How to talk dirty to a woman on txt

That’s all it was. A game.
Something my friends and I used to play during the summer when we had nothing better to do. I never expected that it would get so out of hand.
I never expected it to come back long after recovery.
To anyone reading, please don’t do what I did.
I’m putting this out there to warn people.
On that warm summer evening, we played the role of Pandora.
Except, the monsters we released were far worse than what’s told in stories.
Because stories end.
And this doesn’t.
I still remember the date. July 16, 2013. I was an upcoming senior in high school while the others were getting prepared for their freshman year of college, raving on about their majors, life plans, dorms, you get the point. The summer had been bittersweet as those months would be the last I’d see them for a while. Because of this, Anthony, Lola, Eliza, and I would spend the bulk of our time together going to festivals and various camping trips, trying to make the most out of the summer while we could. On that day, the day I wish I could forget, Eliza had run late to one of our hangouts at my place. This was odd since as an Ivy league student, she was usually early or right on time to these kind of things. Half past three, we heard her knocking on my door rapidly, which was also out of character considering that she was usually the calm one in our group. A bit worried, I hurried down the stairs with Anthony and Lola following close behind, expecting Eliza to be in hysterics due to her frantic behavior. When I opened the door, however, there she was with a bright smile on her face, her red hair getting in the way of her eyes, which were a dark green shade. She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held a brown box in the other, and she was bouncing up and down as she usually does when she’s about to talk about something exciting.
“You’ll never believe what I found.” Eliza’s voice could barely hold her impatience as she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off once she crossed over my threshold.
“What’s up with you today?” Anthony questioned, looking more confused than concerned now.
“I’ll show you guys in a minute. Can we go up to your room, Felix?” Eliza looked over at me with her trademark smile, knowing damn well we were all too curious to just leave that box unopened. Without a word, I led the group up to my room and shut the door after everyone had walked in. Anthony took his usual spot on my beanbag and unzipped his hoodie, which had the MSM logo sprawled across the front in big red letters. He adjusted his dark rimmed glasses and took on his usual stoic expression. Lola wore a dark blue FIT shirt, which she revealed more of when she moved her locs over her shoulder as she sat on my desk chair and wheeled over to us. As she did, the various necklaces she wore clinked against each other. Eliza herself was the smartest out of the group, and probably in the whole school as well. She had gotten accepted into multiple prestigious schools, but ultimately settled for Harvard to pursue a degree in some obscure philanthropic career. Unlike Anthony and Lola, Eliza wore her regular outfit –usually a white tank top and jeans– and sat on my bed with the box in her lap. I took a seat next to her to get a closer look.
“So what’d you find?” The others moved closer.
“Something we probably haven’t thought about for a really long time. Do you guys remember that one game we used to play in middle school? The one we made after Felix joined our class?” Eliza looked at our puzzled faces to see if we had connected the dots, but her clue didn’t seem to strike any of us with familiarity.
“After Felix joined? Didn’t we just hang out or something that weekend?” Anthony questioned.
“We did, but there was something else,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “you guys seriously don’t remember?”
At that moment, I saw Lola’s eyes light up and a thin smile grew on her lips, something she always did whenever she was able to figure something out.
“You mean that little map game we played? Where we would go out to the woods and explore?”
Both Anthony and I seemed to have remembered as well with the mention of a ‘map game.’ I chimed in, “ yeah I remember! Every once in a while when we were all bored, we’d pick a random spot on a map to go to and explore there for a bit, right? When did we stop doing that anyways? I remember really enjoying it.”
“Well life happens,” Eliza responded to me, “but I was thinking of things to do for the rest of the summer when I suddenly remembered that game! That’s why I was so late for our meetup today, I was looking through my attic for this.” Eliza shook the box slightly and a couple things clattered around inside.
“There’s no way.” Anthony sounded like he was in disbelief.
“You mean…?” Lola sat forward in the chair. Eliza smirked, her adventurous nature creeping out as realization swept over us like a wave.
“Mhm! I found the map we used to use as well as the things we collected from our little escapades.” With that, Eliza opened the box, revealing a folded piece of paper and various trinkets scattered over the bottom of the capsule. Lola squealed with excitement and immediately snatched the box from Eliza, who simply chuckled and leaned back on the bed.
“No way! Everything’s still in here!” Lola digged through the box and placed whatever objects she found across the blanket. Anthony got up and sat at the foot of my bed, to observe our findings more closely. There was a piece of some clay pottery, some rusty springs and scraps of metal, an old digital camera, and some other random stuff I can’t recall to memory right now. Anthony picked up a spring and turned it in his palm.
“Shit man, this is from that abandoned junkyard we found in 8th grade…that feels like such a long time ago now.”
I examined the piece of pottery with Eliza looking over my shoulder. Lola picked up the digital camera.
“Do you remember where this came from?” I turned to Eliza and held up my discovery.
“No clue,” she shrugged. It must have been a while ago if even she didn’t remember. I turned the piece over and grew curious when I saw weird symbols inscribed on the inside of it. I squinted a bit, trying to discern some sort of pattern within the scribbles.
I turned to Eliza again, “hey, what do you think-”
“OH MY GOD GUYS IT STILL WORKS!” Lola’s voice went up a whole octave as she motioned to us.
The rest of us looked up as she turned the camera to face us. There were various photos we went through. All of us at lakes, museums, exploring the woods; everything we did from 7th grade until my freshman year seemed to be documented. The last photo was arguable the best and msot bittersweet. It was a picture of the whole group from a while ago. We were sitting at Eliza’s dinner table with a giant chocolate cake on the middle of it adorned with two candles shaped like the numbers one and five. Eliza was talking to me in the photo. Her hair was even more red at the time and she wore it in a braid. I looked about the same in the photo as I did then, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over my body and face. I was smiling sheepishly at Eliza. I now knew why Anthony said it was obvious I had a crush on her in 8th grade. Lola went through the most changes out of all of us. At the time in the photo, she had her hair straightened and side-swept, with a bright pink streak in her bangs. She wore clunky jewlery and a frilly skirt underneath a long tank top, leaning over the table to cut another slice of cake. All of us had birthday hats on except for Anthony, who kept his sitting on the table. He held up a peace sign staring straight into the camera with a stoic expression. He looked like a statue compared to the rest of us, who were laughing and smiling. You could tell he was having fun, though.
“Well don’t you look like a ray of sunshine,” Lola snickered as Anthony shot her a dirty look.
“At least I didn’t go through some weird scene phase in freshman year,” He smiled and watched Lola’s face, knowing she was blushing despite her dark skin which made it practically invisible. I let a laugh slip out, but quickly stifled it knowing that if I kept going it would mean death. Lola side-eyed me and continued, “I was using my creative liberty to experiment with my options as an artist,” she said with an overly-posh accent that made Eliza laugh.
“Yeah Anthony, don’t be such a downer,” Eliza teased. Anthony simply rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile to pretend like he was mad at all of us. He looked into the box and picked up the paper we left, unfolding it with a hint of excitement and curiosity. When he looked at it, only two words came out of his mouth.
“Holy shit.”
“What, what is it?” Lola tried to look at the other side of the paper, but Anthony quickly held it out of her view.
“What if I didn’t want to show you?” A smile crept onto his face. This was one of those rare moments where he’d be in the moos to joke around with us.
“Don’t be a dick bro,” I said, laughing as I went to grab for the paper. Anthony just held it up in the air and pushed me off of him and I landed on my floor. While he was distracted, though, Eliza took her chance and snatched the paper right out of his hand.
“You boys need to learn to be nice,” she warned in her jokingly stern voice as she unfolded the paper and spread it out onto my bed. We all leaned over to look.
It was a map of a couple towns including ours. There were around ten small star stickers placed on different areas on the map near the streets the four of us lived in. On the top of the map, a couple words were scrawled in black sharpie; “Pick a Place!” I could see everyone’s faces light up.
“Oh my god it’s our map!” Lola shouted and pointed to one of the stars near her street, “this was where we found that old junkyard right?”
Eliza smiled, “I remember that. It feels like such a long time ago now.” She pointed to another star, “and this is where we found that lake we made a hideout of. I still remember swimming in there in 8th grade…”
The four of us reminisced for a while, talking about where we had gone and what we did there, and how impressive it was that we didn’t get tetanus from that junkyard. After nearly an hour of conversation, Eliza asked something that made all of us stop.
“So how about it guys? Do you want to do one last round before the summer ends?”
The rest of us looked around at each other. It was clear we all wanted to do it. Eliza seemed to catch on and she nodded.
“Who wants to pick where we go?”
“How about you do the honors?” Lola suggested, motioning towards the map. “You’re the one that brought this stuff in anyways.”
Eliza raised her eyebrow but didn’t object. Without a word, she examined the map for a few minutes, then placed her finger on one spot a bit far from my house.
“How about here?”
“You think we can make it that far?” Anthony asked.
“Well, we can drive now so why not?”
“You sure there’s some type of trail we can drive on? That spot looks pretty deep in the woods”
“We can find a path to drive on for a bit then walk the rest of the way. C’mon guys, this is probably our last chance to do something like this! Felix, you can drive right?”
Eliza and the rest turned to me with a hopeful expression. I had to comply.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
All three of them cheered and high fived each other, looking pretty excited to go on one last adventure.
“So when do we leave?” I questioned.
Eliza flashed that smile again, “right now.”
“Right now?!”
“Hell yeah,” Lola chimed in. “It shouldn’t take that long, right?”
“I guess…” Even then I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I didn’t feel prepared enough to go on some random trip into the woods. I needed to pack food, water, flashlights, I had no idea how long this was going to take. Little did I know that those things would be the least of my worries a couple hours from then. I wish I could go back and convince my 17-year-old self that it wasn’t worth it, that I should just convince my friends to stay and talk for the rest of the day. I wish Eliza had never remembered that stupid game. In a way, I’m almost mad at her for what happened, but I know it wasn’t anyones fault. We just wanted to have fun. I wish we could’ve just had fun. But God had a different plan for us. One that made me think Satan himself devised it instead. On July 16, 2013, Anthony He, Lola Smith, Eliza Landserson, and Felix Johanson went on an adventure that none of them were ready for.
Author's Note:
If you just read all of that then thank you so so so much for doing so! I'm a rookie writer, so feel free to comment any constructive criticism you might have if you have actual writing experience! This is the first silly little story I'm posting here, so I hope you enjoyed :)

TL;DR: PLEASE READ THE LN!!!
I've always had an obsession over manhwa and manga (especially OI), and I was especially intrigued because how polarizing people's opinions were on it. I love my fair share of angst and trauma porn and toxicity, and although I dig through all the webtoon and manga trash out there, even I have lines I don't cross/tolerate, and series I drop. Especially with abusive/toxic couples, shit story, lack of development, lack of realism, lack of respect, misogyny, repetitive tropes, etc. But I always give everything a try (even trashy sexist smuts or Chinese manhuas)
But please I IMPLORE you: give the light novel of [My Beloved Oppressor] a read. The manhwa is great and beautiful, but doesn't do the story as much justice with how many details and emotional nuances that are left out. It's so rushed too.
I just finished and I am clutching my pears, biting my fist, sobbing my eyes out, and screaming.
I came for toxic hot trash and irredeemable black haired MLs and timid FLs to rag on, but actually got pretty hooked and teary from these 20 manhwa chapters. I saw on this reddit a great free place to read quality translations at: https://www.patreon.com/collection/188783?view=expanded
I do not ever read LNs for even my top-tier SSS class manhwas, but I had an unusual pull into these characters' lives and story. And thus I began to spiral with these characters.
To avoid spoilers, I wasn't expecting the development of the story, and I truly felt like I was going through the same life-changing rollercoaster as the characters. Not just the FL and ML but the world, setting, side characters, etc. the story is well thought out, detailed, BEAUTIFULLY written and expressed, and I literally felt like I was being sucker punched at some parts I was almost nauseous and disoriented. I could clearly picture scenes with such an artistic vivid imagination and suffered to many emotions throughout the reading.
My tissues are soaked with hot tears, and yet at the end I feel so unbelievably hurt and yet whole from the entire LN. The side stories and ending seriously felt so complete, and I felt there weren't any loose ends besides maybe some parts of the MLs past and whatnot, but I never said this series was perfect. I am very satisfied after, although I feel so impacted.
But they felt like fleshed out characters that I can't bring myself to love or hate, and I just want them find peace and happiness. I love how the FLs draws her line and doesn't just come running back to the ML when he's all ghastly and begging forgiveness. And he honestly doesn't do too much annoying begging and obsessing. He does try his best to separate them and to just love her from the shadows and be respectful of her wishes, although he's horrified of the thought of her killing herself while out. Even if not perfectly or at first. He also doesn't just leave his duties to some poor assistant side character, or completely neglect his role as the commander. In fact, he drowns in it since he feels it's the best thing he can do for her (bring peace and end the war and make a better place for her to live). It's my pet peeve when MLs abandon their jobs/duties over their loss of the FL and the company/empire/whatever they're running suffers from his emotional outbursts and grief over her while he's got bags under his eyes and has sexy shot of him with alcohol and cigarettes lmao.
The MLs development is truly such a breath of fresh air. I can understand his fucked up mentality and obsession, his self-deprication, self-destructive nature, and inferiority, and so on. And the FL isn't some pushover smiley happy Mary Sue. She has her flaws and confronts them throughout the story, and she's not some completely innocent perfect victim either. She really grows so much and I love how she interacts with Heiner. She really recognizes how unhealthy his 'love' is until he fully recognizes his feelings and perspective.
They get dirty and scarred, fight and argue, have unbearably sweet moments that made me want to burst, and gut wrenching parts that made me have to set me phone down. The insight the LN gives to Annette and Heiner's thoughts and feelings is on a whole different level.
For the homies who already read all of the LN too: First of all, Catherine supremacy for life. They were a fleshed out family with feelings, and not some tool or stepping stone for Annette like other runaway FLs after escaping or divorce.
Can't stress enough how the story doesn't just tunnel vision on the main couple too. Side characters are part of the story and make big impacts. Even the sniper at the church who got his face mauled is who saved her life in the fire. And even Catherine (in the side stories) would give it to Heiner over the phone and he'd reflect on himself. Even the guy who ratted Annette out while she was staying with them post-divorce showed up again when he lost his legs in battle and they had a moment together.
Annette's descent into depression was depicted so realistically it hit too close to home. The memory loss, handwriting and dexterity degradation, and her reaction to the miscarriage felt too real. So often depictions can feel too cheap or shallow. I was horrified by her suicide attempts but could completely put myself in her shoes. But it just doesn't go away quickly either, she does struggle with it and taking care of herself, or having the motivation to recover or do therapy to improve her ruined left hand after the church collapse
>!But seriously, the war church fire incident and the piano was seriously immaculate. The references to the Saint mural and glimpses to the past that reminds me of how far we've come and how much of her life has changed, Joseph, and the piano-playing scene. The shaken feelings of the enemy troops and battle with morality, that moment of pure serenity, I was so absorbed. I mean the play that the piano and music had in her journey and the story too was so tasteful.
And oh my God the ending with the title meaning reveal- I seriously thought it was another shitty toxic title but it was actually the name of the song Heiner fell in love with before he met her... and the one she played that lured him in. And what a switch around because I always assumed the ML was the oppressor in question, but really it was the FL to him because how much she engulfed his life. They even address in the story how her love is spread between so many things (piano) and people, and Heiner has nothing but her.!<
It's really such a tragedy that his innocent youthful crush became such a a double edged serrated knife. So obsessive and convoluted, and he created a cult-like worship of a fictional version of her in his head >! through extreme torture... I mean that kind of disassociation was literally the only way he could survive. Plus how could someone raised the way he was understand love and how to give/receive it? !<
I'll stop rambling here for now but guys please comment or something, I have so many feelings after reading the LN I NEED to talk more about it with someone 😭

Hello everyone,
Im coming to this Reddit because I’m honestly not sure how to handle this situation. It honestly makes me very sad and I feel like I’ve moved on and just want to move on with my life but my sister likes to drag me into drama.
For backstory I lived with my sister when I was 15. I slept on the couch and my mom slept in the spare bedroom. We had to move in there because we lost the house after my mom’s very messy and abusive divorce. I had been neglected for years at that point since I was 10 and my sister started to take care of me more than my mom had the time to. Which I loved at the time. She bought me clothes, spent time with me, etc. well after a few months she became less kind and more controlling. I was essentially the Cinderella of the household, needed to get straight As. She would scream at me if I dirtied a dish and if I let my shoulders show she would tell me to go pray to God. I had to memorize bible verses that were posted on my wall and recite them to her Etc.
I eventually became so stressed out I lost a ton of weight and was throwing up from so much anxiety. I also got my period twice a month from stress. I felt like I was always going to get yelled at or grounded; she really got in my head. To the point where I wasn’t allowed to talk to my mother alone, she would always be there to make sure I didn’t say I needed help. My mom noticed something was up and always would tell me we can leave if I want but I was always scared. Eventually it got to the point where I could swear my sister could tell what I was thinking. Looking back I was just very manipulated.
After dating my boyfriend (now Husband) for a while I realized I felt at peace at his family’s house. His parents were kind and I felt safe. I realized what I was going through really wasn’t normal so I told my mom I couldn’t take it anymore and I just wanted my sister to be my sister. My sister kicked me out at 17, told my mom she didn’t have to leave but I did. My mom and I moved into my friends bottom floor and rented a room. I eventually moved out on my own after I graduated and went to college etc. Also my sister sent me demand letters asking for $5k for the time she spent taking care of me and buying me food and clothes. The last I spoke with her I was saying I’m sorry and I hope we can still get along but she sent me lots of “F U” emails afterward asking for money.
Fast forward to now. I’ve been doing well, I’m married, we both have decent jobs and I’m very happy in life and I don’t think much about my past unless my mom or other sister brings it up. My husband and I are very in love after 8 years (total) of being together and enjoy traveling.
Anyway my sister 42f apparently talks about me to my other sister 32f and essentially hates me. My sister 32f told me today my 42f sister has been telling the whole family that I’m terrible and my husband is controlling etc. which gives me anxiety because honestly I don’t want to lose more family nor do I want to be seen as unkind. I’m trying not to stress about it because I don’t want to feel sick but it’s just hard. I have my grandmothers funeral coming up and it really sucks feeling anxious going to it and seeing her while also knowing others may hate me too. Any advice on how I should handle this?

I've been feeling like my girlfriend doesn't want to see me over the summer. This is our first relationship, and we started dating in January. We used to see each other almost every day on campus, but now that we're back home, it feels like there's no urgency on her part to make plans. She hasn't done much besides staying home, sleeping, and playing games. We call frequently, but I miss seeing her in person. When I asked if I could go to her house, she seemed uncomfortable and hesitant, which upset me. She explained her house is "boring," but I feel like her presence should be enough, and when I even brought up something we can do like baking, she just shut it down by saying, "My over is dirty." There didn't seem to be any intention on her part to suggest things to do. The next day, I apologized because I realized I had blown it out of proportion. She was just uncomfortable with her house, and it was not an effort thing. Still, now I can't help but think it was because she didn't want to see me,e and the fact that she hasn't asked to make any plans or brought up anything about it is making me believe that. I would like to see her because she's a terrible texter and sometimes feels like I'm talking to a wall, but when we hang out in person, it's a completely different story. Am I blowing this out of proportion, or should I be concerned? How can I address this situation in a healthy way?

I am not really sure where to start or why I am writing this. I just need to get everything out...
Long...
Me (31) and my STBXH (32) have been married for 11 years and together 15 years. We have 3 elementary school kids.
He had his first affair 3 months after I had our last child. This lasted 3 years before I found out. We tried to work it out but he kept lieing and hiding things. It took a year before he told me the "whole" truth. From a drinking problem while he was alone with the kids to bring his affair partner over to the house while I worked and the kids slept. It was very hard to trust him as he refused to do anything I asked to fix the trust. Yet I was made to be the bad guy and him the victim. I have a post about the whole affair in surviving infidelity.
At the beginning of the year I thought we were getting back on track he made me homemade chocolates and got me flowers for valentine's day. That next weekend his new affair partner's baby daddy showed up at our home to confront him and make sure I knew. My daughter (5) witnessed some this before I could pull her into another room. Thankfully the other man left soon after. I asked my STBXH to leave. He said let me pack a bag and that was it. He left and went to pick up his affair partner. They ran off that night taking $900 out of our joint bank account. I put a stop to that by transferring everything to my mother's account till I could make a new one.
A week after we had a written agreement that he signed about support and parenting time. He would send $3100 a month and see the kids everyother weekend supervised. Now I did find out that his new girlfriend had ran off with her kids before disappearing for a month, so in fear of this and that her ex is claiming abuse from her I asked for supervised visits. I do believe that STBXH drinking problem was getting worse. STBXH told me not to get a lawyer we could do this cheap and peacefully. Load of BS I know now. He went back on the agreement a week later. Got a lawyer and claimed he was forced to sign that agreement. This whole time I was filling the paperwork out alone and asking him for help with the divorce. Nothing. He then said he had been talking to a lawyer. So I went out and put down a $3500 retainer on one as well.
For march he sent $1500 in child support and April $900. No court orders.
I have to admit I was a mess. Complete blindsided. This woman he ran off with is my oldest son’s best friend's mom. Lots of soccer games together and lots of sleepovers with her son at my house. STBXH never wanted our son at their house because he said it wasn't safe. I didn't know them that well. He doesn't care about the effect this has had on our oldest son and his best friend. He didn't want to tell our son but I had to force him. They are in the same class and see each other every day. The other boy already knew and our son (9) did not need to hear about how dad ran off with best friend's mom from another 9 year old.
I also found out he hid a gun in the house without me knowing. I had asked him after his first affair to remove all of them after he admitted to depression and drinking problem.
Anyway, our agreement stated 3 day notice before visitation. He didn't do this several times. He can talk to the kids every night on the phone he got them. He only talks to oldest (9) average 2 minutes most night. This past month has been soccer season and he hasn't been to a single game or practice except the last one after I refused to let him take the kids until there are court orders. He hasn't seen them in a month. He is claiming parent alienation. He even missed his last visitation no call no show.
He has bought the police to my house twice now. Once when he picked up most of his things back in February. He was afraid of the other dad showing up and possibly getting beat up. His own fault. This last time he brought the police to the house to pick the kids up and I knew he was coming so we left for my parents before he got there. Told him he could come to the kids games the next day and then to the park. I am not comfortable with him taking physical custody of the kids and having no way to get them back. The police can do nothing and i know he is only trying to bully and intimidated me in to giving the kids up. Again he has no court orders so they can do nothing. I saw him on the ring camera telling them that I am lieing to my lawyer. I'm not I have sent my lawyer a lot of proof of all my claims.
My lawyer has filed and sent in Temporary Orders and we are just waiting on a court date. No time line. I just don't know what to do. I don't trust him. It has been one lie after another. Mind games and blindsiding and playing victim. I just want all this to be over. The stress and always looking over my shoulder. I have had enough of this.

My ex GF (31F) and I (35M) are on a "break," meaning that we're doing a 3 month no contact period after which we'll touch base and see where each other's heads are at.
TLDR: my girlfriend of four and a half years and I are going on a break and won't contact each other for three months, we'll touch base then and see where both of our heads are at. There's one person I really hope she doesn't sleep with during that time, but I'm afraid that, number 1, she doesn't know how important that is for me, and that she'd wished I'd told her before she did it because I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to recover, and I'm afraid I'll DEEPLY DEEPLY regret not having told her.
We were together for four and a half years. She had things she wasn't happy about with our relationship, but she was ready to move forward with an engagement and having a family. I was on the fence, unable to commit, and so she asked me to move out.
We wrote each other letters in the day's after our break began, and the common denominator was that we both felt we've never loved each other more, or closer, or more well-understood than we did after all the tears and talks we had in our final 10-12 days living together.
I know I'm holding onto hope that we could work things out, and that we could move towards engagement and family, and I feel mostly-certain that she is too, though she's also expressed that she's felt hurt in ways that might be irreparable by some of what's gone on over the last few months of our time together.
Context first, then my question:
There's one person I was suspicious of her having slept with during a time that her and I were official or exclusive. She was adamant that she didn't sleep with him (though she would have been within her rights to do whatever she wanted), even though he comments on some of her photos sometimes, and I remember feeling strongly that she was acting a little awkward on the way to a party he was going to be at, and adamant then that she wasn't interested but that if anything she was going to introduce her sister to him (he's a few years younger). Side note - "I was going to hook my friend/sister up with him," feels like something every girl says to their partner about guys they secretly want.
I've never loved someone the way I love this person, in terms of the depth of our friendship and how tied we feel to each other, and I know she feels the same way, but it would ruin things for me to find out she'd slept with this guy during our time apart, and I've never been more scared of someone I love becoming someone I hate. There's something deep and profound about our friendship and connection and I'm deeply afraid of losing my ability to love her after feeling as betrayed as I'd feel from this. I feel like she should know that this would be a dagger to me, and not to do it, but I am also afraid that it's my fault for not communicating more clearly (because of how embarrassed I am to admit insecurities and vulnerabilities around jealousy, perhaps), and I'm wondering whether I should break our "no contact period" to ask that this one person be off limits, as it would feel tragic to both of us for what we have to be ruined this way. It won't be easy to think of her with other people, it'll sting like hell, but I could handle it, I just want this one person to be off limits.
Question: should I safeguard a potential future by breaking the no-contact to ask her please not to sleep with that one guy, or do I need to honor the no-contact and chance her doing something I don't know if I'd ever be able to recover from or forgive her for, and that she might wish I'd reached out about? That is, if you can take my word for it that she might also wish I'd told her how important this was to me.
I don't need anyone reminding me that I'm the one refusing to commit - I get that - and she's a grown, mature woman taking ownership of her journey, so nobody needs to protect her with their responses like she's a victim of anything because she certainly doesn't see herself that way.

Asalamualaikum,
First I’d like to say that Allah swt forgives all sins no matter what. He is the most merciful, forgiving and compassionate.
The reason why I’m saying the below is to give you guys another thought to think about before committing sins.
Let’s think about smoking. Some schools of thought say it’s haram and some say it’s makhruh and others find.
But let’s take a step back and think. When you smoke, the others who inhale it get the worse end of the stick as it’s just as bad for them even though they’re not smoking. Not only that if you get cancer or a weakened body or whoever knows what else but any disease or issues from this. This puts more strain on doctors who could be busy helping out others who have had conditions that came naturally if that makes sense. Look in the UK at the NHS, they’re swamped with people on drugs, addicts and all sorts. It’s unfair on them.
Let’s look at zina, when you commit zina with a man or woman. You’re effecting them mentally too. You’re practically getting intimate with them and letting them know it’s fine to sleep around which could affect their future marriage and people they meet and it’s a never ending cycle. On top of that STDs, getting them and that effecting others too.
Both of the above actually affect your family too. Commiting zina makes you naturally more aggy and lazy. Smoking makes you smell and can also change how you feel. Hence it can effect the way you act around others
There is many other ways I can talk about other private sins effecting others but I’m just putting this out here to help others try more to stop what they’re doing inshallah
Jazakhallah khair

First / Previous / Next
Before anyone could say anything else, there was a blinding flash of white light. The Dreadnought appeared directly in front of them, impeding their progress. Stormy fired the thrusters and tried to duck underneath.
"Get back into your seats! I'm going to link away again." Northern and Zhe dove towards their seats and bucked back up, but before Stormy could link, there was a clatter and a shudder throughout the ship. New alarms sounded throughout the ship, a kind of wailing trilling noise. It was incredibly loud.
"What's that Stormy?" Zhe clapped her hands over her large ears. "Can you turn it down any?"
"It's... It's a grapple. We've been grappled!" Stormy's rage permeated her voice. "Those were banned centuries ago! I can't believe they used a grapple on us."
"Can we do anything?" Fen asked. She looked down at her screen. There were new spots of orange on the readout where the grapple was damaging the hull.
"Our options at this point are to allow us to be taken aboard, or blow the reactor." Northern shook her head. "They've got us."
"Stormy, might as well disconnect and come up here. I don't want them doing anything to you." Fen closed her pad with a snap. She looked at Zhe and Northern. "Sorry."
Zhe shook her head. "Nothing to be sorry about, Fen. We're in this together."
Northern nodded. "Despite myself, I do find that I like you two. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. It's not your fault Fen."
Fen sighed. "Yeah, but if I wasn't a clone of the first Empress..."
"There's no way these people know that Fen. They're just after their current Empress and probably think we know something about it. I'd say just answer their questions mostly honestly." Northern ticked off points on her long fingers. "We saw her on Picaresque, we went out drinking, we partied with her and her honor guard, and in the morning we left. None off that is a lie."
Stormy walked into the Command Deck and looked around. Finding a seat, she sat down and buckled in. "The four of us is enough to operate a frigate of this size without raising too much suspicion. They shouldn't ask about whether we have an AI pilot."
Zhe's ears flicked in surprise. "Really? Only four people?"
She nodded. "It's just about the bare minimum, but it's possible. It could be explained away that we're a new merc group and haven't taken on more crew yet. These kind of ships are meant to be run lean and mean anyway."
Fen wasn't so sure, but she couldn't do anything else.
They waited.
About 30 minutes later, there was a pounding on the airlock. Fen unbuckled and went to the lock. Peering through the window she saw three armored spacesuits. She toggled the intercom. "Yes?"
"Human Imperial Navy. Open up please. We have some questions for you."
Please? That was interesting. "Why did you grapple me? You could have used your radio."
"The Admiral wishes to speak to you in person."
They did not elaborate further.
The voice of the suited person sighed. "Look. If you just open the doors, it'll go better for you. We won't even restrain you. You just open up, we bring you to the Admiral and then we let you go once she's happy with the answers."
"And if I don't open the lock?"
"Then we force it open, capture you, restrain you-" They hold up some metal zip cuffs. "-and still bring you to the Admiral. Only now, your ship is damaged and you can't leave once she's finished speaking. Your choice."
Fen cut the intercom. "Fuck." she said to nobody, and pressed the purge button. Both airlock door snapped open and there was a puff of air as the pressures equalized. Fen's ears were pained for a moment, but she swallowed and her ears popped.
The guard lifted their helmet. It was two men and a woman who looked so similar they could have been related. The woman smiled. "Thank you, really. My name is Lieutenant Shelly Cooper. What's yours?"
"I'm Captain Fenchurch Whitehorse, but please call me Fen."
"Very well, Fen. Who else is aboard?"
"The rest of my crew. They're on the Command Deck. There are four of us."
That caused Lieutenant Cooper to raise an eyebrow, "Four? That's it?"
Fen smiled awkwardly. "I wasn't able to hire anymore crew than that. Believe me when I say I've been trying." It wasn't a lie, not really. Fen found that there weren't many people who were willing to sign on to an unproven merc company, even if they were a couple years old.
The Lieutenant turned to one of the men behind her. "What did the bioscan say?"
He looked down at a pad strapped to the arm of his suit and tapped at it with a gloved hand. "She's not lying. Ship is empty except for the command deck."
"Curious." Cooper stared hard at Fen. "Have we met? Are you from Sol? You seem familiar to me."
"I don't see how. I grew up in a Gren station, far outside of Colonial space." Again, it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. Of course people in the military would know what the first Empress looked like.
"Hmm. Okay. If your crew agrees to keep the reactor powered down and be powered by an umbilical, they can stay confined to the ship and you accompany us. Deal?"
"Yes, I agree to those terms. Let me go tell my crew."
Lieutenant Cooper nods. "You have three minutes."
Fen hurries back to the command deck. "The Admiral wants to talk to me. They said you can stay here so long as you agree to be powered only by their umbilical."
Zhe stood up and crossed her arms, her tail swishing irritatedly. "It won't matter, because we're coming too."
Northern looked to Zhe and sighed, but only a little. "We can't leave you out to dry, Fen. We'll come along too. How bad can it be? Plus, if we come with you we can't suffer "an unfortunate accident" in the hangar."
Fen exhaled. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath in. "Thanks Northern, Zhe." She turned to Stormy. "You're welcome to come along, but I also know this isn't your thing. We had just hired you after all."
Stormy looked at Northern who shrugged with her eyes. "Up to you."
She runs her hands over her face. "Fuck, me. I swear Northern, you know how to pick them." Stormy stands up and smiles. "I'll come along, what the hell. Sitting on the ship was going to be boring by myself anyway."
The four of them went to the airlock, and Fen went up to Lieutenant Cooper "I spoke to my crew, and they want to accompany me."
Lieutenant Cooper throws up her hands. "Fine, I guess we'll just give you the VIP tour on the way." She gestures out towards the hangar. "Here is the hangar, where we store our smaller ships and boats, as well as the frigate of a merc captain we captured that the admiral wants to speak to and offered to let her crew stay onboard but they want to follow their captain to the ends of the galaxy."
Fen crossed her arms, but said nothing.
"Come on then. We'll find you some more chairs or something." Lieutenant Cooper turned on her heel and walked out of the hangar, without waiting for them to follow. The two guards with her looked at each other and one of them gestured for them to follow.
Not too far from the hangar, Lieutenant Cooper came upon a small conference room. She opened the door and led them inside. As they sat, a steward came by with a small cart of drinks. Fen was offered and accepted a coffee, and they went around offering beverages. Lieutenant Cooper also took a coffee, but everyone else abstained.
Cooper took a sip and looked down at the comm on her wrist. "The Admiral will be here shortly. Please be respectful. She's... lived a long life and doesn't suffer fools. If you want to make it back to your ship, answer her questions quickly and honestly."
Fen wasn't halfway through her coffee with the door chimed. Lieutenant Cooper stood. "This is where I leave you. The guards will wait outside the door and - should you be able - will escort you back to your ship." Her face was odd. She looked worried, and also like she felt bad for them. Just what kind of person was this Admiral?"
The door whooshed open and the Admiral strode in. She was about the same height as Cooper, maybe a few centimeters taller than Fen. Her hair was blond streaked with grey and she wore it clipped very short on the back and sides and a little longer in the front. She wore her hat at an angle that probably was against regulations. Her uniform was immaculate and her chest bulged with medals. She had a hard, but not unattractive face, lined with time. As she entered, she looked down at everyone sitting, and as she passed over them she stopped at Fen, and her breath caught.
"You are dismissed, Lieutenant."
Cooper saluted sharply. "Yes, Admiral."
"Dismiss the guards as well. I will not need them."
"Admiral? With all due respect-"
The Admiral turned to face Cooper and stared at her. Without saying anything at all, Fen could feel her shouting at the Lieutenant. Her gaze was withering. Cooper swallowed and saluted again. "Yes, Admiral."
The door closed behind her and the Admiral's demeanor immediately changed. She shrank down a little, looked older, less hard. She strode around the room and glanced down at the carafe of coffee. She poured herself a cup and sat at the head of the table. While everyone watched, rapt. She took a sip and placed it down on the table without a clink. She looked at Fen.
"You look like her, you know? I can see that you're different. A product of your upbringing. It's your eyes, and the way you carry yourself. I can see so much of her though. It's a little spooky."
Fen blinked. Whatever she expected, it wasn't this. "You know I'm a clone of the first Empress?"
The admiral laughed. Her voice was surprisingly musical. "Fen, I knew Melody. I was friends with her. I... I was on a different ship when she was killed. I became Empress after her."
Stormy gasped. "No. No way. She retired to Venus, and let her daughter reign. She would be over five hundred years old. You're not her."
The admiral smirked. "If you know all that, then you know that the Nanites can extend life. I can't do the Voice anymore, and it's been more than two centuries since I carried a crown and wings, but I am still me.
Northern turned and stared at Stormy. "Who is it, Stormy?"
The admiral spread her hands wide. "I am Empress Helen Raaden, First of Her Name, Ruler of Sol - Retired."

This is a story I heard from my dad that his sister told him, I’d always heard it from him, but recently decided to get the story directly from her. Here’s a copy/paste of her description of events, all I’ve changed are the names of the people involved.
“This happened in the summer of 1991. (Boyfriend) and I helped one of his friends move to Moonstone, and (Boyfriend) had the big U-haul truck, we had stopped at Wasaga Beach and we were about to get locked in because the gates closed at dusk. So we were driving down the 400 towards Toronto, and the truck died, it was near the Aurora sideroad or exit. (I remember because it was the first time I'd ever heard of Aurora) (boyfriend) didn't give a crap about the truck so we just left it there and started walking, not hitchhiking. And you remember (boyfriend) had the long blond hair, he was mistaken for a woman many times, this gold car pulled over. It was dark by this time. The guy got out and asked where we were going, and said you'll have to sit in the back seat, he had a bunch of milk crates with papers on the front seat. It was a 2 door car so it's not so easy to get out of the back seat. I will swear on a bible that I seen a gun in his hand when I was getting in the backseat, (boyfriend) made him move his crates to the backseat and sat up front. I don't remember if he hold us his name but he started talking about his work and he said he was an accountant for Beckers and he lived in Scarborough. He did miss our exit on the highway, and (boyfriend) asked him what he was doing, none to politely. I don't know where he ended up dropping us off. He was kind of odd. I remember telling my Mom how scared I was when I saw the gun, (boyfriend) says he didn't see it.
When Paul Bernardo was arrested he had the same gold car, and was an accountant for Beckers. I have thought of writing him and asking him about it but never have.”
For those unaware, Paul Bernardo is probably the most famous serial killer in Canadian history. He was known as the Scarborough Rapist, The Schoolgirl Killer, and as “Ken” of the Ken and Barbie Killers.
I’ve done a little research, and Bernardo did drive a 2 door gold Nissan 240SX. He was an accountant, but I can’t find anything about him working for “Beckers”, although since he did freelance work he might have at some point, or just gave a different company name because he didn’t want to give out too much information. Found no record of him owning a gun, but it’s fairly possible he used a fake one to intimidate people.
Overall, I’d say a guy who looked just like Bernardo, drove the same kind of car, in the same uncommon colour, with the same career, in the same area as the killer, that’s quite a few coincidences… so, thought it was interesting enough to share. :)

I (23F) have been dating 25M for 10 months now. I am so scared I am going to sabotage this relationship because of my insecurities. I am just comparing myself endlessly with his ex-gf and his ex-FWB.. There are multiple things that bother me, I''ll try to list them:
It’s almost like I want to make myself feel anxious and insecure. Information, pictures or texts that I've found through lurking (which I try to stop doing) hurts my feelings but have burned themselves into my head. (1) For example, the summer we started dating he was frequently liking his ex-FWB pictures on IG - some revealing, some not - last one he liked was from a couple of months back, a very revealing one where she had taken a picture from above, angle looking into her tanktop, her tongue was out, nipple piercings visable through her shirt, very suggestive. Him liking provocative pictures of a woman he used to have sex with makes me uncomfortable. He hasn't done it for months now, but I fear it could return around summer when she wears revealing outfits again.
(2) I've also recently realized in a group chat with his friends he added me to, you can look back at messages before you were in the GC. That led me to look way back and see some things from months before we started dating, that still bothers me. Messages about his ex-FWB, how hot she is, how hot it is that she is a masochist (I'm not one), etc. I even saw pictures he had shared in the GC of many, many nudes she had sent him and pictures he took while they were having sex, in many different positions (with her consent, she's into it). It bothers me it looks to be using the same BDSM equipment he uses on me, the same positions he likes me in, etc. It makes me paranoid he's thinking about her when he's having sex with me. From the pictures it was apparent she is more sexually confident than I am, which makes sense given she has a much bigger sexual history than I do, he only just took my virginity, but still, it makes me scared he wishes I was more like her. This thoughts show up in my head almost any time we do anything sexual together, it's horrible and obviously makes it very hard to be fully there and enjoy it
(3) I also saw a message he sent in the GC 8 days after him and I had met: “I asked \ex-fwb* if she wanted to fuck just now, she's online she’s ignoring me lol”.* This was 8 days after we met, 8 days after he sent a message to that same GC about how he met a cute girl and he thinks that she likes him (me). We weren't official, didn't become so until 5 days after he sent that ex-fwb message, but still, it kind of hurts he wishes to hook up with her once more even after we had met, we had had our first date at that point. Especially also because he has told me multiple times that having sex with her reassured him that sex just as a means to get off wasn't for him, and that it was the emotional intimacy that made it important to him, he said he didn’t even enjoy it, wasn’t even attracted to her body type, etc…. yet he wanted to do it again? I fear he lied to me.
(4) There were also some messages from the past about his ex. He send various different texts various different occasions about how he loves how extremely outgoing and sociable she is and that they can have such intelligent discussions. I feel like him and I never discuss things back and forth. I also am very, very much the opposite of "sociable", I am very quiet and subdued, I like to observe more than anything and talking to strangers makes me nervous. He also send a comment about how his ex, at the time when they were dating, had "perfect big boobs", which makes me insecure since mine are much more on the smaller side.
This is me being insecure. I am aware of that, fully. I want to fix it. I am in queue for therapy, but for now I’m doing my best with what I can do. It is absolutely exhausting, the way everything makes me second guess myself. I've never felt as insecure as I do now. I've considered breaking up multiple times, even though I love him and really can see myself having a family with him in the future, just because it is so draining and I feel much more insecure now than I ever did before we were dating. The little insecurity that I do show him willingly, he will go on to reassure me a ton.. he's very loving, supportive and reassuring that he loves me for how I am, he's called me more attractive, trustworthy, more compatible, etc, that any girl he had a relationship with before, so it's not as if he is trying to make me insecure or anything. It's all in my head. How do I improve from this? ANY advice appreciated x

1: Let the youth respectfully quietly walk out and drink water and go to the bathroom without permission and walk and stretch to get something without getting in trouble, that's exactly what the military is, and getting detention for being 15 minutes late? Detention? Detained? Home Detention sounds very Fascistic police state like, a lot of schools don't allow that.
2: Memorizing words and filling in worksheets with pencils don't help that much and NCEA examines do not get one a job at, skills do like wood work or cooking or IT or sowing, expectation of only university/polytech, at least cooking or woodwork with others are legit skills unlike sitting on a table wasting 40 minutes of your life memorizing how and why the frog crossed the road with a pencil trying to spell ''ELECTR_CA_N TO H_NT FRO_'' "TO G_T TO FR_ANC_''
3: Keeping them silent in the class all the time will destroy their talking and communication skills especially for job interviews!!!
4: Many state schools are treating people who are on the verge of being adults like like micromanaged infants in a prison/military or live stock... the result? Stress, anxiety, anger, depression and conflict and taking out stress on other pupils and those pupils have no respect for anybody and devolving into sociopaths or psychopaths and even by now maybe having record numbers of work place violence due to bullying. By now 10% of NZ Adults by now who are truly scared of the world and live in front of screens 24/7 playing video games or social media or on drugs or alcohol living on the benefits not saying who people who don't work are bad at all ok? Because they never were respected as being a Human / a growing little man / little women in their school AKA ''NEET's'' I'm sorry this happened to you people, read books and go outside and watch the Swans in the park! NEET's! Don't give up! Life is beautiful! Godbless!
5: Back in the olden days most of the all youths when they turned 14 - 15 off to the factories or military you went and it was tough but you got earned cash and you worked and talked to adults a lot! Same thing in 3rd world nations!
6: The top professions that most attracts sex predators? Teachers or principals / jobs in secondary school education, police officers and priests with church clergy and 3rd world country aid workers not saying homeschool is the the solution but remember, sex predators are very, very smart and likable people, always have a theme of being a central figure or leadership in those types of circles not always but yeah...
7: I read Epstein FBI files last of all and Epsteins sex trafficking network was very, very well networked to many of the US School systems and admin staff and school boards always well linked in the Florida US area.
8: You cannot be too smart or too slow, what's the point taking the youngsters their making them stay 7 hours a day without any backing or funding or support? Useless. If they're too smart then get them to teach the class and help other students.
9: The lack of knowledge and uselessness of school counselors that don't understand Trauma or PTSD in children since a majority of mental health issues come from trauma
10: And if you had a good school that did allow all that was right then please thank those teachers or your parents, that's all I will say, please be happy and grateful!
11: No, no matter what Hollywood says high school prison system will never the best time of a lot of people lives, for most people it's at least their late teens to early 20's getting stupidly blacked out smashed on booze. swearing at bouncers, spewing all over the concrete and kicking over bins and bar fights, dancing to ugly remixed pop music you hate, chasing girls and gouging down junk food at 2pm and getting thrown in the cells or having dirty flats full of booze bottles and someone puked all over the couch sleeping on it as well at 10am and destroyed toilet of even more puke and urine with your xbox controllers being sticky and gross and where's the halo disc at?? And for me that was an expensive hobby and I regret not saving up for overseas or doing more hiking or outdoors.

In advance: I'm sorry if this makes no sense context wise and it gets long, but I'm pretty emotional writing this. I feel like I'm standing infront of the shambles of my life right now, at a point where I'm supposed to be happier than ever.
And truth be told, I am outwardly "ok" most of the time, which I'm not faking per se. But I am terrified of what's going on in my head.
I'm a young woman roughly in my early twenties, pregnant, together with my childhood boyfriend and love of my life, financially secure, working my dream job etc.. But on the other hand I'm also a survivor of childhood religious abuse and a veteran. I've been diagnosed with Autism in early childhood and with PTSD after those ordeals.
I asked to be pulled from my last deployment in a war zone (and later service at large) after I made an unsuccessful attempt on my life. When I got home my boyfriend, with whom I've been with since we were 12-13, was right there by my side the entire time. He's the reason I'm still here. He was the one who physically attacked my parents when they threw me to the ground and kicked me upon finding out that we were having sex at age 18. He, as an adult, took a slap across the face from my lunatic of a mother, because he, someone who isn't religious, took their precious daughter. That's the same mother who'd say that symptoms of my Autism were my Yetzer Hara (innate inclination to evil in Judaism) and so on. My mother was always the worst, but curiously enough, both my parents were actually rarely physical. They were just incredibly evil with words. My first bullies, basically. Despite all this, my boyfriend supports that I still hold contact to them for the sake of my little siblings, who I love dearly. But despite that love, I've found myself unable to interact with them recently. It is just so incredibly painful to see how different my parents are with them and how my little siblings, who are to young to know what was done to me, adore them without a single condition. The only truly good person in my family is my paternal grandfather. He basically adopted me and my partner as his own, taught us what Judaism is really supposed to be like and gifted my partner, who is incredibly respectful of my faith, an old Kippah of his. He's truly always been my partner in crime, united by the dislike for the rest of our family. He's also the only one who knows and will know about the baby. I am so ready for the family drama that will unfold when they find out that that me, my partner and our child will inherit everything and that I'm his sole medical and financial proxy should he ever be unable to do stuff himself anymore.
My pregnancy was unplanned, but it was a happy "surprise" (can you be surprised about the pill failing after two days of a stomach virus?). Unfortunately my second thought after the initial excitement of seeing the positive test was how this would burn every last bridge to my family. Again, my partner is nothing short of amazing and will be an awesome dad, but he's and his family are the only ones I have. I don't have my mom or any other female relatives. I love my defacto mother-in-law, who has always been more of a mother to me than my real mom, but having to talk to her about pregnancy stuff not always because I want to, but because she's the only one I got is incredibly sad. My family, except for my grandfather and possibly my siblings when they are adults, will never find out about this baby, ever. I am genuinely afraid of what lengths they would go to.
My partner, who has always been there for me, is in a very tough situation right now, so it obviously my turn to step up. He's a professional athlete, who's had two mayor injuries this season, one involving surgery on his shoulder. Issue being, he's also allergic to pretty much every single conventional painkiller out there and he's had to take painkillers continuously since October. Result being, stomach ulcers. Severe pain 24/7, nights spent awake with him vomiting blood. I, with a medical background, was a loss for what to do at times and thought I'd lose him more than once. Objectively speaking, I've seen much worse in the military, but it hits so different when it's a person you love more than anything. And he continues to play whenever even remotely possible with a stupid sense of grit and determination that I recognize from myself. He's slowly on the mend, but I've given him everything in me over the last few months. I feel empty.
Another factor in that is my work. I work for the club my boyfriend plays for. My primary jobs are in medical and coaching, but I also see it as sort of my duty that these guys turn not only as great athletes, but also as great humas. An aspect that often times gets lost in professional sports. I love my work, I love how much I can give and how I can be a positive factor in people's lives. But with everything else going to shits, I feel that what's happening at work is also affecting me more than it should. Particularly a guy that's been out with myocarditis for months now. It's always been a sad case, but as of recently I hold back tears every time I work with him. His mama found him unconcious in bed one morning, as a simple flu had turned significantly worse over night. She panicked, didn't remember where the hospital was, didn't think to call an ambulance and as such drove him to our medical centre. When I opened that car door - I've never seen a person that looked so sick ever before. He ended up having a heart attack, getting a pace maker and being in a coma for a week. Again, he's on the mend now, but seeing a 19 year old young athlete, who sees his entire career in jeopardy, struggle to get up from the breakfast table and walk the 5 steps over to the buffet is still beyond heartbreaking. He's been on my mind a lot lately, but what completely ended me were the last 2 days. Day before yesterday, in training. We hear a horrific sound, followed by a gutteral scream of shear pain and terror (have heard a few of these, never anything quite like that) and frantic shouts from other players. I grab my equipment and haul ass over to the other pitch and what I see there is easily the most horrific leg break possible. I am talking, the leg was nearly amputated. Tourniquet on, finding the next best thing to inject the player that would just knock him out, debating with my colleagues about if this is a case for a helicopter (it was), figuring out with the air ambulance crew how to stabilize the leg (anatomical physics project) etc.. The player who accidentally did this to him in a bad challenge was and still is inconsolable. There were multiple people who threw up at the sight. Today in training, another sound every pitch side worker dreads. A head clash, a proper one. One of them fine, just slightly dazed, the other one fully unconscious. I turn him on his side and see that there's blood running out of his mouth and one of his ears. Not ideal. When I got him awake he started vomiting, stated hearing/vision loss on one eadye, his face was drooping etc.. Perfect case of a basilar skull fracture. Another case for the air ambulance. While we were waiting on them, his mama came over and he didn't recognize her. I don't know what it was, but him not recognising his mother, his mother, fearing for her son's life, sobbing when he asked who she was...
Even though they're both doing well considering the circumstances, I've never had two incidents like this in two days. I'm rattled. And I hate myself for saying that, because it feels weak coming from someone who has seen war zones. I feel like I'm giving everything I have, I'm everyones shoulder to cry on and I'm just empty. I don't have anything left to give. Silly coming someone from someone who voluntarily signed up for all of this and still somehow loves it in a twisted way. Does this make me a masochist? I don't know. Fact is, I feel myself going down a very dark path (again) and I don't know what to do (again).

Hi, everyone!
I'm a 22-year-old woman based in Montreal (UTC-4) currently studying in International Development.
-- I am a kind open-minded individual, a great listener and love connecting with people -- I would love my accountability partner to be in the same wavelengths as me.
I am trying my best to get back on my feet. I am looking for 1 online or hybrid (online/in-person) accountability partner around the same age as me to hold ourselves accountable in the kindest ways possible. I want to get better at taking care of myself and deconstruct the idea that discipline is a punitive measure. Discipline is said to be the highest form of love we can offer to our future selves. I am determined to push myself in rigorous ways; however, I would like to improve my health holistically as well.
Let's transform together our motivation into disciplined consistency!
TOP PRIORITIES
(1) Weight Loss Journey (2) Academics Improvement
OTHER PRIORITIES
(3) Financial & Social Enterprise Literacy (3) Work-Family-Academics Life Balance Consolidation (3) Artistic Skills Development (Drawing, Poetry, Animation, etc)
MEANS
(1) Schedule check-ins every 3 days via video conference or in person (2) Schedule regular evening study sessions either virtual or in-person (3) Vlog and share our progress about our other priorities every month or so
Thank you for your time and consideration, you can message me if you believe we would be a great fit for each other! We talk more in detail about how our schedule will look afterwards.

I've Been Doing a Lot of Whatever the Fuck I Want Lately and I Like It
It's the day of Ayonna's Zoom court hearing so she's thinking about survivalist jailhouse makeup hacks. They've improved since women used to use scraped paint chips off their cell walls as face powder, dampened red paper as rouge, permanent markers for eyebrow pencils, Kool-Aid doubling as hair dye and blush, and M&Ms as lipstick because deprivation causes innovation for self-preservation. That and Jamahl's excruciatingly murky explanation of his 2-year wedding day gap even though he's as open a book as a text at a class final that provides no specific answers to a general essay question. It's not that he wants to delay a ceremony displaying his love for Shellfish publicly; it's about financing a befittingly royal wedding for the ghetto version of Prince Charles and the late Diana Spencer to whom the masses must bow down, and that includes the judge who simply doesn't understand the trials and tribulations of a multi-tasking single mother with behavioral problems negotiating her child's breakfast.
Court: . . . will continue matter until she can show up in court next week since we are clearly inconveniencing her. 🙄
Ayonna: I'm just a single mother with no help. You're not going to tell me I can't feed my daughter; that's never going to happen. Is it ok if I give my daughter breakfast?
Court: We are in court here. This is a court proceeding. ⚖️
Ayonna: Ok. Just be hungry. 😏
Four years probation because the judge's gnarly attitude is taking it out on me? Girl, what are you talking about? Bitch, you're gonna' tell me I can't feed my daughter? She can kiss my ass! I'm livid. Livid! 🤬
Jamahl: At the end of the day filled with dickheads, we still gotta' bite our tongues.
I'm not selfish; I've just decided that taking your feelings into consideration is too much damn work.
Keep Your Head High and Your Middle Finger Higher
For someone more accustomed to being abused than amused, Candice has said "I love you" to Andrew more times than the repetitive phrase, turn down for what, in the party anthem by DJ Snake and Lil Jon of the same name. While Andrew, true to his word, kneels and immediately proposes, Candice hesitates, and in that moment, resembles a raw double-chinned Pillsbury dough girl with an unnatural sheen, a face too sunken in its gravity to show happiness, and sad raisin eyes reflecting physical distress. But Andrew doesn't clock any of this; he's carrying out his promise to Candice's mom in a dream he made up though she has more eyes on her truck as she doubtless recalls her fond days of street racing, driving without a license, attempted stolen vehicle, felony burglary and constantly running from the police. If she were wearing cargo pants, she could stuff them with the faux Louis Vuitton handbag contents to savor as she completes her halfway house program so she can change addresses. If he could see past his own needs, he'd notice she was trying to figure where the hell he got the idea she cared. If I've cut you, it's because you handed me the scissors.
Patience: What You Have When There Are Too Many Witnesses
Joey is taking advice from Minerva, a sex columnist who looks like Chris Farley in drag who was super stoned and wandered into the backrooms of "Saturday Night Live" for a costume change and makeup refresh before rehearsing his Fellatio 101 sketch outlined on a chalkboard: Watch amateur porn for tips. Practice dirty talk. Get excited about being excited. Use both hands simultaneously and don't bogart that spit. Don't forget, steady wins the race. Freshen up before getting online and spending money for a rented motel room far away from your parents so you can have 15 minutes of precious sexy time before your monogamous lover warns you to deactivate your online profile that his friend saw. Hey, I found your nose; it was in my business.
The King Eats First
Once again, the kids are savvier than their parents. A striking Cheyenne and Nehemiah adjust their schedules to Rob's extended sentence that Tennie tries to embroider in her naïveté while every family member is worried about their displacement when Rob physically enters the picture even though he's already there in camera spirit. It's a which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg question - is it a good thing the alpha male has streams-of-revenue for Tennie's shopping jones or is she shopping because she's worried about getting with an alpha male? He's a poker king like Marcelino making 6-7K a month in jail even though online playing for real money is prohibited, and I doubt his pod mates have that kind of extra cash regularly available. Any man in this day and age who can tell a woman to "sit down and be cute" must have it figured out as a lion doesn't care about a sheep's opinion. I bring too much to the table to be treated like a napkin.
Does One of Your Balls Hang Lower Than the Other?
Rick looks like a twig the wind blew off a tree or a stranded lost lamb in a field surrounded by hungry landlocked predators looking for a banquet. Sandy is sending him pictures of the reunion to remind him of her existence while 4x-married Samantha is positioning herself to long-distance bullrope and hog tie her bachelor into a ball-and-chain before he has time to think about how he's going to stretch a rigorously set pension into providing her commissary and visitation requests. His pickleball buddy, Dan, doesn't really give a damn; it's only his nieces who are rightfully tut-tutting her dictatorial attitude and snarking, "Fifth time is a charm." "Maybe I do have options," Rick muses, but then turns around and crows, "She builds me up." Sure, right after she shakes him up - like a snow globe. It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble; It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

Mischief walks up to the blue crystal clock. She spins the the big hand with her magic and the little hand lands of three. A blue flame is lit. Mischief walks away into the darkness; the light from the blue clock making her look like a silhouette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZbmLLv1vM

A bead of sweat falls down Mischief head. Her hair on the ground and her back up august the wall. Mischief had been doing a headstand for the last thirty minutes. In her mind, doing this action once a week was a good way to keep her blood flowing and strength high. Sun walked outside and saw Mischief up august the wall. 

“Are you gonna stand there all day”, Sun asks, holding a peach in his hand.
“You should try it”, Mischief said under the pressure. She uses her feet to push off the rock and picks herself up. “It helps with strength endurance and it help you think.”
“Hard pass”, Sun says, biting the peach. “You know I’m not good with my arms.” Mischief smirks and says, “That’s not what I heard from Ne Zha~” Sun stopped walking and almost chocked on the chunk of peach in his mouth. He looked over at Mischief and said in embarrassment, “Could you not bring Him up?”
“Why? What’s the problem”, Mischief teased. “Oh right, you still like him.” Mischief laughs and then says, “After a millennia and you still haven't told him?” Mischief continues to laugh while Sun burns a bright red and shouts, “Can you shut up?!” Sun starts to hit Mischief head and she still laughs.
“Okay, Okay, I’ll stop”, Mischief says. Sun stops laughing and crosses his arms in annoyance. “Go train Mk. I’ll see you in a bit.” Sun walks out to the training dojo. Mischief smiles but then holds her head in pain with both of her hands. She keeps her eyes shut and feels herself being surrounded by darkness. Even when her eyes where shut, she could see a being covered in a moon themed cloak.
“No…! Why are you here?!” The being looks back; her eyes glowing a light blue. She turns and starts to walk over to Mischief. Mischief raises her hand and cast a spell, but the being covered in the moon cloak faces Mischief.
I am you, as you are me.
We are two become one.
Mischief opens her eyes once the pain subsides and sees that the world around her is normal. She looks around to see if anybody else is there. No one. Mischief looks at her hands and sees then shaking with fear.
“No…. not this night…! Please, not this night….!” Mischief walked back into the house and looked around for a quill and scroll.

Mischief walks back outside to see Mk and Sun training. She sits under a shady area near the entrance to the waterfall. Mk jumps back and lands on the mountains wall. She pushes himself off and charges at Sun from above. Sun smirks and jumps directly up while Mk crashed to the ground. 

“Missed me again”, Sun said. He picks up Mk with his tail and asks, “Now how did I win?”
“Misdirection”, Mk guesses.
“Correct”, Sun says.
“That seams like a shady lesson”, Mischief yells.
“Too soon sis.” Mk chuckles a bit.
“I’m just saying the truth”, Mischief says. She walks over and whispers, “And I bet Ne Zha would say the same thing if he was here.” Sun gets an annoyed look on his face and says, “Whatever. And plus, I was always better at fighting than you.”
“Oh really?”
“Wait a second”, Mk interrupted, “You two have fought before?”
“Yeah. But it was for training purposes”, Sun says.
“Now that you mention it, we haven't trained in a while”, Mischief says. “What do you say, but brother?” Sun smirks and says, “Your on.”

Mischief and Sun get into their fighting positions on each side of the training ground. Mk sits on the stairs in anticipation. 

“Not using your weapon sis?”
“I don’t need it”, Mischief said with a smirk on her face. Sun chuckles under his breath and says, “Your done if I land this.” Sun charges to Mischief at full speed. Mischief closes her eyes and smirks. She moves out of the way and pushes her brother to the wall. Sun blinks a few times in confusion and looks back to sees Mischief untouched.
“I’m waiting.” Sun runs over to Mischief and tried to hit her multiple times but each time, Mischief blocks his attacks over and over. “Wow, brother. Your getting rusty.”
“I’ll show you rusty”, Sun exclaims. He jumps back and starts to attack with his legs.
“Not really effective!” Mischief takes Sun’s leg and pins him down with her foot. “Moon: 1. Sun: 0. I win again.”
“Mischief, let me up”, Sun says. Mischief moved her foot off of Sun’s back and says, “I thought you fought celestial beings bigger than me. You sure your not getting rusty?”
“He’s not”, Mk says. “He beat Demon Bull King, Spider Queen, and More! He’s strong enough to fight the Jade Emperor!” Mischief could hear her thoughts snap in half. She chuckles to herself in annoyance and says under her breath, “Yeah…. Sure…” Mischief then holds her head in pain.
“Mischief, are you okay”, Sun asks. He holds her shoulders.
“I’m fine”, Mischief says. “It’s just a headache. And I don’t think I’ll be able to train Mk tonight.”
“It’s okay”, Mk says. “Plus, I promised Mei I would help her fix her bike”
“Thank you, Mk.”

The full moon shines from above the mountain; its rays passing the peek of the mountain. A being covered in a night themed cloak looks down on the city below. She turns back and jumps backward. She closes her eyes and summoned a portal under her. The portal was covered in shadows and it’s magic was a dark blue. The being fell thought the portal and landed on a roof with grace and elegance. She looks back and sees the lights on in each building from each block ahead. 

“Now… where are you?”

Mk walks down the street of the city. He was walking home from Mei’s bike shop and he was hoping to get some well needed rest. 

“This is the last time I stay out this late”, Mk thinks to himself. He looks up and sees a being silhouetted bu the light of the moon. “Who is that?” Mk squints his eyes and sees the being crying up at the moon. “Are they crying?” Before Mk could call to the person, they jumped to the next roof and vanish into the night. Mk runs to the end of the block but doesn’t see the being.
“That person….. Why where they crying?”

“I’m sorry, say that again?” 

“I saw a person last night”, Mk explains. “It looked like they where crying.” Mischief stopped in her tracks and hides behind the house. She looks to her right and back down to the floor.
“H-How, the, Hell, did he see me”, Mischief thought with worry, panicking in her mind. Her racing thoughts coming to a halt. Mischief touched her broach and thought, “He was with Mei that night. He must have been walking home when he saw me.” Mischief lied the back of her head on the house wall and says, “Damn you, Moon Maiden…!” Mischief sighs and thinks, “There’s no way I can control her at this rate.” Mischief walks back to the front and sees Mk and Sun walking to the top of the mountain.
“Where are you two going?”
“We’re going to train at the top of the mountain”, Sun says. “Wanna come?”
“Sorry, not this time”, Mischief says. “I still have a bit of a headache.”
“Oh… does that mean no training tonight either”, Mk asks.
“I’m sorry, Mk”, Mischief says.
“It’s alright. Take care of yourself. We can train when you feel better.” Mischief smiles. She then remembered how her mentor from years past was so understanding. She saw a lot of them in Mk. “Well see you later.” Mk and Sun walked up the path to the top of the mountain. Mischief looks off to the side is sadness. She hated lying to Mk and her brother, but she had to protect them at all cost. She could risk to lose them like she lost…… her….
Mischief sits on a rock near the edge of the cliff and looks up at the sky. It had almost been a month since she had been away from the celestial realm: her home. She wondered if the cheetah twins had been playing in the celestial forest around this time. She touches her broach and says, “I miss you, mother…..” Pink magic flew around Mischief and a scroll appeared. Mischief catches the scroll and looks at the wax seal. “This is Ne Zha’s crest.” Mischief opens the scroll and a necklace rolls into her lap. She looks at the necklace and then read the scroll as follows:
Mischief,

**It’s good to hear from you again. I heard from your mother that you moved to earth. I hope Sun hasn’t been giving you too much of a headache. I did some research on what you told me about and it lead me to this necklace. And I also found out that the reason your alter ego is coming out on her own is because she hasn’t been bound. One of your ancestors had the same problem and they had a solution. The necklace I set you is called the moon of Apithaea. It has the power to control your alter ego’s rage. It might help you. I hope you get a hendel on your powers.** 

Could you tell sun I said hi?
-Ne Zha
Mischief chuckles and says, “Looks like Ne Zha hasn’t changed one bit. Still the same helpful prince I know.” She smirks. “And his interest in Sun hasn’t left at all.” Mischief looks at the necklace and then placed it around her neck. “Thank you, Lotus.”

Mk and Sun fight along the mountain Plato. However, Mk couldn’t couldn’t really concentrate. He was worried about Mischief, and he was thinking about the person he saw the other night. Mk was so distracted that he didn’t realize that he had left an opening for Sun to hit him. Sun stops his attack midway. 

“You got distracted.” Mk lowers his staff and shudders, “S-Sorry.”
“Are you okay? You seam distracted”, Sun points out.
“I’m worried about Mischief”, Mk says. Sun looked at Mk and the to the side of him, thinking of how to help Mk. she smiles and says, “Kid, follow me. I wanna show you something.”
“What is it?” Sun taps on the ground and a hatch opens. “Now way! How long had this been here?”
“A long time”, Sun says. He jumps and and says, “Come on!” Mk jumps down the hole and lands in a cavern like cave.
“Whoa…. Had this always been down here”, Mk asks.
“Yup”, Sun says. Mk looks ahead and sees a crystal floating above a pedestal; it’s light casting along the floor. Mk walks up to the crystal and asks, “What is this?”
“This is the crystal of the sun”, Sun explains. “This crystal has protected this mountain for a very long time. It was made over three millennia ago.”
“It’s amazing.” Mk takes a closer look at and then gets a vision.
Mischief looks back at someone; her face angry and upset.
She says something but her words are distorted and scrambled.
“She was your mentor!”
Mk blinks a few times and moves his hand away from the crystal. Sun notice Mk’s discomfort and asks, “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine”, Mk reassures Sun.
“If you say so.” Sun says.
“Hey, Monkie King? Can I ask you something?”

Mk and Sun walk along the roof of a building. 

“Are you sure the person you saw the other night is gonna be here”, sun asked.
“I’m sure of it”, Mk says. The two look around. Mk looks to the north and sees the same person from the other night. “Hey!” Sun looks over to see Mk running over to the hooded person.
“Mk, wait!”
“Um. Excuse me?” The hooded figure looks back; her eyes covered in shadows. “I noticed you the other night and I wanted to meet you.” The hooded figure looks at Mk for a second.
“MK…..?”
“You know who I am?” Sun takes a closer look at the hooded woman and gains a surprised look on his face.
“Mischief?” The being blinks a few times and then says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” She tries to walk away, but Sun holds her by the solder which makes Mischief’s necklace break off. The necklace falls to the ground and Mischief’s head hands low.
“Mischief? Are you okay”, Sun asks. Mischief looks back with her glowing eyes piercing Sun’s soul from within. Sun could feel a chill go up his spine. “Um, Mischief?” Mischief rushes back and attacks Sun. “Sis! Stop! What are you doing?!”
“Anyone who get’s in my way will be destroyed”, She yells. Sun whips around and holds his sister down with all the strength he has within him.
“Mk, get the necklace”, he shouts. Mk looks over and sees the necklace. He runs over and picks it up. Mischief looks over in panic and rage.
“No!” She breaks free from her brothers hold and rushes over to Mk and holds him by his collar. Sun tries to rush over to Mischief, but she puts of a barrier. She looks up at Mk and says, “I will not be locked up like a prisoner!”
“What? I don’t get it. Who are you”, Mk asks, struggling to break free. Mischief chuckles to herself, looks up at Mk and says, “So she didn’t tell you? Your her apprentice. Surely you can tell the difference.”
“What?”
“You don’t know? I am–!” Before she could finish her sentence, A ghostly rendition of Mischief, the real Mischief, Holds back her own body. Mk falls to the ground and looks up to see the scene taking place before him.
“Mischief?”
“Mk, I’m sorry”, Mischief exclaims. “I got you and my brother rapped up in this!” Sun runs over and helps up Mk.
“Mischief, who is this”, Mk asks.
“Moon Maiden”, Mischief answers, struggling to hold her back. “She’s my alter ego. I can’t control her without the necklace! Get it!” Sun and Mk run over to the necklace. “You have gone out of control for the last time! You going back where you belong!” Moon maiden holds Mischief by her neck and says, You really think you can control me?! I am half of you that lingers in your shadow! The dark side of light! You can’t escape me, Mischief Wukong!” Mischief puts her hand on Moon Maiden’s arm and says, “No…”
“What?”
“Your right. You are part of me. But you are nothing but an alter ego! I have been through hell and back! I have lost my way over and over, but I never gave up! I have kept you back for over two damn millennia, and I’m not stopping now”, Mischief shouts, felling herself gaining power. Mischief breaks free and holds Moon Maiden with her magic. “NOW!” Mk and Sun put the necklace on Moon Maiden. Mischief lies up and forces herself back into her body. Mischief looks in the darkness and faces her alter ego. “I know you are part of me, and it’s time to make peace with the past”, Mischief says. She puts out her hand to her alter ego. “And I want you to face it with me. If you allow me to.” Moon Maiden looks down and says, “Then I guess we really are one in the same.” She takes Mischief hand.
“We are two become one. The shadow of the sun.”

Mischief gains breath and she holds herself up. 

“M, are you okay”, Sun asks.
“I’m alright”, Mischief says.

“Alter ego, Huh? That’s a new one”, Sun says. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her before”, Mischief says. “I though I could control her on my own, but I can’t even do that right.”
“Mischief, you can talk to us”, Mk says. “We’re here for you.” Mischief looks at both Mk and Sun and says, “You know, I think me coming down here was a blessing in disguise. I’m glad you two are here with me.” The trio smiles.

I'm at the point in this (grueling) process where I am turning to the internet for unbiased commentary, guys. Somebody, anybody lol
After 30 years on this planet, many friendships and a few boyfriends, I don't think I've ever just stopped talking to anybody without some kind of a departing conversation. In most situations I think the fair thing to do is amicably go separate ways, both know where the other stands, etc.
Until 2 wks ago when I felt like I was being played and chose to go No Contact with a guy I've been in a 'situationship' with since the Fall. But the way I chose to go about it has me feeling like I did it wrong...and I need advice before I do something too nice like reach back out.
I'm going to spare the full story but just know there were little things that led up to the big thing lol. And if you've been in that stage of seeing someone where you don't know what you guys are, but they're telling you it is going somewhere, this ones for us baby, Cheers.
Let's just say this guy has decently important job, where he's in the process of leveling up in his career (or so I know). He's busy and I've respected that. We make time when it works, which is usually at night and I always accepted that. Our relationship started in the gym, and I'll admit is mainly intimate; we're together at night, talk most of our days thru work, and don't get a lot of time to go out/date. For what it's worth, I'd been committed to him and we agreed we were exclusive (or I would not be involved with what we're doing).
His birthday was coming up. When I asked what he'd like to do, he said it wasn't a big deal this year, that he would be working and he doesn't care to celebrate (go out). That felt odd but I figured since it fell on a weekday it made sense, and that we'd still be together that night after work.
We spoke the morning of his birthday, he said he was working all day and we agreed if he wanted to do anything together later on he'd let me know what's up after work... this man didn't call me til 11PM.
The next day when we spoke, he said he ended up going to the gym and then out to dinner with a co worker very last minute. I was left under the impression he was busy with work!
The day after that he added on to the story that the co worker was a female, I had to ask. A female, married, long time friend and coworker he said I didn't need to worry about. This person met him for dinner at 9PM on a week night on HIS BIRTHDAY without her husband, or me.
I feel like this warranted a reevaluation of what we wanted together convo... both attempts did not go well or get me anywhere. I won't get into how, but just know he basically shut the convo down twice yet still tried to act like everything was fine by continuing to talk to me daily, ask when I was coming over etc. Meanwhile I was stewing, confused, and just trying to process and plan.
Granted, we're not in "a relationship". But I feel so disrespected and it changed my outlook on what I thought we had entirely. All things considered I just know I deserve better than that treatment, and even if this co worker is really just a friend, it's not just that he had his bday dinner with another woman alone. It's that he didn't choose me.
So a week, one last time hooking up (don't judge me please), and some small talk over those few days later, I've just stopped responding to him. I woke up one day and I felt like I deserved way more reassurance than I got and that I just let him slide. The birthday situation just doesn't sit right.
He's called a lot and from multiple numbers. But the few texts he's sent aren't endearing at all. He hasn't apologized, asked what he did, and hasn't professed any love LOL, now he just wants to know if I'm really going to ignore him.
DO I OWE HIM AN EXPLANATION?! Was my timing way off and confusing? Or does he know why?
I don't think he is a bad person. He's just not ready for me.
I went No Contact to protect myself but I also left the line open to see how he acts and what he says. I'm grown enough to know that if the man couldn't live without me I wouldn't be writing to Reddit. So I'll do the math there.....but do I at least owe him a response, or is it better to do what I'm doing?
My empath heart is going to pop help :(

Hey guys.
So recently I tried to become friends with a coworker ( …… yes I know lol) and we were both attracted to each other. We were hitting things off until one day I had an interaction with him and a supervisor. I was working with my supervisor and he came over to say hi but my supervisors face frowned up and I got a feeling something was wrong. So we ended up having a convo later on that day and he said to me “Yeah when I came around I noticed our supervisor’s energy shift and I hoped that you wouldn’t notice it”. That was an immediate red flag and he then went on to tell me that they had went on a date in the past but nothing happened. He said that everyone has a past and he didn’t want to lie to me and it wasn’t anything serious.
Now let’s fast forward, one night we were having a convo and another one of our coworkers came up and interrupted us because she wanted to speak to him. He told her no but she was pretty much begging for him to talk to her. He got up and went to talk to her and came back and we finished our convo. But something weird happened. He seemed really excited about whatever they discussed and then went on to talk about the coworker until I said ok enough about her. It was really weird.
The next day I saw the woman who interrupted us and she gave me this evil look. Whenever I saw her she would just stare at me. So I asked him if they were messing with each other and he said she was just social and that was it.
He then told me that maybe I was being insecure because and that I didn’t have to worry about her.
I told him that it was clear that she liked him and wanted him for herself and he asked me how did I figure that out?
So me and this woman worked together one night and she saw him. She walked past me and stood beside me and tried to get his attention but he wouldn’t acknowledge her. She looked at and back at me to see if I noticed what she was doing and she visibly got irritated because he wouldn’t come over to where we were
Whenever I would work with her I would notice that she would try to see who I was texting and etc Shit was weird.
Now with all of this happening I just blocked him and I haven’t spoken to him since. With all of this said could this be a case of insecurity or my intuition being right?
I know dealing with your coworker is messy and I vow to never do it again.

I know the tittle is dumb but Im really curious.
17M straight. During the Covid-19 pandemic which is around 2020 when I was 13 , I’ve watched a lot porn and would masturbate pretty much everyday. And when after my country’s quarantine had ended, I went back to school. From that point on till last year, I’ve pretty much have been scared to talk to girls and the first thing that comes to mind when I see them is SEX SEX SEX. No matter which girl i looked at , I would consider them pretty, and a potential girlfriend. And would mostly get aroused.
But recently this year, that has pretty much stopped. Now I don’t really see them as sexually . The way I see them is that they are just a human that is a female. I also don’t consider every one of them as pretty anymore and everytime I think about getting in a relationship with a girl, it kinda turns me off. FYI: I haven’t have a full conversation with a girl for 2 years. Is this a good sign that my porn addiction has reduced/ or my lack of female communication has reduced my ¿libido? for girls/ or I’m turning gay? And I would like to ask you guys ( non-porn addicts) how do you view woman when you see one..
thanks for reading and please share your thoughts with me :)

My and my gf just got unfairly kicked out from AVA Hollywood. We moved there last year in July. The place was a little expensive but it was a pet friendly places with really nice amenities and my gf was looking to get a dog, which she did two weeks after we moved in (I would like to mention that my gf and I both do music related stuff, I’m a musician and she is a producer so we tend to stay up late working or I sometimes come back late for shows too). For the first couple months we lived our lives our lives normally and had no noise complaints, it all changed in September when the security guard knocked on my door and told me not to do laundry at night which made it hard because it was usually the only time I had to do my laundry but I agreed since it was stated in our resident agreement. I didn’t give it much importance but the next week I started to get notes on my door asking to stop stomping, then she started sending the guards over, at first I thought it was the dog so we started locking him but we were still getting complaints (I would like to mention my gf is Asian so we never wear shoes inside). The complaints kept going so I started sending my neighbor notes too saying that we are not doing anything but she kept saying we were stomping, so we decided to buy cameras and sound level meters and saw that we were in fact not noisy and that all of our levels were within the legal threshold (I would like to bring the fact that we make music, if they had complained about music it would’ve been more reasonable but she was complaining about waking, and it got worse but we’ll get to that). Around October the knocks on my door became more and more common, it got to a point where we would get the SAME guard knock on our door 2 or 3 times a day, sometimes with the apartment completely empty in November management started calling me to my personal number too and here comes Christine. She is one staff member who was very rude and would always discredit everything I said she told me she has talked to my neighbors and they all said we were loud, she also said something that was interesting she said she had heard me stomping the previous day which would not have been possible since that happened at around 10 pm and the office is open from 10 am to 6 pm, not to mention it is in another building so the only 2 options were that she was either lying or she lived under me so I decided to talk to my other neighbors (next door and upstairs) and ask if they thought we were noisy and if management had asked them about us and surprise surprise the answer was no to both questions but they all mentioned hearing their upstairs neighbors walk some even used the term stomp too. So I started gathering all that information along with security footage and sound level graphs with the results thrown by the sound level meter we got and and I started putting it on a Power Point presentation being so focused on this made me start paying attention to my upstairs neighbors too, and I heard the so called stomps to, I decided to measure with the sound level meter and to my surprise the results were similar to a quiet room around 30 dB the only difference was that the so called stomps just showed some higher peaks but they were all within the legal threshold. I kept compiling evidence and talking to other residents to learn about the building and how good was the staff when handling this stuff and one of my neighbors said her upstairs neighbors were throwing a party and that she told management but they said she had to call the security team next time it happened and she did but they couldn’t hear anything outside the door then she asked them to go inside her unit so they can hear it but they said they can’t because that’s against company rules. The complaints kept going but they started sending different guards now, thanks to the information provided by my neighbor I started asking them if they had heard anything and they all said no, I even went as far as having my GF play with the dog and went outside our apartment and downstairs and heard nothing. Eventually Mr Daniel Doroteo who was the guard who had been bothering us came again and I asked him if he had heard anything and he said he did and I asked him how because I was 100% sure there was no way to hear it from outside and he said I was right and that he went inside the apartment so I mentioned that I heard from another resident that was against the rules to which he said they can do it with our permission, I let him off the hook that time which was a big mistake since he denied it all the other times I brought up. On December I got my first notice and they had the times and dates of all the verified noise complaint and there were a couple interesting things, for starters the only person who had verified them was Daniel Doroteo, and then I saw that they omitted a lot of complaints including the ones where Daniel went there more than once, and to make it worse there’s complaints that were verified with the apartment completely empty or when we were sleeping they also omitted one complaint where Daniel said he heard a TV when we have no TV. So I got the security footage from the dates and times mentioned in the notice and scheduled a meeting a little before that Christine (remember her?) called me and started the call by threatening to take me to court so that got mixed with all the stress I was getting from this, I could not sleep and even the slightest noise even if I was outside would trigger a panic attack so I got heated and just started talking over her and screaming so she hung up, I mention this because when I went to tal to the staff, they said they scheduled me with Christine so I would have to wait for her. Meeting her in person was more unpleasant than on the phone she was loud, rude,cocky, and she would do anything to try dismissing my evidence stuff from saying my sound levels were not valid because they were recorded from source which showed she clearly has no clue about how sound works, luckily I had recorded my upstairs neighbor and after she saw that she tried to gain the upper hand by saying I was taking to her like that because she was a woman, to which I responded that I was using the same tone she was using on me and that if I was addressing the other person differently was because he was addressing me in the same way, she did apologize so I gotta give her that. I think we were lucky there was another staff member called Zach because if it wasn’t for her presence we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if he wasn’t there, but he was only helpful in preventing Christine and I from further escalating this. Like I said I was only met with dismissal from them even with all my evidence they kept deflecting it by saying it had been verified by a third party (that third party being Mr Daniel Doroteo who was hired through the company allied universal making him a third party), they also forced me to buy carpet to cover 70% of the unit. Zach also asked me to email him the evidence and that he would look at it (I later found out that was a big mistake). That’s all for now, I’ll post the next part later, it’s a very long story and I omitted some details to keep it as short as possible (but it didn’t do much haha). But feel free to ask anything.

First lets call my ex y , so basically me and y meet in the college i was helping him with hw and we got along with eachother and i introduced him to my mom and so on.. then one day he came and said I'll wait 4 u at 6pm and i said okay but i didn't make it at 6pm and ignored him the whole day cuz i was helping dad with some stuff (btw i sent him a message telling him couldn't make it) so after that day he came to me saying he wants to break up cuz i didn't care about him and he's the one who always call and like he wanted more care from me but anyway i broke up with him.. In the day i was ignoring him i was hanging with friends in the morning and i meet someone (let's call him s) that s the first time i texted him was in the day when me and y meet so i kept texting s during my relationship with y (btw i was texting him as a friend) So the ignoring day morning me and s meet for the second time ( ill explain how the first was if ur interested to know) we laughed alot and had sooo muchh funn in that day i felt sth different like omg he's the one i want him so the day after me and y broke up guess watt 😭 s confessed his feelings to me and i was like in a fckd up place so i said yes i luv u too s .. Since that day me and s are together but i made a mistake In some day i was so angry from my bf (s) so i wanted him to notice my exist, i found someone on insta and started to text him jus to make my bf jealous even tho he didn't know so i txted the insta guy we talked for 4h straight on a phone call and 1h the next day and thats it.. i blocked him after, but the problem that we actually had a very dirty conversation and he sent me his nudes and i sent him a pic of me with no nudes so my bf and the insta guy meet and he told me that he knows about everything and the nudes and when he asked me abt him i said idk why i did that ..i jus didn't want him to know that i did it cuz i was angry from him and all that was to punish myself and to calm my feelings and now he thinks im cheating on him + the insta guy and my bf and my ex from the same uni💀 i need help guys i want my bf back..

Hello im from Southern Cali, heavy guy! shy guy until i warm up and be goofy and random with. Im def socially awkward, open minded nothing is tmi. I like honesty, I dont judge, im a simple guy love a woman in just sweat pants and a oversized tshirt of mine haha or a comfy cuddly oversized hoodie perfect for cuddles. 🥰 which i havent felt like in 15+ years. or a womans physical touch at all.
Im an easy going guy, i do game on Playstation so would be cool to find a game we both play.
Anyways days are lonely i miss the good mornings goodnights having someone to think about all day and randomly smile or laugh. i literally have no friends. Just want to talk without drama.
Someone who has the time and wants to chat back and forth. Not this One off where you chat say hi, act interested then poof ghost. Too old for that crap. So please.
I like being affectionate, yes even in over txt. i adore that stuff, specially my arm being hugged. Omg... maybe im clingy needy wont lie. Just hoping to find someone long term get to know and share our days and nights with.
I love sci fi movies or series shows. Love a good scary movie and having her nuzzle into me if shes scared. i find that sweet and cute. guess i sound desperate , oh well... if i do i do.
penguin hugs. 💙🐧💜