I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Capable_Goal_6116
Originally posted to TrueOffMyChest
My husband got a vasectomy and didn’t tell me
Trigger Warnings: accusations of infidelity, emotional abuse and manipulation, betrayal
Original Post: May 18, 2024
Throwaway bc my husband knows my main. I don’t know what to do. My (31F) husband (32M) - fake name Chris, and I have been married for four years, together for six. When we first got together we had several long talks about how we both wanted a big family. I wanted to be very upfront that child free is not an option, and I said I wanted to have at least four kids. I’m an only child and know how lonely it is, I also said I wanted to have them about a yeayear and a half apart so they could grow up close.
He always wholeheartedly agreed to this and often made jokes like “whether we have 4 or 6, have as many as we want, it’s your call since you pretty much have to do all the work” and on our wedding day before we left the reception for our honeymoon he whispered “can we get outta here and get started on baby #1?” I loved how excited he seemed. To be clear I didn’t go off my BC until about two months after we were married and I got pregnant soon after with our first daughter Joy.
Joy was a happy pregnancy, long birth, but she was a beautiful, healthy baby. She went through colic which was trying, but other than that she was a happy first addition according to me. I noticed Chris became distant during my first pregnancy, but when I asked him about it he just said he had a lot in his mind being a new father. He said he was still excited, but something changed. For reference, we both work full time, I make about 20K more a year than him, and the five bedroom house that we live in was a gift from my mom who was very excited to be a grandma to many. My job is fully remote, but still offers maternity leave, and I have a nest egg savings for emergencies, and feel it’s important to mention this because I know finances can be a major stress factor when it comes to having kids, but not for me and Chris.
Then Joy came out perfectly, Chris had three months of paternity leave and was home with us for majority of that time. My mom visited a lot, and paid to have cleaners come. There were still a lot of long nights and it was tough for me to breastfeed, but overall nothing unexpected. Chris still seemed distant, but always helped with Joy. We have an agreed open phone policy, so I did check his phone quite often but didn’t find any sign of cheating. He goes through my phone whenever he wants too. I asked if he found me unattractive while pregnant and he assured me no, he loves me and he’s excited for our family.
Fast forward a year after, we’re sleeping through the night and I am back to work, saw my doctor and was cleared to try for bundle of joy #2, and Chris seemed very enthusiastic at this point. He even downloaded an app to track my fertility cycle so we could make the most of my ovulation times.
We had a lot of fun and he was always very passionate, but six months of trying with no pregnancy I started to worry. I’d voice my concerns and Chris would brush them off, so I tried to be patient, but then almost two years passed and Joy is growing up by herself.
I broke down to my mother crying and she agreed to come with me to the doctor to get checked out. I was very emotional and scared, but the doctor assured me everything is fine and that I should be able to conceive without any issues.
I went to Chris with this knowledge and he was very upset I went to a fertility specialist. I explained I thought something might have gone wrong during my last pregnancy, concerned that I was maybe blocked or infertile somehow. He said why not wait and “just let nature take its course” and I said “our little girl is almost three, and growing up by herself.” I reminded him of our plans and he just nodded and said all we can do is try. I asked if he would see a fertility specialist and he got angry, saying there’s nothing wrong with him and we don’t have the money for fertility treatments anyway. This confused me since we do have money, we have my savings and are doing pretty well.
When he went to sleep I decided to go through his phone again and went back through his calendar and call logs. I noticed about eight months after Joy was born there was a blocked day indicating he’d taken off from work, but it was in the middle of the week and I don’t remember any sort of special occasions behind why he’d take this random day off. I went through the call logs and found an office number about a week before and when I googled the number a local business where you could get a vasectomy appeared! I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I instantly felt cold all over then started to panic.
I woke him up and confronted him. He just stared at me while I went off and admitted babies were harder than he thought and he felt like my first pregnancy took forever.
I couldn’t believe it. I packed my things, Joy and her things and drove to my mom’s house. She is in distress with my sudden appearance and my inability to stop crying. I finally told her yesterday morning what happened and she’s just beside herself. I don’t know what to do, but every time I think about how during sex Chris would talk to me about giving me a baby and he’d had the vasectomy the entire time. I feel so disgusted and stupid. I can’t believe my little girl is going to grow up alone. Chris has been blowing up my phone, but I just keep letting it ring and haven’t read any of his texts.
Edit: to those saying I “coerced” my “poor husband” into agreeing to a big family, nope. I was always open and honest about my dreams, told him it’s okay if he wanted different things, and he not only repetitively agreed and accepted, he also helped me plan, nest, put together the nursery and enthusiastically participated in conversations regarding having multiple children around friends and family, and always said we’d have at least 4. That was our number. Him getting a vasectomy behind my back was a complete shock.
Also, we’ve both always agreed to the open phone policy. I never “betrayed his trust” by going through his phone since I always had his consent to do so and he has mine. We even have the same phone pass code. I never wanted to be in a relationship where we kept secrets from each other. I know other couples feel different, but this is another thing he always 100% claimed he agreed with me on.
I vaguely remember one week where he actually turned me down for sex claiming he had a “head cold” and he didn’t join me in the shower like usual during that time, but I didn’t think anything about it. And no, men never need a wife’s signature to get vasectomy.
Comments
FantasticAnus: There's nothing wrong with child number one changing his mind, but he should have been open and honest about that and said that he wouldn't be having any more children, and then it would have been up to you as to whether you could live with that, or move on from him.
What he did, however, was duplicitous and manipulative. I don't think I could stay with a man who was so willing to keep such an enormous lie from me, one which impacts me, my daughter and my future enormously.
MyUsernameIsMehh: He has every right to not want more kids, you have every right to want more.
What he did not have the right to do was fool you for years. Men who have had vasectomies but hide it and "try for a baby" are beyond disgusting. Their wives think something is wrong with them, they go to specialists and sometimes spend a LOT of money on fertility treatments.
He's a spineless little shit (pardon my words, but it's true) who pushed you to have breakdowns over this.
He had every right to get a vasectomy, he didn't need your permission, but he had NO RIGHT to hide it and pretend you two were trying for another child.
 
Update: May 24, 2024
Some of you made some comments about my mom gifting my husband and I a house, paying for occasional cleaning services implying that Chris feels somehow emasculated by this, also implying I am “too financially dependent on my mom.” I make very good money, I have a sizable savings and don’t need any help, my mom was excited to buy this house for us as a wedding present. My dad passed away when I was young, he was wealthy and left my mom everything, so she shares his love since I’m her only kid. I make more money than Chris and always have. Yes his name is on the house, so yeah I’m gonna get screwed over in the divorce.
Some of you complained I “broke his trust” by going through his phone. He goes through my phone too. We have the same passcode. Some comments called this agreement between us unhinged, which to me is bizarre. Chris, I thought, was my soulmate, my husband and best friend. We don’t have secrets. I thought. Isn’t that the whole point of marriage? To finally have one person in the whole world you can tell everything to? To always be on the same team? Obviously I was wrong, and as many of you pointed out, that kind of love, trust and openness doesn’t really exist, and none of that matters now.
Chris and Joy seemed fine to me, but in hindsight there’s always been a hesitation on his part. I always thought it was just typical since the short while my dad was alive in my life I don’t really remember him being affectionate or warm. He was nice and played with me sometimes, but I don’t remember being held by him very much. I asked Chris many times if everything was okay when I noticed he was distant. He always said things were great, and give an excuse; just tired, work is draining, no big deal.
We’re in the US, and here a man can go get a vasectomy at any time. I don’t know what Chris told his doctor. For all I know he took his wedding ring off and gave a sob story, or probably just walked in and asked for the procedure. It doesn’t matter.
I’m really thankful for my mother. She’s heartbroken for me, and like many of you, she already knows my marriage is over. There’s been a lot of long nights of me crying that she’s endured.
I’m numb when I’m not crying, and keep getting this creepy feeling that nothing matters. We’re getting a divorce. I finally called Chris and he sobbed he was sorry, said he might be able to get it reversed. I’ve read a lot about vasectomies since my last post, and sometimes it can’t be reversed. It’s always a risk.
Again, it doesn’t matter. It’s not actually about the vasectomy. It’s that the person who I thought was the one person in the world that I could trust, that I was on the same page as, literally writing the book together, made this decision without me and kept it from me and the lied for years. I really thought what we had was true love. Now I’m pretty certain that doesn’t even exist.
Chris has not offered any explanation. He cried, begged my forgiveness and said again that he could get it reversed. Even if he can, the rest is irreversible. He never once answered my question. It’s really painful to talk to him, so after three times of asking and him each time dodging answering, and begging forgiveness, I finally just said to please leave the house and told him he’d hear from my lawyer.
He texted that he’s packed and left, and I haven’t heard from him since. He never once asked about Joy.
My lawyer says I might wind up paying alimony, but I might be able to get the house since it was a gift from my mother and Chris has never made any financial contribution. He also says Chris committed a kind of infidelity since he went behind my back to have this life altering procedure and admitted it, so that might help me.
To everyone telling me it’s gonna be okay, and I can still have more children…all of that seems impossible right now. My heart is broken. I’ve never experienced such sadness and the only relief is when I’m playing with my daughter. Her happiness is infectious. She is blissfully unaware, having the time of her life at grandma’s, but unlike her father she actually asks where’s da da?
I called work and took a medical leave of absence. I found a therapist.
My mom has offered to stay with me for a while, as well as hire a nanny.
Comments
BrightAd306: I agree with you. It’s not the vasectomy. It’s lying about it and defrauding you. Wanting your money, but not being a true partner.
Listen to your lawyer. Do what he says, and you’ll come out the other side. Even if you pay alimony, it won’t be forever
DangerNoodleDandy: I agree. The vasectomy and the fact that he hid it are a symptom of a greater issue.
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/EffectiveRepair8231
Originally posted to AmIOverreacting
AIO: I feel like a Dad a the daycare I work at is hitting on me (20f)
Trigger Warning: sexual assault, stalking, sexual harassment, mentions of CSA
Original Post: May 20, 2024
Hi! I work at a daycare, and I’ve noticed that one of the children's parents always makes inappropriate comments to me. At first, I thought he was just one of those people who always compliment others or that he just wanted to have a friendly relationship with his kids' educators, but now I think it’s more than that.
During my first weeks there, I was always assigned to his younger daughter’s group (the babies), so I would see him often. At first, it was brief friendly talk, but it really escalated when I started working with the older kids (4-year-olds). His other daughter, let’s call her Emmy, and I clicked right away when we found out we’re birthday twins. She always wants me to play with her and asks for hugs literally every two minutes. Whenever her dad comes to pick up his kids, she always makes sure to give me a big hug and tells her dad that we’re best friends.
Last month, Emmy’s dad and I ran into each other at the grocery store and started small talk. We were mostly talking about Emmy, and he just kept saying how much she loves me and that she wants me to come over to their house. I said something like, “Oh, she’s so cute. I love spending time with her too,” and tried to end the conversation, but he just kept talking. I noticed him looking at my chest a couple of times, which was one of the reasons I wanted to leave. He then offered me a ride, and although I initially declined, he kept pushing it, so I accepted. I didn’t let him see my house; I told him to drop me off downtown.
Since then, I keep running into him, but to the point where I don’t think it’s a coincidence. He doesn’t live in the same neighborhood as me (I live near downtown). In fact, when he dropped me off the first time, he kept going on and on about how he could never live somewhere as far away as I do. So why do I keep seeing him? In our conversations, he always makes sure to compliment my physical appearance or mention my age and how “young and smart” I am. It obviously makes me uncomfortable, but for the sake of his daughters, especially Emmy, I don’t really say anything. I have tried to set some boundaries, but it’s really uncomfortable. I jokingly said once, “Well, if I were your age, I don’t think I’d date someone as young as me,” and he was like, “Well, good thing I would,” and he laughed.
I casually mentioned this in a conversation with one of my colleagues, and she said something like, “Oh, he’s a flirt; that’s what he does.” She kept talking about how handsome he is (he is handsome but also a married dad of two). I asked if there’s anything we, as educators, could do if, hypothetically, a parent is being too friendly/flirty with us, and she basically said no.
Anyway, it’s gotten hot outside, so I’ve started wearing sundresses, shorts, and crop tops, and he always compliments my outfits when he sees me and says he likes seeing my bellybutton piercing out (EW). Also, Emmy has told me that her dad said I’ll be their nanny for the weekends when the daycare is closed. I don’t know if he actually said that because she’s 4, but I don’t even want to ask because I don’t want to give him ideas if he didn’t actually say it.
He has tried multiple times to give me his phone number to “call him if there’s anything,” and I always gently reminded him that we can communicate through the daycare app. He always says that he would rather call me directly than through the app. He was being super pushy, and I felt a little trapped, so I gave him my phone number. He texts me all the time, asking what I’m doing, etc. I have FaceTimed his daughters a couple of times, but it just feels wrong. I briefly talked about this to a friend, and she said that she would’ve told his wife. I don’t even think I have the guts to do that. Ever since my friend told me that, I started casually bringing up his wife in conversations. He would always change the subject or say she’s not here.
Anyway, all this is to ask: what should I do? Am I imagining things? I feel trapped. I can’t lose my job; I’m scared that it’ll take me forever to find another one. Also, all the kids love me, and I love them. I’ve really gotten attached to them. I love Emmy too, and I mostly feel bad for her. What would you do in this situation? I’ve asked, and you can’t ban a family from attending a daycare, so that option is out of the window. Also, we can’t be on our phones 24/7, so it’s extremely hard to get “evidence.” Anything helps. Thank you!
I don’t know i’m I’m posting this on the right subs, if not sorry about that
Edit: I’ve never seen his wife, he’s the one who does everything. Emmy has mentioned her a few times (saying things like “Mommy got me this shirt” or something) but I don’t even know what she looks like. He doesn’t talk about her unless I bring her up.
Edit 2: About the crop tops, we are allowed to wear them at work with long pants. Same thing with shorts, we can wear them with a non-cropped shirt. 90% of his comments about my piercing were outside of work, when I would run into him. Also, I blocked him. I don’t know if he noticed, but he’s blocked.
Edit 3: A lot of people are asking me why/what I am scared of. I don’t have an exact answer. I’ve had a lot of traumatizing experiences with men so I don’t feel comfortable around any man in general. I don’t have any guy friends. It’s like I think of all the things they could do to me if they wanted to, then I get scared/uncomfortable. I know I have a fawn trauma response and I am working on it, I really am. Also, I have work on Friday (or Wednesday maybe) and I will talk to my supervisors and update.
Relevant Comments
Commenter: “That wouldn’t be appropriate” seems like a good response to 90% of his requests. I would get used to being comfortable saying that to pushy male customers.

OOP: i say that sometimes and he’s like “oh well you’re best friends with emmy so we’re basically family” and i get scared so i just laugh it off or i try to end the conversations

OOP responds to multiple redditors on not accepting any more things from the father and speak with her supervisor about her concerns

OOP: i do say those things and he says that we’re like family because i’m “friends” with his daughter. i don’t always answer and he’ll sometimes bring it up when he drops off/picks up his kids and i say things oh i was busy or i didn’t see it. i keep telling myself that this time ill be direct and just say no but i just get so scared. it’s not like im full on flirting with him, i do reject him but not as firmly as i should i guess. whenever he brings up dating i say things like im not looking for a bf. and for the facetime thing, one time he was being really insistent and i said no and the text time i saw them at work, emmy asked me why i didn’t pick up the call and he said in front of her that i was being mean that day and that i didn’t wanna talk to her. she ended up crying. i tried telling my supervisor and she said that she never noticed any weird behaviour from him and he’s a very friendly man. she asked me if i had any proof which i didn’t. idk what else to do

~

i tried to talk to one of my supervisors about it but rn they’re always busy (they’re the new owners of the daycare so they’re trying to figure everything out) so it’s never a good time. i am alone with my group. i see him in the morning when he’s dropping off emmy and in the afternoon outside when he’s picking his kids up. our conversation in the morning are more brief bc all the parents are coming at the same time so there’s not much time. in the afternoon, he always tells emmy to keep playing with her friends just to buy more time and when i tell him i have to go back to watching everyone he says that there are plenty of other educators who are watching them and not to worry about it. i try to say things like hey i really have to go back to work/now’s not a right time but it’s like there’s nothing i can say to get through to him. im the one in charge of emmy i have to be the one to talk to him about emmy’s day etc

 
Update #1: May 23, 2024
Hello everyone,
I want to thank everyone who gave me advice. I tried to read every comment. Before I give you an update, I need to clarify a few things:

1. I don’t work at a school; it's a private, family-owned (i think) daycare. I have three managers—two women and one man. They became the new owners in January. I primarily interact with one of the female managers. I've tried to discuss this situation with her, but it’s never the right time. For example, I’d knock on her office door and say I needed to talk about Emmy’s dad. She’d say she’s busy and ask me to come back later. When I did, she’d apologize and ask to talk the next day. She also suggested texting, but I didn't feel comfortable telling her everything through text.
   
2. Some suggested having another teacher watch my group when he arrives, but that’s not possible. In the afternoon, after nap time, we take the kids outside until their parents pick them up. All educators need to stay outside to supervise. When parents arrive, I discuss their child's day and hand over their keychain. It’s difficult because he always approaches me when I’m distracted, so I can’t warn a coworker.
   
3. Rides: The first time I saw him outside of work was at the grocery store. He recognized me, we chatted briefly, and he offered me a ride. I declined, but he insisted, saying it was ungentlemanly to let me carry groceries alone. He paid for my groceries and drove me home, despite my discomfort. I sat in the backseat, but still. I shouldn’t have said yes. I was just so weirded out by the entire situation. The second time was at a gas station. After hanging out with a friend in his neighborhood, I stopped there for a drink. He saw me and again offered a ride. He was pushy, so I reluctantly agreed. That was the last time I accepted a ride from him.
   
4. Clothing: Most of his comments about my piercing happened outside of work. I don’t wear revealing clothes to work; I mostly wear sweats. Occasionally, I wear a long sleeve crop top with sweatpants, which my managers don’t mind. We’re allowed to wear mom shorts. But again, I most of the time I wear sweats.
   
5. Facetime: I’ve Facetimed his daughters three times, and each call lasted less than five minutes. I realize now that this was inappropriate, but yes it happened.
   
6. Texting: I don’t always respond to his texts. If he texts ten times, I might reply three times. The thing is, he often asks in person why I don’t respond, telling me he had something important to say. He’d sometimes say that in front of Emmy, then say, “You see that Emmy, she’s not nice to Daddy. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
   
7. I live in Canada. Some suggested carrying pepper spray for protection, but it’s illegal here, so that’s not an option.
   
8. I don’t know his exact age, but I’d guess late 30s to mid-40s. I’ve never seen his wife; some suggested they might be separated. Maybe. Emmy has mentioned her mom before, but she seems closer to her dad.
   
9. The dating comment: I had ZERO idea my comment could be seen as flirting. I thought I was indirectly turning him down. When the topic of dating came up, I said I didn’t want a relationship. He joked that we’d get along great, and I responded by saying “Don’t you think you’re a little too old for me?” And he said, jokingly, “Oh, man. Dont say that. You’re very mature.” That’s when I said that I wouldn’t date someone my age if I were his age.
   

Update: I was only scheduled on Friday this week but ended up working today too. I texted my manager saying that I have something very important to tell her about a parent and that I'm afraid my safety could be compromised. She asked me to come to her office before work to talk about it.
I was very scared because reading the comments made me realize that I could lose my job because I gave him my number. But I still told her everything (looking back, I missed a few things, but I told her the most important things). I told her about how, in the beginning (when I was assigned to his 2-year-old daughter's group), he was very friendly and nice to me, but it escalated when I started caring for Emmy. I told her about the grocery incident, the gas station incident, and seeing him near my neighborhood.
She kind of "defended" him by saying that I live near downtown, so it’s not a miracle to run into someone there. I then brought up the fact that, yes, I understand that, but he’s told me that he enjoys staying in his neighborhood and that I live so far away, and he doesn’t understand how I'm able to work at a job so far away, so it was weird to see him so much. I think it made her understand more. I told her about the comments about my appearance. I asked her if it was possible to get assigned to another group, and she said yes.
I told her about me giving him my number after feeling pressured, and she said that I shouldn’t have done that, that it’s very dangerous to give out personal information like that. She also said that, especially with my job, all communication must be through the app. She said that she was a little more upset at the dad because he’s been attending that daycare for almost four years, and he knows that parents are not allowed to do that.
I then told her about how he makes Emmy play with her friends when it’s time to go just to talk to me longer. She said that since I won’t be assigned to Emmy’s group, I won’t even have to talk to him at all. She said that she’ll take care of it and let the other girls know to keep an eye on him.
I told her about the Facetimes and how he told Emmy that I was mean for not answering one time and how he made her cry. She only said that that was out of line. I asked if it was possible to “ban” him from attending, and she said maybe. She doesn’t have any solid proof (I showed her some text messages, but she said that he was being friendly in the messages and that there was nothing sexual). She said that most of this was basically hearsay, and she doesn’t have concrete proof of him being an actual predator.
As for Emmy, we played together on the playground as usual. I think the hardest part for me is to slowly distance myself from her. I did, however, encourage her to play with her friends, but she would always come back every five minutes to ask to play with me. When her dad arrived, he greeted me and asked me about Emmy’s day and her keychain. I said that I did not take care of her today and pointed to the girl that did. I then got up to get Emmy to tell her to leave. He tried to stop me, but I just kept walking. I didn’t really give him time to talk to me. When I got Emmy, I gave her a hug, then stayed on the other side of the playground, and they left. I know it’s not much, but at least I avoided an interaction with him today.
I think that’s it. I tried to answer everything.
Edit: He’s never driven me home, I would always ask to drop me off downtown. Typo sorry!
Comments
Commenter: If he texts you, tell him that you got a memo from work that says all interaction with parents must go through the app with no exceptions for legal and safety reasons and that you can't risk your job. Then block him.
Or just block him.
 
Update #2: May 24, 2024
Hi, I saw some comments asking for an update, so I wanted to share what happened because I am too ashamed to tell someone in real life. I had work from yesterday 8 AM to 5 PM, then went straight to the gym to work out with a friend. I got there around 6 PM and worked out until about 8:30 PM. I was walking home (I live about 10 minutes away from my gym) when I heard someone behind me. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have walked home, but I didn’t think about it in the moment. I had music in my ears, so I didn’t know if someone was talking to me or on the phone, so I just kept walking. I felt the person getting closer and immediately thought, “Oh my God, what if it’s him?” I started walking a little faster.
After about 2 minutes, the person tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, it was him. My heart dropped. I immediately froze. I had practiced what to say if I ever got into this situation, but of course I had to forget everything. He acted like we ran into each other and said, “Hey, it’s nice seeing you.” I said, “Hi, nice seeing you, but I have to go.” He complimented my hair (I recently dyed it) and said it looked good on me. I said a quick thank you and tried to leave. He then grabbed my wrist and said, “I don’t like when you act like that.” I just froze up; I couldn’t move. He asked why I don’t take care of Emmy anymore. He said that she constantly asks about me at home and that I make her cry. I stuttered and said I didn’t know, that I’m not the one who decides. I said I have to go now, sorry. He then asked if I blocked him. I said I really can’t talk right now.
He then blurted out that he saw me working out. He was doing all of this while grabbing my wrist, mind you. I didn’t know what to say, so I repeated that I had to go. He started looking at me up and down in a disgusting way. He was staring at my boobs while smiling. He then started caressing my arms. One arm stopped at my waist, and the other one kept caressing my arm. He would sometimes move it to my chest and touch me there. I don’t know why I didn’t just punch him in the face. I just could. not. move. Before you ask, I wasn’t wearing anything revealing. I had on a hoodie and sweatpants. I even removed my belly piercing because I don’t like this type of attention.
I eventually quietly said, “Can you please stop?” He looked at me, smiled, and then left. I’ve been getting sexually assaulted by men since the age of 7. I promised myself after getting sexually assaulted at 18 by a friend that I would never let it happen again. Now this. I don’t know why this keeps happening. Most of the time, I feel like my body isn’t even mine, just for someone else to use whenever they feel like it, no matter if I want it or not. Maybe it was my fault because I shouldn’t have walked home knowing I had a “stalker”. Maybe it’s my fault because I didn’t tell him to leave me alone earlier. Maybe it’s my fault because I am 20 years old and I can’t fucking say no. I know he didn’t full-on grab my tits and squeeze them, but I feel so so violated. I am too ashamed to reveal this to anyone. I told my boss I was sick to avoid going to work for a couple of days.
I went to the police station, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do legally because he didn’t commit actual crimes and that I didn’t really have any proof. I just feel like they didn’t take me seriously. They gave me tips to be more careful like don’t walk late at night, change your number, don’t have the same routine, etc., but that’s it. They won’t give me a restraining order. I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand half of the terminology they were using. But from what I understood, we’re both adults so the texting and Facetimes aren’t incriminating enough. I guess I’ll just stay home. I feel so dirty. I thought I had everything under control because I found a way to avoid him at work, but I guess I was wrong. I genuinely thought that I found a way to make everything stop.
The worst part is I saw some comments saying that this whole situation could escalate if he finds out that I’m avoiding him and I didn’t believe them. Again, I was wrong. I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or sympathy, but I don’t have anyone in my life who could help. Maybe some friends, but I am just so ashamed and embarrassed to say that a man was “groping” me and I basically let it happen because I was scared. It’s just humiliating. As for my family, knowing my mom, she would most likely slut-shame me and say it’s my fault. But yeah, here’s the update I guess. I don’t know if I’ll update after this, mainly because I don’t know what else to do.
Edit: (copying and pasting this from one of my replies because I can see how it looks): i posted about him 4 days ago but i started having doubts about him stalking be like a month ago i think. i talked to my manager wednesday and i got assigned to another group. i didn’t interact with him wednesday and yesterday. HE is the one saying that his daughter is crying about not seeing me. i know it’s not true, he keeps saying stuff like this. saying things about his daughter to make me feel bad because he knows we’re close. when this incident happened, i went straight to the police station near my home to tell them what happened (bc it’s opened day and night). i asked if with what i have i can have a restraining order and they said no. i know im updating quick but i genuinely don’t have anyone i can talk to about this
Edit 2: Okay I think I’ll just quit my job stay with a friend for now. I’ll send an email explaining my situation with my boss and try to find a stay at home job. Thank you all
 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

So, as the title suggests, this is my idea for the Indigo Park Timeline and Lore, including the time before, and the game's events. This will be one of three parts due to character limitations, this part dealing with the time before the events of the game.
BEFORE THE GAME
So, this game is clearly based loosely on Disney, if it wasn't obvious enough: a man by the name of Isaac Indigo opening Indigo Park (Walt Disney, Disney World, self-explanatory), starting out with cartoons in the early 1900s.
Mr. Isaac Indigo started out his business ventures in the cartoon sphere, specifically with Lloydford L. Lion, or more commonly known as Lloyd the Lion. The reason that it's Lloyd specifically, and not anyone else, can be seen when interacting with the Retro Lloyd Plush, both from the protagonist and Rambley the Raccoon, the modern day representative of Indigo Park.
Protagonist in regard to the Retro Lloyd Plush: "Lloyd obviously had an older look in the classic Indigo cartoons, but I'm not sure it looked like this. I guess nostalgia sells..."
Rambley AI in regard to the Retro Lloyd Plush: "Ugh...I don't get why we even have those. And why did they only make one of LLOYD? Is it because he's the loudest? I CAN BE LOUD TOO! WHERE'S MY LIMITED-EDITION THROWBACK PLUSH?! WHERE'S MOLLIE'S? WHERE'S FINLEY'S?"
Protagonist in regard to the Lloyd Plush: “I feel like as a kid, Indigo used Loyd a lot more.”
If it wasn't obvious enough by Rambley's rather frustrated demeanor regarding the plush, only Lloyd received this sort of plush, while none of the others received such a collectible. Well, it's possible Salem the Skunk received one, since Rambley didn't mention her, but that might be more representative of his intense dislike for Salem, something that will be discussed down the line. Another thing to note is that this plush does not look like the original Lloyd Lion, which is a detail I will discuss in depth towards the end.
Anyways, over the years, the other mascots we know and love, Mollie the Macaw, Finley the Sea Serpent, Salem the Skunk, and Rambley the Raccoon are added. I would like to put forth the idea that Mollie, Salem, and Rambley were all added in the same general time period, thanks to the Rambley Rush Arcade Game.
The quick rundown of the game is thus: Mollie Macaw crashes somewhere in the depths of Rambleberry Woods, and Rambley goes to find her. Along the way, he must jump across rivers and pits, collecting Rambleberries, and stomping upon evil purple squirrels, eventually reaching Mollie, who is still near her crashed plane. When she gets up, she claims that she crashed because her vision became rapidly obscured, at which point Salem Skunk appears and takes credit for that, claiming that she needed better test subjects for her potions than a bunch of squirrels. Infecting Mollie with the potion, Salem flees, not before Rambley and Salem exchange some barbs. Rambley eventually knocks Mollie out by stomping on her a few times, and the game glitches and crashes.
This arcade game is important for several reasons, one of which is that it introduces us to the dynamic that Rambley and Salem have: one of enemies, different than with Lloyd, because Rambley is merely jealous of the fact that Lloyd came before him, and was the main character for a long period of time. There is also the fact that Salem's area in the Rambley Railroad is completely destroyed. Not even Lloyd's area is so damaged.
From my basic understanding of early black and white television, based on the Chapter 1 opening cutscene of Isaac Indigo, Indigo Park opens somewhere in the 1940s to 1950s, as the grainy, blurry footage and somewhat muffled audio is reminiscent of such times. All sorts of rides and attractions are available for families to explore, such as Rambley's Railway, Jetstream Junction, Oceanic Odyssey, and Lloyd's Main Stage Theater. Again, interesting to note that Salem doesn't have such an area dedicated to her, though that might just be a way of putting off that area for later in the game. People in costumes (note, not called Mascots themselves, as I will use the term to address the replacements of these costumes) roam about the place, likely acting like modern day Disney Cast Members do today, interacting with guests in character.
After a long period of time, and possibly into the early 2000s, the focus is drawn away from Lloyd and onto Rambley, and specifically after the park was open, and not before, because in that same commercial that I dated to approximately the 1940s or 50s, the front gates are decorated with artwork of Lloyd, which is different than in game, where the Lloyd artwork has been replaced by art of Rambley. The reasoning for this is unclear, though I do have a few speculations. It is noted, both by the Rambley AI and the protagonist when interacting with the limited Golden Rambley Plush, that the idea is kind of cheap.
Protagonist: "So wait. They were so money hungry that they just recolored a regular Rambley plush and called it a new product? Kinda lazy don't you think?"
Rambley AI: "... Seriously, our employees had to clean up SO many stray teeth and nails. Hard to believe that there was all this demand for a regular Rambley Plush we blasted with gold spray paint..."
The idea of cutting corners and lowering costs comes up a fair bit. This might be the reason that they swapped main characters, after all: it's easier to animate a cute, small raccoon with a bandana than a large lion in a full on suit. This might also be the reason that the park transitions from costumed staff members, or "Ranglers", to Mascots.
Another reason for the change could have been growing awareness of animal welfare issues at the time, with many circuses and zoos facing criticism for how they treated their animals, lions and elephants specifically, and is an issue that is still ongoing, so perhaps Indigo Park didn't want the negative press to come to them, so they swapped. However, it is important to note that these are purely my speculations, and no concrete reason for the swap was ever introduced in Chapter 1 (to my knowledge).
A third possible reason could be in reference to what Indigo Park represented, at least in the time that it was built. According to Isaac Indigo:
Isaac Indigo, giving a press conference outside Indigo Park: “Indigo Park offers a slice of the American dream to call your own. In this place, echoes of days gone are brought back to life as a new generation captures a glimpse of the exciting potential of Tomorrow. Indigo Park pays homage to the values, dreams, and unwavering truths that gave rise to our great nation.”
Let’s take a step back. Remember how I dated the opening of Indigo Park to the 1940s or 1950s? If that was true, that means that Indigo Park opened in the shadow of the Second World War, the deadliest human conflict ever recorded, with a death toll of over 50 million people, both soldier and civilian. After the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, it was eventually public knowledge that the USA still decided to drop the second one, even after Imperial Japan had surrendered after the first one had been cast.
It's entirely possible that Indigo Park was, in some way, propaganda. Think about it, Lloyd the Lion was the mascot. And what do lions represent? Strength, power, unity, leadership. Lloyd could have been a symbol to the American people that proclaimed themselves as leaders, people who thought of the future, while trying to sideline the negative press the USA received.
After a while, however, there was no need to justify their victory. People, for the most part, accepted their victory, and as the world headed into a Cold War, there was no need to justify themselves; many people were afraid of the Communists, the Red, and the influence it may have. Clearly, the USA and its allies were the good guys. Communism was a threat to democracy, everyone knew that! So there was a switch to a more child friendly character, Rambley, as the main man himself.
That might also explain why the retro plushie doesn’t look like how Lloyd did in the old cartoons, as stated explicitly by the protagonist; perhaps that older Lloyd was more mature, older, and signified some much darker. There’s no need to stir up bad memories of WW2, so they changed his design to be softer, younger, much more unassuming.
The Protagonist, regarding the Retro Lloyd Plushie: “I always find it weird when companies make merch that’s supposed to look old. Lloyd obviously had an older look in the classic Indigo cartoons, but I’m not sure Lloyd looked like this.”
There’s also a case to be made that Disney also participated in some good old propaganda of their own, mocking Nazi Germany and their ideals.
Now, disregarding politics, because that thing is a minefield to safely navigate, this is just my theory. I am not trying to radicalize the game, and if you hate this theory, you can go about ignoring it! I personally don’t think it’s the correct answer, just a potential answer.
Another change that soon occurred was the change from costumed "Ranglers" to living, breathing, flesh and bones Mascots, introduced to us in the Rambley AI interaction with the Rambley mask.
Rambley AI, playing an old tape in the database in regard to the costumes: "First Person - Hey Jackson! You hear about the new mascots? Jackson - Yeah, you think it will put us out of a job? First Person - I think so, Old Sport, and right after we got this damn raccoon costume."
An important note to this is that this interaction is considered an Easter Egg to a FNAF fan game called Dayshift at Freddy's, alongside some other references such as the Golden Rambley being a reference to Golden Freddy, and the Poodle Plush being a reference to another FNAF fan game Playtime with Percy. Despite this, these items seem to carry a bit of significant lore in them, something that I think is an interesting way of hiding it. It opens up the possibility to state that it should be disregarded, since it's supposed to be an Easter Egg to something else, but I don't think so.
This quote makes me think that the switch from costumes to Mascots happened quite early on in Indigo Park's lifetime, considering it's said that the Mascots should appear quite soon after the introduction of the costumes, perhaps yet another clue that Indigo Park was looking to cut costs. After all, why pay people when you can have Mascots roaming about, doing just the same, if not better, of a job?
And everything seems to be going fine for quite a while. The protagonist notes several times that his family, and especially his mother and himself, were avid fans of the place and characters, his mother liking Mollie Macaw the most, while the protagonist favored a few, such as Lloyd the Lion, while disliking Finley due to his large size, which was revealed when interacting with a few different collectibles.
When the protagonist interacts with the Lloyd the Lion plush: "I feel like as a kid, Indigo used Lloyd a lot more. He was always one of my favorites."
When the protagonist interacts with the Mollie the Macaw plush: "I remember when my mom took us to the parks one summer. Her favorite was always Mollie, so when they first opened new Mollie Meet & Greet in Jetstream Junction, we were some of the first in line."
When the protagonist interacts with the Rambley Ears: "My dad promised me he'd buy me a pair when we went."
When the protagonist interacts with the Souvenir Rambley Cup: "When I was a kid they used to have free unlimited refills on those things. I once drank so much Bird Up that I got sick and threw up while riding Rooftop Races. That poor kid behind me..."
Anyways, we got the point: the family went there often and were huge fans of the park. What could go wrong?
Well, apparently a huge evacuation and closure of the park with no explanation whatsoever, to the point where the authorities also were not able give any reasoning or answers.
This comes from the newspaper we see in the beginning cutscene, after the old video of Isaac Indigo introducing Indigo Park. So, let's theorize a bit. Out of everything in the park, what could possibly lead to such a drastic evacuation of a place so well loved? Oh, I don't know, maybe the killer Mascots that try to kill you in Chapter 1 ...
What isn't so clear is what happened to them. Clearly, they were well behaved and safe to be around, even for small children, as the park remained open for 50 years (minimum) without issue, and almost as long with the actual mascots themselves. Obviously, they went rogue, as can be seen when the protagonist has to run away from Lloyd the Lion's attempts to attack and have the Rambley AI save the protagonist from the Mollie the Macaw by killing the Mascot with a metal door. I don't think it had to do with resources such as food, since the Mascots remained by themselves in the park for 2920 days, exactly eight years, and only seemed feral. Besides that, we see a bunch of vendor stations and a few cafes, still with food in them. Moldy, perhaps, and expired, but there's still food. There's also water (possibly) available in those self serve drinking fountains. The last time the park was operational was October 7th, 20XX (with the exact year being a mystery), and the reason I say operational is because of an announcement seen on one of the Rangler monitors in the reception area.
Announcement: "Attention Ranglers. The date is October 7th, 20XX. Charge guests the SATURDAY pricing indicated in your Rookie Rangler Handbook! Thanks! - Management."
What jumps out immediately is the way Saturday is so bold. So, what can we assume? The last operational day we have knowledge of was Saturday, October 7th, somewhere in the 2000s. Unless this is the future (which we have no reason to believe), we can assume this Saturday occurred somewhere between 2000 and 2023 (2023 and not 2024 because the creator, in a livestream, ended up giving a vague message of the game taking place in 2023). Looking up old calendars and looking specifically for an October 7th that lands on a Saturday reveals a couple potential years: 2000, 2006, and 2023. We can discount 2023, as we know the park was closed for 8 years. I did try to find a date on those three monitors the protagonist uses in the opening cutscene, but only found the time, 7:32 pm. Unfortunately, Harmony, a knock off of Discord (antonyms) also doesn't have a date, or even a time, for that matter. And besides, we know that we're the first actual person to visit in quite some time. So, we're left with 2000, and 2006. Assuming this game takes place in 2024, I have a feeling the year it closed is actually 2006.
First foremost because of the Rambley AI. Having AI Rambley be as advanced as he is makes it seem like the park was closed in 2023, but again, there is no evidence to say the game takes place in the future. And AI's back in 2000s and 2010s eras were good, but nothing like we have today. They were capable of basic object identification, and navigation, but the capabilities were limited, compared to today. And in 2000, it was much more basic. Image recognition consisted of identifying edges. That's it. Edges, not distinct features, and even then, the accuracy was pretty bad. At the time, AI was mainly used for data retrieval and predictive modeling, mostly for things like language translation, text classification, and such. They were basically office assistants.
Of course, that's assuming that the AI was introduced back then. It is entirely possible, and likely plausible, that the AI was introduced later. After all, the park may have closed, but Ranglers were still visiting the place as late as 2015, which was the last time the AI Rambley notes an actual person arrived. So, if that's true, then I am still not too sure as to which of the two years the park closed.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. And the present of the game and my conclusions shall be posted in separate posts, as there is a 40k character limit. Leave any theories of your own in the comments, and I'll be happy to theorize regarding and questions or concerns yall have!

I'm just so f*cking stumped and furious! WTF!
Every one of these doctors testing me (blood tests, etc) and doing a vagina/uterus ultrasound AND then denying me HRT, saying it's because I'm still not fully meno even in my early 50s.
Being denied HRT (despite my dozens of symptoms) alone is infuriating.
But I just found out this latest doctor (a very old male doctor) even did a secret STD test on me... without even telling me!
I only found out about it because I got a text message from that doctor's office, saying "Your SDT (12 kinds) test is negative."
WTF!!!!!!
I even told the doctor that I had been to a handful of other gynos (different one almost per week) already to get HRT, and each time, they did tests (including vaginal ultrasound) and all came back as normal.
BUT he still insisted he himself had to check my vagina/uterus and did the ultrasound and poking around.
However, he NEVER ever mentioned he was doing a STD test on me and yet, secretly proceeded to do it. WHY????
Is that necessary or ethical??
The thing is he NEVER even asked me about my sex life at all!!! In fact, I haven't had any sex for years and years at all since I have no libido whatsoever and I'm done with me.
I'm fu*king fuming to say the least!!!
GOD, WTF is wrong with these FU*CKING DOCTORS?
AAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!
OK, rant over. 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Yesterday, I had my graduation ceremony. After years of university with absolutely no help besides occasional rides to the bus stop and, very rarely, to campus, I finally graduated. Here's what my parents have done in the lead-up to graduation and the day after instead of supporting me.
My parents spent months leading up to the graduation freaking out about how I'll get a job, trying to control my hair and clothing (even implying I'm ugly when I choose my own hair and clothing), harassing me to hand out business cards to everyone I meet (especially if the situation would be an immense faux pas), grilling me on if my grades are good, lecturing me relentlessly about how I need to keep in contact with people in my class and it's soooo important and would I like to hear about how my dad got a job through nepotism for the eightieth time, asking me questions they already know the answers to (Yes, I'm still talking to my former classmates. Yes, I know that you worked in the Yukon when you were 18. Yes, I know about your friend who worked in a weather station. Yes, I know you had to move to find a job in the 1980s. Yes, I am aware that it is a possibility I might have to move too. Yes, I know that it's okay to invite people over to the house, you've only "informed" me about a hundred times. Yes, I know that school is important.) Every single thing that they "inform" me about is something I have very clearly expressed that I understand, and is just thinly veiled criticism. But my dad needs to lecture more than he needs oxygen.
Just constant nitpicking, criticism, and nothing I ever did was enough. I couldn't even focus on grades, because they would in their own words "put pressure on" me to do what they wanted. To handle their emotions for them. They're obsessed with the idea that I would have to move to a tiny town or work in a coal mine to find a job, because I'm more highly educated than my dad (who dropped out of university despite having all expenses paid by his father), and because my dad worked in the Yukon for two summers. He will never shut up about that, and he even goes so far as to hold us hostage with implicit threat of a massive tantrum to listen to him tell us the story again and again and again and to show us pictures of the place he worked on Google maps and point to everything he remembers. Sometimes he can go on for half an hour just repeating himself over and over.
Last summer, my parents even went and took action without my knowledge or approval to try and get a job set up for me cleaning up a mine contaminated with arsenic in the middle of nowhere, NWT. They tried to guilt and shame me into it ("What are your plans instead? Do you have another job lined up? Because you need to have a job. You can't sit around all day." This coming almost literally one week into summer vacation after my second-last year of university, when I could be using my energy to find interesting co-ops or explore hobbies or travel, instead dealing with their harassment and obsession with trying to literally trap me in a fucking arsenic mine.) They went on and on, lectured me over and over, implied that I would be embarrassing my grandfather if I didn't go, and so on. Eventually they said "You can go work or get a certification", and I picked the certification, but then they got grumpy anyways, and every week for the entire summer they would ask "Are you still working on the certification?". Of course, dipsh*t. I've told you fifty times how long the program lasts.
They don't care about what I'm learning in class, don't care about my hobbies or interests, only care about my friends as either a means to get backdoored into a job or a "nice French Canadian woman" to have babies with. They don't care if I'm struggling, and are completely unavailable to help in any regard. Any request for help would result in a guilt trip. Even if I actually couldn't eat dinner with the family for one day because I had a test, my father would get raw emotions and I'd have to walk on eggshells for a few days. The one time I mentioned I was having trouble studying, instead of shutting up and no longer ranting in the main floor where I could hear him or turning the TV off, he just dragged a table into the unfurnished boiler room (without asking me) and then told me that I would have to study there. I wasn't allowed to choose not to, because he'd already set it up. Ironically, my anger at him did let me study pretty well for the one day that I was forced there. He tried to keep me there long-term because he thought it was just such a great idea, but I managed to trick him into thinking I didn't need help studying anymore, so I got to study at a desk with a light on it and flooring that wasn't bare cement. Hooray for the most minor victory imaginable.
In the months leading up to graduation, did they care about how hard I was working at my capstone project and offer support? Absolutely not! Did they care about how well my sleep quality was, how many times the cat woke me up because they didn't play with her enough or give her enough attention? Nope! Did they care about how exhausting it was to deal with their constant lectures on the same topics, and to have to give them affirmations ("Yes, you're right, that's right, good job, nice, very tasty, good work, oh really?, neat, that's cool, how'd you make that?, mhm, I agree, you're being reasonable, they're being ridiculous, that's crazy") a hundred times a day? Not even in the slightest!
We spend more time talking about my dad's college friends than about anything I or my brother care about.
Then, leading up to graduation. all I've gotten are the most humiliating, infuriating, insulting messages and lectures from my parents. I get almost daily emails and texts saying "You need to get a job, it's important to look for a job" despite the fact I've told them I am looking probably fifty times. Too cowardly to say it to my face. I've been texted literal links to a Google search for "[degree name] jobs [city]" more than once. Both my parents treat me like I don't listen, when I do. They treat me like I'm lazy, when I've put myself through university with no help even after they lied to me about giving me financial aid and made me out to be a bully demanding more money when all I did was say "alright" and then pay for it myself. They must have sternly given me a talking to about how "I'm not going to pay for university, you know that, right? You need to pay. Don't expect us to pay. Because we paid for your first semesters, you know that, right? We've already paid for enough." thirty times, even after I'd made the final payment. They treat me like I'm stupid when I have expressed understanding before. They treat me like I'm a bully while I always bend over backwards for them, just because I don't play my role as "surrogate mommy but this time I get to tell her what to do" well enough.
It feels like they're almost raising me into a replacement or surrogate parent. Like my dad wants me to be his mom or dad, except this time he gets to be in charge. And my mom wants me to be her mom, except this time when she freaks out or has her deer in headlights look, she'll get someone to step up and take care of everything for her. I distinctly remember having to comfort her even for things she did to me, like tell me that a pair of comfortable shoes I picked out was good and she'd get them, and then immediately scream "take it out, take it out!" after it was scanned at the register. I could not have been older than twelve. And for my dad, he always rants and raves to me exactly like he does to his parents, except without including blame for them sending him to boarding school and instead having tons of old "life updates" like where he worked when he was 18 and what music he liked to listen to in high school, stuff like that. Then he expects me to praise him or be interested like his parents never were (he always tells me that his parents only cared about his car when they called).
So now I graduated. All they had to say in the days coming up to it was to grill me on the time I'd have to be at the venue and the time I was planning to leave the house to get there on time, with a distinct air of "you're too lazy to think of this in advance and too stupid to figure it out without a plan". Of course, I had to answer this question probably five times, because they don't care to ever listen to me. Before the ceremony I got text messages showing they were way more excited about themselves being here than anything relating to me, with multiple messages expressing how they arrived and it was exciting, then they asked me how the atmosphere was and their only reply was a one-word "nice" with no punctuation, because they don't care about me and only ask droll questions to segue into their next bit.
After grad, there was two generic sentences spoken with no emotion about how it was nice I graduated, and then they made a whole song and dance about the amazing gifts they got me. It was a degree frame I picked out myself that my dad presented as new and exciting (because he never pays attention to me, of course, when I told him I had picked one out and ordered it with my mother. Also she had another freakout about price and acted like I was holding her hostage by taking her unforced offer to buy me the second-cheapest degree frame on offer.). Then he presented the free gift small frame they got with it as though I should praise him for it, then a congratulation card that was alright I suppose if only because my brother drew a little creature in it that made me smile (my parents did not add anything special or meaningful to it). There was also a cap, which I genuinely enjoy and is nice, and a cheap ballpoint pen for some reason. He said there was more gifts at home, which okay, I don't care about gifts but I'd like him to at least be as excited for my graduation as he was for the picture frame. I didn't get any souvenirs from the bookstore because I knew if I got something he'd also gotten he'd freak out and accuse me of not listening to him or whatever, so I waited. When I got home my gift was Skittles. I don't know why I thought me might have gone to the bookstore and gotten me something special related to my actual interests. He doesn't care to know what those are anyways. I guess I hoped that at least this one day would be different.
Today, the day after graduation, all I've gotten from my parents is:
- Involved in a lecture and manufactured drama about my brother not using my car to drive to his job, even though my dad had the exact opposite position the entire rest of the year, because "what if you need to drive somewhere?", trying to manufacture a fight between my brother and me while also guilting and shaming me for not driving as a hobby like he does.
- A text message from my mother asking me if I'm awake because she wants more ammo to paint me as lazy. Nevermind that I barely slept the night before to make it to grad (of course neither of my parents would care enough about me to come with me as a family. I was literally the only person I saw who went on my own and without their family showing up early too, to support them. I walked past so many families in the parking lot knowing my mother couldn't be bothered to change out of her pajamas for me.) Nevermind I had a huge day that day, and that I was taking care of the cat's energy all that night too because attending my grad is apparently soooo draining my parents can't look after their own pet, and somehow it falls to me. All that matters is she woke up early and I didn't (after I handled all her inconveniences for her, funny how that works).
- Rapid knocks on my door because my dad is making bread as a hobby and apparently "needs" me there to help him with it, and then also "needed" me to stay and make cookies with him.
- A lecture about someone I never knew who apparently once threw something at another kid on my street when I was about 5, and about how he died and how his wife's hobby was really expensive or whatever and if I really don't remember him?
- I went to a showhome for fun and brought back the brochure. My dad jabbed his finger at the pictures on it to explain the house to me like I wasn't the one who literally brought the brochure back. Never asked if I cared or anything, just immediate launch into lecture and expecting me to stay and listen and praise him for being so smart or whatever.
- A lecture about D Day for some fucking reason. My dad is obsessed with history, and he doesn't have any friends to talk to (wonder why) so his lectures always fall on my ears.
- An email from my mother explaining in an extremely condescending way how important it is to have a cover letter when applying for jobs (just completely assuming I don't write them and also am too lazy or stupid to think about having them) including copy-pasted text from a sample cover letter that is no doubt one of the first results on google for "cover letter example"
- An angry email from my mother including a job she found on google
But, contrast that to my neighbors across the street. I was friends them in grade school, haven't seen them in like ten years, and just on my way past to the showhome we said hi and chatted in a genuinely nice conversation that wasn't a one-sided lecture like usual in my house. They could sense my emotions and didn't try to keep me there longer than I wanted to rant, they were genuinely interested in me and gave me space and interest to express myself, their mother even hugged me for graduating and it was the most genuine hug and congratulations I've ever received in person. Every other hug was my family members forcing me to hug them for their own sole benefit. I admit I cried a bit later on my walk thinking about it.
Compared to my parents, the parents of old friends care more about me, trust me more, believe in me more, have more hope for my future, are more interested in me, and understand me better. It's tremendously sad that all throughout my graduation ceremony I was worried about my parents becoming upset for some random reason and blowing up at me. I'm glad I at least focused and made myself feel some pride and joy in myself for graduating.
Even the random people I met who were also taking part in the open house were nicer and better conversationalists than my parents. A random elderly couple I have never seen in my life can have a better interaction with me than my own parents. The realtor was more chill and less perfectionistic than my parents by a mile. His million-dollar house sale was something he was less stressed and perfectionistic about and something he beat himself up over less than my parents are about my hairstyle when I'm going to class because "What if you meet someone in industry and they see you're not professional".
It's absurd.

I, 30F, moved into a trailer in my home town with two guys whom i thought were friends 35M, and 27M. For simplicity 27M will be Bum, and 35M will be Fool. The three of us agreed to move in and split the bills 3 ways. Shortly after moving in, Bum quit his job and refused to get another one. Instead, he sat at the house, playing video games all night and generating a mess. I had spoken to Fool many time about this and it seemed like he was on my side. After living with Bum for a while, I noticed a drastic change in my dog's, 6M large breed, behavior. He would run from Bum as if he were about to be beaten. To the point he would slip and fall on the wood laminate floor. He was also confined to my bedroom at all times as was my cat. I confronted Bum about it when I noticed a hole in my bathroom wall that hadn't been there when I left for work. He fed me some cock and bull story about how my dog must have launched my full conditioner bottle that had been sitting in my shower caddy at the wall. Throughout the entire 8 months of living with these two I have paid half of the rent and all of the utilities. I have had to take out payday loans every 2 weeks to make the basic household ends meet while my own personal bills have gone on the back burner. Eventually, Bum ended up getting a baby sitting job. Thinking that the struggle was finally over and we could finally split the bills, I did the math for the rent and posted it in our group chat. In layman's terms, he said no that his bills had to come first and that the rent was staying the way it was. This pissed me off and I finally decided enough was enough and spoke to a different friend about getting into a new place. Everything came to a head this passed Monday. In short, Bum said he hadn't slept in 34 hours, was sick, and went to "work". He was angry that I hadn't cleaned up the giant mess that he had made or did the dishes while on the phone with people who I had thought were friends. He kept comparing me to his ex and said how living with me as a roommate made him want to "unalive himself". I called my mom and asked her to come and get me after he had gone into his room. I sent Fool a message telling him that Bum could stay and that I would leave since I am the problem. He called us both soon after in a group call and demanded to know what was going on. Bum gave his side first and then interrupted as I tried to give mine. He said again that living with me made him want to unalive himself. He knows that Suic*de is a trigger of mine and he uses it often. I yelled at him not to say that and he began to scream at me. I ju g ip from the call and began speed packing essentials while calling my mom. She and a friend helped get my essentials and pets out and back to my moms place. Today, I went back over and finished packing my things, only to discover that my vr headset and controllers are missing. Last I had seen them they had been in the entertainment center that is now empty. I confronted Bum about it and he denied having them. I went through all of my stuff 5 times and couldn't find them. I told him he had 15 minutes to produce my vr setup ir I'd call the cops. He began to yell at me again. My mother stepped in and told me to just call, so I did and made a report. He tried to kick my mother out of "his" house but she refused stating that it wasn't his house but mine. He went and hid in his room after that. About an hour after the ordeal, I recieved messages from Fool. He stated that since I willingly broke the lease that I had until june 9th to pack up my things and get out, otherwise theyd throw everything out and take me to court for damages to the room. I told him that my things were already out and that I was going back tomorrow to clean the room and repair the damages. He stated that I couldn't go into the house without one of them there. I know for a fact that they haven't spoken with the office yet about taking me off the lease so I know I still have a right to go inside and that by law that they have to give me 30 days since I recieve mail at the address. I intend on going anyway and cleaning the room and removing the last of my things and the trash and giving the key back to the manager in the office. I have stopped respoding to Fool's messages and I have blocked Bum on all platforms. I simply cannot take the mental, financial, and amimal abuse any longer. Please tell me, AITAH here?

I've encountered a person that confuses me to this day. English isn't my first language btw.
The high school I went to was a competitive all-girls school that was at the time considered to be the third in the country (in our country getting into these schools was always a big deal and you have to qualify). Even inside the school the competitiveness was high among peers, so a lot of quarrels and drama tended to unfold. From parents who used money to teachers who were corrupt, and students who schemed against each other. In my time in that school, I have encountered the occasional problem but I didn't have problems with students much. Teachers however, I tend to butt heads with regularly. Maybe it was some form of a moral code I had in me, but I disliked adults who used their obvious position of power to meddle with the lives of children. None of them were particularly different or interesting, until I met the homeroom teacher of my class of grade 10. She was such a contrasting case for me that I found her to be fascinating. Her outward appearance was of a delicate calm women, she was soft spoken and polite. Her figure looked almost emaciated but it seemed like it was just the limit of her growth rather than the consequence of her current diet. She was an amazing teacher and was always on time. She actually was highly intelligent that you could tell she was. However, there was this gut feeling both me and my mother got from the first encounter with her. A bad feeling that something was off with her. Her every move looked staged and unreal, every pause was calculated and words so insincere that I thought I must be crazy for noticing it when it looks like no one else did (I later found out a lot of people noticed it but just couldn’t describe or rationalise their instincts, so they just ignored it). She was known to be strict, but it was all well for the first few days. The first thing she did was to separate anyone who was together in the same class in the previous year, but this wasn’t odd or too alarming because teachers wanted students to make new friends and avoid talking during class. Things came in small doses next. She had random bursts of anger that felt so uncharacteristic and misplaced that it would make the entire area silent. It always felt like it was from 0 to 100 instead of a steady increase. It got physical a few times too (There wasn't much of human rights at this time and it was somewhat acceptable for an adult to lay hands on a child for disciplinary reasons). Then I started to notice her targeting specific students and playing games with them. Like she would socially isolate people and outcast students, even going as far to set a desk away from everyone for a student to sit alone. She would check in at lunch and make sure that the student was talking to no one. I also caught on that she would try to draw wedges between friends and breed distrust between students by false claims and rumours. She would go through people’s belongings when they left them. There was this fact about her everyone knew around the school about a famous tuition teacher being her ex and how much she hated even hearing that man’s name or seeing anything to do with him (By the way, she was at this point married to someone else and had two kids. But she would snap at any mention of him). I started observing her because of noticing these things. It was weird, she and I had a strange connection. It was like a wordless exchange, I knew who she was and she knew who I was. We both would know we were observing each other. She never called it out or anything, it just seemed to be a cat and mouse game. I did mess up her games a bit by telling the students who were confiding me about their perceived betrayal of their friend, that it was caused by our teacher instead of it being real. I also deliberately put her ex’s business card inside a notebook with a ‘Got you!’ note, knowing she would go through the book that I was pretending to hide just to get her to want to see what’s in it. She did exactly as I wanted but didn’t say a word just handed me the book back with an odd smile. I stood up for anyone I could and was quite protective of my friends. One friend in particular she seemed to hate to the bone. I never understood why she held such contempt for this girl. All I could come up with was that this friend was very attractive, or maybe she just hated that she was my friend? It came out of her own mouth once to my mother, that she wasn’t going to scold me for what I did but she saw me talking with that “annoying girl,” so she snapped at me. Things went from bad to worse, her games got intense. She attacked my friends specifically and did everything to isolate me. I didn’t know this then, but some of my friends later told me that she would interrogate anyone who would talk to me or visit me from other classes and scare them so that people stopped coming to see me (back then I actually though I was being abandoned by people because no one told me then). I noticed that she adjusted her way of talking and demeanour according to the person and what she wanted from them, it was quick and creepy to an outsider watching from afar. She had multiple complaints against her from time to time, mostly from seniors who were tired of her. But she somehow always managed to turn herself to be the victim and the student to be the perpetrator, who now would be ostracised by other teachers which would make the students do the same. She was good at putting a spell on people, only those who were targeted by her thought badly of her, some even outright loved and adored her. Even though her actions and mask never matched and to anyone who would take a second to think about her actions without thinking about her outward personality would know how much of a snake she was, she somehow managed to maintain her beloved status among everyone. It was strange, if you talked to people alone, you’d find they knew or just had a sense she wasn’t a good person, but it was as if there was a rule in the air people were following, as if they were just supposed to play along. In all this, what I found the most intriguing was her motives. Because I cannot think of one. She even did things that seemed to be well intended towards me, like she told other teachers off for scolding me, she actually never directly accused me and made sure I wasn’t wrapped up in trouble. Even times I was truly doing something wrong, she would just scold others but save me. She got me saved from being scolded at the office for being late (we have a tardy line) and took me away in front of all the other students (this usually only happens if someone is a teacher’s child or a child of some influential parent). She got my contact and messaged me every morning to see if I’m awake and paid attention to check if I understood the lesson. It was weird and very confusing, because it wasn’t just the regular teacher who truly wanted the best for someone. Because it was obvious favours to anyone who looked at it. Yet she also seemed to target me and was dead set on separating me from my friends, and did everything to make me miserable. I didn’t know it then but a friend told me someone else had pointed out that it even looked like she was in love with me in a twisted way because of her insistence in surveilling my conversations and who talked to me. She and I had some similarities in that we were both observant and smart in the same way. I could tell she recognised me as someone different from the others and maybe even felt that I was some kindred spirit. But I still don’t understand her. Everyone else always had a motive, something to gain, or a delusion to maintain. But she was too intelligent for that, she didn’t need to scheme to gain because she was truly talented, and she wasn’t interested in any gain. She didn’t lie to herself, even when she lied to others, I could tell she didn’t believe it herself. She knew she was lying, and she knew it was intentional. It just seemed she was doing things just because. But it’s such a hard thing to understand. I can only think she was just someone who was sadistic and gained pleasure by causing problems. But I'm not sure. It hurts my pride to admit but It has been years now yet I still see her in my nightmares.
What do you think of this person? Why do you think she did what she did?

The Injustice Initiative and Megaverse Council did not grieve with their former leader for too long, due to the combined forces of Venessa and Velocity making swift progress in uniting dozens of Omniverses under their heroic banner. Velocity used her direct and demanding demeanor to influence the defenders of each Omniverse to join the Council and was brutally honest in her meetings with the current situation. She stressed that if they refuse to join then they will face extinction and the Council will not help them when they are attacked due to them only having priorities for attacking the demons head on. Venessa on the other hand focused her attention in strengthening the Injustice Initiative with rigorous training and firing incompetent people in leadership positions and swiftly replacing them with those that were far more competent and understood the severity of the situation. In the span of 16 days, the combined efforts of these two feminine leaders made great leaps in progress that equaled or surpassed Diamond's own work in the past three months.
While these two were on a mission together, The Researcher contacted them regarding a very important matter. When the two heroines arrived at the Council's headquarters The Researcher revealed to them two enormous discoveries. "We finally found them. The place where our foes call home, Omniverse 6,666,666. We do not know much of this Omniverse other than the Diamond from Omniverse 8 being aware of its potential and became paranoid of its existence leading him nearly wiping all traces of it from the Council's database. I happen to uncover the last fragments of his report that failed to be deleted. Furthermore, the Core of that Omniverse is deeply fractured, completely drained of all power. We can deduce with sound reasoning that the landscape of that Omniverse is something out of an apocalypse with everything that could have gone wrong, definitely went wrong. In addition, it is a very wide and vast Omniverse similar to the Main Omniverse. In fact, before its current miserable state, it was a near copy of the Main Omniverse. We are trying to scout and analyze the area as best as we can, but it is blocking all of our scanners. Our supernatural sensors can barely last four seconds before frying when they sense the amount of dark negative energy that shrouds that Omniverse." Velocity, "And the other news?" "We also found a very promising Omniverse that was elusive to our map, but just appeared and is surging with radiant energy from the Light." Venessa abruptly, "Light? Like The Light......... not just colorful lights?" "Correct. Would you care to guess what this Omniverse's number is?" "I would assume it would be the polar opposite of the other, so Omniverse 7,777,777?" "Bingo. Apparently, they have a hierarchy over there and their King requests your presence. His words not mine were King Alexander humbly requests the presence of Empress Venessa of the Main Omniverse and any companions she wishes to bring for a formal meeting in regards to the future protection of the Megaverse."
"Alright, message King Alexander and tell him I will adhere to his request. She accessed her communication com and ordered Tray and Cross to join her on the mission. She then turned to Velocity. I would have you join me on this mission, but I do not want to delay the progress you are making in convincing more Omniverses to join our cause." A short time passed as the three members arrived for their briefing with Venessa. After their meeting, they used their watches and traveled to Omniverse 7,777,777. Their eyes were blinded by the bright rays of the sun, before they could tell where they were at. At last, their eyes adjusted to their environment, which resulted in them being astonished at the shining city that was before them. They observed trains similar to bullet trains zipping back and forth through wind tubes and the residents there in very intricate clothing. The residents either had high collar jackets, dazzling shirts, and most importantly, Venessa could sense all of them having unusual levels of the Light inside of them. A loud voice could be heard behind them. "Are these the people who the King wishes to speak with?" The group turns around and sees two men standing a few feet behind them. One appears six foot and a few inches, he did not wear a shirt but was surrounded with gold and red armor, a long red cape, black pants, and long flowing blonde hair. The other was a little shorter around five feet and possibly 11 inches with black and purple hair, a black and purple cape, purple pants, and purple armor in the exact areas as the first man. The second one responded to his companion in a soft-spoken manner,"Yes, these are the three we were assigned to escort back to the castle." Venessa, "Hey, are you two like siblings or something? You two kind of look alike." The purple one, "That assumption is correct. I am Lucrest and this is my older obnoxious brother Leoped." Leoped, "We are two in a handful of select individuals, who serve the King by carrying out special assignments and investigations." Lucrest, "If you will please follow us, the King is eager to greet you."
The three heroes followed the two guards to the castle, during their walk Venessa teased her sibling, Tray. "It appears those two brothers have larger swords than you. I think they are far superior swordsmen if they can handle large blades like that. It fails to even compare your toothpick of a sword." "Shush! I don't want to hear it. I choose elegance and gracefulness over something flashy." The group finally reached the castle as several guards in colorful shining full body armor saluted the group as they stepped inside the large white crystal doors of the castle. Leoped and Lucrest led the trio right towards the throne room; no sooner than when the doors opened, King Alexander leaped from his throne and welcomed his guests. The King's outfit was composed of expensive black cloth with silver and blue crystals creating his unique armor with gold outlining around the edges and his crown. His hair was white as snow with a cape flowing from his waist with two metallic angelic wings attached to his back. He appeared as someone who was no older than their early 20's, much less muscular than Leoped, while possessing a staggering height of 6,7. "Greetings Empress Venessa, first adopted child of Diamond! A pleasure to finally meet you. Greetings to you Tray, second adopted child of Diamond! And a very warm welcome to Cross, the last member and headmaster of the Royal Guard!" Cross' attitude changed from being standoffish to one of utter shock. No one has addressed him as headmaster since the days of the Clone War. Tray whispered to Venessa, "Headmaster of the Royal Guard? I never knew that about Cross." "Yes, many years in Cross' realm he was headmaster of the Royal Guard, an elite group of warriors who protected his realm from malevolent threats under the orders of a man named the Keeper. This was brought to an end when.........Alastor manipulated him to massacre all of his fellow friends and the Keeper towards the end of the Clone War, mere days before order Kingdom Come was initiated."
King Alexander, "Empress Venessa please accept these gifts as a sign of good will. He signaled for four servants to step forward with bundles of technology and scrolls. The Alphaverse is more than ready to work closely alongside the Megaverse Council to defeat the fallen angels and corrupted souls of the Demonic Council! Please follow me to our war chambers." King Alexander led the heroes down several steps to a room that was protected by several guards. They were granted access and upon entering, the heroes were stunned to see holographic displays of plans and projects that were scattered as two male figures were debating with a female. The figures turned to the doors and quickly turned off the scattered plans and pulled up a file that said, "Propositions and explanation for the Megaverse Council." One unique hologram Venessa saw before it disappeared was a hologram of the Matrix of Eternity with a subject line under it labeled "Restore the Matrix to its former power?" As Venessa was deep in thought, King Alexander spoke to his guests who the other three figures were, "The lanky one with grey hair and a gas mask is our lead chemist, Lorenzo. The other one with him with the crimson operator hat, black and red hair, and basically black and red from his natural wings to his armor adored with many medals is our head of homeland security, Viciate. Last but not least is our lead scientist of technology, and weapons, whose brilliance I cannot put into words, Malissia." Malissia had medium length jet black hair that only left her left eye visible, yet it appeared she had unique facial marks that were long black lines leading up to her eyelids. She wore a long black coat that went just above her ankles with boots in the shape of heels. Nearly everything she wore was black except her shirt which was white with print that resembles computer chips. Malissia, "I prefer to go by M." Tray in a playful manner, "A little gothic in your appearance compared to everyone we've seen today!" "Simply a matter of taste and perception." Tray then noticed Malissia had white irises as the rest of her eyes were black, which created a sense of mystery behind them.
Lorenzo, "The disgraced Royal Guard is here......." King Alexander disappointingly, "Lorenzo......we talked about this." Venessa, "Hey what was that project regarding the Matrix of Eternity about? How would any of you be able to reload it?" King Alexander, "We have the source that originally fueled the Matrix. We were the ones who originally created it." Cross and Tray were shocked to hear such a revelation. Was the king bluffing or legitimately telling the truth? Malissia, "The reason you saw so many other projects scattered was due to these two knuckleheads trying to push these loose ideas my way, knowing full well we had a meeting today." Viciate, "Then Lorenzo and I should be going." Viciate and Lorenzo leave the room as King Alexander and Malissia start speaking with Venessa, Tray, and Cross. Lorenzo and Viciate journeyed far from the castle's boundaries and into the outskirts of the gorgeous city into a dark alleyway where a female was waiting for them. "Have you two finally reached a decision?" Lorenzo, "Yes, we have, Paradox." Paradox in a feminine form smiled while twirling their hair, with a snap of their fingers a contract appeared before Lorenzo and Viciate. "Both of you sign there. Viciate tried to sign with a pen, but Paradox stopped him. Nuh uh uh, in blood!" Viciate pulled a dagger and cut a piece of flesh off him and Lorenzo as they signed the contract that bonded them to Black Hat. See that wasn't so hard. Now I sense you have something to tell me?" Viciate, "The Empress, playboy, and ex-harbinger of darkness are here. They learned of the plans to restore the Matrix of Eternity." A sadistic smile appeared on Paradox's face, "Wonderful! Wonderful! Things could not be better! With your help we can kill those three now and you two will rule this Omniverse as the new kings only in service to Black Hat and the Council. Let them retrieve the remains of the Matrix, and we can either strike before or after they restore the Matrix, then steal it and place it within the treasury with the other dangerous objects that could pose a threat to our reign. Run along now and continue to play your parts like good little errand boys." Paradox gave them a wink. Lorenzo, "Freak! When it comes to your services, we work with you, not for you!" The two then leave as Paradox continues to smile in the shadows.
Back in the war chamber. Venessa, "Impressive. All that you are proposing will greatly benefit us. I can see your offers are sincere, but I must ask, why it took you this long to reveal yourselves?" King Alexander, "That is........simply because of an old law......that had been in effect for thousands of years. I wanted to honor my father and his father, but eventually my consciousness allowed me to overturn that old silly law." Loud footsteps could be running through the halls as a young teenage girl open the doors to the room with pieces of paper in her arms. She began to speak clearly out of breath, "I'm here sister. The documents you wanted." Mallisa, "A few minutes late like usual, Joan." "It's not my fault, military class went on longer than normal! Gosh, how many times do I have to tell you I hate it that mom and dad forced me to become a soldier!" "Everyone, this is my younger sister, Joan. Joan this is Empress Venessa and her two colleagues, Tray and Cross." Everyone exchanged friendly greetings except for Tray who stared at Joan. There was something about Joan that captivated him, it was either the childish way she speaks or the fact she had navy hair like he did. Instead of a handshake, he wrapped both his hands around hers and knelt down, "My fair lady, it is with great honor to meet you. I pray that you will accept my greeting as one of humbleness and may good health and prosperity follow you all the days of your life, my dearest madam." Everyone in the room stared dumbfounded at Tray's speech. Cross, "Where the crap did that come from Shakespeare?" Joan stood there blushing as she stuttered while addressing Tray, "Th....thank y...yo.....you." King Alexander, "Well this meeting is nearing its end, so why don't Tray and Joan spend some time with each other while the rest of us handle the closing logistics?" Mallisa, "WHAT THE?" "Alright it's settled then. Tray and Joan, you two are dismissed."
Joan and Tray stared at each other before she offered Tray some lunch, which he readily agreed to. Alexander turned back to Venessa, "Venessa, if you don't mind, I will like you and your party to stay here the next four days. The first two can be used to handle business regarding our technology and battle tactics as I introduce you to our greatest soldiers, warriors, and fighters. The last two days can be a sort of mini vacation." "Well..........I don't think such an offer will hurt. You have yourself a deal King Alexander!" At lunch Tray and Joan were deep in conversation. Tray, "You look much different than your sister. Your eyes are normal, you are much more cheerful, and just overall livelier." "My sister takes all the stress and responsibilities of the family upon her. That and her role in the kingdom just adds more stress to her. As for her eyes and facial markings, those came when she felt called to the Spring of Restoration." "What now?" "The Spring of Restoration grants those worthy unique properties or powers. Only a select few experience a change from the spring. It is not heavily protected because the spring prevents anyone unworthy from stepping foot in its waters." "Radical." "Mhm!" "So, I heard you fighting with your sister about you hating being trained as a soldier. Why is that?" "It freaking sucks! My parents do not want me to be an astronomer or engineer! They want me to become a Celestial Crusader. On top of that, I don't even get to choose what I want to do or what I want to eat a majority of the time! Eating lunch with you right now is a rare occurrence." "Have you brought your problems to the king?" "Yes, but I don't know if he is hearing my pleas or not. If he's not, I don't blame him, he has a lot on his mind and considering my parents are very influential in terms of politics, if the king makes a brash move, my parents will give him political turmoil." Tray abruptly received a message from Venessa stating their four day stay. He was excited and already made up his mind that he will spend these four days showing Joan the freedom she is missing out on.
The next two days, King Alexander did everything he said he would to Venessa and Cross. Among the strongest warriors and fighters were Ezekiel with his four angelic wings and star saber, Phonix with his ability to control time and fire, Ian with the ability to create things out of metal at will and his large sword in the shape of a key, Vivi with her ability of harnessing animal souls and acquiring their powers and abilities to her disposal, and with several other notable fighters. Yet, the group was slowly stalked by Lorenzo who reported all of their movements to Paradox. The next two days arrived where Venessa and Cross briefly parted ways in order to find some way to relax before returning to base. On the fourth day, Venessa contacted her adoptive mother, Selena, for a special request. She wanted Selena to travel to the Alphaverse with the Matrix of Eternity in order to restore it with wisdom capable of changing the tide of the war. As for Joan and Tray, the two traveled all across the kingdom from going to the beach, kayaking, visiting the aquarium, and art museum. Tray taught Joan how to properly duel and was deeply proud when she complimented him on his elegant sword. Unknown to them Viciate was also reporting their activities to Paradox. On one of their stops, Joan brought Tray to the Spring of Restoration just for them to sight see. Yet, she was startled when Tray stopped responding to her. His eyes were affixed at the spring as he slowly started to step towards it. Joan tried to stop him, but her petite body could not stop him.
Suddenly, he stopped on the edge of the spring and bent down scooping up the water as he started to drink it from his hands. Joan was confused at Tray's behavior, "Are you......alright?" Before Tray could turn around, he collapsed on the ground. "TRAY!" She ran to him, but when she arrived, his eyes opened wildly as his body started to glow with an unearthly light. Tray's body started to transform with his pupils becoming white similar to Mallisa but instead of the other part of his eye becoming black, it became a bright cyan color. His navy hair became white with a few streaks of cyan along with his olive skin changing to being white as quartz. His outfit even started to change around him with his clothes glowing with a clear like cyan substance with a hood gently resting on his hair. Gold embroidered his collar as a unique glowing cyan halo appearing over his head. "Joan.....please tell me I'm not dead." "I uhhhh you mmmmmmm I guess not? Here let me show you what you look like." Joan opened her camera and took a photo of him in order for Tray to see the photo. "Oh my gosh I became even more handsome." "Seriously, that's what you think about after looking like you just died on me!" "Hey, I'm sorry for zoning out on you like that. I just heard a soothing voice calling me from the Spring and I could not help but follow it." "The voice was more than soothing than mine?!" "Well yes...CRAP NO NOT LIKE THAT I SWEAR!" Joan started punching Tray as he let out a hearty laugh. From the shadows Viciate contacted Paradox on what happened and for Paradox to arrive swiftly to exterminate the couple.
The two continued on their walk after having their emotions die down. Yet, there was a sort of tension in the air between the two as one waited for the other to speak first. At last, Tray was the one to break the tension as he stopped Joan and decided to finally reveal to her the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind the past few days. "Joan, I don't know how to say this but, whenever I am around you, I just feel warm inside and what I could only describe as butterflies, erupt in my stomach." Joan blushed deeply before responding, "Oh Tray!" "Joan, if you do not want to enlist in the Celestial Crusaders, you don't have to. I'm offering you a choice. I see how much you care for your older sister and your eagerness for freedom. I encourage you to follow your heart and join me. I promise with every fiber in my being that my family and I will protect you and support you with whatever decision you make." Joan with tears in her eyes. "Oh Tray! Thank you! I want to briefly stay here so I can help my sister with any last assignments and join you on exploring the Megaverse and you taking me back to the Omniverse you call home! Thank you, thank you for being such a wonderful person to me these past four days. Truthfully, I can say I feel the same when I am around you. Your outgoing free-spirited nature is very cute and contagious." Tray extends his hand towards Joan, "Then what are we waiting for? Take my hand and I will show you all the wonderful places in my Omniverse! Obviously after you are done helping your sister of course." He gave her a big comforting smile as he waited for her to wipe the tears of gratitude off her face. However, just before she could place her hand in his, a gunshot went off as a singular bullet went through the right side of Joan's head and exited out of the left. Tray opened his eyes and was horrified at the pool of blood emerging from Joan's body as she lay lifeless on the ground. He was shaken as he heard a sickening laugh. He hastily turned his head to the direction of the laughter.
Tray's eyes widened in confusion as he saw Gadget Bandito emerge from the shadows. "What.....what are you doing here? How did you get here? Why have you done this after being a loyal member of the Initiative for many years?!" "Doesn't matter. Any last words kid?" Tray thought inwardly, "Wait......no......there is no way he is the real Gadget Bandito. The real one does not even know a lot of the Megaverse, much less keep up with any news from the Initiative." He finally spoke out loud. "My powers and senses are telling me you are Gadget Bandito. But my heart, mind, and soul tell me otherwise! WHO ARE YOU?" Paradox finally revealed himself to Tray as he morphed into his mechanical appearance. Tray finally spoke after being at a loss for words, "I know you. I know who you are. No, you are not even a person anymore. You have turned yourself into something unrecognizable. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE! YOU ARE THE CREATURE WHO MURDERED MY FATHER'S PARENTS ON THE NIGHT OF HOLY THURSDAY!" Paradox had a twisted malicious grin on his mechanical face as he spoke, "Aren't you a smart one." Tray began to channel his new powers granted to him from the Spring of Restoration. "I WILL NOT ONLY AVENGE THE DEATH OF DIAMOND'S PARENTS! BUT FOR JOAN WHO YOU SHOT IN COLD BLOOD! DIE YOU BODY MORPHING BASTARD!"
Filled with pure rage, Tray could not control his powers as Paradox merely toyed with him before using Tray's disorientation to his advantage. Paradox was able to overpower the young hero, but briefly underestimated his new power buff when Tray's halo pierced itself into Paradox's chest. This comeback was shortly lived due to the intervention of Viciate who incapacitated Tray and tied him up. Elsewhere, Venessa felt a disturbance in her gut and thus gathered Cross and met with King Alexander to ask where Tray and Joan were at. The King did not know of their location much to the dismay of Venessa, but suddenly in the throne room a thick green mist entered the room which knocked the guards and the heroes unconscious. Lorenzo did his best to pick up the bodies of the heroes and tie them up, "Now we just wait for the Queen of Asteria to arrive and snatch the Matrix from her by ransoming these hostages."
Meanwhile Selena took care of Diamond and would not allow him out of her sight. If he had to leave her house, she would go with him wherever he went, due to the public opinion on him fiercely divided. There were some who believed the attacks were caused by him while others knew that he would never do such a thing and it had to be an imposter. She would fiercely criticize any bystander who booed or tried to assault Diamond. Diamond on the other hand did not like how Selena was being overprotective of him, and her reasoning was that his mental state was not in a good place. Truthfully, it felt like he was on house arrest. One day the two of them took a nap on Selena's couch, when Selena was notified to embark on the mission to Omniverse 7,777,777. She did not have Diamond know what mission it was, but said it was important. "Don't do anything stupid or silly while I'm gone. And do not go on any adventures either! If I find out you left the town, you won't hear the end of it!" "Alright sheesh I got it."
Selena traveled to Sanctuary and entered one of the passwords a few of the elite members possessed in order to gain access to the broken remains of the Matrix of Eternity. She grabbed the pieces and created a portal to the Alphaverse. Once Selena teleported off to her mission, Diamond took advantage of this opportunity and decided to venture into town. He grabbed his Bluetooth earbuds and walked outside to his favorite coffee shop. While walking, he played Have You Ever Seen The Rain, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of his father's favorite bands. He could not resist but sing along with the lyrics, "When it's over so they say it'll rain a sunny day, I know, shining down like water. I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day." During his stroll a handful of protestors spotted him and began to yell, "Murderer! Thief! Crook! Liar!" One such protestor threw a pot of hot water at him, which nearly resulted in Diamond retaliated, but he bore these wrongs patiently and continued on his way. He turned a corner into an alleyway and started to dance and jump in the puddles. On the other side were a set of stairs where he slowly danced his way down each step to the closing parts of the song still singing with raw emotion. "Yeaaaaahhhhhhhh I wanna know have you seen the rain? I wanna know have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day."
He turned off his music when he entered the doors of the small shop and waited patiently in line. After he finished placing his order and pulled out his wallet to pay, the cashier whispered to him, "It's on the house. You are still a hero to us who work here." "Are you sure ma'am?" "Yes. It'll be out shortly." He took a seat near a window and started reading the local newspaper in silence. Just then a little boy who was with his parents came to his side and started to speak with him. "Excuse me sir, but are you, Diamond?" Diamond chuckled to himself, "Well there is no use in hiding my identity. Yes, I am." "Can you tell me what it was like during the year I was born?" "Uh, odd request but yeah I can tell you, first I have to ask how old are you?" "I just turned four!" "Well happy birthday! Let's see four years ago was 2016.....wait no it was 2020. Gosh was 2020 four years ago? Man, all these adventures all start flowing together kid. So, around this time an old enemy of mine named......" Diamond abruptly stopped speaking as he felt a disturbance. "Named who, sir?" Diamond stood up and slowly walked to the doors as a giant explosion went off in the center of town. Everyone started screaming, running in all directions from the blast, as Diamond signaled his AI using his nanotech vision glasses. "HONEY what are we looking at? HONEY? Crap I never turned you back on." Diamond hastily had his nanotech grow on his left arm as he turned on the setting to activate HONEY. "I'm back! Are you ok boss, did you do anything brash when I was gone?" "We can catch up later HONEY, right now I need you to prevent traffic from entering this street and alert the local authorities." "Yes sir!"
While all of this was happening on Earth, Selena's portal finally brought her to the Alphaverse. She begins to mutter to herself, "Alright Venessa I'm here. Hopefully we can get this done quickly, because I don't trust Diamond being by himself." Selena was cautious of her surroundings, due to being greeted with an eerie vacant throne room. She suddenly heard a quiet "help me," this prompted her to locate the source of the voice which resulted in her finding Lorenzo lying next to a pillar. "Please help me." "Who did this to you, where are they now, and have you seen a young girl with pink and blue hair go by?" Selena used her powers to silently read the injured person's mind, but before her powers could alert her of it being a trap, she heard another voice which caused her pupils to shrink with fear. "Hello my precious doll." Selena turned to face the new voice and to her horror, she saw Paradox standing behind her, appearing the same way he looked the day before he died. The trauma from the mistreatment and terror she received from him overridden her senses and caused her to stand completely motionless. Behind her Lorenzo leaped and took off his mask expelling a strong toxin into her lungs causing her to faint and drop the pieces of the Matrix. Lorenzo, "Why did you change the plan to capture her instead of bargaining with her?" Paradox, "Because I want the last thing, they see is me holding the reloaded Matrix and handing it over to my masters." Paradox then switched back to his mechanical body and wrapped Selena in thick pairs of chains. He then took her body along with the rest of the heroes to the depths of the castle.
Simultaneously on Earth, Diamond slowly made his way to the source of the blast as he yelled at the pedestrians to head southbound. When he reached the center of the blast three figures emerged. A hulking lizard creature, a humanoid squid, and a tall figure wrapped in black cloth with piercing red goggles. "HEY! THIS TOWN IS CLOSED TO THUGS LIKE YOU TODAY!" The man in black cloth responded back, "We were wishing for a fight with Selena, but facing you is even better!" "I suggest you stand down before I rip a tentacle from your friend Squidward!" "Grok shut his mouth." The hulking creature lifted his axe from his back and started charging at Diamond. Diamond tapped his chest as his nanotech started to form around him as he created several large blasters from his back and fired at Grok. The blasts sent Grok flying backwards to his two other companions, but the man in black simply waved his hand to the right which sent Grok crashing into a local store. Diamond flew towards the humanoid squid and started punching him with unrelenting force that caused the squid to vomit quantities of ink. The man in black teleported behind Diamond and used his mystic powers to gain the upper hand by distorting the reality around them. The squid shaped his head into a spear and tried to pierce Diamond with his poison, but Diamond dodged it and sent him hurdling towards the man in black, breaking the reality illusion. He then had his suit create a sticky net which he shot to capture both the man in black and squid. Grok finally managed to get back up, but upon seeing his comrades captured, he clicked a button on his belt that resulted in him exploding creating a blast deadlier than the first. Diamond noticed there were a few people that were in the blast radius of this second explosion and flew towards them using his strength to hold the falling debris from the tall business building. The debris piled the streets with dust and papers, until the sound of sirens broke the silence. Law enforcement arrested the two other villains while Diamond was barely holding large portions of fallen walls, glass, and stone from crushing him and the civilians under him. The leading officer noticed Diamond struggling in the debris, but decided not to help him, he thought to himself, "Let's see if he can truly save others and be the hero the weak minded believe him to be." The crushing weight began to take a toll on Diamond as he slowly began to lose his footing until he was on his knees holding the debris up.
"I promise.....I will get all of you out alive!" Negative thoughts began to enter his mind as various voices began to call out. "You are not good enough. You couldn't save your own parents; how can you save these unfortunate souls? You are playing a fool's game. See how the law enforcement refuses to acknowledge your existence. Face it your story is over. Finished. You are nothing but a weak boy who thought he could have been a great hero." Diamond tried to block out these voices, but they began to take a toll on him, nearly causing him to give up, but then a quiet voice entered his mind. A voice smooth like honey but strong as thunder echoed in his mind. "You are something more. Look inside yourself, you are something far more than when you started all those years ago as a small-town hero. Do not listen to their empty words, listen to me. Do you renounce sin?" "I do." "Do you renounce the Devil, the sin whisperer, and all his empty promises?" "I do!" "Do you believe in the Faith of your fathers, the Resurrection, and life everlasting?" "I do!" "Arise my child." At that very moment Diamond felt the power of the Light course through him at greater quantities than before as his body began to glow with gold and white light. With a newfound access to the Light, Diamond felt it was only natural to change the wording when harnessing its power, "Through the power of Heaven's Light.......All things are possible!" Diamond effortlessly lifted the debris away from him as the civilians under his care ran to the rest of the crowd. The onlookers stared at Diamond's glowing gold and white body. They were baffled in amazement as a few murmured amongst themselves, "Truly this is the act of a selfless hero."
Diamond did not hear the crowd's cheers, whistles, and praises as he stood deep in contemplation. Deep within his soul, he was able to sense his family was in grave danger. With his connection to the Light restored, he made it his new mission to travel to the Omniverse where he sensed the disturbance. He quietly spoke to himself, "Oh yeah I'm ready to whip the person who is so bent on ruining my life! But first, I have to do it in style. He allowed his suit to create two large speakers; HONEY make sure the volume is on max. Time for us to go back into the Megaverse!"
To Be Continued In The Alphaverse Part 2

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."

DAY: MAY 31 2024
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5-31-2024

CYBERFLASHING IS A FORM OF GENDERED SEXUAL VIOLENCE THAT MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY

Sexting—sending sexually suggestive or explicit messages and images—is now a widespread practice, and can be a healthy way to express and explore sexuality. However, there is a need to distinguish between consensual sexting and forms of sexual harassment like cyberflashing. Cyberflashing refers to the act of non-consensually sending sexual imagery (like nudes or “dick pics”) to another person. It is facilitated through communications technologies including text, AirDrop and social media applications like Snapchat and Tinder. Similar to flashing—when a person unexpectedly and deliberately “flashes” their genitals to others—that occurs in
5-31-2024

VIRTUAL TRAINING MAY BE AN EFFECTIVE, COST-EFFICIENT OPTION FOR CHILD EDUCATORS

Teachers and other child educators can benefit from regular professional development, but in-person training can be expensive. New research found that virtual training can be a budget-friendly alternative—and especially effective for certain groups of educators. The study—a collaboration between researchers at Penn State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and published in the International Journal of Professional Development, Learners and Learning—found that educators who took a virtual training reported feeling more confident in their abilities to implement practices shown to support positive youth development. In particular, after-school providers who did not
5-31-2024

HUMBLE LEADERS BOOST EMPLOYEES’ WORKPLACE STATUS AND LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL, FINDS STUDY

There are many different types of workplace leaders, from those who prioritize the needs of team members and the organization above their own, to authentic leaders who foster openness, trust and transparency. A recent study by the University of South Australia published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior has highlighted the significant benefits of humble leadership in the workplace. According to the study by UniSA’s Dr. Xiao Lin, humble leadership can effectively elevate the workplace status of employees by boosting their sense of respect and prominence. It also leads to
5-31-2024

WHY ARE GROCERY BILLS SO HIGH? A NEW STUDY LOOKS AT THE SCIENCE BEHIND FOOD PRICE REPORTING

Rising food costs are squeezing Canadians around the country. Nearly everyone is feeling the pinch, and it’s not just an inconvenience—high food prices are a major threat to food security for many Canadians. Understanding why food prices are so high and why they are changing is critical to the well-being of our society. Unfortunately, consensus on why food price are so high is in short supply. Explanations given in reports like Canada’s Food Price Report and the news media range widely, from the war in Ukraine to supply chain issues
5-31-2024

WILL GENERATIVE AI CHANGE THE WAY UNIVERSITIES COMMUNICATE?

Is artificial intelligence an unprecedented opportunity, or will it rob everyone of jobs and creativity? As we debate on social media (and perhaps use ChatGPT almost daily), generative AIs have also entered the arena of university communication. These tools—based on large language models that were optimized for interactive communication—can indeed support, expand, and innovate university communication offerings. Justus Henke has analyzed the situation of German realities about six months after the launch of ChatGPT 3. “The research was conducted about a year ago when enthusiasm was high, but it was
5-31-2024

STUDY SHOWS RELATIVELY LOW NUMBER OF SUPERSPREADERS RESPONSIBLE FOR LARGE PORTION OF MISINFORMATION ON TWITTER

Classification of superspreader accounts. A large portion (55.1%) of accounts are no longer active. For each class annotated with political affiliations, colors indicate the ideological split. The last group aggregates all accounts with political affiliations. Credit: PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302201 A small team of social media analysts at Indiana University has found that a major portion of tweets spreading disinformation are sent by a surprisingly small percentage of a given userbase. In their study, published in PLOS ONE, the group conducted a review of 2,397,388 tweets posted on Twitter
5-31-2024

HOW LIFE’S BIG MOMENTS CAN CHALLENGE STARTUPS

Life-changing events like the birth of a child, the purchase of a new home, or a lottery win could threaten the survival of a new business venture, the positive family events had a comparatively greater influence, albeit negatively, on the survival of a new venture, compared with
5-31-2024

RUDE AT WORK? FEELING GUILTY CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER, KINDER WORKER

We’ve all done it. A bad night’s sleep or a tough commute made us cranky, and we lashed out at a coworker who did nothing wrong. What can we do to make up for it? According to a new study published in the Journal of Business Ethics, embracing our guilty feelings can help us make up for our bad behavior by encouraging us to act more politely and work harder the next day. “We found that anyone can be rude at work, because anyone can
5-31-2024

RESEARCHERS INTRODUCE A PLANETARY INCLUSION SCALE TO FOSTER BROADER ETHICAL THINKING

Social inclusion and having a sense of belonging with other people are key elements of a good life. However, the fate of humanity is a challenge that extends beyond our social reality. Experiences of belonging and inclusion, understood in a broader sense than before, may be crucial for a sustainable future. In an article published in the International Journal of Social Pedagogy, a team of researchers propose a new planetary inclusion scale that structures our planetary relationship three-dimensionally based on temporal, spatial and ethical orientation. The temporal element relates to
5-31-2024

‘LEAN IN’ MESSAGES CAN LOWER WOMEN’S MOTIVATION TO PROTEST GENDER INEQUALITY

Women in leadership are often told to “Lean In,” designed to be motivational messaging demonstrating that they are more confident, strategic and resilient to setback. However, new research indicates that such “lean in” messaging can hinder women’s motivation to protest gender equality. Popularized in a book by American technology executive Sherly Sandberg, the “Lean In” solution to gender inequality advises women that demonstrating personal resilience and perseverance in the face of setbacks is key to career advancement. Now, a new study led by the University of Exeter, Bath Spa University
5-31-2024

ALGORITHMS COULD HELP IMPROVE JUDICIAL DECISIONS

A new paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics finds that replacing certain judicial decision-making functions with algorithms could improve outcomes for defendants by eliminating some of the systemic biases of judges. Decision makers make consequential choices based on predictions of unknown outcomes. Judges, in particular, make decisions about whether to grant bail to defendants or how to sentence those convicted. Companies now use machine learning based models increasingly in high-stakes decisions. There are various assumptions about human behavior underlying the deployment of such learning models that play out in
5-31-2024

DIGITAL CAMPAIGNING IS A HUGE PART OF ELECTIONS NOW—BUT GOING VIRAL ISN’T EVERYTHING

The election has commenced and the race is on—to amass as many likes, shares and comments as possible. Digital campaigning, particularly through social media, is now a key part of political candidates’ communication toolkit. In fact, every general election campaign since 1997 has at some point been lauded as the first to make effective use of digital campaigning. But it was in 2015 that David Cameron’s campaign first made strategic use of social media to drive an election victory. As political reporter Tim Ross outlines in his excellent book, Why
5-31-2024

WHY ARE ORGANIZATIONAL COVER-UPS SO COMMON?

The TV dramatization of the UK Horizon Post Office scandal evoked outrage and disbelief. However, as another example of dysfunctional organizational behavior, it was expected rather than exceptional. The Post Office saga joins a long list of cover-ups or scandals that includes Hillsborough, Enron, Grenfell, the infected blood scandal, the Tuam babies scandal in the Republic of Ireland, Boeing 737 Max and Nasa (Columbia space shuttle). They represent what happens when there is a move within organizations and institutions to cover up the causes of
5-31-2024

AMONG GEN Z AUSTRALIANS, 38% IDENTIFY AS SPIRITUAL AND HALF BELIEVE IN KARMA. WHY IS SPIRITUALITY SO POPULAR?

Spirituality is increasingly popular with young Australians: recent research shows 38% of Gen Z Australians identify as spiritual. It also reports 50% of them believe in karma, 29% in reincarnation and 20% in astrology. When it comes to activities equated with spirituality, 28% of Gen Z Australians practice meditation and 22% practice yoga. In Australia, spirituality is strongly, enduringly central to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and culturally and religiously diverse communities. Yet until recently, spirituality has received far less attention than religion. Spirituality may be
5-31-2024

COMPANIES CAN IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THEIR PRODUCTS IN THE EARLIEST PRODUCT-DESIGN STAGES

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Lithuanian and Italian universities propose a tool that allows companies to assess the circularity of their future products. The self-assessment tool emphasizes the co-creation of circular design in the early (creative) stages of product development, encouraging entrepreneurs and designers to think more systematically and collaborate better by integrating related stakeholders into the product development process. The study is published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. “The majority of existing practical tools (systems of indicators) are aimed at measuring the environmental impact of products already
5-31-2024

RESEARCH EXAMINES HOW RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION AFFECTS A STATE’S COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

New research has revealed up to a 9% increase in college first-year enrollments in US states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with states without such legalization. The study, which is published in Economic Inquiry, found that the increase was from out-of-state enrollments, with early adopter states and public non-research institutions experiencing the most pronounced increases. Recreational marijuana legalization did not negatively impact degree completion or graduation rate, and it did not affect college prices, quality, or in?state enrollment. The findings suggest that some students perceive recreational marijuana legalization as
5-31-2024

RESEARCH EXAMINES HOW RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION AFFECTS A STATE’S COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

New research has revealed up to a 9% increase in college first-year enrollments in US states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with states without such legalization. The study, which is published in Economic Inquiry, found that the increase was from out-of-state enrollments, with early adopter states and public non-research institutions experiencing the most pronounced increases. Recreational marijuana legalization did not negatively impact degree completion or graduation rate, and it did not affect college prices, quality, or in?state enrollment. The findings suggest that some students perceive recreational marijuana legalization as
5-31-2024

HOW THE ‘MODEL MINORITY’ MYTH HARMS ASIAN AMERICANS

May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, a time when Americans celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders—a group that is commonly abbreviated as AAPI—to U.S. society. It’s also a time to acknowledge the complexity of AAPI experience. And as a professor who studies equity and inclusion in business, I think the focus on AAPI communities this month provides an excellent occasion to push back against a stereotype that has long misrepresented and marginalized a diverse range of people: the myth of the “model minority.” The
5-31-2024

WONDERING HOW TO TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT CONSENT? HERE’S AN AGE-BASED GUIDE TO GET YOU STARTED

The Australian government’s new campaign Consent Can’t Wait challenges us all to improve our understanding of consent. It asks a series of questions to illustrate this issue is more complex than simplistic “no means no” messaging. The campaign invites viewers to consider the nuances of consent, so we can raise these important issues with children and young people in our lives. But what is a good age to start talking about consent? How do parents tackle such conversations when this information probably wasn’t readily discussed in our own upbringing? How
5-31-2024

A PRODUCT OF NATURE OR NURTURE?

The concept of cultural entrepreneurship has many facets. It encompasses both the cultural and social impact of entrepreneurial training, and the environmental factors that influence its development. Some societies, such as the U.S., have a strong entrepreneurial culture. This means that certain characteristics are celebrated and encouraged, such as the ability of individuals to assume risks, patience when confronting challenges, and innovative problem solving, especially in uncertain situations. However, not all countries have such an entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurship struggles to take off in Europe In general, entrepreneurship can drive economic
5-31-2024

STUDY BRIDGES ANIMAL BEHAVIOR RESEARCH AND COMPUTER CODING TO ENGAGE CHILDREN IN STEM

A graphic depicting a student coding. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Teachers today face a bit of a conundrum, according to a new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Their goal is to prepare young students to enter a rapidly changing world. Even basic jobs require technical proficiency, which requires computational and analytical skills. To address this need, many educators are pushing to fold these important STEM skills into elementary curriculum. Here’s the problem. Young students can lose interest and even develop an aversion
5-31-2024

STUDY SHOWS VR CAN HELP TEACHERS BETTER DISTRIBUTE THEIR GAZE

On the left, a bird’s-eye view of the virtual classroom; on the right, screenshots of each of the four gaze-visualization conditions. Teachers need to know their material, but they must also keep their students engaged and interested. Part of that involves making eye contact with their students—all of them. A multidisciplinary team of researchers tested several methods of data visualization in an immersive virtual reality (VR) classroom, to give teachers a way to gauge
5-31-2024

MARKETERS CAN MANAGE ‘FEATURE CREEP’ SO CONSUMERS FEEL LESS INTIMIDATED BY TOO MANY FEATURES IN A PRODUCT

Wifi-enabled washing machines. Voice-controlled microwaves. App-enabled TVs, vacuum cleaners, and even window blinds you can control from the comfort of your couch. Many of the technological features now included in everyday products are useful and accessible. But research has shown that having too many can overwhelm potential buyers, making them less likely to make a purchase. In recent research, Wayne Hoyer, marketing professor and James L. Bayless/William S. Farrish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise at Texas McCombs, digs into the phenomenon of “feature creep” and its impact on consumer sentiment.
5-31-2024

RESEARCHERS EXPLAIN SOCIAL MEDIA’S ROLE IN RAPIDLY SHIFTING SOCIAL NORMS ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY

A new paper summarizing decades of research demonstrates how social media has supported an explosion of diversity in gender and sexuality in America during the 21st century, and also how these technologies have equally enabled a cultural backlash. The paper’s authors, UC Santa Cruz Psychology Department faculty members Phil Hammack and Adriana Manago, identified five main narratives about gender and sexuality that they believe emerged through social media as people have strived to be “authentic” on these platforms. The findings, along with resulting recommendations for psychology researchers and practitioners, were
5-31-2024

KEY FACTORS IN TRAINING ASSESSORS FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE RATINGS

New research is examining how organizations can improve their training programs by customizing frame-of-reference training to emphasize identifying negative behaviors critical to their goals. While assessors naturally identify positive behaviors, C. Allen Gorman, Ph.D., associate professor in UAB’s Department of Management, Information Systems and Quantitative Methods, says targeted training helps them recognize harmful actions that can hinder organizational objectives. Involving assessors in defining important performance dimensions and examples of behaviors, both good and
5-31-2024

STUDIES CHALLENGE WIDELY HELD BELIEFS ON APPLICANT DIVERSITY AND WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

Justin Frake is interested in cause-and-effect relationships in real-world data and the hidden dynamics that shape workplace behavior and equality—or inequality, as the case might be. His curiosity has led to research that challenges some popular beliefs as well as published studies related to women in the workforce. One study shows that firms promoting flatter hierarchies inadvertently discourage female applicants and another study counters several recent studies that claim women CEOs negatively impact career outcomes of other women. Both are published in the Strategic Management Journal. The assistant professor of
5-31-2024

CHALLENGING LEWIN’S MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICTS THEORY

A recent series of experiments challenges the longstanding theory of motivational conflict resolution introduced by Kurt Lewin. According to Lewin, conflicts between two undesirable outcomes (avoidance–avoidance conflicts) are typically harder to resolve than those between two desirable ones (approach–approach conflicts). Lewin posited that avoidance–avoidance conflicts, where individuals must choose between two undesirable outcomes, are typically more challenging to resolve compared to approach–approach conflicts, which involve choosing between two desirable options.
5-31-2024

MEN WITH ‘TOXIC MASCULINITY’ ARE MORE LIKELY TO MAKE SEXUAL ADVANCES WITHOUT CONSENT, STUDY FINDS

No means no when it comes to sex. But what happens when a woman makes a more passive response to a sexual advance? According to new research from Binghamton University, men differ in how they interpret these types of responses, and men who display hostile masculinity, known commonly as “toxic masculinity,” tend to act on them regardless of whether or not they think it’s consensual. A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to
5-31-2024

WHY WE DEHUMANIZE OUR POLITICAL OPPONENTS

Some of human history’s greatest atrocities—genocide, slavery, ethnic cleanings—are rooted in our ability to dehumanize people from other social, political, or cultural groups. Whereas prior research has traced dehumanization to the belief that others think or feel less than we do, new research co-authored by Haas professor Sameer Srivastava shows that our tendency to dehumanize can also be influenced by how we think others view important facets of the world. The greater the difference between our perceptions of an outgroup’s worldview
5-31-2024

STUDY SUGGESTS CHILDREN ARE OFTEN EXPOSED TO PROBLEMATIC CLICK BAIT DURING YOUTUBE SEARCHES

When a child peruses YouTube, the content recommended to them is not always age appropriate, a new study suggests. Researchers mimicked search behaviors of children using popular search terms, such as memes, Minecraft and Fortnite, and captured video thumbnails recommended at the end of each video. Among the 2,880 thumbnails analyzed, many contained problematic click bait, such as violence or frightening images, according to the Michigan Medicine led research in JAMA Network Open. “Children spend a significant amount of time on free video sharing platforms that include user-generated content,” said
5-31-2024

STUDY FINDS WOMEN ARE VULNERABLE IN POST-WAR PEACE PROCESSES

Post-war peace processes are a dangerous period for women. Many are forced to live close to men who committed serious abuse during the war or are expected to testify in various types of truth commissions, which can be both retraumatizing and stigmatizing. These are the findings of a new study by peace researchers at Uppsala University, published in the journal PLOS ONE. “In short, peace projects can force women to live side by side with ex-combatants who committed atrocities during the war. This puts them at risk of further threat
5-31-2024

HOW EMBRACING THE CRINGE CAN HELP YOUR DATING LIFE

We can all agree that dating is hard. Getting to know people can feel vulnerable, but at the same time, exciting. We can also agree that feeling rejected can be one of the worst feelings, especially after we put ourselves out there. Dating can also expose us to a lot of cringey things, maybe even something we didn’t know we’d consider cringey. Think of cringe like something that makes you uncomfortable, or something about someone else that you don’t find attractive. Before dating, most of us consider what we’re looking
5-31-2024

PERSONAL CONNECTIONS AT WORK POSITIVELY IMPACT RETENTION AND MENTAL HEALTH, SAYS REPORT

New survey results from Wiley suggest people still feel connected at work despite the prevalence of hybrid and remote work environments and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). According to the latest Wiley Workplace Intelligence report, “Human Connection: The Crucial Secret to Thriving in the Digital Age,” nearly 8 in 10 employees surveyed (78%) said they feel connected with their coworkers, and almost 7 in 10 (69%) said they also enjoy making connections with their colleagues. Around half even said they want to learn more about their coworkers by doing
5-31-2024

RESEARCHER DEVELOPS MODEL OF INFLUENCER IMPORTANCE WITHIN INSTAGRAM NETWORKS

A study has provided new insights into social media influencers, particularly focusing on those in the women’s fashion sector on the well-known image and video sharing platform Instagram. In a departure from the approach taken by earlier studies, Jens K. Perret of the International School of Management in Cologne, Germany, has used network statistics and centrality measures to establish a model of influencer importance within their network. Perret analyzed data from 255 influencers covering a four-year period. Influencers are loosely
5-31-2024

MOST PEOPLE TRUST ACCURATE SEARCH RESULTS WHEN THE STAKES ARE HIGH, STUDY FINDS

Rank (X-axis) does not affect the evaluation of trustworthiness (Y-axis, mean-centered) of accurate results. This lack of relationship is robust across experiments (columns) and for clicked results (top row, red) as well as non-clicked results (bottom row, blue). The trend lines represent the predicted change in trustworthiness ratings per unit decrease in rank fitted by the linear regression models. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-61645-8 Using experiments with COVID-19 related queries, Cornell sociology and information science researchers found that in a public health emergency, most people pick out and click
5-31-2024

MISLEADING COVID-19 HEADLINES FROM MAINSTREAM SOURCES DID MORE HARM ON FACEBOOK THAN FAKE NEWS, STUDY FINDS

Despite the greater potency of “fake news” on Facebook to discourage Americans from taking the COVID-19 vaccine, users’ greater exposure to unflagged, vaccine-skeptical content meant the latter had a much greater negative effect on vaccine uptake. Credit: Jennifer Allen, Duncan Watts, David G. Rand Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, fake news on social media has been widely blamed for low vaccine uptake in the United States—but research by MIT Sloan School of Management Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Allen and Professor David Rand finds that the blame lies
5-31-2024

CRITICAL DIALOGUE HELPS STRAIGHT MEN CONFRONT SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC BELIEFS

Adult heterosexual men with sexist and homophobic views can potentially improve their attitudes toward gay men and women by engaging in critical dialogues that use illustrations as a springboard, according to a new University of Michigan study. The work is published in the journal Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services. The process by which people shift from a prejudicial stance to one of relative acceptance is a key innovation of the study. Guided by trained facilitators, critical dialogues reflect illustrations depicting different gender roles and sexual identities. The images
5-31-2024

RELIEVING A FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

If you dread public speaking you are not alone. It is a leading social phobia, one that can cause a state of anxiety that reduces otherwise articulate people to nervous incoherence. A strong fear of public speaking is known as glossophobia. Academic studies estimate it affects 20% of the population, but depending on the sample and methodology, the figure could be as high as 40%. As American writer and humourist Mark Twain said, “There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars.” But help
5-31-2024

HOW SOME PRIVATE COMPANIES ARE MARKETING TECH AND AI SOLUTIONS

How do universities and colleges decide who to admit? Given the earnings advantage of a post-secondary degree both globally and in Canada, this is an important social mobility question. While the answer varies from one institution to the next, most focus on education criteria like exam scores and grades. However, Canada’s new intake cap on study permit applications puts increased pressure on Canadian institutions to also consider immigration criteria when admitting international undergraduate students. This is just the latest example of immigration’s growing influence on the societal roles of Canadian

Hello! Hope everyone is well. So an introduction about myself since this is perhaps my 20th search post. I am from the east coast of the USA, preferably would like to have a RP partner set within the same timezone within the US as I am since communicating with people halfway around the world proved to be more difficult.
My schedule is a bit iffy sometimes, but you’ll always catch me in the evenings except Tuesdays & wednesdays. Being an adult forces you to contribute to what society demands of you. Such as work, being a parent, being a spouse, all the while revolving how will you find enjoyment of your own time before you go to sleep and do that routine again. If you’re looking for someone for fast replies, or responds with 10 posts a day, I’m not that RPer for you. I can, however, throw at least two responses, more if I am lucky.
Here are my guidelines:
• Radio silent for five days typically means dead RP. We both move on, I would hope everything works out for you for the better.
• This is becoming a common occurrence over the years when I RP, sadly I’m going to say it. If you have specific traumas or triggers, let me know. However, although I may be lenient on some things, don't use it to have me walk on egg shells.
• For those of you who cannot read good, the ad says M4F, which means I as a male looking for female to write with. Not as a character, or a side character. But as a male RPer who wants to write with another RPer who is female. This is my preference, you cannot convince me whether you read my guidelines or not.
• I only play in third person and ask my partner to do so as well. I can play multiple characters whether male or female, that being said I only play as a male character that’s in the spotlight 75% of the time.
• If you have idea to fill in for plot points, do say so! Don’t be intimidated or think it’s going to ruin the RP because of ideas. Communication is a two way street. The worst I can do is say no, but I am open for options where it’s appropriate.
• To know that you have indeed read through all of this and not skim through my ad, answer my most basic question. However, I will ignore messages AND chats if no one answers it. Is a hotdog a sandwich?
• I write anywhere between 4-10 paragraphs. More to set up the scene if necessary and adding a lot of lore. I follow the principle that if you give me something to work with that has effort, you will get it as well. Matching replies? That’s great, but I don’t want to turn my passion into a chore.
• What I write is typically within the category of NSFW. This includes but not limited to: Gore, blood, body horror, darker themes, steamy scenes, etc, etc.
• All characters are 18+, all RPers 18+, no exceptions.
• You can view my samples message me. I would also like to point out that I am in the hobby of writing roleplays for fun and not anything serious to the point it would make grammar nazi’s blush. However, as writers who RP, punctuation, capitalization and grammar are key. Though I am lenient on some mistakes and will not be that guy.
• OOC discussions are fine. Talk to me about music, art, movies, or tv shows. However there’s a fine line between chatter and sharing personal info, in which case I don’t share mine and kindly ask the same to my partner.
PLOT:
Imagine a world where men are warriors, and women are beautiful. Set between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the unwritten records of ALL civilizations, there was an age undreamed of...
Princess (your character’s name), renowned for her wisdom and beauty, had long been the target of envy and malice. The Red Priest, a powerful and treacherous figure in her father's court, scorned her for rejecting his dark propositions and for her influence over the king. One night, a haunting dream of her father being slain plagued her sleep, and her worst fears materialized when a violent coup, led by the Red Priest, erupted within the palace walls. Fleeing for her life, she was shepherded to safety by an old and loyal retainer. As they traversed the darkened city, they encountered Jorro, a formidable warrior who had just escaped prison, where he had been unjustly held on the Red Priest's false accusations.
Jorro, driven by a burning desire for vengeance against those who wronged him, formed an uneasy alliance with (your character). Though their paths had crossed by fate, their goals aligned: to overthrow the Red Priest and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Together, they navigated through treacherous landscapes and evaded the Red Priest's minions. (Your character's) royal knowledge and Jorro's unmatched combat skills made them a formidable pair.

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."

Some background: My sister (29F) and I (27F) both have physical disabilities that cause the muscles in our hands and feet to be weak. This condition DOES NOT affect our bladder or pelvic muscles. We use walkers in public to help us keep balance and be more independent.
The other day my mom, sister, and I went to visit a friend who recently moved to the area. After dinner, as we’re all leaving, my mom makes a joke that causes my older sister to start laughing hysterically. She claimed she couldn’t help herself and peed. Now it would make sense if only a drop came out but no, my sister ended up releasing her entire bladder to the point that there was a sizable puddle on the porch and her clothes were soaked. It did happen outside but I still think it’s disgusting to do that on someone else’s property.
At the time my sister was holding on to MY walker and I was holding on to hers. This isn’t really an issue as we’re the same size so we can share walkers for short periods of time. I explicitly told her and practically begged her not to sit on the seat of my walker as I didn’t want my walker seat to get dirty with her pee-soaked clothes. She looked me in the eyes, said she wouldn’t but couldn’t help herself and “fell” on my seat. I say “fell” because she was laughing as she said she wouldn’t but didn’t even make an effort to stay up or get up immediately after sitting.
Even once she sat, I asked her to get up but she pretended not to hear. I didn’t say anything else at that point because my mom didn’t want me to make a scene at someone else’s house. So I stayed quiet as she sat on my walker for another 10 minutes before finally getting into the car. Yes, the car did smell like concentrated pee (we drove home with the windows down) and obviously my walker seat has a stain and distinct pee smell.
We dropped her off at her own house and when I got home I did send her a message about how much that upset me. I have to go to work and don’t want to walk around the office with a walker that smells like pee!
She ignored me and my message, thinks it was not that big of a deal and that I should just get over it.
I am still upset and figure the only way I can get “over it” is to do the same to her. I want to pee on her walker seat and see how she likes it. I know this may seem excessive (especially at 27 years old) but if it’s not that big of a deal for me to walk around with pee, then shouldn’t be for her either. And for anyone wondering why we don’t just switch walkers: my walker is in better condition and is more suited for my size and lifestyle.
Everyone else in my family thinks I’m overreacting. But it’s so easy to think I’m crazy when they’re not the ones who have a pee seat. But I do.
So reddit, would I be the asshole?

Hello fellow Redditors looking for a partner in crime! I'm a 30 year old with a stable career in finance. I am ready to start dating as I'd like to find someone to share my life with, so thought I'd give this a try !
I can be funny, witty, smart, charming and chivalrous. Am not athletic or a regular gym person but I am slim and fit.
I am told that am a can inspire,motivate and empower people. I can hold the most serious conversation and discuss the universe with you or I can clown around if that makes you happy to keep the mood light.
For fun I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, traveling, putting together puzzles, listening to music, upgrading or repairing my electronic devices, reading, going to the movies or just watching Netflix! I am a big 'ol fan of spreadsheets so let me know if we can geek out together over the best way to analyze data with them!
DEAL BREAKERS
I'm a nerd that loves efficiencies so let me hit you with the dealbreakers I need first so we don't waste our time: - You are Strictly over 25 (that’s the lowest I’ll consider although my preferred range is 28-38) - single - willing to endure long distance communications (text and / or voice or video) while I work on relocating closer to you - I am a work in progress figuring out life and don't have it all together just yet, so I don't mind you being a work in progress
All of these are not to knock anyone in a different situation, but just to find someone that has a good chance of making it past an introduction .
Things I am also looking for: a woman that's kind, smart, takes initiative, wants a healthy relationship, takes care of herself, has the time to build a relationship, and seeks an equal partner in life's adventures.
Plus points for intellect. Things like: * How you think; * How you respond - (basic Grammar and spelling); * What are your views on things around us; * How you carry out a conversation; * How you type your messages; * If you notice the details; * The idea is I get to know you better.
If you've made it this far, thank you for spending your time and effort! If you think we might be a good fit please reach out and , and I'll reply (as soon as possible) ! I look forward to receiving your thoughtful and inquisitive responses.
If any of the above appeals to you or you wish to make enquiries , please send me a Reddit Chat (Preferred) or Direct Message
Thank you once again for taking the time to read this.
Here's a sample introduction: "Hello there, I am Katherine, 30 years old, from Melbourne, Australia. I found your post interesting and hope to get to know you better."
Yours truly Neel

all names used are fakeI (20f) have been dating Nick (25m) for nearly a year and a half now. Our relationship had an interesting start after our first night meeting having been in a threesome with him and another girl. We ended up getting close however I was hesitant to date at first and kept the relationship casual for a few months before officially dating because of this we didn’t make any big announcement and not many people know we are together. We have very similar personalities and find that I can be myself around him. A few months into dating I moved into his house with 3 other housemates who have become my closest friends. Nick is a good boyfriend but isn’t very romantic- he’s the type that gives off tough guy energy but is actually a marshmallow on the inside. In the past few months I’ve felt like a lack of effort from him in the way of making dates, asking to do things ect. Even at the start he didn’t do much of this but it was something.
Now I will back track a little to talk about Blake (20m). I met Blake in December of 2022. He was a new employee at the company I work for(office style work) however we worked in a different offices - same small city. We didn’t have our first real conversation until February of 23 at a work event where we completely clicked. He gives off big golden retriever energy. I have majority male friends and it was nice to have another friend I could talk to. At this point it was purely just friends but I did find him somewhat attractive and found myself to starting emotional attach. We would hang out every now and then and would help pick me up when I was stressed or down but it never went past friendship, that is until 3 weeks ago.
3 weeks ago we had a social work event which involved day drinking which we know never goes well. Im not a big drinker so I was fine most of the day just enjoying being social and everyone being dressed up nicely. Blake over the past 6 months had started going to gym and lost a bit of weight so seeing him in a nice suit really caught my attention. Throughout the day it was a running joke that Blake liked a girl at the event (not within our work group) and was using a code name for her but was nervous to be rejected. I spent a good amount of the day with him walking around trying to find this other girl and egging him on to talk to her. He said he wanted me to come because I would make her jealous. I told him straight up that doesn’t work on girls and she is just going to get upset. He kinda shrugged it off and we went back to talking about something else. Later in the afternoon we got back on topic of the girl. Now I won’t lie, I knew what I was doing when I asked these questions. I asked why did you think I’d make her jealous and he turned to me and said I mean look at you anyone would be lucky to have you. At that point I didn’t really know what to say and sort of played it off and went back to the group.
His words kept ringing in my ears and once I had gotten home I messaged asking what everything was about and he completely opened up and told me he’s liked me since February but didn’t want to say anything because of work and the girl at the event was actually me. I told him that I felt the same and he asked if he could take me on a date. The next day we went to lunch. I kid you not this man came to my house to pick me up, opened all of my doors, paid for lunch(even tho I offered to spilt it), took me to the beach and told me everything about the way he feels about me and how he wants to get this right. My heart was half melting on the floor and half burning from guilt. We agreed to keep things private for the time being and discussed the people we may tell (two of my close work friends and one of his). When we told them they said they all saw it coming and were happy for us but just to be careful. I have never dated a colleague before so I made sure to check our contracts and there is nothing to say we can’t be together.
Now this is where I am stuck. In the three weeks leading up to today Blake and I were spending lot of time together - going to lunch’s, gym, movie nights at his place ect but I want to make it clear that nothing sexual has happened between the two of us just kissing. Yesterday Blake took me to the beach and he told me he didn’t care what other people think and that I am his dream girl and he’s not going to let work get in the way and let me be the one that got away. I have never had someone that is so open and honest about the way he feels, on top of princess treatment. I have always felt like more of a sexual object to men and that is how my previous partners appreciated me. I asked him how am I your dream girl and he explained that I was kind and considerate and made him feel like he could be himself and admired my determination (I am new to my work industry and have been pushing really hard to prove my worth which has definitely paid off). I explained that it threw me off a little as most guys comment on my looks first. He said it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate those things as well but it’s about you as a person. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. He asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. I was filled with a mix of emotions. Excitement, disappointment, fear. We joked about how we would tell our boss when it feel like the right time and he took me home.
Now I lie in bed next to Nick not knowing what to do. I care so much about Nick and he does look after me but I don’t feel like a partner to him. I know it’s not always greener on the other side but I have never had someone like Blake and the way he treats me. Maybe my standards are low idk but I can’t keep doing this to both of them. If I leave Nick I would need to find a home and potentially loose my friends but I don’t know if Blake is worth giving all of that up for.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do and how to go about it? I know I got myself into this mess and I have no one else to blame but I just don’t know what to do.

I'm setting up a small simple kernel module learn about hrtimer with an aim of doing some telemetry sampling with my raspberry pi. For now I'm trying to set up a simple one-shot 2-second timer and look for a printk log.
The code looks as follows:

#include  static ktime_t interval; static struct hrtimer ads1015_timer; enum hrtimer_restart timer_event(struct hrtimer *t) { printk("in timer_event()\n"); //long skips = hrtimer_forward_now(t, interval); //if (skips > 0) { // printk("skipped %ld intervals.", skips); //} return HRTIMER_NORESTART; } void ads1015_sampler_init(void) { printk("in ads1015_sampler_init()\n"); ads1015_timer.function = &timer_event; hrtimer_init(&ads1015_timer, CLOCK_MONOTONIC, HRTIMER_MODE_REL); interval = ktime_set(2, 0); printk("interval = %lld\n", interval); hrtimer_start(&ads1015_timer, interval, HRTIMER_MODE_REL); } 

If I comment out the call to hrtimer_start(), I can insert the kernel module and I see the print statements as expected. But as soon as I uncomment the hrtimer_start() call, the last printk I see in the logs is the "interval = %lld\n" message and then the system hangs and I have no choice but to power cycle it.
Any pointers for troubleshooting this?

28m. There’s a really cute girl that works for the same company as me but under a different branch and management. As a result I never see her and we won’t ever work together but we’ve run into each other in passing once or twice at the office. She’s came up to make small talk with me on those occasions.
Last night my company did a small outing at bar and invited employees out for drinks. This girl happened to be there and approached me while I was alone at the bar ordering a drink. We got to talking and agreed to hang out sometime.
The night goes on, everyone is drinking and having fun, she and I are talking more, and eventually everyone gets the idea to go to a local karaoke bar.
Once we’re there, everyone is having a really good time together. She and I keep talking more and more and eventually we’re flirting really heavy, one thing leads to another and we start kissing eachother.
We’re really drawn to eachother and vibing really hard. Shes telling me how cute she always thought I was when she first saw me and had a low key crush and stuff and at one point in time I’m holding her pretty close after kissing her and she goes “So I need to make this transparent. I don’t really want a FWB or a situationship or anything like that.” And I ask if she wants a boyfriend and she says she does. And I tell her I like her and we should just spend time together and see what happens and she kisses me again.
At some point during the night I put my number in her phone while we were chatting with others. I was going to take hers but my phone was dead so I couldn’t.
Night goes on and eventually we leave together and we go back to my place. We slept together a couple times and she spent the night. Had sex again that morning and she had to leave to get to work and she pulled me into kiss me before she left.
After she left I remembered that I don’t have her phone number and I hardly remembered giving her mine and I doubt she remembers either.
I like her and think she’s really fun. However I don’t have her number and I rarely ever see her at work. Part of me wants to reach out and send her a private message on our company app and just say “Hey I can’t remember if I gave you my number or not, ####” but I don’t know if this is weird or too pushy. Ideally I’d like to wait and see if she reaches out but she might not even remember me giving her my number. I also like the idea of taking initiative.
Should I message her on the app and give her my number? Or should I just let it be and see if she reaches out or if I run into her by chance? I asked my friend and his wife about this and they suggested reaching out, and said she seems interested and might feel like a booty call if I don’t try and get ahold of her or take any initiative.
I don’t know what to do.

import libraries

import time
from Room import Color
from Room import Grabbable
from Room import Floor
from Room import Room
import sys
from GameFunctions import Go,Look,Take,Open,LastConvo,Player,Other,Mystery,Divine,Color,Clue,Death,Consequences
from tkinter import *
from functools import partial

constants

don't delete this!

VERBS = [ "go", "look", "take", "open" ] # the supported vocabulary verbs
QUIT_COMMANDS = [ "exit", "quit", "bye" ] # the supported quit commands

creates the rooms

creates the floors

def CreateFloors():

floors = []

main_Floor = Floor("Main Floor")

floors.append(main_Floor)

underground = Floor("Underground")

floors.append(underground)

currentFloor = main_Floor

return floors, currentFloor

creates and prints titlescreen

def TitleScreen():

i = open("title.txt", "r")

image = []

lines = []

line1 = ""

for line in i:

image.append(line.rstrip())

x = 0

#colors the title screen

for line in image:

lined = ""

for char in line:

#red arc

if char == " ":

colored = Color.REDB+" "+Color.END

lined = lined + colored

#black background

elif char == "'":

colored = Color.BLACKGROUND+char+Color.END

lined = lined +colored

#white background for text

elif char == '▄' or '▄' or '█' or '▀'or'█':

colored = Color.WHITE+Color.BLACKGROUND+char+Color.END

lined = lined + colored

lines.append(lined)

print(lines[x])

x += 1

return image

MAIN

START THE GAME!!!

class Game(Frame):
def __init__(self, master):
Frame.__init__(self,master)

self.button1.pack(side = RIGHT)

self.button2.pack(side=RIGHT)

self.L1.pack(side=LEFT)

self.I1.pack(side=RIGHT)

self.I1.grid(row = 0, rowspan=3, column=0)

def CreateFloors(self):
floors = []
main_Floor = Floor("Main Floor")
floors.append(main_Floor)
underground = Floor("Underground")
floors.append(underground)
currentFloor = main_Floor
return floors, currentFloor
def createRooms(self,floors):

a list of rooms will store all of the rooms

living_room through bedroom are the four rooms in the "mansion"

currentRoom is the room the player is currently in (which can be one of living_room through bedroom)

Game.rooms = []
main_Floor = floors[0]
underground = floors[1]

first, create the room instances so that they can be referenced below

living_room = Room("Living Room")
kitchen = Room("Kitchen")
pantry = Room("pantry")
bedroom = Room("Bedroom")
library = Room("Library")
hallway = Room("Hallway")
cellA = Room("Cell A")
cellB = Room("Cell B")

grabbables

bedroom_key = Grabbable("bedroom_key",living_room)
ceremonial_knife = Grabbable("ceremonial_knife",bedroom)
mapp = Grabbable("map",library)
badge = Grabbable("badge",living_room)

colored grabbables

ckey = bedroom_key.addColor()
cknife = ceremonial_knife.addColor()
cmap = mapp.addColor()
cbadge = badge.addColor()

Living Room

living_room.description = ("A cozy room, warmer than anywhere else in the house.")
living_room.floor = Floor(main_Floor)
living_room.addExit("east", kitchen)
living_room.addExit("south", bedroom)
living_room.addExit("west", library)
living_room.addGrabbable(badge.name)
living_room.addItem("chair", ("It is made of wicker. No one is sitting on it."))
living_room.addItem("fireplace", "'Crackling and smoking, must be why it's so much warmer in here'")
living_room.addItem("table", ("It is made of oak. Your badge rests on it."))
Game.rooms.append(living_room)

Kitchen

kitchen.description = ("Oddly clean, but a slightly off smell puts you in unease.")
kitchen.floor = Floor(main_Floor)
kitchen.addExit("west", living_room)
kitchen.addExit("north", pantry)
kitchen.addGrabbable(bedroom_key.name)
kitchen.addItem("countertop", "'Huh, granite and on top of it there's a key'")
kitchen.addItem("fridge", "'Gotta be a better time for snacks.'")
kitchen.addItem("pot", "'whoever is still doing the dishes needs a raise'")
Game.rooms.append(kitchen)

bedroom reactions

bmw1 = "'this much blood makes me nauseous, I gotta get out of here and call for backup'"
bmw2 = ("A message scrawled across the wall in blood: Too late.")
bmw3 = "'I couldn't just leave'"

Bedroom

bedroom.description = ("The walls and furniture layered with blood, someone was killed brutally in this room. Despite that it looks faintly familiar")
bedroom.floor = Floor(main_Floor)
bedroom.addExit("north", living_room)
bedroom.addGrabbable(ceremonial_knife.name)
bedroom.addItem("bed",("Covered in circles of blood with a "+cknife+" in the center."))
bedroom.addItem("walls",bmw1+"\n"+bmw2+"\n"+bmw3+"\n")
Game.rooms.append(bedroom)

Library

playerReactL = "'Never expected to see a library at all in a place like this, much less one this big.'"
library.description = ("A large library filled to the brim with books and a large office area sectioned off\n")+playerReactL
library.floor = Floor(main_Floor)
library.addExit("east", living_room)
library.addGrabbable(mapp.name)
library.addItem("chair", "'Real comfy, I'd take this after the investigation if it wasn't so creepy in here.'")
library.addItem("desk", "'looks official, and theres a map, whoever works here must have built the place.'")
library.addItem("bookshelf", "'Massive collection, but somethings off about this.'")
Game.rooms.append(library)

hallway

hallway.floor = Floor(underground)
hallway.description = ("A cold and empty stone hallway, covered in mold and stains. A faint sobbing echoes through")
hallway.addExit("north", cellB)
hallway.addExit("south", cellA)
hallway.addExit("up", library)
Game.rooms.append(hallway)

CellA

cellA.floor = Floor(underground)
playerreactC = ("A... are these cells?")
cellA.description = playerreactC+("\nA small filthy room with rusting bars")
cellA.addExit("north", hallway)
cellA.addItem("chains", "they look old, but they steel is still strong")
Game.rooms.append(cellA)

CellB

cellB.floor = Floor(underground)
Game.rooms.append(cellB)

changes Floors

Floor(main_Floor).addExit("down", hallway)
Floor(underground).addExit("up", library)

adds rooms to Floors

Floor(main_Floor).addRoom(living_room)
Floor(main_Floor).addRoom(kitchen)
Floor(main_Floor).addRoom(bedroom)
Floor(main_Floor).addRoom(pantry)
Floor(main_Floor).addRoom(library)
Floor(underground).addRoom(hallway)
Floor(underground).addRoom(cellA)
Floor(underground).addRoom(cellB)

adds maps to rooms

living_room.maps = ("Map1.txt")
kitchen.maps = ("Map2.txt")
pantry.maps = ("Map3.txt")
bedroom.maps = ("Map4.txt")
library.maps = ("Map5.txt")
hallway.maps = ("Bmap1.txt")
cellA.maps = ("Bmap3.txt")
cellB.maps = ("Bmap2.txt")
living_room.image = ("Pictures/Living_Room.gif")
kitchen.image = ("Pictures/Kitchen.gif")
pantry.image = ("Map3.txt")
bedroom.image = ("Pictures/Bedroom.gif")
library.image = ("Pictures/Library.gif")
hallway.image = ("Pictures/Hallway.gif")
cellA.image = ("Pictures/CellA.gif")
cellB.image = ("Pictures/CellB.gif")

set room 1 as the current room at the beginning of the game

Game.currentRoom = living_room

currentRoom = bedroom

Game.inventory = []
return Game.rooms, Game.currentRoom
def setupGUI(self):

organize the GUI

self.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)

setup the player input at the bottom of the GUI

the widget is a Tkinter Entry

set its background to white

bind the return key to the function process() in the class

bind the tab key to the function complete() in the class

push it to the bottom of the GUI and let it fill horizontally

give it focus so the player doesn't have to click on it

Game.player_input = Entry(self, bg="white")
Game.player_input.bind("", self.process)

Game.player_input.bind("", self.complete)

Game.player_input.pack(side=BOTTOM, fill=X)
Game.player_input.focus()

setup the image to the left of the GUI

the widget is a Tkinter Label

don't let the image control the widget's size

img = None
Game.image = Label(self, width=WIDTH // 2, image=img)
Game.image.image = img
Game.image.pack(side=LEFT, fill=Y)
Game.image.pack_propagate(False)

setup the text to the right of the GUI

first, the frame in which the text will be placed

text_frame = Frame(self, width=WIDTH // 2, height=HEIGHT // 2)

the widget is a Tkinter Text

disable it by default

don't let the widget control the frame's size

Game.text = Text(text_frame, bg="lightgray", state=DISABLED)
Game.text.pack(fill=Y, expand=1)
text_frame.pack(side=TOP, fill=Y)
text_frame.pack_propagate(False)

Creating a canvas for the bottom half to easily navigate between rooms

Add north and south arrows as well in the code.

Feel free to use your own directional images.

North and South arrows are also provided to you as well.

Adding an arrow pointing to the east.

canvas = Frame(self, width=WIDTH // 2, height=HEIGHT // 2)
Game.eastimage = PhotoImage(file="Pictures/east.png")
Game.east = Button(canvas, image=Game.eastimage, command=partial(self.runCommand, "go east"))
Game.east.pack(side=RIGHT)

Adding an arrow pointing to the west.

Game.westimage = PhotoImage(file="pictures/west.png")
Game.west = Button(canvas, image=Game.westimage, command=partial(self.runCommand, "go west"))
Game.west.pack(side=LEFT)
canvas.pack(side=TOP, fill=Y)
canvas.pack_propagate(False)
def setRoomImage(self):
if (Game.currentRoom == None):

if dead, set the skull image

Game.img = PhotoImage(file="Pictures/Cabin.gif")
else:

otherwise grab the image for the current room

print(Game.currentRoom.image)
Game.img = PhotoImage(file=Game.currentRoom.image)

display the image on the left of the GUI

Game.image.config(image=Game.img)
Game.image.image = Game.img
def setStatus(self, status):

enable the text widget, clear it, set it, and disable it

Game.text.config(state=NORMAL)
Game.text.delete("1.0", END)
if (Game.currentRoom == None):

if dead, let the player know

Game.text.insert(END, "You are dead. The only thing you can do now\nis quit.\n")
else:

otherwise, display the appropriate status

Game.text.insert(END, "{}\n\n{}\n{}\nYou are carrying: {}\n\n".format(status, Game.currentRoom.name,Game.currentRoom.description, Game.inventory))
Game.text.config(state=DISABLED)

support for tab completion

add the words to support

if (Game.currentRoom != None):
Game.words = VERBS + QUIT_COMMANDS + Game.inventory + Game.currentRoom.exits + Game.currentRoom.items + Game.currentRoom.grabbables
def process(self, event, action=""):
self.runCommand()
Game.player_input.delete(0, END)
def gameStart(self,canvas,action=""):
time.sleep(.5)
Game.canvas.destroy()
g.play()
def runCommand(self,action=""):

# an introduction

clue = False
currentRoom = Game.currentRoom
inventory = Game.inventory

# Game.images = []

# Game.lines = []

time.sleep(3)

print("=" * 80)

print(Color.BOLD+"you wake up on a strange couch"+Color.END)

clue = False

lib = Game.rooms[3]

# play forever (well, at least until the player dies or asks to quit)

while (True):

print(rooms(library.name))

set the status so the player has situational awareness

the status has room and inventory information

status = "{}\nYou are carrying: {}\n".format(currentRoom, inventory)

if the current room is None, then the player is dead

this only happens if the player goes south when in room 4

exit the game

if (Game.currentRoom == None):

death() # you'll add this later

return

display the status

print("=" * 80)
print(status)

prompt for player input

the game supports a simple language of

valid verbs are go, look, and take

valid nouns depend on the verb

set the user's input to lowercase to make it easier to compare the verb and noun to known values

action = action.lower().strip()

exit the game if the player wants to leave

if (action == "quit"):
print(Color.BOLD+"\nThank you for playing"+Color.END)
sys.exit(0)

set a default response

response = "I don't understand. Try verb noun. Valid verbs are {}.".format(", ".join(VERBS))

split the user input into words (words are separated by spaces) and store the words in a list

words = action.split()

the game only understands two word inputs

if (len(words) == 2):

isolate the verb and noun

verb = words[0].strip()
noun = words[1].strip()

we need a valid verb

if (verb in VERBS):
if (verb == "go"):
response, currentRoom = Go(noun,currentRoom,inventory)
Game.currentRoom = currentRoom
elif (verb == "look"):
response = Look(noun,currentRoom,inventory,lib,rooms)
elif (verb == "take"):
response, inventory, clue = Take(noun,currentRoom,inventory,clue)
elif (verb == "open"):
response = Open(noun,inventory,currentRoom)

if knife is picked up, changes bookshelf description, and reads clue

if clue is True:
i = lib.items.index("bookshelf")
lib.itemDescriptions[i] = ("the shelf begins shifting")
response = response + ("\nOn the back of the knife a hint gleams\n")+ Other("'I cannot be avoided, I cannot be classified, Be Not Afraid'")
clue = False
if currentRoom.name == "Cell B":
LastConvo(inventory)
print("hi")
self.setStatus(response)
print("hi")
self.setRoomImage()
print("hi")
def startimg(self):
self.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=True)
Game.canvas = Frame(self, width=WIDTH , height=HEIGHT)
Game.titlepic = PhotoImage(file='Pictures/Cabin.gif')
Game.titlebutton = Button(Game.canvas, image=Game.titlepic, command=partial(self.gameStart, "start"))
Game.titlebutton.pack(fill=BOTH)
Game.canvas.pack(side=TOP, fill=BOTH)
Game.canvas.pack_propagate(False)

self.I1 = Label(master, image=self.img)

self.I1.grid(row = 0, rowspan=3, column=0)

image = canvas.create_image(50, 50, anchor=NE, image=Game.title)

def play(self):
Game.start = False

create the room instances

floors = self.CreateFloors()
self.createRooms(floors)

configure the GUI

self.setupGUI()

set the current room

self.setRoomImage()

set the initial status

self.setStatus("")
def process(self, event, action=""):
self.runCommand()
Game.player_input.delete(0, END)

class fullScreenImg(Frame):

def __init__(self, master):

Frame.__init__(self,master)

self.img = PhotoImage(file='Pictures/Cabin.gif')

self.I1 = Label(master, image=self.img)

#self.button1.pack(side = RIGHT)

#self.button2.pack(side=RIGHT)

#self.L1.pack(side=LEFT)

#self.I1.pack(side=RIGHT)

self.I1.grid(row = 0, rowspan=3, column=0)

WIDTH = 1000
HEIGHT = 700
window = Tk()
window.title ="Room Adventure"

while title == True:

fsi = fullScreenImg(window)

time.sleep(3)

title = False

g = Game(window)

play the game

g.startimg()
window.mainloop()

wait for the window to close

PLEASEEE be over your ex before messaging me.
PLEASE be 28 or older. Do not send pointless messages saying "Good luck" or "I wish I were single". Do not message me if you're married. I am not poly. I am not looking for friends with benefits.
Facts about moi:
* I work with smol humans for a living.
* You don't have to WANT kids of your own. But, if you don't like kids...you're not for me.
* One of my favorite past-time activities is trying to put together legos high.
* Listening to music high is also an experience (I do Delta since that’s what’s legal. If you’re anti-weed, then we aren’t a match. I don’t do it allll the time. I’m too broke for that life).
* Seriously, doesn't music sound different when you're high?
* Green Day was one of my favorite bands. I’ve been listening to them since I was 10!
* The obsession was real. My ten-year-old self had a binder about the members with all the facts and pictures of Billie (Yes, I was a weird child). I don´t listen to them much anymore. That was practice for my obsession with Panic! at the Disco. I only like one album, though.
* Now my obsession is more towards bands like AVOID, Dayseeker, The Used, etc. I'll listen to the same songs over and over until I can't stand it. I even have a Playlist for that. I recently found a band called Dark Devine, and I dig them.
* I love going to concerts. So, it'd be cool if you liked them too.
* I love love love traveling.
* Please don’t be a giant grouch on vacations. Coworkers complain about their spouse being a shitbird on trips. No thanks.
* I also like staying in, of course! But I’m not a homebody. I struggled during the COVID shutdown. Being cooped up SUCKED. I do not want to beg you to get out of the house. Again, I am NOT a homebody. If you are, we are not a match.
* I have a spicy brain.
* I’m super duper ADHD. Fun times! I’m also like an anxious puppy. Woop woop.
* The most organized thing in my life is this list
* The Office and Parks and Rec are two of my favorite shows. I also like Bob’s Burgers and Avatar The Last Airbender.
* I don't watch a whole lot of TV, honestly...my ADHD brain enjoys the short videos on Tiktok.
* I talk to myself out loud in public.
* I promise I'm only a little crazy...depends on who you ask.
* I like things like tarot (NO I cannot do a card reading for you. I don't know how, I just think it's cool!My friend does readings for me) and other spiritual stuff. If you're into that too, cool!
* I like men with facial hair. I also like men who are more alt-y (think piercings and tattoos...singer of Dark Divine)....but that isn't a requirement! It's just bonus points.
Why you should date me:
* We can listen to emo bands together whenever you want
* Emo music can mean many things and I’m OK with that.
* You won’t get food poisoning from my cooking
* I can make more than Hamburger Helper and frozen pizzas. Though, the ranch burger hamburger helper is my fave.
* The velveeta skillets are better, though.
* I’m suuuper short. So, if you’re insecure about your height, I gotchu. I’ll make you feel tall..or taller!
* I don’t care about height and it makes me sad that people feel insecure about something they can’t change.
* I’m a great small spoon…but I guess if you REALLY insist, I can be a jetpack. Buuuuutttt it isn't my first choice...but please don't cuddle all night. I want my space and I need to sprawl out and become a blanket burrito...with one leg out because otherwise, I'll get too hot! We just can't have that.

Left a message with cardiologist office for an appointment, but I wanted to jump on here to get some opinions. I apologize ahead of time if my information is all over the place.
44 f overweight, well controlled diabetes, low dose statin for high cholesterol, and on meds for high blood pressure.
A couple weeks ago I was gardening and while pulling a hose I noticed a soreness in my left breast and left arm. I stopped and it immediately went away. I thought maybe it was my position with the hose, but I started to worry. 3 days ago I was climbing a ramp at a football game and had the same dull sore feeling in my left breast and left arm. Stopped as soon as we got to our floor. The feeling was like I had worked out and was mildly sore.
With all these years of high bp, high cholesterol (I just got on statin 3 months ago because we were unsure if we were going to try for another kid), and well controlled diabetes, I guess I was not surprised this is happening right now. I have no immediately family history of heart disease, however I did have an aunt that passed away from a heart attack while she was in her late 50s.
Has anyone had a similar experience? I’ve been down the rabbit hole reading about possible stable angina, blockages, this and that. I did perform a stress test 10+ years ago and I had gotten the ok.
I regular climb the stairs in our house and can walk all day at amusement parks without any problems.

Hey everyone, today I moved out of my first apartment into a single family home (still renting)! This is my first time moving out of my own place (previously lived with my mother, so moving out was easy) and I am looking for advice on my situation. This is not an independent LL.
Yesterday (May 31st), I was text messaged by the Leasing Office;
"Good Afternoon, office will be opened tomorrow for key drop off, just keep us updated once unit is vacant"
Simple, straight to the point. I did not respond to the text message. The leasing office hours on Saturdays are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. I wasn't worried about the time frame because I had actually already moved out on May 1st, I just didn't surrender the unit early because I would have owed that last months rent anyway, because less than 60 days notice with this company would have meant I still owed. So since I had the entire 30 days, I slowly moved out over the course of the month, little by little, till that last day.
Now June 1st is here, I took out my last couple of items. I was done by noon. I stopped by the leasing office to return the keys, and noticed that it was closed....lights off, door locked.
I didn't think anything of it and just assumed whoever was there was on lunch? So I told myself I'd just come back. I came back at exactly 1:40 p.m. Still closed. At this point (having since lived there 2 years) I KNEW that whoever was due to work must've called out. I've had problems with these leasing office people before, so badly to the point of reporting the assistant manager to corporate, and ultimately I do feel like leaving the office closed today was deliberate but that is (unfortunately) besides the point.
I called the number that texted me the message yesterday, it dials the leasing office, and an automated message (of course) says no is available and to leave a voice message at the tone. In this voice message I stated the time, my name, my (ex) unit number, the situation, then said anybody can get back to me if they get this message while I'm not around and I'll happily come back with the keys.
After leaving the voice message, I also emailed the off-site Property Manager (she manages multiple properties so she's not around this one unless she's inspecting units), all I did was email her even thing in my voicemail - the situation, the time, my old unit number, my name, and contact info.
I decided I would come back before closing JUST IN CASE.
I did come back, 2:45 p.m. on the dot. No one there. I left another voicemail, this one saying I wasn't waiting anymore, and I was leaving. I can return the keys anytime in the next few days BUT if during the week it would be after I leave work. I also emailed the property manager again with the same information and that unfortunately I could not wait for someone to show, but if any of the on-site maintenance people are willing to take the keys then I can return it to them (because the office is closed Sundays which would be June 2nd, and I am personally very cool with one of the maintenance guys).
Due to these circumstances not being my fault, what legal upper hands do I have here? I know I made good moves already with the voice and emails, I have done enough lurking in this subreddit to know how to cover my bases (lol). But what I'm basically asking is - what am I protected against that the leasing company might try?
If they tried to charge me fees or extra rent for the late return, I have enough evidence to fight that easily correct? If I had to fight anything, would it be smalls claims or can I use my Renters Insurance? I know I should just call my Agent about the situation but it's the weekend so I can't get to him until Monday :/
Thanks to anyone who answers, this is a learning experience for me, and I appreciate any intel available.