Texts to send to your boyfriend while at work

I'm a 25 asian male who lives with his parents. I currently have plans to pursue dental school. I've worked in dentistry while preparing my application in dental school. For the past few years, I've only been making 80k/yr (I live in a HCOL so this isn't as much as it seems) living with my parents to save money. After 6 years of investing in the market, I saved a fair amount which was enough to not need to contribute to retirement accounts (coastFIRE for anyone part of the FIRE community haha) and still retire comfortably early at 50. This was a huge goal of mine and I thought I'd be happy once I reached this- this freed up my saving to allow me to buy whatever I wanted but it turns out there's not really many things I want in life. I've spent most of my past years saving every penny to invest in the future, and that future is finally here. And yet, I'm not happy in life.
My goals when I was younger were just to buy whatever video game I wanted and order UberEats whenever I wanted. The problem is I'm on a diet trying to get lean so I meal prep everything which I already outsource. I tried ubering everywhere but I felt very uncomfortable with other people driving me around so I drive or my boyfriend drives me. I thought I'd be happy buying a Tesla but it turns out EV charging is very annoying + Teslas are very annoying to work with so I ended up not getting one after borrowing my friend's. I also thought about getting a luxury apartment nearby that's 4k/month but its honestly less convenient than living at home as I'm a few minutes away from work...The "solutions" to spending more money just end up creating more problems. I've bought a bunch of lululemon to augment my wardrobe, finally got a new phone after 8 years, upgraded to Tmobile from Mint, got a new laptop, basically bought a bunch of material stuff I've been staying away from. I went on a few flights and decided to just buy business class tickets for the fun of it and yes, it was nice, but my day to day happiness is still pretty low.
I also received a massive inheritance that basically means I don't have to work if I don't want to. The obvious question is well why don't you just quit your job? Well...I still really want to achieve my goal of trying to become a dentist and to do that, I need support of dentists to back my application which is why I still go to my job. I also really do love my work/patient interactions and work in a good environment, and something about having the freedom to say "Fuck you I quit" whenever I want makes my job a lot more enjoable. In the future, my goal is to become a part time dentist and treat my friends/family for free/charity cases, and spend the rest of my time with my kids/family/hobbies. There's also a great deal of pressure from my parents to become a dentist- they know financially I'm set (and by extension them as I've managed their portfolio for many years with great success), but this doesn't matter as I'm still not a dentist.
While I'm sure this sounds like a great problem to have, I just don't understand why I'm not happy in life. I think it's because I'm still not yet in dental school/a dentist whereas all my friends are successful in their careers but maybe there's more? I do want to get a therapist but I don't even know what I'd talk about. I know exactly how I sound: I have so much money and I don't know how to spend it wow and I"m not happy. Like jesus what a douche- this is also why I can't share this with my friends, because they'll just think I'm being a dick. Any advice?

Today I want to tell my story of how I self-advocated and what I did to achieve that goal. I'm telling my story to help those who are in a similar position to what I was in and to inspire those to self-advocate.
To recap from my earlier posts. I have ADHD and fell under the "multiple disabilities" characterization. My high school teacher claimed that I have autism (Not diagnosed). I personally don't believe I have autism or at the very least I have a high functioning autism. Throughout most of my school career, I was in a self-contained classroom with kids with severe disabilities. Even if I was in the general population I had a paraprofessional or peer tutor. I never believed that I should have been in that position. As a consequence, I never really learned any social skills, I was segregated, and felt like that people didn't want anything to do with me because I was sped. The reason why I ended up in this position was probably a combination of me having the "multiple disabilities'' characterization and me testing low in three year revaluation tests. If you want more info on this then feel free to search my profile. This is an alt account and is primarily used to ask questions about special ed so It's really easy to find stuff about me.
Before I get into my story I just want to make it clear that I'm not against special ed. There's good and bad people in every profession. I believed I was in danger for myself and for my future. I don't believe that my teacher was evil and had the best of intentions but he was putting me in a position that was hurting me and I had to act. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments. Another thing is that this post has been really hard to make. It opened up some old wounds and as a result took several days to write.
Here's my story: So in late middle school I was tired of the placement that I was in. I was tired of not having friends, Not being able to socialize with my peers, not being able to date. I also was thinking about what my life will look like after high school, I was concerned that I was going to never have friends, Never be in a relationship, and not have the social skills to make those friends. I was generally very concerned for my future. So I decided that for my 8th grade year (2017-2018) I would do my absolute best for both my behavior and academics. Throughout the year nothing changed. I was hoping that me doing well would show that I didn't need any support but at the end of the year I still had paraprofessionals in most of my classes and was being pulled out for tests. In the summer between middle school and high school all I can think about is I want high school to be different. I wanted friends, I wanted a relationship, and I had dreams of me in the student council. When I got into high school I had peer tutors along with paraprofessionals (Peer Tutors are general ed students who sign up as an elective to help special needs kids. They basically serve the role as paraprofessionals with less responsibility). I did everything again and had the exact same result. In January of 2019 (freshmen year) I decided that my current strategy wasn't working. They also started making the peer tutors fill out behavioral checklists for their student(s) by grading them on how well they behaved/followed directions and gave them badges that say "peer tutor" which made me feel singled out. Because of that the peer tutors felt more like babysitters then someone that is an equal. So I went to my special ed teacher and asked him to remove the paraprofessional and the peer tutors. He told me no and said that I needed them. I changed my strategy again and I was going to ask for the Peer Tutors to be gone first, then focus on removing the paraprofessionals. I was more concerned about the peer tutors over the paraprofessionals because I was concerned that since they were part of the student body that this was going to affect me when I was running for the student council. I was worried that they'd tell others I was special needs then people would think I was incompetent. So every 2 weeks I would ask him again to remove them and each time he would give me a different excuse on why I couldn't be alone. Here's some of the excuses he gave me: "The peer tutors need to be there to collect data", "You need to prove that you can do the work yourself", "It's not up to me. It's the general education teacher that decides if you need a peer tutor or an aide", "Peer Tutors are supposed to represent a trainer for a job. If you refuse training then you're going to get fired". I brought it up again during my yearly IEP which took place in March. Once again my teacher said no, bringing up another excuse. As far as I can remember, my parents were neutral about the aide situation. Later one peer tutor was removed, what happened is that the peer tutor moved to a different town and they didn't bother on sending a substitute. A win is a win so I celebrated it. At the end of my freshman year I was pretty much defeated and didn't achieve the goal of being 100% independent. Over the summer I took a look at my situation and decided that my current plan is not working. I knew that when my sophomore year of high school starts I will have aides and peer tutors in classes. I knew that if I wanted to get what I wanted I would have to do something big. I knew that I would have to put up a fight, and put in a lot more effort. Over the summer I developed a war mindset inspired by two quotes from Sun Tzu:
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I knew that I can't be going into sophomore year blind, so I started drafting a plan. I created a Google doc outlining my goals and what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I won't be able to win every battle and that I need to choose which fight is worth fighting for. I thought to myself, “Well the peer tutors we're given training on the first day of school and probably have strategies to deal with poor behavior but what about planned well organized protests?” So I began researching strategies on how paraprofessionals/peer tutors dealt with negative behavior and reverse engineered those tactics. I read forms, I Watched YouTube videos and found as much information that I could find. For the peer tutors I didn't know too much about them. I didn't know if it was something that only my school did or if other schools did it. I did some research and found out that other schools had a peer tutor program and some have uploaded training videos on YouTube. Some peer tutors told me that they did babysitting and did nanny work so I looked up babysitting tips. I reverse engineered all of those tactics and came up with strategies to counter those techniques and put all that information that I learned into a google doc that I can use for future reference. During this time I also researched how to become a better negotiator and started learning a little bit of psychology. The plan was to first negotiate and if that doesn't work I will protest and make demands and negotiate. Over the summer I got really good at negotiating and practiced a lot on my father and my sister (they were totally oblivious). To this day I use those negotiating tactics. After I created my document and was satisfied with all the information, I went to bed that night and knew that I have already won and that my sophomore year will be my last year that I 1-1 peer tutor or aide.
Fast forward to the first day of school, as expected I had peer tutors and aides assigned to me in classes. My sped teacher had a chalkboard On the back wall full of sticky notes that had everyone's schedules and a name of someone was assigned to that student for each class. This time around I only had one peer tutor outside of the special ed classes. This is a big improvement over the three I had before but I still have my original goal of having none. For the paraprofessionals I had 2 in Gen classes.The goal was to first remove the peer tutors then the paraprofessionals. Even though this seems to be an improvement I continued with the plan. Since this was the first day, the peer tutors were in another classroom learning policies and other stuff they needed to know so I was alone for the day. I walked over to my special ed teacher and ask him one final time to remove the peer tutor he says no and then I asked him to let me be alone for 2 weeks so I can prove I don't need help and he still denies me. I then tell him that I will allow the peer tutor for 2 weeks and after that she needs to go. My teacher doesn't respond. (To add context the peer tutor that I had, she was a peer tutor in my math class in the prior semester so I already know who she was. We used to talk a lot and was surprised when I saw that she was assigned to me.)
For 2 weeks she mostly left me alone with her occasionally checking up on me. For those 2 weeks I purposely close my self off and adopted a body language that would subconsciously discourage her from approaching me. I did this by keeping my head low and staying as focused as possible. The only thing she did was confront me when I start packing up 2 minutes before the bell rings. She tells me that I shouldn't be packing up and to pull my stuff out again. I tell her no and hold my ground. She writes in my planner that I packed my stuff up early and refuse to pull it out. That happened like 2 or 3 times. On Thursday on the second week my class was tasked to create a PowerPoint. FYI this was a mythology class, while I was doing this PowerPoint I decided instead of manually trying to type in the locations and people from this mythology which the names were very long and complicated. I decided would be easier just to copy and paste them in. My peer tutor sees me doing this and doesn't say anything. At the end of class she writes that I plagiarized in my planner and tells my special ed teacher in person what happened. My sped teacher pulls me out of class (I had his math class right after mythology) and starts telling me that my peer tutor has seen me copy and pasting paragraphs and goes on this lecturing on why plagiarizing is bad. I explained to him that I wasn't copying paragraphs It was only copying names and locations and explain my reason for it. He didn't believe me but he didn't make me retake the assignment. After that I was pissed off and the next day I confronted her about it. I forgot what her reasoning for not telling me was but I told her that she needs to look into things before she makes false reports. After that incident, I decided to wait a week before I ask my teacher to remove her. Also during those first 3 weeks I turned down help from peer tutors and paras if possible In the special ed classroom. I did this to prevent sending any mix signals. I personally didn't mind if I had to work with a peer tutopara or not In the actual sped classroom. I only cared if it was in any of the general education classes. I just thought it would look contradictory if I was accepting help in the sped class and then requesting peer tutors to be removed from my gen classes.
At the beginning of the fourth week I went to school early and went to my sped teacher's class before first hour starts and then I again asked him to remove the peer tutor and the paraprofessionals. He says no again and brings up that I was being academically dishonest by plagiarizing. I tell my side of the story once again on what happened and he still doesn't believe me. At this point I leave and more pissed off. At this point negotiations didn't work so I started small protests by preventing the peer tutors from filling out my planer and the behavioral checklist. Most of them didn't care since there was other students they can fill out and they only need to fill out one to be graded for the day. One peer tutor gave me the puppy dog eye treatment and I eventually cave and let her fill it out. I still let the one peer tutor that was assigned to me in the gen class due to me being the only student and my intention wasn't to ruin, her grade. During the fourth week I began brainstorming ideas on how I can do a massive protest.
On Thursday of the fourth week of school, a walk into the mythology class and it started out like any other day. Class started and my teacher starts talking. I pull up my phone to respond to some messages and my peer tutor sees me. She asks me to hand my phone over to her and I tell her no. She tells me that I can't be on my phone and I tell her okay but I'm still not giving it to you. She then pulls out her phone and puts it on the table. She then tells me to put my phone on the table. I tell her no again. A few minutes past and the teacher finishes up talking. She passes the assignment and immediately my peer tutor begins to try and help by reading the questions. I slide the packet over closer to me and start ignoring her. I was hoping that she will get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn't so put on my hoodie and tried to mentally block her out. I don't remember what she said during all this since I was blocking it out but I do remember her touching me and the general ed teacher coming over and start assisting the peer tutor. It was a lot of pressure and I was actually about to give up because it was too much. But they both gaved up before I did and I was very relieved. After that, the class was pretty much quiet. The peer tutor wrote an entire paragraph on what happened. I walked to my math class and sat down. I then see my peer tutor walking into class and ask for my sped teacher. I already knew it was about me. I see them talk for 2 minutes and sure enough I see my teacher calling me over. I walked outside the classroom and me and the teacher begin to go at it. We end up saying the same things we have said before. However, my teacher this time mentioned that if I keep up my behavior that he's going to call in a meeting with my parents. The rest of math class was pretty much the same. However, my English class with the same teacher he went on a rant about using accommodations seeing that he had a disability growing up which was tourette's and he were love to have a peer tutor. I was quiet for the whole class since I was already exhausted because of everything else that had already happened. For the rest of the weekend, I've been coming up with plans on how I would be able to pull off a massive protest.
Now for the good news. On the fifth week of school, I noticed that my peer tutor was missing. My teacher pulled me aside again and told me that he decided that he was going to pull her for 2 weeks to see how well I would do without her. I told him thank you, that's what I wanted since the beginning of the school year. After those 2 weeks he didn't reinstate her and I didn't have a peer tutor or paraprofessionals in gen classes since. The deal moving forward was as long as I had a D or better he wasn't going to send any support unless I asked for it. My relationship with that sped teacher also had improved significantly. Later in my Junior year of high school I ran in my school's election and won. I was given the social media position.
In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't have to pull off a big protest. But the same time I wish that this situation could have ended in a different way.
Everything that I just told you is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much detail that I had to leave out just to make this story shorter. Lot of it I'm still processing even though I found great strength in myself fighting back against a system that I believe was ruining my life. That war mindset hasn't left my mentality yet. I'm still dealing with the consequences of me being in special ed. Everything I told you happened 5 years ago and I'm still living through it like it just happened. I'm mentally recovering and eventually I will recover. Right now I'm in therapy and I'm writing down everything I can in a Google doc to process everything emotionally. Maybe one day I'll give that story to a writer and make a book out of it.
If you have any questions feel free ask them, I would love to answer them.

31F - 130lbs - Active
I’m going to explain this the best I can, I don’t say anything to anyone because it sounds crazy to me and I don’t think I’ll get anywhere with it. But probably mostly embarrassed to even bring it up.
I get deja vu, like intense deja vu I think..to the point I stop with what ever I am doing and get really confused with what is going on. The impending doom feeling comes on and I cant pinpoint why I am having it or finish the thoughts of the deja vu I guess? If someone is with me I usually just say I had deja vu and I feel weird/sick. Like I need to throw up. It’s the worst feeling I’ve experienced.
Some instances I remember off the top of my head right now with age and what I was doing:
23 - marching on military parade deck, but I completely blacked out and was still functioning and came back to and thought I was going to throw up.
24 - during a uniform inspection
28 - shopping in a shoe store with a boyfriend at the time
31 (last night) - hanging up led lights behind my tv
*Medication
Vyvanse 20mg - 17 y.o until about 20 years old. Pause on that medication while in the military. Prescribed 20mg again at 30 y.o., only take on work days.
Synthroid .075mcg - diagnosed with Hashimotos Disease 2021.
Lexapro 15mg to 2.5mg - For anxiety November 2023. Coming off of it, currently at 2.5mg.
“Happy V” Pre and Probiotic
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Sensory things that I’ve noticed over the years but having a boyfriend move in I’ve noticed it more and he’s pointed them out as well.

• The feeling of loose/detached hair touching me. In the shower when hair is stuck on my body, a hair on a piece of clothing but I can feel it on my skin. I stop everything and have to find it, get it off. I gag if I see it in the shower, won’t clean out drains, struggle to clean out hairbrush. My. Own. Clean. Hair.
  
• Can’t walk bare foot on hardwood/tile floors. I will walk on my tippy toes.
  
• Certain fabrics I can’t touch, clothes come immediately off when I get home. Change to an oversized/loose hoody. Socks especially come off.
  
• If I notice a raise in my skin like a scab or pimple, I will end up making it a dang wound because I focus on it and will pick.
  
• Certain noises make me physically angry I feel like? Sniffing, throat coughs, dogs licking skin, scratching skin, people picking their nails, loud yawns. (I feel like Lexapro maybe helped this a little.)
  
• I gag if I smell something I don’t like or if someone talks about something gross. (I really noticed this after starting Lexapro)
  
• Multiple people talking at once, or just a loud environment, I get overwhelmed and have to leave. Loud music. No music when I’m working or cleaning.
  
• Just very particular about a lot of things.
  

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I’m just sitting here like how the f did I make it through the military.
I have a great job and friends and family/social life. I’m just confused and concerned, mainly about the deja vu thing but sensory things affect me greatly too.
Thanks in advance for your feedback and I will answer any questions!

I'm a 25 asian male who lives with his parents. I currently have plans to pursue dental school. I've worked in dentistry while preparing my application in dental school. For the past few years, I've only been making 80k/yr (I live in a HCOL so this isn't as much as it seems) living with my parents to save money. After 6 years of investing in the market, I saved a fair amount which was enough to not need to contribute to retirement accounts (coastFIRE for anyone part of the FIRE community haha) and still retire comfortably early at 50. This was a huge goal of mine and I thought I'd be happy once I reached this- this freed up my saving to allow me to buy whatever I wanted but it turns out there's not really many things I want in life. I've spent most of my past years saving every penny to invest in the future, and that future is finally here. And yet, I'm not happy in life.
My goals when I was younger were just to buy whatever video game I wanted and order UberEats whenever I wanted. The problem is I'm on a diet trying to get lean so I meal prep everything which I already outsource. I tried ubering everywhere but I felt very uncomfortable with other people driving me around so I drive or my boyfriend drives me. I thought I'd be happy buying a Tesla but it turns out EV charging is very annoying + Teslas are very annoying to work with so I ended up not getting one after borrowing my friend's. I also thought about getting a luxury apartment nearby that's 4k/month but its honestly less convenient than living at home as I'm a few minutes away from work...The "solutions" to spending more money just end up creating more problems. I've bought a bunch of lululemon to augment my wardrobe, finally got a new phone after 8 years, upgraded to Tmobile from Mint, got a new laptop, basically bought a bunch of material stuff I've been staying away from. I went on a few flights and decided to just buy business class tickets for the fun of it and yes, it was nice, but my day to day happiness is still pretty low.
I also received a massive inheritance that basically means I don't have to work if I don't want to. The obvious question is well why don't you just quit your job? Well...I still really want to achieve my goal of trying to become a dentist and to do that, I need support of dentists to back my application which is why I still go to my job. I also really do love my work/patient interactions and work in a good environment, and something about having the freedom to say "Fuck you I quit" whenever I want makes my job a lot more enjoable. In the future, my goal is to become a part time dentist and treat my friends/family for free/charity cases, and spend the rest of my time with my kids/family/hobbies. There's also a great deal of pressure from my parents to become a dentist- they know financially I'm set (and by extension them as I've managed their portfolio for many years with great success), but this doesn't matter as I'm still not a dentist.
While I'm sure this sounds like a great problem to have, I just don't understand why I'm not happy in life. I think it's because I'm still not yet in dental school/a dentist whereas all my friends are successful in their careers but maybe there's more? I do want to get a therapist but I don't even know what I'd talk about. I know exactly how I sound: I have so much money and I don't know how to spend it wow and I"m not happy. Like jesus what a douche- this is also why I can't share this with my friends, because they'll just think I'm being a dick. Any advice?

Today I want to tell my story of how I self-advocated and what I did to achieve that goal. I'm telling my story to help those who are in a similar position to what I was in and to inspire those to self-advocate.
To recap from my earlier posts. I have ADHD and fell under the "multiple disabilities" characterization. My high school teacher claimed that I have autism (Not diagnosed). I personally don't believe I have autism or at the very least I have a high functioning autism. Throughout most of my school career, I was in a self-contained classroom with kids with severe disabilities. Even if I was in the general population I had a paraprofessional or peer tutor. I never believed that I should have been in that position. As a consequence, I never really learned any social skills, I was segregated, and felt like that people didn't want anything to do with me because I was sped. The reason why I ended up in this position was probably a combination of me having the "multiple disabilities'' characterization and me testing low in three year revaluation tests. If you want more info on this then feel free to search my profile. This is an alt account and is primarily used to ask questions about special ed so It's really easy to find stuff about me.
Before I get into my story I just want to make it clear that I'm not against special ed. There's good and bad people in every profession. I believed I was in danger for myself and for my future. I don't believe that my teacher was evil and had the best of intentions but he was putting me in a position that was hurting me and I had to act. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments. Another thing is that this post has been really hard to make. It opened up some old wounds and as a result took several days to write.
Here's my story: So in late middle school I was tired of the placement that I was in. I was tired of not having friends, Not being able to socialize with my peers, not being able to date. I also was thinking about what my life will look like after high school, I was concerned that I was going to never have friends, Never be in a relationship, and not have the social skills to make those friends. I was generally very concerned for my future. So I decided that for my 8th grade year (2017-2018) I would do my absolute best for both my behavior and academics. Throughout the year nothing changed. I was hoping that me doing well would show that I didn't need any support but at the end of the year I still had paraprofessionals in most of my classes and was being pulled out for tests. In the summer between middle school and high school all I can think about is I want high school to be different. I wanted friends, I wanted a relationship, and I had dreams of me in the student council. When I got into high school I had peer tutors along with paraprofessionals (Peer Tutors are general ed students who sign up as an elective to help special needs kids. They basically serve the role as paraprofessionals with less responsibility). I did everything again and had the exact same result. In January of 2019 (freshmen year) I decided that my current strategy wasn't working. They also started making the peer tutors fill out behavioral checklists for their student(s) by grading them on how well they behaved/followed directions and gave them badges that say "peer tutor" which made me feel singled out. Because of that the peer tutors felt more like babysitters then someone that is an equal. So I went to my special ed teacher and asked him to remove the paraprofessional and the peer tutors. He told me no and said that I needed them. I changed my strategy again and I was going to ask for the Peer Tutors to be gone first, then focus on removing the paraprofessionals. I was more concerned about the peer tutors over the paraprofessionals because I was concerned that since they were part of the student body that this was going to affect me when I was running for the student council. I was worried that they'd tell others I was special needs then people would think I was incompetent. So every 2 weeks I would ask him again to remove them and each time he would give me a different excuse on why I couldn't be alone. Here's some of the excuses he gave me: "The peer tutors need to be there to collect data", "You need to prove that you can do the work yourself", "It's not up to me. It's the general education teacher that decides if you need a peer tutor or an aide", "Peer Tutors are supposed to represent a trainer for a job. If you refuse training then you're going to get fired". I brought it up again during my yearly IEP which took place in March. Once again my teacher said no, bringing up another excuse. As far as I can remember, my parents were neutral about the aide situation. Later one peer tutor was removed, what happened is that the peer tutor moved to a different town and they didn't bother on sending a substitute. A win is a win so I celebrated it. At the end of my freshman year I was pretty much defeated and didn't achieve the goal of being 100% independent. Over the summer I took a look at my situation and decided that my current plan is not working. I knew that when my sophomore year of high school starts I will have aides and peer tutors in classes. I knew that if I wanted to get what I wanted I would have to do something big. I knew that I would have to put up a fight, and put in a lot more effort. Over the summer I developed a war mindset inspired by two quotes from Sun Tzu:
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I knew that I can't be going into sophomore year blind, so I started drafting a plan. I created a Google doc outlining my goals and what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I won't be able to win every battle and that I need to choose which fight is worth fighting for. I thought to myself, “Well the peer tutors we're given training on the first day of school and probably have strategies to deal with poor behavior but what about planned well organized protests?” So I began researching strategies on how paraprofessionals/peer tutors dealt with negative behavior and reverse engineered those tactics. I read forms, I Watched YouTube videos and found as much information that I could find. For the peer tutors I didn't know too much about them. I didn't know if it was something that only my school did or if other schools did it. I did some research and found out that other schools had a peer tutor program and some have uploaded training videos on YouTube. Some peer tutors told me that they did babysitting and did nanny work so I looked up babysitting tips. I reverse engineered all of those tactics and came up with strategies to counter those techniques and put all that information that I learned into a google doc that I can use for future reference. During this time I also researched how to become a better negotiator and started learning a little bit of psychology. The plan was to first negotiate and if that doesn't work I will protest and make demands and negotiate. Over the summer I got really good at negotiating and practiced a lot on my father and my sister (they were totally oblivious). To this day I use those negotiating tactics. After I created my document and was satisfied with all the information, I went to bed that night and knew that I have already won and that my sophomore year will be my last year that I 1-1 peer tutor or aide.
Fast forward to the first day of school, as expected I had peer tutors and aides assigned to me in classes. My sped teacher had a chalkboard On the back wall full of sticky notes that had everyone's schedules and a name of someone was assigned to that student for each class. This time around I only had one peer tutor outside of the special ed classes. This is a big improvement over the three I had before but I still have my original goal of having none. For the paraprofessionals I had 2 in Gen classes.The goal was to first remove the peer tutors then the paraprofessionals. Even though this seems to be an improvement I continued with the plan. Since this was the first day, the peer tutors were in another classroom learning policies and other stuff they needed to know so I was alone for the day. I walked over to my special ed teacher and ask him one final time to remove the peer tutor he says no and then I asked him to let me be alone for 2 weeks so I can prove I don't need help and he still denies me. I then tell him that I will allow the peer tutor for 2 weeks and after that she needs to go. My teacher doesn't respond. (To add context the peer tutor that I had, she was a peer tutor in my math class in the prior semester so I already know who she was. We used to talk a lot and was surprised when I saw that she was assigned to me.)
For 2 weeks she mostly left me alone with her occasionally checking up on me. For those 2 weeks I purposely close my self off and adopted a body language that would subconsciously discourage her from approaching me. I did this by keeping my head low and staying as focused as possible. The only thing she did was confront me when I start packing up 2 minutes before the bell rings. She tells me that I shouldn't be packing up and to pull my stuff out again. I tell her no and hold my ground. She writes in my planner that I packed my stuff up early and refuse to pull it out. That happened like 2 or 3 times. On Thursday on the second week my class was tasked to create a PowerPoint. FYI this was a mythology class, while I was doing this PowerPoint I decided instead of manually trying to type in the locations and people from this mythology which the names were very long and complicated. I decided would be easier just to copy and paste them in. My peer tutor sees me doing this and doesn't say anything. At the end of class she writes that I plagiarized in my planner and tells my special ed teacher in person what happened. My sped teacher pulls me out of class (I had his math class right after mythology) and starts telling me that my peer tutor has seen me copy and pasting paragraphs and goes on this lecturing on why plagiarizing is bad. I explained to him that I wasn't copying paragraphs It was only copying names and locations and explain my reason for it. He didn't believe me but he didn't make me retake the assignment. After that I was pissed off and the next day I confronted her about it. I forgot what her reasoning for not telling me was but I told her that she needs to look into things before she makes false reports. After that incident, I decided to wait a week before I ask my teacher to remove her. Also during those first 3 weeks I turned down help from peer tutors and paras if possible In the special ed classroom. I did this to prevent sending any mix signals. I personally didn't mind if I had to work with a peer tutopara or not In the actual sped classroom. I only cared if it was in any of the general education classes. I just thought it would look contradictory if I was accepting help in the sped class and then requesting peer tutors to be removed from my gen classes.
At the beginning of the fourth week I went to school early and went to my sped teacher's class before first hour starts and then I again asked him to remove the peer tutor and the paraprofessionals. He says no again and brings up that I was being academically dishonest by plagiarizing. I tell my side of the story once again on what happened and he still doesn't believe me. At this point I leave and more pissed off. At this point negotiations didn't work so I started small protests by preventing the peer tutors from filling out my planer and the behavioral checklist. Most of them didn't care since there was other students they can fill out and they only need to fill out one to be graded for the day. One peer tutor gave me the puppy dog eye treatment and I eventually cave and let her fill it out. I still let the one peer tutor that was assigned to me in the gen class due to me being the only student and my intention wasn't to ruin, her grade. During the fourth week I began brainstorming ideas on how I can do a massive protest.
On Thursday of the fourth week of school, a walk into the mythology class and it started out like any other day. Class started and my teacher starts talking. I pull up my phone to respond to some messages and my peer tutor sees me. She asks me to hand my phone over to her and I tell her no. She tells me that I can't be on my phone and I tell her okay but I'm still not giving it to you. She then pulls out her phone and puts it on the table. She then tells me to put my phone on the table. I tell her no again. A few minutes past and the teacher finishes up talking. She passes the assignment and immediately my peer tutor begins to try and help by reading the questions. I slide the packet over closer to me and start ignoring her. I was hoping that she will get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn't so put on my hoodie and tried to mentally block her out. I don't remember what she said during all this since I was blocking it out but I do remember her touching me and the general ed teacher coming over and start assisting the peer tutor. It was a lot of pressure and I was actually about to give up because it was too much. But they both gaved up before I did and I was very relieved. After that, the class was pretty much quiet. The peer tutor wrote an entire paragraph on what happened. I walked to my math class and sat down. I then see my peer tutor walking into class and ask for my sped teacher. I already knew it was about me. I see them talk for 2 minutes and sure enough I see my teacher calling me over. I walked outside the classroom and me and the teacher begin to go at it. We end up saying the same things we have said before. However, my teacher this time mentioned that if I keep up my behavior that he's going to call in a meeting with my parents. The rest of math class was pretty much the same. However, my English class with the same teacher he went on a rant about using accommodations seeing that he had a disability growing up which was tourette's and he were love to have a peer tutor. I was quiet for the whole class since I was already exhausted because of everything else that had already happened. For the rest of the weekend, I've been coming up with plans on how I would be able to pull off a massive protest.
Now for the good news. On the fifth week of school, I noticed that my peer tutor was missing. My teacher pulled me aside again and told me that he decided that he was going to pull her for 2 weeks to see how well I would do without her. I told him thank you, that's what I wanted since the beginning of the school year. After those 2 weeks he didn't reinstate her and I didn't have a peer tutor or paraprofessionals in gen classes since. The deal moving forward was as long as I had a D or better he wasn't going to send any support unless I asked for it. My relationship with that sped teacher also had improved significantly. Later in my Junior year of high school I ran in my school's election and won. I was given the social media position.
In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't have to pull off a big protest. But the same time I wish that this situation could have ended in a different way.
Everything that I just told you is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much detail that I had to leave out just to make this story shorter. Lot of it I'm still processing even though I found great strength in myself fighting back against a system that I believe was ruining my life. That war mindset hasn't left my mentality yet. I'm still dealing with the consequences of me being in special ed. Everything I told you happened 5 years ago and I'm still living through it like it just happened. I'm mentally recovering and eventually I will recover. Right now I'm in therapy and I'm writing down everything I can in a Google doc to process everything emotionally. Maybe one day I'll give that story to a writer and make a book out of it.
If you have any questions feel free ask them, I would love to answer them.

My ex of 6 years broke up with me last week Friday very randomly and completely blindsided me. They moved out that night and took most of their clothes but still have a lot of things here and there at my place. When they dumped me, they said “can we talk?” But then just told me, “I wanna breakup” if didn’t feel like a conversation, more like he has news to share. All I said was “I didn’t expect this I’m so shocked and idk what to say… you aren’t asking me to talk or work through some of your concerns you are just telling me how you feel so all I can do is accept and appreciate your honesty.”
They left after that and I stepped out not wanting to breakdown and sob while they were there. That first night I called at night because hours later I wanted to ask all the questions, problem solve, I was confused and felt angry and hurt that they held this for a couple of weeks instead of trying to communicate with me. They didn’t answer cause it was late but the next day when they reached out just wondering if I had called, I said yes but nvm because I just wanted to respect his choice even if it was hard for me.
The week goes by and they reach out Wednesday to “see how I’m doing “ through text. They called and I didn’t answer. I didn’t respond cause I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was just gonna explode all my feelings in a crazy text if I tried to articulate my thoughts and feelings or cry and beg them not to walk out on us on the phone.
Friday night they text again, saying they just wanna check-in and see how I’m doing, they hope I’m taking care of myself and they say they are off the next two days and to let them know if they can call me to see how I’m doing.
The problem is I never wanted to breakup, if I had a choice, I would stare every issue in the face and try to do the work on my end that was necessary to heal/communicate.
I don’t get it why is my ex reaching out like this acting concerned after the fact they broke up with me? They didn’t bother asking or being concerned the last 2 weeks of the relationship so now that I’m not his to worry about why is he trying to do the overtime? My ex was never the best at clear communication, they are avoidant and I am closer to anxious (just a bit more secure) I just feel like what can I say anymore? It’s already over and and although the message behind the text is one of “care and concern” it feels incredibly selfish and insensitive, part of me feels like they are just trying to satisfy their needs still (framed as thinking about me) when it’s probably more about assuaging their guilt. TL:dr : Why is my ex reaching out to “check-in” a week after he broke up with me?

Wall of BAWWWW incoming. I feel like I should preface this by saying that, as much as I hate myself, I’m probably not going to kill myself, so you don’t need to worry about that. I have pets that depend on me and a family that would be devastated if I died (which I don’t even have the decency to be grateful for) so I’m living, just out of obligation far more than a desire to actually be here. It makes me feel trapped and hopeless, but what can you do?
I’m a failure, and probably one of the most pathetic sorts of failure you can imagine, a failed artist. I loved drawing and storytelling and worldbuilding growing up and it really gave me a sense of challenge and fulfillment, and when I got to college age I decided I wanted to become a videogame artist to try and make a career out of that. Well, that hasn’t panned out like I hoped it would, I’m vastly outclassed by most other people competing in the field, and the rapid onset of AI has made things even worse. Why hire junior artists when you can just grind out a hundred AI generated pieces of concept art for free? Why should I try to get better when there’s hundreds of people who already have connections and will always surpass me anyway? I can’t even enjoy art as a hobby anymore because I’ve become so critical of anything I make, and now I’m scared to even try going back to just drawing for fun because there will always be that little voice in my head going “You weren’t good enough, disciplined enough, or persistent enough to make this work as a job. Maybe you could have done it if you weren’t such a lazy, insecure piece of shit, but now you’ve fucked up everything forever and fallen behind and missed your window. Fuck you.” Even outside my art woes, the world is just shit. Society is broken, modern media is nothing but slop designed to generate attention through hate-views and internet arguments, the governments of the world are actively screwing over the populace, and politics are becoming so violently polarized that nothing constructive is actually being done because people would rather just make things worse for the other team. I genuinely do not want to see what happens next in this shitshow, and I don’t really expect anything good to happen ever again.
I would say I want to stop trying to make a career out of game art, but the shitty thing is I’ve barely even tried. I should have been okay with sending out hundreds of applications to be rejected hundreds of times and working on improving myself and learning new skills every minute I can, because that’s what this field requires to even get a foothold. I thought I would be okay and that I could handle the challenge, but clearly that isn’t the case and I’m such a fucking lazy ass that I’ve given up before even really trying, because even the little bit I have tried was too much for me to handle. I’m 27 now, still living at home, barely driving, only working part-time. I’m a worthless piece of shit leeching off my parents because I’m too scared of leaving the nest and actually having to work hard.
I had a game project that I knew was a big scope and would require learning a lot of new things, but it seemed like something that would be fun and challenging. And for a while I felt really, really good working on it. I had a life coach who was helping me stay on track. I was slowly learning how to motivate myself with things other than shame and self-hatred. I had an idea of how to start small and make it a reality. Then I learned someone else was doing a similar project and they were leagues more talented than I was, and in that one day all the progress I made was just gone. It felt like the wobbly little tower I was building up underneath me had the base yanked out and I fell hard and never truly got back up.
I can’t go through that again, I can’t handle that kind of disappointment in myself and failure again. It hurt too much. So I think what I really want is to stop trying to try. You can’t fail if you stop trying, and if you make yourself stop caring about anything, it won’t hurt so much that you’re a failure in the first place. Ultimately that’s what I want, to stop caring about anything. I want to open up my skull and rip out every emotion, every aspiration, every goal, every bit of creativity, every little idea that will never be fulfilled, and get rid of it all forever. On my worst days I even want to get rid of my hobbies, my interests, and everything that might make me feel any scrap of positive emotion or interest just so I can be completely and utterly flat. They’re already not doing me much good. I can distract myself with games or other stuff, but distraction is all it is. Trying anything new might make me feel emotions, or even worse, be disappointing, so that’s off the table too. I want to find a medication that will blunt me so hard I never feel anything ever again. Just be an NPC with no inner monologue or opinions or aspirations and just go through the motions of life for the next sixty or so years until I finally die. Get a boring pointless job and just exist. That way I’m not really dead and my family doesn’t have to be sad, but I don’t have to really be living either. I don’t want to be happy because I don’t think I deserve it. I just want to not be sad.
I know there’s shit like mindfulness, detachment, self-compassion, and emotional acceptance. And those are all good and healthy things, but I don’t want that. I don’t want to be nice to myself because I don’t deserve it. I want to hurt myself (mentally). I want to break myself emotionally so thoroughly that I never feel or care about a single thing ever again. I want to rip my amygdala out. I want to kill my personality and just leave the body behind on autopilot. I’m tired of having no control over my emotions or thought patterns. Every other day I get into a depressive spiral like this, thinking about how much I hate myself and how badly I wish I could stop feeling things. If I could press a button and get rid of all of my negative emotions at the cost of my positive ones, you best believe I would do it.

I want genuine answers and I'm open to criticism.
My (23f) boyfriend (22m) and I were having a conversation about a group of girls that hang around him at his college that make me uncomfortable. In the middle of this discussion, where our emotions were both pretty high, he says "let me show you something" and sends me a video he had taken from the GoPro on his motorcycle helmet.
For context, he just got this motorcycle and it's been his whole world the last few weeks. He's been riding it nonstop and gets very excited when people acknowledge it. In the video, he stops at the red light of a busy intersection. In the car next to him is a group of three teenage girls that start waving at him. He revs his engine to say hi back, they roll down the window and ask for a fist bump. He fists bumps them, they say "You're so cool" and he waves and revs at them again. As the light turns green and they start driving away, the girls yell "YOU'RE SO HOT" and my boyfriend starts giggling.
I ask him why he's showing me this video in the middle of this convo, and he asks if it makes me jealous. I tell him that I might feel a tinge of jealousy under normal pretenses but I wouldn't be upset with him, he can't dictate what a bunch of teen girls say to him & I don't get his point. To paraphrase, he basically says that he wants a girlfriend that would find that video "cool" or laugh about it with him instead of get jealous. That my jealousy is not normal or healthy, and he can't even share that "cool moment" with his girlfriend.
Under normal pretenses, I wouldn't have even been upset. HOWEVER, this isn't normal pretenses because he dropped this video during our convo about some of his female friends at college that make me uncomfortable. It felt like he was trying to "gotcha" me into being like SEE - GIRLS WANTS ME AND UR NOT CHILL ABOUT IT! YOU HAVE JEALOUSY ISSUES! He ALSO brought up that a girl that flirted with him at work once connected with him on linkedin, then waited for me to give him some blow up reaction (which didn't come).
I wont act like I'm perfect either, I have been jealous in the past and I set the tone at the beginning of the relationship, I'm not dealing with girl drama so keep it out of our relationship. I'm not a chill girlfriend at all. But I felt weird about using that video as a gotcha moment. What are your thoughts about jealousy and this conversation? Do people usually brush stuff like this off?

My nmom emailed me (28F) for the first time after 6 years of no contact. Picture the longest email you’ve ever received and multiply that by ten. Thats how long this email was. It would take hours to read. I foolishly reached out to her on Mother’s Day after being sad and alone. All I said was happy Mother’s Day I hope you’re doing okay.
A little background my mom was highly abusive to me as a child mentally. I’m an only child. She once made me pack my Barbie suitcase when I was 7 and drove me to the police station saying if my attitude didn’t stop that she was going to give me up and I’d never see her or my family again. She completely alienated me from my dad who I didn’t meet until I was 14 after I found him on Facebook. I got pregnant in highschool and she convinced me that my boyfriend was abusive and tried to alienate him in the same way that she alienated my dad. She did a lot of other really terrible shit in my 23 years but I won’t bring all that up.
I won’t read her email. I read the first two sentences and one or two after some of the bolded and red coloured headings. She has not changed. Somehow she managed to get worse which I didn’t think was possible. 😆 Blaming me for things I did wrong when I was four years old lol Blaming me for her cancer she had 9 years ago and if it comes back “that’s on your head”. It’s wild how she still thinks this way.
In the end it gave me closure. She stopped answering my texts 6 years ago and I eventually stopped reaching out. But she still claims I was the one who cut off contact and stole her grandchild from her.
If you’ve gone full no contact keep in mind that if you do reach out this could happen. Narcissists almost never change. I’m happy that after years of therapy, that I’m still in, I was able to respond in the way I did. She lives off of reactions and that’s what I used to always give her. I’m glad I’m genuinely okay after that email and that I’m even able to laugh at how delusional she is. Going no contact was the best thing I ever did and I’m glad I got closure.
Here was my response:
“Judging by the first two sentences you're not ready to take full accountability for everything starting from the time I was born until 2018. I am ready to take accountability for everything. However, I will not be reading this email. It seems as though you are still focusing on the past and blaming me for everything.
I wanted to try to communicate to move past everything that has happened. I understand that Our relationship will never be the same. But I wanted to work toward moving on.
When you're ready to move forward I will gladly talk to you. The ball is in your court. But I stand firm on my boundaries of it being a safe and respectful conversation. I am deleting this email now.
Take care and I do genuinely hope you're doing okay.”

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/TASoDHype posting in AITAH
Concluded as per OOP
1 update - Medium
Original - 16th May 2024
Update - 17th May 2024
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AITAH for leaving my fiancée after I learned there were strippers at her bachelorette party?
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What the title reads basically. I(29M) and my ex-fiancée(29F) were together for 5 years. We should have been married now in the normal conditions but I broke up with her and cancelled the wedding 2 days before it because they invited male strippers to bachelorette party. I am personally not a fan of these parties but reluctantly agreed after both groom & bride side confirmed we would keep it simple. I told my ex-fiancée I am not comfortable with strippers or other kind of crazy things. She agreed. I also told my friends if they were to do a stupid thing without me knowing, we would have problems.
We stayed at my friends' summer house and chilled there by the pool, did some wow raids and played board games. My ex-fiancée and her friends went to a restaurant then rented an airbnb. There was no problem during the night and next day I asked how things went. She and her close friends said it was really chill and good. We returned to the city centre after that.
I encountered another bridesmaid that day when I was shopping for a bracelet for my ex-fiancée for her upcoming birthday. I asked that girl how's everything as we were in the same department at the college but rarely talk now. She is closer with my fiancée than me. She said it's going good and last night was crazy with all the strippers. After saying that she looked uncomfortable. I asked her about the details but she was not willing to tell much. I think she realized she should not have talked about it. I laughed, said goodbye and left.
I confronted my fiancée and she seemed surprised about it. She was denying it first, then told me nothing crazy happened and one of the bridesmaids invited strippers. I reminded her that it was a strict boundary for me. I asked about the details but she said there was nothing much with strippers just solo dances and that's it. I told her I need some time to think.
Almost all of the bridesmaids messaged me ensuring nothing happened when I was on my way back home(definitely not coordinated). Things happened after that but in the end I decided to break up and cancel the wedding. I lost some money since it was only 2 days before the wedding. Things are not cool right now. My head is messed up, I get criticism from everyone and no idea about what to do. My sister told me to see a therapist to process my thoughts and feelings. That is what I'll do next. Some mutuals suggested me that I should reconsider things and stop being so whiny about such a small thing. I do not think it's such a small thing especially when they all tried to hide it from me.
AITAH here?
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Comments
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tasty-horse-paste
This is strangely similar to something that happened recently on 90 day fiancé.
Edit: A lot of people saying disagreements about strippers etc. is common, which sure, but it was the detail about playing MMO games by the pool at the bachelor party that got my attention. But I'm not saying OP's story is fake; it just reminded me of the 90 day thing.
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former_farmer
Because this happens a lot. Some people think that cheating in the bachelorette party is correct. It's so dumb.
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boredathome1962
NTA. "It was crazy with all the strippers" is hugely different from "it was really chill and good". This isn't just lying, this is a total reversal of the truth. Even her "it was just solo dances" is not the same as "crazy". So they are lying, all of them, except the first one.

OOP: Everyone is telling different things. One person says it was crazy, my ex says it was just solo dance, another person says it was different. I do not know whom to believe to be honest and that's one of the reasons I lost trust here. Apparently, the stripper was naked and that even alone is a dealbreaker for me. There is no way for me to know what happened that night and why she did not even bother with calling me or telling me about it.

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**Judgement - NTA*\*
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Update - 1 days later
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TL;DR: Bitter truth was revealed bit by bit. Ex-fiancée had sexual interaction with a stripper. It's therapy time.
I read most of the comments in the original post and thank you for the advice. My problem was that not her being blindsided by her friends but lying. Every bridesmaid told different things and none of them gave details about what happened. I believe you can understand it just shatters the trust and makes you think there is something going on.
I thought there was something wrong with me after reading the comments. There were a lot of YTAs and I thought I should apologize. One of the bridesmaid reached out to me last evening. I suspect she saw the post somewhere and recognized it. I knew my fiancée was having problems with her friends since last week but I did not know the extent.
Apparently, my ex-fiancée and her close friends blamed the girl that I encountered at mall about everything. This divided the group and led into a verbal fight. I will skip the personal details here but in the end she told me my ex-fiancée and other bridesmaids got sexual with the strippers. My fiancée was the only one who had boyfriend/fiancée/spouse(at least monogamously) there to my knowledge. Also, I was told by her that my ex-fiancée was not blindsided with stripper invites. She was happy to see the strippers and was relieved she had an excuse. I do not have proof for all of these but I got a short video of girls making out with strippers. One of the girls is my ex-fiancée and that's enough.
She has been trying to reach out to me since we broke up. I confronted her again. At first, she denied it again then it became we just touched, then okay we kissed too, okay I gave him a handjob, finally I was coerced into doing these by others as I pressed on. I just blocked her after the last part. I did not see any need to learn further. I was hurt already but learning that I got cheated on hurt more. I am not sure if it's the full truth even now. I will never know but all I can say is it hurts. I will go to a therapist to not carry my luggage to my next relationship. I lost 15K from the wedding related things and need to focus on filling the hole for a while.
Some misogynists made weird comments about women and I'll just ignore them. Some of the people told me I am an insecure, unfunny nerd for playing WoW on my bachelor party. Isn't the whole point of bachelor parties having "one last fun". It was raiding non-stop with the boys for me, not having one last sexual interaction with a stranger or having a stranger's butt on my face or penis. I will not miss on out these during marriage anyways(omitting the stranger part).
That's it. It's therapy time tomorrow and thank you for the help.
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Comments
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scotswaehey
I will never understand why people like your Ex Fiancée throw it all away for one night
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BigBlackBlasphemer
Not just that, the whole group had banded together in solidarity to lie.
If it wasn't for one person, they would've gotten away with it, while gaslighting OP the whole time
I hope all those votes calling OP, an AH rightly feel like DA's.
15k and a cancelled wedding is still LOADS better than divorce after the fact. You're doing the absolute right thing.
Also, I AM petty enough to blast her publicly with receipts if she wants to play the victim and make me look like the bad guy.
And the first person I'll send the video of her cheating to is her Dad. See how she likes those apples
PSA: Don't be the simp guy who didn't want to send his "wife" to jail after everyone caught her trying to poison him with bleach in the coffee machine.
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SuccessfulSeaweed385
I had a lan party at my bachelor party and it was awesome. Fuck the haters and screw your ex. NTA.
FarquaadStoleMyWig
My brothers bachelor party was pizza, flip cup, and halo reach on system linked Xbox’s. Fucken best night ever
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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

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Edited by WaveOfWire
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Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!

I, (39f) have a friend who's going through some relationship stuff with her boyfriend. Let's call her Sasha and her boyfriend Donald. Donald found some not so friendly text in Sasha's phone to another guy. He freaked out (understandable) !!! Sasha denied anything happened outside of those texts, and they're taking it from there to try and work it out. Donald is best friends (since childhood) with my cousins baby mother. So here's where I might've been the AH. My cousin told me that his child's mother told him that Saha and Donald broke up because Sasha actually did cheat and that she also stole a substantial amount of money from Donald. Let it be known that my cousins bm is known for being a habitual liar. Everyone knows this. Even though my cousin told me this in confidence, I told Sasha. Sasha was pissed and told Donald what his best friend said. Donald called the best friend and lit into her ass like a roaring fire. The best friend, in turn, called my cousin, cussing him out for telling me. Was I wrong for telling Sasha what she said? Even if it is true, why is she going around telling people this? Why would you purposely spread your best friends business around like that? My cousin is pissed at me and said I should've kept my mouth shut😔. So AITAH!!??

Hello ​Apple 👋
Do hope this post finds you well.
My name is Sae, I am a 26-year-old indie iOS app developer based in Virginia, USA. I would like to introduce you to my little robot tutor ADAv1 that I have been working on for a little while now. I was curious about the possibility of making my own JARVIS from IronMan running on my iPhone, a truly smart assistant with agency/capability to do things on behalf of the user without needing prompting, and this is what came of that. It is essentially a voice-powered GPT (current version) with low latency that allows you to talk to her naturally without pressing any buttons or typing. One that takes the best currently available models and combines them into a single hive mind brain (a main brain model choosing which agent models to use depending on the nature of the request). It has an agentic side to it that is coming soon (within the week I hope) that could be really cool, imagine being able to give your robot tasks to do (code work, essays) and have it work on it for you iteratively using a creative agent model and a guider agent model working together to thoroughly do your assignment for you according to your design principles/requirements/constitution.
It also has an assistant mode (ala Rabbit R1) that is rather quick prompty, allowing the user to rapidly do things and access other apps (Spotify, Uber, Blackboard Learn, etc..) with just a few simple prompts. A work in progress, the sky is the limit in terms of what apps can be accessed this way and the hope is to allow the user to make their own apps and prompts.
I don’t want to waste your time and spout an essay here, I will keep it simple and share a little demo for you to get an idea of how it works and let you try it out for yourself.
The mission is to bring the best, most cutting edge AI-powered learning tools and package it/make it accessible/easier to use for all across the nation (and eventually the globe). To have an app that functions as a smart tutorobot that provides users a way to get a base education and be competitive in the job market regardless of their location/demographic/wealth level, for free while not comprising on features and functionality. The coming updates will show more of this tutor side of things, I just really wanted to get this current version out (about 60% through the planned feature roadmap at this point) and see what Apple fam thinks.
I think the happiest moment I have had in a long time was seeing my dad (an ardent AI-hating “ROBOTS TAKE OUR JERBS” kind of man bless his soul) talk to ADAv1 yesterday and witness the incredible magic of GPT for himself in a way he would never have got around to if it was just via text input/output. Seeing him talk to the robot and get it to help him with his job search (he is going through a lot of stress right now) and brainstorming angles to take in his interviews (he is in HR and got ADA to address some very niche topics in a helpful manner) quite literally made me cry a bit, as I never thought anything I could have ever built would provide value to my old-school/computer hating dad in such a real and tangible way. I only want others to know how excited this made me for the future, that the world is awesome and we will work tirelessly to make it more fair and equal for all. Accessible AI for all, everyone has the right to a THOROUGH and FREE education and we will collectively make this happen.
Two things to note for this version:
-Reset chat often to save tokens, longer context costs more as well as contexts with internet search data in it.
-close app completely when not using to save battery.
Have a great day everyone, thank you for your time and looking forward to feedback and suggestions. ❤️😊
-Sae

It's definitely a weird feeling. I found out that she wanted a divorce about a month ago. She was texting an ex for a while and it's apparent now they've been plotting against me. I definitely felt gaslit and manipulated into fights in the last few months and it helps explain why. But now that I've been moving my stuff out, every time we communicate she can be either hot or cold. And by that, it's a lot of her yelling hurtful things or name calling. Maybe she's been bottling it up because it just happens at any moment. In a sense, I'm grateful for it since whenever she's nice, I feel gut punched that we didn't work out.
I guess I just don't really understand though. She had the emotional affair, I'm mostly just emotional, why is she always snapping at me? How did she grow to resent me so much? When she broke up with me she explained it that she changed but that I'm a wonderful person. Then she'd act mostly closed off to me. Now she truly hates me and it's obvious. Can it be her chasing the nre with the ex and it's easier to think of herself as not a bad guy to paint me as one? She has no care about how I feel or anything (which is fair I guess, we're getting divorced so she owes me nothing) but it's also obvious that I'm struggling with it while she's moved on. She's "won" the divorce--I'm moving out, I only communicate when she reaches out first, etc. Everything is on her terms and it's still like she's got this anger towards me...
Thanks for any comments guys, I really appreciate your time and thoughts

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

1. Why did you get in ?

I'm sure a large majority of got in because the appeal of gains (MONEY) And why wouldn't that be one of the main reasons You make a gamble To get more Right. For me what first interested me in this endeavor was the idea of the movement and the passion that I felt burned inside me when I read more about this. And I decided to get in to try and make a difference and of course make some money.

1. Why did you stay in?

I was up 7k+ awesome just a couple of grand and I watched it dwindle after lunch and then like the rest of you I got scared. I'm completely new to this and I do not really have the funds to lose that much which will lead me to my third bonus question. So like very many of you I'm sure I sold the majority of my shares to break even.

1. Why did you get back in?

It was like 3:05 p.m. and it was still dropping dropping dropping I got back in the subs and started seeing people post and I felt something that I could only call almost Divine wash over my body and almost force me to hit the buy button for even more than I started with. I'm in it for the movement, I'm in it to stand up for something. After I confirmed the Buy I was completely worry free I felt lighter than before even. Let me explain a little something about myself all this was occurring while I was working a 12-hour shift at a sawmill and a small town. It probably took me close to a year to save up the money that I did put in. Some might call that irresponsible but I think it's the opposite. And I am a cheap son of a b****. My wife can barely get me to buy a pair of boots so that I'm comfortable while I work 3:12s at a sawmill every week and then work on my Homestead the other four. We live incredibly modestly and all I do is try to save so I can do something for my family but that's the mindset of a poor person because of poor person either spins or saves money but a wealthy person makes their money make MORE money. And again that's not even the main thing on my mind I would rather Break Even or lose but see this on the news to inspire another round of people to realize that even though the system is rigged we don't always lose and that could inspire a massive movement. So if this has ease your mind or made you feel a little bit better about your decisions then share it and maybe we can send it down the line and ignite a metaphysical explosion to motivate this so very many people around the world that struggle to get in on this make a statement and then maybe they can do even more good with what they come ahead with and so on and so on. Have faith, stand together. We can't lose.

I M34 am in a relationship with my gf F31 for 9 months now. I’m well educated, very successful, come from a good family, but was in a split home with extreme and traumatic childhood. My gf was raised by a drug addict mother and doesn’t know her father. Went from foster home to foster home. Never had stability in her life, only had drug addict boyfriend that mistreated her. She also was very promiscuous and had multiple relationships at the same time.
Since we started dating I revolved my entire life around her being there 24/7, providing for her financially, taking care of her kids, even helping clean the house while she sat at home and struggled to do much due to her mental health (borderline personality disorder). Things were good she gave me bursts of love and attention and when they were good they were great. As soon as we had a fight though she’d flip my whole life upside down. Call me names, put me down, attack my character, tell me shes only with me for the money and the sex. She’s very negative and extremely judgmental and usually misjudges all scenarios around her. Her mood is up and down constantly and she always wants to leave me as soon as we fight only to ask me to come back shortly after. She forgets all the good times right away and exaggerates everything negatively. Goes from loving me saying that we are not compatible and that she doesn’t like my personality. Lately she’s been jumping to text other guys right after a fight/break up. She’s also been saying that she wants to go back to having 7 boyfriends. I wasnt innocent in all this. I also retaliated verbally and was very hurtful at times. it was all in the heat of the moment and to defend myself more so than attack her.
Why do I stay? Because I love her and want to give her and her kids a better life. Because I see her struggling with these problems with all her friendships including her mother. Because I’ve invested time and money and planned a future with her. Because i don’t take offence to her insults when she’s angry because no one in their right mind would act like that. I feel stuck and don’t know what to do. Do i stay and try to make it work, or do I give up on her and move on? We had amazing periods where we were in so much love together. I don’t want to give up on that and let her ruin her life. I feel like leaving her is equivalent to me letting a drunk drive. I don’t know what to do.

I met Luna on a train two years ago. I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so romance was the last thing on my mind, but then she sat across from me in the carriage and asked about the book I was reading. She had a copy in her bag and wanted to know if it was any good.
I'd never felt such an instant, effortless connection with anybody before. I took a chance and asked her to dinner, and by the time the waiters cleared away our desserts, I already felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. So we went on a second date. And a third. And next thing I knew, we were planning our second anniversary.
In all that time she never gave off any 'creeper' vibes. Until a few months ago, when I stayed the night over at her place...
She'd gotten up early to use the bathroom. I grabbed her laptop off the side desk so I could catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there. My first thought was: either she's having an affair or she's got a secret fetish.
What I found instead was a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. This included shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport—the works. On Facebook, Sadie's latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? And how did you even get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe?
Down the hall, I heard the bathroom door swing open. Quickly I closed the laptop and pretended to be asleep until Luna planted a kiss on my lips. “Wakey wakey Bugs.”
I faked a stretch. “Morning Lola."
(At school, the other kids christened me ‘Bugs’ because of my cartoonishly large front teeth; I called Luna ‘Lola’ because of her blonde bangs and heart-shaped face.)
“How about we grab a fry for breakfast?” Her smile didn’t seem genuine, more like she was wearing a mask.
“Crap. I forgot I’m doing overtime today, I’ve gotta get to work.” With that, I shot out of there faster than a bullet train to Tokyo.
Because I didn’t wanna believe the worst about someone I cared so deeply about, I didn’t contact the police (not that anybody could’ve guessed what Luna was up to) and made excuses whenever she asked to meet, delaying the decision whether to end our relationship.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time a hedge rustled outside, I’d run to the window and pull back the curtain only to discover a black cat skulking around the garden. I put this down to my previous relationship leaving me with a mountain of unresolved PTSD.
Sadie the stalker also seemed normal until we moved in together. After that she started picking fights if she caught me talking to another woman, even just distant relatives or childhood friends. The screaming matches went from weekly to nightly, only ever ending when I conceded to her every wish and gave her full access to my phone and social media accounts. I literally needed to grab my clothes into a bag and run away one night, and then I started hearing noises outside my new apartment. And although I never found any evidence, I was pretty sure she’d broken in at one point because the books on my side table were suddenly out of order one day. What hurt the most was Luna knew all this and still acted the way she did.
Right as I reached my lowest point, my close friend Gertrude called and said, “The universe is telling me you could use a sympathetic ear.”
I told her the universe didn’t know the half of it.
I’d met Gertrude—aka my surrogate mother—on a flight to London. Passing over Wales the aircraft hit heavy turbulence, and the grey-haired hippie in the seat next to mine squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers turned blue. After we levelled off, she apologized and said, “So what’s calling you to London?”
“A job.”
A few glasses of wine from the service trolley later, she blurted out, “You know your aura is strikingly similar to my husbands.”
“Uhh, thanks. Where is he now?”
“Oh, he burned to death in a house fire.”
Gertrude’s eyes started welling up. To take her mind off the subject, I said, “I lied earlier. I’m going to London because I fell in love with a Londoner.” I pulled up pictures of Sadie (back in her pre-stalker days) on my phone. “We met in Italy. She looked flustered trying to read a map book so I offered to help. Next thing I knew, we were planning a trip to this place called Orvieto.”
“Michael, I need to know how this story ends. Gimme your number.”
Since then, we’d met two or three times a year.
I laid the whole mess out over pizza. It was the first time since finding the Google account I didn’t feel hidden eyes crawling all over me.
Just as I wrapped up the story, over in the corner booth, a family burst into a chorus of happy birthday. A waiter appeared carrying a chocolate cake, capped by a giant candle that looked more like a flare. Gertrude tensed up.
“So what do you think about all this?” I asked.
She looked back at me and said, “It’s possible your reaction has been a touch on the dramatic side.”
“DRAMATIC??”
“Well consider things from Luna’s point of view. Your last relationship lasted for, what, three years? Maybe she felt threatened.”
“I don’t believe this.” I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, but Gertrude snatched it away.
“You know how I feel about you poisoning your lungs, Michael.”
“Don’t you start. I got enough of that crap from Luna.”
Gertrude always encouraged me to work through my romantic problems. Ultimately, I decided her love of fairytale romances clouded her judgement and ghosted Luna instead. But I couldn’t escape her shadow. She always felt close. In fact, it got so bad that at a friend’s costume party several weeks later, my eyes kept compulsively scanning the crowd as if she was there in disguise, ready to pounce.
I stood off to the corner until, over the sea of heads, I spotted a beautiful stranger dressed as Jarlath the Goblin King. I took a shot of liquid courage and made a B-line towards her.
Halfway across the crowded room, beer splashed across the front of my Ziggy Stardust outfit.
“I am so sorry,” a female pirate said, patting me dry.
“Don’t worry about it.” Every time I tried circling her, she moved to cut me off.
“I am such a klutz. Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can clean up this mess?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steered her out of the way. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Approaching Jarlath from behind, heart slamming against my chest, I said, “Well this is awkward. One of us is gonna have to change.”
Jennie had bright blue eyes and dimples impossible to miss. Ten minutes into our debate about David Bowie’s greatest album, I said, “You know Absolute Bowie are playing the Half Moon next week. I could take you?”
“Sorry. I’m going with my boyfriend,” she said with a sympathetic smile. From beside the buffet table, the pirate stared daggers in our direction.
“No worries,” I replied, despite the fact I was brimming with jealousy.
The next day, as I jogged off my hangover, a brown-haired lady cut across my path and we both went spinning to the ground.
“Flip, sorry.” I rushed to pull her up by the hands. “I’m like a bloody zombie lately.”
She did a doubletake. “Ziggy, right?”
There was no mistaking those eyes. “Jarlath?”
“Well, Jarlath or Jennie. Eithers fine.”
“Right. Well, sorry again. Enjoy Absolute Bowie.”
Before I could jog away, she said, “Hey, so that guy I was seeing? Turns out he’s a total prick.”
Jennie and I went for coffee. Coffee morphed into drinks. Drinks morphed into a steamy make-out session on my sofa.
But as she covered my neck in soft kisses, my stomach turned. It felt like cheating. So, I put the brakes on things and said, “I can’t do this. I’m really sorry. You’re amazing, but I just got out of a serious relationship…and…it’s just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
We agreed we’d let our connection blossom in its own time.
Jennie had a playful mystique to her. Within a handful of dates, we’d developed inside jokes and could tell what the other was thinking. But Luna’s imprint was hard to shake, to the extent I almost mixed up the two ladies’ names multiple times.
To detox, I suggested Jennie and I spend a romantic weekend in the Lake District, because after two days of hiking and kayaking my ex would no doubt be a spec in the rearview mirror.
Hours before we set off, however, Luna’s mom called. She wanted to meet and wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“Look, it’s obvious why I’m here,” she said, sitting across from me in Starbucks. “Ever since you and Luna broke up, she’s been acting…different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“I call but she hardly answers. I go over to her place but she’s never there. Now she’s telling me she needs to find herself. Says she’s moving to Australia.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “I need to know what happened between you two. And I don’t care if that paints anybody in a bad light. I’m just worried about my daughter is all.”
I told her about the Google account.
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Hell no. I ghosted that crazy bitc—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I just…stopped seeing her.”
She started crying so loudly customers at nearby tables paused their conversations. I touched her forearm, promised I’d call if I remembered anything else, then set off for my romantic weekend.
But while Jennie and I enjoyed all that fresh air and pub food, a thought nagged at me. Luna adored London, so why move to Australia? It seemed so out of character. Back at our rented cottage, I was so fixated on the thought I needed a smoke, badly.
“What the hell is that?” Jennie demanded, as she stepped onto the front deck.
I glanced at my hands. “Uhh, a cigarette.”
“Michael! Don’t be sarcastic. You know how I feel about those things.”
“…Do I?”
“Uhh, well it’s the same as anybody else. Quit poisoning your lungs and put that thing out.”
“Alright alright, geeze. Sorry Luna.”
“That’s okay.”
A knot formed in my stomach as she went back inside. I’d called Jennie Luna by mistake. And she hadn’t noticed. In fact, her reaction to me smoking was identical to Luna’s—even the snappy way she said the ‘poison your lungs’ line.
I followed Jennie into the lounge, where she’d curled up on an armchair with a Colleen Hoover novel. She was hiding something. What else did she know about Luna? Maybe I could trick her into revealing some details…
From behind, I started massaging her shoulders. “Sorry for being rude before. I know what you said came from a place of love.”
“That’s okay.”
I waited until her eyes drooped shut, then said, “It really is perfect here, huh? Maybe we should stay forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Her little groans of pleasure, the rhythm of her breathing, it all felt so familiar. I waited until the tension in her neck dissolved, then I pushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “So how about we take this into the bedroom…Lola.”
“Hmm. Sure thing Bugs.”
My hands froze. Jennie jumped up. “Uhh, that felt so good, why’d you stop?”
“What did you just say?”
“What did you just say?”
“I called you Lola,” I replied, my arms frozen in midair. “And you called me bugs.”
“Like the cartoon, right? I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Anyway, I’m tuckered out.” She forced a yawn. “Why don’t we get some sleep?”
As her hand laced with mine, an image of me waking up drugged and gagged and tied to the bedposts flashed before my eyes.
I said, “Sure. I just…need to use the bathroom first.”
The second the door shut behind me, I flew out of the house, climbed in my car, and sped away.
Within seconds my phone started blowing up with calls, followed by texts. Where are you going? Is everything okay?
No, I wanted to reply. I’m onto your sick little game. Whatever it is, I’m onto it.
Luna stalked my stalker, now Jennie somehow knew Luna and I’s nicknames. How? Did all women take turns drawing straws and whoever picked the short one needed to become my girlfriend?
I couldn’t go home. For all I knew, my exes would’ve been there burning effigies of me. I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could lie low until I got all this straightened out.
“Of course you can stay,” Gertrude said over the phone. “I’m out with some friends, but I’ll meet you later. If you hop the side gate there’s a spare key under the kissing gnomes out back.”
Gertrude lived in a detached house in Wembley. It took a bit of foraging to find the gnomes hidden beneath the weeds in the brown, patchy garden.
I needed to shoulder the door open. Inside, a mountain of letters and flyers had piled up on the welcome mat.
Down the hall, a huge archway connected the landing with a lounge, where a bar sat against the far wall, surrounded by upholstered sofas, a low table, and tie dye sheets strung over the filthy carpet. Everything had a real elegant vibe, despite the musty air.
I’d drained two glasses of whiskey before Gertrude arrived.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough evening.”
I said we could talk in the morning.
“Not a chance. You can’t take negative energy to bed. Come on, confession is good for the soul.”
She sat on the sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. So, with a weary sigh, I shared a tale of deranged exes.
“Crazy,” she said.
“I sure can pick ‘em, huh?”
“No, I mean you’re crazy.”
“What?”
“Think about it. What’s more likely: that your ex’s are secretly in collusion, or you’re being paranoid? Look how bloodshot your eyes are. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
She made a great point; teenagers on the street occasionally shouted ‘Bugs’ or ‘Thumper’ at me. Jennie might’ve come up with the nickname herself. I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
“Look, sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll brainstorm ways you can make it up to Jennie.”
I fumbled through my pockets for a cigarette.
“Really?” Gertrude said. “If you insist on poisoning your lungs, can you at least do it away from my home?”
“Well if I can’t smoke, I’m gonna need a refill.” I shook my empty glass.
On my way toward the bar, a wave of wooziness hit me. My first instinct was to blame it on the alcohol, but there was something else.
It was her reaction to the cigarette. My finger ran through the thick layer of dust along the bar’s countertop. Why was it like the place had been abandoned? Why did Gertrude always pressure me to stay with my psycho girlfriends? And how come she always reached out, as if on cue, whenever my relationships hit problems? It couldn’t be coincidence…
I poured two glasses of whiskey and carried them to the sofa. “So, you’re really against the whole smoking thing, huh?”
“Of course. It’s a filthy habit.”
“Yeah. Plus, there was that mess with your husband. House fire, right?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Sure, sure.” I ignited the lighter with a roll across my trouser leg.
Gertrude grabbed a cushion and hugged it. “What are you doing?”
“Alright, cut the crap. What the hell’s going on? Have you been sending your friends to date me?”
“What are you talking about?”
I wrestled the cushion from her and held the lighter beneath it. “I want an explanation right now or I’m torching this place.”
This was an empty threat. I wasn’t some pyromaniac—I just wanted answers. Inch by inch, I raised the flame. “Last chance. Why are the women in my life acting weird?”
Gertrude grabbed for the lighter. As I swatted her wrists away, we both got scorched, and for a moment her skin went wild with spasms, a sensation I can only compare to reaching inside a bucket of wet, writhing maggots. My gaze whipped between her face and her hands, which vibrated like plucked guitar strings.
Before I could scream, she yanked me up, clamped a cold, wrinkled palm across my mouth, and forced me against the wall. I thrashed around, unable to move. For a lady old enough to collect a pension, she was crazy strong.
She waited until I ran out of breath, then said, “Michael, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Open your heart and listen.”
What else could I do?
“You were right before. I have been keeping a secret from you. The truth is, I’ve been in love with you since we met. I’d never flown before. And you were so so sweet. You started talking about this other woman, but I knew our energies were perfect for each other. And it’s like I always say, love makes us do crazy things. You can’t begrudge me that can you?”
She looked as if she expected me to respond, so I shook my head.
“But I think we’ve reached a point where our connection is so deep we can be completely transparent with one another.” She took a slow, steady breath. “Michael, all your ex’s, Luna, Sadie, Jennie. They’ve all been…well, me.”
I stared at her, confused.
She sighed. “It’ll be easier if I just show you.”
Out of nowhere her hand wriggled again, then her face tightened, as though the skin was being stretched over the bone. Wrinkles smoothed out and colour bled into her grey hair, turning it brown, and within seconds I found myself face-to-face with Jennie. Even her vintage clothes morphed into a green blouse and white slacks.
“See?” she said in Jennie’s voice, her now blue eyes locked on mine.
I screamed into the soft flesh of her palm.
“Sssh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Watch.”
Her entire body jerked and twitched, the muscles spasming as she shifted from Jennie to Luna. “See? Think of these as costumes”—from Luna to Sadie—"the important thing is what’s underneath. And you’ve fallen in love with what’s underneath three times. Now I’m going to let go, but I need you to promise you won’t overreact. Understand?”
On the verge of a panic attack, I nodded furiously.
The second she pulled away I made a break for the exit. The thing posing as Sadie grabbed me and hurled me backwards against the wall.
Like a disappointed teacher, she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been so patient with you, Michael. So very, very patient.”
She blocked off any hope of escape. I sidestepped around the outer edge of the room, towards the bar.
“All those years moulding you. Trying to grow you into the man I know you can be. I really thought we had it this time. For the record, I wanted to do this the easy way. But drastic times...”
I was so scared I slammed right into the cabinet and yelped. Glass bottles chattered together, and then something wet ran down the back of my shirt. It was whiskey, leaking from the overturned bottle onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking more to herself now, Gertrude said, “I’ll just have to keep you here until you love me as much as I love you. Of course, that means posing as you so nobody gets suspicious, but that’s no trouble. I’ll tell your dad you’re moving to Italy. You always loved Italy.”
Pose as me? She'd been killing my ex's and taking their place, I was just the latest in a long line. She’d keep me as a personal sugar baby if I didn’t escape, but how? She was impossibly strong, and the only thing that seemed to scare her was…
Snatching the bottle, I doused the remaining whiskey all over the carpet and furniture. As I flicked the lighter open, Sadie’s hands shot up.
“Bugs…darling…what are you doing?”
I took three slow, steady breaths. “Breaking up with you, you crazy bitch.”
I tossed the lighter forward. Within seconds flames sprung up all around us, spreading as far as the sofa. Sadie’s shoe caught fire, and as she stamped around, unintentionally fanning the blaze, her body writhed again, starting with the ankles. Fat boils climbed up every inch of exposed skin, milky white and with the consistency of frog spawn, like she’d had a killer allergic reaction to poison ivy.
She dropped to her knees, wailing like a wounded animal. This was my chance.
I made a break for the exit, giving the creature as wide a berth as possible. But as I got one foot planted in the hall something clamped tight around my ankles. My chin hit the floor, then I started sliding backwards.
I twisted onto my back. Where Sadie’s left arm should’ve been, a tentacle-like appendage stretched across the length of the room, a distance of over twenty feet. It reeled me toward her like a fish on a line. Whatever that thing was no longer looked human. It melted like an ice statue, with no bones or connective tissue inside, its lips nose and mouth becoming hideously elongated before dripping off in huge globs like melted candlewax. A fire alarm started wailing as the tentacle dragged me through the flames, scorching my arms and legs.
The loose mass of skin reached out and encased me like a mother bird sheltering its eggs.
“WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?” all my ex’s voices screamed at once. Whichever direction I looked, silhouettes of faces rose and fell, as if trying to burst through. Parts of them dripped inside my mouth, disgustingly warm with a bitter taste worse than Vaseline.
I put everything into clawing my way out if there. What was left of the beast had the consistency of wet clay and came apart just as easily. I tore away chunks until there was a hole large enough to squeeze through. Then, I crawled along surrounded by black smoke.
At the far side of the room I risked a glance back and saw a bumpy, uneven hand reaching out of a puddle of ooze. Soon I was crawling over the bristly welcome mat, then fumbling for the door. All I remember after that are paramedics wrestling me into an ambulance…
A specialist officer came to see me at the hospital the next morning. They’d been unable to contact the homeowner, Gertrude Huyton, and through his line of questioning I could tell they hadn’t found her ‘remains’ inside the charred house. Like the wicked witch of the West, my stalker had melted. I told the officer she said I could stay the night, and that I probably started the fire by dropping a cigarette.
“In that case, we’ll keep trying to reach her.” He walked to the curtain surronding my bed and paused. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, her cat is missing.”
“Her...cat?”
“Yeah. The little black one. One of the firemen pulled it out of the wreckage. The poor thing had burns over its legs but it ran off before anybody could take it to the vet.”
I swallowed a gulp and thanked him for telling me.
And now I’m still sitting here listening while nurses rush back and forth, terrified any one of them might be Gertrude…

I (34m) am in a relationship with my gf (34f) for 9 months now. I’m well educated, very successful, come from a good family, but was in a split home with extreme and traumatic childhood. My gf was raised by a drug addict mother and doesn’t know her father. Went from foster home to foster home. Never had stability in her life, only had drug addict boyfriend that mistreated her. She also was very promiscuous and had multiple relationships at the same time.
Since we started dating I revolved my entire life around her being there 24/7, providing for her financially, taking care of her kids, even helping clean the house while she sat at home and struggled to do much due to her mental health (borderline personality disorder). Things were good she gave me bursts of love and attention and when they were good they were great. As soon as we had a fight though she’d flip my whole life upside down. Call me names, put me down, attack my character, tell me shes only with me for the money and the sex. She’s very negative and extremely judgmental and usually misjudges all scenarios around her. Her mood is up and down constantly and she always wants to leave me as soon as we fight only to ask me to come back shortly after. She forgets all the good times right away and exaggerates everything negatively. Goes from loving me saying that we are not compatible and that she doesn’t like my personality. Lately she’s been jumping to text other guys right after a fight/break up. She’s also been saying that she wants to go back to having 7 boyfriends. I wasnt innocent in all this. I also retaliated verbally and was very hurtful at times. it was all in the heat of the moment and to defend myself more so than attack her.
Why do I stay? Because I love her and want to give her and her kids a better life. Because I see her struggling with these problems with all her friendships including her mother. Because I’ve invested time and money and planned a future with her. Because i don’t take offence to her insults when she’s angry because no one in their right mind would act like that. I feel stuck and don’t know what to do. Do i stay and try to make it work, or do I give up on her and move on? We had amazing periods where we were in so much love together. I don’t want to give up on that and let her ruin her life. I feel like leaving her is equivalent to me letting a drink drive. I don’t know what to do.

I (37f) have been divorced from my ex husband(41m) since 2020. My mother(57f) and he were very close following my father’s passing but I never thought anything of it. In 2019 I went to a work party and ended up making the worst decision of my life and sleeping my with my coworker. He immediately shamed me after the affair and told everyone we worked with and then decided to message my now ex husband all the details on Facebook. I am not looking for sympathy. So my mother and and ex husband have stayed close over the last few years and I wasn’t happy about it but I just kind of accepted it. While I figured there relationship was completely platonic I started suspecting something was going on. My mother was over back in February and I noticed text messages coming in and saw my ex husbands name, this really bothered me. So I went to Myrtle beach for a week with my sister and decided to stop at my mothers vacation home in OBX because she had mentioned about being there this week for a getaway before the reality company took the reins for the summer. I didn’t tell her I was coming and arrived at 11am yesterday morning. As I pull up the driveway I see an orange KTM motorcycle and the first thing that came to mind was how my ex husband had an affinity for KTMs and already knew what I was going to walk into but I couldn’t even fathom what I was about to see.. my mother getting plowed from behind by my ex husband bent over the kitchen counter. She freaks and takes off into the bedroom and he just sits back on me and says sorry and lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. So I leave and head back to DE and I’m literally shaking and balling my eyes out the whole ride. I speak to my mother first thing this morning when I woke up and she doesn’t apologize and says I’m the one over reacting. She said that he was better to her than me and my sister ever were and that all I cared about when my father died was my inheritance and that he made her happy and it was all my fault for loosing him because I was unfaithful.. she goes on to tell me that they have been seeing each other for almost two years, plan on moving in together and basically tells me to deal with it, you made your bed and now have to sleep in it. I have paid for this affair greatly, me and my coworker were both fired following an altercation about the affair so I was forced to take a way lower salary position, my last boyfriend left me for his HS sweetheart and basically kicked me out and I had to find an overpriced apartment I can’t afford, and now my mother is with the man I truly still love.. I asked her to stop seeing him and she said to get over myself and stop over reacting to the situation. i was want an honest opinion if I’m overreacting and just need to accept it?

So I F55 have been single, living with ex (paranoid hoarder) for a few years. It was exhausting & constant stress. We all know what clutter does to an aspie!! I finally had enough & decided to move closer to my kids&grans 1200 miles away. Ex moved out. I've been trying to pack my stuff (imagine trying to find my stuff in the hoard) bought a shuttle to live in/haul my stuff, still had the exs cats, dog, for months. I've had 2 surgeries in the past 6 months, both pushed my timeline further back. I've dealt with all of this ALONE. It's just been chaos & I'm really pushing myself. I have a 4 hr round trip commute, on top of an 8 hr work shift, 5 days a week. A friend there, invited me to a FB group to maybe meet some more friends there before hand. I got a few responses & over a period of a few months, 1 in particular, (F62) were seeing each other. She came to visit. Visit went fantastic. I understand she's a manager type personality & was fine with that, until I told her I am Aspie. Within a few days, I was being instructed on how to deal with bosses, friends, finances, when to work on my resume, tasks, chores, etc. I occasionally get overwhelmed & take a night off from tasks. I had set Mem Day as my "goal" tho kept the reality of rain, & things not working as planned (I had a date to get hitch installed, they screwed up reservation, & rescheduled next week) perfect example! I was planning on driving my shuttle down, coming back for camy dog. SHE decided, to buy a plane ticket for Mem wknd, to drive my car down for me. She's never pulled a trailer, nor dealt with midwest storms. She would also have my dog in that car. When I mentioned the given time frame, she dismissed it. My concerns: The shuttle is older and may break down. It's custom, so finding parts may take weeks. I also brought up midwest storms, her response was "its just rain we will keep going". I brought up straight line wind, derechos, etc. Was still blown off. So now my stress & anxiety are peaking. Monday night, we chatted until late, Tuesday, i had a texted a typo, & she was offended I didn't fix it. I had a horrendous busy day. She texted that I must be busy. I said yes. Note: that was all the text I got from her as well all day. When I left work, I texted that I was out. Didn't get the typical "drive safe" response. I texted that I got home. I got 'yay' in response. I then get voice message telling me she can't imagine how much stress im under, she doesn't want to be my stressor, etc. She offers me a night off of our nightly chat so I can decompress. I'm thinking omg she's amazing, thank you ty TY! Then... she sends me a vm of how I'm exhibiting VERY BAD passive aggressive behavior, full of red flags, she's going to take this as a concern, etc. I apologize & say today Im overwhelmed. Now I'm being told, she was upset about my typo, I didn't fix my typo, I didn't text much, how that made her feel ghosted, that her gut was right that I was bullshit, that I'm just too immature to handle what she has to offer. At this point, after a very long stressful day, I'm in critical shut down. I reject calls- texts, tho the texts come in nose to tail. Constant voice messages,texts, emails, voice mail,... I'm just here panicking in silence. So she starts harassing my adult daughter. I tell my daughter to block her. Now the accusations start. Then threatening to visit my elderly (80+) neighbors, (she's been to my place - driveways line up, she know where they live they are my only neighbors) harass THEM until I conform. (PS: she works with the elderly) & she can't see why I now don't want anything to do with her.
Things she's said/ texted-unedited:
-Until I hear different, I am flying out Saturday the 25th. I will get an Uber to your mom and dad's house because I have the address and we're gonna figure this shit out.
-I'm gonna have so much fun with you. You're gonna wish you never met me because I gotta tell you I gave you everything fucking everything trust sex psychological bullshit. I gave you fucking everything and you know what autism on the Spectrum all that fucking bullshit is that it's bullshit.
-I think you were too immature to handle what I can give you and you laid on yourself by being a fucking pussy and that's bullshit because I know you better than that. Why can't you just own that you need to communicate better
-I will constantly call you until I have an answer. That's the bottom line. Don't be a fucking pussy.
-Do you like women to chase you because you were fucked up? Do you really like that or do you like togive amends so it could be done?
-I will keep calling because I want an answer because I am not a fucking pussy. I want to hear it from you.
-You by far are the biggest shit that I've ever ever known. Well played the biggest fucking shit I've ever known.
-I use your white T-shirt to pick up dog shit and it made me feel happy. Isn't it cool that I can text you and you can't respond to me talking about bullshit.
-It totally sucks to be you lol I'm loving this and if you never read it, I'm still loving it
-I'm gonna have so much fun with you. You're gonna wish you never met me because I gotta tell you I gave you everything fucking everything trust sex psychological bullshit. I gave you fucking everything and you know what autism on the Spectrum all that fucking bullshit is that it's bullshit.
-You like the fat girlfriend because it makes you feel skinny and being with someone who's not fat makes you feel insecure
-I think I'm done with you for now enjoy and there is a feed for our text messages just so you know it's awesome
-I think that you just don't think and now there is no way of you to contact me thank you you did this. And I shot those emails out about mom and dad. Do I know where they live fuck no I wanted to get your attention. You chose to read them to use it against me.
-That makes me really sad and yes, I said things to get your goddamn fucking attention And you take it personally although you know me I don't even know mom and dad's address you fucking think about it. You dumb bitch OK use autism as an excuse. You're a dumb bitch autistic people think clearly.

• I totally get it but you didn't tell me you were not an adult and you did a passive aggressive bullshit on me. You know you did. I claim I would be at mom and dad's house I don't even have their fucking address you idiot fucking Idiot, I was trying to get you to talk to me New York and yeah, you really should I believe that

-And you know what your daughter yes I said that fuck your daughter. You need to get her permission to do shit fucking grow up.
-Yes, I lashed out because you didn't talk to me. Yes, to all of the above, but the bottom line is when I love someone I fucking love them and I talk to them, which you did not because you were a fucking pussy, so prove me wrong
-For the record, we could never be more than friends if this is how you handle stress, not my jam at all, but I can certainly be your friend. Do you have a whole lot more growing up to do or a whole lot more realizing your disability in terms of being autistic and on the spectrum.
-I don't care if you're autistic or not you're not fucking stupid, that's passive aggressive Berni and fucking deal with it that was wrong and that was mean you were mean and yes, I lost my shit because I didn't know what was going on