Hey everyone, don't even ask me why I decided this was a good idea, but I thought it'd be fun to do an AMA discussing my YouTube career. I'm the founder of Newscape Studios and the mind behind the many YouTube channels we've created and continue to run in-house. Some of the channels include GameToons (10M+ subs), Bronzo, Maxcraft, Princesshana, and all of the Newscapepro channels. We also ran several other channels for some time like SCP Animated.
My name's Cory Crater and I started my career on YouTube back in 2010 when I signed onboard with a company called Machinima (some of you have probably heard of them). I spent my high school years creating Halo, CoD, and Minecraft videos to varying success. I hit my first million view video back in 2010 -- it was called 100 Ways to Die in Modern Warfare 2.
I continued creating machinimas for Machinima and Machinima Realm (that's a whole lotta machinima) as well as very mediocre gameplay commentaries for Machinima Respawn that did much better than they should have. I went to college where I continued creating YouTube content on the side. I eventually dropped out in 2014 to go work at Sky Media (SkyDoesMinecraft). So I moved from New Hampshire to Seattle and it was really the beginning of a new phase of my life. About a year after working at Sky Media, I left and moved back to New Hampshire where I started the early phases of my company, Newscape Studios.
I had a lot of luck with my first channel, Newscapepro, which I had been slowly growing since I was just 12 years old. Minecraft roleplays were just popping off at the time and I wedged myself into that niche by creating machinima cutscenes for larger YouTubers and eventually creating my own full-length videos.
From there, I expanded out my content, opening up a a general gaming channel titled Newscapegames and a Minecraft PVP channel called Newscapedos (Both of those channels have since been rebranded and repurposed, though we did start a new Newscapegames several years back). At this point I was scheduling, shooting, the face on camera, editing and posting 20 videos a week. The workload was a bit overbearing.
So I brought on some help, hiring editors and renting out a small office at The Mills in Rollinsford, NH. Two of my first editors (K & Joe) are actually now my COO and CAO. We continued creating content for the various Newscape channels, but struggled with growth, as this was the time of the dreaded Adpocalypse, demonetization, and Minecraft was seemingly fading into obscurity. All of those factors tanked our revenue and we had trouble keeping the doors open on several occasions.
We finally found some stability when Fortnite came out and we launched a machinima channel -- Newscapepro Fortnite Shorts, Films & Skits. We ended up gaining a lot of traction. It was larger than anything we'd experienced before. and were not going to sit around and wait for the inevitable falling off of a new trend -- so my team (K, Joe, Ryan & my wife, Bri) packed up and moved down to Austin, Texas in hopes we could make some much-needed hires and strike while the iron's hot.
In Austin, we quickly grew from a team of 5 to 15 and then 25 in just over a year. We launched several new channels including a live action one, several more Fortnite channels, a Roblox channel, and a general gaming channel. We also had some failed attempts at channels like VRVS where we planned to go head to head in VR games.
Things changed when we started SCP Animated -- a channel where we animated stories from the SCP wiki. This was our first attempt at animation, and the channel had a great run. It also helped us establish the pipeline for GameToons, a channel where we animated parodies of the most popular videogames. GameToons ended up being our biggest channel ever. We started our Among Us Logic series right around the start of COVID and hit some wild view counts right from the start. Our first videos were 15M, 9M, 24M, and 50M views.
Last year, GameToons hit the milestone of 10 million subscribers and we received our first-ever Diamond Play Button. I took a photo with a note on it, hopefully giving me and this post some credibility. (linked below) We're now at a point where we have ten channels that have surpassed 1M subscribers. The success we've experienced is truly humbling and honestly still baffling. So with all of that out of the way, I'm here to answer questions -- whether they be technical, from aspiring creators or just general questions about myself or my company.
Looking forward to chatting with you all!
Also, here's a photo of me with my Diamond Play Button plaque, and a note for the AMA- https://imgur.com/9hpqS7G
Hopefully that's evidence enough that I am who I say I am, but if anyone wants further verification (within reason), I'm more than happy to oblige! Thanks!

I am currently pregnant with our first child. I just found out so not far along at all.( 4 weeks ). My husband and I have been working together for some time and we build and remodel custom bathrooms and tile showers.Understandable this job requires a lot of bending down and squatting up and down. Normally I have absolutely no issues but even a little work ( much less than normal ) has been giving me cramps ( sharp pain) in my pelvic region ( mostly on my left side ). Sitting and laying down helps but as soon as I get back to work it starts again. I don’t want to already be useless this pregnancy just started…. SOS

I will begin by saying that i understand that some players want very fast queue times and don't care about playing a fair match. And that is fine. These people should keep the option of being matched with no proper matchmaking and that is ok.
Personally, i much rather wait 5 minutes in queue and then get a fun match, rather than get a quick queue time but waste 20 minutes of my time in a boring match.
I am actually seeing the same issue on both sides i play. When i play Killer, i am actually very skilled at it, and i just get 3K or 4K every single game. The game doesn't seem to ever match me with people of my skill level, and i still face plenty of baby survivors, no matter how long my win streak is. Of course, sometimes in the survivor team, there is one or 2 people who are quite good, but they can't carry the match by themselves.
At the opposite, i am much more average at survivor, and i tend to queue with friends who are even worst. In this case, the kind of killer we face is extremely random. Sometimes we face a baby trapper that i can loop around for days. Other times, i face a try-hard nurse that i can't do anything against. The same goes for the survivors i am matched with... sometimes some of them cannot complete any skill checks and are clearly brand new to the game. Other times, i actually get very competent people as teammates.
While i understand the goal of quick queue times, i'd personally much rather wait a bit and actually get a fun balanced match. It doesn't need to be perfect MMR balance, but as i said earlier, the variance is just too massive.

Played a single Legion round today in Chaos Shuffle.
They all brought Commodious Boxes to push gens and have the gall to accuse me of tunnelling because I committed to one chase with two people left, after they used all the pallets, after they didn't do enough altruism, when they had three bad players who couldn't loop, and they all kept doing the same gen, AND THREEGENNED THEMSELVES, and while I was lagging so badly there's NO way I can play Legion at all properly... and I still 4ked, while spreading hooks. I did not slug. I did not camp. I am coming back to Killer after a month long absence. I haven't played Legion specifically in over three months. I had RANDOM PERKS, some of which happened to match up to my power... and one of the perks was HEX: THRILL OF THE HUNT.
So basically I got accused of tunnelling because I 4kd as a Legion, with random perks that left me with only three actually usable perks, and I had Lag the whole time... because I properly checked hooks and committed to a chase HARD in the endgame when it was already over.
In other words, I was called a tunneller for simply playing Legion, not even that well, with serious handicaps. LOL.
Very funny, Zarina. Why didn't Sable take any aggro for you? Why were you running around trying to get chases instead of doing gens? Why did nobody protect the Leon who was clearly baby and get him to leave the area I was in? Why did ALL OF YOU push the gens so hard on ONE SIDE OF THE MAP that Like I'm not even mad. Really not even mad. I played pretty damn fair, she's just mad I committed to a chase. Whatever helps her sleep at night I guess. Maybe next time bring a better group, or don't rely on randoms?
Never forget: To some players, Killer doing anything = tunnel. Never blame your team being unskilled, never blame YOUR lack of skill, nah just blame the other side. That's what's easy, right?
If you have to bring your all EVEN IN A FUN MODE and you STILL lose when the other side is handicapped... what does that really say about you?

I was really excited to finally try Arc when it comes to windows as people seemed to love it and it always looked interesting and clean to me. Here I will write a short review of what i've noticed with using it a few days.
I won't touch so much on the subject on side tabs, Spaces, "bookmarks", these are not really issues and are definitely subjective and different, some people might like the new approach, some dont.
Here's a quick summary of my thoughts on the most notable "features" (Sidenav, Spaces, Different Logic for Bookmarks)

• I personally like the side nav, i like how easy it is to see everything and is forcing me to use my keaboard more for navigation (Ctrl+S, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W), which i enjoy. It also looks great
• Spaces, and similar features like it in other browsers, is something that's not a part of my workflow typically. I like everything in one place and don't like unnecessary overhead. However, i see great potential in this for people who want to separate personal life and work, or multiple different works in an organized way.
• I don't use bookmarks as heavily as some people either, but it definitely feels weird having them act as tabs, maybe I could get used to it.

I just wanted to mention those obvious and biggest selling points of Arc; however, these are subjective features and changing the way people think about browsers and navigation, I don't want to talk about this atm. Each person should decide if they like what Arc has to offer when it comes to these "breaking" changes.
I also don't want to talk about any early Windows bugs, I'm sure those will be sorted out soon.
What I primarily wanted to talk about is some missing features. Sadly, at this point in time, Arc feels like a downgrade. Many features are missing or abstracted in a very weird way, and its not clear why, most of the things I'm about to talk about would not impact the "nature" of Arc, so I'm not sure why they were left out or not implemented.

1. Favourites (Quick access, or h/e you wanna call it)

When I started using Arc, considering that there is no way to customize the default home page, I was disappointed to see that theres no way for me to quickly open up some my most visited places. Then i found the Favourites, and i was pleasantly surprised, they looked clean, were accessible at all times, didn't take up too much space, perfect. That's what i thought until i was disappointed again.
The way favourites behave is just dumb, i have no other way of putting it. Its horrible and mostly unusable.
Example: Let's say I favorite Netflix. I click on it to open it, it's not gonna create a new tab, its just gonna open it in favorites. I play a movie and navigate off. There is NO WAY for me to tell that Netflix was ever even opened, that I have an entire movie playing in the background, i would have no idea where its coming from, what is playing, or anything about it, until i finally click on it to see whats going on. It's a horrible experience.
This somewhat intertwines with the way current "bookmarks" behave, except that this type of behavior is never expected from a quick-access menu. Atm these are just glorified tabs, but worse since they have no title, no indicators for being opened or playing audio, nothing.
To fix this simply make clicking on this open a new tab, I don't see how the current approach is better.

2. Titles

I can't for the life of me figure out why this is the case, but some webpage titles are overridden. Most notably I noticed Gmail, but I think i saw other cases as well.
In other browsers the title bar would show something like: Inbox(5) - [myemail@gmail.com](mailto:myemail@gmail.com)
In Arc it shows: Gmail
Just why? A very useful piece of information coming from the third party website itself is overridden for a worse user experience.

3. Multi-monitomulti-window support

For this part it might be important to notice the difference between Windows and Mac users. Correct me if I'm wrong but Mac seems typically focused on one monitor (considering the product), and the workflows for MacOS apps are built with that in mind. I'm not saying that all windows users use multiple monitors, in fact most don't, but it seems more common to have those types of customizability.
Now that Arc is on Windows the "Mac way of doing things" seems to remain, and everything feels slightly off.

• Technically you can have multiple arc windows, but the only way to make them is to drag and drop tabs. However, this creates an entirely new unnamed new space, and I'm not sure if that is what i would want.
• Creating new windows lacks the UX compared to Chrome, where you can just drag it out anywhere and it works natively the way a windows app is expected to.
• Middle-clicking the Arc icon in the taskbar doesn't do anything (should open a new window). And Right Click->New window opens the original Space with the same tabs,it feels very off and buggy, I don't see the benefit.
• Splitting is probably the closest I found to match the way I typically use a browser. However these are also not very intuitive, its hard to navigate, replace/add/close tabs, theres a weird white border, you cant split vertically

4. Settings

I couldn't wait to dive into the settings and personalize my Arc experience to fix all of these "issues" I was having. Only to find that settings pretty much don't exist. There is nothing.
(I'm not talking about chromium settings, these need to exist. But even these are impossible to find for an average user)
Here are all the available options

• Change the Theme between the two (they seem exactly the same)
• Change default search engine
• Setup when tabs are archived
• THATS IT, those 3 settings are the only ones that exist.

In such an "innovative" browser I expected intinitely more options to tweak things around. The way it currently is, if you don't like Arcs very opinionated way of doing things, you can't do anything about it. This is probably one of my biggest downsides.

5. Why?

• Opening a URL/Search window always shows "The Browser Company" youtube channel as one of the option? At least disable it when opened once, or put more rows in this menu, you remove an entire space for most recently opened places for an ad.
• Navigating off a page playing a puts a video in a small window over your other stuff. Maybe 1/20 times i watch a video I might want this to happen, the rest of the time, its a music video, podcast, something to listen to, you just navigated quickly off of it, etc. At least add an option to remove this. (As I was writing this i found a way to disable the "picture in picture", I will leave the section to show my initial thought, but im pleasantly surprised i was able to fix this and im willing to give other features a try the same way)

Conclusion

I will still be using Arc for a while to see if I can get used to some of my current pain-points and to give it a better shot, as well as wait for potential upgrades.
Let me know what you guys think and if you found a workaround for some of my issues. Or have any other benefits to Arc that i filed to notice.
Thanks for reading

Hello everyone
I am male, 30 yo. I feel pain in my lower legs when I run or sprint, it comes faster on harder sprints, I usually push through the pain for few minutes, then it goes away and I continue running whitout anymore pain.
I though it was because I dont do proper warm up or stretchs.
Yesterday, it happened as usual, in both legs, but it was more painful and didnt ease away, especially on my left leg, i took a break as it eases the pain. While sitting I notices this bump, which I noticed before, but just then I thought that the pain and the bump might be connected, because I have pain on both legs and bumps also on both legs, same pain and same bumps on the exact same spot, only for the left leg the pain was more and the bump was bigger.
I noticed also that the pump disappears when I left my foot of the ground, and comes back when I put weight on it. Also it disappears when I pull my toes up (contracting the muscles on the front, opposite of the calves).
The bump got bigger with pain, and small when the pain goes away, but its there. The bumps are on the outer side of the legs.
The pain starts when running, then any movement of the foot causes pain, a few minutes of rest make the pain goes away. Then I can walk normally pain free, until the next time I run.
I saw a doctor, he said it shin splints, took an xray, nothing wrong with the bones. Told me to take it easy and start from zero, as in walking for 5 minutes, the 10 or so.
I workout 4 days a week, but no cardio other than playing padel. And I dont play regularly.
So it might be caused by too much too quick?!
Are the bump and the pain related? are they caused by one another? And how can I make it go away?

I (F34) and my husband (M34) have been married for 10 years. I used his instagram to search for something. I don't have my own instagram. When I clicked on the search icon all of the videos I could see were of women in provocative outfits, half naked, etc. It took me aback because the last time I used his instagram a few months ago the videos suggested were mainly bikes, and a random woman here and there. After I brought up to him how uncomfortable seeing that made me and I would feel better if I could look at his instagram, he said it was childish, that the instagram algorithm isn't accurate. He left the room enraged and came back 20 min later. When he came back he mentioned I can look through his phone anytime but I told him that makes no sense because he left the room giving him plenty of time to delete whatever he needed to! I just have no idea what to do next. How do I trust him?
Some important Backstory: He emotionally cheated while we dated and twice while married. I.e: he flirted via text with women. After tons of counseling I felt like we got to a great spot in our marriage. We have been married for 10 years. He cheated over 5 years ago and I have not felt any inclination that he was cheating.
Side note: he swears he doesn't watch porn. I've told him that's fine but I'd like to see what he watches or if we can watch it together.

Like the title says, my (50f) significant other (44m) is currently living out if his car or with friends. We've been together 6 months and in the beginning, I had no idea about his living situation. He had recently left a live-in handyman type of position at a large rural compound to be closer to this side of the island where his sister lives. He stayed with her some, friends some, while I assumed he was looking for a place. His work is freelance; he's a skilled boat builder and repairman but takes minimal work. He could easily make a steady income with it if he'd manage his time well but has trouble getting along with authority and committing to schedules. The longer I'm with him, I suspect definitely suspect neurodivergence or some type of mental issue. But, he's fun, we get along, he's attractive and generally compatible with me. Problem is, I don't see how he's going to resolve his living situation. As we've gotten closer, he does sleepovers at my house sometimes. He's a stellar guest, cooks, cleans, buys things for the home, everything. BUT, the closer we get, the more he pressures me to let him stay like every night. If I don't offer, he gets verbally abusive calling me selfish and other worse names. I am a mom of 3 kids ages 22, 18, and 11 and they all live with me (oldest moving out to law school this summer). I just can't "move a guy in" like that, though they can tolerate him at times....and that's exactly what it feels like: tolerance. It's a small community and they're hip to the fact that he's currently without a home. AITAH for expecting him to figure out his own place to stay on the days he's not with me? I need my time and space. I told him no matter who he was or how much money a guy has, I'm in no way ready to live with someone full time. He says I'm heartless. But back when he was getting to know me, he hid all his frustration and acted just fine. Now I walk on eggshells to even call him during the day because it's usually going to turn into a drama/argument/guilt trip about where he's sleeping that night.

Met with an acquaintance today who i haven't seen in 3 years. I invited them to play tennis since that's how we met, and since we were on both sides of the court, we didn't get to chat.
I asked them after playing if they wanted to grab a bite and catch up, which is the usual fare with most other people as you're tired and hungry after... and they said no., that they had something else to do. So we didn't really even got to chat.
It felt really weird and it kept me overthinking as we literally just hit back and forth, left, and that's it.
i'm starting to think maybe i'm off putting as recently when i talk to people, i frequently hear "excuse me for a bit, i'll just check out something over there" and they walk away. i dunno if that's related.
i might just be overthinking a lot of this, but it really makes me feel weird and insecure.

Me (24F) and my boyfriend (28M) met 17 months ago on a dating app. At the time we were both in different countries and had set our location to a place we were both planning to visit. He asked me on a date for new years eve and even bought an event ticket for that night when we were both supposed to be there . Unfortunately a few days before my flight I got sick and never got to visit that country or see him there. I was expecting us to stop talking and I was talking/dating afew other people since I thought him and I would never meet in real life but to my surprise we started talking every single day and he was the sweetest guy I had ever met . We got to know each other pretty good to the point that he kept asking me to move to his country. After around 4 months of talking online he told me he’s getting a ticket and coming to see me for a week . And that’s when we had our first phone call , over that phone call he said he needs to tell me something because it might be a red flag for me and he just wants to be honest about it , he said he has dated a stripper before me (around 2 years before me) but they were never official and it was something casual just because he was lonely and she was pushy. To be honest I didn’t like hearing that but I was still okay with it. Fast forward to our first week together, we went on date every single day , we went to really nice restaurants and bars and he was putting in so much effort into our dates, we eventually spent the weekend together and that’s when he gave me a gift along with a letter telling me how much he loves me and then we were intimate for the first time and spent the entire weekend in his hotel room .
He went back to his country for work and came back to see me after 5 weeks and we had another amazing week together and that’s when I told him that I love him too so we got alot closer and talked about our past, about how he used to be a party boy and into drugs but he’s changed now and people we have dated and exes , and in a funny conversation the topic of body count came up and I told him mine is 3 and he said he has been with 6 people in total which was shockingly good in my opinion. He also told me that the last time he slept with someone was a year before me because he’s not into one night stands or casual sex because he is emotional and can’t just have that with anyone and that was very respectable and admirable in my opinion and made me fall in love even more . I was honest with and told him the last time I had slept with someone was a month or two into us talking but there was no emotion connection with that person, he was upset but he said he understood that we weren’t that serious back then .
He came back for the 3rd time after 2 weeks and that’s when we got an Airbnb and spent the whole week together cooking and talking like a married couple in love , on the same week we ran into a girl in our airbnb building and she was so happy to see my bf , she jumped to hug him and gave him a kiss on the cheek but my bf seemed kinda uncomfortable. After the interaction I was curious to know how does he know someone in my country so I asked him who she was and he said she is his high school classmate that lives in the same city as him now and she just got married so it must be a coincidence that she’s visiting too.
He was back to see me for another week after 2 weeks and at that point we both knew we are offical and that neither of us has even talked to anyone else for the past 4-5 months but we still didn’t put a label on it because I was so afraid of doing long distance and the fact that I was going to move to a country even further away from him in a month. On that week we went and got an STD test together and I even got an IUD so we don’t have to worry about using protection anymore. He knew that I had this unreasonable fear of contracting HIV and this was him being supportive and calming my nerves.
Afew weeks later I moved to a different country around 17000 miles away and when I was looking for a place there we decided to lease an apartment together and furnish our home together because he was planning on moving there to live with me . He came to visit me for a month and we had more amazing days together and became officially girlfriend and boyfriend .he was the sweetest most loving and understanding guy ever.
We did 3 month of long distance and I missed him so bad that I decided to leave everything behind and sell my stuff to go travel with him for 3 months and also go and visit his family and his hometown , it was hard but we made it work and we were both on cloud 9 for the first 2 weeks together. And after meeting his family things were even more serious , they all loved me and keep asking him when he’s going to propose and end the long distance and I even got invited to his brother’s wedding.
One night my trust issues got the best of me and decided to check his phone ( I know it’s bad) I didn’t see anything too bad as his chats were mostly deleted but I came across a chat with that high-school classmate I mentioned earlier and I found out that they had been on a few dates and that he had sent her the same sweet questions as he sent to me word for word. I also saw that they spent the night together and he had a hickey on his neck from her . I also saw that before meeting me he was sliding into girls dms calling them hot and being sexual and I was sooo shocked just because the image he showed me of himself was so so different. I gave him a chance to come clean in the morning but he kept on lying to my face till I showed him the chats , even then he denied ever sleeping with her . I was so hurt that so early in our relationship he could lie to my face for no reason .
I was upset so I left our villa to stay at a hotel, he kept texting and calling and begging me to give him another chance and go to dinner with him and I did, he was so apologetic he was so upset and he kept saying all he wants is to go back and never lie to me so I asked him to come clean about anything else he has lied about . I went over everything with him and asked if they were lies too? he said no . I decided to stay and give us another chance .
Just 3 days after that night I asked him if I can delete his exes number that is a stripper off his phone in front of him he said yes and when I went to delete it I saw their messages , it wasn’t from 2 years before me ! The last message was 15 days before meeting me and turns out she was actually his friend’s girlfriend and they were secretly seeing each other… I was so heartbroken I couldn’t believe he is a person like that and that he has lied to my face again! He used to always say he hates cheater and that he has been cheated on before so he would never do anything like that but in the chats they were making fun of that girl’s bf which was his friend.
He started apologising again and told me there is more, there is someone else he has slept with shortly before me and that whole not sleeping with anyone for a year and no one nights stands was lie to make me fall in love with him . I forgave him again and decided to help him not feel ashamed about his past .
4 days later I asked him to send me our STD test results from months ago to me again because I lost it and my doctor wanted see it he started looking at his emails and said he can’t find it so I offered to help him look and I found it in his trash folder, but again I wanted to give him a chance so I asked if he has deleted it? He said no ! Turns out he was tested positive for a very minor and not dangerous STD and because he felt ashamed he edited the results when he sent it to months earlier. And deleted it afew days prior. His excuse was that I’m very anxious and fearful about STDs so he didn’t want to worry me because the doctor said it doesn’t need a treatment , And again I was convinced .
A few weeks passed and we were arguing a-lot because of trust issues but we were trying to get help and work on the relationship, he even confessed that there were more small lies he has told me , like saying some of the girls he was following were his friends or friends of friends when in fact they were girls he had met on tinder before meeting me . I struggled to understand why he would lie to me about stuff like this when I had never showed to be a jealous or not understanding GF .
A few weeks later we were doing better and travelling different countries together and I thought we’re done with lies so one night I was overthinking and asked him about a blocked number I saw on his phone that first time I looked through it , I asked who’s number that was because It had the country code of the country I lived in when we first started dating. He reassured me that it’s probably a scam number and that I was overthinking but I wasn’t convinced so I put it into google and it brought up so many escort websites from that country. For a whole week I begged and cried for him to tell me the truth to tell me I’m not crazy and what I’m seeing is right but he denied it every time for a whole week and even cried because I couldn’t believe him till one morning when I promised him I won’t leave if he just tells me , he confessed that on that first week after or first or second date when he went back to his hotel room he looked at escort sites and texted them but kept swearing that he never saw one and to him it just like watching porn . Once again I was in disbelief because he used to always say people that pay for sex are evil and are using girls that might have been trafficked for sex , I was also heartbroken and disgusted that he could do that in my city , somewhere that was my home and he was supposed to be there just for me and the fact that I’d have been on the same bed we had sex for the first time and the same room he told me he loved me in only 2 days later …
He blamed it all on porn and his porn addiction, I was shocked because I never had a problem with him watching porn I had even asked him if he wants to watch it together but he always seemed not that interested. He said that he has had trust issues and the reason why he went on an escort site in the first place was to make sure I wasn’t one … Honestly I didn’t know what to do with that informations ! How could he even possibly think that but it doesn’t bother me what bothers me is thinking that he got on 5 hour flight and took me on all those nice dates thinking I might be an escort?? And when he realised I wasn’t he looked for a real one ? Like he was disappointed that I wasn’t an escort? After 5-6 months of talking to me all day and night . I couldn’t not understand and will never understand .
Because of my promise I stayed and went to therapy ever since then he keeps saying I know all of his dark side and secrets and there is nothing else he would lie to me about. He’s been super apologetic and putting up with my anxiety and hearing out my hurt and looking for ways to fix our relationship and trust.
Our trip ended and we are doing long distance again and I told him I won’t be like before because it takes time to rebuild trust he understood and said it’s fair for me to look for things or have doubts . The other night i was looking at his email to make sure there are no more escort or things like that and I saw an email from a almost a year before me , it was from a flowegift shop that he has bought me flowers from which was very meaningful to me .
I saw that he had sent the same flower to that stripper girl that he claimed he was never in a relationship with only difference is hers was way more expensive and it had a note saying she is his world and there was another flower order worth 500$ sent to the same girl and the note was he is sorry for not keeping his promises and that he is in love with her more than he could have ever imagined.word for word of how he has apologised to me.
He has been telling me for over a year now that he never told that girl he loved her without me ever asking him . So I asked him if he has ever bought her flowers? But I also sent him a text saying he doesn’t owe me anything from his past and he shouldn’t worry about hurting my feelings and just tell me truth because I love him . He said no . Afew hours later he said he remembered that it was one time and it was from the same shop but what he got me was better and once again without me even asking he said no but I never loved her and never told her I lover her . I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked if there is a chance he doesn’t remember ? Maybe because it was over text ? He said no there is no way he wouldn’t remember saying something like that .
I sent him the email and all he had to say was that he wasn’t lying he just didn’t remember… And he kept saying but that’s all , I never got her anything else (like that’s the point) but I also saw another email in his trash folder and it was another gift order to the same girl and he deleted that email the same day so there is no way he wouldn’t remember those gifts …
I’m so done and over the lies but I’m starting to blame myself for asking things for caring about the past , my mind keep telling me at least he didn’t cheat on you . But then I remember he lied to me about things I never even asked for cared about. I remember that he might have been interested in me because he thought I might be an escort not because of who I am .
He has been the kindest and nicest person to me and has done everything to make sure I’m okay during our relationship . Am I doing something wrong? What to do ? I’m so confused

I know this is unnecessarily long, so if you are not in the mood for reading, I understand. But I would greatly appreciate anyone who would take the time to read my story that is probably TMI and badly in need of some editing. I just really need some advice from people whose heads are less cloudy than mine.
My fiancé M/42 and I F41 have been together for about 4 years and have known each other since high school. I knew he was a recovering addict when I got together with him but I fell head over heels in love and didn’t see the relapse on the horizon that would occur shortly after the honeymoon phase and would eventually almost kill me - I took a swipe of some mystery powder and touched it to my tongue (fentanyl) thinking it would help me get through the most stressful day of my life as i was ceaning out his place while I was packing him up for detox. It was a total freak accident, I’m not an addict, never done anything like that in my life, I’m a single mom and a kindergarten teacher, but I loved him so much I just followed him down the rabbit hole and honestly just became so disoriented in this world I (naively) didn’t understand or even realize I had signed up for.
Anyway, He literally saved my life, and said I also saved his, because that day is what motivated him to get and stay clean for good despite being an active heroin addict for the majority of his life.
He worked an incredibly thorough program, and he gained more friends, money, and more overall success in 2 years than I’ve been able to scrounge up in an entire lifetime. And it’s no surprise honestly. He’s a special person. Absolutely brilliant, charismatic, driven, and has a heart of gold.
Within a year of getting sober, he moved me and my daughters into a gorgeous home adjacent to a golf course, bought luxury vehicles for both me and him, convinced me to quit my teaching job which was making me miserable, so I could finally be fully present for my girls, and then put a giant diamond ring on my left hand. He completely spoils us. We went from having nothing to having every tangible thing, we could possibly need.
The stability that he provided for us meant the world to a single mom who was barely making ends meet, but it was always just the icing on the cake for me. He’s my best friend in the world, he makes me laugh so hard my mouth hurts from smiling, he show me that he loves even the parts of myself that I don’t find lovable. I found my soulmate.
His program started slipping after 2 1/2 years (last November). He was already struggling in his role of being a stepfather, and we were fighting a lot about parenting stuff. He has a lot to learn, has little patience, and seems to have very unrealistic expectations of my kids. He wanted Parenting to be this effortless thing, and he just doesn’t get that it’s not. And that kids are not always going to behave themselves and that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them. so we were fighting a lot.
In December, he started complaining about his chronic back pain again (a real issue for him as he’s had five back surgeries due to a snowboarding accident in his early 20s-this was during that height of Purdue Pharma and what got him hooked on pain meds)
While I know he was legitimately in pain, it was also a red flag because pain was the culprit for his last relapse. He decided to go in for a sixth surgery and was told he would have to wait three months. He found a surgeon who has made a lot of profit off of him over the years (as he’s a PI attorney) and was willing to prescribe him generous amounts of pain pills to get him through the three months of increasing pain that he was experiencing. He spent the next three months in bed, depressed, checking out, taking pills depressed, checking out- as I became increasingly suspicious that his behavior was much too loopy for the amount of medication he was being prescribed. I fell into the role of his nurse, and his babysitter. Making sure he didn’t text to nonsense to clients, making sure he didn’t fall and make his back worse, making sure he wasn’t interacting with the kids, etc
I knew he wasn’t being honest with me, but he just kept gaslighting me. It honestly felt like he was psychologically tormenting me, treating me as though I was totally paranoid, heartless and out of line. I thought after the surgery, it would finally get better. I made a promise that I would be there for him because he had never had anyone there for him for the previous surgeries and it had been a really traumatic experience for him in the past. I really stepped up and tried so hard to his rock. The hospital experience was horrific, mainly because no amount of diloted was relieving him of the pain. None of the nurses understood why he needed so much more than everyone else, but I think his tolerance had just become so high.
After that nightmare was finally over I was really counting on things getting better, as the plan was for him to taper off the meds, live pain-free, and get back to normal. It didn’t go that way. It just kept getting worse and no matter how many times I told him that I didn’t trust him he just had an excuse for an explanation for everything. He is a master manipulator and I listened to him do it to everyone, doctors, the pharmacist he formed a “friendship” with, literally everyone.
On Mother’s Day, it got to a point where he couldn’t hide it anymore. He disappeared for the day, Ended up, passing out at a gas station and was unreachable for hours, when he finally came home, the car was all fucked up and he claims it was someone else’s fault. He went straight to his home office and I didn’t see the rest of the night until I walked in on him smoking crushed up pills. After that, he confessed everything to me, including the time that he told me not to check the mail because he had a special surprise for me to thank me for all the love and support I gave him To help him through his surgery. it turned out he had drug dealers sending him drugs in the mail. Needless to say there was no surprise for me me. Just heartbreak and betrayal. I felt like a fool.
I was still processing this the next day when , after insisting on taking a photo of me in these designer sunglasses he purchased for me out of guilt. I asked him not to take my photo, because I had tears in my eyes, but he insisted. He was napping next to me and I opened his phone to erase the photo. we’ve always had each other’s passwords, and have looked through each others photos before for various reasons, sharing photos, etc. I cannot emphasize enough how much I trust his loyalty to me when it comes to anything other than drugs.
But for some reason, all of my photos, the ones I was taking on my phone were showing up in his feed. I was so confused, so I started scrolling through deleting unflattering double chin pictures of myself when I came across that menu photos organized based on face recognition. One of them was his ex. I remember him telling me he deleted all of his photos of her the first time he told me he loved me.
I opened it and scrolled through hundreds of pictures of their happy life together. The pictures got more and more sexual, one of her with her legs spread, another another of them in the bathtub together, her kissing him while he had his hands around her neck, another screenshot of her naked in the shower with a thumbnail shot of him in the corner obviously jerking off to her on FaceTime. Because I’m a masochist I decided to take it one step further and look in his video folder. I found a There I found a thumbnail shot if a close-up of him penetrating her. I watched it and it just completely crushed whatever was left of me.
I’m normally a really passive person, and I just completely lost my mind. I reacted as though I had caught him cheating on me. I just couldn’t handle the physical evidence of such a close up shot of him being inside another woman. It’s stupid because I know, like me, he has a past. Obviously he’s been with other women. Obviously he’s been attracted to them. But it just scarred my brain, I literally haven’t even been able to eat since because I’ve been so nauseous. I know it’s ridiculous, because this is a reality I was well aware existed, but seeing it with my own eyes… I don’t know what to say. Other than that I need a lobotomy.
He says he erased all of those videos and photos from his phone, and something weird happened where all of his photos from the cloud just re-uploaded when he got a new phone. He’s not a technical person and I actually believe him because, aside from being a complete liar when it comes to drugs, he has always show me the upmost, integrity, love and loyalty. So it’s not that I don’t believe him. I just can’t get that image out of my head.
I can’t tell if this intense emotional reaction I’m having would be the same reaction anyone would have if they saw what I saw, or if I’m combining the feelings of betrayal over the gaslighting and the relapse…, the last four months of feeling completely invisible, hopeless, and like he was choosing drugs over me. My mind is like mush and I seriously can’t differentiate between these two very separate issues. I’m so confused, but that’s what gaslighting does to you. It makes you question your reality.
He said that he’s finally willing to go into detox, so at this point, I have waited this long, it would be silly not to stick around and see if he’s finally going to put an end to this. What’s getting me is that he’s still making excuses, still not seeming very remorseful, and is still so deep in self-pity that he doesn’t seem to have any awareness of how badly I’m hurting because of him. It feels like he just doesn’t care. anyone who’s ever loved an addict knows that feeling well.
I’m in Al-anon, and I’m well aware of all of the things I should be doing, focusing on myself, etc. but I’m just not doing well, and I can’t seem to find my way out of this dark hole. Anyone who has made it this far deserves some sort of a Reddit badge of honor. This was more of an autobiography than a simple question. I just wanna hear some outside input because I don’t trust my own mind right now. I’m willing to take your criticism, just please be kind. I know I’ve made mistakes, I’m just hurting so badly. I can’t seem to sort through this. Thank you so much if you took the time to read all of this and still want to respond. You have no idea how much it means to me.

Timestamp: https://i.imgur.com/GdB2Bxs.jpeg
Paypal G&S, all prices shipped. Will combine shipping where possible. Crossposted. Close up pictures upon request.
MOE stock bundle - $80 -MOE Carbine Stock (milspec) with box -0.25in riser -0.5in riser -Magpul Type 1&2 QD kit combo
MOE AK bundle - $80 -MOE AK stock /w hardware -Magpul Type 1&2 QD kit combo -MOE AK lower handguard (with left side sling loop cutout), comes with MOE MVG installed, No heatshield
Magpul Zhukov AK Stock Bundle - $110 -Magpul Zhukov stock /w hardware -Magpul Type 1&2 QD kit combo
Magpul Riser bundle for Zhukov / MOE AK stock - $45 ($5 off if bought with Zhukov or MOE AK bundle) -0.25in riser -0.5in riser -0.75in riser
Magpul AFG 2 With rail section - $35 -comes with the swappable nub

I’ve been playing some VR games lately to take the stress out of my life (in my 30s, you know - finances, family drama, and all that), and I stumbled across this game due to their relentless ads. Luckily, they’re on Open Beta - and I could play almost immediately. So, here’s an incredibly honest take on the game.
I have a half-full box of pizza just lying on my bedside table waiting for me to devour it - but I just can’t. I feel like a projectile vomit a la Family Guy will just come out of my mouth even just thinking about it. After taking off my headset, I just felt so disoriented. I know all about the “new VR gamer” kind of nausea, but this is different.
HOWEVER, I just witnessed a “Goku vs. Vegeta” kind-of-fight in front of me. A true-blue anime fight. There’s this character, or “Runner,” as the game calls it - named Riot. I just saw this “Riot” take on my ally “Skybolt” - both of which are incredible VR gamers, I should say. They’re like dashing around the air, one shooting at another, the other just zipping around, trying to find the best time to close in on one to punch the hell out of. With buildings exploding left and right - I just stood there on the street watching them like a child who first witnessed Dragon Ball Z - just jaw-dropping action.
The match ended with our team losing, of course. Lucky for the enemies, they didn’t have a “Legacy” who just stood around watching the mayhem unfold. Sorry team.
Instead of being disheartened - I felt like playing more. I want to be like THAT Riot or Skybolt. I wanna see myself on one end of that fight - I don’t care if I’m on the losing side. It would be so badass to see myself becoming part of those fights someday.
Now, I’m just charging my headset - and myself. Gotta take some Advil or something - and hope to god that I don’t waste my Pizza either waiting for myself to go back to normalcy or playing Brazen Blaze for far too long I’ll just ignore it.
Maybe play with me or something?

Age 37M
Sex Male
Height 6,1
Weight 175lbs
Race White
Duration of complaint 6 years
Location right side abdomen
Any existing relevant medical issues none
Current medications none
Include a photo if relevant n/a
Patient: I am [37] [M] 6'1, 175lbs,
Main issue: Burning pain/sensation in right side around last rib area and burning sometimes yellow liquid stool.
Done So Far: I have been chasing this burning sensation and pain in my right side for a few years now unsure of triggers except definitley beer so I typically just avoid it. I have gone to PCP and Gastroenterologist. I have been put to sleep for endoscopy/colonoscopy. I have also had MRI and CT Scans with and without contrast with no findings. According to bloodwork liver is in an ok place based on typical LFT's They cant find a problem. I don't drink alcohol often these days but did pretty heavily in my 20's for what that might be worth. And I do specifically know that beer is a trigger so I almost never touch it. BUT I got a new job offer last week and had 2 beers to celebrate at restaurant (Michelob Light 4.5%) and boy did that set my side on fire and left me feeling thirsty for a few days straight. Needless to say I am very scared I have a baby due in August and just scared I have liver issue or something that can't be fixed. If someone could help me it would mean the world to me. I have labs etc I could share if needed. Please and thank you so much anyone. Curious how easy something might’ve been overlooked by doctors.

CW: Dysphoria, Self harm
I've been on HRT for 2.5 years now and I still hate myself. Lately it's been terrible I'm breaking down and self harming again after being clean for nearly a year. I'm getting desperate and only this morning concluded it's possible I might have to get surgeries to ever feel okay with myself. I honestly don't know how to accept this, I hate that I might have do this just to ever live like a normal human. I am a compete shut in and have been for so long, I'm gonna be 24 soon and havent left the house or worked since I was 19 (besides for doctors and visiting family on holidays). I can't be like this anymore.
Some people say I pass but all I feel is visceral disgust sometimes, it's such a hopeless feeling. I have envy that makes me feel sick. I'm going to look for a therapist soon again. My dysphoria feels inescapable
Has anyone ever felt like this and managed to escape a debilitating situation like this with just therapy and come out the other side secure within themselves without surgery? Or will I need to get surgeries? How do I work to accept this and what do I need to start thinking about for surgeries?

So, I'm not entirely sure what my goal is with this post. One thing I know for certain is that it will be very long, and probably sort of jumbled and frantic, more stream of consciousness than anything. I guess I just sort of wanted to share some of the important realizations I've had in recent months, and see if: 1. Other people think that they're fair or "correct" realizations, and I'm not becoming, like, delusional or something. 2. Maybe my sharing these perspectives will help or inspire someone else who has struggled in ways similar to me.
So, here's the basic background of things. I've always been a really reserved and quiet person, ever since I was a little kid. Add in being skinny and nerdy for most of my life, and maxing out at a height of 5'9", and I'm not exactly a hot product for the average girl my age (19, turning 20 in a few weeks). In fact, I'd never had a relationship until this past year in college, but I'll get more into that in a minute. Hell, I hadn't had so much as a first kiss until this past year, either.
And, at the beginning of this past school year, being my second year of college (as a commuter student, so socializing is pretty difficult), I began to really get down on myself for having never been in a relationship, never kissed a girl, being a virgin, etc. It started to really take a toll on my mental health, because I believed that there was something intrinsically wrong and unlovable about me. Whereas a lot of young men who struggle socially romantically seem to be directing their sadness, frustration, and anger outward toward the world, especially toward women, I instead found myself directing those feeling toward myself. I was convinced that, on a basic level, there was some vital component to who I am as a person that disqualifies me from being worthy of love or affection. After all, that's what 19 years of evidence suggest, right?
Looking back, I think a large component in this was how I had been struggling, and still struggle to a degree, with my identity as a young man. I'm naturally a pretty progressive person, and I make an effort to be open to the perspectives of other groups and listen to their stories. Unfortunately, as we all know, a lot of people have been harmed by the men in their lives. And I know, I know: if I'm not doing anything wrong myself, then I shouldn't take any of these stories personally.But I guess, given the poor mental state that I was already in, I took it as validation that there was in fact something intrinsically wrong about me, and that thing was being a man. I started to avoid people on the street, especially if they were a woman or presented as feminine. At work, I avoid going anywhere near female customers, out of fear of making them uncomfortable. I'd keep my head down walking from class to class on campus, worried that I might make someone uneasy with my gaze. It wasn't that I thought I was a threat; in fact, I knew that I was not. But I also knew that the people around me didn't know that. In their eyes, maybe they have to assume that I'm a creep or that I'm a dangerous type of man. And it hurt to realize that, and I realize now, like I said, that I took it as validation that there was something intrinsically wrong with me.
Due to that, as well as other factors, such as stress and exhaustion from overworking (I'm a full-time student and work about 30 hours a week, which is a lot for me, might not be for others, I admit), I experienced some of the worst periods of depression I've ever had, since being diagnosed with it and anxiety in 2021. I tried going to therapy. I went to a few sessions, then gradually started missing more and more due to a lack of time, until my therapist cancelled all of our scheduled future sessions. It was on me. I wasn't committed.
I lost my passion for my hobbies and interests, like creative writing, which had previously been an important emotional outlet for me. A lot of nights would be spent lying in bed, listening to a playlist filled with sad music and hugging a pillow, wishing it was someone who loved me in the way that I thought, or hoped, love would work.
At the behest of my friends, to whom I only presented my issues as being a little down about never having been in a relationship, I started messing around with dating apps. At first, I felt good about making some sort of effort to put myself out there. Like I said, I've always been insanely reserved, so doing something like making a dating profile felt like an accomplishment. Of course, nothing much came of it. Over the five or so months that I was on the app, I maxed out at about six likes on my profile, and only matched with two people.
But one of those two people was a girl who went to the same college as me, and we seemed to have a lot of interests in common. And I mean a lot. To the point that it was almost comical. Of course, I realize now that having some hobbies in common isn't enough to form a good relationship with someone, but I realize now that I was just desperate for someone who I could convince myself halfway-tolerated me. She and I started to go out, and after a while, we decided to make things "official." My first kiss. My first relationship. My first girlfriend.
It lasted for only a few months. After a while, something felt off. I wasn't as excited to see her as I had been before. It was hard for us to make time for each other, between my working and her being involved in extracurricular stuff around campus. Car rides and dates began to be filled with longer and more frequent stretches of awkward silence, as I tried to think of something to say or talk about, only to come up empty-handed. As we got to know each other better, I realized that we didn't have as much in common as I first thought. She was a little more conservative, not necessarily in a political sense, but more in terms of "status", if that makes sense. I learned that financial success was very important to her parents, and I could tell that it was important to her, too. She avoided telling her parents that I was an English major, instead opting to tell them that I was getting a degree in computer science, as that was my minor at the time. It seemed to me that the status of a relationship was more important to her than the quality of the relationship (pot calling the kettle black, yes, I realize). For example, there was a dance on campus that she wanted to go to, pretty much just to take pictures of the two of us together so she could show them to friends and family. But as for the dance itself, it was more of the same that had been happening before: awkward silence, short conversations, lots of looking around at anything other than each other.
After a while, I decided that, for both of our sakes, I needed to break things off. I didn't want to waste her time when I knew that my heart wasn't in it anymore. So, at the beginning of April, I drove over to her dorm, and we talked it over in my car for a while. At the end, we hugged one last time, and I haven't seen her since.
I think a key component in the decision I made is the fact that I reconnected with some old friends from high school, who are still local, even though they are going to another university. Over Christmas break, I hung out with them for the first time since the pandemic as, during that time, I ended up having a falling out with them over some dumb high school drama and political differences. To my surprise, they had changed a lot, and had managed to pull themselves out of the incel trajectory that I had seen them beginning to fall down during high school. They were kinder, more accepting people. My surprise was matched only by my pride in them. I had feared and assumed the worst of them, and I couldn't have been happier to be proven wrong. Since then, I've been invited back into their group chats, and I see them in-person with some regularity, when our schedules allow it.
I think having that connection made me feel more comfortable with the idea of being single again, and since the break up, I've been able to rely on them for support, laughs, and just feeling like I have somewhere I belong. Before, I found myself desperate for any kind of connection and fell into a cycle of denying myself that connection because I was convinced that, since it didn't just present itself, I wasn't worthy of it.
And maybe it has something to do with that, but on the drive home from my now-ex's dorm (though I still wonder if I should/could really call her an ex. Sure, we agreed to make things "official", but we still only dated for a few months), I felt my perspective on, well, at the risk of sounding over-dramatic or overly romantic, everything, being to change.
And I guess that's what the title of this post is about. The things I've begun to realize in the time leading up to and following that break-up.
Above all else, I've realized the importance of connection. If I didn't have a stable friend group again, I don't know where I'd be. Probably still in a stale relationship, clinging on and trying to convince myself that I'm not feeling the way that I'm feeling. I have people to talk with again, to confide in when I feel stressed or depressed. I go out and do things again, which I didn't realize I hadn't really done very much since the pandemic.
But I know that for a lot of people who are/were in the position I had been in, finding friends is difficult. If it weren't for my unique circumstances of being reunited with an old, estranged group of friends, I would absolutely be in the same position. I still really struggle with social anxiety, and talking to new people is a huge struggle for me. So, I've also had some realizations that don't have as much to do with the friendship side of things, and I hope that these can be of some use to people who also struggle with social anxiety.
I know that the idea of "working on yourself" is cliche and overused, so I won't frame it exactly like that. In my opinion, saying it like that makes it sound too daunting and tedious, and having been in those dark, dark places myself, I know that it was the last thing I wanted to hear. So, instead, I like to think of it this way. It's more like living in spite of your circumstances. Over the course of this past year, I essentially shut my life down, because I was so convinced that there was no point, because I felt that I knew that I would never be loved or accepted. Now, I feel an urge to go on living for myself, almost in direct spite of the fear that I may be forever alone. It's a fear that I still deal with, and who knows, maybe things will end up that way.
And, I suppose, that leads into my main realization, which is sort of an extension/restatement of the last one, now that I think about it. I now feel the desire to accumulate enough in my life, to reach a point where I am satisfied enough, that I can rest knowing that I will be okay, with or without a relationship. Before, my self-worth was almost entirely attached to my relationship status, and my lack of romantic experience. Now, I realize that a relationship can only come when I don't need it, or at least don't feel that I need it. Being a huge nerd and a writer, I think a lot about quotes from books, shows, movies, and games that have stuck with and there's one from God of War: Ragnarok that comes to mind here (by the way, I actually highly recommend playing or watching a playthrough of God of War 2018 and Ragnarok if you've struggled with masculinity in the same way I have, the music and cutscenes from those games have actually helped to pull me out of some mental spirals about my self-worth and identity as a man). It comes from a scene in which Kratos confronts his younger self, and is trying to decide if he is willing/ready to be a god again:
"Should I lose everything and everyone, will there still be enough left inside so that I do not become you? I do not know. But I have hope."
It's a quote that resonates with me now more than ever (even though it's from a DLC that just came out around Christmas, lol). I know now that I want to get to a place where there is enough left inside me that I know I'll never fall into that dark mental state again.
Something else that I've noticed has happened is the return of my passions for my hobbies and interests, especially for writing. I don't want to sound too arrogant, but I think I've begun to realize an important goal for my writing. If I'm lucky enough, I want to be able to write and release stories that explore masculinity and isolation, and, if I can, I want to create stories that can help guide other young men and boys who have struggled in the way I have and continue to do. I want to create characters who serve as positive male role models, who are emotionally strong, intelligent, and kind. I want to write stories of personal redemption, and show that no one is truly ever too far gone to be able to recover. If my writing could help even just one person who is struggling, then I would consider my career to be a success.
At the risk of being too cheesy, I'd like to end this very long-winded post with another quote, this one from a YouTube channel I recently discovered, and one I would highly recommend to just about anyone: Cinema Therapy. It's from their video about "A Silent Voice", which also happens to be one of my favorite movies, and one of my main inspirations when it comes to the kinds of stories I want to tell.
"Depression doesn't go away, doesn't lift for most people. But there's a capacity to feel again. There's a capacity to feel joy. The cure for so many things is connection. And we may think 'no one want to connect with me.' But we just need to find the right people."
I think the only thing I would add to that is that, in my opinion, the connection can also be with yourself.

The initial idea for the game was very simple: "Everything is infinite." You capture spawners, and they keep producing units endlessly. You add upgrades (in the form of buildings), and all future units will be stronger - as long as the upgrade building is intact. The gameplay would be the same as all RTS, only very abstract, without resources: Keep the opponent under control while advancing your macro position, until you overwhelm them with superior forces.
To reduce the potential for stalemates, only one tweak was added: Players can permanently sacrifice a whole spawner in exchange for a temporary boost in unit production speed. This would enable "race to the bottom" style gameplay, players are forcing each other to sacrifice more and more, until finally one side has nothing left.
Now when I had all that working for multiplayer and turned to the singleplayer, a new aspect came up. I did specifically not want the solo mode to just be "mp vs. ai" - rather it should be a series of capturing randomly generated fortifications. Taking the fort would mean taking a bunch of spawners, to power a larger assault against the next (larger) fort, and so on. But ramping linearly like this is harsh. One would like to have smaller fortifications on the side, to discover, to destroy for some sort of reward. Less linear gameplay, more choices. Rush it or take it easy.
So I added "Artifacts," a smaller kind of reward. Acts like an upgrade building, only it can be moved around. So you take a small fortification, find an artifact, put it to some of your spawners and get stronger units. Still infinitely.
This fundamentally worked as a solo mode. But players noted that it all felt a bit hollow. Just stomping forward, growing, no real "resources to manage." So I got back, to a yet older idea of mine - which would have been an RTS where each unit was composed of 3-4 parts: Body/Frame, Weapon, Armour, Jewelry. With the equipment pieces being complex like in a proper ARPG, and at the same time: exhaustible. Maybe the PoE devs can make this game one day! I now think it’s way too complicated for too little gain. But I took the one point from it, namely making Artifacts have a limited amount of charges, after which they are used up and disappear. And similar to sacrificing spawners, artifacts can be put into overdrive to grant more power, at the cost of using up charges faster.
So the concept of "Artifact" is turned into "Stockpile of Trinkets" - little magical pieces that we give to our troops to make them stronger, and that get lost on the battlefield with their bearer.
Players still commented that the solo mode felt a bit - aimless. Because there was a lot of space, not filled with all that much going on. This inspired the latest step in evolution. The amount of Trinket Stockpiles to be found on the map has been vastly increased, and not all of them are fully guarded anymore. To properly turn the game into more of a grand old "collect resources" type of journey.
There remain further ideas, of how detailed management and gameplay could be added around the Stockpiles. Maybe new spawns have to first walk there, to pick up their trinket? Having to place the piles for shortest pathing and all, would start to feel like a real economy management game. We will see about that?
In multiplayer, it all remains optional. The mapper can decide if and how many trinket piles to spread on the map, and fix their stats upfront or have them randomised, and have them guarded or free for all to take.

Here we are again in the shit stew that is the Fallowveil trailer park. We’ve got soul eating strippers, jobs that kill us, and plenty of weirdos, both the trailer trash and the potentially paranormal variety. It’s the place where even your own computer sometimes threatens to kill you. I can’t tell if I should be worried, or annoyed that all my neighbors have such irresponsible web habits. I know it’s not me that brings in all these machine wiping viruses.
So even though I got a system error that literally said “you’re useless and you should die” I’m less interested in that. Stupid thing. Like I don’t already know I’m useless. That’s not what I’m depressed about.
Well… I suppose it's tangentially related.
I hope anyone reading will forgive me. I’m feeling the sting of rejection right now. It was really stupid of me to ask. Especially now. Nobody here really likes me. They’ve only been nice to me as a courtesy because I was almost involved in a god damn shootout. And my idiot self decided that was the perfect time to push one of my few friends all the way away. Never ask your friends out on dates. It ruins everything.
So there’s this woman. I’ve talked about her in the past. Trista Ramone. She lives in the far back corner of the trailer park. You can instantly tell which unit is hers because she’s covered every square inch of the property with gardens and a rabbit hutch. The place usually has beads and colorful flags hanging on its walls as well. She’s kind of a right winger’s nightmare. I know some of those flags represent various lgbtq plus communities.
She and I have been friendly in the past. We’re both night shift workers. We crossed paths quite a bit going to and from work so we struck up a friendship over the years.
Let’s just ripped the band aid off. Recently I’ve started thinking I had… stronger feelings for Trista. I got stupid and decided to tell her about them. She wasn’t interested. I get why. We have very different lifestyles. I like meat, and she thinks the meat industry is murder. I’m not willing to give up meat, and she’s not willing to give up her beliefs. It's as simple as that. Now things are incredibly awkward with one of my closer friends and I’m still spiraling into self loathing, where I belong.
She swore up and down that she absolutely still wants to be friends with me, but I’m not sure I believe her. The look she gave me when I told her I’d like to ask her out. It looked like sadness, but a small part of me is convinced it was pity, or worse, disgust and loathing, and that small part gave me ever shuts the fuck up. But anyway, she gave me permission to write about her.
She is one of the creepy fixtures of our little neighborhood after all. She told me to make her seem as insane and scary as I possibly could and that she should get to kill me at the end. She also handed me a few of her high school yearbooks, advised me to chat with another neighbor of ours who she went to school with, and to only use creepy rumors for the rest.
Part of me is really willing to describe her as awful, but that’s just my anger. I don’t like that part of me. Trista’s not a bad person at all. She’s just weird and she doesn’t want to date me. God damn it, Petunia’s right. I need therapy.
So, I’ve told the story of the sexy, scary lady living in a polycule here in the trailer park. I think she’s got a bigger heart than she lets on. I’ve talked about the stories surrounding the Schroeder Slaughterhouse. Now let’s talk about the hippy everyone thinks is a vampire.
She’s a taller woman, maybe five-seven or eight, and she’s skinny. Her typical wardrobe is… interesting. Try to imagine your typical new-age hippy/stoner girl, wearing colorful sarongs, crop-tops, beanies, baggy sweaters, T-shirts with colorful sayings on them, sandals, boots woven from some sort of exotic plant, beaded necklaces, bracelets, a few too many piercings and some intricate tattoos. Can you picture that kind of person? Well, take that and dip them in “goth” dye. Everything is black, and contrasts to her pale white complexion, her eyes are this unusual violet color, and then make the woman wearing all that seem kind of depressed about something. That’s the look Trista has going on. Like if Wednesday Addams was forced to dress up for Hippy Day.
I’ve heard people call her an emo vampire, but as a former emo myself, she doesn’t fill out all the criteria. She doesn’t typically wear any super tight pants or cake on the eyeshadow. I guess she’s just Trista. It might sound weird (and it is) but the whole thing suits her. Her style, tattoos, and complexion all create this image of skinny vampiric waif with a mysterious past and a freaky sarcastic attitude and I found the whole thing… kinda hot.
Trista keeps to herself. She’s made the most out of her little corner of the trailer park. Like I said, she decked out her unit with garden squares, and a Rabbit pen. No idea why she’s allowed to do that. A lot of these places don’t allow pets. I heard she was also trying to put in a beehive too, but her neighbors are fighting her on that one. Our park is a bit too condensed for bees. She has a permit to grow hemp, but of course it’s not for recreational use. She treats it and uses it to weave things like handbags, clothes, and other stuff. There’s a consignment store in town that sells all kinds of things Trista has crafted herself. So she’s handy and self sufficient too. She paints, she carves wood, she weaves, she crochets, she sews, and who knows what else. She’s so good at her little crafts that apparently she’s able to support herself just selling them and working part time at the Moonlight Inn outside of town.
She’s also relatively friendly. I almost feel bad calling her weird, but here’s the thing, I’ve seen some REALLY weird shit. People jokingly call her a vampire, and she seems to embrace that, but part of me seriously wonders. The big clue is, like I mentioned, she’s completely nocturnal. She’s always asleep during the day, and every blind and curtain is drawn tight. The one time she came out during the day, she had on this full body suit with a helmet with UV glass and everything. Even then, she only showed up to give Petunia a hug, before leaving again.
That was the first time I saw Trista, come to think of it. I was kind of intrigued. It was kind of hard not to be when someone shows up to a community cookout in a freaking astronaut suit. I approached Petunia after she left.
“Who the heck was that?” I wondered.
“MASON! I’m so glad you could make it! You’ve been here about three months now! How’d that job interview go?”
“Oh. It went well. I might be doing janitorial work soon.”
“Night shift?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“If it’s the night shift, you’ll definitely meet the person who just left. That’s Trista. She’s the girl with the rabbits in the far corner. Poor girl. She’s got a really bad skin condition. Can’t let sunlight touch her.”
“Oh. Is she like… albino or something?”
“No, she’s got pigment. I don’t remember what the condition is called. I guess it started in high school or something. You’d have to ask her. And hey! If you work the night shift, you’ll probably get to chat with her!”
Petunia wasn’t wrong. I started working as a nighttime janitor for a number of local businesses. That was when I first started noticing the pale goth hippy. She rides around on a moped, with her dark hair and her sarong barely billowing behind her. I couldn’t see her face through the helmet, but she waved to me as she passed by.
The next time I saw her, she was jogging, but here’s where it gets weird. When I first stepped outside, all I saw was a blur. It actually startled me as I whipped toward it, but then there was this skinny tattooed pixie, somehow still looking like a stonehippy/vampire in jogging gear. I swear she was moving inhumanly fast when I first noticed her. That was when we introduced ourselves. She actually jogged over to say hello.
“Hey! You’re the new guy right?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. My name’s Mason!” I reached out to shake the pretty girl’s hand, like an awkward loser. She smirked and shook my hand. Her grip was weirdly strong, and a bit cold.
“I’m Trista. I’m the weirdo in the back with the rabbits.”
“Trista… oh, are you the one who has a thing with sunlight? I think Petunia mentioned you.”
“Yup! That’s me. Xerodoma pigmentosum. Sunlight hurts. I hate that it hurts.” She lamented.
“That’s gotta be rough,” I said sympathetically.
“You get used to it. You work at night?”
“Yeah. Works better for me.”
“I get that.”
And so on and so on. She’s pretty cool, with a bit of hilarious snark in there. And she secretly procured recreational weed she was willing to share. I kept working the night shift just hoping for another chance to talk to her and possibly buy a joint. Eventually she invited me over to share a joint. The inside of her place was actually pretty sparse and spartan compared to the outside. Though she was a fan of hanging beads. Most of the main room was taken up by her various crafting projects and supplies. Hemp weaves, some paintings, and even a wood carving of what I think was a rabbit, but it wasn’t anywhere near complete.
I followed her to her kitchen where she reached into the very back of her pantry and pulled out a shoebox. Inside was her stash, but there was something else which I found very strange. It was a pack of syringes and a thing I assume is to sterilize syringes. I know what you’re thinking, and that was my first thought too. It’s a poor neighborhood, the woman already smokes weed illegally, it’s not that big a shock that maybe she was involved in other drugs too. I decided not to ask at the time. We shared our joint, and we laughed, a lot. She made fun of me for being a lightweight, while I got completely hypnotized staring at the patterns of a shawl she had woven.
Months went by and we got closer, but I couldn’t forget those syringes. After a while I got worried. I’ve seen what heroine does to people. So the next time I went over to smoke and eat (vegan) pizza with her, I asked.
“Trista? Are you using anything other than weed?”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Why?”
“You can tell me if you are.”
“Mason, sweetheart, I’m a stoner. I don’t fuck around with anything else and I never have.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay. Can I ask what that set of syringes are for?”
“Oh. In my stash box? Those are… part of my condition. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Is it like… embarrassing?”
“Yeah. So don’t ask. Can we just watch a movie?”
So I don't ask anymore. But I still have no idea what she does with those syringes. Based on what I read about that Xerodoma Pigmentosum thing she says she has, I have no clue what she would need to inject herself with.
Another time she asked me to check on her rabbits for her during the day, as her usual “sitter” had something come up. All I had to do was chop up the lettuce and carrots she left out. As I was enjoying the adorable fluffy faces, one of Trista’s neighbors, a woman named Bridget, poked her head outside her door.
“Hey. Do you know what Trista injects those rabbits with?”
“I… what?”
“I’ve seen her use syringes on those rabbits. She said she was just giving them medicine, but I swear I see her inject them every week.”
“I… I wouldn't know. She just asked me to feed them.”
“I love Trista, but that always seemed so weird. She has to know vaccines are a hoax!” I tuned the woman out after that one. My mind was on that set of syringes. Why would she be using them on rabbits? These things were her pets.
I was starting to crush on her by then. But I couldn’t help feeling weirded out by that. I was actually going to confront her, but the next time I came to visit, she was literally inside the Rabbit hutch, on her back, squealing with delight as her rabbit friends nuzzled and played with her.
“Bonnibelle! That tickles! Marcy! No chewing. Finn? Watch where you’re sticking that foot! Jake? Where are you? EEEEE Lumpy! Not the neck!”
It was as silly and adorable as it sounds. She was forced to whip herself upright when two of her little friends tried to burrow under her dress. She finally stood up with a laugh, cradling a rabbit in her arms and cooing at it.
There was just no way in hell this woman was doing anything that would hurt these animals. Bridget is a paranoid antivax weirdo anyway. If Trista was using syringes on the rabbits, I was convinced it was only for their benefit.
So life went on. I got more and more reclusive over the years. Petunia, Trista, and my next door neighbor Fred were the only things keeping me remotely connected to the outside. And so we get to now. So let’s see. What are the stories about the weird vampire woman?
Well, there’s the fact that she jogs at night, solo, in a poor neighborhood. Petunia keeps the shitty people contained and behaving for the most part, but I still wouldn’t exactly call it safe, especially for a young skinny woman. But she does it without a care in the world.
There’s one strange event that some people like to connect to this. I never knew this guy, but from what I hear he was a total weirdo who leered at anyone even remotely female. And this is despite the fact he was married. His name was Josh.
I remember him a bit. He’s the guy that Petunia chased away from one of her barbecues. Supposedly he was heard saying inappropriate things to the groups of ten year old girls that were playing in the bounce house Petunia rented. Telling them how pretty they were. Trying to coax them to take off their jackets. Police reports were filed but ultimately nothing could be proven. The guy's wife, Carole, always defends him for some reason.
But anyway, I remember hanging out with Trista one night a little over a year ago. She hadn’t gone jogging like she normally did. I asked her what was up with that.
“That weirdo, Josh has started catcalling when I pass his place. It weirds me out.”
“There aren’t other people who do that at night? I’m still shocked you jog alone.”
“Not like this. I can flip off a wolf whistler. But this guy… he keeps trying to get me to stop and talk to him, and when I don’t? He shouts about my ass. I’m gonna have to talk to Petunia about that shithead, if anybody can reign him in, it’s her.”
I’m gonna guess she never got a chance. Two days later, the whole town was awoken by sirens. I was getting ready for my shift when I heard them. I walked down the road a bit to see if I could figure out what was going on. The cops were heading toward the other side of the park, so I couldn’t see much. But I did notice Trista, in her jogging gear, skulking in the shadows. I wondered if she was in trouble. But before I could call out to her, she sprinted straight to Petunia's house and banged on the door. Petunia welcomed her inside, and that was all I saw. I still wasn’t sure what was going on, so I just shrugged and headed to work, figuring I’d text Trista later.
I didn’t learn till later that Josh was found dead. He was lying prone, face down, partly hidden by bushes at the edge of the park. His neck was cut open. He’d bled out rapidly. He had a knife in his hand, and officially it’s believed he fell on it and accidentally killed himself. There was a cocktail of drugs in his system so most people accept that explanation. But others swear they saw Trista out for her jog around the same time Josh would have been bleeding to death. She got questioned, and she swore she didn’t see anything. Without evidence, there was nothing else that could be proven.
Trista’s a friend. I know that guy was being creepy to her. So I’m happy to take her word for what happened, even if my seeing her going to Petunia’s pokes a bit of a hole in that. I can’t be sure it was Trista though. So I’m not saying a word. But if a certain creep attacked a certain lady who is rumored to be a vampire, it’s not that surprising to me that he ended up dead after bleeding to death. I’m not all that broken up about it.
I’m not the one spreading that story. Josh’s wife was the one who started the rumor. So now some people are even more convinced that the weird nocturnal hippy chick is secretly a vampire.
She’s no killer. No matter what they say. She would only have defended herself.
So that’s all the stories I’ve heard that have any credibility to them. There’s more people who swear she and Petunia perform weird rituals, and people who saw her moving “inhumanly fast” and such.
But now I have to share what I found in the yearbooks Trista gave me. I wasn’t really expecting much. I checked her senior yearbook out first. She looks about the same. Pale, goth, hippy, and sort of sad. She kind of looks even sadder in these photos if I’m being honest, but that’s high school for you. She graduated in the top half of her class, no sports or extracurriculars. I’m left wondering how she managed to go to school at the time of sun was so bad for her. I’ll have to ask her about that. So nothing really new there.
It was the yearbook from her junior year where things got really interesting. I was in shock when I found her. Trista is somehow impossible to miss, but unrecognizable all at once. She’s full of color! She wore more typical tie dye hippy attire. Bright vibrant pinks, reds, blues, greens, and yellows, in every photo, and holy shit was she busy. Captain of the soccer team, first chair flutist, president of the “green living” club and the “vegan alliance,” top ten in her class, it was all incredible. I think the main reason I didn’t recognize her was her skin. It was tan, as though she were out in the sun a lot. Furthermore there were photos of her playing sports and standing outside in bright sunlight.
It was like her disease wasn’t there, which confused me. She told me it was something called Xeroderma Pigmentosa. But that’s a genetic condition. She would have had that from birth.
I sent her a text, wondering about this.
- Hey! Just went through your yearbooks. What happened? You had color? Did you discover Linkin Park?
- My disease happened. Right at the end of Jr. year. That’s why I wasn’t there for the final class photo.
- But your disease is genetic… isn’t it?
- I guess it was dormant in me.
- So it just… happened?
- Pretty much.
- I’m sorry.
- I got over it. Mostly. It was hard. My parents were both hardcore vegan naturalists and we lived in a place that was all natural light and such, so I had to live in a shed for a bit while they built a space for me. But in my family? We kinda lean into whatever life throws at us. It took months of depression to come to terms with it. All of a sudden I couldn’t be out in the sun, and I had new dietary needs that absolutely required non-vegan sources. So I leaned into it. I was a vampire now. I can dig dark colors and “vampire style.” I could make it my own by avoiding leather. And I’d be as vegan as I possibly could.
- You’re kind of awesome.
- Damn straight. So I learned to love the night too and now, here I am.
I gained new respect for her after that. Frankly I feel kinda shitty about making fun of her for being a vampire. There might not be anything paranormally weird about her after all.
She sent me one more text telling me I should talk to a guy named Frankie. She’d gone to school with him. He’s a decent enough guy. Works in the Bicounty mall in town.
I had to wait a day or two for another of Petunia’s get togethers to talk to him.
“Hey!” I said awkwardly as I tried to figure out how to strike up conversation with someone I haven’t really spoken to in a long time. “Frankie, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Been a while. How are you Mason? You okay after that whole thing at Red Nights?”
“I’m trying to be. Look, I’ll cut to the chase. You went to school with Trista Ramone, right?”
“Ol’ Boho Ramone? Yeah. We were sort of friendly. But I was a jerk to vegans back then. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been hanging out with her. She’s being all mysterious.” He chuckled at that. “She said I should talk to you to learn more about her… weirdness? Everyone thinks she’s a vampire now.”
“She’s totally a vampire. I have no idea what else to call her?”
“Why do you say that?”
“What did she tell you about school?”
“Nothing. She just showed me two yearbooks. Between Junior and Senior year she went from colorful club president, to lonely vampire, because of her disease.”
“Nah man. I don’t want to talk bad about her. But she was kind of a bitch, junior year. She wasn’t just a colorful vegan. She was one of those “holier than thou” types who scoffed and talked down to anyone who dared to eat meat. Her “hippy” thing meant she never hung out with the popular girls but still, she acted like she owned the place at times. I was friends with this weird guy named Steven Jones. He was just kind of a weirdo. Skulking around in the background, you know? He HATED Trista. For a while I totally understood. I thought she was kinda stuck up. But this guy was like… irrationally enraged by that girl’s existence. I guess he tried to ask her out when he was a freshman and she politely declined. But he took that shit personally.”
“Huh. So like… why’s that matter?”
“Because Steven kept saying to anyone who gave him a second look, that he was gonna ‘ruin’ her. Never elaborated. But then the last month of school rolls around, Trista gets assaulted by an unknown assailant and a week later she’s got this new disease. Meanwhile, Steven spent a week strutting around the school looking smug, and saying ‘she got what she deserved.’ Then he disappears too. Teachers said he moved away.”
“She was assaulted?”
“Yeah. Someone in a face wrap tackled her while she was at one of her protests at the meat factory. The dude freaking BIT her.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was there. I came to the protest. I’ll admit I was trying to hit on Trista or one of the other girls there. But yeah. Dude dressed in all gray with a face wrap just charged in and went right for Trista. Knocked her down, bit her like a freaking zombie, then ran away before anyone could stop him. Didn’t even take his face wrap off. It was freaky, man.”
“What the actual fuck.”
“That’s what we all said. Trista needed a stitch. But while she was at the hospital, I guess she started getting more symptoms. She was out for the rest of the year. From then on, she was like she is now. Total vampire.”
“Was Steven a vampire?”
“I dunno. Probably. Little dickhead is what he is. Must have been him that attacked Trista, but nobody could prove it. Bite mark didn’t match or something. So why are you asking? You hang out with her at night right? You asking her out or something?”
“Oh. No. Just a friend.”
That was all I really learned from Frankie. It’s quite a story, and it’s full of unknowns that Trista refuses to explain. So I guess I’ll let readers be the judge. Is she a “real” vampire? Or just a weirdo? All I know is, she’s totally standing behind me right now and now I’m dead. Bleh.
I did come back to life to talk to Trista once I finished writing this. She enjoyed it. I may as well include that interaction.
I went to her place on my night off. She read my take on her and what the neighbors thought and she grinned. “Ha! I’m a total monster!” She chuckled. “So. What do YOU think, Mason? Am I a vampire?” She cocked an eye and playfully gnashes her teeth at me, making a pleasant little click.
I sighed. “No idea. You’re Trista. And… you’re my friend. I’m sorry if I made things awkward.”
She looked surprised by that. “Aw. Thanks Mason. You’re my friend too. It’s okay. I’m flattered.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“So we’re cool?”
“Absolutely not. We’re both weird shut ins.” She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh. It made me happy.
“Yeah but I got the ‘mysterious vampire’ thing going.”
“You have dirt in your hair from rolling around with bunnies. And you’re a vegan.”
“Bite me.”
“Says the vampire.”
“You know, if I were a vampire, I could have bitten you when we both went to the slaughterhouses a few weeks ago.”
“That just makes me stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Mason. You’re not a loser either.”
“So. You know of any other good spooky town stories that I can do next?
“Oh, sure. You ever heard the tale of Salome? She was a witch who would mash up the seeds of a Sinapis Alba plant to make a diabolical potion she’d dump on herself. They called her the ‘Witch of the Sands.’”
I’m embarrassed to admit it took me four days to realize Trista was just fucking with me. I only figured it out when I looked up Sinapis Alba and learned that mashing the seeds just makes mustard. “Salomi the sand-witch.” Well played, vampire hippy…
Sexy Neighbor
Haunted Slaughterhouse