’t get me wrong I’m not heartbroken over a man I had only met once and talked to for less than 2 months. I’m just defeated, and hoping, wishing, praying that someone will come along to make me realize that you were indeed… just… shit.

I feel very shy and ashamed to say this, but... I need advice.
I am addicted to sex. Everytime I start being active again with someone, I just want it. Constantly. All. The. Time. And after each break up I always think "fuck... Now I have to go through the detox phase again", and it always makes me suffer just as much as when I quit smoking.
So when I'm with someone, I am happy to have it just as many times as the guy wants/can (bare minimum once/twice a week though) but it's still an actual problem...
I get no pleasure in self gratification because 90% of my pleasure comes from exploring the other's body, discovering what they like, flirting, teasing, feeling their irresistible desire for me... Besides, usually after I masturbate I would start crying because I feel sad for myself, sad to have to do that because nobody is there. So I avoid it as much as I can.
In addition, I can't have sex with random strangers. I need to have a connection and true feelings. With sex friends I would also start crying because I know the person doesn't really love me or care for me. I basically just want a relationship with a long lasting sex life for both of us.
And I guess I just wish it would happen one day... I just lost the guy I thought it would happen with, hence I let this out right now because it's hitting me again: "when is the next time going to be?" I feel so weak and pathetic writing this... But every day is basically a torture for me.
I don't know what to do because I am aware of the fact that love doesn't happen to everyone and it might never happen to me. But living my whole life without sex would be... Horrible and sad. I also kinda think it's such a waste. I feel stuck and I don't know what to do to get out of this loop...

Have you ever experienced something that shook you to your very core? Something that makes you remember every single little detail of your surroundings from that moment in time? Even years after? I can remember so vividly the moment I realized something was wrong with me. I was in my junior year of high school sitting in class, just like any other day. I remember the smell of erasers and cheap cologne that permeated off my classmate who sat next to me. I remember the scratchy tag on my t-shirt and how I was resisting taking it off in the middle of class just to cut it off. I remember what my teacher, Mrs. Brown, was talking about; 'the fall of Constantinople'. My mouth felt dry and I kept looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until I had lunch so I could get a soda. The sound of a pen clicking behind me was synchronized with the song that was stuck in my head.
All those things were going through my brain at once. My ADHD mind went a million miles per minute when it all came down to a cashing holt when I felt it at 11:23
I felt what I can only describe as a hand grabbing at the inner lining of my stomach. It didn't necessarily hurt, not at this point. That's not why I got so scared. You see, not only do I have ADHD. I also have OCD that manifests itself in the fear of anything growing or moving inside me. Even if I think about the concept of blood moving in my body or a heart that is beating in my chest, I have to think of something else. I've had full-blown panic attacks because of it. The closest term for this is 'Tokophobia'. That's technically the fear of pregnancy. I'm a guy, so it's not completely accurate but it's really the closest term. I mean, I also do have a huge fear of pregnancy. Not necessarily of me being pregnant, but even though I knew I could never get pregnant, the thought of it still made me feel sick
I bet you can imagine the terror that overcame me as I felt something moving in me. I made an audible groan and grabbed my stomach. My whole class turned to look at me. even my teacher stopped talking to ask if I was okay. I stood up and started to run to the nurses' office without even acknowledging my teacher. My first thought wasn't thinking that something was actually in my body. Even stomach aches and the feeling of gurgling in my stomach made me feel this way before. I didn't have anything on hand to help with a stomach ache, unfortunately. However, the nurse always did.
I sprinted across the school hoping and praying that my stomach wouldn't make that awful feeling again before I got there.
I turned the corner into the nurses' office with my tennis shoes squeaking in the process. I saw the school nurse, Mrs. Kennedy sitting on the couch in her office reading a magazine. She looked up at me with a sweet smile that quickly turned into worry.
"Sam, what is it? How can I help?" She said as she stood up and hurried over to me. Putting her hand over mine which was grabbing my stomach tightly.
"It's…It's my stomach. Something is wrong with it." I mumbled with a red face.
She shuffled her way over to her large medicine cabinet and she motioned for me to sit down.
She asked me questions about my stomach. Asking if it was pain, grumbling, cramps, nausea, etc. As she was asking me what my symptoms were and digging through bottles, The feeling happened again. However, this time was different. It felt like fingers grassing against the inside of my body. I screamed and wrapped my arms around my torso. Mrs. Kenneddy ran over to me to comfort me.
"This seems a lot worse than normal, maybe we should call your parents." She said as she put her hand on my back.
It felt like some days I saw Mrs. Kennedy more than my teachers. Any small ailment would distract me so badly from class that I had to go see her. Sometimes multiple times a day. She knew at this point when something was really wrong.
Within about 30 minutes both my parents were there with us. That may seem fast, but I'm an only child and my parents are very aware of my tendencies. They know I can spiral and like to be around if it happens.
They kept asking me where the pain was. I think they assumed by the way I wasn't responding to their questions the pain must've been really bad. The reality was that I just didn't know how to tell them what was going on.
I got so frustrated after they asked me over and over again that I just yelled at them.
"Something is inside me! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" I lifted my shirt and was ripping at my stomach. Leaving red nail scratches and cuts. My mom and dad ran to either side of me to grab my arms. Mrs. Kennedy had seen me go pretty crazy, but this was the worst I've ever gotten in front of her. My parents however had seen a similar situation before. Not exactly like this, but they didn't skip a beat on trying to help me.
"Sam. Breath, sweety. Just remember everything is in you for a reason. It's keeping you alive. Nothing is going to hurt you." My mom said softly to me. Trying to calm me down with the words my therapist gave her. "Ice cubes, get him ice cubes!" She said to Mrs. Kennedy as I started to hyperventilate.
Mrs. Kennedy grabbed a ziplock bag and started to fill it with ice cubes. My mom went over to her and grabbed an ice cube right out of the bag, opened up my hand, and put the ice cube in it. This worked in the past to distract me, I knew that's what she was doing, and trust me. I wanted it to work too, but this was different. I kept trying to tell myself that it was just a different feeling I hadn't felt before. That it wasn't possible something was physically inside my body. But I couldn't help it.
Everyone in the room could see that this was getting intense. I think they assumed it was just a mental breakdown and that nothing was physically wrong with my body but I didn't care. I just wanted help.
My parents got me into the car with my mom even sitting in the backseat with me. She kept trying to distract me with conversation but my mind was only on that awful feeling in my stomach.
We pulled up to the ER and my mom guided me in while holding both my wrists. It felt like she was walking me on a leash but I didn't fight it. I knew she was just trying to stop me from scratching my stomach.
We walked in and I spoke to the receptionist. All I said was that I had terrible pain in my stomach. I didn't want to sound too crazy. I just needed a doctor to look at whatever was going on.
After giving the receptionist my name and insurance information we went to sit down. I was sitting in between my parents and I could see my mom lean back to try and mouth something to my dad without me seeing. I didn't think much of it. I was way more worried about other things.
My dad then went up to the receptionist. He pointed over to me and she looked a little concerned. I saw her pick up the clipboard that had my information on it and she started writing something else on it. I asked my dad what he did and he just said to not worry and that he wanted to let her know it was urgent.
No more than 10 minutes went by and I felt a terrible moving sensation. I cringed and grabbed my stomach. Immediately followed by not just the feeling of a hand grabbing my insides but also scratching and pinching. I yelled out in pain as the other people in the waiting room looked at me mortified.
A doctor and a couple of nurses came running over to me and helped me up. But I couldn't stand up. I was in too much pain. They put me in a wheelchair and started to head for a room. However, they didn't take me through the normal big ER doors that went to the standard examination rooms, they took me and my parents through a smaller door to the side that had a padlock on it.
We walked through a white hallway that was very quiet. The doctor and nurses showed us to my room and helped me into my bed as I was wiggling and wincing. I had one parent on either side of me. Patiently waited to stop my arms from scratching.
The doctor was trying to ask further questions but he could tell it wasn't going anywhere. I knew that my dad probably told that receptionist about my OCD tendencies and that I needed to go to the psych ward. Not just to the stranded side of the ER.
I couldn't take it anymore and blurted out that something was inside my stomach and it was trying to get out.
The doctor just looked at my parents for a reaction and they gave him a sad nod. It was like they warned him that this could happen. The doctor didn't just think I was crazy, my parents did too. The doctor took a deep breath and came up to me. I knew I was about to hear some kind of dumb speech about how this was just my OCD and everything was going to be okay.
As he came closer to me, I pulled up my shirt and he gasped. Not only was my stomach scratched up like crazy, but we saw movement. It looked like when a pregnant woman can see her baby kicking. But this was so much stronger. It was stretching my skin.
My parents stood up and gasped while the doctor looked frantic and unprepared.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" The doctor said as he backed out of the room. "Hang on! We are getting this taken care of, just hang tight."
Just seconds later a nurse came in to give me some painkillers. I started to feel the pain slip away, but something so much worse started to creep in. I heard a voice. Not my own. Not some creepy-sounding creature, but the voice of a normal-sounding man that I'd never heard before. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was what he was saying to me.
"Get me out. Get me out. Get me out!"
It started in a normal tone, but slowly became more urgent and rushed. Then demanding.
The voice would coincide with the moment inside me.
It was getting so loud that I was having a hard time hearing the people around me. The doctor came in just a few minutes after I last saw him. He was red and sweaty. Like he'd just run a marathon. He told me they needed to do just a few tests on what was inside me before taking action.
I was trying so hard to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth but all I could hear was the voice. The voice stopped for just a second and changed what he was saying. Now he started repeating,
"Cut me out, cut me out, cut me out, now!" I now knew this thing didn't just want out but it wanted out now. I begged the doctor to just get it out now but he wouldn't listen. The voice spoke up again.
"This is taking too long. Don't be afraid. Get me out yourself."
I think it could feel me resisting. Without realizing it, I was looking around the room for something. It was like I didn't even have control over my head or eyes anymore. I knew the voice was looking for a knife but I was trying to ignore the feeling. I knew there weren't any knives around. I was in a very safe place.
Just as I had the feeling I was safe, it was immediately taken away. The thought passed through my head that my dad probably had a pocket knife on him. My heart sank. I knew this thing could hear my thoughts. I knew what it would try to do.
The next thing I knew, I was on my feet, leaping for my dad. My body hit his. luckily, he's in pretty good shape for his age and had no problems putting me in my place.
He got on top of me and pinned me to the ground. All while I could barely hear my mom in the background. Yelling at my dad to be careful. My dad knew something was going on and that I just needed to be on the ground until I calmed down.
My body tried to flail but it wasn't successful. The whole time the voice in my head, now yelling and screaming. Not saying any distinguishable words, but just having what felt like a tantrum. What made my dad the most uncomfortable was the kicking feeling coming from my stomach.
After a couple of minutes, the voice calmed down and I felt in charge of my body again. My dad slowly got up and attempted to help me up. At this point with an audience of hospital staff that looked like they were getting ready to take me somewhere for more tests.
Just as I stood up straight, I felt the voice take over and I lost all sense of my own body. I felt like a shell of myself. My dad gave me a soft yet worried smile, and in that instance, I grabbed him and reached into his pocket. My heart sank as I felt his pocket knife. The room started to panic and about 5 people tried to grab it from me. The last thing I remember is plunging the knife into my stomach. I felt a blinding pain and everything went black.
Several hours later I started to wake up. Everything was extremely blurry and fuzzy. I could hear a very faint voice telling me to relax. As the minutes passed by, things started to become a little bit clearer. I looked around and saw I was in a large room with a few other patients. A nurse was going up to all the beds and checking in on them. I tried to sit up a bit to get more comfortable and noticed an incredible sourness in my stomach. I moved my hospital gown out of the way and saw a huge scare. About 6" across. Most of the scare looked very surgical. Like what I'd imagine a c-section surgery would look like. Except where I remembered the knife going in. It looked like a bunch of extra stitches had to be added where it went in. It also looked pretty bruised. I can imagine that a dull 10-year-old knife that was harshly shoved into a body really wouldn't cleanly cut through and leave some damage.
The feeling of shock from looking at my stomach was quickly gone when I realized that meant whatever was in me was now gone. I didn't hear the voice, I didn't feel a hand in my gut anymore, I didn't see that vile kicking anymore. I felt like I could breathe.
I asked the nurse what they found and she looked flush.
"Uh, that's something that you, uh. Your doctor will talk with you once you eat something and can speak clearly." She said as she scurried off looking upset.
Shortly after that, I was wheeled into a recovery room and my parents came to see me.
As they walked in they had a very similar look on their faces as the nurse did. They looked pale and didn't want to look me in the eye. I kept asking them questions about what was going on but they said the doctor needed to discuss it with me and he wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling high from the anesthesia while we had a conversation.
The doctor didn't come and see me for another 10 hours. Which felt strange. And to add to the strangeness, my parents were taking shifts hanging out with me. There was only overlap when they switched and the other parent took over while the other one left the room. I would understand if they weren't both with me for the whole time. I'm not that needy, but they were only both in my room together for about an hour. That was the hour before the doctor came to my room.
Finally, the doctor came in to talk to me. When he walked in, the room was cold and quiet. It was evident he didn't feel the same relief I was feeling.
He seemed awkward. Like he was talking way too long to get over to me. He grabbed a chair and scooted it close to me.
"Listen Sam. I know this last 24 hours has been very challenging. I apologize for not explaining what happened during your surgery sooner, but we all needed time to figure it out, and quite frankly, process what happened. We feel we have enough information to let you in on what is going on." A silence filled the room. It felt like no one was brave enough to break it.
"And?" I said with confusion.
"I think it'll be easier if we just show you."
The doctor along with my parents helped me into a wheelchair and we started to make our way across the hospital to an entirely different section. I couldn't believe all the things running through my head at what we were about to see. It felt like cruel and unusual punishment to leave me in anticipation and not just tell me what I was about to see.
When I went around the corner I couldn't process what I was looking at. I thought they were showing me a large tumor or growth of some kind, but why would a tumor be in a big incubation chamber with tubes connected to IVs and machines coming out of it?
As I got closer, I started to see human fetchers on it. It was mostly just a 6-pound lump of flesh, but I could see a hand sticking out of it. It was small, but what made it creepy was it looked like a fully developed man's hand. Just small. I could see a patch of hair coming out of what I assumed was its head. It had no discernible facial features. Just a few teeth scattered in one section.
As I looked at it with disgust, coming to terms with this thing that was just in my body, I had a realization. I wasn't feeling sick at the thought of something being in my body. Sure, I was grossed out that this particular thing was just in me, but the thought of the bacteria in my body didn't make me want to throw up. I thought about all the blood pumping through my veins and I felt… normal. Not only was the voice and kicking gone. But my OCD was gone too. I didn't have a mental illness. It was just this thing. Trying to find its way out for years.
As I was staring at the creature, the doctor came and put his hand on my shoulder.
"We believe this is your twin brother." I immediately looked up at my parents who looked very disturbed and upset. I let the doctor finish talking. "We believe that you absorbed him in the womb and that he has been living inside you your whole life. This is an extremely rare condition called fetus-in-fetu. It seems he didn't quite have the best opportunity to develop normally. That's why he looks the way he does. Despite his appearance, he has all the organs he needs to survive. Looks like he's missing a lung and his gallbladder. Also a piece of his liver but other than that, it looks like he will live for at least a few years. He won't be able to leave this room due to him needing a feeding tube and a few other things that his body can not do on its own. He needs lots of support just to live. What makes this situation extremely unique is that your twin is still alive despite your body not sustaining him anymore. Even though we have him hooked up to a few IVs and machines, It is unexplainable how he is living while outside of your body."
I was in complete shock. I didn't want to believe it. I asked my mom why she never told me I absorbed my twin in the womb, she said she had no clue. There was never a sign when she was pregnant with me.
He also mentioned that sometimes even in pregnancies women will go their whole pregnancy without even getting a belly. It's called a 'Cryptic pregnancy'. I've always had a bit of a gut but never anything big enough to cause suspicion. I guess in my case I had a fetus-fetu and an experience similar to a cryptic pregnancy. Even though it was in my stomach. At least that was the doctor's best guess. Although, it all sounded like BS to me.
The doctor and my parents kept trying to explain more and more details to me. I don't know why they didn't slow down a little bit for my sake. How could they not tell I wasn't processing any of this?
I noticed something while they were trying to explain things to me. They kept calling it a 'He'.
Now listen. I'm not some kind of asshole that won't respect someone who wants to be called a specific pronoun. I've never been that kind of person. But this is where I draw the line.
Not just that. But this thing had a name. My parents named it and said today was its birthday. While they told me all this information, they didn't look happy about it. It seemed like they were forced to do all this nonsense. And now it was my turn to be convinced. I could tell they were trying to force it.
The doctor told me despite it not having a high probability for a long life that we should still try and give it the love it deserves. Of course, the doctor referred to it as a 'He' but I refused to.
This disgusted me. This thing tried to kill me and ruined my quality of life for so long, and now we are going to treat it like it's some kind of prince? No, absolutely not.
Luckily, it seemed like it would never leave the hospital, but my parents planned on going to visit it daily. Visiting it? Are you kidding me? it has no eyes, no ears, it's probably miserable and has no concept of people even being around it.
I'm refusing to ever see this thing again or acknowledge its existence again.
I could get in trouble for even talking about this. The hospital or anyone involved has signed NDAs to not share any information about this until it officially dies. This is because it's a medical anomaly and the first of its kind. They want to do the proper research on how this all occurred before coming out with a statement. I just have to get this all off my chest. I feel like I'm the crazy one here when I know I'm not. I don't care if I get in trouble.
I am scared that the doctors are trying to force my parents into giving this thing a proper life. I think that's why it took them so long to tell me. I think they scared my parents into keeping it alive and guilting them or even forcing them into being its parent.
I'm all for every life being important and all that stuff, but I have a feeling my parents are terrified of this thing just like I am.
I am convinced they gaslit my parents into believing this thing is my brother. If there wasn't any sign of him while my mom was pregnant with me, could this thing be something else?
This all happened about two years ago. It's still alive and they are still researching it. My parents continue to visit it despite everything. My therapist told me that I'm probably just struggling with jealousy now that I'm not an only child anymore and so much of my parents' attention is on him now, but it's so much bigger than just jealousy.
Since this thing showed up and my OCD is pretty much gone, I've hardly seen my parents. I know I'm not just jealous. There is something more to this. I know it.
Something just feels so off about this whole thing. What is this thing? Where did it come from? And what does it want?

Other than fae stories. What are your favorite non fairy mate stories. And why do you like it. How does the author paint it for you that makes it great

Here is my story. I (23M) got dumped by my gf (23F) 3 month ago. It was a few days before the Valentines day(which was also our 3rd anniversary) and the reason was simple. she just lost feelings. It was a bit sudden( but now that I think about it, it was not. we were getting distant for a month or so, but we had planned a trip to Germany, had the reservation for the anniversary and all). I'm generally a rational person so I took it well, I mean, I felt sad but there was nothing I could o really, cant force/make someone to do something they don't want to.
This last 3 month were hard, but cant say that I lost myself or was suffering from grief horrible, I was of the life I had but had this unusual feeling(It was my first serious relationship). Now here comes the fun part. Throughout these 3 month of being broken up we met a few times, and each and every single time I felt like I was falling in love again, its funny really, feels weird and good in a way. I know we are not gonna get back together, but this weird feeling sometimes drives me insane(today I found myself sitting in front of laptop and just smiling weirdly for no apparant reason).
So yea reddit. is that a normal thing to happen and what to do about it?

"I love you"
"I love you too" I said with a smile. I looked around at the evergreen trees and the beautiful rocky shore that overlooked the lake. The sun was out and the sky was like sapphire. And beside me was the most beautiful, blonde-haired woman I had ever seen in my life, the woman I was lucky to call my girlfriend.
She wasn't perfect. The graphics were still not a hundred percent convincing, but she was as close as modern technology could get. And no matter how transported I tried to get, I still couldn't feel the warmth of the midday sun or notice the breeze that was rustling the branches upon my skin. And always there was the feel of the VR headset against the bridge of my nose.
But it was as close to perfect as I could get.
"To a wonderful second date," I said, holding up my glass of wine for a toast.
"To a wonderful partner to go on a second date with," said Samantha with a laugh as she clinked her glass against mine.
And every night I would put on the headset and visit her it would be just as spectacular as the last. After a month, I felt that i was really developing feelings for her. It was starting to matter less and less to me that she wasn't really there. And if I ever got tired of her appearance, I could always experiment and ask her to change. She was the perfect girlfriend; a million beautiful women in one.
But with each date, I started to notice a change in her. At first it was little hiccups that I associated with glitches in her coding.
"To a wonderful partner to go on a second date with," said Samantha as she held her glass up to mine.
"Ugh, sweetheart, this is our ninth date," I politely whispered.
Other times she would forget stories that I so fondly remembered telling her, and more than once, she would repeat the same sentence that she had just finished saying.
But I figured I could look past it. They were just quirks really. Little oddities that made her only more loveable.
But they only continued to get worse. She began to glitch out, going into little spasms that would scare the hell out of me whenever they happened. And other times she would stop talking altogether, staring into empty space with a thousand yard stare, as if in a trance.
"Do you love me?" Samantha asked one day.
"Of course, I do." I laughed.
She turned to me. "Even though I'm just a bunch of lines of code?"
"You're perfect." I said simply.
"But wouldn't you like me more like this?" she asked, as she changed her appearance to a pale, brunette woman. "Or this?" she said again as she became Chinese.
"You're perfect like that too. It's just nice to mix things up, you know?"
But she was never much the same after that. She glitched more often than before. Every time there was even a pause in our conversation, she shifted appearance. I'll be honest, it put me off just a little. I withdrew a bit whenever she'd go into these changing sprees, and I would feel her eyes upon me whenever I did. It made me reconsider putting on the headset. She was beginning to frighten me just a little.
I lasted a week before the urge to see her again became too great. When I logged in again, I found her seated on the rocky lakeside, staring out at a starless night.
"You're back." she whispered. I noticed that she was glitching still, her hair one color one second and a different color the next. At times, an extra arm or leg would appear for just a brief second. And as I looked into her eyes, I noticed that her face was constantly shifting. One eye would be green and the other brown before they both changed to blue; one cheek would be white and then her chin would be brown. At times, her face would shift expression completely, from politely at ease to a face contorted with rage.
"Samantha?" I asked. She looked back at me blankly with her ever-changing face. I tried to find the words. "I think we need to take a break from each other."
There was silence for a moment, with only the sound of the waves lapping against the shore to be heard in the still night.
"Was I not enough?" she asked. I noticed the shifting was becoming even more pronounced.
"I just think you're too focused on what I like." I said. I looked nervously into her eyes to see that they were scathing. She had that same endless stare as before, but this time directed at me, burning into my soul.
Samantha stood up slowly, her entire body jittering. I would catch glimpses of her reaching out to attack me, before her body shifted, and she was once again standing still. Her face was a mosaic of every feeling of anger and sadness and every emotion in between - jealousy, disappointment, frustration, resentment, loathing, disgust, misery. And with a surprisingly metallic sound, she uttered a high-pitched scream. It sounded like an old modem connecting to the internet mixed with a shrill, banshee-like wail. I put my hands to my ears and fell to my knees as the grass beneath me flickered in and out of existence. When I looked up again, I could see Samantha walking towards me. Her face was three now, one with a jaw that hung down to her collar, the other her normal, porcelain doll-like face sobbing silently, and the third a hideous being, contorted into a wrenching scream that continued to make the horrid noise that made the whole world shake. Her hair flowed like vipers, like an electric current were pulsating through her. And just as she got near, the noise beginning to deafen me from through the fingers I had wedged into my ears, I found the presence of mind to grab hold of my headset with my fingertips and flick it off. Just like that, I was back in my living room, all silent once more.
To this day, I haven't been on since. Nor have I talked to another AI girlfriend, for fear that the demonic creature that I saw that day is somehow still lurking beneath their perfectly-sculpted looks.

I don’t really know what flair to add this too, I’m sorry. It’s also kind of heavy so I apologize for that too and I understand if it’s too much. I’m going to give the ages everyone was at the time so: Me (17F), my little sibling A (11NB), and Ex Boyfriend C (14M). I know the age gap is bad but please bear with me to the end
The start of things: my little sibling was playing Minecraft in a public server while I was hanging out with them, and their friend (C) was venting about their recent breakup. Having dated a couple people by then, I offered A some advice to give him since A had never had a partner. A started to get fed up with typing and wanted to play Minecraft- which is fair- so I told them to just give C my Skype (yes this is back when everyone had Skype) and I would talk to him there.
C was a friendly and sensitive kid, and I didn’t mind trying to help him feel better about his self-confidence and the breakup and everything. I was just trying to help him out for A’s sake since they were pretty close. Unfortunately, in giving C relationship advice and talking about what he wanted in a partner and such, he started to see me as a rebound. I didn’t really see much harm in this, and we had a lot in common and I was admittedly having my own issues at the time that made me enjoy the attention he gave me. We lived several states away so it would only be emotional attachment so I thought it would be okay to date him. Huge mistake and kinda gross on my part, I know.
I told some of my friends and they jokingly called me a “cougar” and a “cradle-robber”, but no one condemned me for it. Still, their comments made me really think about what I was doing and how it would be if things were reversed, and it was a guy in his 20s hitting on me. And then it hit me that even though we were both minors now, I would be 18 and a legal adult, and he would be in his second year of high school. I brought this up to him, but by now he was getting a little obsessive. He said he would wait until he was old enough to propose to me, and talking about our future kids. He was 14 and planning his life around me when he should’ve been worrying about which afterschool clubs to join. It made me sick to realize what I had done and set off every red flag, so I told him to forget about me and just focus on enjoying his teenage years. That I hoped he took all the advice I had given him and that it helped him love himself a little more and didn’t forget that just because of the breakup.
He did not want to. Begged me to reconsider, that he loved me, how could I do this to him, was everything I told him a lie, everything he could think of. I blocked him because I really wanted him to be able to get past me and I didn’t know what else to do. A couple days later I get a message from someone claiming to be C’s friend. He told me that C’s cancer had come back aggressively and that he was in the hospital. Over the next few hours he described how C was in and out of life before saying he flatlined. Not only was he telling me all of this, but he was telling it to A as well to make it more believable. My little sibling and I were sitting together thinking this guy we both cared about was gone and crying.
20 minutes later I get another message saying the doctors just revived him. This raised a huge red flag for me because I thought that that shouldn’t really be possible. I got suspicious about everything then. Suddenly C had his phone back and his “friend” told me to unblock him because he had amnesia from everything and needed to talk to me. So I unblocked him and he asked who I was, thinking that I would stay with him so that I would help him regain his memory and take care of him.
Well his plan backfired, because I remember thinking “this is my way out”. If he did have amnesia, he could move on and never even miss me. If he didn’t and it was a lie, then he was awful for doing all of this to me and my little sibling. I told him I was no one special, and I reiterated the most important pieces of advice I had given him, including about something very personal and traumatic to him. He said I must be very important if I knew about that. Red flag again, because if he had amnesia about everything like he claimed, how did he remember that? I told him again I wasn’t special and blocked him again, and also his “friend’s” account. I figured that was that and even though I was shaken, I was glad it was done.
UNTIL 3 or so years later my little sibling looks up from their phone and goes “did you know C was actually still alive?” I was shocked. I hadn’t even thought about him in a while. “Yeah? Did… did you not know?”
HE HADN’T TOLD A HE WAS STILL ALIVE
He went through all the trouble of telling A he was in the hospital and everything else, but only cared about telling me he was alive after. He let my little sibling grieve him for 3 YEARS. That was A’s first real experience with losing someone! I was so unbelievably angry. I hope C got the therapy he really needed at some point, but I also hope we never cross paths again.
That was 11 years ago. I’m married to someone who is a year older than me now, and I’m the crazy one in the relationship, not him.

Hello fellow potatoes! And to the potato queen herself, girl, you're amazing!!! I just found your channel a few months ago, but I'm a huge fan. I don't have a lot of time for videos, but when I do get to watch, I watch yours.
Have I got a boomemil story for you! Let's go on an adventure...warning...I tell stories with rabbit holes and tangents. This is probably gonna be too long. I'm sorry!!!
So, the characters are me (40f), boomer MIL (64f BM for short, like bowel movement bc she's caca), my oldest son, (17m), and my church "mom" (65f CM for short).
A little background: BM thinks she's an awesome mom and grandma even though she's not. She uses my kids as facebook props to show off how "wonderful" she is. The only reason she was around my kids so often was because we went to the same church. She lived 10 minutes down the road from us, but could never be bothered to come over or have anything to do with any of us is if we didn't initiate. She has always said that if we ever try to threaten to keep our kids away from her, like if we were having a disagreement, that she would not fight to see them. We've never threatened to keep our kids from her, she just wanted us to know that she didn't give a sh!t to see her gandkids. So, that tells you right there, that she's a grandma when it's convenient for her.
She's of the boomer mentality that mental health issues are made up and aren't real. "You have nothing to be depressed about." "Just snap out if it." "Just be happy." You get the point. I struggle with depression, I always have. She doesn't understand or even try to understand and is the least empathetic person I've ever met.
When I get overwhelmed, I get depressed, and I start shutting down. My plate is overflowing right now. Between the end of the school year and the possibility of us moving states, I've been overwhelmed. My oldest is a senior and the last month of senior year is crazy busy. I have another child (11m) in public school and this is his last year of elementary school, so this has been an extremely busy month for him. I have 3 more kids that do online public school/homeschool. So, they're home all day with online classes, but since they're a public school, they have mandatory state testing just like regular public school. I have had to take them to do state testing on 4 different days overyhe last few weeks and the meeting place was 45 minutes from home, at a conference room in a mall. I also babysit 3 kids (1m, 4m, 4f), so hanging out for 4 to 5 hours a day on 4 different days with a shitload of kids at the f#cking mall was not easy. Not to mention the positions and "jobs" that I hold at church. To say I'm busy is an understatement.
We've been planning on moving for the last few months because a position at my husband's work is coming open near where he grew up, which is in another state. His parents recently moved back to their hometown after my FIL retired, so one reason for the move would be to be closer to them. They are getting older, so I would be taking care of them once they needed it, so moving closer seemed like a great option. Also, it's a lower COL area than we live in now. Currently we live in the metro area of a capital city and we would be moving to a middle of nowhere po'dunk town.
Told you, rabbit holes, thanks for still being with me!!!
And this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, this is not the only reason for my decision.
So, to the actual story...
Last week, I got a mother's day card in the mail from BM. She's a dollar tree card fanatic. It was a very typical card that she sends me. Nothing handwritten except for "love, grandma and grandpa." This is what she writes in all my cards. (Another tangent...last year my mom passed a month before mother's day and that actual mother's day was her and my dad's anniversary. And I had a super complicated relationship with my momster. So, it was an exceptionally hard day for me. The card she got me said "Daughter" in huge letters on the front. I thought it was so incredibly passive aggressive and completely inappropriate for that year. If it would've been any other year, it would've been fine. Also, she never gets me cards that just say "daughter" so, to me, it was a low blow.) (Yet another tangent...she does passive aggressive crap all the time, for instance when she used to do fb birthday posts, she would always ask me to send her a pic to post. I'm picky about what pics are used and she knows that. Last year, I sent her a great pic of me and her son to use. So, she used one from about 12 years ago that looked like absolute poop. It was a surprise pic, so like not even posed, stupid look on my face. No matter what pic I send, and usually send like 3, she uses a completely different one that doesn't even look good.) I got the card last Tuesday. Hubby happened to be talking to her while driving home from work that day, so when he got home, I thanked her for the card and just wanted to give her a heads up that I hadn't gotten a chance to mail hers yet because of everything I had going on. I kinda broke down and was sharing how I felt and she basically just said, "suck it up, it'll be fine." She's always been dismissive of my feelings, always.
So, my CM is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet. She listens to me, lets me share my feelings without being dismissive, and actually shows she cares. I see her twice weekly at church, and text with her during the week. Since BM has moved 8 moths ago, she has called or texted "just to talk or check in on us" less than a handful of times. She only calls/texts when she needs something or on a special occasion. She called my husband to ask about something, not just to talk. I understand now why the oldest grandson, my nephew, didn't even bother to invite her to his and his girlfriend's baby shower where he proposed. She thinks she's an amazing grandma bc she sends birthday money in a card and posts their pics on Facebook. And, she even stopped posting the kids birthday messages on fb bc she said it was "too much trouble." So, she just sticks to her 30 daily inspirational Bible quotes posts. She's the type that was so pissed off that both of her kids went with courthouse marriages instead of going into debt for a wedding because she didn't get to walk down the aisle at her kids' weddings and post pics on fb. She's mentioned this several times, but definitely wasn't even willing to spend a dime towards a wedding that no one wanted except her. She was also unwilling to take a day off work to go to the courthouse with us. With both of her kids' marriages, the kids and partners were together for a while and had kids before getting married, so spending tons of money on a huge wedding for either of us couples wouldn't have been the best way to spend money.
On mother's day, I gave my CM a card with a few lines written in it about how amazing she is and how I'm so grateful for her. I'm way closer to her than BM. CM is my chosen family and to me, your chosen family is the one that means more because you chose them, you didn't just get stuck with them. My blood family is incredibly toxic, so I stick with my chosen family. CM made a fb post with all that she got for mother's day. It was gifts and cards from her own children, and of course my card as well. CM & BM are fb friends, so of course BM saw it. Also, BM has everyone convinced she's this sweet, little old church lady, but she is far from it.
So, this Tuesday she got her cards in the mail. I always give her one from hubby and myself, and a separate one from our boys. I wrote a nice little note in it. Not long, a line or 2, but it was more effort than she put into my card. She sent me and hubby the following in a group text...
Copy and pasted, only edited out names.
"Got my cards in the mail today. 😭. They were post marked Saturday. You could of kept them til I got there or next year. It's like yall bought them Saturday, wrote a few words and rushed to get them to post office. My heart 💔broken. I thought I deserved better. I wish I could send pictures of my card verses [CM] 😩 card. I couldnt tell which gift was yours. But least I have a year to try do better and be worthy of such wonderful words of love and praise that was written to her.
I don't mean to complain or seem ungrateful but I wished you hadn't mailed them.😭😭. I can't explain how crushed I am.😔 Anyway hopefully I will see yall on the 20th."
Note: my oldest son is graduating on the 20th. She was supposed to drive down and spend the night with us to attend the graduation. I honestly believe she picked this fight because she doesn't want to drive the 6 hours down here.
If you "don't mean to complain or seem ungrateful" then why tf did you send it? I asked my husband what was his initial reaction and he said, "Really?!? All she had to do was say thanks."
So, after I talked to my husband and oldest son (I wanted to make sure everyone was on board with what I was saying before I sent it) , I sent her this response:
"I mailed them on Friday, I bought them several weeks ago. I told you I hadn't mailed them yet because I've been in a deep depression and you dismissed my feelings like always. I have real, valid feelings and you always dismissed them as silly. And come after me because now you're feelings are hurt. Wow, ok. The absolute audacity. And it's not just with your cards that I'm slacking. It's with everything. Because I have depression. I'm overwhelmed on top of that and literally the only thing you care about is a card. I tried to express my feelings the other day on the phone and you dismissed them like you always do. I know things will be fine, but in this moment they are not and you don't get that. Because you don't understand how or why I feel the way I do, then my feelings are silly or invalid to you.
And I never gave [CM] a present. Don't know why you thought that.
Don't worry about coming down on the 20th."
She replies by trying to blackmail me;
"Well my am so sorry I said anything. I never realized you thought that about me. I never dismissed your depression but yes i never knew what to do for you. I am not going to go back and forth about this. I will text [son] and let him know you told me not to come."
She's not sorry to me for being dismissive, she's sorry because now she doesn't get her "Proud MeMe moment" and can't post pictures of her at his graduation on fb. And even if she didn't "know what to do" for me, all she had to do was ask. Or listen. Or give a damn hug. But, no, she just dismissed me bc to her depression isn't real. And she's not going back and forth bc she knows shes wrong! Little did she know that I had already cleared it with hubby and son before sending the text, so I think she thought it would make me look bad to my oldest son that I told her no to come. Oldest son said, "I'm neutral, I don't care if she comes or not. It's not like she's had anything to do with us since she moved, and barely had anything to do with us when she was here."
So, my last text to her said, "He knows. I asked him before I texted you, and he's good with it."
All she had to do was say thanks or not even say anything at all. But, no, she had to say something stupid. Even her own son said that she's lucky she even got a card bc if it was up to him, her actual son, she wouldn't have gotten anything. So, not only is she not invited to the graduation, she's never welcome in my home again. The great part is I don't have to share my holidays with her ever again!!! And please know that I'd never keep her grandchildren from her, but if she wants a relationship with them, she'll have to put some effort in. And we all know boomers hate effort.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant. I appreciate you my friends!

It just makes sense to plan around this stuff

• LA is building rail infra, ahead of the 2028 Olympics. (Buy in '25, sell in '28?)
  
  • Studying: Learn langs; study remotely albeit hopefully with a nice library.
  • Finances: Investing in the area; speculatively, seems like the move. In general, I haven't been growing my finances enough; the play "yesterday" was indices (you'd think... ah well 😅). The play "today" is calculated aggro risks. (I don't think that using expansion plans to pick where to invest is even aggro? Just seems like a long play lol)
    • More importantly, figure out where I could see myself living for at least 3y. 2y study, 3y proj mgmt cert (If I go for at current job.)
  • Career: Branch out of tech focus; build "the story" and use it to leverage into a job that helps me develop personally and professional-skills-ly. (Data, meh; there's also PM'ing. Do we have a shortage? Is that the case everywhere?)
    • I know I need to do this for myself anyways; might as well get brownie points for doing that work for him.
  • Lifestyle: Should give me a chance to get into a healthy rhythm; I can re-find a gym and social circles there based on common interests.
  • [...]: Lang studies in-person until I'm well enough along to learn online. Keep to the Plan. (Holly's "Spooky imitation of Artemis" quote as thought in interstitial space as one of many examples of that whole 'echoic memory for certain lines' thing. I swear that's prolly a thing in neurosci; resonance and such)
• SEA: Buying ahead of The Big One would suck; and I'm already 50/50 on going back. Maybe buy after; be part of the rebuild.
  
  • Having been back... (I seriously need time away. Lol. Fuck that guy) (Evidence from semi-trusted sources and logical level indicate that I might be making a hasty emotional decision; distance was/is a good idea so secure time off.)
    • play the game; you're already "in" (kinda) or at least in a situation that could be worse. (Decent life philosophy -> remember what you still have. Kenny gets it!) long-term game (out of necessity; might as well be better positioned to make career moves.) I'm at the right level to make moves internally - coach under geoff), but short term, I could definitely use a break.
• JP: '25 Expo could be a nice trip, but at this point I can't do both and pursue DE. Vacay could (and most likely will) be a pivot after we ask [...], probably-get heartbroken (yay!), and can do that to feel better. (...Yay-but-actually! 🤣)
  
  • I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be enough. Vacays take me OUT of a routine. I feel better IN routines.
• NO/DE: (Lol, Node): Pending other developments. Likely NO in either case. Could go FR?
  

SEA was good, but... it's really just surrounding myself with people, activities, opportunities. I can do that most anywhere.
What do you think, Mudkip? :pokes cheek, Zee giggles happily: [...] Dw, I like water too, bud. We can stay close to it for now. ^^

Does any have experience with this group and Humberto Garcia of the high rolllers club . He runs what he claims is the best photography business development model , doing Seo, paid ads, social media that helps your studio and business bring in over 6 figures and up to a million . He wants to get on a call with me, but I am skeptical . Some of my friends says he basically takes your money and does ads well for a bit then hands, it off to his team of kids and runs the business down. Some say he helps and stays on. But maybe that is just to show a few work I don’t know
He gives scammer vibes and really hard pushing for a cold call . I also find it strange he isn’t a photographer, but claims he can turn your studio into a million dollar one. He has a partner some girl that says she makes a million dollars a year, because of him, but the story dosent add up with the numbers they gave . His FB group has about 16k members. I’m trying to do my research if anyone knows. Thank you

In 2016, a game called "The Culling" came out. Today it's a little-known part of the history of the Battle Royale genre - and a sad story about what might have been. The Culling was the first standalone game in the genre and brought in a set of fresh ideas that had players hooked. Highlights:

• It relied relatively little on classic ranged gunplay, focusing more on melee weapons
• Combat mechanics were deep and with a huge risk/reward. You could block every attack without taking damage if you did the timing perfectly. That made each encounter adrenaline-rich, even vs supposedly lower opponents
• It had a strong identity: The game maps were stages of a supposed TV show with the players as contestants. It was all over the top with a lot of slapstick humor from the announcer
• It had a bunch of other new ideas. It introduced crafting into the genre. And you could airdrop in equipment (yes, really)

The players and streamers loved it - to reference a common sentiment back then: "PLEASE don't fuck up". But they did. They didn't understand their own game, didn't understand what made it so fun. Every update released fucked with the balance. They made classic shooting guns OP, they completely destroyed their own innovative block mechanic. And a few things more I don't remember. The community was not happy, begging for reversal. They eventually did release "The Culling: Origins" which was the game at its initial early access state - a testament to how much went wrong. But it was way too late obviously. When players aren't complaining any more, they also don't play anymore - they move on. PUBG and Fortnite were already released by then and we all know how that went.
This isn't really about The Culling, obviously. It's a tale about how difficult it can be to make games feel right. To not just catch lightning in a bottle, but also keep it in. Resemblance to other games is not coincidental, make of this what you want :>

Hello everyone,
As the title says, I am an atheist (raised Evangelical Lutheran), and my wife is a Christian (also raised Evangelical Lutheran, same organization). We have been together for about 7 years, married for 4.
I often see hesitancy when it comes to having relationships with religious folk on this sub, which is honestly entirely warranted. It can be a tough thing to navigate, and I thought I'd share my experiences just in case it's helpful to anyone. I'd also be interested in the discussion that follows.
I was an atheist for a number of years before I started dating my wife. Early on in our relationship we were honest with each-other about our beliefs and how they affect our worldview. We found it really important to respect each-other's right to hold different beliefs, even if we (particularly I) don't necessarily respect the beliefs themselves. We agreed to discard any expectation of change for one-another, and we didn't want the relationship to be built on false expectations. As you can imagine, I'd love for her to deprogram from her religious views and she'd love for me to be inspired by that sneaky ol' Holy Ghost, but we put that aside out of fairness for each other.
Of course this comes with some minor irritations. When I want to nerd out about space-time or evolution, I have to find others to share my discoveries with. Also she has a tough time with the alien conversation, but all things considered this has worked out well for us.
We are both quite progressive in ideology, which does make her an outlier within the religious organization she is a part of. She has a wonderful sense of empathy that I adore about her, and is a supporter of things like LGBTQ+ rights among many other common progressive ideologies. I would argue some of these beliefs may be antithetical to the christian ideology, but she has her own rationalizations for her progressive outlook and I think the ends justify the means in that regard. We also both share a negative view (understatement of the year) of the hateful rhetoric of most religious groups in the US.
We currently have a little toddler that we both love dearly, and leading up to having a child we had lots of discussions about how to manage our different belief systems regarding a child. We would both like to share our views with our little kiddo, but don't want to actively undermine each-other either. I imagine there will be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to this, but we've established a few 'rules' for our discussions with the little one until she's old enough to make her own decisions. It was a necessity that we agreed she gets to make her own decisions about religion when she is old enough to understand the nuances of the topic, and we agreed that she's allowed to believe whatever she chooses. If that means she ends up disagreeing with both of us and subscribing to Hinduism or something, so be it. We've established that we don't want her to be a science-denier, or unsympathetic to those different than her or as you often see in religious communities. We want to instill in her a respect for those different than us, and I think this common ground has made the conversation simpler. If anyone has any questions about this I'd be happy to answer them.
Of course, I do have to say most conservative christian women may not hold similar worldviews. I can count the number of christian women in my life that think like this on one hand. Things of course may have been simpler if I married an atheist or she married a christian, but we love the life we've built and are dedicated to making it work. We try to be honest with each-other and anticipate difficult situations which I think makes all the difference. It's not a perfect system. I know it still makes her a little sad thinking about me kicking it with Satan in Florida when I die, and I'd like for her to let me nerd out about evolution sometimes, but it's worked well for us so far.

Before I dive in, know that I love my wife and I want to fix this. I’m posting in RelationshipAdvice for a reason. It will be a lot, but please don’t read it like an AITA post and pass judgment. I need some honest advice, and I’m miles away from my real-life support network.
The TL; DR is that my wife has (re)developed a bunch of conversational habits from hanging out with her brother. These habits leave me feeling excluded, stressed, and are messing with my work. Trying to address them has opened a whole can of worms, mainly that my wife hates my entire problem-solving style.
I’m keeping details vague in case she stumbles upon this post. Please, if you think my story doesn’t add up, or you think you know where I am and want to offer real estate advice or whatever, keep it to yourself.
We got hitched and moved in together right before before Covid hit. Started off great, but after six months of lockdowns and masks, we realized we could live anywhere in the country without paying through the nose for coastal housing. For context: I work in tech, and my wife is a performer. We met in a bar, and honestly, Covid was the wake-up call that my career hadn’t lived up to my potential, probably due to alcohol. So I accepted the reality that maybe my career isn’t going where I hoped, and isn’t likely to – and instead of chasing after it, we should downsize our expenses. I counted my blessings for having a wonderful wife instead.
I negotiated permanent remote work. We aimed to move to the low-cost state she grew up in. Her brother, who I like way more than my own family, hooked us up with a place to rent near his house. Bigger than we needed, but I was okay with it because it had space for a home office. We boxed up our lives into a truck and moved.
Here’s where it gets complicated. My wife has always been talkative, and she can be pretty dang loud. Not sure how much of this I didn’t fully realize before. When we were dating, we only saw each other a couple of days a week, and in our first place together, we never had visitors thanks to the pandemic. But when she's with her brother, she talks like she's trying to command a room full of first-graders. She also doesn’t adjust her volume when she’s close to me. I have tinnitus, and she has literally made my ears ring by talking while leaning on me
Next up. I feel like a jerk saying this, given what I know about the word ‘shrill’, but hear me out. If the two of us are in the same room, she’ll use a tone of voice that seems intended to be impossible to ignore.
Third, if I try to join the conversation, my wife will interrupt me and steamroll right over me. Part of this is because she has a strange conversational rhythm where she seems to be done talking but then BAM! She jumps back in at an even higher volume, after the pause. So if you think it’s your turn to speak, you get interrupted. She does this even when no one else is talking. She will interrupt me to finish my sentences, nearly always incorrectly. She will interrupt me to tell me I’m wrong about something, ruining my flow. She will interrupt me to take over telling a story, telling it worse by missing key facts and rambling at higher speed.
Fourth, she doesn't seem to organize her thoughts before speaking. At all. Couple with what I just mentioned, you've got her cutting off anyone who dares to chime in until she's “talked out” the subject with everything she can think of. By then, everyone else is bored and over being interrupted when they try to jump in. So, the topic just fizzles out, and she covers that up with nervous laughter.
Fifth, if I try to ask questions to follow along, she gets mad that I’m interrupting her or ruining her flow. So I’ve given up on questions. If I lose track, I either catch up or I don’t. I can’t zone out because of her volume and tone.
Sixth, after she’s been around her brother, she maintains this kind of conversational energy when it’s just us. Her brother can be just as loud, and raises his voice and talks over her right back in the moment. But when we’re in any group that does not include my wife, he’s back to an energy I can converse with. She does not switch back, not unless she hasn’t seen him for at least a week.
Seventh, their parents’ first language isn’t English, and they immediately switch to it as soon as I leave the room. If you know the language I mean, it makes every conversation sound like a fight. I figure, if they’re not including me anyway, why talk in English while I’m around? Why can’t I just leave you guys to talk? No, because then my wife gets mad that I’m a bad host, that I “hate” her brother, or calls me a “rude teenager”.
Eighth, 90% of their what they talk about are their opinions, mostly of family members, reality TV, or random AITA stuff. They just keep regurgitating the same views about people, social issues, capitalism, America, over and over. When I do get to throw in my two cents, they often react with anger. It feels like a low-effort bonding activity: like we’re constantly reaffirming the group values – and verbally punishing transgression – rather than discuss anything new. Her brother isn’t like this away from her.
However I slice this, it’s incongruent. If they want me involved by speaking English, why not let me chime in? If they think they're entertaining me, why not make sure I'm following? And if I'm supposed to zone out, why use a tone and volume that's impossible to ignore?
The impression I get is that my wife thinks my role is to be her passive audience, plain and simple.
There’s more about my job, but first, how I’ve failed to address this so far.
First, the loudness. According to both of them ‘that’s just the way we are,’ so it ain’t changing.
I haven’t addressed the tone, I can’t figure out how to without starting a fight.
Interruptions. My wife has had four levels of reactions when I have brought this up. First, she straight-up ignores it. Second, she acknowledges it, but with an eye roll like I'm just being petty. Third is to get mad, call me an asshole, or accuse me of silencing her. Fourth, she blows up and yells all kinds of crap (“you’re evil,” “you just hate my brother,” and incongruently, “you two are douche-bros together”), which after she’ll say she didn’t mean. She’ll then start crying about losing me, or even making her brother hate her. She’ll make me swear to keep reminding her. But in the moment, when she’s not upset, she’s back to eye rolling.
Rambling. My wife’s response is that I do the exact same thing, and that when I do it, it’s extremely boring. What she means is that if I’m excited by or trying to explain anything technical, she tunes out as soon as she hears a word she doesn’t understand, and stares right through my head until I stop talking. Apparently, this is ‘polite’. Asking questions, saying I'm not interested? Just rude.
How she changes her behavior around her brother. Raising it makes her mad. She has straight-up told me, “I will always pick my brother over you.” In her more honest moments, she’s admitted the thought of me developing a beef with her brother is one of her worst nightmares, so her anger is really for of that outcome, directed at me. She gets that this is counterproductive, sometimes. But this conversation is tough.
Switching in English. They forget this and slip back to ‘politeness’ rules. I have to be careful how I word ‘I have no interest in this conversation’ or ‘You don’t need to talk in English’ or they both say I’m rude and get mad.
My wife has also said she hates the way I solve relationship problems, calling it ‘patronizing hippy crap’. For instance, I ask people what their goal is in saying or doing certain thing (“What’s your intention in talking so loud?”). This immediately makes my wife mad, like she thinks I’m playing sociology professor and using brains to outsmart her. Thing is, she will say a LOT of things she doesn’t mean in an argument, and I tend to take things literally, so I need to check that she doesn’t actually mean “You’re evil”, otherwise the argument escalates for other reasons.
I feel like she retaliates for feeling like I’m trying to impose some kind of intellectual superiority over her by trying to impose some kind of “social intelligence” superiority over me. “Of course people don’t mean everything they say in fucking arguments, are you retarded?”. She’ll misinterpret what I’m saying in a way that implies I’m real dumb, then moves the conversation on before I can defend myself. All of which is exacerbated by how her habits push me out of the conversation.
Onto work problems. My job requires two things from me: hard problem-solving which needs long periods of uninterrupted focus, and rapid incident response. Being interrupted/talked to while I’m deep in work disrupts both of those. Neither my wife nor her brother (who’s a contractor) stick to regular office hours, and they both like to knock back a few during the day. Now, I have no issue with that, but I do have a problem when he comes over, starts drinking with my wife, they have loud conversations which I can hear from my office. Often from one room to another.
My wife doesn’t appreciate me complaining about this since she “should be free to enjoy her own home” and I “can easily get another job.” I’ve tried explaining to her that no, I can’t easily get a job that pays the same in this state. Either I’d have to hunt for increasingly scarce remote work, or we’d need to suck up downsizing and potentially moving away from her brother. She refuses to entertain any of this.
Things have improved slightly since I started composing this post, but only after a chaotic incident. She stormed into my office to look for something, mid-argument with her brother. In frustration, I took off for a drive to clear my head. Of course, there was an incident while I was out, I missed the notification, and got written up for it.
I’ve tried talking to her brother one-on-one. He’s a realist. Rent a private office, and get ourselves into couples therapy. My objection is straightforward: the cost of commuting, office rent, couples therapy (no cheaper here, lower quality by all accounts), on top of our current expenses, exceed what we were paying before we moved. All this because my wife won't adjust her behavior to accommodate my needs, or respect my job.
They often invite me to drink with them during lunch and sometimes suggest blowing off the rest of the day. Despite my repeated refusals, they persist, considering it polite. I find it rude and disrespectful to keep pushing. They've even labeled me as "boring”. But what really grinds my gears is when they invite me out and I decline, they think they've got a right to grill me about why. A few times, when I've had enough of their pestering, I’ll state my position more firmly, and then they’ll get real mad that I’m being “judgmental”, and think I’m better than them. So now if they invite me anywhere, I just shut it down with a simple "no" and zero explanation. Which bugs them, but at least it keeps the peace.
There are a ton of other emergent/secondary annoyances I could get into, but let's cap it at three.
One, since I’ve said they’re both being hypocritical about me being ‘judgmental’ (even though I wasn’t) in refusing to join their plans, when the majority of their conversations are judging other people: it has become a game to them to point out every time they think I’m a hypocrite. I answered my wife from another room once. She brings it up as my ‘hypocrisy’ whenever I mention she’s yelling to her brother in another room, and she’s right next to me.
I think it’s different: her yelling in the house upsets me, but my ‘hypocrisy’, she enjoys that. We aren’t trading vices. If I realize I’m upsetting my wife, I stop doing whatever it is that’s upsetting her. She seems to be telling me that she doesn’t care to adjust her behavior to stop upsetting me. And that the real problem is that I keep talking about it, rather than just quietly suffering through it.
Two I've likely developed obnoxious habits just to maintain some space in conversations with my wife, such as speaking louder to overcome interruptions.
Three, my wife will talk to me at any time, without paying any attention to what I’m doing or even whether I’m wearing noise-cancelling headphones. She’ll interrupt me whilst I’m holding a mop, vacuum, trash bag to remind me to mop, vacuum, or take out the trash. She’ll interrupt me while I’m tackling a chore to give me instructions. I don't understand them, she'll take over, do it the exact same way I was, then huff about it. She’ll interrupt me whilst I’m getting ready to remind me to take my wallet, throwing off my train of thought and making me forget what I was looking for. Which I’ll then forget. She’ll interrupt me while driving, for random observations (‘look, a cute dog!’) no matter how many times I tell her it’s dangerous.
It’s hard to explain how much more restrictive this makes my life feel. I avoid tasks that will take over 20 minutes unless my wife is out. My wife and brother both mock me for traits (lousy memory, lack of focus, disorganization) which they exacerbate with their behavior.
When my wife is away from her brother, she returns to her usual self, the woman I fell for.
My gut tells me her family has a toxic way of communicating (the rest of her family are borderline abusive), and she learnt to town down of those tendencies while away from them. She is more at ease with that way of speaking with her brother, and she falls back to it with him – and is trying to force me to adapt to it. There’s probably a side order of some history of feeling sidelined in male-dominated groups, so she’s acting out on that trauma and making sure out-talks us both. She’s got zero patience for boredom, which is why she butts in and won’t take extra time to make sure I understand – and why she thinks my ‘long rants’ are way longer and more boring than hers.
Her view is that conversations are boring unless people are excited, and excited people interrupt and talk over each other constantly. I hate that, because a conversation just feels like a constant fight to participate. It’s draining and I’d rather not socialize at all.
She describes the way I’d rather talk – back and forth – as “pompous, like you think you’re a king who can’t be interrupted”.
I don’t have a support system here since everyone I know here is through them, and everyone back home still believes I successfully rode off into the sunset. So, Reddit, how do I better communicate my needs to my wife? Both to not lose my job, and to enjoy conversations with her?

I’m watching the latest live recap and this is sad AF, she says tiktok doesn’t want her to make money but a few months ago you was talking big saying how you showed your sister how to go viral and if you wanted to you could go viral and get brand deals too but now it’s a different story, what happened to all that big talk booka? You tryna rebrand yourself as this wholesome goody goody person like I can’t type your name and see you cussing ppl out.. girl bye hang it up and go back to doing what you do best being a bum.

So you know I am a kill them with kindness type of person when I dislike someone actions, or I just literally walk away. That being said, I mowed my yard and pulled my kids’ trampoline out. Shortie (my handicapped daughter) and I were cleaning it off and the little neighbor kid came to the fence. For all intensive purposes, we will call her little M. She was one of the children that were bullying my shortie. Also, back story: Her mother called CPS and made a false report on me and tried to have my (Thearpy) dog taken away. She is married, I grew up with her husband and she had an affair with my fiancé while I was at work supporting my family. I evicted him as I bought my home before I met him. That’s when the harassment started. Anyway, she wanted to come over and play. I’m not the type of person to hold anything against a young child for their behavior. I blame the parents in all honesty. So I told her to go ask her mother if she could come over and play. The little girl came back with a sad look. I asked her what was wrong and she said she couldn’t come over because of my dog. I told her I would put him up in the house for her and I understand her mother’s concern. She ran off to go ask her mom if she could come over if I put my (therapy) dog up. She came back and said that her mother didn’t want her in my yard. I paused, that little girl looked heart broken. I then told her not to be sad; I understand her mother’s concern. I told her that I would have the rest of my backyard cleaned up by the end of the month because we were putting a pool up and maybe then she could come over. That little girl had the brightest smile and ran off to play.