Miquella speaks of the beginning, and the camera shows Marika (it's definitely Marika, the bracelet is hers) shoving her hands into something that seems covered in clothes, to take out golden threads. Through treason and seduction Marika ensures the rise of "Gold", that I assume means her Golden Order.
The theme of the Elden Beast plays while we see Marika holding the golden strand in a pose that resembles a Rune Arc, while standing in the middle of two giant piles of corpses. The creation of gold seems to cause the creation of "Shadow" as well.
A terrible war followed, one that couldn't be put to song, a purge that was deliberately hidden and to this day no historical references survive in the Lands Between and everything remains hidden in the Realm of Shadows, whatever it is. Messmer led this war, fighting Omens and pre-Erdtree civilizations.
Miquella "spoke" of these things, meaning he somehow came to learn of these historical events, and because of this he gave up his divine flesh and destiny to wander in the Lands of Shadow, for whatever reason, and we'll follow him together with the other people who were his followers and possibly learned from him about the true bloody origins of the Golden Order.
The final part doesn't concern me too much, it'll be something we'll figure out by playing the DLC and figuring it out what Miquella is up to. What really interests me is Marika, the bloody origin of the Golden Order, and the intertwined trees.
Speculation
Here's what I think is happening here.
1) Marika usurps the Elden Ring, possibly from Placidusax's god, and ascends to godhood herself.
We see Marika as she ascends to godhood, which is to say, as she acquires the Elden Ring. Marika's ascension to godhood was one of the events explicitly stated to be explored in the DLC and we're seeing it here.
Marika's ascension is actually one of the unclarified spots of Elden Ring lore because, as far as we know, there was Placidusax's time when he was Elden Lord, and he had a god (that should have been the container of the Elden Ring, like Marika later on), and there was a representation of an ancient Elden Ring in Farum Azula. Then Placidusax's god disappears, he goes into hiding, is seemingly greatly wounded and the Dragon civilization collapses. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Marika pops out of existence with Godfrey and wages war against the Giants. How much time passed between each of these events is unclear, and what's even less clear is when and how did Marika became a god.
Even before the trailer I started having a suspicion: what if Marika actively usurped godhood from Placidusax's god? What we could be seeing in that trailer is Marika physically taking the Elden Ring from the corpse of Placidusax's god and ascending to godhood. This would rewrite our understanding of prehistory in Elden Ring, tying up the age of the Dragons with Marika's time, placing stuff like the Ancient Dynasty and the Astrologers still slightly before Marika, during Placidusax's reign, but toward its end.
2) Marika kicks off her reign by transforming the pre-existing Crucible of life into a giant golden tree. To create the Erdtree Marika needs a massive amount of human sacrifices, that she gets by waging extermination wars against pre-Erdtree civilizations. This affair is led by Messmer, and it's brutal enough that all references to these events were utterly censored from history and a parallel realm of Shadow was created to contain the evidence, Messmer included.
Minor Erdtree require to be fed with the corpses of warriors, as seen by the presence of pots near their sites, and Miquella's own Haligtree was fertilized with Miquella's blood and flesh. Sacred Trees need blood to grow, and the Erdtree reasonably needed a massive amount of blood to be created.
This is the terrible war the trailer talks about, and this why Marika is standing among piles of corpses. Millions must die to create the Erdtree, and Messmer's troops are ready to do the deed for their god-queen. I have no idea if and where Godfrey is at this point in time, it might be before his time or he might even have been an accomplice in all this, I have no idea.
Omens and other beings associated with the previous era are particularly targeted by Marika's purge, possibly because they are a living representation of the era she's trying to wipe out and replace. The transition from the period when Crucible influences were seen as benign to being maligned as barbarous therefore seems to be violent and sudden instead of slow and gradual, which makes things like the Crucible Knights a little strange considering they served Godfrey all through his reign, even after the Erdtree was established. I guess Omens were just something Marika particularly disliked, which would make the characters of Morgott and Mohg being Marika's own sons all the more ironic.
Also, the Crucible is the primordial form of the Erdtree, so we need to keep that in mind as well. The Erdtree is an evolution of the original Crucible, inheriting its life-giving powers and it can be seen during the age of prosperity with the sacred sap and gifts that the Erdtree gave initially in its life.
3) The image of Marika standing between the two piles of corpses while holding up the golden filament actually calls back to the door of the modern Erdtree, with the two piles of corpses starting to build up the outer shell of the Erdtree while the hole in the middle would turn into the entrance we can use to go and fight Radagon.
This is a visual comparison I've seen people arguing for in the community, I actually first heard it from Sabaku no Maiku who pointed it out in his stream, and if correct it would further point toward the idea that Marika is trying to create the Erdtree in that shot, that this is how the Erdtree was created starting off from the original Crucible, and it makes it easy to explain why Marika would go to great lengths to hide this historical event.
4) Messmer is Marika's son. Messmer might even be Marika's firstborn, and not from a human mate.
Marika's ascension to godhood is something that comes very early in the timeline. Potentially even before Marika and Godfrey were together, but even if Godfrey was already around this should be long before any of their sons (Godwyn, Morgott and Mohg) were around. Messmer is also definitely Marika's son because we have interviews referring to him as a demigod and we have him sitting on a demigod's throne, so he's one of Marika's lineage.
Because of the events taking place so long in the past, there's a very real possibility that Messmer is actually Marika's very first son. And with Marika potentially having usurped godhood from the dragons, the fact that there's "seduction" involved, and the fact that Messmer has draconic features, makes me think that he might be the result of Marika mating with a dragon as part of her plan to usurp them. That's why Messmer looks the way he does and why he's living evidence of things that can't be made public in the modern age, and so he rules over the Realm of Shadows as Marika's jailer, forever outside of the Lands Between.
Such an idea wouldn't even be anything new. The Ancient Dragons are said to be able to take human form, and Lansseax acted as a priestess for the draconic knights, with Vyke being one of her favourites, and if I recall correctly the Japanese version might even ambiguously hint at sexual relations between Lansseax and the knights.
5) I still have no idea what the intertwined trees stand for.
Maybe it's a representation in the Lands of Shadow of how Marika's order took over the previous system? Maybe it represents how there were two actual giant trees in that time period (so the Great Tree believers would be vindicated at the end)? Maybe it's just something that exists in the Lands of Shadow and doesn't have anything to do with the real Erdtree?
Being potentially a representation of how the Erdtree came to be, it's something that might have huge lore implications, but the trailer keeps the two trees far away from sight, and probably for good reasons.
This is the end of my very rushed thoughts on the new story trailer, and most likely all of this will be proven entirely wrong by the DLC, but it's fun to speculate when new ideas are still hot and being created.

I’m adding ligatures to a monospace programming font. For example greater_equal is a double wide glyph that replaces >= via a substitution rule in the liga feature.
It works great except that it only takes up one cursor position. I can’t put the cursor in the middle to insert a new character in between.
This works with other programming fonts so I must be doing something wrong. How can I control the caret or cursor position in a multi-character ligature?
Thanks!

Mr. House (Fallout: New Vegas)
Vivec (Morrowind)
Paarthurnax (Skyrim)
Gale

This is really embarrassing but here goes. My husband was laid off when Covid hit because he refused the mandatory vaccine at his job and I couldn’t afford to pay the bills own my own with what we were making so his mom let us live in the house she no longer lived in which is where we r now. I had no idea how secluded it was amongst other things or I would have definitely sought out more options than I had. The house is very old we have made renovations but it’s still not an ideal place to live. I got a job after we could afford a vehicle and it was that way for about a year. I don’t have a career so I was only being paid 15 an hour taking care of a family of 6 while also doing side hustles. He would do someone’s breaks or something here and there. He started working so again I have been home with our toddlers for 3 years with the same exact routine everyday. I have no friends or family and we live in the middle of nowhere. I work from home and we basically go half on everything. At this point I feel like I’m going crazy. Our kids all sleep in one king size bed and I sleep on a broken futon in the same room. He sleeps on the couch. For the past year we have both been adamant to fix our credit so that we can move and afford a place and I really feel like he is dragging his feet. We haven’t seen a place in a month. He has the only vehicle I don’t drive because of my crippling anxiety which I’ve just started to take medication for because I’m tired of living like this. A week ago I asked has he contacted the realtor again and he confirmed he would when he got off of work nothing. A few days after I texted him and explained how tired and frustrated I was and I really wish we could be actively trying to find a place and he snapped at me about how I’m not about to put any pressure on him and who the f do I think I am etc. I just didn’t say anything back because we used to argue like cats and dogs and I actually thought the heartfelt conversation about changes had worked not too long ago. He expects the house to be spotless when he gets home from work with a home cooked meal and me having the kids mostly every night and it’s just really taking a toll on my mental health. Not being able to make a mistake without being ridiculed. I and others have considered me attractive but I have gained so much weight and have horrible bags and dark circles from stress. Since then he hasn’t spoken to me and I honestly don’t expect him to because that’s usually only when he wants something from me. He took me and the kids out for Mother’s Day and barely spoke to me the entire time. The next day was our daughter’s graduation and he didn’t look at me or even really say anything then. No eye contact like a real narc. Well he did ask me did I actually put my hand over my heart for the national anthem when it’s a ritual I laughed and said no it isn’t and he looked at me with a stale evil look. Sometimes I honestly believe I have Stockholm syndrome because it just isn’t right. He will argue me down that he does everything for this family, which is going to work and making one or two meals a week. Oh and buying the kids video games. I’m not even kidding that’s it. I’m constantly trying to put one foot in front of the other to find a way out but I always get sucked back in. I hate this for me and especially my kids

└✶✹STRANGER THINGS:✹✶┘ [REWIND]
…Hi Hello!… REWIND is a brand new, slice-of-life, st season-4 rewrite server that offers tons of different roleplaying experiences and styles!
REWIND has ✶… tons of available canon characters. ✶… 18+ only guidelines. ✶… numerous location channels. ✶… literate, semi-lit, and text-based roleplay formats. ✶… a unique telephone & radio roleplay system. ✶… unlimited oc slots!
Come check it out!
(ST:REWIND is still in its startup phase! Come help get her up & runnin’!)
https://discord.gg/NwVpmtYSb6

└✶✹STRANGER THINGS:✹✶┘ [REWIND]
…Hi Hello!… REWIND is a brand new, slice-of-life, st season-4 rewrite server that offers tons of different roleplaying experiences and styles!
REWIND has ✶… tons of available canon characters. ✶… 18+ only guidelines. ✶… numerous location channels. ✶… literate, semi-lit, and text-based roleplay formats. ✶… a unique telephone & radio roleplay system. ✶… unlimited oc slots!
Come check it out!
(ST:REWIND is still in its startup phase! Come help get her up & runnin’!)
https://discord.gg/NwVpmtYSb6

Previous Posts
Grayson kept his promise and came over to talk with me. He arrived after classes for both of us were done for the day. It also meant that Cassie was home and this time, she didn’t vanish into her bedroom to give us privacy. She waited until we were both seated in the living room and Titanosaur was settled in Grayson’s lap, thereby preventing him from escaping.
Please don’t read too much into that, as I’ve said before Titanosaur has like three brain cells and will sit in literally anyone’s lap. Our landlady sent her husband over to fix the leaking faucet in the bathroom and Titan was trying to climb in his lap while the poor guy was sitting there with half his body inside of a cabinet.
Then Cassie came over, carrying a chair from the kitchen, and also seated herself with us. I glanced at Grayson. He looked dismayed, but was hiding it well in an effort to be polite. I decided to lean into my non-confrontational side and not ask her to leave.
“You’ve been acting a bit out of character lately,” I began delicately. “As a friend, I’m worried about you.”
“And I’m worried too,” Cassie added. “Maybe you don’t think of me as a friend, but you’ve been hanging out around Ashley enough that I consider you one of mine.”
Huh. I wasn’t expecting that, to be honest. I thought Cassie didn’t like him. I don’t think she was lying, either.
“Have you considered getting grief counseling?” she continued.
Straight to the point. I was glad Cassie was there. My plan was to tiptoe delicately around the subject for what probably would have been another 500 words worth of dialogue here in this post I’m writing up. Fortunately, Cassie’s willingness to address a problem directly saved me the typing and you the tedium.
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” Grayson said. “The university doesn’t know he’s gone yet.”
“Who is running this place?” Cassie asked in amazement.
I know. We’ve all been thinking it. Turns out the answer is ‘there’s a board’ and they make all the real decisions. The president is just a figurehead. Which is pretty obvious if you stop and think about it. I wanted to ask if the flickering man reported to the board but I also didn’t want to derail the conversation with things that really didn’t matter anymore. It’s safer to just assume the board is the administration I’ve been wondering about this whole time. Heck, it’s safer to assume everyone except for the students and professors are responsible in some part for the whole monster situation.
Sorry for not finding out for certain, but Grayson was working through some important stuff and I didn’t dare interrupt.
“I don’t want counseling, either,” he continued. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I never cared for him. Not in a familial sense. My presence was more to fill a role.”
Things were starting to connect in my head. This conversation reminded me of some things the flickering man had said. Roles to be filled. A cycle, ushering in new students to fill them. They’d been filling the president’s role with a corpse - a very old one, judging by the date on the photo Cassie took of the headstone - so perhaps that wasn’t the only role being filled.
“Were you adopted?” I asked. “By the president?”
“I was.”
Beside me, Cassie took a deep breath. It wasn’t from shock. It sounded more like… annoyance. If I’m being generous with the term.
“The flickering man said something to me,” I said slowly. “That I wasn’t the first person he’d seen like this and I wouldn’t be the last. Are you… not the only child that the president has adopted?”
“...I’m not.”
This is the point where Cassie just lost it. Stood up, yelled ‘why the fuck didn’t you tell us any of this?!’ and stormed out of the room. She slammed the door to her bedroom shut behind her. Grayson and I sat there in the living room for a good minute, stunned, listening to what I’m 99% certain was Cassie screaming into her pillow. Then the door opened and she returned to calmly sit down on the sofa again.
“I’m good,” she said. “All better. Please continue.”
The details of the conversation get a little fuzzy at this point, as it seems that even though the forgetter is gone I’m still having memory issues. Unfortunately Grayson was right - it wasn’t the forgetter that was responsible for my particular variety of memory loss. There’s something else trying to protect Grayson.
I suspect the tree in the graveyard. Its roots have spread all over campus, after all.
Sorry to be so blase about this but it’s not actually that upsetting anymore. It’s just this thing we’re dealing with.
It’s a good thing Cassie was present for the rest of the conversation. She filled me in on the details later, after we’d confirmed that I had some significant gaps. Grayson explained a bit more about the whole adoption thing. He didn’t know who his birth parents were. He’d never been outside of this town and basically grew up on campus. This is all kind of recapping what we already knew or guessed at, but the adoption angle was new at least. I’d assumed that his dad had died and been replaced, which he had, except it wasn’t his dad at all and Grayson’s role as the son was being replaced over and over also.
Which is all kinds of fucked up.
It also means that this has been going on for generations and I think we all know why that’s rather alarming.
“What happened to the previous adopted kids?” I asked once we’d gotten through this rather confusing summary.
“They died.”
There was a heavy silence in the room.
“How?” I asked.
“Well… one drowned. Another suffocated.” He hesitated. “This is kind of why I’m reluctant to tell people I’m the president’s son.”
“Grayson, are you worried someone will try to kill you?” Cassie asked flatly.
“...yeah. I am, actually.”
Screaming into a pillow myself was starting to look pretty tempting.
Now I’m sure you’re all thinking what I was thinking at this point. If the university was just recycling the president’s corpse and finding new children to play the role of their child for… reasons??? then perhaps that was why the flickering man was interested in me. Perhaps I was Grayson’s replacement, as many of you have theorized.
I mean, it seems pretty suspicious. Grayson’s dad is getting his soul replaced on the regular - or at least, he was. Grayson himself is a replacement for prior Graysons but I guess since they don’t need an adult, they’re just grabbing any ol’ kid to fill the role for a while. But the former Graysons keep dying because the inhumans get him? Grayson has a lot of protection on campus but he’s not immune - I’ve watched him get attacked by the steam ghost in particular.
Which leads me to my own theory. If I am a replacement, I don’t fit the mold. Perhaps that’s why the flickering man hated me so much. I’m too old (legal adult yay) and… I’m not a son.
But I wanted to confirm some things.
We wrapped up the conversation with Grayson because we were running out of mental capacity to ask more questions. He was clearly uncomfortable and there was a lot to process. He did promise to not be so difficult about this in the future. He wasn’t really grieving. He was just… uncertain. He didn’t know what to do anymore. Which is fair. When you’re raised to fill a role and suddenly that role is gone it’s hard to adjust.
I know what that feels like.
After Grayson left I messaged Maria asking if she knew anyone that was good with a camera. Like, really good. And also good in high stress situations. She got back to me pretty quickly. Maria is starting to become one of those people who knows everyone. She’s heading firmly down the road of becoming the subject of one of those unhinged tumblr posts where someone magically summons an army of people to fulfill a task, while she stays on the sidelines quietly directing the ever-increasing chaos.
Fortunately, she’s not there quite yet, but she is freakishly well-connected for a campus of this size. Within an hour she had me in a group chat with someone from the Folklore Society who fit all my requirements, even the unspoken ones. Someone that was good with a camera in “hostile circumstances” (her words, very accurate) and wouldn’t cut and run the moment things got a little weird. I think you all see where I was going with this.
Yeah, we were going to get photos of something inhuman.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.
For starters, it’s not safe just getting close to an inhuman to photograph it. And once you do, that opens a whole new set of hazards. If the inhuman takes offense to being photographed, then they’re going to do anything they have to to get the photo destroyed and all rules are off the table when it comes to disguising their existence. Think of it like this - an inhuman might not be able to enter a house due to hospitality rules keeping them out, but this is weighed against their need to keep their presence obscured. The latter wins. Hospitality rules are no longer enough protection.
That’s my understanding, at least.
And sure, there are inhumans that don’t seem to care if a photo or two are leaked to the internet, but you have no way of knowing in advance. Let’s say you get lucky and nothing comes after you to destroy the phone/camera, computer, your social media accounts, and you. You’re not quite off the hook. That photo is a connection to the inhuman and if the creature captured in it doesn’t use it as an access point, something else might.
Photos are just a bad idea all around.
So we agreed that if we were going to go ahead with this stupid plan, we’d do so with as many safety measures as we could. First, the person taking the photo would be fully informed on the potential consequences. I was hoping that they could just teach Maria or I how to use a camera, but considering they were in the inner circle Folklore Society (what I’m calling the folks that know the monsters aren’t just stories) they wanted to come in person. I tried to talk them out of it, they finally made a snarky comment about if I wanted them to sign a waiver, and I dropped the topic.
Secondly, we were going to destroy both the photo and the camera afterwards. I got online and ordered the cheapest digital camera I could find. It was a camera designed for young children so it was pastel pink with teddy bears on it, but whatever, it was digital and didn’t cost over $30. The money from my job at the dining hall has helped with the finances but I didn’t particularly feel like lighting it on fire.
Especially since we planned to literally light the camera on fire when we were done. I wasn’t looking forward to the smell of burning plastic but fire is both a thorough and symbolically traditional way to dispose of things. Like I said, we were trying to do this as safely as we could.
The camera arrived the next day so we decided to go ahead with our plan that evening. Cassie would stay home because we felt having too many people might be a hindrance if we had to bail out. Also, she had “digital date night” with her girlfriend and I didn’t want to interfere.
Then we found a discreet entrance to the steam tunnels.
I wanted a photograph of the steam ghost. It had a face. I wanted to see what that face looked like.
I’d scouted out the steam tunnel entrances beforehand, while waiting for the burner (lol) camera to arrive. Last time I’d looked inside, they were clogged with roots. However, if the roots were originating from the graveyard, then perhaps the parts of campus that were farthest away would be clear enough to traverse. I got lucky and found an entrance inside of one of the dorms that’s out by the parking lot. The lobby is open and from there it’s easy enough to just coast into the stairwell behind someone with a keycard and then down into the basement. There were roots, but they hung from the ceiling as slender tendrils that brushed the top of my head like the faint touch of a moth. I didn’t go far inside. Just enough to confirm it didn’t get any worse and we had a long corridor free of obstruction.
When I came back, I had Maria and the photographer with me.
His name is Jacob and he’s a sophomore. He joined the Folklore Society because he realized he wasn’t making any attempts to be social, at college of all places, and picked a club that seemed like it would be small so he didn’t have to deal with crowds. Large groups of people intimidated him. I can certainly relate to that.
I feel bad for him. Imagine getting caught up in all this bullshit just because you had trouble making friends.
It also occurred to me that this photography excursion was also part of his attempt to make friends, because that’s what landed him in the group that had to hide from the thing in the hallway. Whatever. Maria can deal with that. She’s the extrovert.
“Let’s not forget the plan,” I said nervously as we gathered outside the door. “We get in. We get the photo. We run like hell back out the door.”
I’m happy to say that the plan worked. Every step. Swear to god.
We were about halfway to where the tunnel turned when the steam started to rise out of the ground around us. It seeped through the walls, filling our lungs and making it hard to breathe. The usual. We turned back at that point, as we wanted to be close to the exit so we could snap the photo and run once the steam ghost showed up.
The nice thing about inhumans is that they can be predictable. They have set rules they follow and so long as you follow the prescribed pattern of behavior, you know what to expect. This allows you to plan, as I’d done. So when we loitered within sprinting distance of the door, the steam ghost obliged to show up and chase us off.
Just as expected. And Jacob was ready with our pastel pink camera, so that when its face materialized out of the steam, mouth open in a silent scream and its misty hands stretched towards us, he was able to snap a photo.
Then we ran and reached the door before it caught up.
See? Exactly as planned.
There’s one more rule we learned about though. One that I’d forgotten to factor in for this crucial moment.
The doors in the steam tunnels don’t always open to the same place.
We tumbled through without thinking. I, pulling up the rear, had a moment of hesitation when I saw nothing but darkness ahead of me, but it was too late, I was in a full sprint and besides, Maria had already stumbled through the doorway. I slammed into Jacob’s back, propelling him the few steps he needed to be past the doorway, and then we were all through and the door slammed shut behind us.
The air was warm and damp. The steam tunnels, while warm, aren’t damp unless the steam ghost is present. This felt like being inside of a sauna. I could feel water beads forming on my arms, clinging to the hairs that were currently standing on end in alarm. There was a faint breeze coming from ahead of us, a slowly rhythmic flow to it like a fan. It did nothing to alleviate the heat. If anything, it was even warmer.
Maria turned her phone’s flashlight on.
We were in a corridor, much the same size as the tunnel we’d just escaped. The walls glistened with moisture, shining with the gray-pink color of rotting beef. There were no sharp angles, just a round passageway that vanished into darkness at the edge of Maria’s flashlight beam. The floor beneath our feet was slightly squishy.
And it was full of teeth.
Honestly I think I would have preferred sharp teeth, like an animal’s fangs or something out of science fiction. Instead, we got human incisors, circling the entirety of the tunnel in regular intervals.
The tunnel rippled. There was a faint gurgling sound, like the rumbling of a stomach twisting in hunger. And those rows of teeth began to tighten as the tunnel constricted around us.
“STEAM GHOST,” Maria yelled. “I CHOOSE THE STEAM GHOST.”
And she threw the door behind us open and dove back into the tunnel. Jacob grabbed my arm and dragged me along with him, as I was frozen in fear, staring at all those glistening ivory teeth. I stumbled over the doorframe and fell forwards, hitting the cement floor hard on all fours. I heard the door slam shut behind me. Frantically, I looked up at the tunnel.
No ghost. But the steam was still there, hanging heavy in the air and filling my lungs. The ghost would be back. I was certain of that.
“What now?!” Jacob asked, his earlier calm quickly giving way to panic.
“Try the door again!” I said, scrambling to my feet. “It changes!”
Maria spun around and opened the door a sliver for the second time, just enough to peer through the crack and confirm what was on the other side.
“FUCK.”
Then she slammed it shut. Opened it. Another burst of profanity, slightly more panicked than the last explicative. Meanwhile, Jacob and I cowered at her back, staring at the steam that hung thick in the air all around us, waiting to see if it was going to reform into a malevolent spirit while Maria played Russian roulette with the door.
She did this five times before she finally got the dorm we’d entered through.
Flushed and panting, we stumbled through and Jacob kicked the door to the steam tunnels shut with a determined flourish. There. We’d done it. As I’d said, our plan went perfectly. We got the photo and ran like hell to the door.
Didn’t plan on what happened after we went through the door. This is my lack of attention to detail coming into play, which is probably what also made me a shitty barista.
We crowded around Jacob to see the photo he got. This is why we recruited someone with actual photography skills. He was able to use a truly shitty camera intended for toddlers to somehow focus on a literal ghost’s face in the handful of seconds we had before it reached us, all while not panicking.
Staring at us from the tiny screen was a person’s face. Not a face made of steam. An actual flesh and blood human face. The rest of the shot was obscured by steam, framing it so that all we could see was this disembodied human face staring out at us from the camera’s digital screen. The expression was placid, the eyes hollow and devoid of emotion.
I’d seen this look before, on the library ghost. This distant stare of something that wasn’t wholly here.
“That is… really creepy,” Jacob said.
“We just escaped a hallway full of teeth and this is what you find creepy?” I said.
“No, that was creepy too. I can be terrified by multiple things at once.”
We all stared at the photo for a good few minutes, trying to commit the face to memory because we were not going to retain any copies of it. Then Jacob deleted the photo, handed me the camera, and we awkwardly went our separate ways.
I got out my phone as soon as we’d all walked off. My theory was looking plausible, but there was one more thing I could do to confirm I was on the right track.
I texted Grayson. I asked him if the children before him, the ones the president adopted, were all male.
They were.
The library ghost. The stabbed student. And now… the steam ghost.
All former students. All male. All trapped on campus after their deaths.
And for at least two of them, they seemed to have something against Grayson.
They don’t like Grayson because he replaced them.
Update: HOLY SHIT Y’ALL BATTERIES EXPLODE WHEN YOU SET THEM ON FIRE

Hello, i'm 15 and recently i did sexual stuff with some characters on character Ai, through text. All the characters are fictional and supposedly my age, if not a year younger or older. I'm feeling pretty guilty though... Can someone tell me if there's something wrong with me? I fear i did something wrong here

ok latest update seems to fix one bug but then create another issue.
now it seems all my characters are emoting and theres no way to stop it.
i try to instruct them to not do it
i try to edit the chat and they still do it. this is annoying for voice because voice will not read the emoted lines
i.e. *text in between this*
yet they keep generating it. which causes pauses in playback and its getting very annoying
please fix this or have options that allow the users to better control the output text. cuz editing the chat doesnt seem to be helping.
and worse now its happening in older chats that did not do it.
i mean you got a ok platform here but its kind stuff like that is keeping it from being what it could be

I feel so stupid writing this and I don't even know why I'm sharing. I just feel like I need to get it out of my chest.
Growing up my(M22) father was very controlling, strict and abusive. Throughout my childhood and until I graduated from high-school I was not allowed to hangout with, text, call or even play online videogames with my friends.
In elementary school it was normal not to hangout after school, but in middle and high school all of my friends hanged out all the time, I've always begged my parents to let me see my friends, my mom always said that she has no word in this, and my father always refused. He never tried to come up with a reason it was always just a no.
I wasn't allowed to call or text my friends and I wasn't allowed to have any social media, at the time I was the only kid in my class to not have any social media.
My friends always thought that I just hated them or had other friends that I hanged out with, I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth. It was very isolating, especially during summer brakes, we never went on vacations and my father didn't like going out so I basically spent every single summer at home.
At high-school all of my friends had gotten closer with each other and were basically hanging out after school and texting everday. They didn't abandon me we still talked everday at school but I was never actually close with any of them.
I always felt like I wasn't "worthy" of being anyone's friend, like I kept thinking who would want me as a friend knowing that I'll never be able to de anything with them after school. And yeah maybe I was being dramatic. Yeah we had fun at school but I never actually felt like thier friend, they were friends and I was just a classmate.
I always felt inferior, and I think a lot of my self worth problems started at high school. People always made plans that didn't include me, even things that they were doing at school, I was never included. And I don't blame them, most of these plans were decided on after school and my friends didn't have any way to reach me so ofc I wasn't included.
In my last year of high-school I was finally allows to have a phone number and text or class friends it was nice. But that came too late and all of my friends have moved on to snapchat which I wasn't allowed to have. I still felt less isolated and more connected with my friends and we texted every now and then
After the graduation ceremony, all of my class were going to a nerby McDonald's for dinner, I begged my father to let me go but he refused and said that I can go "the next time".
Now I feel like I should've just ignored my father and went with them, but I was scared. My father never actually hit me, because as he says " I was too much of a cowered to disobey him". He's not wrong. I have so many memories of him beating my siblings until they bled or were unconscious, if he wasn't in the mood to beat them, he'd burn them. He would heat up a spoon or a knife at the stove and put it directly on to thier skin. Usually thier feet so people wouldn't notice it. So yeah I was scared. I was only 17 and a cowered.
I never saw most of my friends after graduation. I kept texting regularly until they took months to reply then I stopped.
I went to a community college in my hometown, didn't have any luck making friends there, then covid hit, and when we were back on campus i tried my best to make friends, and I had a couple of "friends" but we were just classmates you know? We'd hang out between class and work on projects together and that's it.
I still live with my parents but my father doesn't have control over me anymore, I wish if it was because I finally gather the courage to stand up for myself, but no he just doesn't care anymore, he says that his job was to "protect" me until I reach 18 and now it's my responsibility to "protect" myself.
You may ask why didn't I try and reconnect with my friends after I turned 18? I was ashamed. And yeah I blame my self for this and I always will. I still had self worth issues and was so ashamed to be like " hey! Let's hangout now that my father doesn't control me anymore". I felt like I was pathetic and that they were better off without me.
Ending this on a good note, last month one of my high-school friends reached out,( he's been reaching out regularly ever since we graduated ) I asked to meet him, he agreed. We talked for hours and I told him about the whole thing, he told me that he understands and that he wants to be friends again, and that he wishes that I did this sooner.
We've been hanging out every week now and playing a lot of videogames together, I keep wishing that I had thus when I was younger, but I'm still happy that I can have it now.
He suggested that I meet with all of our old friends, I Initially said that I needed some time, but I think I'm ready now.
After typing all of this and rereading it a couple of times, this whole situation feels so stupid. But it was all pretty serious and I felt so helpless at these times.
Again I'm not sure why I wrote this or what I'm expecting to gain out of this post, but thank you if you read through the whole thing.

Hi, I know the title isn't great. However, I am looking for a book that I started reading in middle school. This was about 7 years ago. I cannot remember what the book is called or who the author is but I do remember some points. They may be wrong or off a little so bare with me.
It may have a blue cover but I am not 100% sure on that. The book is about a family who I believe owns a donut shop if not it is a restaurant. They definitely own some type of store. I believe both parents are in the picture and there are 2 or 3 kids. I can't remember if its told from a girl or a boy but the main character is one of the older siblings. There is a younger brother and he dies in his sleep from, if I remember correctly, either an epidural hematoma or subdural hematoma.
I am struggling to find this book and it has been in my brain ever since. Any suggestions help. Thank you so much.

I can't remember being this excited for a new legendary creature, I've started brewing my deck for the newly spoiled Arna Kennerud, Skycaptain from MH3, see here: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/_KEayBn8BE6cxm_2OeMd2g
I'm posting here to share with the excitement, I'm also certain that the community will help in finding cards to break this new throwback of a legend.
I thought it was super neat to learn the following today:
Darla Kennerud (born July 17, 1967; née Willis) is a former Magic Lead Editor for Wizards of the Coast, working for the company from 1994 till 2000.
It might seem like a suspicious coincidence that Arna Kennerüd showed up in Magic around the time that Darla Kennerud was in charge of flavor text, but in fact, she did it as a tribute to the man she was dating. She only got Kennerud as her own last name after the character started saying things in Magic continuity.

First of all, for someone who don't know, USSG is basically our Ursus girls, Zima and co. Basically, Children of Ursus is one of my favourite events and it may got hooked me to this game up to this day. So I wanted to make pretty much a continuation of that story, trying to keep the whole vibe of the original and making it lore accurate, but at the same time adding some new details that don't contradict the original. I wanna continue making this wall of text, but if you just don't want to read it, here's the link, really hope you'll like it:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14353680/1/A-Homeland-Within
It's not long.(I promise lmao)And I'm not a native English speaker, it may have some linguistic mistakes here and there, but I did a big job at polishing it. But if someone will point smth out, I'll be very grateful. Btw, hope that there is no problem with me sending a link to this website, I remember seeing a post in this sub that also promoted their fanfic with providing a link, so hope nothing changed, otherwise F. So, what I wanted to add is that I've been cooking this one for quite some time. And by that I mean 2 years exactly (or even more actually). What I made here is only a first chapter and an introduction to the whole story. I had a first version of the first chapter, but I found it too lame and simple, it's not worthy publishing, so I just spent an another year remaking it from 0. I had a lot of more in plans, more drama, more characters involved, more big stuff happening, more OCs (since it's kinda necessary here) etc. Mostly depends on people's interest. So anyway, once again, thank you if you gonna give a try.
P.S. - I was thinking about adding some artwork to make a cover, since it might boost some traffic, but I don't wanna steal anybody's work so I just put it this way. If someone can give an advice about that and clear my doubts, I'll be grateful.

A Simple Yet Thought-Provoking Doorway

Interviewer: Howl's Moving Castle was a huge success as well, with box office revenue reaching 19.6 billion yen. This places it second only to Spirited Away among Studio Ghibli films. The original story is by Diana Wynne Jones, and the screenplay was written by Mr. Miyazaki.
Mamoru Oshii: Howl's Moving Castle is excellent, my favorite among Ghibli's works. The story isn't entirely clear, the logic doesn't always hold up – these aspects haven't changed much from Miyazaki's past films. But, at this point, there's nothing more to say about those points. So, what do I appreciate about this film? In a word, it's the mechanism of that doorway. Miyazaki's changing mindset as he gets older is clearly expressed through that door's workings.
Interviewer: The door of Howl's castle leads to different worlds, and its mechanism is divided into four parts.
Mamoru Oshii: That truly impressed me. Every time the mechanism shifts, the door opens to a different world. The black passage leads to the battlefield, flames are raging, Howl transforms into a monstrous bird and flies off, then returns completely exhausted. Seeing Howl like that, Calcifer says, "He might not come back." What kind of meaning do you think that holds?
Interviewer: Does it represent Mr. Miyazaki's heart being divided into four parts?
Mamoru Oshii: It's not about the number. Women might not understand easily, but men get it right away. Especially older men, they understand at a glance. Because they are also constantly turning that doorway unconsciously. In other words, whether consciously or unconsciously, they always play multiple roles. An older man working at a company switches modes when he comes home; when playing with a young woman somewhere else, he switches again; when interacting with his son and daughter, he switches yet another time. Simply put, humans are creatures that live separately in different worlds. There may also be a dark side that leads one to become a monster. People definitely possess a side that turns into a monster and runs rampant on the battlefield, and are destined to coexist with this darkness.
I've never seen a film that depicts the multiplicity of an older man's inner world in such a persuasive way. I love it. The doorway mechanism turns, and the world changes instantly. It's fantastic.
Interviewer: That's high praise indeed.
Mamoru Oshii: It is. But it's dangerous, you know? Sometimes you slip up and reveal a side you shouldn't in front of your wife and children. Wives are probably aware of this to a certain extent, but they don't bring it up. If you ask me, that's what living with a man is all about. You might not notice it when you're dating, but after getting married and having children, women realize that older men use different faces in different situations.
Being able to create this kind of expression means that Miyazaki himself must have struggled with switching between different faces. By now, he's probably become quite adept at it. I'm the same way. After all, film directors have to be geniuses at switching gears – the face shown to staff, the face shown to producers, the face when alone, the face shown to family – you really have to separate them all.
Interviewer: That sounds truly exhausting.
Mamoru Oshii: It is, it is. A person like Miyazaki must have a remarkable monster dwelling within him, right? For Howl, that represents the moment when he throws aside all humanity and becomes a monster. Although it's incredibly difficult, even requiring him to fight till he's covered in blood, he can't escape it. Why? Because he couldn't survive without that side of himself.
He must have referenced other archetypes as well, but no one else could have expressed it so brilliantly. Miyazaki truly is one of a kind. That doorway in the film is so good that it overshadows everything that comes after. The war ending abruptly, for instance.
Interviewer: In the first place, it's unclear why the war even started. To be honest, there are too many things that don't make sense. Sophie's original goal was to break the Witch's curse, but somewhere along the way, this goal disappears, and she ends up living with the Witch.
Mamoru Oshii: That's why it's pointless to try to apply logic. This is Miyazaki's world of imagination, where the laws of cause and effect don't apply. This world itself is Miyazaki's fantasy.
Interviewer: But there is a source material.
Mamoru Oshii: Half of it has probably vanished without a trace, wouldn't you say? All that's left is the basic setting. The castle's design is amazing, it even has a torpedo launcher, doesn't it? It makes you wonder what that torpedo launcher is for and what it's supposed to fire at. It feels like Miyazaki just crammed in everything he likes.

Miyazaki and My "View of Family"

Interviewer: I love the design, though.
Mamoru Oshii: It can accommodate anything, and this time he put "family" in it.
Producer Toshio Suzuki said something interesting. He was also the producer for my film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. He said: "It's fascinating how both Miyazaki and you are making the same kind of film. In short, the theme is "home". Both are stories about family. Miyazaki's film expresses the idea that whether it's an old witch or an orphan, it's fine to welcome anyone into the family, because we're all family. And in your film, whether it's a dog or a doll, it doesn't matter if they're not human. It's a very interesting approach to considering a new kind of family."
Interviewer: Mr. Suzuki is insightful.
Mamoru Oshii: He's the kind of person who observes from such unique angles. That's his strength, thinking from perspectives no one else would consider.
Of course, I wasn't conscious of it either. I had no intention of making a story about family. The "unconscious genius" Miyazaki must have been the same. But when Suzuki pointed it out, I felt "that's exactly right". When people establish a sense of shared existence, the most basic form of it is family. Of course, there are male-female relationships within it, but when viewed from the perspective of social relationships, there's nothing other than family. Even blood ties aren't necessarily essential within it. Originally, the starting point of family is strangers, no blood relation needed. A married couple is essentially a pair of complete strangers with no initial blood ties. They start from a marital relationship and then begin to build kinship ties. It's not like in Shuji Terayama's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets where people separate first and then spend time exploring family forms in various ways. That's probably how it is.
Thinking about it this way, even the house they live in in Howl's Moving Castle walks on two legs, doesn't it? What does that mean? It means that it's no longer even connected to the concept of "settling down", which represents the idea of family. The characteristics of a house being rooted in the land are irrelevant. On the other hand, in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, it doesn't matter whether you're human or not, but you need to be with others to live as a human being.
Looking at both films from the perspective of family makes many things easier to understand, that's for sure. If you don't think about it this way, the content of Howl's Moving Castle will become more and more perplexing as you watch it.

Hayao Miyazaki is David Lynch?

Interviewer: Speaking of family, Sophie's family is nowhere to be found. It's as if she's just a beloved and beautiful younger sister that everyone adores.
Mamoru Oshii: After watching Howl's Moving Castle, no one can recall the details of the story clearly. I watched it twice, which is rare for me, but I still can't remember the story. The protagonist Howl appears suddenly, and Sophie is introduced already sewing hats, but why is it a hat shop?
Interviewer: It's a hat shop in the original story.
Mamoru Oshii: But it must be because Miyazaki wanted to draw scenes of hat making, right? Miyazaki loves artisans, loves depicting scenes of crafting things. Up until now, he's always had this tendency - even if it sacrifices consistency to some extent, he'll find a way to realize the scenes and fantasies he envisions. But with Howl's Moving Castle, he completely let go and took a straight path to fantasy. Howl's Moving Castle is exactly that kind of film. Whether or not there's source material is irrelevant. The story of Master Howl is a prime example.
Interviewer: Voiced by Akihiro Miwa, the character of the Witch of the Waste, right?
Mamoru Oshii: Scenes like the shooting stars are undeniably beautiful, but do they have anything to do with the story? Miyazaki's impression of magic must be these beautiful visuals, so he simply wanted to create them.
Interviewer: It's not just that, the character of the Master is completely incomprehensible.
Mamoru Oshii: I've said this so many times, you can't seek consistency in Miyazaki's films because they're all fantasies. It's best to view them through the lens of David Lynch's Twin Peaks.
Interviewer: Lynch's films don't prioritize consistency either. Nobody expects a logically sound story from his work.
Mamoru Oshii: Then why have such expectations for Miyazaki's films? They're both transforming their own fantasies into films, whether it's Lynch or Miyazaki.
Interviewer: "Hayao Miyazaki is David Lynch", that's quite a bold statement.
Mamoru Oshii: There's one crucial difference between Lynch and Miyazaki: Lynch sees humans as frightening creatures. Lynch's theme is singular – the terror of humanity. As a Lynch fan, I've finally reached this conclusion recently. Humans are terrifying beings; they create terrifying events. This is the theme of Lynch's works. The very existence of humans is eerie, so his works are unconcerned with good and evil, angels and demons. That's why Lynch's films are unique.
So, what about Miyazaki? Miyazaki genuinely wants to view humans as benevolent creatures and the world as something beautiful. This fundamentally differs from Lynch, who is obsessed with a world of horror. However, they share the commonality of realizing their fantasies through film. Another difference is that Lynch consciously depicts horror, while Miyazaki does so unconsciously.
Interviewer: In the latter half of the film, Sophie suddenly shifts between being young, middle-aged, and elderly. Is there any meaning behind this?
Mamoru Oshii: No, it's just to make her appearance fit the scene. They simply decided, "It's better for her to be young here", and that's about it. There's probably no deeper reason. So even if you try to overanalyze it, you won't find anything.
Interviewer: It's fine if you don't fully understand Lynch's films, but you still want to try and understand Miyazaki's.
Mamoru Oshii: Because at first glance, they appear to be orthodox narrative films.
No matter how many bursts of fantasy there are, he still wants to reach a conclusion and summarize the meaning in the end, right? In that sense, he's still clearly more timid than Lynch.
Interviewer: But you said that Howl's Moving Castle is your favorite work, didn't you?
Mamoru Oshii: Yes. Even though it doesn't fully let go in the end, it's quite transparent before reaching the conclusion. It doesn't force itself into a narrative structure, so in that sense, I really appreciate it. The doorway mechanism and the scene where the Witch of the Waste makes shooting stars fall from the sky are both incredibly beautiful and impressive. Although the depiction of the royal palace feels somewhat generic, the scene where they're panting and climbing the palace stairs is quite interesting. There are truly many excellent scenes.

Howl is Miyazaki Himself

Interviewer: In that stair-climbing scene, there's a dog named Heen. Don't you think he resembles you a bit?
Mamoru Oshii: That dog... (laughs) The staff kept telling me about him when the film was released, and I could definitely sense some malice directed at me. Because Heen is a useless dog, isn't he? His personality seems quite bad as well.
Interviewer: So he's like you. When I saw it, I couldn't help but think, "It's Oshii!"
Mamoru Oshii: Because I've also poked fun at them many times in my own works. I named the old man who runs Shanghai Tei in Patlabor "Hayao Saki". Mr. Takahata appears as "Inspector Takahata", although he's a villain (laughs). Needless to say, Toshio Suzuki has made multiple appearances as well.
But if that dog is me, then Howl must be Miyazaki. He projected himself onto the protagonist in Porco Rosso, didn't he?
Interviewer: Wait a minute, that handsome Howl? Really?
Mamoru Oshii: Absolutely. The works where Miyazaki projected himself onto the protagonist are Porco Rosso, Howl's Moving Castle, and The Wind Rises. What aspects of Howl resemble Miyazaki? This statement will surely shock many fans.
Mamoru Oshii: He wants to be that kind of man. A wizard, the head of a household - there's no doubt that Howl is his projection.
Interviewer: But Howl said, "I can't live without being beautiful."
Mamoru Oshii: That's right, he transformed from a pig and uttered those words. Voiced by Takuya Kimura, no less. In reality, Miyazaki loves to be cool, but he understands that it doesn't suit him, so he intentionally makes himself appear plain. I forget when it was, but he even imitated Ryotaro Shiba's style by wearing a black coat. Miyazaki respects Ryotaro Shiba a lot, although I dislike him.
What strikes me as the biggest similarity between Howl and Miyazaki is the scene where Howl returns to the castle as a monster and sluggishly climbs to the second floor.
That scene embodies Miyazaki's true feelings - even if he's making a big fuss outside, he still has to crawl back to his room. When Sophie scolds him saying, "You did it again! It can't be helped", didn't you feel like he must have been scolded by his wife this way too? He finally returns, but as a monster. From this perspective, he's really quite transparent (laughs).
As long as you understand Miyazaki, you can pick up on these amusing nuances. But even if you don't know him personally, the film is full of interesting scenes and beautiful visuals. However, there's really nothing to say about the plot. So, they should just tell the world that, but instead, people love to praise "how great the stories are" in Miyazaki's films.

I was just thinking today about how I was looking forward to middle school as a kid. Elementary school was so awfully boring, but I also didn't really have any real friends so that didn't help. Still though, the thing is that I spent a lot of time by myself and that involved watching a lot of TV. And I'm not from the US, I live in Europe, but the TV shows were all from the US. And they kinda gave me a really cool fantasy of what school was gonna be like after elementary school. And yeah I'm sure anyone reading this is gonna think that, well, of course it's not actually like on TV, TV is fiction. But trust me, this is gonna be way more disappointing than you think. But I mean, at least I wasn't bullied, most people just sorta left me alone instead, so I don't wanna act as if school must definitely be better in other places. It's just that, it was so boring.
Hmm where do I begin. Two things constantly said in these TV shows that left me confused, kids often talked about classes they take, consider taking and don't take. And kids often talked about "this person from my x class". This gave me the idea that, unlike in elementary school, I'd get to at least somewhat choose what classes I might wanna take. Not at all how it worked, at least not at the schools that were options for me at the time I went to middle school in the early 2000s, as far as I can tell. I say as far as I can tell cause it was never explained to me either, it was explained to my parents, so that they could maybe talk to me and figure what to do with me. Anyway, you either went to trade school, which was seen as a huge embarrassment to your parents cause you are an idiot that's probably not gonna do college, or for 7th and 8th grade you decide on one of two options; latin or modern languages. Both of those come with a certain set of classes, you can't not take any of them and you can't take any that don't come with it. My parents didn't put much thought in it, they were just told that since I did so well in elementary school I should go for latin, as that's what smart kids do. It doesn't come with many interesting classes to me, but to be honest neither did the other option. I would have much rather gone to trade school, which has a technical studies option too that would come in handy for college, but many people just didn't like having to say that their kid goes to the trade school. In fact, I had a few people in my group failing on purpose cause they told their parents they wanna go to trade school but were just not allowed, so they protested by failing. Anyway, the other thing that had me confused about that, all classes are taken with the same group. You're in a group of about 20 people, they all have the same classes cause you don't get to pick and choose, why not have them do every class together. I'm not sure if that's supposed to get the group to know each other better or something, but really the result is just that you really don't get to know so many people. If you don't like any in this group so much, well tough luck, everybody only hangs out with people of their own group. You weren't even allowed to sit with people from another group for lunch, they assigned you a seat at a table for your group. And you know, many of them are kinda the same. This school was just for those two options I mentioned anyway, which are for preparing kids to continue to college in the future, anybody wanting to do any trade or anything technical would be at a different school that focuses on those. Oh and also, not a single girl in our group, I didn't really care at the time but thinking back about it it does seem kinda weird to have years of middle school where all classes were boys only. Alright on to the next topic to pick. Hmm how about the whole thing with the activities at school they always have on TV. You know, clubs, sports, arts, dances, science fairs, even elections for something? Yeah I did totally wonder what my future school was gonna have. Which was nothing, in fact I went to three different schools from 7th to 12th grade and they all had nothing. It's just not a thing here I guess? There is not a single thing to do other than go to your set of classes that day and go back home. No special events of any kind either, just an occasional educational school trip. But certainly nothing that would make you meet any people with similar interests, or anything social at all really. Here's sorta how it works instead. You wanna do any of this, you sign up for it somewhere else and go there after school. Like my city did have a music school and a drawing school for example, so if you wanna go to a 2nd school on some days after going to your 1st school that day then you're free to do that. Of course it'll be with completely different people that you probably don't ever see anywhere else. I was in an unrelated sports team for example, we played a game on saturdays that is only attended by parents and practiced 2 hours after school one day in the week. And I never saw anyone on the team ever outside of those couple of hours per week. That's also one kinda problem with that isn't it, the kids learning music or drawing at those specific schools after their main schools probably got to show off the things they learned at times, but only fellow kids at those specific schools and their parents would ever know about it. They never get to show off the stuff they learned to kids at their main schools.
Here's a little short one for in between that is kinda odd, personal lockers. Nobody ever got their own locker, not at any of the three schools I went to. We just stuff all our crap in our backpack and bring it home. Then in the morning figure out what we need that day, and carry it all back to school in our backpack. In elementary school we had a desk at school with a little space for books, but from middle school you're not always in the same classroom so you get no desk with storage. Every classroom you go to you bring your heavy backpack with everything for that day in it.
This is getting really long already so here's my last one, the whole social groups and cliques thing full of stereotypes. Well, just having anything like that at all really. Because of the stuff I wrote earlier, but also some of the rules. Like I already said, you take every class with your group and sit at an assigned place with your group for lunch, you can't go find someone who likes the same stuff as you from outside your group. Except during one of the three breaks, two of those are 10 minutes and one is 30 minutes. During those, you can walk around outside and go talk to anyone you want. Of course they are all total strangers to you though as you have never seen them do anything anywhere, since there are no activities at school other than your classes. But here are some of the rules we had. No electronic devices, so you can't listen to or show anyone any music or play any videogames with anyone. I mean no phones either but almost all of those couldn't really do anything other than call and text at the time anyway. No 'distracting' hair, whether that is a weird style or having any part of it any color that does not appear natural in humans. No 'distracting' clothing either, but at least no uniforms. No tattoos or piercings of any kind, except earrings but one time an acceptable looking punk came in with a safety pin earring he did at home and that did not count as an allowed earring. Actually come to think of it, the punks were the only group. Everybody else just looked the same as everybody else. And these punks were just 4 people. We knew they were punks cause of their outfit, they pushed the boundaries of distracting. And sometimes too far, like with the safety pin. But they usually wore a flat cap, a denim jacket with a few punk patches and leather boots. Probably the coolest looking people at the school, mostly because I couldn't tell you what anyone else looked like now, I totally forgot everything except their face. Though I was also a bit of an exception. I was the guy with long hair. Not that anybody knew anything about me cause I didn't talk, but they did know me as the one guy in school with long hair. They couldn't really ban that as I don't think they could ban things for only one gender. But yeah, you only have the opportunity to talk to people not in your group during the short breaks, but how would you decide who to go talk to? You never talked to any of these kids, all you got is how they look, and they're barely allowed to change their look from anything default.
Alright I'm gonna end it here. I guess the conclusion is that if you make school as absolutely boring as possible then there is not gonna be as much trouble, I think that might have been the goal at least? Just come in, get your education that day, go home, no drama. Is that better? I wouldn't know, I haven't been to other schools of course. But I sure couldn't help but wish it had a little more going on like they did on TV.

I’m 43m NT and my partner is 34f ASD. We attended a rather large anime convention this weekend. This is our third time going. This year was my first attempt at a fairly involved cosplay. It’s a lot of work and logistics involved.
I was pretty much alone most of the days we attended. She had panels in her special interests and when she wasn’t in panels she was in the artist alley shopping. She did meet up with me to take pictures of me in my cosplay. Which was nice then told me I should really have a handler for cosplays that Impair your vision. After that she left me alone again!
Seemed like she only wanted to hang out with me after she got done with what she wanted to do that day. Granted we did some late night stuff but she was no where to be found during the day. Most of our interactions on text were logisitical. “Can you Bring coffee?” And “meet me by the locker?”
And I get how this works. I’ve researched enough to know how this works. Lots of dopamine involved and special interests fulfilled. Feels really fucking good. I understand her more since her diagnosis than I ever have before. I get it and I love her.
It wouldn’t have hurt me so much if a lot things didn’t go wrong. Like the hotel charging the wrong card and zapping my bank account 600 bucks instead of my credit card. Two occasions of people being creepy. One con goer and one hotel housekeeper that caught me in my underwear and would not leave. And being shooed out of pictures for a cosplay meet up. Because she didn’t like my cobra commander standing next to her draculuara. I left in the middle of the meetup because I was having anxiety and felt like I wasn’t not wanted there.
All of these occasions are things that my partner I know for a fact would excel at doing. Running interference for me the moment she knows I’m feeling uncomfortable. That one of her superpowers doing extreme emotional labor when I am pretty much done and checked out. And I love her for that.
But she was not there for any of that. She was off buying Yaoi and Yaoi related merchandise.

└✶✹STRANGER THINGS:✹✶┘ [REWIND]
…Hi Hello!… REWIND is a brand new, slice-of-life, st season-4 rewrite server that offers tons of different roleplaying experiences and styles!
REWIND has ✶… tons of available canon characters. ✶… 18+ only guidelines. ✶… numerous location channels. ✶… literate, semi-lit, and text-based roleplay formats. ✶… a unique telephone & radio roleplay system. ✶… unlimited oc slots! + more!
Come check it out!
(ST:REWIND is still in its startup phase! Come help get her up & runnin’!)
https://discord.gg/NwVpmtYSb6

Hello, i'm 15 and recently i did sexual stuff with some characters on character Ai, through text. All the characters are fictional and supposedly my age, if not a year younger or older. I'm feeling pretty gulty though... Can someone tell me if there's something wrong with me?

Hello fellow writers! I am once again on the hunt for a roleplay partner 🤗
I want to do a medieval, arranged marriage roleplay where are characters are from rival nations, and perhaps even from different fantasy races. Enemies to lovers is one of my all time favorite plots.
I'd like the story to incorporate the differences between our character's cultures, have them drop their hatred and prejudices for one another, learn from the other and grow closer as their romance develops within their forced marriage.
Let's play up politics, love triangles, espionage, drama, life, death, magic, anything we can think of.
A little about me, I'm 30 female from the States. I've been roleplaying on and off for about 13 plus years. I'm semi to advanced literate, depending on the plot, the scene and my partner. I write mostly in 3rd person, I'm comfortable with themes that are 🌠romantic🌶 in nature, and discord is my preferred platform for roleplaying. I prefer my partner to be 21 plus and also in the States, though I'm pretty flexible in that regard.
I do prefer stories that are long term, that can span over years of the character's lives with numerous plot points throughout. It always creates a more in depth story! I love chatting outside of the roleplay as well 💖
I'm a mom to a one year old. My day job is very easy, so I'm free on and off for most of my working hours, evenings and the occasional middle of the night feeding lol I'm in desperate need for some creativity in my life
Please send me a message detailing some of your ideas for the story so we can discuss more. I really look forward to hearing from you! Let's get creative!