Creatve way to text good night

My long time spouse (married 30+ years) is dealing with a relative dying of cancer and I don’t know how to help. TBH, spouse and I are not close nor do we look to each other for emotional support (long story short, he has/had(?) alcohol issue and was mentally & verbally abusive to me so I retreated emotionally). That’s another story for another day but in the meantime, his relative is dying and likely won’t make it till Christmas. What are the best ways I can help him? He has never talked about emotions and is not good dealing with them or expressing anything except anger. Besides talking or physical touch what can I do? When another relative died a few years ago, I touched his back to comfort and he growled at me not to touch him. So I did small “acts of service” like making sure he never ran out of coffee, prepared meals and snacks, didn’t require him to do much around the house etc. I let him take the time he needed and didn’t make any demands. We grieved privately and on our own. I’m not sure what else I can do (or not do) in this situation so any advice is appreciated. As stupid as it sounds, talking to him is out of the question. He is not even able to give me updates on their condition because he can’t deal with it and doesn’t want to talk about it. Thank you for any help or words of advice.

I want to keep this short and sweet, with as many facts as possible since I tend to ramble, and give unnecessary details for the sake of transparency. If there are any questions I will of course answer them, or give clarification where needed.
Here’s what’s relevant:

• I worked at Ulta from August 2022 - April 2024
  
• I started as a PBA while I went through Cos school and transitioned into the Salon on my 1 year Ultaversary
  
• Never had I ever met our LP team, let alone director. Nor had I ever gotten a write up, a suspension, etc. (I did have a verbal coaching for attendance)
  

-My salon training consisted of 4 hours of watching videos that explained the stylist leveling system, how commission worked, how Ulta Academy worked, and how red lines/dots worked in the salon in terms of monthly take overs.
-My Salon Manager (EM I think the title is) worked the complete opposite of my schedule, so everything I needed came down to texting her, often outside of my working hours (as per her response time).

• I was not aware that you couldn’t give discounts to people you weren’t directly married to, the domestic partner of, or the parent of (I’m engaged, not married and I wasn’t corrected on this until mid-January 2024 where I promptly addressed some concerns with management and made changes)
  
• I always made sure that a manager checked out a ticket for anyone I was close personal friends or family with to avoid this exact incident happening.
  
• I only used the 10% off discount (I’m not arguing that this is theft of services, or that I did it). This discount appears 6 times all under my fiance’s name. 3/6 were first time visits. His mom and his sister booked under his name initially because they don’t have loyalty accounts and they thought using their names in the salon was signing up for one. I made management aware of this, and they said it should be fine. The other 3 discounts were “illegal” for lack of a better term.
  

On April 1st I was terminated, 2 hours into a 5 hour shift. I was allowed to finish two makeup clients (I was the only established Mua at the time). I even stopped to speak with managers about green dots when I clocked in, and then went on my way uninterrupted.
I guess I’m frustrated because all of this came to light after an internal investigation was started for theft of product off the floor discovered by another associate, and made its way into the salon. Since then I have gotten a hold of HR once due to never receiving my exit interview, and I have been contacted by a former coworker who has been told I’m blaming her for my being fired.
What should I do from here? Does any of this sound shady, or am I naively grasping at straws? (I guess this isn’t so short, but I tried to keep emotion out of it)

My ex and I had a very messy 1 year relationship. He was incredibly narcissistic and toxic, he made me distance myself from my family and was very selfish. He also cheated on me many times with his ex. He was also a relationship hopper who did not love himself and did not know how to be alone. I tried to help him many times and took him to therapy but he just did not want help.
Despite all of this, he helped me understand my depression and he made good music that really helped me heal.
The last time he cheated on me was with someone much younger who he met on tinder. I left and never looked back. I blocked him on everything and despite doing this before, we could never keep no contact. But this time I was determined to do so. It was incredibly hard because I cared so deeply for this person and it hurt knowing he was with someone else. They moved in together after 2 weeks and this is when I cut ties.
It took me a good 8 months to forget he existed.
3 years later.. out of the blue, I get an email from him asking if we could speak. I didn’t really want to as I know how manipulative he can be and my friends all told me no, but something in my heart was telling me this was different.
I was SHOCKED he reached out because he has an ego the size of Texas and so I never expected him to contact me.
Something seemed so off.. He called me crying (something he never did) and he apologized for everything he put me through and tells me that I was the only person who truly accepted him for who he was and his deepest regret was treating me the way he did blah blah I didn’t take too much of it to heart as I know how manipulative he can be.
Regardless, I told him I forgave him a long time ago as I truly don’t hold space in my heart for hate or resentment and that I just hope he is now being a better person to others.
We planned to meet face to face a couple of days later.
The day came and he never showed, I texted him but he never replied. I got a call that same day from him at stupid o’clock but I was so mad that he stood me up, so I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe I was made a fool once again and I fell for his antics.
Well, little did I know that he passed away that night. His pain and regret for the things he did was too much for him to face.
As I spent the next couple of years grieving him, I learned that I actually loved and cared for him more than I thought I did and so did he. At his funeral, I had the chance to speak to his mother who always supported us and who also tried to help him to change. She told me that they did have to go through all of his things with the police, including his phone and computers. I was shocked to hear about how many songs, poems and messages expressing his love and regret. I never thought he actually cared about me at all.
This taught me that you should never underestimate the hole your absence will leave in someone’s life. However, you must give them space to miss you. Sadly, men only learn value via losing.
On the other side, protect your peace, guard your heart and forgive yourself. Apologize to them if you need to, cry if you need to and let it go.
His family kindly allowed his demos to be uploaded onto Spotify for me and his friends to listen to.
If you’re ever wondering if he misses you, of course he does but people miss people dead or alive, it’s nothing new.
Whoever you meet, always try to leave them better than how you found them - and I don’t mean baby them or try and change them - what I mean is, SHOW them, using your actions, how people SHOULD be. No matter how bad of a person they are, always be kind, always be patient, always forgive (but you don’t need to forget) - you may ask why, as some people really don’t deserve it, but please understand that you might be the closest thing to love someone will ever experience.
I hope this made sense ❤️

I was wondering what are some ways to get sustain on a nightblade while leveling? And are there any ways to make good money while leveling or should I wait until lvl 50? Returning player PS4 to Xbox.

I (21F) have a brother (25M), he had a girlfriend (mindy) and they were together for a year or so, i’m not completely sure how long, as i was in a different state when they originally started dating and i don’t speak much to my brother either. while my brother and mindy were together i was often told by my parents and other family that me and mindy were quite similar in what we enjoyed and how we acted(we’re both a bit weird, nothing wrong with that), and i got along with her really well. welp, they broke up a week or so ago, i offered my support and help for either of them if they needed it because i know how close mindy became to my family. i then asked mindy if she ever wanted to go out and just have a girls day that i would love to, i honestly don’t have many female friends and i know it could help her maybe be distracted from the breakup, im not sure? would i be the a**hole if became better friends with her even though she is my brothers EX, as well as going out with her(as friends)? as far as i know they ended on good terms and are still friends
what i mean by better friends is, i tended to keep my distance from them as they had their relationship and spent a ton of time together, i never wanted to get in the way so that’s why i did not offer hanging out before.

I can't stop dwelling on this. I feel like things could have been different if I hadn't done any of this and it's making me have a hard time to move on. Things seemed to be going great with him. After getting food/drinks on our 3rd date and finally having our first kiss with each other, I (25F) invited him (28M) up to my place (I wanted to make out and have a little fun. I was also drunk, I had to go home and throw up in my bathroom but I was coherent). Once we got to my place, I had to stop him in the middle of us doing stuff to tell him I don't have sex until I'm in a relationship and that I'd also need him to get an STD test for oral/blowjobs (and for sex eventually if it gets there).
I don't remember some parts well so I'm going to do my best. He said it didn't make sense to do other things but not sex BUT he was respectful and didn't push for more. We talked about past relationships/exes but there were a couple comments he made in between doing stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. Comments like "You don't think condoms are protective enough? I haven't had sex in a year and a half" (Yeah but you could still have std's..). And then something else along the lines of "what do you think is going to happen after? I'm going to get blue balls but that's okay, right?". He had said earlier that this wasn't casual for him but I didn't like the blue balls comment. Awhile later, I said "you say you don't do casual but you're willing to go all the way with me and you don't even know me yet".
He said we've been chatting 3 weeks (it had only been a week since we were meeting up though) and I was like "What's my favorite food?" (to prove my point) and he responded that he didn't see me casually and hasn't been talking to others, but he was "feeling me". Things felt super awkward and I wanted to explain myself for projecting, so a little bit later, I stopped him from leaving to talk. He was like "What do you need from me? I didn't do anything with you." After he finally sat down, I tried explaining to him that I haven't had the best dating experiences in the past (I didn't want to go in any more detail). He said this wasn't a productive convo and left after.
I reached out the next day to try and clear the air with a lighthearted text and he ended things with me right after. I wonder if things would have gone differently if I just hadn't been drunk and didn't invite him up. I also regret not telling him my boundaries beforehand. I can't let this go and I want to stop dwelling on it

Went there last night to try their pho and beef curry pho and oh my god how good it is! They’ve got Bahn mi’s too give them a try if you’re in the area

Fred, my sister’s boyfriend’s best friend, has been part of our gaming group for a while. After I shared a cosplay picture in our group chat, Fred told my sister’s boyfriend that I looked good and asked if I had a boyfriend. At the time, I did, so nothing happened. Now that I’m single, Fred started showing interest, and we really hit it off, even having an hour-long call.
The next day, I texted him, but he said he was busy and never followed up. A week later, he apologized, saying he was struggling with exams, and we started talking again. We had an eight-hour call, but then he didn’t text back after saying he would. The next day, he apologized again, saying he was out for a friend’s birthday, but he was active in our group chat and on social media. I haven’t responded to him yet and left him on seen.
Friends advised me beforehand and told me not to get too attached since he’s not serious without meeting in person. We’ll meet in June with my sister and her boyfriend when he’s back from university abroad.
I just don’t know if I should keep texting him or how to respond when he promises to text and then never does, or does but after a while.
Should I even respond or just wait to see if he’ll still do the same bullcrap after we meet? I’m not sure what to do.

Sorry for the long post, there's a TLDR at the bottom, just thought i'd put all the details out there.
The bike is a 1986 Yamaha YX600, a slightly odd 'mutt' bike. Bought it a bit ago. It ran when stored, but it was stored for a good while. The dude was super cool so I trusted it, and hey it was $900 for basically a complete bike+helmet+original owners manual+$150 motorcycle ramp, and just a random box of extra small parts.
I bought an original ECU to just keep it simple, I bought original gauge cluster (unfortunately don't remember entirely since it's been a while, but a modern aftermarket gauge cluster would not work, so I had to go with OEM.) Thankfully Ebay was a savior, there were not many parts for this bike and I should have done more research, but fortunately I found one seller that exclusively sells a bunch of parts for it.
After all was said and done it ran, just not very well. Then one day I noticed it was kinda running hot, I somewhat chocked it up to just being super hot outisde, but then noticed some smoke coming out of the crankcase after parking somewhere to check. It was definitely having trouble. Then it just simply wouldn't start up. Got super worried but after letting it cool down for an hour it was alright to start, and just got home quickly.
I went out after a bit and started it to check what was going on, I had a temp gun and noticed cylinder 3 was sitting at a cool 600-700 degrees, while the others were like 300-350. Go figure, it's a 4 cylinder bike with a 4-carb rack. One for each cylinder because... Dunno. The entire thing is such a PITA to take apart but I was determined.
Rebuilt it and cleaned the entire thing 3-4 times, but for some reason Cylinder 3 was running completely lean and I could not figure it out for so long. Then one time when taking it apart again, I noticed that the brass float valve would not seat properly in carb 3, it was like a mm or two high, causing the float needle to have ever so less clearance, jamming the needle up into the float valve when fuel would flow in, sealing the fuel hole entirely until it sucked whatever fuel it could from the bowl. No matter how I bent the prongs of the float, I couldn't get it to seat correctly.
I never understood this, I took it apart and every single time would switch the brass float valve, I had like 3 different kits to grab from, they were all the exact same size and float valve. Look down into the hole that the valve seats in, across all 4 carbs it was the exact same with zero difference, the hole was clean and smooth, so there was no visual reason it wouldn't fit! It irritated me so much that after the fourth time putting it back together and testing it, watching it either dump fuel out or get zero fuel to the bowl after a second, I just put the bike in storage.
I wanted to fix it, but could not figure out how, and nowhere had any information since getting info on the bike in the first place was super rough. I could either try to sand and polish the hole, or even sand down the valve and risk ruining something, or try to buy a whole new carb rack. The issue was that nobody was selling the carb set anywhere, I saw it once on Ebay but it was gone within like a day and was like $500 and didn't see another at any point.
And now time has gotten away from me quite a bit. Don't really have the time or space to work on it, and at this point I am contemplating even attempting to sell a broken bike, or just storing it until I can get to it someday and just try to figure out if any other aftermarket carbs will work for it.
TLDR: Don't have much time anymore, but i've been told the bike is rare in the sense of not too many people really owning one since it's a mutt bike, and the carb is a PITA with one of the four carbs running dangerously lean with a simple surface level issue that I can't solve after rebuilding it 4 times (Brass float valve wont seat all the way for some reason, causing the needle to get stuck in the hole and not allow fuel to flow in until the bowl empties and it gets a brief burst of fuel), and at this point it seems like my only option would be to buy a new carb rack or the specific carb and hope it's in okay condition if I could ever find one that's oem and doesn't cost half what I paid for the bike or isn't destroyed, find an aftermarket one that actually works, try to even attempt to sell it again later on (tried, no luck) or when I finally get time try to fix it and just continue to keep it in storage.

To make this as short as possible, I was a bored teenager on the internet without many friends in real life, so at 16 I started talking to this 30 year old guy. Initially he told me he just wanted to practice his English, because he’s from Eastern Europe, but we started communicating daily. I viewed him as a friend, but after a few months he started to tell me that I was so beautiful, he wanted to be my boyfriend, and so on.
Around ~2 years ago he told me he moved to America, but he still lived pretty far from me, so we never met in person. At this point we only spoke every once in a while. When we did, he’d offer to buy a me plane ticket and hotel room to come visit him, but I always had some excuse as to why I couldn’t.
In the past few months, he’s showed up in my area (with no prior notice) asking if I could meet him. I’d say that I was out of town, or I had a family emergency, or something like that. Recently, he told me he’s coming again next month and he really, really wants to meet. And this time, I have mixed feelings.
I know it’s shallow, but I’m not physically attracted to him. Maybe he’s better in person, but he’s not really that interesting or funny either. There’s also the whole talking to teenage me on the internet thing.
On the other hand, I’ve tried to date before, but was always unsuccessful. I’d get ghosted when I made it clear I didn’t want to have sex yet. In contrast, he’s never mentioned anything sexual, even once. He also made it clear that his physical “type” is for girls who look like me, which isn’t very common.
I’m kind of a failure in life. I’m 23, I live with my parents, I can’t drive, I don’t have any friends, I’ve never had a real job. I had a few retail/food service sort of jobs, but I never lasted long because I got overwhelmed with being around people all day. I did go to college, but I wasn’t very good at what I majored in, and I don’t know what to with my life. I’m honestly not good at anything. In contrast, he has a house, a car, and a job.
He’s talked about me moving in with him, us getting married, having a family, and he’ll take care of everything. I never saw myself living that kind of life, but maybe I’m not suited for anything else. I’m awkward and don’t have any other skills.
Honestly, I think he’s probably the best I’ll ever get. Most people don’t get their perfect 10/10 person, and I should be happy that someone has been this persistent in their interest of me. The only hurdle is finding a way to go meet him when he comes, but I could figure something out. I’m not sure if it’s an ok idea or if I could possibly try to learn to love him? Should I meet him?

Hey, not to be a downer, but I'm not having the greatest time as of late. I've been feeling alone and honestly don't really know how to deal with it.
I'm not going to sit here and lie to myself that I'm okay or that I'm seeing the bright side of this situation. I'm alone and would love to voice chat with someone or text that I could just talk to and not feel so alone if only for a night.
I know this may be depressing and you may not want to talk to me because I bring you down but if you got something on your mind and need to talk to maybe we could be mutually beneficial. I'll also send pictures of my dog but that's a given.
Have a good one and thanks for reading if you did.

I don't think I've ever known if its origin was in good fun or intended to be mean in some way. Just generally curious.

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.

I got a tentative job offer for the forestry aide position 10 hours away from where I live, I was wondering if it was worth it to move 10 hours away and if it would be a good way to get my foot in the door and be able to apply for other positions such as ff1?

I am an international student graduating from a university in Toronto. In February, I submitted a visitor visa application for my parents to attend my graduation ceremony in June 2024. I included all necessary supporting documents to demonstrate their financial solvency, such as recent bank statements showing ample funds (more than CAD $33,000) for the trip, and a property and fixed asset valuation report from a Chartered Accountant. Additionally, my parents have a strong international travel history including recent visits to the UK, the US and many other countries. I clearly stated in the invitation letter and the purpose of the travel document that their visit was to attend my graduation and that they would return home by the end of June 2024 due to business and property responsibilities.
These were the supporting documents for the application:

• I provided 3 bank statements that accumulate funds equivalent to $33,000 CAD and a fixed asset valuation report of my father’s property from a Chartered Accountant, reflecting its current fair market value of more than 5 Million CAD
  
• ⁠The purpose of travel is to attend my graduation mentioned in the invitation letter and the purpose of the travel document with the proof of solid family ties back home that shows they must come back by the end of June. Both my parents have a good international history with a record of recent visits to the UK, the USA and other countries.
  
• ⁠Documents proving their family ties to Home country are:
  
  • Asset valuation report that reflects property ownership
  • Recent bank statements that accumulates funds of $33,000 CAD
  • The business licence for my enterprise in Home Country
  • Rent receipts from all the tenants of my solely-owned business property with the rental agreement
  • Tax return since 2021
  • National Identity Documents

However, I received a refusal letter from IRCC last night including the following reasons:

I am not satisfied that you will leave Canada at the end of your stay as required by paragraph 179(b) of the IRPR (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2002-227/section-179.html). I am refusing your application because you have not established that you will leave Canada, based on the following factors: Your assets and financial situation are insufficient to support the stated purpose of travel for yourself (and any accompanying family member(s), if applicable). The purpose of your visit to Canada is not consistent with a temporary stay given the details you have provided in your application. 

I have 3 options in hand now: 1. Re-apply (Processing Time: 80+ days) 2. Reconsideration (as quickly as 5 business days) 3. Judicial Review (the most expensive and time consuming option)
I decided to submit a reconsideration letter. However, I am not sure how much of a difference it would make. I would appreciate any support on how to prepare an ideal reconsideration letter. Also, I would like to know if this reconsideration request actually makes any difference.
Thank you!

Hey guys! fnafking_93 here! I just want to pause for a moment and explain a few updates to my new strategy on Agressive Nightmare Mode! Please ignore my last post, because that one is not updated and will give you some mental taxing states!
For Agressive Nightmare Mode, there are a few things that I found out:

1. Springtrap can not enter a vent at midnight, he can't kill you at midnight, niether can he appear at your window during this time frame
   
2. During the 12 AM segment, you'll be rebooting all systems 2 times (This will take about 30-40 seconds) After your finished, go back to camera system and seal the vent he's nearest to! After that, go back to the matience panel and reboot "Camera System." After that, 1 AM should roll around. If it doesn't you can try rebooting ventelation if you want but it's optional and is more risky. The rationale behind "Reboot All" is because this will prevent any sudden systems going offline before 2 AM, of course they can go offline during 1 AM but it's very unlikely to happen!
   
3. Once 1 AM rolls around, you have to be more cautious with Springtrap and keep a close eye on him! What you'll be doing until Springtrap appears at the window is spamming the camera panel up and down until he appears. If your not sure where Springtrap is, follow this: Click on Camera 10 and spam the camera panel up and down, if he's not there repeat this throughout all the cameras to prevent a Phantom BB, Phantom Puppet, and Phantom Chica jumpscare, doing this will help you look at camera's 7, 8, 9 without any trouble since they can't attack when you have the camera down and they will be gone once the monitor is back up. They sometimes can be still on the camera, but it's very unlikely as well. Once you find Springtrap while following this strategy, seal the vent he's nearest too! If he's in Camera 5, or 2 seal the nearest vent! If he's in Camera 2 prepare to play audio in Camera 2 because his next move will be the window, sometimes he can go back to Camera 5 or 6 which is good! If he goes to Camera 3 or 4 do not worry, there is no vent he can get in through. Follow this until he appears at the window! Of course, do not get distracted and keep your volume up! Having this in mind, will always keep you prepared for sudden scenario's!
   
4. Once he appears at the window, play audio in Cam 2! If he goes there, seal Camera Vent 15 and do not reboot audio right away! There's a good chance, he'll appear at the window again while your rebooting and will run by the window while the maintenance panel, sometimes he'll go back to Camera 5 which is a good thing! Basically, it's a 50-50 chance! If he goes back to Camera 5, seal Vent Camera 13 and spam the camera up and down again until he appears at the window, repeat the cycle! If he appears at the window again, play audio again in Cam 2 again! There's a very little chance he'll appear at the window for a third time! Most of the time as an ideology if mine, if you play audio in Cam 2 for the first time mostly he'll go back to Cam 5 after the Cam 2 sequence! Basically, you'll be repeating this the entire night! This strategy mainly focuses on dealing with Springtrap and elminates any distractions like Phantom Foxy appearing!
   

This strategy will take some time to get used too! But you should master it in no time and I have defeated Agressive Nightmare Mode pretty consistiently now with this strategy I made up! Of course, you still need some luck like hoping Springtrap doesn't run by the window or enter an unsealed vent while your rebooting systems at 1 AM onwards! But most runs for new players for this strategy can get you to 2 AM - 4 AM and sometimes 5 AM or even complete first try! But sometimes you just get extremely unlucky and die for the cause! This strategy does eliminate some RNG!
If your reading this strategy: Give it a shot and let me know what you think! The goal for this strategy is spend more time on Springtrap and not rebooting devices like every single rotation! This will still require luck but it's pretty consistient once you master the strategy!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible! Thank you for reading this strategy! I hope it helped you and I'll see you in the next one!
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Good luck!!!
fnafking_93

This post probably won't have a great structure, but I'm going to try and get my thoughts out as best I can so you can understand where I have been, and where I hope to end up eventually.
I was raised Christian. My family is very religious, and has a lot of right winged ideas that were hard to follow or really accept. I fell out of the church mainly because my parents also started doing the same, but also slowly it became my own beliefs. I never did stop believing in God, I sort of just had a passivist look at life, like, no one knows what happens after death, so ultimately, what I believe doesn't matter. There were moments in this time where I feared death, and had terrible anxiety over it. There were also moments in my life where I saw beauty, love, and wondered if it was God trying to show himself, or just random occurrences.
Now, presently, I sit here wanting to believe fully again. I have rid myself of the fear of death, for the most part. That was holding me back because I believe you should not believe out of fear. Fear is not love. I have experienced interesting experiences in the recent past though and I'm going to try to detail those experiences to you now...
I have had 2 experiences this year where I thought I was in hell and everyone but me just couldn't see it because they were blind to it. One of these experiences was induced by a 5mg edible of low concentration weed. My first experience with weed was terrible, I had a 25mg edible (I wasn't aware of bad highs or tolerance). This past experience though, like I said, I believed I was in hell. I felt like I could read people and every moving part of the world, that showed we were all in hell, and there wasnt ever a clear sign there would ever be an end to it all. Basically I believed that we reincarnate infinitely, each time we dont remember each life, and various things in the world would create the illusion that this was simply reality.
My second experience, was not weed induced. It was actually a mixed bipolar episode. I thought we were all in hell once more, but this time I thought that God was in people and through people God taught us our way out of hell through time, or essentially, infinite repetitions of life. I felt like I went through God's trials and tribulations and through every action and decision I had somehow failed him.
Both these experiences have been conflicting to me in their own regards, and I mostly want to disregard them, but at the same time, I cant let go of the experiences. Although they are both largely traumatic, there was a light or some sort of explanation to reality that made sense. That light gave purpose, gave meaning, but also is continuing to give me anxiety, worry, and fear.
I worry, that God is the devil that enjoys inflicting psychological trauma for eternity and Lucifer is the devil that enjoys inflicting physical trauma for eternity. I worry heaven will seem all good and great, but actually, you're suffering without knowledge of it, just like my experiences, where I thought I was awake to the suffering while everyone was blind to it. What hell could be worse than one you don't know you're apart of? What hell could be worse than one you don't know how to escape or know if there is an escape? True psychological warfare.
At the end of the day though, I feel I need to believe that love wins. That love is what's real. That God is real. That in some way God is working in ways that I don't fully understand. I'm just not sure how to keep my faith, how to especially grow in faith. I'm not sure how to believe, nor am I sure I ever truly can believe...

I'm a very spiritual person and I believe dreams always have a meaning. I never had lucid dreams but my dreams are mostly very vivid and intense and I did have dreams where I was able to see stuff happen before it actually happened the next day. Nothing serious, but very real. I got used to it. It didn't happen for a while now tho. I also often have reaccuring nightmares, mostly about zombies.
That being said the zombie dreams started again a while ago. They took place in my/ my neighbors garden and their house. After some days I got another one and that's when it started. I believe 4 days of zombie nightmares in a row that left me exhausted. When my dreams are strong I don't really sleep good. I just put it in the typical 'I'm just stressed' category, since I think that this is what the zombie dreams are related to and shrugged it off. But after those continuing nightmares that broke my record I began thinking about them and realised something. After the garden they moved to my yard and from there they moved inside the house, then up the staircase. It seemed like something was slowly getting closer to my bedroom.
After those exhausting days it stopped but today, 2 days later, something weird happened. This morning I woke up from knocking at the door. I recognized the knocking and since our house is also a 3 apartment family house with only me, my husband and my mum living here it could only be one person. Since she knows I was still asleep I figured it'd be important and got up. I was confused to find my husband awake on the couch and asked why he didn't open the door since he's awake. He was even more confused cause he didn't hear anyone knock. We made a bet and joked around, making our way upstairs to my mum because for one I sleep very deeply and it takes a lot to wake me up, I can also distinguish that sound from others even in deep sleep and on the other hand my husband has very bad hearing and I'm pretty sure if someone would rob us he wouldn't even realize so let's say I very very confident to win that bet. But I lost. And then it dawned on me. Because I know that sound since my mum kept waking me up by knocking for ages cause I missed my alarm. I know that sound cause it's specific wood. And I know I heard it. Neither my mum nor husband heard anything. So it had to be a dream. But now it wasn't a zombie and now it felt very. Very. Real. And whatevers slowly making their way up my house is at my door now. And I'm nervous to go to bed again.
Maybe someone had a similar experience or has some better knowledge in spirituality

I had my resident cat Ivy for 6 months, she was a sweet affectionate very happy girl, she was previously a backyard breeders queen (fuck that) and has had at least two litters of kittens that I know of before I got her.
I wanted her to have some company for when we are out/busy and generally just for her wellbeing, contacted the shelter I got her from and asked if they had any cats that matched her personality - all adults (male, as I was advised a younger, smaller male would be better, don't know how much I believe this as all accounts I can find online are pretty evenly split between gender does matter, and doesn't) but anyway, they told me that one of their kittens would be a good match as all the older males were already being rehomed.
So we brought home a little boy, we followed everything correctly, separated in rooms behind a bug screen, fed them together and played, ivy seemed interested even though she grumbled and hissed, understandable since her territory was being invaded.
After two weeks we let them mix, seemed fine, she was unhappy with it and would hiss but nothing worrying.
After a routine vet check up for the kitten we found out they were actually female and thus un-spayed (spay appt incoming)
After a month, the kitten is displaying food aggression, probably from being in the shelter, she swats at Ivy as I am preparing meals for them, I have started to feed them separately, they previouly ate next to each other totally fine though, I just want to avoid the aggression prior to it as it probably won't help Ivys attitude.
Ivy however now has started to really bully her (Willow) especially around a scratching board bed I got them, she will chase Willow and get her on her back if she sits on it, I bought a second one and it still does nothing.
Sometimes she goes for Willow when she's not looking, when willow is just cleaning herself, she chases her under the TV unit and poor Willow just stays there. There have been no actual fights yet that I am aware of? But at night Ivy is especially horrible to her, if I am not present in the evening then she will keep her locked under that unit.
It's making me very very depressed as ivy is getting told off by me every evening, I clap to try break her out of her black eyes wiggling butt I'm gonna charge at this tiny cat and fuck them up when she doesn't stop I do the raised voice ah ah ah ah ah, and a firm IVY NO when she ignores that. She slinks away unhappy and it's physically hurting me thinking I've made her unhappy or scared of me, she's definitely not as affectionate with me as she was.
I play with them both, they have supervised outdoor time in our safe back garden (ivy still chases her around) and I'm just at a loss.
I know it's only been a month, and it takes time to adjust, it are there any tips people can give me to calm aggression and bullying

1. I have Feliway diffusers
2. They play and eat together, puzzles balls and puzzle boards with treats.
3. I leave bird TV on for them when I leave for work before my partner wakes up and at night
4. Willow isn't really very affectionate, only when she wants it and never any other time, she just always wants to play and run around
5. They sleep together downstairs instead of upstairs with us, before Willow, ivy would sleep on our bed every night, SOMETIMES I wake up and they are both there but mostly they choose to sleep in the same room away from us which I find so odd, like why does Willow choose to sleep with Ivy and not us when Ivy is horrible to her lol.

I've played some turbo games now both solo (w/ randoms) and within a party a few times. It's hard to be good right off the bat in this game, I can tell. I've only played Turbo but I'm matching up with players of pretty high skill sets on the enemy team. They are way better than me. It teaches me to hold down the fort at least, but any tips on how to manage that as well would be appreciated.
Here is my focus: Mostly support, with disabling and quick escape options. Sometimes I want to be a fighter, but sticked to ranged, but that won't be my main focus. It depends on the strategy my team is going for.
~My Mains (and their focus/role):~
Juggernaut –Support/Crowd Control/Jungle, Any Lane. Carry/Escape/Pusher
Riki – Support/Crowd Control, Any Lane. Carry/Escape/Disabler
Bounty Hunter – Support/Crowd Control/Gold Gain, Any Lane. Escape/Nuker
Viper – Start Fights/Carry, Offlane or Mid. Durable/InitiatoCarry/Disabler
Let me know what you think of my hero choices/focus. Thank you. :)

Getting a good night sleep is the ONLY way I have found to not experience daily burnout. I have worked SO hard on making our bedroom the ideal sleep environment: black out curtains, humidifier and air purifier for white noise, no electronics in the room at all, handmade pillows, expensive mattress cover....
My partner and I have been together almost 6 years, and over the past year or so they've slowly started snoring. Now, any given time they're asleep, it's like an 85% chance they are snoring. And LOUD. White noise doesn't cover it. I even bought some really nice sleep headphones thinking that having white noise directly in my ears would help, but I turned it up so loud I got a warning and my ears hurt and I could still hear the snoring. I also tried several different ear plugs. Most were not comfy enough to sleep in, and none of the ones that were actually blocked out noise. (Well they blocked out the white noise but not anything else so).
My partner goes to sleep before I do, so it makes sense that they go in the bedroom and close the door so they can sleep while I'm still up doing things. And I just sneak into bed quietly when I'm ready. But now when my partner is there, that place that was so quiet and peaceful, a sanctuary from the world, now feels hostile because of the noise. So, I end up on the couch, with only room for one pillow, unable to stretch to the sides, in the living room with all the electronics and no blackout curtains.
I know my partner isn't doing on it purpose, but I FEEL like it's a personal attack, like every time they snore, it's a personal "f*ck you" just for me. I don't know how to not feel this way. I don't know how to accept the snoring, if I even can. And I don't know how to sleep well outside my sanctuary.
As for WHY they are snoring, they seem to think it's because of allergies or a sinus infection or something like that, and are taking medication and nasal sprays, which...maybe help a LITTLE? I personally think it's because we're both getting into our 30s, have become lethargic after moving into a better living situation 2 years ago, and have thus gained weight. With much convincing, they've started exercising, but refuse to cut out any sugar, and they won't drink anything that isn't out of a bottle or can, which means soda and I haven't been able to convince them that sugar free soda actually isn't bad. So. If this is the problem, it's not going to change very quickly.

My boyfriend so is has a career is primarily only in friend groups with people who also have careers and I guess come off as if they have everything figured out and well I haven’t gotten that far. I’m currently employed but in between wanting to change fields and have started to study for something in the tech field but it hasn’t been working out and I’ve just been trying to figure out what else I could possibly be good at. That’s just been a big insecurity of mine of not being well established as other people that are surrounding me. I’ve tried to avoid gatherings to just not feel the shame of the question of “So what do you do?” Because quite frankly I haven’t had that part of my life figured out and I just wished more people would try to just get to know me as a person and not my accomplishments or lack there of. Is there ways people deal with this?