Soo Im a 19 year old female. When I was like young I was so insecure about my nose. Everyone called me ugly behind my back towards my face and some guys would press their noses to the glass and point at me, thinking i dont notice. Some people told me i look like squidward and many other things like this. I felt lesser than others. Like I didnt deserve to be treated normally
I had a long and big nose and my mom was always telling me to get plastic surgery and get rid of that ugly nose. she'd always comment on my acne, my weight, how hairy my body is and so on and it made me feel so terrible and so aware of my nose that I couldnt even turn my face to the side in public because then people could see how big my nose was. Im not even lying I would cry everytime I saw a mirror and my day would be ruined.
She then booked me an operation and I got the surgery when I was only 17 years old. I knew about it I just couldnt say anything because I wanted to be pretty like other pretty girls who carelessly lived their life not being judged by anyone or feeling insecure about their looks. Now I regret it so much because I think I could have gotten over that insecurity as time passed. I just want to be my own natural self but theres no going back. I hate how it looks I was so young at the time my face wasnt even fully grown she still shows me my old photos saying: "see how you looked before your nose job" and shit. I just think this is her fault because she like always told me the reason im ugly is because I have a big nose. like i think if she hadnt ALWAYS told me my nose is big i think as a kid i wouldnt even gaf i also had ocd as a kid fyi
I kind of wish I had a mature and intelligent mother who isnt a two faced asshole in general im sorry if this isnt the right subreddit just didnt know where else to vent and sorry for gramatical errors english isnt my first language.

So there is a guy(bottom) he was kinda in debt. He has little brother. So the guy wanted to pay back his debt to the house owner or sum like that. But he did not have enought money to pay back, that guy suggested him to sell his body to pay back or have S with him. The guy rejected his offer and went to sum shop or something and there was an old man (maybe old man) he gave him something a box or a bag So that he could give it to mafia man and get a lot of money. So that guy went to that mafias house the security or some mafias lead him to that main mafias room to give him that packet. When he opened the doors of that mafia man he saw how he was fking some guy and that guy was daying ? He gave him that packet and got money. He was giving that packet a few times to pay back. But there was still not enought money to pay back the bills or sum i dont remember. Later that mafia man ( his skin is pale, black hair, i think these was scars, not sure about tattoos tho i dont remember) almost killed or killed that guy that was collecting debts of that one guy with younger brother. So later his younger brother got sick really bad that he needed to do a surgery that coudnt even hospitals do. So he went to that mafia and mafias doctor said that he needs to be in mafia or sum shit.
Anyway thats all im going to write i hope its atleast a bit understandable because my english is very bad. I really wanna read it!!!!

I'd say I have a relatively high-end computer. I definitely don't have the best of the best, but I can run Doom Eternal on high graphics and I'm capable of ray-tracing. I've got an AMD 6650 XT if I remember correctly - though I'm too lazy to actually check, it doesn't really matter, because this is only gonna be in comparison to my own computer. Because I have a high-end computer, I'm going to set all my graphics to fancy so the results will be closer to someone on a lower quality computer performing the same test on fast graphics.
That being said, Vanilla Minecraft is one of the most poorly optimized games I've ever had the displeasure of needing to run. But it wasn't always this way. My hypothesis, if you will, is that Microsoft just piled a ton of unnecessary features onto the old game without improving said old game, and that Minecraft rendering everything within render distance was fine at 12 chunks render distance with like a quarter of the stuff to render and a 256-high world 1/3rd filled by air, but it ain't like that anymore.
My computer might need to be dusted out, but other than that, I'm pretty sure Windows 11 and my graphics drivers are completely up to date. I am going to be playing with zero modifications or resource packs. Someone attempting to get maximum performance might run the game on Fabric with Iris, Sodium, Starlight, Modernfix, a low-res texture pack, ETC. My skin will be the current default Alex. All tests will be on fullscreen mode without Vsync. I will also be playing on a hard amplified world with structures. I will be playing on Quake Pro FOV. Keep in mind that I will only be testing this on one world per version, since I don't have the time to spend hours testing performance for different versions of Minecraft (this means that world generation will probably effect performance to some extent).
First, 1.7.10, so that you can see how the game performed before Microsoft took over. Please note that there are less options for higher graphics in this version, and the max render distance is 16. Dunno why 1.7.10 had specifically Anisotropic Filtering and zero other advanced graphical options, but I left it off.
Then, 1.12.2, so you can see performance after a couple large Microsoft updates. From this point onwards, I can use an Elytra to fly around at high speeds to test the performance of loading in a significant amount of new chunks at once. I did not touch my video settings whatsoever, so the only settings that would've changed are new settings which are on by default.
Next, 1.16.5 (the next major modding version). Just as last time, I didn't touch my video settings whatsoever, so anything that changed either can't be disabled via video settings or is on by default.
And finally, 1.20.6, the latest release. Here, the only thing I did to my settings was set my simulation distance to 16, since my render distance was also still at 16.
RESULTS OF 1.7.10; I minorly adjusted my graphics as I was loading in, but I'd generally say that I got an average of 250 FPS while loading in for the first time, with one lag spike as I was doing so. After that, I got a pretty consistent 300-500 FPS while I flew around for about 60 seconds. I think it dropped between 250 and 300 once or twice while loading new chunks.
RESULTS OF 1.12.2; I'd say that my performance averaged at worse, though at it's highest it was actually better. When I initially loaded in, I froze for a few seconds. My initial loading of the area around me resulted in as low as 150 FPS and as high as ~275 FPS. After that, I generally got 200-400 FPS, even while flying around with an Elytra. During occasional lag-spikes, I'd say I got as low as around 150.
RESULTS OF 1.16.5; This time, my FPS was all over the place. I didn't freeze right as I loaded in, but I started at ~40 FPS and quickly worked my way up to 180, and then it fell again. My FPS was definitely, definitely significantly less stable, dipping as far down as around 80 and going as high as 426. Overall, I'd say the average would be somewhere between 125 and 200.
RESULTS OF 1.20.6; This version, if you'll excuse me french, runs like absolute dog-shit. For about 30-45 seconds after loading in, I averaged around 75 FPS with constant lag spikes down to ~50. After that, my FPS was incredibly inconsistent, dipping below 60 and going as high as over 450. This is to such an extent that I can't actually give you an average FPS, it was ALL over the place. I actually seemed to perform much worse while standing still, flying around with an Elytra giving me the most consistent FPS. The strangest thing is that the average seemed to fluctuate, which is why I can't give one. I'd say the average consistently fluctuated, going as low as when I first loaded in (75 fps with constant small lag spikes down to ~50), and up to around 150-200, with constant "anti-lag-spikes" up to 300-450. I am genuinely confused by these results.
BONUS - ULTRA PERFORMANCE TEST; For this, I wanted to pick 1.12.2, but the performance mods I wanted to use didn't go back that far, so I settled for 1.16.5 (even though Starlight only goes as far back as 1.17). I used Fabric (tried to use Forge and the game wouldn't launch with zero mods installed) and as low of graphics settings as I was physically able to choose (including completely turning off particles).
Here be a list of the mods I used; Enhanced Block Entities Entity Culling FerriteCore Iris Shaders Memory Leak Fix ModernFix Reese's Sodium Options Sodium Sodium Extra
Here be a list of my meaningful settings; View Distance: 32 Chunks Max Shadow Distance: 0 Chunks Brightness: 25% Clouds: Off Fullscreen: On FPS Limit: 90 FPS 'Quality' Tab: Everything as low as possible 'Advanced' Tab: Unchanged (mostly performance-enhancing settings which are on by default) 'Animations' Tab: Everything Disabled 'Particles' Tab: "All" Option disabled, meaning everything else might as well be off 'Details' Tab: Everything Disabled 'Render' Tab: As many things disabled as can be disabled without breaking the game (Single Fog is also set to 28 Chunks) 'Extras' Tab: Only thing that has a minor effect on performance is 'Prevent Shaders' (which is on)
Extra Info; '8 Bit Experience' resource pack Geometric Font Edge (no effect on performance, the 8-Bit font is just unreadable) Single-Biome World-Type (Taiga Mountains) Hard Difficulty (More Enemies) Quake Pro FOV -46338254688221342 Seed (randomly generated)
Results; Surprisingly low performance at an average of ~35 FPS. My performance would've been better with Optifine in 1.12.2 at double the render-distance, despite Optifine being old and buggy. Putting my FOV down to 30 grants me a fluctuating FPS, averaging from 55 to 75 depending on whether or not I'm moving (and how fast I'm moving if so). With Render Distance at 24 chunks, Single Fog at 20 Chunks (Fog Occlusion is still on), Fog Start Multiplier at 70%, and FOV at 85 (the FOV I normally play at) I average from 45 to 70, depending on my location and how fast I'm moving. Overall, while it is playable with some compromises, not only is it just barely so, but it sure as shit ain't pretty.
By no means is my testing the end-all be-all. I encourage you, dear reader, to perform your own testing in your own time. Also, I have incredibly low karma for posting an unpopular opinion in chess, to such an extent that I can no longer comment on that original post, so I hope this doesn't get removed.
TLDR: My hypothesis was correct, Minecraft is the single most poorly optimized, low-performance game I have ever run. And that's saying something, since I mod Skyrim and Team Fortress 2.

I'm on ep 62 or around there (probably further if this post is more than 6 hrs old lol) but ideally we keep this thread completely spoiler free in case it can help anyone else.
I try to stay clear of forums once I start a series to avoid accidental spoilers. I've been watching on Netflix but I recently discovered the archive upscale project and decided to try an episode largely because I want to know if I can recommend the dub in good faith.
So I watched a couple mins of Chapter 62 English dub from archive with subs on. Not bad, pretty sure I much prefer the sub, but doesn't seem like a dealbreaker if I want to recommend it to someone who won't watch it subtitled.
So I switch to the Japanese and immediately notice the audio track has a very different song playing and I'm pretty sure the voices are different. So I check the netflix and sure enough the voices are different and what's more, even the subtitle track has some minor differences.
Now I only took a very small sample, and I'm near the end, but I'm wondering if anyone can clear up what the difference between audio and subtitle tracks are and/or which are the best/most well liked.

Cant find any in depth info about this, I'm assuming it's really hard to put in "translate" into todays money when it's 300+ years old.
I'm guessing that the closest to todays multimillionaires would've been kings and trade companies in the prime of European colonization, but I would to read about particular cases if possible.
Any info about how wealthy people lived in different periods of time is welcome.
Thanks if you got this far I'm horrible at formatting in english lol

Before reading I’m sorry for my spelling mistakes or lack of understanding. I wrote quickly without thinking about the spelling. English is not my first language. So if you need more clarity or better English, there’s a chatgpt version of the text at the end.😭😭
My version.
Hi, I am M18 and I did a mistake. It’s been years now but I’ve been struggling with some porn addiction (especially gay porn) and when I was like 15 or so, I started going on Omegle and do some dumb things with guys and it got really messy to the point where I was taking peoples snaps, and started doing nudes. I was doing nudes with strangers/random person until 6 months ago and when I stopped because one day, someone from where I go to school with find me on snap, i dont know how. He was using a fake account but I thought he was just a random stranger that find my snap. And keep in my mind that I still new in the school. I don’t know who that person is till this day but he started threatening me and say He wanted me to show everything and I did but he wanted me to show a second time with my face on it so I said no. He said that if I didn’t he would expose me in my school. I got so scared. I couldn’t eat for two weeks I couldn’t drink. I couldn’t do anything I was depressed. I was so afraid that I will get exposed in my school and I live in a country in Africa where not everyone is very open minded. The police or someone around me cant help me because I’ll be judged very badly for doing it with a guy. I got so scared that I thought about killing myself but I feel like if it gets leaked it’s gonna be too much for me. it’s been six months since that day and I hadn’t but he hasn’t expose me yet. its been eating me alive since and the past week I had a bad feeling. I didn’t tell anyone and I feel so alone. I’ve been looking for clues and look for him but I already had others problems. I tried to pray God and I dont have a good relationship with him. I’ve been thinking about it and I feel like he’s getting close to me and I feel like he’s watching me from somewhere and it’s really creepy because I thought he was gonna move on but I think he wants something else and I don’t know what to do and I need help.
Chatgpt’s version:
I am an 18-year-old who has been grappling with a porn addiction, particularly towards gay pornography, for years now. When I was around 15, I made some regrettable decisions on Omegle, engaging in inappropriate activities with strangers, exchanging explicit photos, and even continuing this behavior until about 6 months ago. The situation took a dark turn when someone from my school found me on Snapchat using a fake account. Not knowing their identity to this day, they began threatening me, coercing me to reveal more. I complied initially but drew the line when asked to show my face, fearing exposure within my school. This ordeal left me terrified, unable to eat or function for weeks, sinking into depression. I live in a conservative African country, making seeking help from authorities or those around me a challenging prospect due to potential harsh judgment for my actions. The fear of being exposed consumed me, leading to suicidal thoughts, as I doubted my ability to handle the fallout. Although six months have passed without exposure, the anxiety persists. Recently, I've felt a sense of impending danger, as if the person is lurking nearby, surveilling me. This unnerving feeling has intensified, and I am at a loss for what to do. Praying for guidance, despite feeling disconnected from God, I am desperate for assistance and guidance.
What should I do?

Interview with Yu Changxin, former core member of Falun Gong, February 5, 2001 (Part 2)
Translated from Chinese to English. Original article: Kaiwind https://www.kaiwind.com/n436/n556/c249412/content.html
Yu Changxin (于长新) is a former core member of Falun Gong who has directly participated in several important activities and in planning the organization. He was very close to Li Hongzhi. An interview with Yu Changxin on February 5th, 2001, revealed several true and specific details and little-known inside stories. The personal story of this person, who has a special role and experience, "orally-transmitting history", has an important value in our understanding and analysis of Falun Gong. —The Editor
Question: You say that Li Hongzhi is a person who has political ambitions. Which aspects [of Li Hongzhi] is this reflected on?
Yu: I think Li Hongzhi's whole process of transmitting his practice has a political goal. First, he established an organization, an ordinary form of organization. The Falun Gong Research Association (法轮功研究会), let's say it's of the highest level, directly under the control of Li Hongzhi. Under it are the main stations(总站), and then assistance stations (辅导站), and then practice sites. Also, big assistant stations are divided into pian (片). In general, there's five levels. Five levels of organization.
Regarding Li Hongzhi's relation to the organization of Falun Gong, he does not only control the Research Association. He also gets involved with substations and assistant stations, and interrogates them. When the leader of a substation in Beijing asked a question during a meeting, since Li Hongzhi asked everybody to ask questions, Li Hongzhi was possibly unable to answer, I don't know what happened [to Li Hongzhi], so Li Hongzhi said, your thinking is disorderly, I won't answer your question. Later, Li Hongzhi told the person responsible for the Beijing station to change the leader of this substation, he isn't competent enough for to lead this substation. In other words, if you don't follow Li Hongzhi's thinking, he can get rid of your role.
Apart from this, when we sent Li Hongzhi to live in the United States, he talked to that person from the Beijing assistance station, the leader of the station asked what orders does Teacher still have. Li Hongzhi said, you should not only expand Falun Gong among the old people, you should have more young people. This way, Falun Gong would have advantages in the future development. So, the Beijing station executed this order. Later, there were things about young people, teens, and children, the subordinate [in the organization system] was told to develop this way. Apart from this, Li Hongzhi has allowed people, at least the Beijing assistance station, I'd say the station leader, to make a business organization, for example "Elderly Fa-Study Activity group". He needed some veteran [government] cadres at the deputy bureau level or above. We already has this. I've also participated in a meeting pnce. The Beijing main station was told to make an "Art and Literature Activity Group", it already had people. A "Science and Technology Personnel Group", whose level was relatively high, it was all researchers, professors, etc. There were also postgraduate students, but few. Li Hongzhi uses these people to form assistance stations. I think its purpose is very clear. If there was no political goal, if there was no evil things, why would he do these? So, if he wants to form a government, these would would immediately come out and put on a show, he wouldn't need to go find people.
Question: Are there any other specific matters?
Yu: Li Hongzhi always says that Falun Gong has no organization. In reality, it's not so. For example, in case of Falun Gong practitioners surrounding the Beijing TV and news media, these incidents have been planned and organized. At that time, I knew about the incident of practitioners surrounding Beijing TV. Later, the television said, we can only display a scene of Falun Gong exercises, we can not do other things, such as apologizing and correcting [the television program]. After Li Hongzhi knew about this, he was unsatisfied because his goals weren't achieved. I asked, what did he say? I went to ask Li Chang, and Li Chang said: Li Hongzhi said, old Li [Chang], I have said every specific thing to you, there's only one thing missing, it's that I didn't tell you to send 10,000 people, and since these words have not been said, this matter has not been successful. At that time, I asked Li Chang, what does "successful" mean? Is it to ask for the Beijing TV to apologize? He said, it's not that, but to force the central government to come out and legally recognize Falun Gong's existence. Let's look at another specific matter, that of the book Zhuan Falun. When Zhuan Falun was published for the first time, I got a copy into my hands. I told him about this by phone. I said that Zhuan Falun was published, I have one in my hands. He said, quickly send me two copies so that I can take a look. I took the public transit and went there. He lives in Dongdan. Liu Guirong was there at that time too. After I sent the copies of Zhuan Falun, he quickly skimmed through the book, and looked at the cover and the things printed inside. Then, he made movement. After he put down this book, he was sitting on the sofa, and there was a table in front of him. Li Hongzhi said, this is a heavy bomb. At that time, I didn't think of these words as political, because Li Hongzhi declared that he does not participate in politics, nor does he oppose the government, nor does he rely on hostile forces, so I didn't think about this. I mentioned this matter when I was explaining things [note: presumably to the government]. I was thinking, why would the book Zhuan Falun be compared to a "heavy bomb"? Then later I thought that it was related to politics. From his ambition, this Zhuan Falun is a bomb to the government. From this matter, his political ambition and goals can be clearly seen.
Question: According to your knowledge and experience, please talk about why Falun Gong would attract so many people.
Yu: It seems that the Falun Gong introduced by Li Hongzhi has indeed good at deceiving. As for whether a lot of people are deceived, let me think about it. Li Hongzhi's ability to spread Falun Gong among so many people is due to his three "baits", which fool and deceive people. The first "bait" is "curing diseases and improving health". This plays on the psychology of some people who want their illnesses cured. Li Hongzhi said, if you come to my seminar, I can cure your diseases, and I can cure all diseases. Even if you think you have serious diseases, you would go, there is guaranteed to be no life-threatening dangers. That is to say, if you do this practice, you wouldn't need to take medicine, but your diseases would be cured. This can of course attract people. So, more and kore people going to seminars. Also, he started to cure diseases at the same of teaching. In his own words, it's to expand his popularity, because Falun Gong has just arrived to Beijing, it was not completely known, so doing this would let more people know Falun Gong and come to practice it. The people in his seminars gradually increased one seminar after the other. At the end, the number of people had reached 4000. At the start, it was only about 100 people. I had three main diseases at that time: coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, and chronic atrophic gastritis. So when people introduced me to Li Hongzhi's practice, I went to the first seminar too. When I heard his words, they were quite mystical, so I didn't really believe them at the start. I did the exercises while taking medicine. Later, Li Hongzhi said, if you do the exercises while eating medicine, that means you don't believe my Falun Gong can cure diseases. and if you believed that Falun Gong can cure diseases, you would stop taking medicine, try it and see, I promise it would not be life-threatening. Since then, I stopped taking medicine. After the "4-25" incident, leaders sent a doctor to check my health. When they checked my health, my blood pressure was very high, reaching 180 and 200. When doing the electrocardiogram, the doctor told me, your coronary heart disease is very serious, the T wave is upside-down. Later, he brought my past health history, and showed it to me. He said, look at this, you believe that Falun Gong can cure diseases, but your coronary heart disease has become even more serious than before.
My partner is also like this, she retired due to illness. She is also a senior professional. She could not continue working, so she retired. Aftering leaving, she tried to find solutions everywhere, and claimed that Falun Gong was good at curing illnesses, so she started believing in Falun Gong, and individually went to see Li Hongzhi to cure her illness. She requested him to cure her illness twice, but it wasn't effective. Later, when I was going to Li Hongzhi to send a book draft, I brought my wife on purpose. After going there, Li Hongzhi treated her. After that, he said, what you have is not an illness, and he later told me that there was a big dragon on my wife's body, and that she could go to heaven with this dragon if she succeeded in cultivation. In reality, it was a lie, there is no such thing, so my wife and I were ill, and were in a difficult state. I compiled two books on cultivation stories. In these books, there were some cases of curing illnesses. I have not personally witnessed any of these. In reality, the illnesses that my wife and I had were not cured. So Li Hongzhi's claim that illnesses could be cured can indeed fool many people.
Question: Li Hongzhi has three "bait" in deceiving people. You've just talked about the first one. What is the second one?
Yu: Li Hongzhi's second "bait" is "Zhen, Shan, Ren" (Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance). This trick of his was very convincing at that time. An ordinary person naturally talks about truth, compassion, and tolerance; he used these peoples' psychological states to lure them to his side. He boasted that his "Zhen, Shan, Ren" is the highest Buddha law. He said that the Buddha law is like a pyramid. The apex is the Great Way, and that can be represented in the three words of "Zhen, Shan, Ren". In other words, to determine whether you are a good person or a bad person, "Zhen, Shan, Ren" is the only criterion. So, he exploited problems of society that a lot of people dislike to say that his Falun Gong is the only clean place. He said, my "Zhen, Shan, Ren", is present in my Falun Dafa, it is present in my book Zhaun Falun. Although Zhuan Falun has between 30,000 and 40,000 words, it only talks about these three words, "Zhen, Shan, Ren". Therefore, if you buy my books, you can be a good person, and you'll have a good place in the future. But I think that Li Hongzhi's "Zhen, Shan, Ren" is false. What he does himself, is neither truthful, not compassionate, nor tolerant, as his own behavior revealed. That's what I though after I pondered about this. Before, I still regarded him as a correct person. Let me give you an example. During his seminar in Harbin, after his lecture, practitioners went back to their places of residence. One practitioner was ill, and was sent to the hospital, but it was unsuccessful. After that, he was sent to the seminar. When Li Hongzhi heard about that, he refused to meet him, and left by the back door. The compassion that he talks about was absent on this occasion. You let others be compassionate, but what are you doing? No such thing. Regarding "Ren" (forbearance), as I'm recalling, he does not forbear. His temper is quite bad. The first time I saw him getting angry is when he saw that the Guizhou Qigong Newspaper criticized Falun Gong. I was at his place, with other people. When he took the phone, he was so furious that his face was red and his nect became thick. He was there, complaining for a while, then sitting voiceless. Usually, he did not speak much. That moment lasted long. I wondered, what did they criticize? I didn't see the newspaper. Why was he so furious? Doesn't he talk about forbearance? This time, he didn't forbear. As a teacher, are you like this? So the "Zhen, Shan, Ren" only has the purpose of winning peoples' hearts, strengthtening his influence to resist the government. That's also one of his baits.
Question: What's the next one?
Yu: The third "bait" is the "eliminating of karma" and the "salvation of people". These are also methods that Li Hongzhi uses to fool people. He says that people are born from reincarnation, and that the Yuanshen (main soul) does not die. If this person has "karma", this person's "karma" in the next life would be even greater. When I first started to practice Falun Gong, it was mainly because my wife and I had illnesses, so we practice Falun Gong. We listened to him say that illnesses are caused by "karma". So I thought, could this illness come from past lives? I was afraid. If a bad person reincarnated into me, and I didn't eliminate this "karma", I would face disastrous consequences. Thus, I believed in this "karma" theory. In fact, it's fallacious theory of Li Hongzhi. It's not true. He said that he was preaching the highest level of the Buddha law, and he also hinted that he was the highest Buddha, surpassing Shakyamuni and Jesus. If someone listens to his lecture, or reads Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi will "eliminate his karma". He also said that every word in his book Zhuan Falun is both a "Falun" (intelligent supernatural wheel) and his "Fashen" (law body; supernatural body of Li Hongzhi) if you look at it from a shallow spiritual level. He said that his "Falun" can help people cure illnesses and improve health. Regarding the "salvation of people", I think it's also the same. In the book "Further Discussions on Falun Dafa", maybe near the second half of it, he said that humanity will face four big catastrophes: floods, earthquakes, wars, epidemics, He said that these four catastrophes will all occur, and will eliminate portion of bad people. Only by cultivating his "Zhen, Shan, Ren", the only criterion for determining good and evil people, can people avoid these disasters, since good people can avoid these disasters. If your "karma" is large, Master can eliminate a lot of it using his high powers, only if you cultivate his Falun Gong. The remaining quantity of "karma", though, is still very high, so what would you do? He says that he will eliminate your "karma" bit by bit. He will do that continuously, so you will often feel ill and encounter problems. These are all good things. In my opinion, how can it be like this if people are dying? In reality, it's to scam you. Although you feel that your illness has not improved, you dare not question him. I was also fooled by him. My condition has not improved. According to what he says, it's that I still have "karma"! A person like me, who is often near him, and who is an important person in [the organization of] Falun Dafa, my "karma" was not eliminated. The "karma" of those station leaders was not eliminated either. Those who have not met him, or people who practice less due to work, they won't have their "karma" eliminated either, right? So I say that his "salvation" and "elimination of karma" are lies. Neither can he "save" people, nor can he eliminate "karma".
In my opinion, his three "baits" have a very bad effect. They have fooled millions of people who practice his Falun Gong. They were all lured by these three "baits" and deceived. Since he has such a large number of followers, it would be easy for him to realize political goals in the future. I think these three "baits" are quite effective. (to be continued)

I am a man, who is 21. English is not my first language forgive me for that.
When i was young until 15-16, i never had sexual or romantic interest in men. Actually i never find romantic interest in men. But before that when i was 10-11(i don't remeber exact time). I found porn by accident by wondering what "sex" mean. I scared and frozed by my first encounter then try to not look at them but find myself as a 11 years old obbsessed with porn. At first i go for only vanilla stuff and enjoyed very much but time pass on and repeating frequently same experince i got bored. Then fetishes came and new pleasures. As time goes on i got bored of them too and got new fetishes. Start to get more extreme fetishes. At age of 15-16 around i start to see more homosexual porn. At first i didn't get into and even dissatisfaed but time goes on i start to fear what if i am homosexual? Later on life i learned i have HOCD with time i get rid of it by saying maybe i am bisexual? But i don't wanna sex with men or romantical something.
But i also start to realize my attraction for women decreased time to time. I assume because it is eating same thing over and over again i start to not sense taste or i am just homosexual. I always classified myself as straight and was comfortable with that. But i know it might be not true. I wish i could feel straight again.
I start to not feel much attraction and pleasure for women after consuming a lot of porn(still feel attraction but it is like void). Other hand, my attraction for men quite diffrent. I used to check my male friends if i am gay or even have crush on them but later learned it is because HOCD. In my life i never find a real man sexy or had crush on them. Then i asked myself how i have homosexual feelings? It is because of porn, i see men there acting more feminine or submessive. Which is attractive to me.
I also hate i have submessive side. It makes me not feel masculine even though people in my life say i look masculine.
If i just find feminine men, sexual drawings of men and sometimes porn of men attractive but not real men attractive.
I have no problem identify as being gay or bi but it doesn't feel right or comfortable. I can't see myself kissing a bearded dude neither. But i think reason i like gay porn because there is comfort and raw sexual power. It is feels like i don't have to perform in gay sex and can feel comfortable because i might not fear to do something wrong. What i experince? Anyone relate?

*This story is non-fictional, containing the accounts of a true series of events that transpired in the late 1960s. All names and place names are genuine and true to the facts of the case.\*
Due to the graphic nature of these accounts, reader discretion is advised.
The story begins in the mountains of Romania - a village called Alma Vii. Alma Vii has a population of only 290 people, with agriculture being the main way of life and source of income for most of the population. Due to the strong influence of agriculture, the most common means of transport (even of today) is still the horse cart.
Radu Popescu was born in 1936, and grew up on one of the many farms in the village. When his father died in 1957, he would take over the farm at the age of 21, by himself.
It was in May 1968 that the events of this story would begin to unfold. Events which began on a warm early-summer evening. Radu had completed his chores for the day. Feeding the animals, tending to his crops and conducting maintenance on the farm. At around 10pm, he said he went to sleep, with everything in perfect order. Radu woke at around 2am, to the sound of his sheep outside crying in distress. With the presence of wolves and bears in this region of the Romanian Carpathian mountains, Radu feared the worst. He took his rifle from his bedside, and set out from the farmhouse into the dark outdoors. He cautiously headed towards the sheep barn, preparing himself for an encounter with a wild predatory animal. When he entered the barn, there was no animal. And no sheep either.
Radu was shocked to find all 12 of his sheep lying motionless on the floor, the moon illuminating the blood splatters on their white coats. He immediately began to search for signs for an animal, but it seemed as if it had fled by then. Radu however, claims to have then spotted footprints on the ground. Footprints of a man. At 6am the same morning, after no sleep, Radu Popescu would file a complaint to the local police officer in Alma Vii - with claims that it was a vampire that had killed his sheep.
Popescu’s official report can still be found online, with it’s original Romanian being translated to English kindly by u/conandivljak). The report reads as follows:
‘ (14/05/68)…they were all dead. For them to die in such a short time, it must not have been more than 5 or 6 minutes. And it was the way I found them - look for yourself! They have all been bitten by human teeth marks! Not wolf or a bear! And their blood - drained. I know this sounds ridiculous - our mothers told us legends of vampires to scare us, of Vlad Tepes, this is real I promise.’
Radu’s claims were met with a mixture of belief and doubt from the local police and fellow villagers. Vampires play a huge role in Romanian folklore, with Radu even referring Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) whom Bram Stoker based his character ‘Dracula’ from. Many Romanians even today, especially in the more rural mountainous areas, believe in the existence of vampires. However, many will also believe them to be a story made by mothers to warn children from straying into the woods.
A few days later, on 18th May 1968, a neighbour of Radu Popescu would report a similar incident. The unnamed farmer claimed 2 of his goats died in a similar way to Radu’s sheep. With a single bite mark and a drainage of blood. The farmer also allegedly claimed to have seen a man running off into the woods, up one of the many engulfing mountains, but this information could not be verified.
By this point, Radu and a few of his supportive neighbours and friends had seemingly had enough of sleeping in fear. On 20th May, Radu Popescu and 3 other men decided to stay up in their barns with the animals. They each were armed with a rifle, and agreed to shoot on sight if any intruders came in. It was around 3:45am, when a shot could be heard from one of the men’s, Bogdan Dumitru’s, barn. Radu and the 2 other men rushed over, to find Bogdan hurriedly run out of the barn. He shouted at them that he had missed his shot, and that the killer was fleeing into the forest up the mountain. Radu and the 2 other men stopped Bogdan from pursuing him, reminding him of the other dangers the woods held at night time. He agreed, and the men made a plan to set out there tomorrow.
At 8am on 21st May 1968, 7 men from the village of Alma Vii would set off into the forest up the mountain. This included Radu Popescu, Bogdan Dumitrus and Andrei Balan (the local police officer) as well as 4 others. The men set off with the goal of deciding who or what was responsible for the deaths for the numerous livestock, however only an hour into their journey, the stakes were raised drastically.
Journeying up the mountain through the forest, Andrei Balan spotted something tucked into a bush. Upon further inspection, he realised it was the corpse of a young man (‘approximately 30 years old, with black hair and beard’). The man had 2 bite marks, the first (seemingly unsuccessful bite) was on his lower back with a second, deeper bite on his neck. The man’s drying blood suggested this was a recent murder, of that same night, and the men theorised that the creature had become hungry when Bogdan had scared it from his livestock. They were unsure if this was the first person to be killed by it - but it only added to their insistence in finding the beast. They agreed that Andrei Balan and two others would take the body back to the village in hopes of identifying the man, and then into the local city to file a report of a murder. The rest would continue the journey.
Radu, Bogdan and the two other men continued walking for a few hours. It was around 7pm, a long way up the mountain, in an even more isolated location than their own village - they found a small settlement. Bogdan later described the settlement as ‘it was absolutely tiny. Their huts were so small, maybe about 15 buildings. They had hay for roofs and they were not built well, they had no animals either. Some dogs were roaming around but that was it.’
The men became even more unsettled when they met the sparse population of the small settlement. They described the people as all having some kind of facial deformity, missing an eye or a disfigured limb. They would have a severe underbite or limited/no teeth.
What the men had stumbled upon was the Orsova region of the Carpathian Mountains. This region was home to a number of incredibly isolated, tiny settlements that had been there for hundreds of years. Due to the size of the settlements and the isolation, inbreeding was prevalent amongst the people - resulting in their unusual appearances. When the group of men began to question the villagers, they initially found it hard to communicate with them as their literacy levels were so low. When they finally managed to ask if they knew anything of a vampire, the people of the settlement all managed to agree on one name: Ionut. No last name could ever be found for Ionut, but his story would soon begin to unfold.
The men demanded to see him immediately, but the settlement people explained they had not seen him themselves for a couple of weeks. That he was a vampire, and had disappeared after killing and drinking the blood of a local dog. The settlement people told the men how Ionut was born to a line of vampires. They had fangs and would only appear at night, that when they became old enough - they would drink the blood of animals or people. They said that Ionut’s bloodline had been vampires for hundreds of years - as long as they’d been there - and that they had had to learn to live with them. When the men asked the settlement people how they managed to live with a vampire, they explained how Ionut and his forefathers all shared the same aversion to mirrors. All of the houses in the village had an abundance of mirrors throughout them, as well as candles that were to be lit at night. They explained to the men that this prevented vampires from entering their homes.
Upon hearing all of this information, the men were all shocked. Radu and Bogdan later admitted they even doubted themselves what the inbred villagers were saying, that the vampire they spoke of sounded so cliche - it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable until that night, when the men finally got sight of Ionut.
After hunkering down in the settlement for the night, the 4 men decided to take turns to keep watch around the small fireplace they had made in the centre. At approximately 1am that night, with Radu watching over the others - he caught sight of Ionut. A skinny man, no older than 20, just on the edge of the tree line. Radu struggled to make it out at first, but it seemed he was gnawing on the head of a rat. Ionut had long fangs, and red marks all over his skin. His nose was basically none existent, two holes in the centre of his face acting as nostrils. He had not a head of hair, but tufts of black hair. After getting over the initial shock of the appearance of Ionut, Radu raised his rifle and fired. He struck Ionut in the chest, killing him instantly. When the men inspected the body, they found blood around his mouth. Around his neck was a crucifix. A crucifix later confirmed to be that of the man that had been killed and blood drained in the woods. Ionut was the vampire they’d been looking for. It wasn’t until many years later, after his death, that more information on Ionut would present the full picture of what had happened. What had caused him to become the vampire that the men from the village went to hunt.
‘Ionut’ was born in approximately the early 1950s - placing him to be in his late teens at the time of the killings. Ionut was born in the settlement - and like most of the others - was a product of generations of inbreeding. This gave Ionut a frail figure and an overbite, his teeth protruding over his bottom lip. It also gave him a rare genetic blood disorder - named porphyria. Porphyria is a blood disease that occurs when porphyrins affect the nervous system. Interestingly, porphyria is now also known as the vampires disease. This is because sufferers have an extreme sensitivity to sunlight, leading to facial disfigurement and blackened skin - hence why sufferers tend to only go out at night. This also leads to a general avoidance of mirrors, as when the condition progresses and their appearance becomes more horrifying, sufferers tend to understandably want to avoid seeing what they look like. Aggressive forms of the disease can also attack the gums and cause them to recede, causing the teeth to be exposed entirely, as if they were fangs. Furthermore, the defect in their red blood cells can cause a craving for blood - in order to replace their own.
Ionut and his family were not vampires. They had all been sufferers of a rare genetic blood disorder. One that had been passed down for generations, with the inbreeding simply worsening the symptoms of the disorder.
Obviously this information didn’t become clear until more research was done on the disorder in the 1990s, when a Romanian medical student who had heard about the case as a child put 2 and 2 together. Until then, Ionut was known as the Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains. Stalking the night, using his long sharp fangs to pierce the necks and drink the blood of anyone unfortunate enough to cross him. It’s uncertain whether the man in the woods was the only human Ionut ever killed, or if there was a chance the man was already dead when he found him - and no one will ever know.
Ionut was described to actually be somewhat of a religious man. Some of the settlement dwellers described how most evenings as a boy he’d be found praying contently by himself - perhaps praying to be normal.
As far as the men from the village were concerned however, the vampire had been slain and they could return to Alma Vii as heroes. Many thought this was the end of the story, until September 13th 1988. With Radu Popescu having contracted tuberculosis, lying on his death bed with his wife and only son by his side. He let them know how much he loved them, before revealing there was something he had to say. He hadn’t said it sooner, as he didn’t want to panic anybody in the village, but as he was leaving the settlement on 21st May 1968 - one of the settlement women pulled him in close to tell him something. She said there was a girl in the settlement, Ionut’s half-sister. She was the only one Ionut was ever seen spending time with as a child - noting that in her appearance she was relatively normal. A year prior to the events unfolding, she had become pregnant with Ionut’s child. She became the first to leave the settlement to give birth, travelling to a town 18km away. Radu described how the woman pulled him in close at this point. ‘She gave birth to the children of Ionut. Triplets. Three boys. Three boys that will have the vampire curse. Three boys that will seek revenge when they come of age’. Radu Popescu died on September 14th 1988, with his wife and son passing his final message on to the villagers of Alma Vii.
The final reported incident occurred in the village of Zlagna (only 45km from Alma Vii), by a man named Bogdan Guskov, in October 1988. Guskov was a farmer as well, describing how he awoke one night to his sheep crying. When he went to investigate, all of them were dead, drained of blood by a single bite mark to the neck. Interestingly, when he filed a report with the local police, he mentioned a detail that would haunt Bogdan Dumitrus and the rest of the villagers of Alma Vii for the rest of their lives. Guskov claimed it was not a bear, or a wolf, that had commited this heinous crime. That it was a man. That he had found footprints heading into the nearby woods - three pairs of human footprints.
*Reader Note - no children of Ionut could ever be found nor identified. This information is unconfirmed, but a recent survey in 2016 found that over 70% of people in the region believe in vampires. With 24% of respondents stating they had seen a vampire themselves.*

*This story is non-fictional, containing the accounts of a true series of events that transpired in the late 1960s. All names and place names are genuine and true to the facts of the case.\*
Due to the graphic nature of these accounts, reader discretion is advised.
The story begins in the mountains of Romania - a village called Alma Vii. Alma Vii has a population of only 290 people, with agriculture being the main way of life and source of income for most of the population. Due to the strong influence of agriculture, the most common means of transport (even of today) is still the horse cart.
Radu Popescu was born in 1936, and grew up on one of the many farms in the village. When his father died in 1957, he would take over the farm at the age of 21, by himself.
It was in May 1968 that the events of this story would begin to unfold. Events which began on a warm early-summer evening. Radu had completed his chores for the day. Feeding the animals, tending to his crops and conducting maintenance on the farm. At around 10pm, he said he went to sleep, with everything in perfect order. Radu woke at around 2am, to the sound of his sheep outside crying in distress. With the presence of wolves and bears in this region of the Romanian Carpathian mountains, Radu feared the worst. He took his rifle from his bedside, and set out from the farmhouse into the dark outdoors. He cautiously headed towards the sheep barn, preparing himself for an encounter with a wild predatory animal. When he entered the barn, there was no animal. And no sheep either.
Radu was shocked to find all 12 of his sheep lying motionless on the floor, the moon illuminating the blood splatters on their white coats. He immediately began to search for signs for an animal, but it seemed as if it had fled by then. Radu however, claims to have then spotted footprints on the ground. Footprints of a man. At 6am the same morning, after no sleep, Radu Popescu would file a complaint to the local police officer in Alma Vii - with claims that it was a vampire that had killed his sheep.
Popescu’s official report can still be found online, with it’s original Romanian being translated to English kindly by u/conandivljak). The report reads as follows:
‘ (14/05/68)…they were all dead. For them to die in such a short time, it must not have been more than 5 or 6 minutes. And it was the way I found them - look for yourself! They have all been bitten by human teeth marks! Not wolf or a bear! And their blood - drained. I know this sounds ridiculous - our mothers told us legends of vampires to scare us, of Vlad Tepes, this is real I promise.’
Radu’s claims were met with a mixture of belief and doubt from the local police and fellow villagers. Vampires play a huge role in Romanian folklore, with Radu even referring Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) whom Bram Stoker based his character ‘Dracula’ from. Many Romanians even today, especially in the more rural mountainous areas, believe in the existence of vampires. However, many will also believe them to be a story made by mothers to warn children from straying into the woods.
A few days later, on 18th May 1968, a neighbour of Radu Popescu would report a similar incident. The unnamed farmer claimed 2 of his goats died in a similar way to Radu’s sheep. With a single bite mark and a drainage of blood. The farmer also allegedly claimed to have seen a man running off into the woods, up one of the many engulfing mountains, but this information could not be verified.
By this point, Radu and a few of his supportive neighbours and friends had seemingly had enough of sleeping in fear. On 20th May, Radu Popescu and 3 other men decided to stay up in their barns with the animals. They each were armed with a rifle, and agreed to shoot on sight if any intruders came in. It was around 3:45am, when a shot could be heard from one of the men’s, Bogdan Dumitru’s, barn. Radu and the 2 other men rushed over, to find Bogdan hurriedly run out of the barn. He shouted at them that he had missed his shot, and that the killer was fleeing into the forest up the mountain. Radu and the 2 other men stopped Bogdan from pursuing him, reminding him of the other dangers the woods held at night time. He agreed, and the men made a plan to set out there tomorrow.
At 8am on 21st May 1968, 7 men from the village of Alma Vii would set off into the forest up the mountain. This included Radu Popescu, Bogdan Dumitrus and Andrei Balan (the local police officer) as well as 4 others. The men set off with the goal of deciding who or what was responsible for the deaths for the numerous livestock, however only an hour into their journey, the stakes were raised drastically.
Journeying up the mountain through the forest, Andrei Balan spotted something tucked into a bush. Upon further inspection, he realised it was the corpse of a young man (‘approximately 30 years old, with black hair and beard’). The man had 2 bite marks, the first (seemingly unsuccessful bite) was on his lower back with a second, deeper bite on his neck. The man’s drying blood suggested this was a recent murder, of that same night, and the men theorised that the creature had become hungry when Bogdan had scared it from his livestock. They were unsure if this was the first person to be killed by it - but it only added to their insistence in finding the beast. They agreed that Andrei Balan and two others would take the body back to the village in hopes of identifying the man, and then into the local city to file a report of a murder. The rest would continue the journey.
Radu, Bogdan and the two other men continued walking for a few hours. It was around 7pm, a long way up the mountain, in an even more isolated location than their own village - they found a small settlement. Bogdan later described the settlement as ‘it was absolutely tiny. Their huts were so small, maybe about 15 buildings. They had hay for roofs and they were not built well, they had no animals either. Some dogs were roaming around but that was it.’
The men became even more unsettled when they met the sparse population of the small settlement. They described the people as all having some kind of facial deformity, missing an eye or a disfigured limb. They would have a severe underbite or limited/no teeth.
What the men had stumbled upon was the Orsova region of the Carpathian Mountains. This region was home to a number of incredibly isolated, tiny settlements that had been there for hundreds of years. Due to the size of the settlements and the isolation, inbreeding was prevalent amongst the people - resulting in their unusual appearances. When the group of men began to question the villagers, they initially found it hard to communicate with them as their literacy levels were so low. When they finally managed to ask if they knew anything of a vampire, the people of the settlement all managed to agree on one name: Ionut. No last name could ever be found for Ionut, but his story would soon begin to unfold.
The men demanded to see him immediately, but the settlement people explained they had not seen him themselves for a couple of weeks. That he was a vampire, and had disappeared after killing and drinking the blood of a local dog. The settlement people told the men how Ionut was born to a line of vampires. They had fangs and would only appear at night, that when they became old enough - they would drink the blood of animals or people. They said that Ionut’s bloodline had been vampires for hundreds of years - as long as they’d been there - and that they had had to learn to live with them. When the men asked the settlement people how they managed to live with a vampire, they explained how Ionut and his forefathers all shared the same aversion to mirrors. All of the houses in the village had an abundance of mirrors throughout them, as well as candles that were to be lit at night. They explained to the men that this prevented vampires from entering their homes.
Upon hearing all of this information, the men were all shocked. Radu and Bogdan later admitted they even doubted themselves what the inbred villagers were saying, that the vampire they spoke of sounded so cliche - it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable until that night, when the men finally got sight of Ionut.
After hunkering down in the settlement for the night, the 4 men decided to take turns to keep watch around the small fireplace they had made in the centre. At approximately 1am that night, with Radu watching over the others - he caught sight of Ionut. A skinny man, no older than 20, just on the edge of the tree line. Radu struggled to make it out at first, but it seemed he was gnawing on the head of a rat. Ionut had long fangs, and red marks all over his skin. His nose was basically none existent, two holes in the centre of his face acting as nostrils. He had not a head of hair, but tufts of black hair. After getting over the initial shock of the appearance of Ionut, Radu raised his rifle and fired. He struck Ionut in the chest, killing him instantly. When the men inspected the body, they found blood around his mouth. Around his neck was a crucifix. A crucifix later confirmed to be that of the man that had been killed and blood drained in the woods. Ionut was the vampire they’d been looking for. It wasn’t until many years later, after his death, that more information on Ionut would present the full picture of what had happened. What had caused him to become the vampire that the men from the village went to hunt.
‘Ionut’ was born in approximately the early 1950s - placing him to be in his late teens at the time of the killings. Ionut was born in the settlement - and like most of the others - was a product of generations of inbreeding. This gave Ionut a frail figure and an overbite, his teeth protruding over his bottom lip. It also gave him a rare genetic blood disorder - named porphyria. Porphyria is a blood disease that occurs when porphyrins affect the nervous system. Interestingly, porphyria is now also known as the vampires disease. This is because sufferers have an extreme sensitivity to sunlight, leading to facial disfigurement and blackened skin - hence why sufferers tend to only go out at night. This also leads to a general avoidance of mirrors, as when the condition progresses and their appearance becomes more horrifying, sufferers tend to understandably want to avoid seeing what they look like. Aggressive forms of the disease can also attack the gums and cause them to recede, causing the teeth to be exposed entirely, as if they were fangs. Furthermore, the defect in their red blood cells can cause a craving for blood - in order to replace their own.
Ionut and his family were not vampires. They had all been sufferers of a rare genetic blood disorder. One that had been passed down for generations, with the inbreeding simply worsening the symptoms of the disorder.
Obviously this information didn’t become clear until more research was done on the disorder in the 1990s, when a Romanian medical student who had heard about the case as a child put 2 and 2 together. Until then, Ionut was known as the Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains. Stalking the night, using his long sharp fangs to pierce the necks and drink the blood of anyone unfortunate enough to cross him. It’s uncertain whether the man in the woods was the only human Ionut ever killed, or if there was a chance the man was already dead when he found him - and no one will ever know.
Ionut was described to actually be somewhat of a religious man. Some of the settlement dwellers described how most evenings as a boy he’d be found praying contently by himself - perhaps praying to be normal.
As far as the men from the village were concerned however, the vampire had been slain and they could return to Alma Vii as heroes. Many thought this was the end of the story, until September 13th 1988. With Radu Popescu having contracted tuberculosis, lying on his death bed with his wife and only son by his side. He let them know how much he loved them, before revealing there was something he had to say. He hadn’t said it sooner, as he didn’t want to panic anybody in the village, but as he was leaving the settlement on 21st May 1968 - one of the settlement women pulled him in close to tell him something. She said there was a girl in the settlement, Ionut’s half-sister. She was the only one Ionut was ever seen spending time with as a child - noting that in her appearance she was relatively normal. A year prior to the events unfolding, she had become pregnant with Ionut’s child. She became the first to leave the settlement to give birth, travelling to a town 18km away. Radu described how the woman pulled him in close at this point. ‘She gave birth to the children of Ionut. Triplets. Three boys. Three boys that will have the vampire curse. Three boys that will seek revenge when they come of age’. Radu Popescu died on September 14th 1988, with his wife and son passing his final message on to the villagers of Alma Vii.
The final reported incident occurred in the village of Zlagna (only 45km from Alma Vii), by a man named Bogdan Guskov, in October 1988. Guskov was a farmer as well, describing how he awoke one night to his sheep crying. When he went to investigate, all of them were dead, drained of blood by a single bite mark to the neck. Interestingly, when he filed a report with the local police, he mentioned a detail that would haunt Bogdan Dumitrus and the rest of the villagers of Alma Vii for the rest of their lives. Guskov claimed it was not a bear, or a wolf, that had commited this heinous crime. That it was a man. That he had found footprints heading into the nearby woods - three pairs of human footprints.
*Reader Note - no children of Ionut could ever be found nor identified. This information is unconfirmed, but a recent survey in 2016 found that over 70% of people in the region believe in vampires. With 24% of respondents stating they had seen a vampire themselves.

Preparation and Getting Started
You may have gathered up your Tellbones, but there’s a lot of other work that comes with spirit communication that can save you from significant headache or worse. It can also really shine a light on possibilities and make things significantly easier!
First of all, communication and all the problems that come with it goes in both directions. Sometimes you have a question for the Wights around you, and sometimes they have a question for you. Sometimes you don’t understand them, and sometimes they’re clueless about what your mumbles mean. There are gaps here, and translation can be difficult.
You’ve got to pay attention, and do your best to understand and be clear. Pay attention to the context of the conversation. A yes in one situation is a “oh, hell no!” in another situation. For example, if you’re asking if you should stay in your current home, then that dynamic moving Fire bone probably doesn’t really mean yes. Stable Earth, do not move, seems like a more accurate “yes, stay here” message.
If you phrase your questions correctly and clearly, that will help you get consistently understandable messages. Another tip is to focus your questions so that a yes is always best represented by the Fire bone, so that you know exactly what the Bones mean when, and so do the spirits you’re talking with.
Keep in mind that your questions are not necessarily appropriate to any Wight of any kind. You don’t go ask monks about marriage problems (well, you shouldn’t, anyway) because they’re often the least qualified to have anything helpful to say. Their knowledge is limited. Likewise, you might not wanna go drop F-bombs on the various Archangels. There are different registers we speak in – how we talk at work isn’t necessarily the same as how we talk to our friends, and the same applies to spirits.
On the contrary side of that, just because a Wight isn't a money-goddoesn't mean you can't ask them. Just be aware that they're going to give you advice or information filtered through their lens. This is not unusual or unexpected - if you have a friend who is amazing at fixing cars (or applying acrylic nails, or who reads every smutty romance that was ever published, or...), it doesn't mean you can't ask them about investments, or car problems, or what to read next. It just means your answer will be in their opinion view. The woman fixing you car might recommend a spy novel to read, and the guy doing your nails might have some handy tips on simple car repair. Aphrodite knows how to handle conflict too, you know.
Respect your boundaries. If some spirit says you need to move to Guatemala and start a multi-level marketing scheme there, that doesn’t mean you should do it. If they say donate all your worldly good to the homeless and become a monk – do you even want to do that? Because if no, respect your own boundaries. You wouldn’t flat out obey these commandments just because a human said so, and you shouldn’t do the same when a Wight does it either. We’ll get more into all of these kinds of situations, and more, but there’s a start to it. Speaking of starts, how do you start a conversation with spirit? It’s really a lot simpler than you think, but just to be clear, let’s go over some of the details you might want to think about.
Making the Call
Mindset goes a long way to setting up a conversation. If you’ve ever had to explain yourself before a judge, you know exactly what I mean when I say that your mindset will make or break the conversation. Same goes if you’ve ever tried to ask someone out on a date when you didn’t know if they liked you like that or not. Your mouth gets dry when you’re nervous, you flub your words, and your mind goes into overdrive analyzing what you’ve said in the worst possible light. You end up missing their response.
Start the conversation calmly. Don’t worry about demonic possession or looking foolish. Set aside your expectations about what you have to be like and how they should respond. These are not new ideas – this is how we to talk to other people, and well, aren’t Wights included in those other people too? Damn right they are.
In that same vein – drop your expectations. Odds are good you won’t attract the attention of Metatron or Asmodeus. Are you conscious of every cell in your little toe? Only at very specific, excruciating moments, I can imagine. Don’t expect who will respond to you, or what they look like, or who could or could not answer you – those excruciating moments do happen sometimes, and after all, you could be the throbbing toenail of the High and Holy Lord God Almighty this one time.
Which actually leads gracefully (almost as if I’d planned it, yeah?) into the next topic – if you want to talk to someone, you have to get their attention. If you sit there muttering to yourself in the corner, I suppose that could get attention, but it’s not going to be the kind you want. Resonance is key here. If you want to talk to the spirit of your house about some plumbing problems you’ve been having, it’s probably best to be in your house, near the plumbing mains, surrounded by symbols of water and plumbing. Holding your conversation out in the woods at midnight under a full moon (a fool moon?) – kudos for aesthetics, but negative marks for common sense.
There is a VERY simple method that has been used nigh universally to get attention at the beginning of a conversation. Make a noise. Sing or yell, ring a bell. Clap 3 times or 4 snaps in Z-formation – whatever works for you. A lot of Asian traditions use clapping, which I like to combine with some simple energy offerings. Rub your hands together until you can feel the energy flowing, and then make your claps, firmly and purposefully. It’s amazing how effective this simple exercise can be.
A simple call is not a bad either. It doesn’t need to be one of those complicated, drawn-out, thee-andthou-filled invocations. It can really be as simple as “Fred, Wight of Floor Coverings, I want to talk to you! I have questions about carpets!” You can get a lot more formal, of course, but that depends on you, your Wight friend, and the aesthetic you share – it’s definitely not required by most Wights.
How do you know what their names are, though? Is it really Fred? Well, you have multiple options here. For one, you can just use generic terms, in much the same way a lot of people just say “my totem is Wolf ” - they mean the Wight of Wolves, probably. If you don’t know his name is Fred, just call him the Wight of Floor Covering. Or Floorcovering. “O Benevolent Floorcovering, I beseech thee for thy aid in selecting a good purple shag”. Like you do. Or whatever.
You can always give the Wight a name, and ask if they like it. Those guys who named Asmodeus and Tzadkiel and all them had to come up with names somehow too, right? Those are essentially the previous method with “El” tacked on. They do the same in Shinto a lot, just adding “Kami”. In this case, you might have Marqhadel (Carpet-god) or Otatamigami (Honorable Kami of Floor Mats).
As an example, I am very close to the Wight of Spiders. I was born premature when a Black Widow bit my mother, who then went into shock and then labor. Alas, it was not radioactive. Spiders have always been a significant presence in my life, and I do have some of their powers – I am convinced that my language ability is one of the things I got from Her. Now, one of the things I haven’t mentioned – my language geekery extends so far that I have even created my own language (a conlang, it’s called, from constructed language). In that language (taalen, mentioned elsewhere here), I call Her Ammuaya, which means “Webmother”, which She likes.
I also call Her Araine, an Old English (via French) word for spider – I even have that in a tattoo of Her. It can be that simple, and since it’s your relationship, you can call each other whatever you like. Maybe you have nicknames for your friends - this really doesn’t have to be any different. It’s about you, them, your relationship, and okay, probably a little bit of your aesthetic. I have a friend who dresses Lucifer in pink, and another who has a way with words that turns the most innocuous hum drum object into the darkest and spookiest mystery in the world. Whatever you do, if they like it, you’re on the way to a strong connection.
Resonance is also one of the ways of getting seen. If you’re looking to interact with an Angel in the Christian tradition, it’s probably a good idea to have a cross on you and be pure in all the ways that Leviticus suggests (just kidding! That’s unpossible). Depending on the denomination, they all have differing ideas about how it should be done. For instance, if you’re Catholic, maybe go to confession first, for example, because that resonates with the tradition that this specific Wight participates in. If you want to get the attention of the Wight of Foxes, then perhaps having foxes live nearby would be a good idea. This is the same as how if you want friends that are “fill in the blank” at school, you have to do certain things that would get their attention. You have to resonate with their interests to be seen and get their attention.
Some of that resonance is traditionally done via various ritual methods – a red cloth on the altar with a sword for Mars, for example. There are other ways to develop that resonance too. Choose an incense (if you swing that way) that the Wight would like. Anoint yourself, or the altar, or some symbolic object with magical oils or other substances - Ash Wednesday might be a good day for talking to Angels. Make your own oils and incense, using appropriate herbs and stones. Amethyst is a good stone for addiction, for example (amethyst literally means not-drunk, after all) – keep some around if you want to talk to the spirits you’re addicted to and make a change. You can create charms and talismans to make talking to some Wight easier too. This is a famous way to do it, and the grimoires are filled with them. I’ve got some to share eventually as well.
Knock Knock, Who’s There?
In traditions outside of the Western world, there’s a habit that I think is a Really Good Idea™. Here in the West we tend not to check the identity of who we’re communicating with. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed “The Goddess told me” with no backup at all, or proclamation from on high about how “Odin said”, or “your Ancestors want you to”, or you name it. I appreciate the effort, but there’s got to be a sense of validation and skeptical appreciation.
Validating who you’re talking to is a very common step in a lot of other traditions. It’s probably safe to assume that if you’re at a shrine, you’re probably talking to the Wight enshrined there, or one of their assistants at the very least. That is how it generally works in Asian traditions, where if you want a conversation with Ol’ So-and-So, you go to their altar or shrine. In African traditions, there’s a greater concern with identity, and more of an effort to identify who you’re speaking to.
Until you have developed a relationship to the point where you’ve got an altar or shrine or spirit home of some sort, or you can recognize their voice, it’s probably not a bad idea to check. Bone fides are not a bad thing – we do it all the time in material conversations. Business cards, “Hi Dad, I’m hungry” (and all the jokes), “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name”, and so on. Why wouldn’t you ask someone you’re talking to what their name is? And especially if you think they’re likely to help you or teach you something?
It’s specifically one of the most important and most useful first steps you can take to establish a relationship. Getting a “phone number” for your chosen Wight(s) is also a great idea, and one that has a rich tradition and history. Sigils and seals of Angels and Demons in all those grimoires are classic phone numbers. Statuary. Traditional prayers and orations – it may not be your tradition to call on anyone with all the Christian magical prayers, but they’re sort of the “zip code” for some Wights, and it’s to your advantage if you use them as tradition dictates.
Really, when you think about it, talking to the Wights around you really isn’t all that different from all the other people you talk to on a daily basis. Just extend the same courtesy. Introduce yourself. Be polite. Say please and thank you. Ask their name. It’s obvious when you think about it like this, isn’t it? (Of course – Or Not! It’s your relationship, so do what the two of you agree too.) Start out with tradition, but if Forneus says “Dude, just call my name. I don’t need all that other stuff ”, then that may be an option.
Depending on your tradition, you may want to keep “all that other stuff ” anyway, but at least you know there are other ways to do things. Ultimately, doing a validation is pretty simple, really. Use your Tellbones! Start with the most likely and expected Wights first. If you go in expecting to talk to Fred, Wight of Floor Coverings, and you’ve called his name and rung the bell, odds are decent that you’ll get him. Ask the bones if you’re in touch with Fred, and throw.
After the expected Wight, check if you’re talking to your Ancestors or local Landwights. Your Ancestors have vested interests in you, and they tend to be around all the time. They’re part of you, after all. And the Landwights are always under your feet, so they tend to be common as well. They also tend to masquerade as other beings a lot, since they’re so rarely recognized for who they are. Most of the ghosts out there are Landwights trying to get your attention.
Continue asking about the obvious as long as you have obvious possibilities you can think of. Eventually, you may have to resort to asking about broad categories and then narrow down from there. It’s like 20 Questions, actually.

Is it who I think it is (Fred)?
- Nope
How about my Ancestors?
- No
Landwights?
- No
How about Wights of Construction?
- Yes
Oh! Cool! So is it THE Wight of Construction?
- No
How about the Wight of Interior Design?
- Yes!

And there you go - now you know who you’re speaking to.
Well, mostly.
Remember, there are as many liars and shysters in the Spiritworld as there are anywhere else. It’s a good idea to validate that you really do have the right person. The easy way? Ask again: Really? The Wight of Interior Design? Yes. Or even ask three times, as the whole three times spoken thing is pretty powerful globally. That’s doesn’t mean it is absolutely true just because they said yes 3 times in a row - they could be lying still. It’s a good stopgap for the moment though. When you were a kid, when you asked repeatedly, didn’t the older sibling eventually give up and say “Sheesh! Fine! Yes! I have chocolate and you can’t have any because!”
Annoying can be useful sometimes, but there are other techniques we’ll get into later to help ensure that you can validate that a Wight is who they claim to be, without being that kid.

What am I looking for? Well mostly for someone to speak to on a consistent basis who I gel well and get along with well.
As for myself I am a blunt and honest person so if you ask me something and want a straight answer I'm your guy for giving an honest assessment even if you don't like it. That being said I am kind and caring and will ask about your day and life and anything going on I can help with I will offer.
In terms of my hobbies or interests I am a massive animal lover, this can be confirmed by my cats at home my snake and the dog! All of whom live in perfect harmony and who I never want to turn into tea cosy's for meowing at 4am...
I am also a gamer, I play my pc mostly which is my main source of entertainment however I also have access to my switch and my ps4 in case the mood takes me! I am also a big board gamer these days which I must say i enjoy alot!
I am a gym goer and do enjoy a good strength session for sure.
Music is also something I love, very into my rock music and a lot of the old west coast rap music right now.
Tattoos! Several pieces of art on my body including a Bowser and a Pokémon tattoos, yes I display my nerdiness proudly!
I am also in the process of a complete change in my career which is really exciting for me !!
If you fancy a chat about anything above or anything in general come and say Hi!

Verification - https://imgur.com/a/tWHB94r

muI2Aq2

Very good condition except the inlay area. The grip itself is a little uneven, an issue common with this style of Parker due to poor storage conditions with heat and whatnot. The inlay has some grip on it, kind of like an overbite lol. Writes very well. Very straight forward pen, I'll be including the original Parker squeeze converter with it.

2- Parker Arrow(?) Stub - $75 → $60! https://imgur.com/a/XKQasYW

I haven't seen really any of these on here. This has a conical factory stub nib installed on it, which I fancy quite a bit. The clip is a little crooked and I did my best to fix the angle within my comfort range. Neat little pen from the 80s. Grip is textured and a Kaweco-esque piston converter is included.

3- Sheaffer 440 Quasi-Imperial - $45→ $40! https://imgur.com/a/JHQIR1P

I smoothed the tipping on this guy after aligning the tines a little more, now it's REAL smooth. The nib is still a little bendy and warpy, but it was worse before I got to it. There's a weird texture spot on the grip, but it doesn't feel like much and doesn't effect writing at all. Body threads are metal. I like this pen quite a bit. Including original squeeze converter.

4- Eberhard Faber Permapoint - $25 https://imgur.com/a/BTnY0mo

This is a neat little pen I got. I believe from the 30s to compete with lower end Parker and Sheaffer, I'm quite frankly surprised it's still around! There's some tarnish and plating wear on the cap ring and DEFINITELY the nib, but it functions well. The steel feels like old steel (and says SUPREME on it), maybe because it is, which I find fascinating in the hand. The barrel imrint is VERY legible! Scuffs on the barrel and cap and a nice chip on the cap finial.

5- Scripto 'Ink Reserve (?) - $30→ $20! for both https://imgur.com/a/swfk8po

I haven't found much info on these. I suspect 1957, almost certainly 50s. Ideally I'd sell both at once for the above price, but I'd be okay with separating the pair and shipping them alongside other pens.

6- Pilot c55 Super Quality- $10 → $5 with another purchase- https://imgur.com/a/McSHPJ8

Bit of a leaky spot on the grip, only leaks on fingers and napkins and not into the cap. Very annoying, but if you hold your pens far back this is very nice. I'm able to get a little variation from this thin steel nib which is really neat.

7- Cross Century 1 Ballpoint in Chrome- $5 with another purchase

Cartridge retracts as normal, company engraving is present "GC SERVICES CORP". Grip is nicely textured, I use a non-engraved one as my daily ballpoint carry. Refills readily available at Staples but I'll ship it with the old one installed.

8- Lamy Safari- $12 → $10 with another purchase

Dip tested after very thorough soak and cleaning, all seems fine. Body has blemishes, likely kept in a drawer for quite some time. M nib and empty cartridge included.

Please note that as always... -More pictures are available upon request -Paypal G&S only -Shipping from NY, US

What am I looking for? Well mostly for someone to speak to on a consistent basis who I gel well and get along with well.
As for myself I am a blunt and honest person so if you ask me something and want a straight answer I'm your guy for giving an honest assessment even if you don't like it. That being said I am kind and caring and will ask about your day and life and anything going on I can help with I will offer.
In terms of my hobbies or interests I am a massive animal lover, this can be confirmed by my cats at home my snake and the dog! All of whom live in perfect harmony and who I never want to turn into tea cosy's for meowing at 4am...
I am also a gamer, I play my pc mostly which is my main source of entertainment however I also have access to my switch and my ps4 in case the mood takes me! I am also a big board gamer these days which I must say i enjoy alot!
I am a gym goer and do enjoy a good strength session for sure.
Music is also something I love, very into my rock music and a lot of the old west coast rap music right now.
Tattoos! Several pieces of art on my body including a Bowser and a Pokémon tattoos, yes I display my nerdiness proudly!
I am also in the process of a complete change in my career which is really exciting for me !!
If you fancy a chat about anything above or anything in general come and say Hi!

I'm 24 year old from Syria, want to chat with native German speakers, my current German level is B1 And maybe we can use English as a middle ground if the discussion gets complicated. I'm a doctor, I'm traveling to Germany in a few months, and my English is B2

Would this story be acceptable for plausibility? If we say, "I made it out of there by ascending the silver spire" or whatever, and that it is a memory, does that suffice? The part 1 is below

I died and went to Hell. Next to the Lake of Blood, I found a list of rules [part 1]

Throughout my life, I was always a piece of shit. From an early age, I joined a gang and started selling drugs. Anything from weed to heroin to crack sold itself, but on the unforgiving streets of the city, a single mistake could be fatal. I always carried a cheap burner pistol that I could throw away after using it. I know quite a few friends and acquaintances who died from drugs I sold them- some overdosing, others crashing their cars while high. A couple of them committed suicide during opiate withdrawals. One got cut in half by a train while nodding off.
But by seventeen, I had committed my first confirmed murder- a rival gang member and drug dealer who pulled a gun on me first. I had probably killed people before, but I never watched the news after a shooting or a stabbing to see the result. I wasn’t interested in the slightest.
In this case, I had just been slightly quicker than my rival and, a fraction of a second later, his forehead imploded like a smashed pumpkin in front of me, spraying bone splinters and brains all over the sidewalk. He stumbled forward a step before falling forward. His pistol went off in his dying hand, but it went low, the bullet disappearing with a crack into the nearby street. He fell forward with a dull thud, his legs kicking as if he were seizing.
The sidewalk of the dead end street we stood on spun around me for a moment. The many abandoned, rotting houses of the city loomed over us like hanging corpses. My ears gave a high-pitched shriek of tinnitus from the gunshots.
Nervous, I looked up and down the side street. The entire place seemed silent and dead. Then I heard voices nearby and saw lights turning on in the front yards and windows of houses. Without a moment of hesitation, I took off, sprinting blindly away from the crime scene, not caring much where I was going. Someone a few houses down came out, an old black man in his boxers and slippers. He saw me running and called out something in a quavering voice. I didn’t slow down for a moment.
Not long after, I heard the wailing of sirens off in the distance. They were drawing closer by the second. When the street abruptly ended in a cul-de-sac of mostly abandoned and dilapidated houses, I chose one at random and cut across its back yard, jumped over the rusted metal fence and kept on running, cutting across random yards and jumping more fences until I started making my way back towards downtown.
After about five minutes, I got to a street with a lot more traffic and people. Covered in sweat, I walked casually back towards my tiny, cockroach-infested apartment.
I thought I had gotten away with it. I thought I had been able to kill this worthless scumbag without anyone noticing. But there were more eyes glittering behind the veil than I realized at that moment.
I went back home- and that was the night I died and went to Hell.
***
I lived on the first floor in a building with falling-down rafters and a flat black roof like an infected scab. The paint on the outside was the color of vomit, the windows cracked and broken. Moreover, the place always smelled like Mexican food and chemicals, and every night, I would hear gunshots and panicked screams outside.
I sat down at the table and opened a beer. The ancient CRT TV was on, showing some old horror movie from the 1970s. I took a deep breath, relieved. I didn’t expect a thing to happen at that moment.
Suddenly, my door burst open as if someone had fired a cannonball at it. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Standing there, I saw a dozen black police in SWAT gear holding rifles. The laser sights jumped and danced across the floor before they converged on my head and chest. Someone screamed something in a hoarse voice, but I didn’t understand. The words sounded garbled, like the whispering of a demon. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
I fell back in my chair in surprise. A single breath later, one of them opened fire. I felt the first bullet crash through my left shoulder, felt the bone shatter and the flesh explode behind it, warm blood running down my back and chest.
The next moment, others joined in. I didn’t feel the bullet that smashed into my head and sent me to Hell. It moved fast, faster than my nerves. It must have moved as fast as death itself.
The blackness descended on me like a cloud.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. It seemed like an eternity, full of freezing darkness and screams that came from everywhere and nowhere. I remember coming awake suddenly, standing before a face formed from blinding white light. I was healed without any signs of wound or blood from the gunshots. I found myself standing naked and alone in the freezing winds.
I was shivering, my arms wrapped protectively around my chest as I stood on a flat plain of cracked, gray stone. The wind whipped around me as if I were in a hurricane, blowing sand and dust across the eternal plains. The features of the endless face constantly melted and shifted, spiraling out with bolts of lightning that cracked and sizzled all around the hurricane of light. The face seemed to stand miles high with eyes that spun like the Sun.
“Where am I?” I whispered in terror. The face of infinite light stared down at me with a blinding intensity. It seemed to see every thought, every feeling, every memory. I could feel it looking through me as if I were glass.
“You are in the Bardo,” the being said in a voice like an exploding nuclear bomb. “I am the one who sees. I am GOD, the creator of the universe and all who live within it. In the end, to Me you will always return. Did you not know you would one day have to stand here?” I shook my head.
“No… I… I…” I stuttered in terror, unable to respond.
“I have seen your evil, for indeed, I am closer to you than your own jugular vein, your own heart. Did you not see the suffering of those who harmed the innocent, those who murdered and stole and lived their lives wallowing in filth? Did you not see them get wounded, shot, stabbed, strangled and imprisoned? Did you not see them die in their evil and return to Me?”
“I did,” I admitted. “Many times.”
“And yet you have fallen into the sickness yourself,” God said in a voice like a rushing waterfall. Fury and anger seemed to seethe from him. Dozens of bolts of lightning flashed out from all sides of that radiant face. “For this, you must be purified. Your soul must be cleansed with fire. For that is the fate of those who harm the innocent- they fall down to the bottomless pit, to the blazing inferno whose fuel is men and stones. The flames eat them all greedily, and then the fires cry out to Me for more.”
My body felt like it was covered with stinging hornets. Excruciating pins and needles ran all up and down my legs and arms. I looked down, seeing a swirling dark hole opening up underneath me in the field of gray stone, spitting out drops of liquid blackness. They splashed upwards, burning through my skin like napalm, but no blood came out. It was as if my body were dissolving into dripping shadows that pulled me downwards. I felt myself slowly falling through the eternal stone plain as unseen hands dragged me away. As I descended, I heard the voice of God one last time.
“Down into the pit you will go, to the valley of wailing and the lake of flames where the damned scream for peace that never comes, to the city of shadows, to Naraka…”
***
Beneath me, the shadowy tunnel descended. I fell through it like lightning. Everything spun around me at an incredible speed. Suddenly, I broke through something, some invisible barrier in the endless darkness. I found myself falling through a cloud of suffocating smoke, and then the world opened up all around me.
A blood-red sky with thick black clouds extended out in all directions. I glimpsed a world of sharp cliffs and rivers of lava that wound their way down mountains of obsidian.
I fell through the middle of the sky at a tremendous speed, the wind whipping around my ears like a hurricane. A scream ripped its way out of my throat, but I was traveling so fast I could barely hear it as the echoes disappeared above me. Below me was what looked like a massive lake filled with blood about half a mile wide, and it was coming up to meet me fast. Many struggling bodies writhed in the currents, trying to claw their way out. I crashed through the surface at an incredible speed, going deep under the warm crimson waves.
The bloody water of the lake filled my mouth and nose with the overwhelming taste of copper and iron. I started trying to swim back up to the surface, frantically kicking and pushing with my arms and legs. I opened my eyes, and the salty blood stung them. It looked like I was peering through a translucent red film into a world of deep-sea abominations. Long snakes with two heads swam all around me, snapping and biting at each other and any legs or arms nearby. I saw them drag people down one by one, wrapping their slick bodies around their struggling victims as they drowned.
I broke through the surface, inhaling deeply. I was worried about the snakes and whatever else was slinking around down there. Thousands of people treaded water in the massive lake, trying to make their way to the shores. The nearest person to me was only ten feet away, a young woman with panicked eyes and wavy black hair. As I watched her, she gave a scream of terror and then was dragged under the surface, struggling and kicking. She never reappeared.
All around me, I smelled the fetid rot of decaying bodies. There must have been thousands and thousands of corpses at the bottom of this bloody lake. Some of them floated on top of the surface, rancid and swollen, their sightless eyes staring up at the fiery sky. The surface of the lake constantly bubbled and writhed, though whether this was from the rotting of so many bodies or from hidden monsters breathing under the surface, I didn’t yet know.
Frantically, I looked around for the nearest shore to get out of the danger. I saw that if I swam past the direction where the young woman had been, I would only have to go about two hundred feet. But my heart hammered in my chest as I remembered her being dragged under, her frantic, panicked struggling. What if the same creature was waiting over there, waiting for someone like me to try to swim over?
There were dozens more people between me and the nearest shore. Most of them climbed out, dripping drops of crimson onto the black volcanic sands of the beaches. I made my way as fast as I could in that direction, deciding to take my chances with the snakes. Otherwise, I would have to swim at least four times as far to get to the next nearest beach, which also swarmed with masses of naked people clawing their way out of the bloody lake.
A small group of people was concentrated only twenty feet away, three men who were swimming in the same direction I was. One started screaming suddenly. A purple tentacle the color of an old bruise broke through the surface of the water. To my horror, I saw it had black spikes that clicked and clacked together all along its massive arms. The spikes resembled long, hollow hypodermic needles.
The screaming man tried to swim in the opposite direction, but the tentacle wrapped around him, pulling him above the water. It tightened like a boa constrictor, the black spikes stabbing into his chest and stomach. Countless punctures opened up all along his body. The black spikes flexed, and his ribcage ripped open with a wet, ripping sound. The man’s screams abruptly cut off as his head lolled. With a sucking sound, the hollow spikes began drinking, consuming the man’s spurting blood with a sound like an inhalation of air. Slowly, almost lazily, the tentacle began dragging his limp corpse under the surface, back towards the main body of whatever monstrosity it belonged to.
The other two gave panicked sobs as more purple tentacles broke through the surface of the lake. Frantically, I started swimming around them, giving them a wide berth. Within seconds, the other two men were dragged under, deep stab wounds opening in their bodies as the hollow spikes drank greedily with loud sucking sounds.
“Fuck!” I cried, horrified. I felt something brush past my leg, something slimy and eel-like that writhed and slithered under the opaque crimson surface. In horror, I felt its slimy skin wrap around my leg, at first loosely slithering, then tightening. Two black faces with white, lidless eyes rose out of the water, the faces of serpents with fangs like switchblades. I saw both heads were connected to a single slithering body, one that wrapped slowly around my legs and arms, strangling me. Screaming, I felt its fangs dig into my neck. As the twin pairs of lidless white eyes stared at me, I tried to fight, tried to raise my arm, but it was far too strong. It dragged me under the surface.
Struggling against the beast, feeling its poison coursing through my bloodstream like lava, I drowned in the lake of blood. The experience of drowning is horrifying beyond all measure- the overwhelming fear and anxiety when you realize you have no air, the sensation of inhaling the bloody water, the sensation of dying. My vision turned black as a suffocating, clenching fist squeezed my heart. It felt like it took an eternity, but it was probably only a couple minutes at most. Death came over me then, cold and filled with small, suffocating agonies. That was the first time I died in Hell, but it would not be my last.
For in Hell, as I quickly learned, you never truly died, but were just thrown back to the beginning.
***
I felt myself falling again through the black clouds, the Lake of Blood beneath me. It all repeated like before. I screamed as I fell through the water at an incredible speed. Eldritch monstrosities were dragging people under the surface all around me. As quickly as I could, I swam towards the nearest shore. I dared not look down, didn’t dare slow for a single moment. A few times, I was nearly swiped by large, writhing tentacles, but they found other shrieking victims nearby to my immense relief.
I didn’t want to die ever again. It was a horrible sensation, though one that I would, sadly, become used to. Death followed me like a shadow, and starting over in Hell was always a nightmare.
I gave a gasp of joy when my feet touched bottom. Running through the rippling currents of blood, naked and gasping, I came upon the black sands of the shore. Looking around the lake, I saw there were four beaches, seemingly placed at each point of the compass underneath the spinning, blood-red sky.
At the end of each of the black sands lay a sparkling silver gate fifty feet tall and hundreds of feet across. The thin strands of silver intertwined like the fine filaments of a spiderweb, spiraling around each other in graceful, curving arches. Embossed over the top were the words, “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.” No one seemed to pay the gate any mind. Naked crowds of struggling people stumbled through it onto the streets of Hell, streets that were paved with human bones and stretched off to the horizon.
Skyscrapers made of obsidian with spiraling windows like the murderholes of a castle stretched hundreds of stories up into the blood-red sky. As I staggered out, pressed body to body in the thick crowd of crying, wailing people, I saw ahead of us the second mortal danger of Hell.
There were countless gangs of mostly men gathered on the streets of bone, the desperate soldiers of this apocalyptic wasteland. They huddled together in groups of ten or twelve, attacking and murdering random people who tried to sprint past from the Lake of Blood. They wore crude leather tunics and pants that looked like they were made from human skin. Some wore crude masks of human skin on their faces, ragged patches of flesh that had been cut from the bodies of the dead. They stared out with cold, emotionless eyes through the holes in the dried, leathery skin, surveying the surging crowds like lions surveying their prey.
They held primitive weapons in their hands, clubs and maces made from bone, swords sharpened from obsidian glass and even wooden spears. The wood looked strange and dark, almost like mahogany. Next to them were fires with sharpened spits of roasting human meat. The fat dripped off the dismembered arms and legs sizzling over the flames. It gave off a smell like roast pork that permeated the area, rising up in thick, fragrant clouds.
I followed the surging crowds, watching in horror as the groups of armed men attacked and killed random passersby in the crowd, dragging their limp bodies next to the fires where they stacked the unconscious or dead people in stacks like cordwood. I figured they would inevitably roast their flesh for food or make pale leather armor from their dead skin. I felt myself being pushed over in the direction of the nearest group of armed thugs. A few of the nearest men wore masks made of people’s faces, though those behind them did not, only wearing the crude leather armor instead.
One of them standing only ten feet away met my eyes, his cold killer’s gaze boring through me. The mask of skin made him look like some monster from a horror movie, with its ragged, mutilated edges and garish black stitches. He took a step towards me, raising a short spear made from a human leg bone and sharpened to a blood-stained point.
In panic, I looked around, seeing a young woman in her early twenties standing next to me. She was looking straight ahead with panic and terror in her eyes, not paying any attention to me or the men that crept towards us. With all of my strength, I shoved the woman towards the masked killer. She stumbled back in surprise, falling into the man’s weapon. His bone spear stabbed through her stomach. She looked down at her naked body in horror when the point emerged from her navel, dripping rivers of blood down her trembling legs. As she spit up trickles of blood and collapsed to her knees, I ran. A sickening crack rang out behind me like a shattering of bones, and I knew they had murdered the young woman.
I sprinted away from the gangs of cannibal killers as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast considering how many naked, screaming bodies pressed in all on me from all sides. I felt myself being carried forward by the surging masses towards the silver gate. Hanging from the delicate silver threads, I saw signs written in many languages. I found one in English and started reading it with rapt attention, even as I was relentlessly pushed forward and elbowed and kicked.
I still remember what it said by heart.
“Rules for Naraka:

Those who are damned will be fed from the fountain of life. GOD will ensure your rebirth at the Lake of Blood. Though death may crush you over and over, there will be no rest.
Stay away from the Screamers, the faceless ones who roam the land. Those who are taken by the Screamers will know endless torment and madness in the caverns deep under the ground.
When the sirens in the center of Naraka wail, the firestorms are coming. Seek shelter immediately.
Those rare ones who ascend the silver spire at the end of Naraka may find salvation, even in the city of shadows.”

As I was pushed forward, I read the sharp, copperplate engraving scrawled across the silver signs in glowing red letters, trying to memorize every single word. At the time, none of it made much sense, but I instinctively felt that it was immensely important in some way I didn’t yet understand.
Immediately outside the gate, the beach turned into a road paved with bones. Leg bones and arm bones were laid side by side, yellowing and drying under the dark crimson sky. Skulls embedded in the center of the road grinned up at me, laughing at silent secrets I could never hope to comprehend.
Naked and barefoot, I sprinted down the road of bones between massive skyscrapers of black obsidian and gleaming red volcanic rock. People started to thin as the survivors scattered in all directions. I felt the sharp points of bone stabbing into the soles of my feet.
That was the moment the sirens began their eerie wailing, rising and falling in a dissonant cacophony, slower and deeper than any tornado siren I had ever heard. It sounded almost like a whale call, stretching out over the infernal city. They sounded from all around us, seemingly ringing out from thousands of speakers hidden throughout the obsidian towers.
I looked up suddenly. The crimson sky had changed rapidly, forming into a cyclone that swirled overhead in great black and red spirals. It met in a fiery eye at the center. As I looked up, I saw glowing orange hail soaring through the air, leaving behind streaks like thousands of comets. It fell towards the naked masses of tens of thousands of bodies pressed together on the streets.
At that moment, I remembered the rules. Some of the others apparently hadn’t read them during the panic and horror of the escape from the Lake of Blood, and they continued surging forward down the road as fire began to fall like drops of napalm all around us. Wails of agony rose up from those who were covered in the glowing lava. The people in the front of the crowd immediately fell under the heat and destruction of the firestorm. Their hair lit on fire, their skin melted and blackened, and still more fire rained down from the sky, sweeping relentlessly in our direction.
I saw an obsidian skyscraper with a great, open archway only a couple hundred feet away. The nearest of the crowd scrambled to find cover under the safety of the building. I sprinted along with them. As I reached the threshold, I felt the first burning drops of magma land on my back. I screamed as I smelled my own skin cooking and my own hair burning, and then I was through the archway. I fell, rolling on my back, trying to put out the sizzling fires that burned me like some corrosive acid.
I felt rivers of warm blood running down my back as more people ran past me, deeper into the hall. The skyscraper was massive, not only in height but in width. The hallway ran for hundreds of feet, disappearing into doorless thresholds on both sides cleaved out of the obsidian, as if the entire structure had been carved from one enormous piece of glassy stone. In the center of the hallway, it opened up into a spiraling staircase.
I looked up abruptly to see three men wearing masks made of human skin standing over me, each holding primitive bone spears in their filthy, blood-stained hands. They looked emaciated, wasted away, like the walking corpses of a death camp. To my utter astonishment, even through the layer of dried, ragged skin, I recognized one of them. It was in his gray eyes, and the twisting dragon tattoos that covered his arms and chest instantly brought a flash of memory.
“Shooter,” I said as they raised their weapons. “Shooter, it’s me. Remember me? It’s Richie.” He froze in place, looking down at me with widening eyes.
“Holy shit, Richie?” he said, tearing the mask off. “What are you doing here?” It was an absurd question, of course. What were any of us doing here?
The last time I had seen Shooter, he had been sitting a pile of blood in his car. He was one of the designated gunman for the Solid Ones, the gang we had both joined when we were young. The amazing luck of finding another Solid in this place of death was astounding. But, then again, I had known many people who had died, and I had a feeling the vast majority were here somewhere.
“I guess I died,” I said sheepishly, giving him a faint half-smile. The other two men standing by his side lowered their weapons. “Fucking pigs came in and shot me.”
“Ah, yeah,” he said, unsurprised. “They do have a tendency to do that.” He gave a low laugh. I took a long look at Shooter, who was wearing the pale skin of some unknown victim or victims of this place of agony. He reached a trembling hand down and pulled me up from the smooth surface of this strange skyscraper. More naked, scared people continued to stream past us as the sirens continued their infernal shrieking outside. Many of them had horrific burns all over their body, and a few were clearly on the verge of death by the time they had made it inside.
Farther down the hall, another ten men wearing the same garb as Shooter came towards us, holding sharpened swords of obsidian and thick clubs made of bone. Shooter put his hands up.
“Hey, I know this guy,” he said calmly, motioning over to me with an apathetic wave of his head. “He was in the same gang as me! We used to go around having a great time, I’ll tell you. Remember that time we shot at that cop and he pissed himself?” He gave a racuous laugh at that. I smiled as the memory flooded back. Shooter had definitely hit him, though I think I probably missed. I remembered the blood soaking over the arm of cop’s uniform as he lay there, gasping and turning white, his face looking bloodless and shocked. Shooter and I had run away, high-fiving each other and grinning like maniacs.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, grinning. The other men surrounded me in a semi-circle. Shooter knelt down and extended a hand to me, helping me off the ground.
“Well, you’re in good company,” he said. “Here, we can do whatever the fuck we want. What’s going to happen, after all? It’s not like we can be sent to Hell.” He laughed, and that laughter writhed with the insanity and bloodlust that seemed to be eating him from the inside like a cancer.
***
“We still need to take him to the Sergeant,” one of the masked men next to Shooter said. “We can see if he has the right stuff needed to fight with us.”
“What happens when you guys die?” I asked. “I mean, obviously, you restart at the Lake of Blood, but how do you find your way back to your gang?” Shooter shrugged.
“We always find each other again eventually,” he said. “It’s not like there’s any lack of time here. All we have is time- and fresh meat, of course. There’s always more fresh meat streaming in through the Lake of Blood. We can take whatever we need from them…” The wailing of the sirens suddenly ended as he spoke. I looked around, seeing burnt and dying people still struggling into the front hallway of the skyscraper. The smell of burning hair and searing flesh filled the entire area.
“Come on,” one of the men said. His voice was gruff, as if he had been chainsmoking five packs a day since he was a little kid. “The Sergeant is on the top floor. You’ll have to talk to him.” I nodded, knowing they would certainly kill me if I did not join their group.
But at that moment, something much worse than dying, blackened bodies crawled in through the archway. I saw it before the group of men did. Instinctively upon glimpsing it, I knew it was something terrible, something that could only live in the depths of a psychotic’s nightmare.
It stood nearly ten feet tall. Its skin was as pale as a writhing maggot. On its hairless face, I saw no eyes, no nose, no ears, just smooth, bone-white skin. It had thin lips tied together with black thread, the garish stitches poking out from the ragged, bloodless flesh. Its arms and legs looked inhumanly long and thin. Its ribs and spine jutted out as if it were a starving, rabid animal. From all around its body, an inhuman wailing started, as if dozens of demonic voices were shrieking in unison. Yet its mouth stayed firmly closed, still stitched shut.
Its fingers jutted out like railroad spikes, each a foot long. As its screaming intensified, it ran towards us, crushing the dying and injured under its naked, twisted feet. I stared into its pale, bloodless face, and even though it had no eyes, it felt like it stared straight back at me, looking into my soul.
“Don’t look at it!” Shooter screamed next to me, turning his face away. The rest of the men closed their eyes or turned away, backpedaling away from the abomination. “It will take on the shape of what you fear most! It’s a Screamer!” But it was too late. At that moment, something strange happened to the pale, naked body of the Screamer. It rippled like a mirage sizzling off the sands of a desert. Its body squeezed and contorted as the distorted shrieking around its pale, naked body grew louder and more insane.
Thin stalks of black, spidery legs began jutting out of the sides of its chest. Its face melted like wax as glittering compound eyes sprouted from the top of its head. Within seconds, it had turned into a massive spider, a black widow whose head nearly scraped the ceiling twenty feet above us. The red hourglass on its back shone brightly, as if in reminder of the imminent death it brought to anyone it touched.
I hate spiders. I’ve always hated spiders. When I saw that skittering, crawling monstrosity, something in me broke. I sprinted towards the group of men who were trying to do their best to escape without looking directly at the Screamer, hoping that the spider would choose one of them instead of me. But I heard its massive bulk following closely behind me. I could feel its insectile breath on the back of my neck.
Naked and frantic, I sprinted behind the nearest of the men and used the same tactic I had used escaping through the silver gate: I pushed the unsuspecting figure towards the abomination that rushed towards us in a blur, its eight legs pounding the glassy floor with reverberating thuds.
Drops of clear venom dripped from its fangs as it grabbed the struggling man. It bit deeply into his leg, and as the venom dripped onto his skin, it seemed to eat through his flesh like some sort of acid. The man screamed as red streaks rapidly spread up his leg throughout the rest of his body. His teeth began chattering and his pupils dilated as he stared at me accusingly. But he did not die.
The spider grabbed him and dragged him away down the hallway, down to wherever the victims of the Screamers go. I saw a dozen more of the pale, faceless monstrosities rushing in to take his place. The men looked up, and the Screamers erupted into monstrous shapes: giant, slithering snakes, a floating eyeball with black, squid-like tentacles writhing around its central mass, enormous brown recluses and black widows and faceless Grim Reapers who floated over the ground in black robes. The overwhelming sense of fear and panic I felt at that moment still stays with me to this day, and even though this happened a couple days ago and I did eventually make it out of that den of horrors, it still leaves a deep scar across my mind.
As visions from a nightmare approached us, I turned and ran.

Hi everybody, I'm a 30 year old Japanese, English and Hungarian language teacher and yoga instructor. I work as a private teacher which makes it hard for me to make new friends.
I love playing video games with a nice story like Tomb Raider, Detroid Become Human, Ghost of Tsushima or the early Assassin's Creed series.
Currently I'm living in Hungary but seriously considering to move abroad, to either Japan or the US.
I have a poodle named Sora, you can see her on the photo.
I'm interested in anything Japanese related, but also love traveling and hiking.
I'm also an ENFP, so we can dive deep into deep convos right off the bat 🤓
Hit me up with a message or comment, write to me some things about yourself! 😊

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