Make your own cat hammock

Context is at the end of this post __________________________________________________
In the stormy northern seas lies the island of Amaria. Under the polar lights in cold forests live the descendants of the once great Varaki, who in turn followed the mammoth herds across the steppes for countless eons. These are the gods and spirits of this land. They live in every tree, every lake, every star, deep below the ocean and beyond the polar lights in four domains.
The underworld, a place of transition between life, death and rebirth. It was made after the creation of the material to help souls find their way back to life. The spirits of this domain all take the shape of dragons with red eyes and golden patterns.

• Räkimarak: Lord of the underworld and of all its riches. Every stone, flint and gems alike, belong to him. A great violet dragon with enormous antlers. He reviews the lives of all that died and guides them to the new lives they deserve. Father of all dragons of the underworld.
• Idaka: Wife of Räkimarak, goddess of love and beauty. She resides at the darkest place, where her light shines the brightest. A violet dragon with a frill and wings of red rose petals with golden patterns. She stands for all encompassing unconditional love and reunites loving souls in their next lives. Mother of all dragons of the underworld.
• Kimorak: Firstborn son of Räkimarak and Idaka, guide of souls who escorts the souls of the dead into the underworld. A great black dragon with golden horns. Every mortal he touches sees and feels their life in great detail from the point of view of those they affected. In the process, mortals always see something they need to see.
• Galorak: Lord of caves and their denizes, bats. A small black dragon with bat ears and a bat nose. Caves are entrances to the underworld and bats are its sacred animals. They are not to be harmed. But since they are also messengers of death, one must keep a safe distance. Don't disturb the bats or Galorak may convince his older brother to take you too soon.
• Letorak: Messenger of the underworld. A small black dragon with golden antlers. Whenever Kimorak takes a soul, they often have something to tell their loved ones. Something they didn't have the time or the courage to say in life. It is Letorak's task to convey these messages through dreams.
• Vhedurak: The white dragon who heals souls between death and rebirth, so they don't take wounds from one life to the next.
• Ohnarak: Craftsman of the underworld. A great yellow dragon who can make anything out of the riches of this realm.
• Vahirak: Builder of the underworld. A great brown dragon with antlers he can use to dig new caves or cover up old ones as needed.
• Voomarak and Vothorak: The great hunters keeping the underworld free of demons preying on scared souls. Two emerald dragon who can turn invisible. The younger brother Voomarak has golden horns and is also the patron of boys and unmarried men. The older brother Vothorak has great golden antlers and is also the patron of married men.
• Mokorak, Kaharak, Roporak and Sukorak: The four golden-headed red dragons guarding the entrances to the underworld. Mokorak has the ears and nose of a bat, Kaharak has four horns, Roporak great antlers and Sukorak the wings and head of a barn owl.
• Tathorak: The great beast, god of violence and bloodshed, the only dragon of this realm who is not a son of Räkimarak and Idaka. A huge gray dragon with three heads, three tails and three pairs of wings. The most powerful beast in the cosmos, but devoid of empathy or understanding. He is imprisoned at the second deepest, darkest point of the underworld, where he guards the only being living even deeper below, the Nameless One.

The boundaries. This is the realm of souls and spirits, dreams and nightmares, the skies and oceans and all waters deep and shallow. This domain has existed before time even began. It is endless and timeless.

• Kavijohka: The moon, a great silver dragon with glowing teal eyes. Sister of Räkimarak and goddess of wisdom, cunning and battle.
• Vellamun: The ocean, husband of Kavijohka, a great blue dragon with red eyes and golden patterns. God of the unknown and lord of all waters. Sometimes, he stretches his hands out to land, creating bogs and swamps.
• Lukilan: The morning star, son of Kavijohka and Vellamun. He is the lightbringer who gives people the power of sight. An azure dragon with emerald eyes and a golden morning star on every scale and a third eye on his forehead.
• Sojulan: The great traveller, son of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a black dragon with red eyes and the neck and wings of a black swan. He travels between the waters, land and air and protects all fellow travelers.
• Turikan: Lord of storms, thunder and lightning. The loudest and most unruly son of Kavijohka and Vellamun. A blue dragon with red eyes and a golden lightning pattern on his scales. His tail is like a hammer, hurling lightning bolts at the ground as he roars.
• Lumika: Goddess of magic, daughter of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a silver dragon with teals eyes and scales shimmering with polar lights. She continues in the footsteps of her mother.
• Ilunika: Goddess of grief, daughter of Kavijohka and Vellamun, a silver dragon with teal eyes and the neck and wings of a black swan. She travels to and from the world of the living and the dead to take the grief of letting go upon her. Whenever she crosses the boundary, she has to go through the ocean and that is where tears comes from. That is why they are salty.
• Avastaja: The great trickster. A shapeshifter, usually appearing with the attributes of a barn owl. Most often as an owl-headed human or a fox/dragon with the head and wings of an owl. The youngest child of Kavijohka and Vellamun who defies all boundaries, uses the powers of all his/her siblings (except for Ilunika, because Avastaja has standards) to protect the jesters and jokers. But he/she is also a scolar and explorer, who uses Lukilan's light to find new ways to mess with people.
• Aiwana: Wife of Avastaja and goddess of memory. A shapeshifter, usually taking the same shape as her husband/wife Avastaja. She paints everything she sees into the skies and caves of Amaria and lives in every single one of the most sacred objects of all Amaria, the fairy memory stones. But Avastaja is rubbing off on her and sometimes, she plays tricks on you.
• The Ashirana: Goddesses of the arts, each of which has its own Ashiran patron. One for painters, wood carvers, musicians and for storytellers.

The world of the living. This is our material world.

• Kadath: The sun, greatest of all dragons with shining golden scales and golden eyes. God of justice who sees all... during the day that is. At night, his sister Kavijohka rules and she has a different idea of justice. Sometimes, she tries to turn the day to night, causing an eclipse. But in the end, Kadath always wins these confrontations. Especially when people light fires and cheer him on.
• Inari: Mother nature, goddess of life and all plants and animals. A great green dragon with wings and a frill made of flowers. She provides all food, but only as long as nature is in balance. Unlike her husband Kadath, Inaro does not care about justice, only balance. Those who anger her are punished mercilessly, no matter how long it takes, sometimes more than they deserve.
• Ilmania: Goddess of healing, firstborn daughter of Kadath and Inari. She was the first fairy, a tall woman with long pointy ears. Her descendant, although far shorter, are still endowed with her healing powers and compassion.
• Vrila: Protector of the home and hearth, patron of married women and the goddess of affectionate familiar love between equals. Secondborn daughter of Kadath and Inari. A woman, always accompanied by a cat and carrying a sling. The weapon of a lady, which requires skill and finesse instead of strong arms and can be more deadly than a bow in the right hands.
• Aria: Protector of girls and unmarried women, goddess of erotic love. A young woman with hair reaching to her ankles. She often reincarnates among mortals for fun. That is why the Amarians do not look down on women looking for fun. They might be dealing with a goddess in disguise.
• Mahaseta: The great white mammoth, goddess of the old world of Varaki. She and Inari together created dogs to protect humanity from dangers of the material and other worlds. All forest elephants and mammoths are her children and as such, sacred. But she was not born a goddess. Mahaseta was born a human. When Avastaja wanted to prove to the others that the material world and humanity are worth preserving, he appeared to Mahaseta in the most terrifying form and ordered her to sacrifice one of her own children to him. But Mahaseta refused. First she begged for the lives of all her children, then she offered her own life instead and when Avastaja refused, she spat in his face. No punishment could be worse than having to murder your own child. With these words, Mahaseta ascended to godhood.
• Retaro: Son of Mahaseta, who became a god by his mother's love. A great white tiger with blue eyes. Guardian of Amaria, lord of the forests and god of the hunt.
• Red Lady and Blue Knight: Also known as the Blue Lady and Red Knight. A pair of lovers who find each other in every new life they are born into. Living as mortals, they are the paragons of loyalty for all Amarians.

Evil. This is not actually a domain, but a state of mind. A very lonely one.

• The Nameless One: God of Evil, who goes by many false names. He lures mortals in with impossible promises to make them do his bidding. The Nameless One orders blood sacrifice and the killing of those who disobey him. He demands to worshiped and praised every day and is jealous of all those gods who receive praise without asking for it. Thus, the Nameless One also seeks to be the only one. No matter the cost to everyone else or even himself.

__________________________________________________
Context: I am currently working on a stone age fantasy novel and I'm sooo close to finishing it, but the last couple chapters are taking longer than expected. It's set on a forested island named Amaria\ at a time when people are making their first steps towards sedentary life and domestication** of plants and animals. Here is the pantheon I worked out for the Amarians.*
You can read my novel for free on Wattpad and Inkitt. I am planning to publish it on Royal Road too. If you know any other platform that might be good for fantasy stories, feel free to tell me.
\Amaria is short for "Amara Aria", which translates to "Gift of the gods/spirits". Aria means gift and Amara is the plural of Amar. The term Amar can not be literally translated into English. It's an umbrella term for all sorts of nature spirits, gods as well as entities one might compare to angels or saints. So it refers to a person with transcendent characteristics and always carries positive connotations.*
\*Dogs have been domesticated by the ancestors of the Amarians for tens of thousands of years already and are central to their culture. It is believed that they have the same souls as humans, so eating a dog would be considered cannibalism. So far the only other note on domestication I have in the books is the pruning of hazelnut trees to get more nuts. That's something I will change in later drafts. Nightshades will be far more important to the civilization emerging on Amaria in the coming millennia.*

I went to write this on another post but thought it was worthy of its own extended version.
Stop fkn stressing and buy the dips, if you cant buy more, hodl, If that's too much for you then sell now so we can buy it up cheap.
I've bought every dip to my means and am still up alot from very average bags.
Everyone constatly panicking over a one day red candle isn't helping.. It's no worse then all the fud packers on here. I've been screenshoting every fud poster on here, I'm getting ready to post a collage of fudmemes to call out when we hit 10c very soon, I have enough from launch, to 0.007 0.3 0.4 but let's give it another week to see your crap you clowns.
I joined this reddit group launch day, we have grown 80% in size you beautiful sloths and it's amazing to see it grow daily. We are smashing charts on all DEXs and growing CEX listings. We have a strong community on numerous socials and plenty of smarter members then me explaining charts and tokenomics, listen to them and stop fkn panicking everytime we drop a cent..
On launch eveyone was freaking out over not getting their coins in the first 20mins. I sat here posting "do not give your keys out to fake support pages" "follow solscan" "stop panicking" I doubt it helped, people are inclined to do whatever they will when they are panicking and such is the mainstream marketing campaign and minimal support of SLOTH so far. alot of begginers came over and freaked out over nothing or got rekt sending keys and making silly plays.
Ive been around a while and launched my own very very shit coins and I can tell you from Slothana's raise of 15-20mil presale it was always gonna take time to drop all those coins and their marketing budget alone was in the Mills. fkn wild af and proved it wasnt a scam to me instantly, the KYC to set up those ads made it way too balsey for them to rug and face penalties or online witch hunts from smarter coders then them. You couldn't go on any dex listing page without seeing a $SLOTH banner and once you looked at the basic ass website your google ads were flooded for the entirety of Easter.
All the 420 memes aside.. This is a fkn meme.. Of a Sloth.. With AI graphics.. Stoned and pushing to $4.20..
That's all it is.. I still think it's better then a dog with a fkn hat and the other thousand cat, shiba and frog variants.
If you want to gamble, cant play poker, want instant gratification in crypto and cant hold a coin for a month let alone a year. Fkn learn to bot, add another zero to your bag, trojan some whales and see where you end up. alot of massive whales are front-running $SLOTH right now. So you will end up where you started.
Let's pump this to a 7 or 8c this week, see some more burns from the team and if you can't hold out for a lambo just cop a couple camrys and sit down..

So, I (F38) was the only one at my parents home for a couple of weeks while they were on an out of country trip in March so I could house-sit and pet-sit their two cats and two dogs, while also keeping up on my college studies. We were having nasty weather the entire time the folks were gone and it's not uncommon that the weather might affect, or even knock out internet signal. Our neighbor is in her early 50s. I'll call her Jean. Some months ago, she had a roommate move in who is in her late 40s/approaching her 50s. I will call her Lisa.
During this stormy weather, Lisa texted me and asked me if our internet was working and if so, could she connect to it for the night because like me, she is doing college courses online and was in the middle of homework and could not get her laptop to connect back to theirs or get theirs to reset. I figured it was just the storm had knocked theirs out so I said, "Okay.But that password doesn't go to anyone else and please reconnect to yours when you get it back on." She agreed and thanked me. That was the second week of March.
This week and last week, the internet has been especially slow and that has been a seemingly increasing issue. Now, while I don't think it's solely due to anyone else using it, it did make me wonder if Lisa had ever got it switched back over. I had just assumed she did and didn't give it a second thought at the time. I shot her a text and asked her last night if she had switched back over to their internet or if, by chance, was she still using ours. It was late but as she is up late at night a lot and I could see the light still on where her bedroom window is from mine, I had sent it anyway. Almost immediately, I received the read receipt, but no response.
So, I mentioned the whole thing to my folks and told them I was pretty sure she just keeps using our internet. They were understandably irritated about it too so I went ahead and changed the password to our wifi, got all our devices at home logged back in and went to bed. Almost 7 hours later, I get a reply in which Lisa claimed she had just seen the message, that SHE hadn't been using our internet and had just been relying on her mobile Hotspot on her phone to connect her laptop to, but that Jean had been using it for their TV but "I guess you don't want us to have it since you changed the password."
Now, I really like Jean a lot and she has been super kind and helpful when our family has needed it and we try to do the same in return.
Jean has told us Lisa had agreed to a monthly rent amount but hasn't paid since the first month and keeps saying she has a check coming and the she'll pay Jean. Lisa does not contribute to grocery money. She doesn't contribute any rent so she isn't helping with bills and last we knew, the only thing she WAS covering was the internet bill. Lisa's boyfriend 'Greg' stays over for a few days a week and spends all day and night with her. He doesn't contribute to bills either and Jean has been absolutely stressed out over being the only one working. On top of all that, she never gets a break because on her days off from work, Jean's daughter drops her granddaughter off (and often in the afternoons after she gets out of work and her granddaughter gets out of school, too).
I ignored Lisa's message and after the folks got up, I told them about it. They agreed that considering "for the night" had been over 2 months and no one had asked if they could just use out internet for a while, she has no reason to send something so arrogant.
However, a couple of hours later, my mother says she thinks we just need to give Jean the new password because she has done a lot for us and she is dealing with so much stress because of Lisa and that if having our internet helps her out, then we should. I said I understand that but I AM concerned that if they give her the new one, it will wind up being given to Lisa, to Jean's daughter and her friend that hangs out there frequently.
I am POSITIVE that Lisa either told Jean that she was still paying for internet service and just told her what network to connect to or she told Jean that we said they could just use ours if rhey couldn't get their own and I don't know which. Whichever it was, Lisa lied. I HATE being lied to and I HATE being nice or helpful to someone and they take advantage of it. Now, with their concern about adding stress to Jean and being unfair to her, my folks have since changed their mind and think I'm being TAH and are even making excuses for Lisa now, suggesting I started up an issue. They gave the new PW to Jean (which again, I see nothing wrong with) knowing it will likely be given to Lisa again and that just feels like awarding bad behavior.
So reddit, AITAH?

So after Admin feels incredibly awful over failing to save Himiko, he's sent off to deal with yet another one of the Sasanami 5, this time the Karasugo. But he's down one Mod: Buzenbo's sent off to take care of Sasanami head and the Child of Heaven, because nobody else is available. Mods are being scrambled all over, Shu is being sent to Jokurr, Tsukuyomi is missing, and it's all up to our fledgling group to deal with everything. Buzenbo, now with her S Rank Alt her original Access Key, revealing that this entire time she was in Firebrand Tyr's situation and was fighting with a gimped loadout, sets out on her own.
So who are we with? Well, we have Kuni and Sekhmet, and a Mimir who is immune to all communication jamming. Great! This promises fun. Sekhmet herself is getting even better, as the chapter reveals just how closely-knit her department is: Unlike Paracaesar lording the shit out of everyone and throwing her authority around, Sekhmet, Kamau and everyone in Quake Control are soldiers loyal to each other, professional as they can be, yet with bonds only shared by comrades who fought by each other's sides. Despite all attempts to be professional, Sekhmet does show what's underneath.
And boy is it worth it. The Quake Control Squad are a blast to be with, with responsible leader H, incredibly passionate K and "I'm working 9-5 and not a second more" F. Between these stooges and Kuni and Sekhmet's usual sniping, they're pure fun to follow.
But wait, what about Admin? Well, the twist here is that the moment they get into the compound, the team is split up into Kuni and the QCS, Lord Mimir and his anti comms jamming signal (... Great...) and then Admin... And the other star of the show.
Senba. Aka, Izanami.
All on his lonesome, Admin meets up with this strange, eccentric girl who doesn't want to get close to him. She'll protect him, she'll defend him, but she doesn't want to open up to him... But he keeps pushing.
He lends her his canned coffee. He gives her his cooking, and makes her remember her mother. He answers her questions, more than she answers his. He compares her to a cat that's keeping its distance even as it tries to get closer, and by god does the definition work.
And through it all, he's able to break through to her. At first, she simply calls him the "Questioner" out of amusement. But after revealing the secret behind her plan, sacrificing herself just to save everyone?
When Admin just got fucked over by Gengchen and Himiko doing the same thing?
She realizes just how much she values him... And respects him as an Admin. Not just that. In Japanese? Admin-SAMA. Higher than her, better than her. If she had any other choice, she'd follow him no matter what.
But she can't, because she's off to get killed by Kuni and the rest of the team, thinking that with her death, the Crow God will finally die...
PSYCHE. Admin manages to break the world once more. Kagutsuchi hands him a katana and tells him to save Izanami from her fate. He's broken reality to save an artificial mod. Why not a real one?
This chapter was fantastic. The banter, the rules of the realm, the twists and the sacrifices at the end... God, I cannot wait for part 2 to come.
Also important, Admin has shared an indirect kiss with Senba, and has given her his cooking, learned her deepest secrets, is acknowledged as her lord and will break the world for her. Admin has revealed himself to be prime house husband material, between paperwork management and cooking for all the mods because they apparently suck at cooking (wait, why the hell are we putting them in the restaurant then?).
In other words, Gomen Verthandi, you have more competition now. Get off your ass already and get your S-Rank Alt get your man before someone else does!

This title is a bit long, but it is meant to pre-empt some of the nitpicky caveats I know people would come up with otherwise. I know that most people on Reddit (or at least on this sub) are vaguely moral subjectivists or error theorists (even though I don't think most have a worked out view, but more a vibe that morality at least isn't objective). This is the reason why I have phrased my title as a conditional in the way I have: IF you think x is wrong THEN you should think y is wrong. This avoids the inevitable "well, there is nothing really good or bad, it is all just people's preferences".
Secondly, I say buying factory farmed meat in the way most people do, because it avoids strange hyper-specific edge-cases like "what if I bought a package of meat right before closing, and asked the store manager whether they would order more meat if I bought this package", or something like that. When I say "in the way most people do", I mean going into a store, taking a package of factory farmed meat and buying it, no questions asked, or weird caveats added.
Now to the actual argument. First off, the conditions of factory farmed animals are very bad - far worse than being lives worth living. Consider chickens. Broiler chickens live in very crowded spaces (approx. 1 sqft. per chicken) and grow so fast that their limbs cannot keep up and they end up being in constant pain. They get chemical burns on their joints because they are living in their own shit which is high in ammonia. And they have their beaks removed so they don't peck each other because they're so stressed. Now ask yourself, if you had the choice at your deathbed to die and disappear, or to live a life as a factory farmed chicken and then die, which would you choose? I doubt many of you would choose living the life of the chicken. If so, then it isn't worth living in your judgement.
Furthermore, when you buy a package of meat you are causing animals to go through this suffering. You might object something like this: "When I buy a package of meat, it is highly unlikely that I will cause the shop to order more meat, causing factory farms to produce more meat. Thus, most of the time I am not causing more animals to suffer."
This argument doesn't work. Let's look at a simplified example: A shop orders chickens in stocks of 100. When they reach a certain limit in demand, they increase or decrease the amount of stocks they order, depending on whether demand has risen or fallen. You don't know how close they are to ordering a new stock, since you are buying meat like a regular person, and not asking how close they are. But you know that there is a 1/100 chance that your purchase will cause them to order a new stock. Furthermore, ordering a new stock involves ordering 100 more chickens. So on standard decision theory, the expected outcome of your buying a chicken is that one more chicken is ordered (100*1/100).
This is of course an idealized example, but it is how the meat industry works on average: A decrease in demand of x amount of meat packages will reduce the amount of meat packages produced by x on average, even if the industry isn't perfectly sensitive to demand.
So when you buy meat, the expected outcome of your action is that animals are harmed. The amount will be the total money value of the animal in question divided by the money value of the product you bought all multiplied by the amount of suffering of the animal. Likewise, when you kick a stray cat, you are causing it suffering.
Why are you causing these animals suffering?
In the case of the cat, it is for trivial pleasure. Likewise, in the case of meat, it is for pleasure. I think almost everyone who reads this would be able to stop eating meat at trivial cost to themselves. It might take a bit of getting used to, and you might have to order the slightly less tasty option, when going to a restaurant, but generally it would be of quite trivial cost.
The person going around kicking stray cats for fun could stop doing so at little cost to themselves too. They might have a little less fun in their life, but that is certainly outweighed by not kicking cats. We can even imagine that it is a big part of their life. They feel like it is a hobby, and they would have to spend a lot of effort to find a new thing to spend their time doing, and it would never be as fulfilling. Imagine you meet someone who is in the middle of beating a cat until it can barely walk, and you tell them to stop doing it. They then reply the above, that it would make them very sad, and be really inconvenient to them. Would you then answer "oh, of course then, carry on!"? Of course not.
It is not like it being for taste pleasure or nutritional convenience makes any difference either. Suppose it is discovered that the saliva of distressed cats is very tasty, and also high in c vitamin. You now come across the same person again, brutally beating a cat, and you stop them. They now say "oh, haven't you heard, distressed-cat saliva is very tasty and nutritional. And I can't be bothered to incorporate oranges into my diet, so I thought I might as well have some fun and beat this cat for its saliva". Would you now be okay with it?
But in the case where someone is beating a cat, they are hurting something which already exists. But the animals on factory farms wouldn't exist, if they weren't raised for meat. Okay, so imagine if instead of going out and beating cats on the street, the guy in question instead bred cats and kept them in small cages so he could beat them for fun, and perhaps even drink some of their tasty saliva. Is it okay now?
Perhaps the important thing is that you are not doing the killing yourself, but you are instead paying someone else to do it. So imagine instead that the person in question pays someone else to breed and beat cats, and to send videos of it to them so they can enjoy it, and perhaps even send some vials of distressed-cat saliva. Is it okay to pay a person to do that? No.
I doubt anyone actually thinks this, but someone might say "I don't care about factory farmed animal, but I do care about cats". This is why the example is kicking cats for fun. If you do it for fun, that means that you don't care about the cat - that is just stipulated into the example (or well not strictly, but it would be very strange to go around kicking cats for fun if you actually cared about them). You might think that that would mean that it is ok, since you by stipulation don't care, but then you reject the antecedent of my conditional, and so the argument isn't refuted. You might also think that someone cares about cats, and that makes it bad. But that is why I use stray cats - they don't have relationships with anyone. Perhaps someone cares about stray cats in general, without knowing about any particular stray cat. But people (including me) also care about animals in factory farms in general, without knowing about any particular animal.
Another objection one might raise is that crop production also kills animals - approx. 7.3 billion annually (which is less than a tenth of the amount killed in meat production, by the way). So vegans are equally killing animals for food! I will give you ten seconds to think about why this is a bad argument. (Hint: What do the animals killed for food eat?)
I think the actual reason why people are okay with buying factory farmed meat, but not kicking cats for fun is twofold: First off, we are much more used to buying meat than to beating cats. Secondly, it feels much less bad to buy meat than to beat a cat. But clearly neither of these are morally relevant differences. Something wrong doesn't become permissible when you are used to it. Likewise, it doesn't become permissible because it feels less bad.
I am sure there are many possible responses that I haven't adressed directly, but I want to encourage everyone to be a bit honest with themselves before they respond: Do I actually think that this is a plausible position, or am I only drawn to this because the alternative would be inconvenient for me? Would I also believe this principle if I applied it to other cases, or do I only find it plausible in the single example of factory farming?

I am looking for the love of my life. someone who will truly love me for who I am. someone who wants to work through our differences and issues together. someone values commitment, communication, adaptability, loyalty, and honesty as much as I do. someone who wants to put in as much effort as I do. someone I can love back just as much because when I love someone, I really love them.
I don't expect us to have all of the same interests and we should have some different ones so that we can learn from each other. what matters most to me is that we have similar core values and relationship goals. I do still have my preferences and those are:

• I don't do drugs or smoke.
• I don't drink alcohol. I would prefer if you didn't but it is not a deal breaker.
• I would like to have kids one day. I don't have any kids of my own yet and expect the same from you.
• I am not a pet person. I am also allergic to cats.
• I am not political at all.
• I am a christian and am looking for someone who shares the same faith.
• I am only looking inside of the USA but I would be willing to relocate anywhere in the country for the right person.
• I am looking for someone between the ages of 25-30.
• I am looking for a woman who is single and wants to get married one day.
• I would like to swap pictures sooner than later. my basic info is: 5'8", brown hair, white, about 150 lbs.
• I want to voice chat / video chat using discord at some point but we can start with text first.

for a brief overview of myself, I am a typical computer nerd that likes tech a lot. I like to learn about tech-related things such as programming and linux. I also like watching anime / movies / tv shows / youtube / playing video games / 3d printing / playing board games / making art such as vector art / 3d art / pixel art / drawings / paintings / hiking / bike riding / fishing / and snowboarding. I am mostly a homebody but I do a few things outside with other people from time to time.
If this post piqued your interest and you would like to get to know me better, then you should reach out. I am looking forward to meeting you.

I am looking for the love of my life. someone who will truly love me for who I am. someone who wants to work through our differences and issues together. someone values commitment, communication, adaptability, loyalty, and honesty as much as I do. someone who wants to put in as much effort as I do. someone I can love back just as much because when I love someone, I really love them.
I don't expect us to have all of the same interests and we should have some different ones so that we can learn from each other. what matters most to me is that we have similar core values and relationship goals. I do still have my preferences and those are:

• I don't do drugs or smoke.
• I don't drink alcohol. I would prefer if you didn't but it is not a deal breaker.
• I would like to have kids one day. I don't have any kids of my own yet and expect the same from you.
• I am not a pet person. I am also allergic to cats.
• I am not political at all.
• I am a christian and am looking for someone who shares the same faith.
• I am only looking inside of the USA but I would be willing to relocate anywhere in the country for the right person.
• I am looking for someone between the ages of 25-30.
• I am looking for a woman who is single and wants to get married one day.
• I would like to swap pictures sooner than later. my basic info is: 5'8", brown hair, white, about 150 lbs.
• I want to voice chat / video chat using discord at some point but we can start with text first.

for a brief overview of myself, I am a typical computer nerd that likes tech a lot. I like to learn about tech-related things such as programming and linux. I also like watching anime / movies / tv shows / youtube / playing video games / 3d printing / playing board games / making art such as vector art / 3d art / pixel art / drawings / paintings / hiking / bike riding / fishing / and snowboarding. I am mostly a homebody but I do a few things outside with other people from time to time.
If this post piqued your interest and you would like to get to know me better, then you should reach out. I am looking forward to meeting you.

Hey all, I recently have been seeing a lot of people across the internet on different websites promoting not fixing your pets and provided pseudo scientific reasons for it. A lot of the content feels like it is "researched" in the same way antivax content is. After seeing this, I thought sharing the story of how my childhood cat died could shed light on why you need to fix your pets. Sharing this I believe can also help me grieving him years later.
A lot of this content describes fixing your pet as being for human convenience rather than necessity for your pet to live a long, happy life. In some situations of course you shouldn't get your pet fixed. For instance, if they have a deformity that would make it pointless or dangerous.
It isn't for convenience sake. Trust me when I say that I don't get my own pets fixed because of convenience. I do it because I want to see them for their whole lives.
Our first cat we didn't get fixed for all of the usual excuses people give for it but his health wouldn't listen to those excuses. He would sneak out, roam the neighborhood, etc. until he found other male cats to fight with over a female. He would return with all fur on the top of his head gone, parts of his ear torn or cut, and sometimes an eye shut because it was scratched from him fighting males and impregnating other cats.
He lived to 4 years old before he was diagnosed with feline aids. His last month of life he was bedridden, unable to move, and any touch or petting hurt him from the disease. The disease slowly progressed from the start to the finish of that month. It got to a point that 3/4 of us wanted to make the decision to put him down but my little sister's want for him to live was enough that my parents disregarded his pain and my want for him to be put down. During the final day of his life, his breathing started to rattle and he dragged himself to the door constantly begging to go back outside. His breathing kept getting worse and it was obvious he was going to die since the rattles began that morning.
That night we decided to be kind to him and let him leave out the door and monitor him. After he was let outside we noticed that all he wanted to do was get as far from us as he could get so we wouldn't watch him die. He flopped himself off the front porch onto the grass and dragged himself using his two front paws under our car. We decided to leave him entirely so he wouldn't have to struggle to run away from us anymore as he wanted to go that way. He laid under that car until he perished hours later after. We couldn't put him down due to my little sister throwing a fit that putting him down was wrong because she loved him all the way until the end (I really hate that our parents didn't end his suffering to this day).
The sound of his failing lungs, my sister wailing to leave him alone, and the sight of his desperation to drag his corpse of a body has haunted me since. I will never have a pet that hasn't been fixed ever again.

My brother married an actual psychopath. My brother (40) married the scummiest scum of the earth. Who can only be described as a whore, a psycho, sociopath and an all around terrible human being. It was against the wishes of EVERYONE. For back story…She had a child by another man… and only had him (in november) to live off the government. he met the stray hoe took care of her and her unborn child. they started dating in september and by christmas she had drained his bank account. He moved in with her days after christmas. Proposed. And got married sometime between march and june i honestly can not be bothered to know exactly when. The night before brother was admitted to the er for staph infection in his berries. After the “wedding” that was in the back yard of some pastor . they had a “reception”. Where i photographed/observed the following. A used tampon on washing machine. Shit filled diapers littering the nursery. A surreal amount of clothing on the bed. I said nah im good. And went home. The wedding was in may and she got my brother to legally adopt her child. Im forever convinced if not for my brother she would casey anthony her child. She Munchausened her kid and my brother. Self diagnosing the kid with autism. Pushed or made my brother fall and get multiple concussions. Drugged him with date rape drugs to keep control of him. She was a frequent flier to the ER going to the emergency room for unnecessary reasons. She refused to parent her child insisting that its the worlds job to teach him the bare minimum. She refused to clean as well. Her cockroaches had cockroaches. Cleanliness was mental illness for her. She kicked my brother out asking for divorce. But realized she had to leave bc he paid the bills. She stayed with whoever the hell would take her. Was forced to walk wherever she needed to go. And uttered the words “well i had to walk in the rain so theres my bath for the week” after growing tired of not having his card and money she came crawling back. She avoided parenting like the plague. Every excuse. Uti. Migraine. Yeast infection. Its a tuesday. When her son was 2 she left to go to another state and go to school for being a truck driver. Had no qualms of leaving her kid behind for weeks. Then she dropped out of 18 wheeler school. It seems the wheels on her bus fell off. For someone who doesnt believe proper hygiene was important she didnt believe bathing him and basic care was important. Feet encrusted in dirt and dirt under overgrown nails. It was so noticeable that when i cut his nails his teacher made comment about it. Her family was just as absent as you would expect. Her mother only went to the first birthday party when the child was 6. And didnt even know her own grandchild. Asked another child at the party if he had the best birthday! My mom looked at her and said “yeaaa thats the wrong kid…” Fast forward when the first born was 6 and she birthed her second. This had no change and her parenting never improved. Another child encrusted in dirt. After the youngest turned a year and a half my brother had knee surgery and stayed with us (me mom dad) to recover because she would have made him cook clean and parent. While he was healing for the week he was there she moved in her boyfriend AND girlfriend. By the way she not only a hoe she is a promiscuous hoe with no moral compass. I promised my mom id never call CPS however when the second was 2 i had a friend call cps. Like a special ops team cops went in at 2 am and gathered the children and brought them to me and my parents. We had the 2 year old and a friend of the hoe had the 8 year old. For 2 weeks my brother agonized over his kids being taken. And she had a vacation. She treated it as if having your kids repo’ed as a right of passage. Told the world. Told the teacher. And had the time of her stupid life. In the 2 weeks i had them i had minions collecting screenshots of statuses of her being a bad mother. Which was super easy bc every thought made it to facebook. Such as. “My dentist suggested i brush my teeth at least once a day” “i guess i was doing (brother) with the wrong meds and made him sick” “why dont grandparents raise our children” i gathered these gems and photographic evidence of the state of the house and cleanliness of children to cps, police and eventually divorce lawyer. During their time together the hoe broke my brother mentally spiritually emotionally physically financially. The food stamps ran out in the first week of every month spent on junk soda and unnecessary nonsense. They had to ask my mother for money that accumulated to the tune of $10,000 over 10 years. She is also a gofundme whore. She would start a gofundme 10-12 times a year for any and everything. She decided at one point to go back to school and did an amazon wishlist for school supplies and a gofundme for “gas food and other expenses”. Being the trash human she is she is friends with people of unsavory character. An actual crack head bought her entire amazon wishlist. Which she put on facebook. Yikes. At one point she found a dog and instead of finding the owner she finders keepers that poor pup. Making yet another gofundme for dog expenses. I told my friends i would paaaay them to claim the dog as theirs so my mother didnt pay for yet another mouth to feed. If youre curious about the gofundmes and if they were ever fruitful… when a bull milks a calf will her gofundme work. The final year of their marriage was no less chaotic. The christmas of 2019 she posted on facebook that its so wonderful that her husband is out working and her boyfriend is sleeping next to her and her girlfriend is cooking. Tagging the aforementioned on facebook. My brother was humiliated because infront of church members family and friends his marriage and all the stupidity that came with it was out in the open for all to judge. My brother was at the time a corrections officers and let his kind nature and naivety get him in trouble. A person asked him to take some taco bell to an inmate and in what could only be called a moment of stupidity (sorry mom) he did so. what he didnt know is they put drugs in it and when it was scanned he was arrested. My mom and dad had to bail him out too him home and around 3 am he called me “they voted me out” beyond confused i asked what the hell does that mean? As it turned out. Hoe boyfriend and girlfriend unanimously voted him out of the house. Mind you. Single wide trailer housing 4 adults 2 kids a dog and cats. June of 2020 he moved back in a month later if the children followed. after the actual breadwinner left the house the unemployed baboons could not pay the rent and were kicked out. The three went down to two with the girlfriend being let go. Hoe and boyfriend moved in with her mother. And boyfriend wrecked the car in my brothers name. Dui and head on collision. Car gone! The children stayed with us. The youngest was 2 at the time and began calling my mom “mommy” which pissed off the hoe. And she never contacted them. At the hearing for the divorce she stated all she wanted out of the relationship was not money or visitation. But her maiden name back. TAKE IT. AND LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE. She also used a photo of her kids on a gofundme to get sympathy and posted that to a fetish website. Seeing as the photo was them shirtless i believe that was on purpose. She dumped boyfriend and found a new love in new hampshire. She was in NH for 8 months with her new boyfriend and he lost his job so they moved back down. After a summer of no contact she called and told the children “when i get home we are going to….” And listed about 10 events places and activities to look forward to. None of which she delivered on. After not spending time with them again and choosing to give up her weekend with them to play video games for 30 HOURS STRAIGHT. She eventually in 2024 decided that her and her boyfriend were moving to Massachusetts. Seeing how she is a practicing witch my only hope is the salem witch trials reconvene. She married the dude she abandoned her kids for. On mothers day the children who no longer give a damn she exists were forced to call and tell her happy mothers day. Where the 6 year old proceeded to tell her the older brother got a phone and didnt wanna give her his number. She assured him that as his mother its quite alright to give mommy dearest the number to which the youngest said yea no he doesnt want to. The mouths of babes. She cried and posted on facebook not only do her children hate her but she had to give up her cats too. And wished the “real mom’s of the world a happy mothers day” shes a shit cat mom too! A week after we had spaghetti for dinner and the 6 year old said “i never used to like spaghetti. I only tried it at… whats her names house? Jordan? Yea her house” With their father engaged to a good Godly woman with morals and standards the worst mother to ever mother has been replaced and so far we are all living happily ever after. The moral of the story is if you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas what if you lay down with whores end up with bedbugs and that was a very costly moral

I (41F) live in Montana and a few years ago I was forced to relocate after my landlord decided to rent to her son. The community I had lived in for 11.5 years has become incredibly expensive ($787,000 median home price). Unfortunately, I was forced to relocate to another city and because of the unexpected move and associated costs, I moved in with a roommate. My roommate left to pursue better job prospects about three months after I moved in. Our unit was a triplex, so there were two gentlemen that inhabited the other units. I was never added to the lease as the property manager required a full deposit and I was not in a financially healthy spot at the time. I remained in the unit for 1.5 years on my own paying the rent and utilities.
I became very good friends with the man in the unit closest to mine. We will call the man Devin (52M). Devin was a disabled veteran in recovery. I also am a veteran, so he held a soft spot in my heart. We shared meals, hung out and discussed all of life’s mysteries, and would look out for one another. Devin had gone to treatment for 6-weeks, and I had watched his cat while he was gone. Our friendship developed over the course of 1.5 years. Devin had expressed romantic interest; however, right from the beginning I clearly informed Devin that I did not share those feelings and we would never be more than good friends.
Devin seemed to be lonely, which made sense; however, I am a person who requires alone time to recharge my batteries. I set strict boundaries for Devin as he wanted to hang out all of the time. I would catch him walking through the front yard multiple times a day to “get the mail,” which I believed was to see if I was outside so he could stop to chat. When I would leave in the morning to go to work, Devin was always outside to tell me I looked nice and to have a good day. I told him that made me feel uncomfortable and he should just send a text letting me know if he wanted to hang out and wait for a response. There were a couple of times I yelled at him for overstepping my boundaries. The first, I had just got home and pulled into my garage. I was on a phone call and had stayed in the car, Devin looked through the garage window to see if I was home. I was annoyed but didn’t really think much of it. The second, I was getting dressed in my room in the Summer, so the window was cracked. I felt this was safe as the window was not in a place that anyone should be walking by as it was on my patio at the back of the home. I caught Devin peeking through. I lost it. I let Devin know under no uncertain terms his behavior was inappropriate and that if he didn’t respect my boundaries, we would no longer be friends.
Last year, while I was still in the home, I had asked Devin to watch my dog for a couple of days so I could go to a family event out of state. Devin was happy to help, and I was very appreciative. Not long after I returned, I started to notice strange things in my home, but I really just thought it was me. For instance, I would be fairly certain I had locked my door in the morning when I left for work, but when I returned it would be unlocked. I would be sure I had shut off all the lights, but when I got home in the evening, one would be on. I really just thought it was absentmindedness.
Fast forward a couple of months, and my mom became sick with cancer. My sister watched my dog while I went to tend to my mom. My sister reached out to me and asked if anyone else had a key to my apartment. I let her know she had the only spare key but asked why. Similarly, she had experienced the same issues with lights and locks. I had not shared my concerns with my sister prior to her communicating hers with me as I really just doubted my own sanity. While I was out of town, I received a text message from Devin asking if I had a potato he could borrow. I let him know I was out of state with my mom who was sick. Devin did not reply, which was out of character, but I had noticed a change in Devin’s affect – he was more reserved and less friendly towards me. I thought it probably had to do with my firm adherence to my boundaries, which was okay. He didn’t have to like them, just respect them.
When I got back to town, one night I stayed over at my sister's house after helping her move. As mentioned above, I was struggling financially, so I would carefully budget and plan my weekly meals. The morning before my sister’s move, I had placed three pieces of bacon into a Ziploc bag to be used later for a BLT. When I returned the following morning, much to my disbelief, there were only two pieces of bacon. I held the bag in my hands KNOWING that there had been three. No longer did I doubt myself. I called my sister and let her know that someone had been getting into my house (I ALWAYS) keep the place locked. The only logical thing that could have happened is Devin made a copy of my key when he had watched my dog in the Fall. My sister reminded me about the potato text – THE POTATO IN THE COUNTER BASKET WAS GONE!
I had enough information to be certain my neighbor had violated my trust and was no friend; however, I still wasn’t afraid of him. As I mentioned, he is a disabled vet and was somewhat feeble and sickly. I was not scared of a confrontation. I immediately went to the hardware store and purchased a camera that steams to your phone once the motion detector has been activated. I placed it facing the side door where Devin would enter. It also had two-way audio capability so my plan was that when Devin decided to enter my home again, I would see it and say over the camera something to the effect of, “get the fuck out of my house, put the key you copied on the counter, and never try to speak with me again or I will contact law enforcement.” As I wrote above, I was not on the lease, and did not want to be homeless, so I could not turn to the property manager for help and Devin knew it.
In the evenings, I started placing a jug of cat litter and a kitchen chair in front of the door that I knew Devin was accessing the apartment from, but I NEVER expected he would attempt to come in while I was at home and really, he had only taken a piece of uncooked bacon and a potato. Laying on the couch one night, watching TV, I thought that I had heard something sliding on the floor in the laundry room where the door was; but I knew there was no way he would come in while I was home. My cat was running around playing, so I decided it was probably just her and I was being paranoid because of all that had happened.
The next morning, while changing my laundry, I noticed the litter and chair had been pushed 3-4 inches. I checked the sensitivity of the camera and found that I was able to replicate by slowly opening the door. DEVIN TRIED TO COME IN WHILE I WAS HOME! WHY?! That morning, I took bear spray into the shower with me while my knees knocked. I was terrified. I felt vulnerable and violated. Devin knew that I knew now also. He knew that I had placed a barrier in front of the door. After that morning, he was never outside in the morning, nor did he walk through the yard to get his mail. I obtained a firearm for protection and did make a police report. The police officer was annoyed with me as I did not want him to approach Devin as all Devin would need to do is report me to the property manager and I would be homeless.
I am grateful that whatever he was up to was apparently thwarted. The fact that he tried to come in while he knew I was home gives me the heebie-jeebies. I wonder if he went through my underwear, watched me while I slept, etc. Since, my situation has greatly improved. I ended up moving out shortly after to take care of my mom. I got my own place again a few months ago. I will never put my trust in another neighbor for pet/house sitting again. It still blows my mind that I had some douche bag stealing from and likely stalking me. This story just solidifies one should always trust their gut. There were so many times that a red flag was screaming, and I just thought I was being crazy.

Is it the right time to start preparing for the CAT24? What about those who started early? what about those stories about those start even late.
I get these questions a lot of times. And CAT is quite an interesting exam in the sense that the number of days you prepare for it tell absolutely nothing about your preparation stage.
I usually get two kind of queries. First is asking if this month or that month is right time to start and prepare. Second one is number of hours required to prepare for CAT. Both are inherently wrong questions with no possible right answers. For months, I tend to say that CAT can also be cracked within 4 months or less if you inherently have some aptitude, even if that doesn't reflect in the first few mocks you take. And for hours, I usually suggest that if you start from scratch, approximately 1000 hours is what you are looking at. [200 hours per section to prepare i.e. 600 hours, 50 mocks with 6 hours each i.e. 300 hours of mocks (6 hours because mock + solve the entire paper + analysis) and another 100 hours for revision and making notes etc.]
Both of my answers (any such other answers) are actually partially wrong and misleading. I'm making this post to give you the real answer.
CAT Preparation needs to be done in three phases. In Phase One, you need to build your basic knowledge structure. This varies with sectionals and I'll explain for each section.
VARC Phase 1
Here, your basic knowledge structure involves,

1. understanding the pattern of exam.
2. Having a strategy for the exam (RC first then VA or VA first then RC, whatever works for you). Remember that whatever strategy you pick, you need to know why that particular strategy and not something else. If you don't know, it's best to start from question 1 and go to the end.

For me, I needed to read RCs first to get in flow, but I needed to be very attentive in VA. so I would do 2 RCs to get in flow, go to VA when I'm hyper focused, come back to other 2 RCs to end the section on a good note (VA was my weakness)
See how I personalized this based on when I'm most active and what's my weakness and what's my strength. You need to do the same for yourself. Don't try to sit and make it. I'll come naturally to you. If it doesn't come, It means you are comfortable with going in any order. That's good.

1. Having the ability to understand the passage.

Some people have this inherently. Most people have this in some subjects (like science) and don't have in it other subjects (like philosophy). While a few of you don't have it at all.
What you need to make sure is, when you read the passage, did you understand the entire passage like what exactly was the passage trying to say?
That's all for VARC Phase 1..
DILR Phase 1
This is fairly simple. Just go through different types of DILR questions. (If you are following my guide, just complete the rodha playlist I had attached there)
Quant Phase 1
Do a few arithmetic chapters. 3-4 basic chapters like Time Speed Distance, Ratio and proportions, Averages, Mixtures and allegations etc.
After doing this phase, here comes the phase 2 of your preparation.
VARC Phase 2
Here you need to go through different types of RCs and questions. Understand your shortcomings. Understand what mistakes you are making. (If You are following VARC1000, finishing it concludes phase 2)
DILR Phase 2
Here you develop your symbols and signs. You learn which table/diagram to make in which question. Like I would always represent certain things with some symbols (Circle for males, underline for females etc) So you kind of develop your own representation in this phase.
Quant Phase 2
In this phase, you finish your quants syllabus. It is here that many people decide whether to go for arithmetic algebra and geometry or go for arithmetic and algebra only or maybe add a number system. Whatever is the combination you wanna go with.
With conclusion of this phase, you stop practicing quants chapter by chapter all together.
VARC Phase 3
This is the final phase where you just keep giving mocks, analyse them and look for the mistakes you are doing. Did you read the question wrong? Did you miss some word in paragraph? were you stressed? were you hurrying? were you distracted? This phase ends whenever CAT happens. Else it just continues.
DILR Phase 3
Here you learn what set to select. Set selection is the core of DILR. you basically learn how to choose what set to attempt and which one to leave. This phase never ends, because you just need to keep on practicing. So it continues till CAT
Quant Phase 3
Here also you learn which question to attempt and which question to leave and what silly mistakes are you doing. This also continues till the CAT exam day.
Now let's try to see how much time should it take (in hours)
VARC Phase 1: Could be anything from 1 hour to 50 hours of rigorous reading or even more. DILR Phase 1: Should take considerable time. Around 50 to 80 hours on average but again could take more or less. Quant Phase 1: Depends on how good you are inherently at calculations. Do you need to remember 19×7 or you know it already? Do you remember value of 2^10? Do you recall formula for compound interest?
VARC Phase 2: You might understand your mistakes and fix them within a week and might not be able to do so after 8 months of preparation. Again entirely depends on you.
DILR Phase 2: How long does it take for you to understand which data should be represented by which diagram and which table? No one can tell you. You would find out yourself.
Quant Phase 2: This is something predictable and takes most of the time. But again this varies. Someone doing Algebra, Arithmetic, Geometry, Probably, Number System would take more time as someone going with Arithmetic and Algebra only. Some people do only Arithmetic and Algebra, get a very high strike rate of getting questions right and score good in QA. Others complete the syllabus and pick and choose the easiest questions in the paper. They also score well. Some do both, they are God level. So again, time taken here varies.
VARC, DILR, and Quant Phase 3
This phase continues till the exam comes. For some people, this phase is very long so that's how you find people who gave 70+ mock tests. But this phase is just about finding mistakes and not repeating them in the CAT exam so this phase could also yield results with 30 odd mocks. Again varies from person to person.
And now, you understand why it is stupid to answer if you are starting in the right month or how many hours it takes. The sooner you learn from your mistakes, the less time it will take. How quickly would you learn from your mistakes? Nobody knows. That's why you see cases with 3 CAT attempts and can't score more than 90 percentile, and scored 99%ile with 2 to 4 months of preparation.
The best way to go about this is, either you would learn from your mistakes quickly and hence you should attempt CAT 24, or you need a lot of time to learn, in which case you give CAT24 and then CAT25 in case you feel that's needed.
Hope this helps.

I'm gonna start this off by saying this is a vent post. It's really long and goes over all the big instances I can recall of animal cruelty happening in my childhood all the way to present, so it will be a lot of paragraphs. The timelines are estimates, but due to trauma I have poor memory involving dates when things happened, and this probably still isn't every incident, again just the big ones I can recall. Read at your own discretion.
I (19F) live with my grandparents (70M and 67F) and my parents (42 M 43 F). Due to some injuries from last year and some medical history, I am disabled and currently jobless, and in the process of trying to obtain disability, which is relevant for later.
Since I was as little as I can remember, my family has always had cats. I even grew up with some cats that ended up feeling like siblings for me not having anyone around them age to interact with until my sister was born when I was 8.
My parents have always loved cats, but I don't think truly ever valued cats. They've always been left outdoors, and eventually the elements always get them. I have never had a family pet that grew past the age 12. All of our cats have either been attacked by dogs that are also loose in my neighborhood, been suspected to have been tortured and unalived by neighbors, got sick, or got ran over, because my family doesn't care and will just 'replace" pets less than a year later.
When I was around 5, I had my very first pet kitten. This kitten was a runt, so it stayed small for a long time. It also was very hard to potty train, and because of this, they released it outside when it was maybe barely 7-8 weeks. He did good for about a month, but after that, he vanished. But there was evidence when he disappeared that there were large dog paw prints in our driveway because it was rainy that previous night, and his food bowl was dragged out in the yard, which he couldn't have done.
Also around 5, my aunt (at this time 13F) was living with us, as her mom (my mom's mom) wasn't taking good care of her and was in and out of jail. She had pet guinea pigs for a bit. My parents decided to feed the guinea pigs potatoes without doing any kind of research. One of them died. The other one was sick and anxious all the time, so my aunt decided to release it in our backyard? It was also winter. (I want to say that I do not blame her directly because she was still a child and in a similar situation to me, and my parents didn't care about the well-being of these poor guinea pigs anyways.)
And yet another story of around age 5, my dad bought the family a pet red-eared turtle. The tank was too small for her. My dad also thought it would be "funny" and "cool" to put fish in there with this turtle whenever we were about to go on vacation. She ate all the fish in the tank: Neons, goldfish, the tank cleaners, and whatever other fish species he put in that confined tank that wasn't more than 20 gallons. (Red-eared turtles alone need around 40 at minimum.)
But that's not all. While on vacation, both I and my 13 year-old aunt got baby yellow-belly sliders. We took them home, and we put them in the tank with our adult turtle. She ate the heads off of both of them. There was one goldfish left there as well, and I got traumatized seeing both the dead turtles, and seeing her eat that last gold fish in two chomps one time.
When I was around 6, my family randomly decided, "Let's own goats!" because they have a big backyard with an old shed. Well, they ended up buying a small amount of chicken wire fence and giving them outside of the barn about a few feet to move around when our backyard is fairly large and most of it wasn't being used. And we live in a residential area, so every night we had the goats, they would scream. My parents hated their screaming and started neglecting them more by giving them less attention, which only made them scream 24/7. Finally, my parents decided to give the goats to some distant family that has farmland. (We are in the south.)
When I was around 8-9, I got another cat. She was a pretty cat, but very mean and feisty. She didn't really like anyone, but I loved her regardless. This cat was too annoying for my parents to deal with because she had behavioral issues, and instead of taking her to the vet, they decided to make her start staying outside. She loved it, but a bit too much.
(Big TW: death and some descriptions of gore) One day, I had to help my mom deal with her corpse on the road. I was obviously really sad and fell into a deal depression. I also panicked and nearly threw up when I saw, because her eyeball was hanging out. It was so disturbing for a child to see. We buried her together, but I was made fun of one day by my parents for randomly crying about her death.
When I was around 10, I owned my third cat. She also had a brother from the same litter, and my mom had recently lost a cat that she did keep inside from kidney disease. I haven't had my own cat in a while, and they decided to adopt this sibling pair from the neighbors. I got the female, my mom got the male, because she is the type to insist that boy cats are better.
Anyways, I LOVED this cat. I did so much for her, and she loved me and followed me everywhere. We'd cuddle to sleep together. She was my best friend.
But my parents never got her fixed. They also never got the brother fixed. They ended up doing the tango (gross I know, but nature) and my cat had kittens a little bit less than a year old. Since she was too young for kittens, she at first didn't know what she was doing and even misplaced her first outside and ran to me while in labor with the second. I found that kitten and helped her with all 5 of her kittens, all girls also, and the kittens ended up getting close to me as well.
Of course, once they were around 6-7 weeks, my parents were wanting to start finding home for them. But they also had another idea in mind. They wanted me to get rid of my adult cat, and the brother cat as well, and we'd take one kitten. At first I was like no, but they manipulated me and convinced me a kitten would be better. I told them which kitten I wanted, and it looked a lot like my cat. But no, since they thought one of the cats might be distantly Siamese and thought it looked the coolest from it's tabby and Siamese-like pattern, they chose that one, and then dropped my beloved cat and her brother off at a cemetery, didn't even let me say bye. They just threw them away like pieces of garbage. And then I ended up resenting that kitten anyways for not being MY cat, so the family ended up crashing her as well, and she disappeared a few years later.
Around age 11-12, I somehow managed to have pet hermit crabs, another pet yellow-belly slider turtle, and two pet rabbits. My parents were basically throwing pets at me because I guess they felt guilty or something about what they did to me. I didn't end up taking care of any of them, and they all died of starvation and/or dehydration, and I still feel terrible about it. I was so depressed that I couldn't take care of myself either. And I was given animals on top of it, and I was forced to be a high schooler in school. The pets suffered at the cost of what? Why did I even have them?
Around age 13, my parents were driving me home from school, and we saw some Canada geese with their babies by a pond. I'm sure you know where this is going, considering everything else. My mom convinced me to jump out of the car with her, and she distracted the adult geese while I caught a baby one. I knew that in itself was bad, but I didn't know Canada geese were such a protected species.
The little guy imprinted on me. I loved him, he would follow me around the yard. But once again my parents got out that chicken fence, only this time it was on the side of the house, and no shed for him to take cover in (still like a few feet of movement max.) He was growing fast, and he was plucking his feathers. A neighbor noticed and told us to get rid of him or we'd call authorities. They lied and said we "found him and rescued him." I was told to lie about this narrative for years. They ended up dropping him back off at the pond we got him from about two months after we first got him. He couldn't fly, his family wasn't there. He was defenseless. I still feel terrible to this day, I know I was manipulated, but I was 13. And again, I defend my aunt and she was also 13, so I really don't know.
When I was 15, that first turtle I mentioned was still there at our house for all those years. She had quite literally been there for a decade. My parents got tired of having to clean her tank, and she was obviously too big for it as well. But was their response to upgrade tanks and the old filtering system that's been there all that time? Nope. While I was at school, he just...released her. And not in a pond or anything, you know, being an aquatic turtle. (Not like that would be better, but better than what he did.) He just put her outside, in our front driveway. She ran away surprisingly fast according to him. An aquatic pet turtle. Just released in a residential neighborhood. I'm totally sure nothing awful happened to her.( /sarcasm.)
When I was also 15, this was when the pandemic hit. I was super depressed and bored all the time. But then a female stray cat came to our house and had kittens behind a board against my grandparents house. I started fostering them and their mom immediately. I didn't know at the time that we had any no kill shelters nearby, and neither did my parents. When the kittens were old enough, we started rehoming them. There were 3 in total. 1 got a home. The other was still outside for some reason and disappeared. The other one became my pet, whom was at first the family pet. But then they decided that he was too annoying (because he was sweet and affectionate and not what they wanted out of cats which was mean, feisty, playful.)
He is the sweetest boy ever and is still alive to this day, but because I still live with my horrible family, he has to be outdoors, and he gets really scabby from the bugs outside during the summer. As soon as I can I will move out, take him to the vet, and take him out of this home. He shouldn't have to be here.
A few years ago, my sister (11F but maybe 9F at the time) got her own kitten. He ended up growing up to be sweet and affectionate like my cat, so neither her nor my parents want him and he's outdoors, so I'll probably try to take him too.
My sister now has her own new cat that's about a year old she got last year. So far she's not abandoning him since he's a mix of sweet and playful, but my parents have talked about making him indoor-outdoor, which really means "Indoor-outdoor for a few days but after a while we'll just leave him outside and let him stay there."
As a child, I was taught so many messed up things about animals. That dogs are disgusting, gross, and pets have no feelings, and I was taught that cats also have no feelings as a child, but that they are at least a more fun and less gross pet. In fact, in my parent's eyes, no animals have feelings or sentience or any of those things. They are just play things for our benefit. Because of this, as a child I also did not treat animals with the respect they deserve, and I acknowledge this. I have been unlearning so much of this behavior since I was about 13, the goose that I had was my wakeup call.
Please, I know it may seem crazy to some that I out of all people are speaking on this, but if you own animals, please keep them indoors. And with cats specifically, if they crave outside, harness train them. Buy/build a cheap patio in your window if possible. Just don't let them roam free. They will kill so much wildlife. Having to also deal with the grief of my pets killing and bringing dead rabbits, moles, birds opossums, etc. is also a lot. It heavily effects your surrounding ecosystem as well, because annually house cats are estimated to kill over a billion birds and over 6 billion mammals. That's disastrous, and could be avoided if there weren't so many bad pet owners.
Also, don't get animals that go in tanks/terrariums/cages in general if you don't have the money to get them the most spacious enclosure with ALL of their needs. Don't put fish in bowls, it effects their eyesight and shortens their lifespans SIGNIFICANTLY. In general, do not get a pet unless you have the financial means to do so AND if you've thoroughly researched that pet, get it ethically sourced, and if you make sure you have the mental capacity to care for an animal. ANIMALS ARE NOT TOYS. ANIMALS ARE NOT HERE FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT, FOR OUR JOY. THEY ARE LIVING BEINGS WITH THOUGHTS, EMOTIONS, AND A LIFE. THEY DESERVE RESPECT AND DECENCY. NO, THEY DESERVE BEYOND DECENCY, THEY DESERVE TO BE WORSHIPPED AND NURTURED AND SPOILED BY US, NOT TORMENTED AND ABUSED! Thank you.
Also, if you somehow got this far, please read my previous story and give me advice on that one if you have the time, but if not that's perfectly okay. My living situation sucks, but hopefully things can change. I'm counting on a change to happen soon.

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read about my situation.
For the Spring 2024 semester, I was accepted into a research program at my university. The way the application process works is you are given several different research topics/teams to express your level of interest in. They use this information to help better decide which team to place you in (assuming you are accepted into the program). The structure of each team consists of: 3-4 undergraduate students; a graduate student that mentors and guides the team; and a professor who is faculty who supervises the project.
Throughout the duration of this semester, my team and I have gotten quite familiar with the work we were doing. The professor was rarely a part of our weekly discussion meetings, so it was really the graduate mentor and the undergraduate students working together. While still maintaining the professionalism of conducting research, there was also casual and light-hearted banter that we felt comfortable with.
The research project is primarily focused on mathematics research, but it does require computer programming experience as well. My girlfriend is a computer science major and would sometimes sit in during our weekly meetings to see the research we were doing. I thought that maybe she would enjoy seeing what the work is like. It would also help her decide if this is something she sees herself doing next semester. My graduate mentor took note of her possible interest in doing research in the future.
Additional context: my graduate mentor and his girlfriend both study mathematics, and they both spend a lot of time together in the mathematics department. It seems like they feel comfortable mixing in their personal/professional lives together.
At the end of the Spring semester, research applications for the Fall semester opened up. My partner decided she wanted to give it a shot and decided to apply for the research program. I also decided to reapply to continue my research for next semester. Since we get to choose which topics we felt most interested in, my girlfriend chose a topic she felt most interested (pattern formation), and I chose the topic pertaining to my original research interest (AI). I think both of us had different ideas of which one we felt most interested in doing.
My research team decided to have an end-of-semester dinner to celebrate our research project and achievements for this semester (my girlfriend was not there). My graduate mentor told me over dinner that he decided to put her on the same team as me for next semester. I don't really know how I felt hearing that information, I didn't even know he was a part of the decision-making process. I'm sure he thought he was doing a kind gesture by pairing two partners together on the same research team. But I wish he would have asked me if that was something I was okay with. I don't know why, but as much as I liked having her around, I also felt like some boundaries were being mixed? I want to see my partner as a girlfriend, not as a coworker. Additionally, two of the original research members were graduating and wouldn't be there for next semester and another research member is deciding to not continue. So next semester it would just be an entirely new team (and not the one I bonded with this semester).
In the middle of dinner, I texted my girlfriend about the early information I had just received from my graduate mentor. She said, "How does he know? They already decided? Oh brother. *sends an anxious cat GIF rolling around in bed*". I texted her saying how I remembered she wanted to be a part of the other research team, to which she acknowledged and said she was happy to be a part of my research team.
I do care about my partner a lot, and I also wish to have my work life and personal relationship life separate. My partner and I already have our own lives so enmeshed together on campus as it already is. This past semester, I was working part-time as an assistant in the math department. Sometimes my partner would come by and lounge around the same area I am working in. We would also study together on campus, or try to see each other in between classes or go out for lunch together. When we are not on campus, we would drive each other home and spend our nights together. Admittedly, I do feel like my academic performance decreased ever since I started dating her. My studies are something I care about deeply, and I just need my own time and space to focus on that too. If we are on the same research team together, I won't be able to focus on the quality of my work. I would prefer to have time alone to where I can focus on my work. Outside of that, my time is all of hers! We are both very affectionate and spend a lot of quality time together outside of the academic environment.
I don't know what the dynamic would be like between us if we were on the same research team together. Doing research can be kind of stressful sometimes, and I don't want that dynamic to enter our relationship either. At this point, I'm leaning towards not continuing the research project next semester. I don't want the additional stress, I won't have the same team, and I don't want to mix my relationship dynamics with my professional/work life dynamics. Does this make me an asshole, or is this just me setting boundaries for myself? I don't want my girlfriend to feel hurt or that I am abandoning her (she has a fear of abandonment).
I haven't communicated this information to my partner yet, nor have I told my graduate research mentor about how I feel about the situation. I have until the end of the week to make a decision as to whether I want to pursue this research project. What should I do, how should I deliver this and communicate this? If it helps, we met one year ago and have been together for nearly 9 months (6 months of an incredibly long situationship where I wanted us to be official and she wasn't ready, and now 3 months of exclusive relationship/official couple).
TL;DR: Graduate mentor put my GF and I on same research team next semester without asking me beforehand if that was okay. I would prefer to keep my professional work life and my love/relationship life separate.

Hello! 😊👋🏼
If you're looking for your new best friend and your biggest cheerleader sprinkled with a little bit of Golden Retriever energy, you've come to the right post! 🐶
I’m somebody who loves to chat the day away, getting to know all there is to know about a person (I actually kinda do this for a job!) and forming lovely connections.
A little about me - I’m an introverted extrovert. I love my home comforts, but in the comfort of my own home and with people I love, I’m a bit of an oddball. I love to read, watch horror & comedy movies, listen to metal and country music, get way too invested in WWE, collect Funko Pops, bake, laugh at bad jokes and great memes, and send unsolicited videos of me lip syncing to my friends. I’m a fiancé and a mum to my cute pup and my three lovely cats (crazy cat lady who?). Happy to exploit them for my own personal gain by sharing pictures of them without their consent should you wish. Also, I have watched Always Sunny more times than I can count and will quote this at you regularly ☀️
I like to be upfront and let people know that I’m pierced and rather chonky (here I am) because if that bothers you then we probably aren’t gonna make great friends ❤️
If you think we’d get along, or simply that you can lip sync better than me, then get in touch! Looking forward to meeting some lovely new people 🌻

Hi! I found this group years ago, and obsessively read new posts every day for a couple of years. Decided on my own to go NC via ghosting, got ambushed at my apartment, and officially stipulated the terms of NC to my uBPDmom and my dad. It's been a few years. A couple of deaths happened, but I maintained NC. I have no intention of making the NC permanent, but I also have no desire to speak to them. I needed this group for a few years, then one day I didn't. I had to read posts multiple times a day, then I'd check in once a month. I used to desperately search for scraps of information on BPD so I could understand, then I was looking for others I could help and support. Then I realized a year had passed and I hadn't been to /raisedbyborderlines. I was happy you were here for me in case something upsetting happened. And even happier that I didn't need to lean on the support any more. My previous account was saved to my phone, and I have a new phone now. This is a new account for the recent BPD drama that tried to rattle me. (I'm sorry, Mods, I do not remember my old account name...)
Cat tax: https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-cutest-cats-bg3/
Backstory:
uBPDmom I am NC with occasionally breaks NC with sparse text messages. Usually during holidays and my birthday. Sometimes it's manic "why won't you talk to me please just tell me what i did wrong". Guilt and pity aside... I ignore these. It's been over 5 years.
When my grandpa died I was NC with my parents. One day I got a bunch of mystery texts that I ignored. (Can't remember specifics. They probably said, "call me") Then I had missed calls from uBPDmom. I again ignored because of NC. Then grandma called and said, "it's serious. You should get here." and I flew across the country to see grandpa before he died. I didn't talk to my parents while I was there, but I did speak to my older sister. My dad caught me off guard and hugged me, but the next time I saw him I was expecting it and said no. I managed to stay away at a hotel room (which I'm grateful for because I needed to be alone) and when I was around people I focused on spending quality time with grandma.
Two years after that, when my grandma died, I got cryptic text messages. They said "call your grandma" and my phone had missed calls from uBPDmom and missed calls from a blocked number. uBPDmom actually called my husband (Huge deal. They don't like my husband) and said to him, "have [my name] call her grandma." She refused to specify further, even though he asked. Grandma played it cool when I reached out via text. She said she was recovering from pneumonia in the hospital. She's fine. It's not my job to worry. She lived a full life with no regrets. She has plans with friends. I believed her. A few days later a distant cousin messages me on Facebook telling me she's been trying to get a hold of me about grandma but my family members blocked her attempts to reach me. Did I know anything about what's been happening with grandma? I texted my older sister and asked what was going on. She texted back, "Grandma died this morning." But grandma didn't die suddenly. She was hooked up to oxygen and decided she didn't want to go back home. She chose to end her life in a legal and humane way at the care of hospital staff. My dad and uncle flew from out of state to help her settle her affairs. (They might have been there for weeks, plural. Not sure. I wasn't there)
They knew what her decision was for over a week, and never told me. I don't begrudge my grandma her choice. I'm actually impressed. Grandma clearly didn't want me to worry, and she got to go out on her own terms. What a legend. I'm glad she's at peace. I'm not mad at her. I'm mad at my parents and my older sibling. I thought, "Sure they're terrible, but if something important like death happens, they'll tell me. Or make sure I know." I was so stupid... They knew for a week and aside from uBPDmom's cryptic messages, no one told me. If you're going to break the NC rules, why not tell me the actual news? My cousin only reached out because she thought it was suspicious my family would go quiet when she asked about me. When she asked how I was taking the news, they changed the subject. Their caginess made her mad, so she asked for my phone number so she could talk to me herself. My parents and sister refused to give her my number. (I am not NC with my sister, btw) Cousin contacted me a different way, but lived in a different time zone. I didn't see it in time to say a final goodbye to grandma. One where I knew we were saying goodbye.
Nowstory:
That's the back story. Here's what brought me back to /raisedbyborderlines after a few years of not needing to post in this support group. Yesterday, I received cryptic text messages from uBPDmom. (Sensing a pattern from my backstory?) A few minutes later I had a missed call. She left a voicemail that simply said I needed to call her. I ignored this too. My husband tells me that he missed a call from uBPDmom. Uh oh. They hate him.
Husband and I talked. Someone else could be dead or dying. Someone could be getting married. Either way, what did I want to do? I told him my decision, and at my request he texted uBPDmom requesting specifics for the phone call. She texted back that she wanted me to call her. He asked what it was regarding. She said, "family news." He texted back that I wasn't up for a phone call but he would pass along a message. She texted back, "tell her I tried."
... and that's where I'm at.

Hiiii! 28, female from North West, England. Not too sure what I'm looking looking for, other than someone to help combat the loneliness of life in general? I'm a very independent person and can appreciate my own company; however sometimes the silence can get me in my own head and I just want someone who can take that away. Just someone to chat bubbles with, about anything, everything and all the inbetween, the good, the bad, the downright ugly. I can be your personal cheerleader, celebrating your wins and helping you commiserate your losses! Someone who won't ghost and someone who's looking to be less lonely too! Those good morning and goodnight messages, that just make you feel like theres someone there for you and all the little messages in between that reminds you that you have another person thinking about you through the day! Typing this, maybe I DO know what I'm looking for after all 😅 I just want to be happy, but doesn't everyone? I'm sick of starting to talk to someone, for them to just disappear all of a sudden. I'm straight talking. If I'm not feeling it or vice versa, then just say! But I don't know.. maybe it's too much to ask for in this day and age? But I'll shoot my shot regardless, in the hopes that I can find someone who can make me as happy as I want to make them! I guess I'm just looking for my person?
A little about me to pad this out. I'm a bookworm, read anything and everything - any recommendations? Currently reading the ACOTAR series and I'm completely obsessed! I particularly like romance and thrillers, but I'm down to read anything. I have cats! They're cute, so I always welcome seeing your pet photos! Especially if they're super fluffy! Also 420-friendly! I'm what I'd call an 'experimental' chef, I see things to cook and try.. they always turn out bad.. or they set the smoke alarm off, soooooo any cooking tips would be much appreciated! Talking of which; what's your favourite food!?
Looking for sfw chats, definitely not wanting to see your trouser snake, no matter how great you may think it looks, keep it to yourself m'love!
If you're still reading, then I guess I havent bored you too much and maybe you're my person? We'll never know, unless you shoot me a message! I'll owe you a cookie.
If you've read this far and you're not interested in chatting, then I hope you find what you're looking for and have a good rest of your day! Don't let those Monday blues tomorrow get you down! ♥️

I’m gonna be adopting a coworker’s 15 y/o cat soon, she’s had her the cat’s entire life. Some life circumstances came up and she won’t be able to care for her in a few months. I’ve never owned a cat, but I adore them and have pet sit for my brother’s four cats for extended periods of time. My coworker will be giving me the litter box, food bowls, and any toys/treats she has for the cat.
I’m planning on purchasing a scratching post and two beds and having my coworker keep/use them until I am able to take the cat, so that hopefully they’re familiar to the cat by the time we move her in. For now she’ll be confined to my room as my parents’ dog does not do well with cats, so I’m making plenty of space and will be also buying a small cat tower (shorter, with a ramp, because while the cat is in good health she’s getting older and I want her to be able to access it comfortably for a long time), and a window hammock. My boyfriend and I hope to buy a house soon and then she’ll have free reign of the house.
I’ve never owned a cat before and I’m pretty nervous about doing this right. Will someone give me a breakdown of necessities? Things as well as responsibilities, such as how often I need to take her to the vet (NOT looking for medical advice, just general checkup frequency), things to look out for, etc.
I want to be as prepared as possible for my kitty.

TCAP:
5 Marvin Lakhan: This guy is way more fucked up than people realize because he seemed completely normal. John Kennelly is more popular due to his iconic voice/phrases and getting caught at McDonalds but Marvin is seriously fucked up. He wanted the decoy to fuck the cat with him watching, had graphic instructions that he definitely knew from viewing bestiality porn, and wanted to have sex with the decoy on her parents bed and in every room so she would never forget how he violated her. He tries to play it off like he was just joking and even Chris calls him out on how explicit his bestiality thing was. Tried to claim he wasn’t gonna go ‘all the way’ despite stripping naked in order to fulfill a deal so the decoy would do sex acts with a cat. Kennelly seemed to have brain trauma or some developmental issues which I think helped contribute to his deviancy but Marvin is 100% aware the entire time what he’s doing and unlike Wunderler who might have had the slightly more explicit bestiality chat (the PJ decoy said she had nightmares for years due to how horrible it was and it’s like a top 5 slimy I think on the PJ website). Fucking weird guy who needed way more time imo. I don’t think he’s reoffended but he needed serious help.
4 Lorne Armstrong: classic Lorne, can’t even win a list he’s rightfully on. I think basically everyone knows mostly everything about Lorne but the fact he’s only 4 on this list should tell you how bad it gets. genuinely believed he was in a committed, serious, albeit highly toxic, controlling and unhealthy relationship with a 13 year old girl. His chat is fucking disgusting. He gets jealous over Kayla’s dad’s corvette stating it ‘didn’t have his penis’. Called his dick Mr. Penis, raged over a made up 13 year old ex boyfriend. It’s just so disturbing and so apparent Lorne is highly sick and still to this day has never fully accepted responsibility, resulting in him becoming the community lolcow.
3 Walter Babst: this may seem strange given it’s not Rutherford who actually taught the age ranges of the decoy, but something about Babst just disturbs me so much. His chat genuinely is one of the only ones that made me near sick to my stomach and I’ve read part of Wunderlers. It’s so gross how he de ages all of his terms, he seems genuinely upset she started her period, obviously implying he wanted to be able to cum in her without consequences which is fucking horrific. He treats her like a doll and commands her what to wear, and the worst part of all of it is Babst is a smart guy. He immediately knew he was caught and going to be arrested, and that what he was doing was wrong. He obviously had been tortured by these demons for so long and finally couldn’t resist and decided he was going to do it. What’s even more disturbing is the guy was highly over qualified apparently to teach high school and is one of the only predators to ever have a better life after getting caught. He works at still and I believe is a manager or upper management at an engineering/physics firm I think? So did he become a teacher to sort of sate the desire? Maybe he was at the phase were merely creeping on his freshmen female students and catching some inappropriate down shirt glances or gross butt staring was enough to get him off.
2 Chuck Harding: truthfully, this guy and the piece of shit at #1 are so close in how horrible and disturbing they are it almost doesn’t matter. The decoy said they’re glad Chuck is dead and most of society should be as well. He was a serial groomer, likely rapist of multiple unreported boys. He told the decoy that he could be his grandpa, he wanted to go to Disney with the decoy in public and pretend that Chuck was his grandpa. He lived in Anaheim near Disney and I can only imagine the depraved shit Chuck did living that close it was NOT a coincidence. A disturbing, completely child porn brain rotted husk of a human who seriously had no qualms with what he was doing and even gets defensive and almost confrontational with Chris. If that was it I’d argue he’s still in my top 10 but then they find not only did he have CSAM, he had tons of it, mountains of it. Not only THAT, but some of it was dated back like 35 years old. NOT ONLY THAT, it was discovered that basically for that length of time Chuck had been a part of a CSAM exchange and honestly probably creation ring. An absolute monster, truly probably the worst person they ever caught, and again you can swap Chuck with #1 if that’s how you feel. Chuck’s segment is almost not even funny just like the next guy because of how absolutely disturbing and sick these men were.
1 James Wiles: Who else. Now comes down to your individual morality of what’s more horrific, being a 40 year long pedophile participating in a CSAM exchange and again probably also creation ring, or allowing your own flesh and blood daughters to not only be raped by yourself, but your sick brother as well. It’s just beyond the pale for so many predators, because it’s real. His daughters have done interviews I’m pretty sure and they said when he died they celebrated, that one of them had to take a picture and she keeps it to know he’s actually dead. Just a complete and utter piece of trash who I am genuinely happy is dead and if hell exists he is there. Horrific, disturbing, he’s like Westerbeck the improved edition.
Dishonorable Mention slotting between #2 and #3 imo is JPW. He’s just too fucking funny for me to put here but his life is insane and he did some horrible stuff, definitely could be on here had some of these other guys not been worse.
HVP/Takedown
5 Brian: This one will be short because outside of the stuff I want to really talk about he doesn’t have a lot of personality but something so he’s going at #5 below the next guys. This dude openly admitted to having had sex with multiple minors prior to the sting and ultimately what gets him on here is he is wearing and always wears the necklace one of his victims gave him, and it definitely seemed like he wore it for his own sick pleasure.
4 Donnie: This interaction is a top 10 of all time in my book. Takedown has a lot of stinkers and boring interviews and stings because there’s no long form decoy work, but wow, this guy and Brian, also caught in this sting are just doozies to me. Donnie wanted a dad to basically pimp his own daughter out to him, have the dad watch him fuck his daughter, then engaged in sex acts with the father and then all three of them would have sex together. He openly admits in the decoy interaction to an undercover cop posing as the father he’d done this exact scenario before or something similar and is sickeningly smug and ‘kind’ to the decoy portraying the kid. He states that parents should ‘be more involved’ in their children’s sexual development and exploration that it was good the father was going to participate in the rape of his own 13 year old daughter. His interview with Chris is no less shocking as he just further admits that he’s done it before and enjoyed it. Absolutely insane interaction.
3 Michael Gentile (or Popovich): These guys are almost the same in my book, slightly different flavors of disturbing and perverted old men. I’ll focus on Gentile. Just a fucking creep pedo who definitely had done this before, wanted to film child porn in his hotel room, only lived an hour away so why did he need a room? Very, VERY adept at grooming and knew instantly it was a sting when he entered. Calls his wife the witch and expects her to bail him out. His texts and voice mails and phone calls are absolutely vile and just pure filth. Really disturbing. Perhaps could be swapped with Donnie but something about the way he speaks, his confrontational nature with detectives despite having one of the grossest chat logs and decoy encounters, his evasiveness, just makes me rank him higher.
2 Jesse Velez: a bit of a cop out because it’s disturbing how this interaction went and how fucking smug this dumbass was realizing that Chris wasn’t really prepared. He is disgusting also no doubt. He wanted a 13 year old boy to live with him and ‘no one would find out’. It’s so disturbing realizing just how manipulative and sick these guys are the second they aren’t 10000% nailed to the wall. He gets arrested and all still but I would kill to see the world where Chris has the full chat and can obliterate this smug, condescending idiot.
1 Steven Buchanan: Who else (again). A short one cause his chat isn’t super outrageous, he’s relatively young, but the most disturbing thing about him is the ‘what if’ scenario. This guy looked unhinged. I don’t know why, if it was the military, if it was just something else that broke him, but this guy was dangerous without a shadow of a doubt. I don’t believe the items that constituted the kill kit were together, like in a bag, but even having those items is highly concerning. Really disturbing to watch and think about the horrible possibility of a real girl had been persuaded to leave her house and get into this psycho’s car.

Hi everyone,
Long read ahead.
I wanted to share a bit about myself and ask for your insights on a topic that's been on my mind.
I'm a 31-year-old guy, happily married for two years to an amazing woman I dated for two years before tying the knot. We share our home with a small, mischievous cat. Life has been kind to us, and I feel incredibly fortunate.
I come from a humble background. My father worked hard to support our family of four, ensuring that my brother and I could attend a good school in Bhayandar, a suburb near Mumbai in Maharashtra (though I'm never quite sure if it's in Thane or Palghar district). Despite the financial constraints, my father prioritized our education, and I was able to go to reputed colleges for my higher studies.
I was always a book smart kid, consistently scoring good grades. Thanks to my father's support, I managed to complete my MBA from a tier-2 B-School without needing any student loans. At 23, I landed a job in management consulting straight out of B-school, which has been a significant turning point in my life. Financially, things have been stable, allowing me to save a decent amount and enjoy a comfortable life with my wife.
However, despite these blessings, there are a few things that keep me wide awake at night, and I will try to put them down here in some sort of structure:
Will I Ever Have Enough Money?
I know no amount of money is ever enough, but I also know that no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to afford a swanky apartment in Mumbai without plunging myself into massive housing debt. As a college kid, I would visit my affluent friend's farmhouse and dream of owning one myself. But that dream keeps drifting further away the more I earn. It feels frustrating, like no matter what I do, I will never be able to own a home I like in a city I love.
Having Kids
Being 31 now means I need to start thinking about a family. But the thought of having kids absolutely petrifies me. Beyond the medical expenses, supporting a child in a rapidly deteriorating world and ensuring they are safe, cared for, and have all their needs met seems so daunting that I can barely comprehend it.
Medical Emergencies
My parents are pushing towards 60 now. Although we have medical insurance, I always worry we are not prepared for medical emergencies. I constantly fear that if a medical emergency strikes my family, all my savings will be drained, and that thought worries me immensely. Plus I don't think I am emotionally in a state where I can become a carer.
Society in General
No matter the political, religious, or caste affiliations I have, I feel the Indian society in general is deteriorating. People are angrier, both online and in real life. Corruption and bureaucratic red tape are stifling. I have never dealt with a government official without paying a bribe, except when getting my passport made. My family and I can easily become collateral damage in someone's conflict. Recently, during the Ram temple inauguration, Mira Road saw a flurry of violence, and that’s where my parents stay. The absolute apathy of the progressive governments towards us is ridiculous, making it difficult for a tax-paying citizen to feel righted by the state while getting the bare minimum in return.
I know complaining is also a privilege, and I am aware that many are much less fortunate than I am. But I don’t want to compare. I just want to know from people here, who come from different backgrounds, income levels, and age groups—how do you cope? How do you wake up every day and think, "I must keep going for 30 more years" (in my case, as I assume I will work till 60), and hope to have made something worthwhile of my life by then so that I can have a few years of quiet before my time on this planet is done?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this and how do you cope. Maybe there are more things that keep you up, do share.