I'm 42, I get it, I'm old, but, damn, I find society, pop culture, escapism, whatever you want to call it, boring as hell. In the 90's /early 00's it was such a a creative time. I discovered new rock bands/music every week. You had great directors like Quentin Tarantino and R comedies that were actually, you know, FUNNY! Even the Internet was more decentralized and more of a fun underground alternative to TV.
Now we're stuck with:
Taylor Swift Facebook/X/Instagram/YouTube/TIKTOK Garbage Netflix movies Comic book movies
Not a fan of the post IPhone world. Find it completely uninterested and phoney.
Now, GET OFF MY LAWN!

this one is long and complicated so buckle up. all names are fake for privacy. sorry for the formatting, i’m on mobile.
relevant info: I am 22, my husband is 22 and a navy veteran.
i gave my brother my old iphone 11 when i upgraded in 2022. i cant remember if i factory reset it or not.
Selena lives in Grant County, OR. My father lives in Walla Walla, WA. My parents got divorced in Oct 2023, and my mother and sister (9)came to live with my myself, my husband and our daughter in Hampton Roads, VA.
the 5 of us are currently driving back from va to wa.
My brother is trans. (FTM)
in summer 2023, my brother, Jaxon (16m) asked if he could go spend a school year with my moms (Liz, 40F) best friend at the time (Selena, 41m). He wanted to do this so he could work on Selena’s dad’s farm and save money for a car. My mom thought it would be good for him, so she signed a power of attorney agreement that expired when the school year was over (june 7, 2024), meaning at that time she relinquished guardianship back to my mother and father, and Jaxon would be driven back home to my parents.
During the school year, i received many middle of the night calls of him sobbing and saying he “couldn’t do this anymore.” he vented to me, sent me videos, and told me these things:

• she misgendered and deadnamed him constantly, forced him to dress femininely
  
• she didn’t pay him for the work he was doing on the farm (from 4 am until school (8AM), then after school (4pm) until 11pm, forcing him to stay up extra late (1-3AM) to complete homework.) i should also note that i have access to his bank account and i have not seen a single deposit for over a year.
  
• she screamed at him constantly, telling him he was a failure (his grades had started slipping from a Bs to a Cs), that he needed to suck it up and quit being a crybaby (he was exhausted and depressed because of poor sleep, being overworked, not being allowed to have friends)
  
• she constantly took away the only phone he had (his only line of communication to myself and my mother) whenever she felt like it. (usually just when she was pissed off)
  
• shoving him, destroying his art projects (he’s a clay sculptor), throwing away his homework if he left it on the table overnight, and much more.
  
• my mother and i both have recorded phone calls of Jaxon secretly calling us while she was screaming at him about something or other
  
• she forced him to detail her truck and he found coke and meth in the truck. he called me, telling me he thought he found drugs. i asked him to describe it to me, and it turned out to be a bag of meth and a bag of coke. i had him send me pictures, which i still have.
  

being across the country, my mother and i couldn’t do anything to help him get out of that situation. every time we offered to buy a plane ticket for him so come to VA, Selena would say “(he) needs to finish school” and my father was out of the country for work until May this year, so he couldn’t do anything either.
we did call the sheriff of grant county for a welfare check (multiple times) and they told us they couldn’t do anything unless there were visible marks or Jaxon’s life was in imminent danger. we called DHS/CPS (in december, when the problems started) and they told us they’d look into it. nothing ever came of that.
The day before school was officially over, Selena searched Jaxon’s backpack and found weed in it. (she had previously told him she didn’t care about weed because it’s legal in oregon) but she flew off the handle, screaming at him for HOURS. (he called me during her rant and some of the things i heard made my blood boil.
She then decided to STRIP SEARCH MY 16 YEAR OLD FTM BROTHER. this was his breaking point. he waited until about 2 AM, when he knew she was in bed, on June 7, then called one of his friends. they drove him back to my fathers house. (from john day OR to Walla Walla, WA.) when Jaxon told me he was with my dad, i relayed the info to Selena. She said “ok good”
about 2 hours after Jaxon had returned to my dad’s care, Selena texted me this:
“(Jaxon) has 24 hours to get (his) ass back here before i go to the police to charge (him) with minor in possession.”
i ignored her, not wanting to engage with her rage baiting. she sent more texts, all threatening to charge my brother (in Oregon) with a MIP (he doesn’t have drugs on his person currently, there is no video/photo evidence that the weed was even Jaxons, and he is back with his legal guardian in WA.)
when she got no response from myself or my mother other than “he’s with his dad”, she switched tactics. and texted me this:
“Please have (Jaxon) call me so i know he is safe”
i replied “ok” and relayed the info to my brother. he refuses to call her because she was horrible to him and he doesn’t want to be screamed at.
when he didn’t call her yesterday, she texted me, telling me she would call CPS on my father, the police, anything she could think of to try and scare me.
i texted her this yesterday at 8 AM after she tried calling me 10 times and texted me over 50 times with no reply.
“(Jaxon) is safe, he's with his parent (which trumps your power of attorney, which is over anyway. boo hoo.) thank god i don't have to pretend to like your snake ass anymore. go ahead and call cps, (Jaxon) has said (father) makes him feel safe, especially from you. so yeah!! go ahead, call CPS, and when they do nothing, go cry. sorry that you can't use my BROTHER for slave labor anymore, guess you'll have to actually HIRE someone at the farm now (boo hoo again). this is your official notice that any further contact with (father), my mother, or (Jaxon) will be documented for a harassment case and restraining order. have a fun life doing meth and being crazy, but don't involve us in it anymore. toodalooo!!!”
she then began texting my mom, threatening me with CPS for videos of me smoking weed (that i sent him on snapchat) and me talking about my struggle with cocaine addiction. (i’ve been clean since Halloween 2020). i haven’t replied to anything, simply screenshotting the messages and call logs, adding them to a folder to turn into police once we get to washington. harassment charges and restraining order.
after no replies, she once again started BOMBARDING my mother with texts. i’m copy/pasting some texts but changing names. my mother also didn’t respond, simply screenshotted and sent the pics to me for the folder.
“If she (referring to me) wants to continue to run her fat mouth....I have no issues releasing the videos I have to the police. Videos that she has no idea I have....from (Jaxon's) phone! I have 2 notebooks full of writing from (Jaxon) and countless screenshots as well as....this is the best part....the entire storage of (his) iPhone. Backups from every social media platform (he) has!!!”
(i know for a fact the backups off the iphone are bullshit bc he’s part of my iphone family and i would be notified if she tried to download anything from the cloud onto an unrecognized device. not to mention that she doesn’t have the icloud password. but that is neither here nor there.)
“"I want you to get the message across to (father) that I'm not playing. (Jaxon) needs to contact me....NOT (father) ....so that I know (Jaxon) is.... SAFE Mentally Stable /not suicidal Not on drugs I'm actually amazed that you and (father) think having her contact me after I have been the one caring for her is to much to ask. It screams dishonesty and feels like you guys are hiding something. There is no reason whatsoever (he) can't speak to me on the phone! If (he) is mad...to bad. If (he) is crying and claiming (he) don't want to talk to me for whatever reason.. oh fucking well. (Jaxon) has always been safe in my presence and in my care so I know for a fact (he) can not claim otherwise.”
“So again armed with enough shit to not only have everyone facing a bunch of charges, but to be garunteed that cps will be knocking at your door in Virginia as well...you might want to have (him) give me a call so this will end before it really truly begins.”
“I'm headed to the police station now. Done playing games. Couch Lusco is also willing to testify in my favor. As is two other teachers that (he) has made claims of abuse to.”
at this point i called my brother, and asked him to just text Selena to get her off my moms back.
this is their entire conversation:
J: I'm safe, mentally stable, not on drugs, and looking to further educate myself over the summer as well as apply for a job or two to pay my way.
S: Call me. Or I'm going to the cops with all the videos. Simple. You don't think I don't know your sister cant access your fb page
J: My sister has access to literally everything on that phone because of the cloud backup. She could wipe it all clean with the press of a button, not to mention a cop isn't gonna take me in for an mip of a cigarette or a blunt. It's not that deep.
(he is referring to the iphone Selena supposedly “backed up”)
Jaxon sent mom the screenshot of their convo, and she sent it to Selena. the following convo ensued:
S: Lmao that was (kyber) on (Jaxon’s) account! IM NOT GOING TO STOP UNTIL I KNOW THAT CHILD IS SAFE (Liz)!!
L: No it was not. I got those DIRECTLY from Jaxon. (mom didn’t reply to any texts after this)
S: I'm going to make everyone lives a giant fucking mess until (he) contacts me....PERIOD Pretty fucking simple. I'm going to take all the information (he) has given me that supports my reasons to be concerned and let the authorities do the rest.
S: Whats funny in all of this is that there is no reason (Jaxon) can't contact me. What am I going to do? Hurt (him) through a phone? Don't be dumb (Liz). Ypu are the only level headed person enough to see the bullshit games this kid will play as well as a good enough mom to understand why I am worried.
S: And (Jaxon) is right...they arnt going to take (him) for an MIP....but they ARE going to investigate the videos further I garuntee that! (He) is a minor and I promise you that they won't take any of it lightly!!!
S: You need to understand that (Jaxon) has already told me what (kyber) does. I know that wasn't (Jaxon) on Facebook because (he) wasn't caught with a fuckkng blunt.
S: What I don't understand is why you guys are acting like it's to much to ask to hear from (him)
S: If (father) does not have the ability or control to make his child behave then why is (he) in his care? Actually It don't matter I have been more then patient It's now a matter of (his) safety! Im going to the police!!!
S: I have never hurt that child or put (him) in a situation to be hurt. I'm perfectly content with (him) staying in walla...but I want to hear (him) say that so I know (he) is safe! If that makes me a bad person....I'm fine with that!!
S: (Liz)...l'm begging you! Please don't make me turn all of this in just because (Jaxon) has made up a bunch of bullshit to play the victim and make everyone look bad!
S: Understand something....I GAIN NOTHING FROM DOING THIS!! (He) either calls me or I spill all (his) secrets and not because I gain a damn thing.....but because I need to know (he) is safe and if (he) refuses to contact me then the only other person I will allow to validate (his) safety is going go be a police officer.
after this text she tried to call my mom more than 20 times in 10 minutes. all of which were declined, screencapped, and sent to me for the folder.
i’m just wondering what to do in this situation? she is threatening to call CPS, the cops, whatever she can do to try and intimidate me, mother, and father.
please help.

Hey! you may have come here after getting a message from me. I'm just reaching out to people whom I have connected with before/noticed they had similar interests. Currently, about me:
1- Seeking a meaningful short term online/offline kinky equation. 29/M/India, employed and clean.
2- Empathetic, firm, funny dom. Kinks include CNC, humiliation/degradation/impact play.
3- Looking for someone to chat/meet (if nearby) with, who can verify, who doesn't take themselves seriously except about being a sub.
4- Would prefer to chat about hobbies, interests and verification in private. Although let it suffice that I am a feminist, I enjoy a variety of past-times and I'm discovering my interests outside of my job, even after all these years. generally good-natured, goofy and can share memes too ;)
About you:
1- Are female, in India, between 21-35.
2- Are interested in online/offline kinky equations
3- Can verify
(optional): Can remember me from this or my previous IDs (Yesterday and CNC ones)
Hope we vibe! Just respond to my chat/dm if you wanna play.

I'm a SP500 guy, but I don't see any viable options on my new employer's 401k plan. I thought it was funny they put mid cap and small cap, but no large cap from vanguard. What do you think?
Lincoln Stable Value
MassMutual Premier High Yield
MFS Emerging Markets Debt
PIMCO International Bond
Vanguard Short-Term Infl-Prot Sec Idx Ins
Loomis Sayles Investment Grade Bond N
Touchstone Impact Bond R6
Neuberger Berman Large Cap Value R6
MFS Massachusetts Inv Gr Stk R6
Putnam Sustainable Leaders R6
DFA Global Real Estate Secs.
Putnam Small Cap Growth R6
Vanguard Mid-Cap Growth Index
Vanguard Mid-Cap Value Index
Vanguard Small Cap Value Index I
American Funds New World R-6
Janus Henderson Global Equity
Goldman Sachs GQG Partners Int'l Opps R6

Full disclosure, this is not for me but for my girlfriend (28 F). She's been stuck in food service for years but doesn't know what to do.
Background: High school graduate
Little to no college - unofficially diagnosed ADD/difficulties pushing through school
7+ years food service industry (Starbucks/Restaurant Services)
Worked at Amazon in college but was unable to keep up with very fast paced environment
Enjoys: Coffee Reading/Editing - I feel book editing could be really good for her but no idea if it's possible without college and/or self-employment Horses - used to care for horses as a kid but has no recent experience (last 10 years)
Helpful info: Quiet - once comfortable with you the ADD kicks in hard and she bounces off the walls Goofy/funny Fast typing speed Strong customer service skills Strong work ethic - works hard no matter the job
Hard No's for her: Anything medical or medical environment (will also include funeral industry here and crime scene cleaning) Retail Reception/Administrative work - can't sit at a computer all day/has phone anxiety (think it's her ADD?) Pet grooming - afraid to make a mistake/hurt dogs Trade school (electrician, HVAC - anything where she'd be required to be alone in a strangers home) Catering/Food service Self-employment/Entrepreneurship Teaching Law enforcement/Security - doesn't like conflict Hard labor - leg injury from Amazon
Looking for Career ideas. Long-term job with steady hours decent pay $19+ an hour.
Thank you for any suggestions!

One time, a guy was upset with my Facebook post because I refused to meet up with a guy at his house or my house on first date. The same guy got mad at me because I refuse to pay full trip for a man to travel with me. He left multiple voice messages in my Facebook message pretty much calling me a man hater. The funny thing… I wasn’t dating him so why he working extra hard to lower my standards. The next thing, he jumped in my inbox to ask me for $25 and he came up with a sob story. I ignored him because I was focus on setup my graduation party.

Hi all
Im looking at starting a small business now my other half earns enough to support us both. Before I hit the button and drink to kool aid as it were and start spending money am I missing anything obvious. I have considered and/or priced up the following already:

• Im already registered with the inland revenue (showing my age) and have a unique taxpayer reference number from when I was doing a side line from years ago so just need to re register as self employed if i go sole trader. Obviously if I go limited I will set that up instead of using my UTR for being self employed. I will speak to my accountant SIL for the best way to proceed
• It will be a mixture of products and services. I have listed sell prices in excel against cost prices and made sure that i am still turning a profit with and without VAT (not that my turnover will get that high but if i get a lot of B2B it will be a no brainer), card processing fees, and corporation tax if I decide to go limited.
• Business Bank Account - I will use starling or similar as its free
• Public Liability Insurance - obvious reasons why
• Website with SSCL certification
• Sum up for card payments and Stripe for online payments
• Cheap esim phone contract
• Accountant (wont use my SIL for my accounts as shes works as a company but she will be able to give me general advice)
• Quickbooks or similar
• Company logo
• Branded clothing / ID for older customers
• Small setup stock / equipment
• Advertising - facebook page / google my business account / advertising in local business pages etc
• Terms and conditions
• SWOT analysis including competition
• Printer and Stationery costs for prinitng invoices, receipts, business cards etc

From looking at the outlay vs line costs it will take me a year and a half to break even if i run at a steady pace due to some expensive equipment but if i push it I can hopefully turn a profit in under a year.
Has anyone had success with the NFC/QR code card for google reviews they are cheap enough but dont want to be throwing money away if I dont need to be.
Thanks!

My hands are trembling to the point where I've had to restart this several times. I'm a guy who doesn't scare easily, but this encounter has me shaking like a hit dog. I'm still sitting in my work truck, trying to work up the courage to step outside again. Worse, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to tell my boss what happened. I was already on thin ice with him, and this shit might cause me to break through to the freezing water below.
But fuck it, because this was weird.
I install cable for a living. I didn't have dreams of stringing cable when I was a little kid, but my previous life choices left me with few options. In high school, I fell in with the wrong crowd. It started with skipping school, sneaking alcohol at weekend parties, and some petty theft, but it didn't stay that way for long. Soon, I dropped out and dedicated my life to committing robberies to pay for my pill addiction. I wasn't living as much as I was running on a treadmill. I did whatever I could to stay on my feet but constantly felt myself slipping.
My bottom came when I was jumped by two guys who sold me pills. I had bought from them before and trusted them, but the feeling was not mutual. Someone had dimed a buddy of theirs out to the police, and he was looking at real jail time. They assumed it was me and beat me senseless.
I was greeted at the door with a punch to the jaw that sent me reeling. My brain, already addled and slowed by Oxi, was in the middle of putting together what was happening when the next punch caught me in the temple. I collapsed to the ground and covered my neck and face as best as I could. The next few minutes were a flurry of punches, kicks, and stomps. When it was all over, I had a broken jaw, a shattered wrist, several wounds that required fifty total stitches, and a concussion.
That's how I kicked my painkiller addiction.
I can joke now, but the next six months were the hardest in my life. The withdrawals I had were the worst thing I've ever experienced. Having them while I was recuperating from my injuries was a circle of hell I didn't think existed. I wanted to die most days and felt lost in the darkness. But sobriety was the beacon on the horizon. Even during my darkest moments, I could still see the fuzzy spark of white light off in the distance. It kept me going. Six months from my beat-down day, I came out the other side healthier but weaker.
I needed a job but had limited skills. Thankfully, I had a former pill buddy who managed to keep steady employment with the cable company. We always got along, and he called in a few favors and hooked me up. I got hired, but it was a struggle. Not the work, which was easy to learn, but dealing with the public without telling them to fuck off. Worse, was trying to avoid the flood of illegal substances that are around you at all times. Customers will offer you weed or pills for all the channels, or bored co-workers will have something to "make the day pass by." It's a lot to dodge, especially if you're in recovery. Whenever I felt the itch again, I'd feel the scar tissue from my wrist surgery, and the itch would pass.
The last week has been one of those "Shit, is it Friday yet?" weeks that seem to be growing in frequency these days. I don't want to bore you with the details, but needless to say, most nights, I needed to reach out to my sponsor and have them talk me off the ledge. We recently had a turnover at the executive level, and my new boss Rory was a tremendous cock. A rager at levels science hasn't ever seen before. Just the worst dude imaginable.
Part of Rory's new crusade was coming in and firing a bunch of guys. The company called it "checking for redundancies in the labor force," but we all knew what it was. He was picking off two classes of people: high earners and guys with spotty pasts. I was in the latter group and imagined it was just a matter of time before my number got pulled. I was on pins and needles all week. I made sure I was the greatest cable installer you'd ever meet. So far, I was getting high marks but the forced joviality was wearing thin.
It's safe to say my joy had left on a one-way ticket. I have no clue when—or if—she'd return.
Back to this shit. I had just finished up my last job of the day when my work phone started buzzing. I cursed and thought about not answering, but the threat of unemployment loomed too large for me to do that. I picked up and knew from the jump my day was far from over. Denise from dispatch asked if I could cover a job left hanging because of "scheduling conflicts" (see: the original installer had been let go). It was near where I was and was a simple install.
I gritted my teeth and agreed. I liked Denise and knew she was worried about the hammer falling on her, too. She thanked me profusely, and promised to bring me cookies tomorrow. Since she's a hellcat in the kitchen and getting close to a dispatcher never hurts, I said no worries. I hung up, balled up my jacket, and screamed into it. I felt better after that.
981 Maple Street was about five minutes away, but it felt like a world away. Maple Street was at the end of the neighborhood where large swaths of grass fields faded into a thicket of woods. The woods rose up into the foothills until they graduated to mountains. To borrow a phrase from Shel Silverstein, the house resided where the sidewalk ends.
The house, an off-white birdhouse ranch type, was a little run-down but no worse than any of the others that populated this neighborhood. This place had been hit hard by economic times, and property values had plummeted. It was slowly recovering. In five years, this would be a place most current residents wouldn’t be able to afford. The front yard had a large oak tree that looked amazing but had killed the grass under its canopy. The rest of the yard looked well cared for.
I knocked and heard a few voices talking on the other side of the door. It opened, and a man in his late 40s stood there with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. He was tall and thin, save for a middle-aged paunch. His face was starting to crinkle at the edges, but he was southern California middle-aged, which meant he was holding up pretty well. He did look tired, though—the bags under his eyes were full-on steamer trunks.
"You with the cable company?" he asked, knowing I was.
I nodded. "You requested an install, right?"
"Yes, I did. Please, come in."
He opened the door wide, and I walked in. The house was pretty bare with a bachelor pad aesthetic. That didn't make much sense since I heard a female voice talking to him. I assumed it was his wife. I believe in a lot of wild shit, but to think that a wife would be fine with their house decorated like a 23-year-old bachelor lived there was a bridge too far.
"I'm Tom," the guy said, extending his hand. I shook it. "What did you need from my end?"
"Do you know if there was a previous hookup here?"
"Ugh, yeah. There is one in this room and another in the back bedroom."
"Okay. I should put the modem in a spot that'll hit the whole house. The signal can get wonky if it's in a room behind a wall or bricks or anything."
"This room is probably the best spot then," he said.
"Perfect. I have to get under the house, check the old connections, and replace some parts. Where's your hatch to get under the house?"
"Oh, it's around back. You can exit out this side door and walk through the backyard. It's on the eastern side. You might need a screwdriver to remove the grate. Do you need one?"
I pulled a screwdriver from my pocket and showed him. "I should be good. Thank you, though."
"I should've guessed you'd have one."
"I appreciate your concern. Is there anything in the backyard I should be worried about? Dogs? Kids? Wild dogs? Wild kids?"
It was standard banter, and it always got a chuckle out of people. Same thing happened here. "Nothing to worry about," he said. "You should be good."
"Alright. I'll get started so you can get online as soon as possible."
"Great! If you need anything, I'll be doing some work in the back bedroom."
I nodded and headed for the side door. The dining room door led to the pie wedge-shaped backyard, which was larger in the back than the front made it look. The grass was as cooked as its kin in the front, but islands of green weeds seemed to be thriving. In the corner of the lot, an old metal shed stood, rusted to the point where I assumed divine intervention kept it standing. It seemed to have been there since the house had been built – or maybe several decades before.
When I turned the corner of the house, I spotted a woman and child staring into the corner of the yard, their backs facing me. The Woman wore a faded blue dress that fit her well. Tom had, it seemed, out-kicked his coverage with her. I didn't want to startle them, so I offered a friendly "hello" to the pair. The kid started to turn, but the mother placed a hand on their shoulder and kept their heads facing away from me. I squinted along the treeline, trying to see what they were concentrating on, but I didn't see anything unusual.
Just wanting to be done with the job, I let them be and moved on. I turned another corner to the house's short side and spotted the grate leading to the crawlspace. The grate looked as old as the shed, and I wasn't sure I would even need the screwdriver to open it. Hell, I was sure the thing would disintegrate in my hands as soon as I touched it.
I crouched and was about to pull it off when I heard something rustling near me. I glanced back to where I had seen the mom and kid, but they were gone. I assumed I had heard them leaving. I pulled the grate off – I was right, no screwdriver necessary – and as I set it aside, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.
It was the kid. A boy around eight or so. But they weren't staring at me exactly. They were looking away from me, staring up at the roof line. I found it odd. Clearly, the kid wanted to talk to me but had turned their back on me. I coughed to let them know that I knew they were there, but they didn't respond.
"Hey man, what's up there?" I said.
"Nothing nice," he said, still keeping their gaze away from me.
"Oh," I said, "Not going to hurt me, is it?"
"Maybe," he said.
Not the answer I was expecting. "What is it?"
"They told me you'd know soon enough."
As he said that, I felt something crawling across my hand. I pulled my hand away from the house and shook it. I saw a spider land in a pile of leaves and scurry away. I let out a nervous laugh. I'm not scared of spiders or anything, but the shock of being told some unseen thing was watching me and didn't look pleased, coupled with the sensation of something on my skin, was enough to justify a quickened heartbeat.
I looked back at where the kid had been standing, but he was gone. I chalked it up to kids being little weirdos and went back to work. The faster I could get this installation done, the quicker I could go home and smoke a bowl. I let Kush be my guide. I put up my hood, turned on my small flashlight, and shimmied through the opening under the house.
I know guys who've worked for the company for years and still dread going into a crawl space. Granted, it's not my favorite thing to do, but I don't mind either. The bugs can be a nuisance but if you don't bother them, they tend to not bother you. Same with rats and mice. Raccoons, though? I crawl out and call animal control. Those little dudes are cute but nasty as all get out. My path today was nothing but cobwebs, so I was okay.
I flashed my light around and saw where the cable line went up into the living room floor. My job here was to ensure the coaxial line's integrity was still good. If it had been chewed on or anything, I'd replace it. Sometimes, I just replaced it anyway—saving myself a potential job later down the line.
I crawled over to where the line came in from the pedestal and started my once-over. I not only looked for any damage but also ran the line through my hands to make sure my eyes didn't miss anything. I was under the dining room area when I heard that side door close.
I stopped. Tom said something, but it was muffled. I wanted to be nosy, so I waited a beat to hear if anyone spoke back to him. Someone did. It was soft and quiet – I assumed it was the Boy – and I didn't make out what they asked, but I did hear Tom's response. In a firm voice, he said, "No, not right now. Run along."
There were footsteps over me that faded into another section of the home. Tom said, "He always wants to jump the gun. How many times do I have to tell him?"
I suppressed a laugh at the last line. It's the official father's lament. I kept moving my hand down the line and didn't feel nicks along the cable. In fact, on closer inspection, the line looked almost new. I was planning to change it, but this looked like it had been installed last week.
I could hear someone walk into the living room as I reached the spot where the line went through the house. Another pair of footsteps followed the first, and I heard a breathy but detached woman's voice ask, "Can we show our faces now?"
"I just told the boy 'no.' What makes you any different?" Tom said, an edge to his voice.
A chill raced through my body. I knew those words, but this conversation made me feel like I spoke another language. Can we show our faces? Why would you not?
"Do you think he'll see us?"
"If I have my way," he said, not finishing that thought. "Leave me be. I must try to get some things done before he leaves, and you two keep bothering me."
What did Tom mean to get some things done before I left? What did he have in mind? While trying to process all this, I heard something shuffle in the darkness just beyond my flashlight beam. I moved it around, trying to see the telltale glowing eyes of varmints, but nothing flashed back at me.
I heard something shuffling again, this time down by my feet. I cocked my head as best as I could and shone the flashlight into that corner of the house but, again, there wasn't anything else down here but me and a thousand spiders. I sighed and finished my inspection of the wire.
As I turned to crawl back out from under the house, I heard somebody sneaking around on the floor above me. The wood groaned as the person moved slowly. I wasn't sure what they were doing, but they wanted to keep it a secret. A shadow fell over the pinprick of light from where the cable went into the house. Someone was standing over it.
"Can you hear them down there? Moving in the dark?" It was the Boy. “They like the dark.”
"What are you saying?"
"The little shadows," he said, "They live down there. Do you hear them?"
This kid was creepy as hell. "I, ugh, I can't hear you, dude," I said, inching my body away from the wire, "We can talk inside."
"They're going to get you, but that's okay," he said, "It only hurts for a little bit, and then you're fine."
Fuck. That. I had no desire to respond to that nightmare of a statement. I hastened my inch-worming, heading back towards the open hatch. As I did, I heard more movement in the darkness around me. I tried to ignore it, but it was a fool's gambit. It was impossible to ignore.
I was getting closer to the opening when I saw a pair of tiny legs walk in front of the hatch. It was the Boy. How did he get there so quickly and without me hearing him run on the floor? I didn't have time to run through the scientific method because the Boy leaned down and placed the metal grate back over the hatch.
"Hey! Hey!" I yelled. "I'm still under here!"
The Boy didn't stop. Instead, he placed a trashcan in front of the grate, enshrouding the entire crawlspace in darkness and trapping me inside.
"Hey! I need you to move that!" I screamed. No response. I raised my fist as high as possible and punched the floor above me to hopefully get Tom’s attention. That was a mistake, as I managed to punch straight into an old nail. I felt it puncture in between my knuckles. The pain was instant, and I let out a howl.
I shook my hand and swore a blue streak. I reached up with my other hand, felt the tip of the nail I had managed to punch, and found a flat spot next to it. I banged hard on the floor and yelled again for some help. Nobody responded. Not at first.
Then I heard someone chuckle under the house.
I couldn't locate where it had come from because it sounded like it was all around me. I swung my light around as best as I could but didn't see anything. No glowing eyes, nothing. I inched forward a bit, and someone laughed again – this time, it was to my right. I turned my light in that direction and saw a sudden flood of light fill the space under the house.
"What the hell?" I said, my desire to leave overtaken by a desire to know what was unfolding next to me.
A pair of kid legs dropped down from the hole in the floor. I realized then that the hole must be an interior crawlspace. The kid had blocked off the metal grate and opened this hatch for some reason. While he dropped his legs down, he didn't move any further.
"Hey, you have to open that metal grate," I yelled. "I don't want to be trapped down here."
"They told me they needed you," he said, followed by a slight chuckle.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I said, not caring that I was talking to a child. "Open the goddamn grate!"
"The shadows are approaching," he said, pulling himself back into the house. He placed the lid back on the hole, and I was trapped in the dark again. I cursed to myself and started pounding on the floor again.
"Hey! Someone come help me!"
That's when I felt something run across my legs. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It didn't feel like the tiny claws of a passing rat. It was cold to the touch, but as it hit my skin, I felt a burn in my bones. It's hard to explain, but I felt both extremes simultaneously. Whatever it was skittered off into the darkness of the other side of the crawl space.
The kid started laughing again, which brought me back to reality. I army crawled as fast as I could to the grate. I balled up my fist and punched in the middle of the metal. The blow knocked the old nails out of the wall, and the grate broke up. I was about to push away the garbage can when it suddenly wheeled out of the way.
I saw Tom's legs standing there.
"You okay?" he asked, concern in his voice.
I got out from under the house so fast that I left a me-sized dirt cloud in my place. Once out, I shook my body loose as if I had things crawling all over me. Tom watched but didn't say anything at first. We finally locked eyes, and he could see the rage, fear, and confusion on my face. He wisely waited until I spoke first.
"What the hell is wrong with your kid? He blocked me under there and taunted me from the indoor crawlspace."
"What are you talking about?"
"He told me the shadow people or something were watching, and then he blocked me under the house!"
Tom's face twisted up into confusion. "I...I don't understand."
"I can't make it any simpler, Tom!" I screamed, letting unprofessionalism take root.
"I don't have a kid."
It hit me like an Ali right cross. My vision got dizzy, and I struggled to catch my breath. I stared at his face, looking for the sign of a lie or a joke, but he was as stone-faced as an Easter Island statue. After a beat, I found my sense again. "I heard you talking to him in the living room when I was under the house."
"One, I was on a phone call. Two, are you spying on me? What the hell, man?"
"I wasn't spying, and you weren't on the phone," I said. I also heard you talking to your wife. She asked you if she could show her face or something."
"I don't have a wife either."
I shook my head. "I fucking saw them in the backyard! They were staring at the fence!"
Tom paused and cocked his head to the side. When he spoke, it was softly, trying to calm me down. "Are you...did you have a few drinks before the appointment? Or a pill or something? No judging – I know pill heads. I won't report you or anything, but I understand if you need to come back tomorrow with a clearer head."
"I'm sober," I said, gritting my teeth. "But I know what I saw. What I heard."
"As the tree said to the lumberjack, I'm stumped," Tom said. "You look a little flush. You want a bottle of water or something? I can show you I'm here all alone."
My adrenaline had seeped out of my body, and I was starting to feel like myself again. I nodded at Tom, and he smiled. "I'll go grab you one. Do you want to come into the AC?"
"No, I'm okay. I need to double-check the connection to the pedestal."
"Sure. Be bright back," Tom said as he walked off.
But I had no intention of checking the connections. I was going to check on Tom. I didn't believe him at all. Something weird was going on, and I needed to know what. As soon as he turned the corner around the house, I broke out my flashlight and headed back to the crawlspace.
I dropped to the ground and shone my beam into the darkness. Something had crawled on me, and I wanted to see what it was. I moved my light into every section of the crawlspace but saw no eyes glowing back at me.
"If you're under there, call back."
There was nothing. I was starting to feel like a paranoid idiot. I called out once again just to be sure, but again, nothing called back. I shut off my light and sighed. I started pushing myself back to my feet when I heard a faint woman's voice call out, "Can we show our faces now?"
"Not yet," someone hissed from the trees above me. I snapped my head up, expecting to see someone hanging on a branch over my head, but I just saw green leaves.
"Can we show our faces now?" It was the Boy. It sounded like he was on the roof. I shielded my eyes and glanced at the roof but didn't see him.
"No. He's not ready yet," someone whispered in my ear. I snapped around, throwing a punch as I did, only to slam my fist into the fence. I felt one of my knuckles crack as it hit the wood, and the pain shot up my arm like lightning. Within seconds, my hand started to puff up, and blood dripped out the wounds.
The Boy chuckled again. It came from under the house. I looked down at the grate and saw his legs disappear into the darkness.
"Hey!" I called and dropped to the ground. I pulled out my flashlight and shone into the darkness again. I was confident I'd see him, but he wasn't there. Nobody was.
I sat up and felt goosebumps turn my arms into braille. I glanced over to the corner of the house and was surprised to see the disappearing hemline of the faded blue dress. I rushed over to the corner and didn't see the Woman. I saw Tom with a bottle of water.
"You okay?"
"Where did that woman go?" I asked, my voice panicking. "She was just here."
"Sir, do you need me to call your boss for you? You're starting to scare me."
"What's up with this house? Is it haunted?"
Tom started laughing. "I hope not. I just moved in. I'd hate to have roommates again, especially ones who leave ectoplasm all over the place."
As I stared at him, I saw the Woman and the Boy emerge from the other corner of the house. They looked up on the roof, their faces obscured by their hands and the sun. I pointed a finger at them and screamed, "They're right there!"
Tom spun around and looked, but there wasn't anything there. He turned back to me, not sure what to say. Instead, he handed me the bottle of water. "I gotta be honest. I didn't see anything. Drink the water...you might have heat stroke."
I threw the bottle on the ground. "I don't have fucking heat stroke. I have a man that's lying about these things." I got close to him. "What did you have planned for me? Why do they keep asking to show their faces?"
"I don't," he said, but I didn't stay to hear him finish his thought. I walked right past him and turned the corner of the house. As I did, I saw the blue hem disappear through the door that led to the kitchen. I followed right behind her.
I walked into the house, which was as silent as a corpse. The Woman and Boy were nowhere to be seen. "Hello?" I called out. "I just saw you guys walk in here. Where are you?"
The door behind me opened up. Tom walked in, his face reddening with anger. "You can't just walk into my house."
"I saw them walk in. Where are they?"
"I keep telling you, it's just me and you here. Now, if you want to finish your work…."
I walked away from him and headed toward the bedroom where I had seen the Boy standing. I wanted to check that crawl space. The room was empty, not even a moving box in there, so finding the hatch that led under the house was easy. I went into the closet and pried the hatch open.
Tom entered the room behind me, more confused now than angry. "I don't want a line run through here."
"The Boy was standing in this spot. I saw his legs. I spoke to him. He told me the shadows needed me for something." I glared down into the darkness under the house. Despite Tom's feigned declarations that there wasn't another person in the house, I knew he wasn't being honest.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure you're back on pills and in the middle of a delusion," he said.
"How did you know I had a pill addiction?"
"The way you're acting, it wasn't a hard guess."
"I'm sober, but I did have a problem with pills. I never told you. I don't tell anyone."
Tom stood there, confused about how to answer. I stood up and stared him down. He looked away, but I didn't move my gaze. "Who are you? Who put you up to this? Was it Rory? He trying to get me fired?"
Tom's shoulders sagged. "You got me," he said. "Rory hired me to get you in trouble. I'm... I'm sorry. He offered me free cable for a year and assured me you were a bad guy and, well…. I'm weak."
"That's really fuc…," I stopped. "You're lying. Right now. You're lying. Why?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dash past the open crawlspace hatch. I turned to the hatch opening and then back to Tom.
"Are you trying to stop me from looking in there?"
He didn't respond.
"What's under there?"
"He is," he said. "The Boy. He hides under there all the time. He has...friends down there."
"The shadow people?"
Tom shrugged, "What he calls them. I call them a menace. Impossible to get my work done with them causing a racket."
"What work?"
"Things you'd never understand in a million years," he said, "Things beyond your brain's capacity to imagine. Things that will help usher in a new world. Your kind's time is coming to a close. My work represents the new order."
I stared at him. I wasn't sure if I should run away or punch his lights out. Instead, I just spat out, "Bro, what the fuck?"
"Can we show our faces now?" the Boy called out from under the house.
I looked down at the hatch and then back at Tom. He nodded toward the opening. "Do you want to see your future?"
"Fuck it," I said. I got down, grabbed the sides of the opening, and lowered my head under the house.
I kept my eyes closed for a second, assuming I'd either see something horrifying or something would hit me in the face. When nothing struck me, I opened my eyes. It was dark, and I couldn't make out anything.
"There's nothing under here," I said.
"Can we show our faces now?" said the Boy from somewhere under the house.
"Show him," Tom said.
I sat back up, grabbed my flashlight from my pocket, and flipped it on. I looked at Tom, "If you try anything, so help me, God."
Tom just smiled. I looked back down at the hatch and sighed. I was suddenly hit with a bolt of common sense. What was I doing? My internal alarms were going off and I was ignoring them. Curiosity had gotten me this far, but my fight instincts were starting to lose to my flight. No job was worth this.
"Man, fuck this," I said, reversing course and standing. I turned to confront Tom, but he was gone. I hadn't heard him leave, but there wasn't a trace of him there. "Tom? Where the hell are you?"
He didn't respond, and I decided that I had hit my "weird shit" quota for the day. I closed the closet door and headed back into the living room to grab my gear. I'd call dispatch and tell them someone else had to come out and finish the….
The wood floor cracked, splintered, and gave way when I put my weight on it. I fell through the floor and landed with a thud on the dirt in the crawl space. On the way down, I hit my ribs on a crossbeam and heard them crack and knock the wind out of me. As I lay on the dirt, writhing in pain, my lungs did their damnedest to find a breath. It couldn't, and my vision started to blur at the edges. For a fleeting few seconds, I envisioned my death on a dirty crawlspace floor. It wasn’t comforting.
I rolled onto my back and finally took in a massive gulp of life-saving air. The blurring vision subsided, and all that remained was the aching pain of a busted rib. My muscles around my rib cage spasmed and pulled tight against my lungs. After the initial big breath, I could only take shallow gulps because the pain was searing.
I lay there for a few seconds, collecting my thoughts, when I felt something skitter across my legs again. I kicked out of instinct but didn't hit anything. Instead, I heard the chuckling again. My flashlight had fallen out of my hand. I found it and turned it on.
This time, I did see something. Pairs of eyes—dozens of them—watched me from the darkness that surrounded me. These weren't possums or rats. I never hoped to find a raccoon under the house more than I did at that moment. I knew whatever these things were, they weren't natural and they wanted to harm me.
"Still want to know what they plan to do to you?" the Boy asked from behind me.
I turned around and shone the light where I heard the voice. The Boy was lying on his stomach, his face looking down at the ground. All I could see at the moment was the top of his head.
"Wha-what's going on?" I said, the light bouncing from my trembling hand.
"I can show you my face now," he said. He raised his head and….
The Boy didn't have a face.
He had the space for a face, but there were no features whatsoever—nothing but pale pink skin pulled tight across the front of his head. At that moment, the image of a wooden art figure came to me.
“What the ever-loving fuck?"
"Want to see something really scary?" the Boy said, his lack of a mouth not stopping him from speaking. He raised himself onto the tips of his fingers and toes and started skittering toward me, laughing as he did.
I clambered out of the crawlspace as fast as my battered body could carry me. I got out of the hole and onto my feet and let out an ear-splitting scream.
The Woman in the blue dress was standing next to the hole in the floor. Like the Boy, she didn't have a face either. But I could feel her eyes on me. Looking into my mind. Into my soul. She stepped toward me, and I bolted for the front door.
I whipped it open and was greeted by Tom standing there, blocking me. He grinned. "Leaving so soon?"
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, checking behind me to see if the Woman was still coming toward me. She was, and she was gaining quickly.
"Can we show our faces now?" he asked with a laugh.
I turned back to Tom and nearly had a heart attack. His face was gone. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. My legs were jelly, but I kept myself propped up. The human desire to survive can perform miracles.
Tom reached out and pointed at a spot on the far side of the living room wall. I turned and saw three skinned human faces hanging from old nails: a man, a woman, and a boy.
"You're turn to join us," Tom whispered. But the voice wasn't said out loud. It came from inside my own head. "We can always use another body around here."
My brain clicked into action and sent an all-points bulletin to my limbs. The message was simple and actionable – "Get the fuck going, you dope."
I felt my hand ball into a fist and spun. It landed where Tom's nose would've been. It should've knocked him back, causing him to stumble and giving me time to run. But that didn't happen. Instead, his face pulled apart, letting my fist slide right through. It closed on my arm, trapping me.
I yanked and yanked, but my arm would not dislodge from his face. I glanced back and saw the Woman nearly next to me. The Boy was climbing out of the hole, moving like a cockroach. I looked back at the wall and saw Tom's hanging face silently laughing.
Something about those silent laughs cut me to my core. They were laughing because Tom thought he had outsmarted me. He had beat me. That my face would soon be hanging on the wall next to theirs. I wasn't going to let that happen.
I saw a loose brick on the walkway, and a plan flashed in my mind. I yanked hard, sending Tom stuttering forward enough for me to wrap my finger around the brick. I brought it up and sent it towards his face. As expected, the face parted again, and the brick flew through easily.
But as soon as the face curtains pulled aside, I yanked my arm free. With my limb free, I took off in a mad sprint for my truck. I got inside and fumbled my keys as I tried to start the engine. Tom, the Woman, and the Boy stood together at the front door and watched as I got the van going and rocketed down the street.
I drove like a madman for ten minutes, trying to put as much space between me and the house as possible. I finally stopped at a gas station to collect my thoughts. I was jittery, and my mind was swimming, but I was also relieved. I had gotten out.
I collected myself and called Denise to tell her I couldn't finish the installation at 981 Maple Street. I was going to suggest we cancel the order and not send another installer there. That's when the conversation took a turn I wasn't expecting.
"Where have you been? You were supposed to be off an hour ago," Denise said when I called her.
"I was trying to finish the install at 981 Maple, the one you sent me to."
"I didn't send you anywhere," she said. "With how insane Rory is being about overtime hours, I'm trying to keep everyone below the threshold."
"What are you talking about? You called and asked me. You don't remember," I said, a bad feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
She gave me a nervous chuckle, "I swear I didn't. Are you feeling okay? You gotta come back. People are waiting for the van."
"I can prove it. I have a record of you calling me on my phone," I said. I opened my call log, and my jaw dropped. There was no call from Denise. She was telling me the truth. But if she didn't call me, who did?
"Rory wants to talk to you when you get in. I wouldn't mess around, he seems pissed" she said before hanging up.
I haven't moved since. I wanted to write this down because I felt like it needed to be recorded. Something supremely fucked up is happening at 981 Maple Street. It nearly got me. It still might. To think, on any other typical day, a surprise conversation with my boss would be the scariest thing that could happen to me. Funny how seeing a faceless ghoul can prioritize your problems. If you're hired to do work there, turn it down. Trust me, it's not worth it.
"Can we show our faces now?" they asked. "Fuck no," should be the only response.

I (26M) graduated recently from grad school. Really proud of my accomplishments. I've been single forever and now I feel like it's time to start dating. There is a person I've been wanting to ask, but I have a couple of concerns tho:
Should I secure a job before starting to date? I'm actively on the job search and have had a couple of interviews. Still applying and waiting for decisions to arrive. My main income was gig work but that has dried up and I'm looking to do something else in the meantime before I land a position in my career of choice. I still have some savings, but I've read that securing employment is recommended since dating could be a distraction; also it'll provide secure income needed for going out. The reason why this may sound time sensitive is because the girl is fairly attractive and she probably won't be single for long, so I'm hoping to shoot my shot fairly soon before some else does.
Also does she seem interested? The girl is a former coworker from an office I was interning in for over a year. We got along pretty well and my interest in her grew over time (she's also studying the same career path as I did). I'm not sure if she is interested too, though. The only things I'm loosely basing it off of is that sometimes I would make her laugh without even trying (I'm not that funny btw lol), she would nervously chuckle at the end of convos between us, and one time I waited to say bye to her at end of the day (she had other coworkers in her office). After they left I approached her and said I wanted to say goodbye, she responded with "I was hoping you'd come and say bye". She also stated to me that she planned to move in the near future, and was considering my hometown as a possibility. I graduated and left the office, but I gave her my number in which I said I'd be happy to show her my town and/or answer questions. She responded saying she appreciates the offer and would let me know. We text every once in a while, but it's not consistent (I usually start the texts, she hasn't texted me first yet since the beginning). We had a brief phone call which was nice, but that was it. I completely understand her situation tho: she works FT and is going to grad school as well.
These are my two concerns. Should I ask her out while actively on a job search, or wait to get a job and risk missing out? And based of my details, does she seemed interested at all? I know asking directly is the the only way to find out, but I really don't want her to see me as a creep. I'm not scared of rejection; I've been friendzoned three times and I don't mind staying single for a little bit more to get my stuff together. However this girl could be a great opportunity considering we've known each other somewhat from work and she seems really kind. If she's not interested, then it's fine since it'll bring closure.

Background: my dad has 15 children. Of those 15, I'm (27F) the fourth oldest and second oldest girl. Most of us are in our 20's but the youngest kids are still in diapers.
Out of all of my siblings, I'm the "responsible" one. But I just do what most adults do: I work, live in my own space, pay my bills, try to live within my means. My siblings do...almost everything but. So when they're in a pickle, some of them turn to me. In the past when it was less frequent and less overwhelming, I didn't really mind, but I find myself at this juncture where I’m not comfortable helping them anymore. Especially considering that I'm becoming privy to some of my siblings using me for something or only calling on me for help. I love my family and I admit to being blindly dutiful to them in the past but as of now, I'm just getting sick of it.
And now my dilemma: my older brother (28M) has been calling me more frequently these days. In the past, he’d call for money or rides and when I had it, I’d help him out. But now, my money is funny because I’m trying to save for a house as me and my boyfriend are looking to move closer to his family up north in the coming years. I have strict budgets and do not even have wiggle room for myself, let alone someone else. His last phone call with me was about how his car got repossessed (the monthly payment was ~$700; well over what he could’ve comfortably paid to) and that he was homeless and living in the car. This was news to me so when I heard how quiet his background was, I asked where he was and he just said “f*ck it, I’ll figure it out” then hung up. I didn’t make an attempt to comfort him via text or call him back. My attitude with him has also changed recently as the calls become more frequent. I no longer stick my neck out to volunteer my resources but instead just listen to which works…for now. But my brother posts regularly to Facebook about his disgustingly messy love life (that we’ve all told him to focus less on), has no dependents and works full-time at a gas station. It leaves me to wonder what he’s doing with his money but ultimately, I’m seeing this trend and I want no parts of it.
Yesterday, he called me twice (kinda funny: a friend and I went out for brunch and she publicly Venmo’d me her half of the bill…less than an hour later, my brother called me). No text or voicemail. I’m debating calling him back to see what he wanted and then telling him I’m no longer able to help him. Or just completely ignoring/blocking him all together. But that’s where I feel like I would be the AH or at least a coward. Like I said, I’m seeing the trend so it's sorta why I lean towards the approach of backing away now. As selfish as it sounds, I just have way too many siblings to put myself on the line for.
Tl;dr: adult sibling constantly calling for money or favors. Thinking of sort of going no-contact/ignoring him for the time being. WIBTA?

Hello,
Last week I(24F) was accused by my child's(3F) daycare teacher of stalking her. On Thursday last week, I received a text messaged from the daycares assigned text number. The message was from the director(Owner) of the daycare, the text read "Hey this is Katie(fake name) when you get a chance, could you please give me a call. Not an 911 but need to talk with you" after which she provided her cell phone number. Katie is an older woman, I'm not sure of her specific age but I would safely say 60s. I called her immediately as it's rare to get messages from the daycare, especially from Katie directly. She was surprised to hear from me so quickly and made it known that I didn't have to call right then. I asked what was the matter to which Katie replied that Mary(child/fake name) was fine and that the topic was more so about me. I was confused but I said ok and tried to listen and not jump to conclusions as I have severe generalized and social anxiety which causes me to assume the worst. Katie informed me that one of the teachers on staff, Amy(23F), at the daycare has accused me of stalking her. I was absolutely shocked as I was under the impression that me and Amy were friends. We were friends on Facebook, every few weeks I would message her to see how she was. Since she was Mary's favorite teacher in the 2 year old room, I would send her photos of Mary when she was being silly. My love language is gifts, so there was a time or two that I have gifted her items to show my appreciation for how much she does to teach Mary and the rest of her classmates. Katie informed that one of the examples Amy gave of me stalking was of a photo I had taken of Amy and then sent to Amy. I know exactly what she was talking about but the timing is wrong. Katie said it happened a few weeks ago, which is incorrect, that happened once a few months ago. The situation was I was waiting in the hallway of the daycare waiting for Mary to be ready to go. Each classroom has a plexiglass window so people can see into the classroom from the hallway. I noticed Amy was working, I don't get to see her in person often as she is gone from work by the time I usually pick up Mary from daycare. I decided to be playful and take a photo of Amy from the window and send it to Amy. I did not keep the picture, I said "I see you lol" and that was that. I understand how this can come off as creepy but she did not express at any point that she was uncomfortable with it. I explained this to Katie but I don't believe she was listening to understand me, she was listening to respond to me. Another example Amy provided to Katie was that I sent naked photos of Mary in the bath. To point out previously, I would send photos of Mary when she was being silly, so once or twice I did send photos of her in the bath but all of her private areas are covered. Additionally, Amy has seen Mary's private area since she had to change Mary's diaper many times when she was in Amy's class. Katie informed me that the photos made Amy uncomfortable, could be considered child pornography and that I am lucky they didn't call DCFS on me. At this point. I'm in tears and trying not to freak out on Katie over the phone. I took a deep breath and explained to Katie that I was in no way stalking Amy and that the photo of her was a playful joke, to which Amy did not express to me she did not find funny. I also pointed out to Katie that the bath photos of Mary were in no way intended to be inappropriate. I told Katie that I was under the impression me and Amy were friend's and that this is a complete shock to me. Katie repeated that this isn't that big of a deal but to just keep my distance from Amy from now on.
After the call ended I burst into tears and explained to my husband, Roger(27M), about the call. He was and still is absolutely furious. He told me that my actions were not my fault and that Amy should have handled the situation better instead of "hiding behind her job". I tend to over think things so I messaged two friends, both have children, one who knows me well, and another who I am just now getting to know. I explained the call and the situation, they also have stated that Amy did not handle it correctly and that the joke I made would have been funny to anyone else.
As for staying away from Amy, Katie is not in her class anymore as she moved up to the 3 year old class last month. Roger stated he will pick up Mary from daycare from now on.
So reddit: Was I stalking her and just didn't realize it? Did I really do something wrong? I have my parent's telling me to get a new daycare.

I've never seen a field in which specialists are as full of themselves as in the world of TMJ. You probably have only like 10% that are thorough and can explain things properly (while admitting there's a lot they don't know), while the other 90% will tell you they have it all figure out and everyone else has it wrong. But the funny thing is that within the 90%, there are a bunch of different specialties - dentists, neuromuscular specialists, PTs, MTs, chiros, surgeons, etc. And NONE of them agree.
It's soooo easy for them to act confident with us patients (what do we know, am I right?). But put them in a room together, and I guarantee it would be a bloodbath. The only winners would be those who can back their claims up with the best evidence.
If anyone can find an example of this, I would love to see it. Like if you're a clinician, shouldn't you WANT to debate other specialists? Wouldn't you WANT to prove that what you're doing is correct? And if it isn't, wouldn't you WANT to learn from people who know more? Obviously we don't live in an ideal world.
I want to see this so bad that I just set up a facebook group in the hopes that I can stimulate some of this debate myself. If you're a clinician, you should join, there's so much to discuss.

~Part 3 Luna~
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Luna.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be rooms for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR. Competing in battles while dress cute and facing off with others. I would encourage and flatter those that send virtual gifts that could be exchanged for gifts. I would message and ask for WeChat account numbers to talk to them and I would be an emotional prostitute pretending to love and be interested in them for the hopes of more gifts. Methods of manipulation would be used as in begging, guilt tripping a viewer, and love bombing them. Often middle aged men would pretend to be the female host.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen—a life set to end in misery—a fate.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.

~Final~
I watched Luna from Zhengzhou. On a screen. My name is Luo. I tap away on my phone in a dormitory in a Foxconn factory. I was a migrant worker from Luoyang in the province of Henan. My wife was in Guangzhou and I was in Zhengzhou. Far from each other. We could not be together. We were migrant workers. In China we use Hukos—a government document used to list family members like a tree—and it determine where you were tied to geographically. I could only get access to government resources if residing in your home province that your family originates from. This meant my daughter could only go to school in the province and city she originates from. I was stuck in zhengzhou at a Taiwanese own factory making iPhones. It was during the pandemic. COVID and restrictions. Felt claustrophobic. Could not leave the factory grounds due to orders. But my alienation was okay—manageable. I did it via numbing myself via sending virtual gifts to Luna. Like a noose around my neck in debt.
Workers were getting mad because we weren’t being paid our allowances. And we found ourselves restricted to staying with workers who were positive for the virus. Anger was growing. And I was feeling upset like everyone else. Isolated on a moon with Luna to talk to.
Pressure grew—discontent. People rushed to the courtyard where people in hazmat suits came with batons to face a mob of angry workers. Shouting and throwing of projectiles. Chaos grew. I stood amongst them just as angry. Fists clenched.
The feeling towards Luna was polar to the situation at hand. I figured I would be pulled apart into shreds. Hooks everywhere. A piñata to be busted with all my anger and frustrations to fall out like candy for Luna to eat on. In three weeks I grew exhausted and found my own moon off the edge of a bridge —parasitical love is thin.

I've been dating my boyfriend (M31) for over 3 years, and we've lived together for 2 of those years. I'm aware that there is a significant age gap, as I'm (F21). My boyfriend is Korean, and I'm half Japanese, half Spanish. At first, he thought I was too young, but I begged him to stay with me regardless of our age difference. He works full time 6 or 5 days a week & im a student & I work full time as well but the days varies so I’m home more often.
The issue is that I've tried changing almost everything about myself to make him like me, but nothing seems to work. I've changed my personality, clothing, hair, interests, and even tried to be more sexy or cute. However, my boyfriend is not very interested in sex, as I was his first partner and I didn't have much experience either. He said he was never really interested in sex and just likes playing PC games, especially League of Legends. I've tried learning to play, but he gets upset when I'm not a pro at it when he "teaches" me, and he doesn't even last a minute teaching me before getting frustrated.
Before I say anything to him, he sighs and says he doesn't care or that it's stupid. He often assumes I'll say or do something I've never done, and this leads to arguments. He makes me cry both inside and outside the house which is always so embarrassing, but he's never apologized or tried to make me feel better. He just has a cold expression and gets even more annoyed, looking away.
There are times when he is nice and loving, but it's very rare. I get confused when he acts that way, and I forget everything he's done to hurt my feelings. I would never forgive anyone else for the things he's done, but I'm very grateful for all he's done for me, and I always let him know.
I tell him I'm grateful, I tell him he's handsome, I praise him, I love him, I always hug him & caress him. But sometimes, I’ll give him his space for like 3 weeks but it isn’t enough. After a while he’ll come home from work and he’ll go straight to his pc and if I try to cuddle him or kiss him for a few minutes , he gets super mad and annoyed, telling me he just wants to play bc he’s tired.
He never says I'm pretty, but he gets annoyed when guys message me on social media saying they think I'm pretty. I always ask him if he thinks I'm attractive because he never looks at me or says I'm pretty. I don't feel like he finds me attractive at all. When I try on sexy or pretty clothes and ask him if I look good, he'll just say "yeah" or "ugh, I'm playing," without ever looking at me and continue playing his game. He doesn’t look into my eyes!
When I try to talk to him about funny videos or things that happened to me or interest me, he always says, "Ugh, I don't want to hear about that." He says that about everything. It breaks my heart that he's so uninterested in me. I know guys don’t like clothes, makeup, and those kinds of things but fashion interests me a lot and when my partner talks about his interest I feel happy seeing how his face lights up so why does he hate when my face lights up? Why does he ALWAYS turn that smile into tears? Why is he with me if he seems to hate me so much?
I've lost a lot of weight and try to look my best for him, he says that I care about my looks way too much but I feel like he treats me according to how I look. When I ask him why he doesn't pay attention to me, he just says always says "ugh" “ugh” that Korean sound angry Koreans make. It always triggers me. I don't know why he doesn't like me, so I try to fix myself in any way I can. I'm already smart and nice, so I feel like it’s my looks and now I feel extremely insecure with my looks and personality. I starve myself to try to be as pretty/slim as I can, like the girls he had saved on his phone when I had first met him but nothing seems to be enough. He doesn’t have any photos of me either btw. He doesn’t post me though, he doesn’t post anything on social media he only scrolls on Facebook like, a lot.
I get a lot of attention from others, but not at home. He hates that I like TikToks funny cat memes, and other "dumb" stuff, but they're just innocent jokes, and I have nothing else interesting in my life. I'm very lonely because this situation makes me so depressed and it makes me feel stupid and useless. I don't feel like I'll ever be liked/loved by anyone If my own partner doesn't love me.
He yells at me and starts arguments over the simplest things, like sharing something I thought was funny or interesting. It’s never negative or insulting. Everything makes him angry and annoyed. I sometimes feel scared that he'll get too angry and break things again, as he's already broken 4 TVs. I don't even do anything to him; he just gets so angry when I ask for a bit of attention. I just don't understand why. I feel so lonely.

The breakup happened a few months ago and it was really bad. I had found out he cheated on me and lied about it. I confronted him over text and he never responded, just left me on delivered. Before I confronted him I removed and unfollowed him on ig but didn’t block, also unfollowed on Spotify. Later I noticed he had blocked me on Instagram, Facebook, Venmo (💀), lapse (photo sharing app), and tiktok. We weren’t even friends on anything except ig and Spotify lol. After I found out he blocked me I blocked him back on Facebook and ig because I’m actually active on both and didn’t want him seeing anything about me. Whereas his accounts are private and he doesn’t even have a pfp on ig!
I went on my ig blocked list at the end of last month to check the username of one of those weird scam accounts I had blocked and noticed that my ex had unblocked me because it showed “and any other accounts they may create” whereas it didn’t before since he had blocked me first. When I first saw it I thought it must be a glitch because why would he unblock me. But I can’t lie, curiosity got to me the other night so I unblocked him then searched for his user and sure enough it popped up.
Funny thing is he hasn’t unblocked me from any other platform. I know some exes unblock when they no longer care about a person but if that were the case why wouldn’t he unblock me anywhere else? Part of me wishes I would have had him unblocked because maybe he would have reached out and apologized? Ya know.. for causing me so much emotional distress, giving me new trust issues, ruining my perception of love and making me have to spend my money on getting an std test due to his selfish actions 🙃
Also don’t worry I’m not going to break NC, I just wanted to vent :)

I feel the need to get this off my chest because I cannot contain my emotions. I (24F) met my boyfriend (23M) on discord. Ugh I know out of all places, discord. But before you start judging me, it was very cute how we met. I suffer from atrial fibrillation which means I have irregular heart rhythms and my heart rate tends to be up a lot. That’s a whole other can of worms but I had a cardiac arrest when I was 17 after giving birth to my kid.
Anyways, I met (Laim fake name) on a discord servers whose purpose was for members to seek out sleeping buddies. I was always scared to sleep alone and I preferred to sleep on the phone with someone. These calls were always fun and enjoyable for me. Even with a few creeps here and there, most of the sleep callers were very gentle towards me, offering to read me bed time stories, play Minecraft late at night, have long smooth conversations. It was very therapeutic for me. As for my bf, before he met me he suffered from drug addiction. His brother had passed away when he was 16 and he wears his brothers necklace till this day, refuses to take it off. When he messaged me inquiring to sleep call, I accepted and we just hit it off. We even talked for like 10 hours before initially sleeping. Everything about him was just amazing. We had very very common interests both s#xual non-s#xual ways. I had just gotten out of a relationship before meeting him so I kept him in the 7 months talking stage lol!
He got himself into some trouble prior to me meeting him and got himself into probation for 2 years. So it’s one reason why he can’t come visit America till it’s over. Also note to mention, he’s clean now! Since being with me he wanted to change his ways and I stayed by his side though all the suffering. It was not easy I will tell you that. All the withdrawals, the anxiety, night terrors. He was going through it and he went cold turkey on it. I promised to help him through and I had sleepless nights. He’s beautiful for recovering and being clean now.
I flew out to see him for the summer and stayed with him for a month. That was such a beautiful month. Being able to hold him, curl his hair around my fingers, giving him so much love. I eventually flew back again in Christmas with my daughter and she was immediately obsessed with him. He took on the parenting role as if he was trained. Something about my little family you should know if that we are all gamers. I play Roblox and Minecraft with my kid (she’s 7 I should have mentioned that) and we all play together. My daughter doesn’t call him dad as she has a relationship with her biological father and visits him frequently. But she does happily refer Liam as her “extra dad” which I thought was super cute. When my daughter and Liam would play together, she would push me away and say cute funny things like “you had enough of Liam, it is my turn” and they would spend time together.
Recently I got laid off at my job due to something horrible my boss had done which resulted in our program shutting down. I won’t discuss what I do for a job as you redditors might find who I am haha. But I really loved my job, I miss it and I have been struggling financially. I applied for unemployment and secured myself some income in the meantime I look for another job. My bf and I have talked about me visiting again but he doesn’t know I got approved for unemployment. I messaged his parents about possibly me flying over and if they can pick me up at the airport in which they agreed! They’re so damn awesome you guys I truly love his parents. I got the tickets and I fly out Monday. He has no fucking clue but one thing I’m worried about is him freaking out. We both are super obsessed with each other. I mean.. to others it would be unhealthy obsession but to us it works out. We communicate so well too so that’s a bonus. Please do not judge me for this part but we are so obsessed that we have each others social medias , GPS locations and even have an app on our PCs to control each others PCs. Some people may view it as toxic but we both had agreed about swapping our sensitive information. We communicated about consent and approval. If he had told me he wasn’t comfortable with giving me his Facebook password I would have simply been okay with it. We are not insecure people but it’s just how him and I work. It’s been over a year now and I’m still happy with it. Anyways, I’m worried he might panic about my whereabouts because we are always on the phone and I always communicate where I will be. I hope he doesn’t get into a panic attack. Yes we are codependent and I love it please please do not judge our relationship it just truly works well for us.
I can’t wait to surprise my bf and see his beautiful face lit up when he sees me. I got his best friend to help distract him while I’m on the plane. I’m so nervous and excited to go see him. Guys, this man is truly amazing and so perfect in every way. The way he laughs, talks. The way his beautiful blue eyes shine into my soul. His soft soft skin. I love the stupid jokes he cracks up, the way he matches my energy. I love it when he shakes his butt like a duck before leaving his room when we video chat. I love how he stands in his room waiting for me to acknowledge him. When he says “you hate me” in a soft tone after I abandon him in Backrooms game because he was too slow for me. Or how he sweats profusely when I grab kiss him in public because he has the hots for me haha. And these are things I love about him and not the way me makes me feel. The way he makes me feel is just a bonus.
Anyways Reddit, I’m going to finish up this cheesy love story before I make others puke. I don’t know if there will be an update, I just wanted to tell someone I was going to go see him and surprise him when he least expects it.

Twitter post by Caitlin Johnstone
https://x.com/caitoz/status/1799411441193435525
"Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots. That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.
Israel is so fake that its far right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir has been stoking religious tensions by encouraging militant Zionists to pray on the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa. This is an illustration of how phony Israel and its political ideology are because Jews were historically prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount under Jewish law; a sign placed there in 1967 and still upheld by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate reads, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.” It’s just this weird, evangelical Christian-like thing that Zionists have started doing in contravention of their own traditions and religious texts to advance their nationalist agendas.
Journalist Dan Cohen explains on Twitter:
“ ‘Prayer’ on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone 'pray' there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use.
“Ben Gvir publicly announced this in order to provoke a reaction to use as a pretext to restrict and expel Muslims from the site, explode Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expand the regional war.
“Ben Gvir holds Netanyahu hostage. Together, they’re leading Israel to self-destruction.”
There’s no authentic spirituality in such behavior. It has no roots. No depth. No connection. It’s the product of busy minds with modern agendas, with nothing more to it than that.
Israel is so fake that Zionists artificially resurrected a dead language in order for its people to have a common “native” tongue for them to speak, so that they could all LARP as indigenous middle easterners together in their phony, synthetic country.
Israel has no real culture of its own; it’s all a mixture of organic Jewish culture brought in from other parts of the world by the Jewish diaspora, culture that was stolen from Palestinians (see “Israeli food”), and the culture of indoctrinated genocidal hatred that is interwoven with the fabric of modern Zionism. The way Israel has become a Mecca of electronic dance music points clearly to an aching cultural void that its people are trying desperately to fill with empty synthetic pop fluff.
Even international support for Israel is fake, manufactured astroturf that has to be enforced from the top down, because it would never organically occur to anyone that Israel is something that should be supported.
The phenomenally influential Israel lobby is used to push pro-Israel foreign policy in powerful western governments like Washington and London. Just yesterday US Representative Thomas Massie told Tucker Carlson that every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, who he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” with regard to lawmaking on the subject of Israel.
The Israel lobby exists with the full consent of the western imperial war machine and its secretive intelligence cartel, because western military support for Israel is also phony and fraudulent. The western empire whose strategic interests directly benefit from violence and radicalism in the middle east pretends it’s constantly expanding its military presence in the region in order to promote stability and protect an important ally, but in reality this military presence simply allows for greater control over crucial resource-rich territories whose populations would otherwise unite to form a powerful bloc acting in their own interests. The Israel lobby is a self-funding consent manufacturer which helps the empire do what it already wants to do.
Support for Israel in the media is also phony and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been finding themselves fighting off scandals due to staff leaks about demands from their executives that they slant their Gaza coverage to benefit the information interests of Israel. Briahna Joy Gray was just fired by The Hill for being critical of Israel as co-host of the show “Rising”, a fate that all mass media employees understand they will share if they are insufficiently supportive of the empire’s favorite ethnostate.
Israel’s support from celebrities is similarly forced. A newly leaked email from influential Hollywood marketing and branding guru Ashlee Margolis instructs her firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.” As we discussed recently, celebrities are also naturally disincentivized from criticizing any aspect of the western empire by the fact that their status is dependent on wealthy people whose wealth is premised upon the imperial status quo.
Support for Israel on social media is likewise notoriously phony. For years Israel has been pioneering the use of social media trolls to swarm Israel’s critics and promote agendas like undermining the BDS movement. After the beginning of the Gaza onslaught Israel spent millions on PR spin via advertising on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and The New York Times has just confirmed earlier reports that Israel has been targeting US lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence their policymaking on Israel.
In truth, nobody really organically supports Israel. If they’re not supporting it because their lobbyists and employers told them to, they’re supporting it because that’s what they were told to support by the leaders of their dopey political ideologies like Zionism, liberalism and conservatism, or by the leaders of their dopey religions like Christian fundamentalism. It’s always something that’s pushed on people from the top down, rather than arising from within themselves due to their own natural interests and ideals.
Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down, and scrambling to pick up things that are falling over, and rotating the set pieces so that they look like real buildings in front of the camera. Without this constant hustle and bustle of propagandizing, lobbying, online influence ops, and nonstop mass military violence, the whole movie set would fall over, and people would see all the film crew members and actors and cameras for what they are.
Clearly, no part of this is sustainable. Clearly, something’s going to have to give. Those set pieces are going to come toppling down sooner or later; it’s just a question of when, and of how high the pile of human corpses needs to be before it happens."

Because if you do please post it here!! So effing funny. They thought they were doing something there. I told em where they could find the post that is posted here of T's Facebook entry where she says black people can't be racist because they do it to each other! THATS RACIST! the problem with you beezys is that you DON'T think it's racist.

3rd: Sandra Diaz-Twine 1.0 (Pearl Islands - Winner)

we're not worthy.
u/SMC0629:
Sandra 1.0 is my favorite winner of the show, and while that could change (since her, Chris D, and Fabio are all super close), I still think she's flawless. Pearl Islands Sandra has this rawness in both her humor and emotional moments that I honestly don't think any other season with her can replicate. In her following seasons, you can tell she's slightly playing a character in the back of her mind, but in her first season, it's all fresh. Her rivalry with Jon is spectacular, her relationships with Lill, Burton, Rupert, and Christa are great, and her journey to the end is incredible. Such a fantastic character and as of now, my favorite winner.
~
u/Zanthosus:
Her rivalry with Fairplay is legendary. Add onto that the fact that she’s the undisputed star of every scene she’s in and you have the recipe for a bonafide icon. No matter if it’s her haggling in the village, stealing the tarp, dumping out the fish, or getting loud too, she’s just incredible to watch. I may have mixed feelings towards what her legacy has become following her second win, but there’s no denying that Sandra 1.0 is absolutely incredible.
~
u/Tommyroxs45:
I CAN GET LOUD TOO, WHAT TH-. There’s a reason Sandra is the most quoted Survivor of all time, every time she is on screen she is an iconic queen and I will always love her for the entertainment she brought. Even though I would have Sandra 2.0 here over 1.0, I’m still glad at least one of them made it.
~
u/Regnisyak1:
Sandra is the ultimate subversion of a “hero” on Survivor, and I adore her for that. A quote machine (I CAN GET LOUD TOO, WHAT THE FUCK!), Sandra delivers the entertainment factor of the season and makes it an incredible time. While I do think Pearl Islands is a wee overrated, I can’t deny Sandra’s incredible role in the season, her bickering with Fairplay, her friendship with Rupert and Christa, and her absolute decimation of Burton led to some of the most entertaining parts of the season. She is the queen, and she will stay in that position until the end of Survivor.
Personal Rank: 15/821. 10/10.
~
u/ninjedi1:
Sandra is a really great winner, although not my favorite. She's an amazing personality and has great chemistry with Rupert, Christa, JF, and so many others. There are so many great lines that she says like "I CAN GET LOUD TO WHAT THE FUCK" and so many more, plus her able to overcome everything to make it to the finale and win is great. Also, love the most iconic opening confessional she has.
~~~~~
u/DryBonesKing:
This one… I've started this writeup over and over, trying to figure out precisely what I want to say. Because, honestly, what is there to say that hasn’t already been said? Sandra Diaz-goddamn-Twine (her full, government name, btw. Check it out) literally speaks for herself. She’s honestly probably the safest person to say is one of your favorite Survivors of all time because of just “how” much she can appeal to anybody! Are you a narrative person? Sandra’s got that in spades, with two back-to-back revenge narratives that feel genuinely fresh. Are you here for the funny? SHE CAN GET LOUD TOO, WHAT THE FUCK, and she’ll make you laugh as she does so! Are you a strategy fan? Well, the masterclass UTR gameplay and the two-time winner status sorta speaks for itself. Are you a Facebook-casual type of fan? Well, while you are the type to most likely dislike her, she is Rupert’s buddy so you can definitely root for her for that reason at the very least! Again, there’s something about her for everybody!
It becomes hell trying to think of what to actually say about her that hasn’t already been said about her in the past. A part of me is tempted to do a long-form essay on why specifically Pearl Islands Sandra is better than her HvV version - and that was my original plan - but I definitely am a little burnt out at the moment to do a super in-depth version of that writeup, and I worry that a “not fully perfect” write-up of that will just come across mean-spirited regarding my Heroes vs. Villains take. So, I’ll save those thoughts for a later date. As for what else to possibly write about… well, her narrative has been dissected to death in previous rankdowns. A lot of her best moments are just common knowledge to Survivor fans. Is there any unique perspective I can provide about Sandra?
Well… yes. And quite frankly, it’s probably the most important one to me, as it is what keeps Sandra in my top five of all time and in rotation for occasionally being my favorite player of all time. And it’s specifically what her win means to me.
Like, Sandra’s Pearl Islands win is just grand, okay? Her getting revenge for Rupert? Her outlasting and overcoming both Burton and Fairplay? Her playing a near perfect game and almost shutting-out Lil? Her being this personification of hero and villain and the perfect type of winner to best represent Pearl Islands? Like it’s all great on a superficial storytelling level. Pearl Islands would be a weaker season with literally any other winner, and that’s an incredible feat when you consider the caliber of that cast!
But like… to me, the thing that truly feels the most central about Sandra is just how unapologetically Latina she is. While Sandra’s opening confessional where she drops a “shit” to open the season is iconic, her first “moment” is that village scene where she shines as Drake’s hero completely setting up their tribe for success. And she does so with her Spanish. She hustles. She barters. She jokes about Trish being loved in a sexual way. She gets Fairplay to give her the only compliment he will ever give her in the entire season. And this energy is something she just continues with.
In her later seasons, there is definitely an aspect of Sandra that definitely feels “grander”. Like, she’s the two-time winner, “Queen Stays Queen” persona with much more of an ego and a general feeling that Sandra the character is there and being the best in any given scene. And, like, I’m not trying to shoot down on the authenticity of her in Heroes vs Villains, or Game Changers, or Winners at War, but it’s just objectively a fact that she now has an idea of who she is in Survivor lore and is presented to fit that viewpoint.
But in Pearl Islands, she’s just a normal woman. She’s just “Changa”. There’s no filter, and it just feels so much more humane. And then when you put her up against these larger than life figures like Rupert “the pirate” and Jonny Fairplay “the scientifically-designed Survivor heel”, Sandra just feels even more powerful that she is able to scream and shout and scheme and keep her character on their level. And she’s doing this while also being such an amazing representation for the Latino communities!
Jessie Camacho may have been the first, but she essentially was a non-entity in Africa thanks to her sickness/early boot. To us Latino viewers, Sandra really was the very first prominent Latino representation. From the focus on her Spanish-speaking to the fact that in the loved one visit challenge that she said her favorite food was Arroz con Gandules to just her mannerisms and the way she carries herself… Again, I’ve talked about this multiple times already in my write-ups, but I felt so seen.
Seeing her become as big of a character as she did was already amazing. And then seeing her ultimately end up winning… I’ve already mentioned this in my Yam Yam write-up, but I cried. Like, a lot. Because Sandra just felt unlike any other character on Survivor before. I truly felt like I could know her, that she was like a tia that I probably could have, a prima I’d have visited on the weekends… that’s the impact she had on me. And seeing this more relatable person end up being the winner of easily the best season of Survivor I had ever seen up to that point… my younger self could barely contain it.
Does Sandra deserve a much longer, more story-focused write-up? Possibly. But honestly… my love for Changa is a lot more personal. So any attempt over the past almost-month of working on these final write-ups, nothing just felt right to me. I’m not sure how fitting of a read this will feel to someone else, but to me… it just seems right. Sandra is my third favorite of all time. She’s occasionally my favorite of all time depending on my mood. She was my favorite for the longest time ever. And ultimately why? Because when she won, I cried my eyes out because I was so happy.
Literally, a perfect Survivor player. Thank you, Sandra Diaz-Twine. For making Survivor that much more important and transformative to me.
SMC0629: 4
DryBonesKing: 3
Zanthosus: 11
Tommyroxs45: 16
Regnisyak1: 11
DavidW1208: 2
ninjedi1: 11
Average Placement: 8.286
Total Points: 58
Standard Deviation: 6.651 (9th Highest)

My ex broke up with me a smig over 1m ago. We were together for 8m. He broke up with me because he doesn't believe that he can be the person I need in a relationship and do what he needs for himself rn. And he does want to be friends.
For context, I'm 23f and he's 20m. We were good friends roughly 3m before going out. We met through work, and still work together post breakup. 3 days a week. I did ask him if we could both switch at least one shift, still waiting to hear back on that.
I've deleted the old texts, old Instagram messages, put all photos into a hidden folder so I can deal with them at a later date. He'll, I've deleted his phone number, and unfriended him on insta and Facebook.
Where I can't bring myself to delete anything, is snapchat. We'd just send funny photos, videos and little inside jokes.
This has been my longest relationship, and I just can't believe that I'm still so attached to all of this. Every past breakup has been a weekend of crying. 2 or 3 weeks going through the stages of grief, and then I'm pretty good to go live my life.
I still cry about it almost every day, and I'm struggling to let go of the saved snap memories.
Is this normal? I guess I'm just curious when the right time is to finally let go of everything. Photos, saved messages, being sad about it.