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McKnightFamSnark
2021.05.29 10:06 McKnightFamSnark
A place for all snark regarding the McKnight family (CuteGirlsHairstyles, Kamri Noel, Brooklyn and Bailey, Lash Next Door, and associated sh*tshows). Welcome to Behind the Braids.
2020.01.09 13:04 Mutsis-ematin CentralChurch
Central Church is a place for posting cute anime characters. Yes you can post VTubers. Banner by u/TripleSen
2014.05.14 11:14 hairstylestrends hairstyles for men and hairstyles for women
New and trendy haircuts for men and hairstyles for women. Trendy short haircuts and cute hairstyles. Hairstying ideas and hair growth products.
2024.05.19 15:48 lightingnations I found my girlfriend’s secret Google account and it feels like our entire relationship was built on a lie
I met Luna on a train two years ago. I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so romance was the last thing on my mind, but then she sat across from me in the carriage and asked about the book I was reading. She had a copy in her bag and wanted to know if it was any good.
I'd never felt such an instant, effortless connection with anybody before. I took a chance and asked her to dinner, and by the time the waiters cleared away our desserts, I already felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. So we went on a second date. And a third. And next thing I knew, we were planning our second anniversary.
In all that time she never gave off any 'creeper' vibes. Until a few months ago, when I stayed the night over at her place...
She'd gotten up early to use the bathroom. I grabbed her laptop off the side desk so I could catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there. My first thought was: either she's having an affair or she's got a secret fetish.
What I found instead was a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. This included shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport—the works. On Facebook, Sadie's latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? And how did you even get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe?
Down the hall, I heard the bathroom door swing open. Quickly I closed the laptop and pretended to be asleep until Luna planted a kiss on my lips. “Wakey wakey Bugs.”
I faked a stretch. “Morning Lola."
(At school, the other kids christened me ‘Bugs’ because of my cartoonishly large front teeth; I called Luna ‘Lola’ because of her blonde bangs and heart-shaped face.)
“How about we grab a fry for breakfast?” Her smile didn’t seem genuine, more like she was wearing a mask.
“Crap. I forgot I’m doing overtime today, I’ve gotta get to work.” With that, I shot out of there faster than a bullet train to Tokyo.
Because I didn’t wanna believe the worst about someone I cared so deeply about, I didn’t contact the police (not that anybody could’ve guessed what Luna was up to) and made excuses whenever she asked to meet, delaying the decision whether to end our relationship.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time a hedge rustled outside, I’d run to the window and pull back the curtain only to discover a black cat skulking around the garden. I put this down to my previous relationship leaving me with a mountain of unresolved PTSD.
Sadie the stalker also seemed normal until we moved in together. After that she started picking fights if she caught me talking to another woman, even just distant relatives or childhood friends. The screaming matches went from weekly to nightly, only ever ending when I conceded to her every wish and gave her full access to my phone and social media accounts. I literally needed to grab my clothes into a bag and run away one night, and then I started hearing noises outside my new apartment. And although I never found any evidence, I was pretty sure she’d broken in at one point because the books on my side table were suddenly out of order one day. What hurt the most was Luna knew all this and still acted the way she did.
Right as I reached my lowest point, my close friend Gertrude called and said, “The universe is telling me you could use a sympathetic ear.”
I told her the universe didn’t know the half of it.
I’d met Gertrude—aka my surrogate mother—on a flight to London. Passing over Wales the aircraft hit heavy turbulence, and the grey-haired hippie in the seat next to mine squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers turned blue. After we levelled off, she apologized and said, “So what’s calling you to London?”
“A job.”
A few glasses of wine from the service trolley later, she blurted out, “You know your aura is strikingly similar to my husbands.”
“Uhh, thanks. Where is he now?”
“Oh, he burned to death in a house fire.”
Gertrude’s eyes started welling up. To take her mind off the subject, I said, “I lied earlier. I’m going to London because I fell in love with a Londoner.” I pulled up pictures of Sadie (back in her pre-stalker days) on my phone. “We met in Italy. She looked flustered trying to read a map book so I offered to help. Next thing I knew, we were planning a trip to this place called Orvieto.”
“Michael, I need to know how this story ends. Gimme your number.”
Since then, we’d met two or three times a year.
I laid the whole mess out over pizza. It was the first time since finding the Google account I didn’t feel hidden eyes crawling all over me.
Just as I wrapped up the story, over in the corner booth, a family burst into a chorus of happy birthday. A waiter appeared carrying a chocolate cake, capped by a giant candle that looked more like a flare. Gertrude tensed up.
“So what do you think about all this?” I asked.
She looked back at me and said, “It’s possible your reaction has been a touch on the dramatic side.”
“DRAMATIC??”
“Well consider things from Luna’s point of view. Your last relationship lasted for, what, three years? Maybe she felt threatened.”
“I don’t believe this.” I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, but Gertrude snatched it away.
“You know how I feel about you poisoning your lungs, Michael.”
“Don’t you start. I got enough of that crap from Luna.”
Gertrude always encouraged me to work through my romantic problems. Ultimately, I decided her love of fairytale romances clouded her judgement and ghosted Luna instead. But I couldn’t escape her shadow. She always felt close. In fact, it got so bad that at a friend’s costume party several weeks later, my eyes kept compulsively scanning the crowd as if she was there in disguise, ready to pounce.
I stood off to the corner until, over the sea of heads, I spotted a beautiful stranger dressed as Jarlath the Goblin King. I took a shot of liquid courage and made a B-line towards her.
Halfway across the crowded room, beer splashed across the front of my Ziggy Stardust outfit.
“I am so sorry,” a female pirate said, patting me dry.
“Don’t worry about it.” Every time I tried circling her, she moved to cut me off.
“I am such a klutz. Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can clean up this mess?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steered her out of the way. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Approaching Jarlath from behind, heart slamming against my chest, I said, “Well this is awkward. One of us is gonna have to change.”
Jennie had bright blue eyes and dimples impossible to miss. Ten minutes into our debate about David Bowie’s greatest album, I said, “You know Absolute Bowie are playing the Half Moon next week. I could take you?”
“Sorry. I’m going with my boyfriend,” she said with a sympathetic smile. From beside the buffet table, the pirate stared daggers in our direction.
“No worries,” I replied, despite the fact I was brimming with jealousy.
The next day, as I jogged off my hangover, a brown-haired lady cut across my path and we both went spinning to the ground.
“Flip, sorry.” I rushed to pull her up by the hands. “I’m like a bloody zombie lately.”
She did a doubletake. “Ziggy, right?”
There was no mistaking those eyes. “Jarlath?”
“Well, Jarlath or Jennie. Eithers fine.”
“Right. Well, sorry again. Enjoy Absolute Bowie.”
Before I could jog away, she said, “Hey, so that guy I was seeing? Turns out he’s a total prick.”
Jennie and I went for coffee. Coffee morphed into drinks. Drinks morphed into a steamy make-out session on my sofa.
But as she covered my neck in soft kisses, my stomach turned. It felt like cheating. So, I put the brakes on things and said, “I can’t do this. I’m really sorry. You’re amazing, but I just got out of a serious relationship…and…it’s just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
We agreed we’d let our connection blossom in its own time.
Jennie had a playful mystique to her. Within a handful of dates, we’d developed inside jokes and could tell what the other was thinking. But Luna’s imprint was hard to shake, to the extent I almost mixed up the two ladies’ names multiple times.
To detox, I suggested Jennie and I spend a romantic weekend in the Lake District, because after two days of hiking and kayaking my ex would no doubt be a spec in the rearview mirror.
Hours before we set off, however, Luna’s mom called. She wanted to meet and wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“Look, it’s obvious why I’m here,” she said, sitting across from me in Starbucks. “Ever since you and Luna broke up, she’s been acting…different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“I call but she hardly answers. I go over to her place but she’s never there. Now she’s telling me she needs to find herself. Says she’s moving to Australia.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “I need to know what happened between you two. And I don’t care if that paints anybody in a bad light. I’m just worried about my daughter is all.”
I told her about the Google account.
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Hell no. I ghosted that crazy bitc—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I just…stopped seeing her.”
She started crying so loudly customers at nearby tables paused their conversations. I touched her forearm, promised I’d call if I remembered anything else, then set off for my romantic weekend.
But while Jennie and I enjoyed all that fresh air and pub food, a thought nagged at me. Luna adored London, so why move to Australia? It seemed so out of character. Back at our rented cottage, I was so fixated on the thought I needed a smoke, badly.
“What the hell is that?” Jennie demanded, as she stepped onto the front deck.
I glanced at my hands. “Uhh, a cigarette.”
“Michael! Don’t be sarcastic. You know how I feel about those things.”
“…Do I?”
“Uhh, well it’s the same as anybody else. Quit poisoning your lungs and put that thing out.”
“Alright alright, geeze. Sorry Luna.”
“That’s okay.”
A knot formed in my stomach as she went back inside. I’d called Jennie Luna by mistake. And she hadn’t noticed. In fact, her reaction to me smoking was identical to Luna’s—even the snappy way she said the ‘poison your lungs’ line.
I followed Jennie into the lounge, where she’d curled up on an armchair with a Colleen Hoover novel. She was hiding something. What else did she know about Luna? Maybe I could trick her into revealing some details…
From behind, I started massaging her shoulders. “Sorry for being rude before. I know what you said came from a place of love.”
“That’s okay.”
I waited until her eyes drooped shut, then said, “It really is perfect here, huh? Maybe we should stay forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Her little groans of pleasure, the rhythm of her breathing, it all felt so familiar. I waited until the tension in her neck dissolved, then I pushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “So how about we take this into the bedroom…Lola.”
“Hmm. Sure thing Bugs.”
My hands froze. Jennie jumped up. “Uhh, that felt so good, why’d you stop?”
“What did you just say?”
“What did you just say?”
“I called you Lola,” I replied, my arms frozen in midair. “And you called me bugs.”
“Like the cartoon, right? I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Anyway, I’m tuckered out.” She forced a yawn. “Why don’t we get some sleep?”
As her hand laced with mine, an image of me waking up drugged and gagged and tied to the bedposts flashed before my eyes.
I said, “Sure. I just…need to use the bathroom first.”
The second the door shut behind me, I flew out of the house, climbed in my car, and sped away.
Within seconds my phone started blowing up with calls, followed by texts. Where are you going? Is everything okay?
No, I wanted to reply. I’m onto your sick little game. Whatever it is, I’m onto it.
Luna stalked my stalker, now Jennie somehow knew Luna and I’s nicknames. How? Did all women take turns drawing straws and whoever picked the short one needed to become my girlfriend?
I couldn’t go home. For all I knew, my exes would’ve been there burning effigies of me. I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could lie low until I got all this straightened out.
“Of course you can stay,” Gertrude said over the phone. “I’m out with some friends, but I’ll meet you later. If you hop the side gate there’s a spare key under the kissing gnomes out back.”
Gertrude lived in a detached house in Wembley. It took a bit of foraging to find the gnomes hidden beneath the weeds in the brown, patchy garden.
I needed to shoulder the door open. Inside, a mountain of letters and flyers had piled up on the welcome mat.
Down the hall, a huge archway connected the landing with a lounge, where a bar sat against the far wall, surrounded by upholstered sofas, a low table, and tie dye sheets strung over the filthy carpet. Everything had a real elegant vibe, despite the musty air.
I’d drained two glasses of whiskey before Gertrude arrived.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough evening.”
I said we could talk in the morning.
“Not a chance. You can’t take negative energy to bed. Come on, confession is good for the soul.”
She sat on the sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. So, with a weary sigh, I shared a tale of deranged exes.
“Crazy,” she said.
“I sure can pick ‘em, huh?”
“No, I mean you’re crazy.”
“What?”
“Think about it. What’s more likely: that your ex’s are secretly in collusion, or you’re being paranoid? Look how bloodshot your eyes are. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
She made a great point; teenagers on the street occasionally shouted ‘Bugs’ or ‘Thumper’ at me. Jennie might’ve come up with the nickname herself. I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
“Look, sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll brainstorm ways you can make it up to Jennie.”
I fumbled through my pockets for a cigarette.
“Really?” Gertrude said. “If you insist on poisoning your lungs, can you at least do it away from my home?”
“Well if I can’t smoke, I’m gonna need a refill.” I shook my empty glass.
On my way toward the bar, a wave of wooziness hit me. My first instinct was to blame it on the alcohol, but there was something else.
It was her reaction to the cigarette. My finger ran through the thick layer of dust along the bar’s countertop. Why was it like the place had been abandoned? Why did Gertrude always pressure me to stay with my psycho girlfriends? And how come she always reached out, as if on cue, whenever my relationships hit problems? It couldn’t be coincidence…
I poured two glasses of whiskey and carried them to the sofa. “So, you’re really against the whole smoking thing, huh?”
“Of course. It’s a filthy habit.”
“Yeah. Plus, there was that mess with your husband. House fire, right?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Sure, sure.” I ignited the lighter with a roll across my trouser leg.
Gertrude grabbed a cushion and hugged it. “What are you doing?”
“Alright, cut the crap. What the hell’s going on? Have you been sending your friends to date me?”
“What are you talking about?”
I wrestled the cushion from her and held the lighter beneath it. “I want an explanation right now or I’m torching this place.”
This was an empty threat. I wasn’t some pyromaniac—I just wanted answers. Inch by inch, I raised the flame. “Last chance. Why are the women in my life acting weird?”
Gertrude grabbed for the lighter. As I swatted her wrists away, we both got scorched, and for a moment her skin went wild with spasms, a sensation I can only compare to reaching inside a bucket of wet, writhing maggots. My gaze whipped between her face and her hands, which vibrated like plucked guitar strings.
Before I could scream, she yanked me up, clamped a cold, wrinkled palm across my mouth, and forced me against the wall. I thrashed around, unable to move. For a lady old enough to collect a pension, she was crazy strong.
She waited until I ran out of breath, then said, “Michael, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Open your heart and listen.”
What else could I do?
“You were right before. I have been keeping a secret from you. The truth is, I’ve been in love with you since we met. I’d never flown before. And you were so so sweet. You started talking about this other woman, but I knew our energies were perfect for each other. And it’s like I always say, love makes us do crazy things. You can’t begrudge me that can you?”
She looked as if she expected me to respond, so I shook my head.
“But I think we’ve reached a point where our connection is so deep we can be completely transparent with one another.” She took a slow, steady breath. “Michael, all your ex’s, Luna, Sadie, Jennie. They’ve all been…well, me.”
I stared at her, confused.
She sighed. “It’ll be easier if I just show you.”
Out of nowhere her hand wriggled again, then her face tightened, as though the skin was being stretched over the bone. Wrinkles smoothed out and colour bled into her grey hair, turning it brown, and within seconds I found myself face-to-face with Jennie. Even her vintage clothes morphed into a green blouse and white slacks.
“See?” she said in Jennie’s voice, her now blue eyes locked on mine.
I screamed into the soft flesh of her palm.
“Sssh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Watch.”
Her entire body jerked and twitched, the muscles spasming as she shifted from Jennie to Luna. “See? Think of these as costumes”—from Luna to Sadie—"the important thing is what’s underneath. And you’ve fallen in love with what’s underneath three times. Now I’m going to let go, but I need you to promise you won’t overreact. Understand?”
On the verge of a panic attack, I nodded furiously.
The second she pulled away I made a break for the exit. The thing posing as Sadie grabbed me and hurled me backwards against the wall.
Like a disappointed teacher, she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been so patient with you, Michael. So very, very patient.”
She blocked off any hope of escape. I sidestepped around the outer edge of the room, towards the bar.
“All those years moulding you. Trying to grow you into the man I know you can be. I really thought we had it this time. For the record, I wanted to do this the easy way. But drastic times...”
I was so scared I slammed right into the cabinet and yelped. Glass bottles chattered together, and then something wet ran down the back of my shirt. It was whiskey, leaking from the overturned bottle onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking more to herself now, Gertrude said, “I’ll just have to keep you here until you love me as much as I love you. Of course, that means posing as you so nobody gets suspicious, but that’s no trouble. I’ll tell your dad you’re moving to Italy. You always loved Italy.”
Pose as me? She'd been killing my ex's and taking their place, I was just the latest in a long line. She’d keep me as a personal sugar baby if I didn’t escape, but how? She was impossibly strong, and the only thing that seemed to scare her was…
Snatching the bottle, I doused the remaining whiskey all over the carpet and furniture. As I flicked the lighter open, Sadie’s hands shot up.
“Bugs…darling…what are you doing?”
I took three slow, steady breaths. “Breaking up with you, you crazy bitch.”
I tossed the lighter forward. Within seconds flames sprung up all around us, spreading as far as the sofa. Sadie’s shoe caught fire, and as she stamped around, unintentionally fanning the blaze, her body writhed again, starting with the ankles. Fat boils climbed up every inch of exposed skin, milky white and with the consistency of frog spawn, like she’d had a killer allergic reaction to poison ivy.
She dropped to her knees, wailing like a wounded animal. This was my chance.
I made a break for the exit, giving the creature as wide a berth as possible. But as I got one foot planted in the hall something clamped tight around my ankles. My chin hit the floor, then I started sliding backwards.
I twisted onto my back. Where Sadie’s left arm should’ve been, a tentacle-like appendage stretched across the length of the room, a distance of over twenty feet. It reeled me toward her like a fish on a line. Whatever that thing was no longer looked human. It melted like an ice statue, with no bones or connective tissue inside, its lips nose and mouth becoming hideously elongated before dripping off in huge globs like melted candlewax. A fire alarm started wailing as the tentacle dragged me through the flames, scorching my arms and legs.
The loose mass of skin reached out and encased me like a mother bird sheltering its eggs.
“WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?” all my ex’s voices screamed at once. Whichever direction I looked, silhouettes of faces rose and fell, as if trying to burst through. Parts of them dripped inside my mouth, disgustingly warm with a bitter taste worse than Vaseline.
I put everything into clawing my way out if there. What was left of the beast had the consistency of wet clay and came apart just as easily. I tore away chunks until there was a hole large enough to squeeze through. Then, I crawled along surrounded by black smoke.
At the far side of the room I risked a glance back and saw a bumpy, uneven hand reaching out of a puddle of ooze. Soon I was crawling over the bristly welcome mat, then fumbling for the door. All I remember after that are paramedics wrestling me into an ambulance…
A specialist officer came to see me at the hospital the next morning. They’d been unable to contact the homeowner, Gertrude Huyton, and through his line of questioning I could tell they hadn’t found her ‘remains’ inside the charred house. Like the wicked witch of the West, my stalker had melted. I told the officer she said I could stay the night, and that I probably started the fire by dropping a cigarette.
“In that case, we’ll keep trying to reach her.” He walked to the curtain surronding my bed and paused. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, her cat is missing.”
“Her...cat?”
“Yeah. The little black one. One of the firemen pulled it out of the wreckage. The poor thing had burns over its legs but it ran off before anybody could take it to the vet.”
I swallowed a gulp and thanked him for telling me.
And now I’m still sitting here listening while nurses rush back and forth, terrified any one of them might be Gertrude…
submitted by lightingnations to nosleep [link] [comments]
I'd never felt such an instant, effortless connection with anybody before. I took a chance and asked her to dinner, and by the time the waiters cleared away our desserts, I already felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. So we went on a second date. And a third. And next thing I knew, we were planning our second anniversary.
In all that time she never gave off any 'creeper' vibes. Until a few months ago, when I stayed the night over at her place...
She'd gotten up early to use the bathroom. I grabbed her laptop off the side desk so I could catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there. My first thought was: either she's having an affair or she's got a secret fetish.
What I found instead was a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. This included shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport—the works. On Facebook, Sadie's latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? And how did you even get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe?
Down the hall, I heard the bathroom door swing open. Quickly I closed the laptop and pretended to be asleep until Luna planted a kiss on my lips. “Wakey wakey Bugs.”
I faked a stretch. “Morning Lola."
(At school, the other kids christened me ‘Bugs’ because of my cartoonishly large front teeth; I called Luna ‘Lola’ because of her blonde bangs and heart-shaped face.)
“How about we grab a fry for breakfast?” Her smile didn’t seem genuine, more like she was wearing a mask.
“Crap. I forgot I’m doing overtime today, I’ve gotta get to work.” With that, I shot out of there faster than a bullet train to Tokyo.
Because I didn’t wanna believe the worst about someone I cared so deeply about, I didn’t contact the police (not that anybody could’ve guessed what Luna was up to) and made excuses whenever she asked to meet, delaying the decision whether to end our relationship.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time a hedge rustled outside, I’d run to the window and pull back the curtain only to discover a black cat skulking around the garden. I put this down to my previous relationship leaving me with a mountain of unresolved PTSD.
Sadie the stalker also seemed normal until we moved in together. After that she started picking fights if she caught me talking to another woman, even just distant relatives or childhood friends. The screaming matches went from weekly to nightly, only ever ending when I conceded to her every wish and gave her full access to my phone and social media accounts. I literally needed to grab my clothes into a bag and run away one night, and then I started hearing noises outside my new apartment. And although I never found any evidence, I was pretty sure she’d broken in at one point because the books on my side table were suddenly out of order one day. What hurt the most was Luna knew all this and still acted the way she did.
Right as I reached my lowest point, my close friend Gertrude called and said, “The universe is telling me you could use a sympathetic ear.”
I told her the universe didn’t know the half of it.
I’d met Gertrude—aka my surrogate mother—on a flight to London. Passing over Wales the aircraft hit heavy turbulence, and the grey-haired hippie in the seat next to mine squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers turned blue. After we levelled off, she apologized and said, “So what’s calling you to London?”
“A job.”
A few glasses of wine from the service trolley later, she blurted out, “You know your aura is strikingly similar to my husbands.”
“Uhh, thanks. Where is he now?”
“Oh, he burned to death in a house fire.”
Gertrude’s eyes started welling up. To take her mind off the subject, I said, “I lied earlier. I’m going to London because I fell in love with a Londoner.” I pulled up pictures of Sadie (back in her pre-stalker days) on my phone. “We met in Italy. She looked flustered trying to read a map book so I offered to help. Next thing I knew, we were planning a trip to this place called Orvieto.”
“Michael, I need to know how this story ends. Gimme your number.”
Since then, we’d met two or three times a year.
I laid the whole mess out over pizza. It was the first time since finding the Google account I didn’t feel hidden eyes crawling all over me.
Just as I wrapped up the story, over in the corner booth, a family burst into a chorus of happy birthday. A waiter appeared carrying a chocolate cake, capped by a giant candle that looked more like a flare. Gertrude tensed up.
“So what do you think about all this?” I asked.
She looked back at me and said, “It’s possible your reaction has been a touch on the dramatic side.”
“DRAMATIC??”
“Well consider things from Luna’s point of view. Your last relationship lasted for, what, three years? Maybe she felt threatened.”
“I don’t believe this.” I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, but Gertrude snatched it away.
“You know how I feel about you poisoning your lungs, Michael.”
“Don’t you start. I got enough of that crap from Luna.”
Gertrude always encouraged me to work through my romantic problems. Ultimately, I decided her love of fairytale romances clouded her judgement and ghosted Luna instead. But I couldn’t escape her shadow. She always felt close. In fact, it got so bad that at a friend’s costume party several weeks later, my eyes kept compulsively scanning the crowd as if she was there in disguise, ready to pounce.
I stood off to the corner until, over the sea of heads, I spotted a beautiful stranger dressed as Jarlath the Goblin King. I took a shot of liquid courage and made a B-line towards her.
Halfway across the crowded room, beer splashed across the front of my Ziggy Stardust outfit.
“I am so sorry,” a female pirate said, patting me dry.
“Don’t worry about it.” Every time I tried circling her, she moved to cut me off.
“I am such a klutz. Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can clean up this mess?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steered her out of the way. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Approaching Jarlath from behind, heart slamming against my chest, I said, “Well this is awkward. One of us is gonna have to change.”
Jennie had bright blue eyes and dimples impossible to miss. Ten minutes into our debate about David Bowie’s greatest album, I said, “You know Absolute Bowie are playing the Half Moon next week. I could take you?”
“Sorry. I’m going with my boyfriend,” she said with a sympathetic smile. From beside the buffet table, the pirate stared daggers in our direction.
“No worries,” I replied, despite the fact I was brimming with jealousy.
The next day, as I jogged off my hangover, a brown-haired lady cut across my path and we both went spinning to the ground.
“Flip, sorry.” I rushed to pull her up by the hands. “I’m like a bloody zombie lately.”
She did a doubletake. “Ziggy, right?”
There was no mistaking those eyes. “Jarlath?”
“Well, Jarlath or Jennie. Eithers fine.”
“Right. Well, sorry again. Enjoy Absolute Bowie.”
Before I could jog away, she said, “Hey, so that guy I was seeing? Turns out he’s a total prick.”
Jennie and I went for coffee. Coffee morphed into drinks. Drinks morphed into a steamy make-out session on my sofa.
But as she covered my neck in soft kisses, my stomach turned. It felt like cheating. So, I put the brakes on things and said, “I can’t do this. I’m really sorry. You’re amazing, but I just got out of a serious relationship…and…it’s just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
We agreed we’d let our connection blossom in its own time.
Jennie had a playful mystique to her. Within a handful of dates, we’d developed inside jokes and could tell what the other was thinking. But Luna’s imprint was hard to shake, to the extent I almost mixed up the two ladies’ names multiple times.
To detox, I suggested Jennie and I spend a romantic weekend in the Lake District, because after two days of hiking and kayaking my ex would no doubt be a spec in the rearview mirror.
Hours before we set off, however, Luna’s mom called. She wanted to meet and wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“Look, it’s obvious why I’m here,” she said, sitting across from me in Starbucks. “Ever since you and Luna broke up, she’s been acting…different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“I call but she hardly answers. I go over to her place but she’s never there. Now she’s telling me she needs to find herself. Says she’s moving to Australia.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “I need to know what happened between you two. And I don’t care if that paints anybody in a bad light. I’m just worried about my daughter is all.”
I told her about the Google account.
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Hell no. I ghosted that crazy bitc—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I just…stopped seeing her.”
She started crying so loudly customers at nearby tables paused their conversations. I touched her forearm, promised I’d call if I remembered anything else, then set off for my romantic weekend.
But while Jennie and I enjoyed all that fresh air and pub food, a thought nagged at me. Luna adored London, so why move to Australia? It seemed so out of character. Back at our rented cottage, I was so fixated on the thought I needed a smoke, badly.
“What the hell is that?” Jennie demanded, as she stepped onto the front deck.
I glanced at my hands. “Uhh, a cigarette.”
“Michael! Don’t be sarcastic. You know how I feel about those things.”
“…Do I?”
“Uhh, well it’s the same as anybody else. Quit poisoning your lungs and put that thing out.”
“Alright alright, geeze. Sorry Luna.”
“That’s okay.”
A knot formed in my stomach as she went back inside. I’d called Jennie Luna by mistake. And she hadn’t noticed. In fact, her reaction to me smoking was identical to Luna’s—even the snappy way she said the ‘poison your lungs’ line.
I followed Jennie into the lounge, where she’d curled up on an armchair with a Colleen Hoover novel. She was hiding something. What else did she know about Luna? Maybe I could trick her into revealing some details…
From behind, I started massaging her shoulders. “Sorry for being rude before. I know what you said came from a place of love.”
“That’s okay.”
I waited until her eyes drooped shut, then said, “It really is perfect here, huh? Maybe we should stay forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Her little groans of pleasure, the rhythm of her breathing, it all felt so familiar. I waited until the tension in her neck dissolved, then I pushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “So how about we take this into the bedroom…Lola.”
“Hmm. Sure thing Bugs.”
My hands froze. Jennie jumped up. “Uhh, that felt so good, why’d you stop?”
“What did you just say?”
“What did you just say?”
“I called you Lola,” I replied, my arms frozen in midair. “And you called me bugs.”
“Like the cartoon, right? I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Anyway, I’m tuckered out.” She forced a yawn. “Why don’t we get some sleep?”
As her hand laced with mine, an image of me waking up drugged and gagged and tied to the bedposts flashed before my eyes.
I said, “Sure. I just…need to use the bathroom first.”
The second the door shut behind me, I flew out of the house, climbed in my car, and sped away.
Within seconds my phone started blowing up with calls, followed by texts. Where are you going? Is everything okay?
No, I wanted to reply. I’m onto your sick little game. Whatever it is, I’m onto it.
Luna stalked my stalker, now Jennie somehow knew Luna and I’s nicknames. How? Did all women take turns drawing straws and whoever picked the short one needed to become my girlfriend?
I couldn’t go home. For all I knew, my exes would’ve been there burning effigies of me. I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could lie low until I got all this straightened out.
“Of course you can stay,” Gertrude said over the phone. “I’m out with some friends, but I’ll meet you later. If you hop the side gate there’s a spare key under the kissing gnomes out back.”
Gertrude lived in a detached house in Wembley. It took a bit of foraging to find the gnomes hidden beneath the weeds in the brown, patchy garden.
I needed to shoulder the door open. Inside, a mountain of letters and flyers had piled up on the welcome mat.
Down the hall, a huge archway connected the landing with a lounge, where a bar sat against the far wall, surrounded by upholstered sofas, a low table, and tie dye sheets strung over the filthy carpet. Everything had a real elegant vibe, despite the musty air.
I’d drained two glasses of whiskey before Gertrude arrived.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough evening.”
I said we could talk in the morning.
“Not a chance. You can’t take negative energy to bed. Come on, confession is good for the soul.”
She sat on the sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. So, with a weary sigh, I shared a tale of deranged exes.
“Crazy,” she said.
“I sure can pick ‘em, huh?”
“No, I mean you’re crazy.”
“What?”
“Think about it. What’s more likely: that your ex’s are secretly in collusion, or you’re being paranoid? Look how bloodshot your eyes are. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
She made a great point; teenagers on the street occasionally shouted ‘Bugs’ or ‘Thumper’ at me. Jennie might’ve come up with the nickname herself. I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
“Look, sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll brainstorm ways you can make it up to Jennie.”
I fumbled through my pockets for a cigarette.
“Really?” Gertrude said. “If you insist on poisoning your lungs, can you at least do it away from my home?”
“Well if I can’t smoke, I’m gonna need a refill.” I shook my empty glass.
On my way toward the bar, a wave of wooziness hit me. My first instinct was to blame it on the alcohol, but there was something else.
It was her reaction to the cigarette. My finger ran through the thick layer of dust along the bar’s countertop. Why was it like the place had been abandoned? Why did Gertrude always pressure me to stay with my psycho girlfriends? And how come she always reached out, as if on cue, whenever my relationships hit problems? It couldn’t be coincidence…
I poured two glasses of whiskey and carried them to the sofa. “So, you’re really against the whole smoking thing, huh?”
“Of course. It’s a filthy habit.”
“Yeah. Plus, there was that mess with your husband. House fire, right?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Sure, sure.” I ignited the lighter with a roll across my trouser leg.
Gertrude grabbed a cushion and hugged it. “What are you doing?”
“Alright, cut the crap. What the hell’s going on? Have you been sending your friends to date me?”
“What are you talking about?”
I wrestled the cushion from her and held the lighter beneath it. “I want an explanation right now or I’m torching this place.”
This was an empty threat. I wasn’t some pyromaniac—I just wanted answers. Inch by inch, I raised the flame. “Last chance. Why are the women in my life acting weird?”
Gertrude grabbed for the lighter. As I swatted her wrists away, we both got scorched, and for a moment her skin went wild with spasms, a sensation I can only compare to reaching inside a bucket of wet, writhing maggots. My gaze whipped between her face and her hands, which vibrated like plucked guitar strings.
Before I could scream, she yanked me up, clamped a cold, wrinkled palm across my mouth, and forced me against the wall. I thrashed around, unable to move. For a lady old enough to collect a pension, she was crazy strong.
She waited until I ran out of breath, then said, “Michael, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Open your heart and listen.”
What else could I do?
“You were right before. I have been keeping a secret from you. The truth is, I’ve been in love with you since we met. I’d never flown before. And you were so so sweet. You started talking about this other woman, but I knew our energies were perfect for each other. And it’s like I always say, love makes us do crazy things. You can’t begrudge me that can you?”
She looked as if she expected me to respond, so I shook my head.
“But I think we’ve reached a point where our connection is so deep we can be completely transparent with one another.” She took a slow, steady breath. “Michael, all your ex’s, Luna, Sadie, Jennie. They’ve all been…well, me.”
I stared at her, confused.
She sighed. “It’ll be easier if I just show you.”
Out of nowhere her hand wriggled again, then her face tightened, as though the skin was being stretched over the bone. Wrinkles smoothed out and colour bled into her grey hair, turning it brown, and within seconds I found myself face-to-face with Jennie. Even her vintage clothes morphed into a green blouse and white slacks.
“See?” she said in Jennie’s voice, her now blue eyes locked on mine.
I screamed into the soft flesh of her palm.
“Sssh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Watch.”
Her entire body jerked and twitched, the muscles spasming as she shifted from Jennie to Luna. “See? Think of these as costumes”—from Luna to Sadie—"the important thing is what’s underneath. And you’ve fallen in love with what’s underneath three times. Now I’m going to let go, but I need you to promise you won’t overreact. Understand?”
On the verge of a panic attack, I nodded furiously.
The second she pulled away I made a break for the exit. The thing posing as Sadie grabbed me and hurled me backwards against the wall.
Like a disappointed teacher, she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been so patient with you, Michael. So very, very patient.”
She blocked off any hope of escape. I sidestepped around the outer edge of the room, towards the bar.
“All those years moulding you. Trying to grow you into the man I know you can be. I really thought we had it this time. For the record, I wanted to do this the easy way. But drastic times...”
I was so scared I slammed right into the cabinet and yelped. Glass bottles chattered together, and then something wet ran down the back of my shirt. It was whiskey, leaking from the overturned bottle onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking more to herself now, Gertrude said, “I’ll just have to keep you here until you love me as much as I love you. Of course, that means posing as you so nobody gets suspicious, but that’s no trouble. I’ll tell your dad you’re moving to Italy. You always loved Italy.”
Pose as me? She'd been killing my ex's and taking their place, I was just the latest in a long line. She’d keep me as a personal sugar baby if I didn’t escape, but how? She was impossibly strong, and the only thing that seemed to scare her was…
Snatching the bottle, I doused the remaining whiskey all over the carpet and furniture. As I flicked the lighter open, Sadie’s hands shot up.
“Bugs…darling…what are you doing?”
I took three slow, steady breaths. “Breaking up with you, you crazy bitch.”
I tossed the lighter forward. Within seconds flames sprung up all around us, spreading as far as the sofa. Sadie’s shoe caught fire, and as she stamped around, unintentionally fanning the blaze, her body writhed again, starting with the ankles. Fat boils climbed up every inch of exposed skin, milky white and with the consistency of frog spawn, like she’d had a killer allergic reaction to poison ivy.
She dropped to her knees, wailing like a wounded animal. This was my chance.
I made a break for the exit, giving the creature as wide a berth as possible. But as I got one foot planted in the hall something clamped tight around my ankles. My chin hit the floor, then I started sliding backwards.
I twisted onto my back. Where Sadie’s left arm should’ve been, a tentacle-like appendage stretched across the length of the room, a distance of over twenty feet. It reeled me toward her like a fish on a line. Whatever that thing was no longer looked human. It melted like an ice statue, with no bones or connective tissue inside, its lips nose and mouth becoming hideously elongated before dripping off in huge globs like melted candlewax. A fire alarm started wailing as the tentacle dragged me through the flames, scorching my arms and legs.
The loose mass of skin reached out and encased me like a mother bird sheltering its eggs.
“WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?” all my ex’s voices screamed at once. Whichever direction I looked, silhouettes of faces rose and fell, as if trying to burst through. Parts of them dripped inside my mouth, disgustingly warm with a bitter taste worse than Vaseline.
I put everything into clawing my way out if there. What was left of the beast had the consistency of wet clay and came apart just as easily. I tore away chunks until there was a hole large enough to squeeze through. Then, I crawled along surrounded by black smoke.
At the far side of the room I risked a glance back and saw a bumpy, uneven hand reaching out of a puddle of ooze. Soon I was crawling over the bristly welcome mat, then fumbling for the door. All I remember after that are paramedics wrestling me into an ambulance…
A specialist officer came to see me at the hospital the next morning. They’d been unable to contact the homeowner, Gertrude Huyton, and through his line of questioning I could tell they hadn’t found her ‘remains’ inside the charred house. Like the wicked witch of the West, my stalker had melted. I told the officer she said I could stay the night, and that I probably started the fire by dropping a cigarette.
“In that case, we’ll keep trying to reach her.” He walked to the curtain surronding my bed and paused. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, her cat is missing.”
“Her...cat?”
“Yeah. The little black one. One of the firemen pulled it out of the wreckage. The poor thing had burns over its legs but it ran off before anybody could take it to the vet.”
I swallowed a gulp and thanked him for telling me.
And now I’m still sitting here listening while nurses rush back and forth, terrified any one of them might be Gertrude…
2024.05.19 04:34 75976345 Apparently I organised a student protest against a teacher.
I say "apparently" because... well... you'll see.
This happened decades ago now, back in primary school. I only remembered it because I was recently catching up with old friends from back then, and we got to laughing over old stories and then someone mentioned, "The wildest was when you organised that whole protest against our teacher."
"The time I did what?"
The consensus was I did, indeed, organise the entire class to rebel against our teacher that resulted in her being deposed and our class getting a "substitute" for the rest of the year. I almost fell out of my chair hearing this story from their mouths. It wasn't that I didn't remember it, of course I did--that year was awful. It was just that it existed very differently in my memory.
Two important pieces of background knowledge to understand here:
So when the school said, "Okay, when this bell rings during recess/lunch, that means you have to leave the playground and go back to class", I was a confused child already struggling with all these completely nonsensical limitations and guidelines imposed on me. So when that bell rang, I got that calm little voice in my head that said, "Hmm, no, I'm good out here actually. I don't think I will go back into class." So I would just continue to sit out on the playground, playing with my plastic spider toys or sitting on the swing. Teachers would realise what was going on and come out to get me and tell me I have to go back to class, and I would just very calmly hear them out and then smile at them and politely as possible tell them, "No thank you, I want to stay out here."
They really didn't know what to do with me. I wasn't getting upset, I wasn't throwing a tantrum, I wasn't yelling, I wasn't being rude in any way. I was incredibly docile and would let them explain things to me with endless patience and then just politely refute them and go back to what I was doing, like this was just a very normal and reasonable negotiation between two equal parties. I have memories of sitting on the swing while three very confused and flustered adult staff huddled around me trying to bribe me with candy to go back to class. It would take a whole lesson block to lure me back to the classroom, and then at lunch the whole thing would start over again. It took me three years at school to finally accept the status quo thanks to a religious nutter I got for a teacher, and finally went back to class when the bell rang (was never happy about it though).
I eventually settled into school life. Excelled at subjects I liked, at least passed subjects I didn't, followed the rules, was seen as intelligent and obedient and was often liked by my teachers. Until my final year, when we got the teacher I can only rudely monniker Mrs Bigmouth.
Mrs Bigmouth should not have been a teacher. She had a trigger temper and would explode into long, verbally abusive tirades against us if we ever did anything she felt was disrespectful behaviour. What was disrespectful behaviour? Damned if I know. It changed day by day, depending on mood. You could disrespect her to her face one day and she'd laugh and say you have such razor wit, and politely ask a question the next and she'd scream at you for ten nonstop minutes then give you a week of DT for talking back. The absolute peak moment of her boiling temper came when she threw a dictionary at a girl's head because she was whispering to me in class. When I tell you it missed her by half an inch...
But believe it or not, this wasn't what made her such an awful teacher. It was so hard to get teachers at rural schools back then, there was almost nothing you could do to get fired, so we had experience with teachers with nightmare tempers. What made her such an issue was her big mouth. She used us, her trapped audience, as free therapy. She would infodump, traumadump, about her very personal, very private life to us. All day. She'd be two words into a spelling list and launch into an extended story session about her marital issues with her husband. We'd be heads down doing fractions and, unprompted, she'd declare to the class that her adult daughter no longer talks to her and then diatribe to us about it until the bell rang. She had money issues, a contentious relationship with her parents, her marriage was on the rocks. She once pulled me aside after school and spoke with me, at length, about how she was thinking of having another child to try to repair her marriage. I was like, okay lady, I'm 11, about to miss my bus, and my house is a 4 hour walk on foot from here.
We weren't learning. We'd hadn't had a complete lesson since the first week of the school year. We were behind on the cirriculum and frustrated. One kid had brought a stopwatch into school and would time lessons vs her monologues and kept detailed lists, and we would come to school each morning and do betting pools on them. What subject would she interrupt, what would she talk about, and how long would it go.
But all that still wasn't the breaking point if you can believe it. No! Still not! The problem was it wasn't just her own private life she couldn't keep her mouth shut about. It was everyone else's. Because parents would make the reasonable assumption that she should be told things as our class teacher that would be important to know, and that she would understand these things were said in confidence. Instead she would veer randomly off in the middle of talking to us about her horrible weekend to let us know whatever private or traumatic thing was going on in a classmate's life that she had been made aware of. That was awful. That was what made that year hell. It wasn't even about when my secrets were shared with the entire class against my consent. It was watching the faces of my small, lovely, supportive class of 11 year old children go pale and scrunch up with held-back tears as things they never wanted to share were announced like morning news. God we hated her.
Then one day that voice came. The one I hadn't heard in years. The bell ring to go back into class and that voice said, "But I don't want to be in that classroom. I'm not even being taught there." So I just... didn't. I didn't go back to class. I just sat in the playground in a daze eating grass (don't eat grass, it's not good for your teeth). Despite how small my class was, I don't think Mrs Bigmouth even noticed I wasn't there. Others did though. Come lunch and everyone came out, my friends asked me where I was and I said, "Oh, I didn't go back to class."
"Why didn't you go back to class?"
"Why would I go back to class?"
Lightbulb moment for my schoolmates. Yeah, why would they go back to class? What was the point? From a practical standpoint, they weren't learning. From an emotional standpoint, it was horrible to be there. A friend who had had her family's dirty laundry aired to the entire class just last week, things even she didn't know because her parents tried to keep it from her, asked if she could sit with me rather than go back to class. I just stared at her, vacant and confused.
"Sure? I mean, I'm just eating grass though."
Over the next few days, two kids turned into four, turned into ten, turned into the whole class. The whole class was doing a sit-out protest on the field rather than go back to class. Of course Mrs Bigmouth tried to do something about it. She'd come out, screaming at us and threatening us with DT and internal suspension, but six months of that behaviour had totally vaccinated us against her. I'd become the de facto leader and spokesperson of the protest by merit of being the first to sit out and also because I was well known to not give a shit (autistic brain: I actually just frequently had trouble reading and reacting with the correct social behaviour but it gave me a cool and aloof bad boy mystique I guess). I gave her the exact same treatment from back in grade one. I would let her scream, let her holler, let her threaten, let her spittle rain down on me, and then I would give her a sweet and innocent smile and nod in acknowledgement and say, "No thank you, we're going to remain out here." And thirteen pairs of eyes would stare at her in total silence. No one, not even the most gobbermouthed little shite in the class, would volunteer a word. The unspoken agreement was all negotiations were my responsibility.
The thing about angry people is that they feed off conflict. They get you angry so they can respond with even more anger and it nourishes them. She had no absolutely no plan of action on how to deal with me patiently hearing her out then refuting her in the gentlest of terms.
Another thing that ended up helping down the line is that we made an attempt to conduct our own classes. I mean, they sucked and we didn't learn much because we were kids with no supervision, but it was really cute in retrospect. We'd have groups of people assigned to subjects, with some people bringing in words they found in a dictionary for spelling lists and others bringing in old 6th grade homework from older siblings. The heart was there and it served a purpose, if not educational.
"Okay, but how did no one else notice this was happening? Surely people would notice 14 kids sitting on the lawn, not in class?"
Rural school. Big. Empty. Fields. Even screaming at us, the most other classrooms would hear would be muffled voices, and everyone was used to hearing her yelling at us or taking us out onto the field abruptly to make us do laps as group punishment. Plus the way the school buildings were arranged was that it was actually all in one straight line of adjacent rooms, and ours happened to be at the very end of the building. No windows faced the field we all sat in except that of our own classroom. It was just a very lucky arrangement of coincidences and preconceived notions, at least for a couple weeks. I couldn't tell you the exact number, this was so long ago and as a kid I definitely had a more stretched idea of time. Minutes felt like hours, especially during that year. But there was definitely at least two weekends that passed by since the "sit-out protest" started.
Eventually someone cottoned on to what was happening, or maybe Mrs Bigmouth humbled herself and finally confessed to her boss that she had lost control of a bunch of 11-year-olds, so we were called into the principal's office to sort this out. As the representative of our class, I was of course chosen to attend the meeting, flanked by the girl who'd had the dictionary thrown at her head and my friend who was the first to sit out with me. Since I understood that this meeting was one where we were probably going to be yelled at for doing the wrong thing, a thing I had ample experience of, I felt like the easiest way to mitigate things (especially since I felt guilty for being the instigator) was to explain in a very rational and logical way the series of events that led up to our bad behaviour. As well, for my entire life my mother had always taught me that it was no good complaining about things unless you were also willing to think of solutions. "I'm hungry!" - "Well, what's a solution to that problem?" - "Uh, make myself a sandwich?" - "Great! Let's do that together!"
So what did I do? Of course, to make things as clean and concise as possible, I interviewed my class one by one to hear each individual story of why they didn't feel comfortable going to class anymore, itemised them under categories (Verbal Aggression; Interruptions of Lessons; Oversharing Student Life) for easier discussion because my little quirky brain loved itemising things, and then as a kind of olive branch came up with solutions (we wanted to finish lessons unhindered, we wanted our personal privacy to be respected, we wanted to be able to catch our bus on time rather than being held back with unfair DT or long "chats"). So many things sort of came together in this beautiful, wholly accidental way. We had months of records of timed rants and monologues, noted down to the millisecond thanks to that kid's stopwatch. We had records of us trying to teach ourselves during the protests, showing this wasn't us just not wanting to go to class but due to us feeling as though we did not have a class to go to. When the principal heard all this, her jaw it the floor. A lot of it was stuff she knew, peripherally, but things had just never been laid out so neatly before. Some of it was stuff we'd complained to parents about, but it was one kid coming home and telling one parent one time, weeks ago. There was no real sense, up until now, the sheer scope of her behaviour. She didn't even answer us. She just said, "Okay, I need to call your parents."
We got the rest of the week off school. That weekend, every parent of every student came to a meeting between them, Mrs Bigmouth, and the principal. Stories were swapped. My exercise book with my tidy little lists and the records of the betting pool and monologue times were confiscated and brought into the meeting. I don't know what went down, but when my mother came home she just told me that Mrs Bigmouth would not be our problem for the rest of the school year, and more importantly, that she was incredibly proud of me and that I did the right thing. Rarely in my childhood had my inability to integrate into normal society led me to doing the right thing, so I just remember crying and hugging and feeling vindicated about, I don't know, just existing or something.
So yeah. From the outside perspective here is what it looked like: I, the ringleader with a history of dismissing school rules, organised a sit-out strike amongst my class. I kept the protest peaceful and non-disruptive to other classes. When negotiations with the principal were finally arranged, as the representative I compiled a clear list of greivances, with evidence, and a list of reasonable demands. I mean, holy crap, yes, yes I clearly organised a student protest.
The actual results of it are mixed. We got a revolving door of substitute teachers of varying quality for the rest of the school year, occasionally being bundled into other classrooms entirely when they couldn't find someone. It wasn't a great learning environment and we continued to struggle a lot, but it was better than before. Mrs Bigmouth was not actually fired but put on leave for the rest of the school year, then returned and was put in charge of a different year level (which happened to be the class of the younger sister of a guy in my class: according to him, she was quiet as a church mouse that entire year so I hope at least she learned her lesson, or at least finally got divorced and went to actual therapy). The entire ordeal caused our already small and close class to become really really supportive and like family to each other and we all remain in touch until this day. And we became fierce about standing up for ourselves.
I kind of learned to parse the difference between when it was appropriate to go along with set societal rules even if I don't understand them, and when those rules were just straight up unreasonable and nobody should be required to follow them. I did, years alter, lead an actual (very small) strike at work but intentionally that time. My mother was proud of me then too. :)
submitted by 75976345 to ProRevenge [link] [comments]
This happened decades ago now, back in primary school. I only remembered it because I was recently catching up with old friends from back then, and we got to laughing over old stories and then someone mentioned, "The wildest was when you organised that whole protest against our teacher."
"The time I did what?"
The consensus was I did, indeed, organise the entire class to rebel against our teacher that resulted in her being deposed and our class getting a "substitute" for the rest of the year. I almost fell out of my chair hearing this story from their mouths. It wasn't that I didn't remember it, of course I did--that year was awful. It was just that it existed very differently in my memory.
Two important pieces of background knowledge to understand here:
- I went to a very very small, very very rural school. How small? Each classroom was composed of the entire year level, and the largest had at most 30 kids in them. My class/year level was on the smallest in the entire school, with a piddling 14 kids in it altogether. While we still had our cliques and factions, our small size caused our class to be very tight knit and protective of each other. How rural? The school building itself was incredibly small, but one thing we were not short on was gigantic empty fields surrounding us on all sides. Great for sports, great for (it turns out) student protests.
- I was, at the time, undiagnosed autistic. I mean I still am autistic, I'm just formally diagnosed now. But back then I was just seen as being a very quirky kid. One of the ways this quirkiness manifested was that I really had trouble adapting to the rules and structure of grade school and how it differed from what I was used to. At home if I wanted to pee, I just went to the toilet. Now I have to put my hand up? Now I have to ask permission to piss? Then I went home and put my hand up to ask my mom for permission to pee and she told me I didn't need to! Madness! Chaos! I don't care what the rules are, please just be consistent!
So when the school said, "Okay, when this bell rings during recess/lunch, that means you have to leave the playground and go back to class", I was a confused child already struggling with all these completely nonsensical limitations and guidelines imposed on me. So when that bell rang, I got that calm little voice in my head that said, "Hmm, no, I'm good out here actually. I don't think I will go back into class." So I would just continue to sit out on the playground, playing with my plastic spider toys or sitting on the swing. Teachers would realise what was going on and come out to get me and tell me I have to go back to class, and I would just very calmly hear them out and then smile at them and politely as possible tell them, "No thank you, I want to stay out here."
They really didn't know what to do with me. I wasn't getting upset, I wasn't throwing a tantrum, I wasn't yelling, I wasn't being rude in any way. I was incredibly docile and would let them explain things to me with endless patience and then just politely refute them and go back to what I was doing, like this was just a very normal and reasonable negotiation between two equal parties. I have memories of sitting on the swing while three very confused and flustered adult staff huddled around me trying to bribe me with candy to go back to class. It would take a whole lesson block to lure me back to the classroom, and then at lunch the whole thing would start over again. It took me three years at school to finally accept the status quo thanks to a religious nutter I got for a teacher, and finally went back to class when the bell rang (was never happy about it though).
I eventually settled into school life. Excelled at subjects I liked, at least passed subjects I didn't, followed the rules, was seen as intelligent and obedient and was often liked by my teachers. Until my final year, when we got the teacher I can only rudely monniker Mrs Bigmouth.
Mrs Bigmouth should not have been a teacher. She had a trigger temper and would explode into long, verbally abusive tirades against us if we ever did anything she felt was disrespectful behaviour. What was disrespectful behaviour? Damned if I know. It changed day by day, depending on mood. You could disrespect her to her face one day and she'd laugh and say you have such razor wit, and politely ask a question the next and she'd scream at you for ten nonstop minutes then give you a week of DT for talking back. The absolute peak moment of her boiling temper came when she threw a dictionary at a girl's head because she was whispering to me in class. When I tell you it missed her by half an inch...
But believe it or not, this wasn't what made her such an awful teacher. It was so hard to get teachers at rural schools back then, there was almost nothing you could do to get fired, so we had experience with teachers with nightmare tempers. What made her such an issue was her big mouth. She used us, her trapped audience, as free therapy. She would infodump, traumadump, about her very personal, very private life to us. All day. She'd be two words into a spelling list and launch into an extended story session about her marital issues with her husband. We'd be heads down doing fractions and, unprompted, she'd declare to the class that her adult daughter no longer talks to her and then diatribe to us about it until the bell rang. She had money issues, a contentious relationship with her parents, her marriage was on the rocks. She once pulled me aside after school and spoke with me, at length, about how she was thinking of having another child to try to repair her marriage. I was like, okay lady, I'm 11, about to miss my bus, and my house is a 4 hour walk on foot from here.
We weren't learning. We'd hadn't had a complete lesson since the first week of the school year. We were behind on the cirriculum and frustrated. One kid had brought a stopwatch into school and would time lessons vs her monologues and kept detailed lists, and we would come to school each morning and do betting pools on them. What subject would she interrupt, what would she talk about, and how long would it go.
But all that still wasn't the breaking point if you can believe it. No! Still not! The problem was it wasn't just her own private life she couldn't keep her mouth shut about. It was everyone else's. Because parents would make the reasonable assumption that she should be told things as our class teacher that would be important to know, and that she would understand these things were said in confidence. Instead she would veer randomly off in the middle of talking to us about her horrible weekend to let us know whatever private or traumatic thing was going on in a classmate's life that she had been made aware of. That was awful. That was what made that year hell. It wasn't even about when my secrets were shared with the entire class against my consent. It was watching the faces of my small, lovely, supportive class of 11 year old children go pale and scrunch up with held-back tears as things they never wanted to share were announced like morning news. God we hated her.
Then one day that voice came. The one I hadn't heard in years. The bell ring to go back into class and that voice said, "But I don't want to be in that classroom. I'm not even being taught there." So I just... didn't. I didn't go back to class. I just sat in the playground in a daze eating grass (don't eat grass, it's not good for your teeth). Despite how small my class was, I don't think Mrs Bigmouth even noticed I wasn't there. Others did though. Come lunch and everyone came out, my friends asked me where I was and I said, "Oh, I didn't go back to class."
"Why didn't you go back to class?"
"Why would I go back to class?"
Lightbulb moment for my schoolmates. Yeah, why would they go back to class? What was the point? From a practical standpoint, they weren't learning. From an emotional standpoint, it was horrible to be there. A friend who had had her family's dirty laundry aired to the entire class just last week, things even she didn't know because her parents tried to keep it from her, asked if she could sit with me rather than go back to class. I just stared at her, vacant and confused.
"Sure? I mean, I'm just eating grass though."
Over the next few days, two kids turned into four, turned into ten, turned into the whole class. The whole class was doing a sit-out protest on the field rather than go back to class. Of course Mrs Bigmouth tried to do something about it. She'd come out, screaming at us and threatening us with DT and internal suspension, but six months of that behaviour had totally vaccinated us against her. I'd become the de facto leader and spokesperson of the protest by merit of being the first to sit out and also because I was well known to not give a shit (autistic brain: I actually just frequently had trouble reading and reacting with the correct social behaviour but it gave me a cool and aloof bad boy mystique I guess). I gave her the exact same treatment from back in grade one. I would let her scream, let her holler, let her threaten, let her spittle rain down on me, and then I would give her a sweet and innocent smile and nod in acknowledgement and say, "No thank you, we're going to remain out here." And thirteen pairs of eyes would stare at her in total silence. No one, not even the most gobbermouthed little shite in the class, would volunteer a word. The unspoken agreement was all negotiations were my responsibility.
The thing about angry people is that they feed off conflict. They get you angry so they can respond with even more anger and it nourishes them. She had no absolutely no plan of action on how to deal with me patiently hearing her out then refuting her in the gentlest of terms.
Another thing that ended up helping down the line is that we made an attempt to conduct our own classes. I mean, they sucked and we didn't learn much because we were kids with no supervision, but it was really cute in retrospect. We'd have groups of people assigned to subjects, with some people bringing in words they found in a dictionary for spelling lists and others bringing in old 6th grade homework from older siblings. The heart was there and it served a purpose, if not educational.
"Okay, but how did no one else notice this was happening? Surely people would notice 14 kids sitting on the lawn, not in class?"
Rural school. Big. Empty. Fields. Even screaming at us, the most other classrooms would hear would be muffled voices, and everyone was used to hearing her yelling at us or taking us out onto the field abruptly to make us do laps as group punishment. Plus the way the school buildings were arranged was that it was actually all in one straight line of adjacent rooms, and ours happened to be at the very end of the building. No windows faced the field we all sat in except that of our own classroom. It was just a very lucky arrangement of coincidences and preconceived notions, at least for a couple weeks. I couldn't tell you the exact number, this was so long ago and as a kid I definitely had a more stretched idea of time. Minutes felt like hours, especially during that year. But there was definitely at least two weekends that passed by since the "sit-out protest" started.
Eventually someone cottoned on to what was happening, or maybe Mrs Bigmouth humbled herself and finally confessed to her boss that she had lost control of a bunch of 11-year-olds, so we were called into the principal's office to sort this out. As the representative of our class, I was of course chosen to attend the meeting, flanked by the girl who'd had the dictionary thrown at her head and my friend who was the first to sit out with me. Since I understood that this meeting was one where we were probably going to be yelled at for doing the wrong thing, a thing I had ample experience of, I felt like the easiest way to mitigate things (especially since I felt guilty for being the instigator) was to explain in a very rational and logical way the series of events that led up to our bad behaviour. As well, for my entire life my mother had always taught me that it was no good complaining about things unless you were also willing to think of solutions. "I'm hungry!" - "Well, what's a solution to that problem?" - "Uh, make myself a sandwich?" - "Great! Let's do that together!"
So what did I do? Of course, to make things as clean and concise as possible, I interviewed my class one by one to hear each individual story of why they didn't feel comfortable going to class anymore, itemised them under categories (Verbal Aggression; Interruptions of Lessons; Oversharing Student Life) for easier discussion because my little quirky brain loved itemising things, and then as a kind of olive branch came up with solutions (we wanted to finish lessons unhindered, we wanted our personal privacy to be respected, we wanted to be able to catch our bus on time rather than being held back with unfair DT or long "chats"). So many things sort of came together in this beautiful, wholly accidental way. We had months of records of timed rants and monologues, noted down to the millisecond thanks to that kid's stopwatch. We had records of us trying to teach ourselves during the protests, showing this wasn't us just not wanting to go to class but due to us feeling as though we did not have a class to go to. When the principal heard all this, her jaw it the floor. A lot of it was stuff she knew, peripherally, but things had just never been laid out so neatly before. Some of it was stuff we'd complained to parents about, but it was one kid coming home and telling one parent one time, weeks ago. There was no real sense, up until now, the sheer scope of her behaviour. She didn't even answer us. She just said, "Okay, I need to call your parents."
We got the rest of the week off school. That weekend, every parent of every student came to a meeting between them, Mrs Bigmouth, and the principal. Stories were swapped. My exercise book with my tidy little lists and the records of the betting pool and monologue times were confiscated and brought into the meeting. I don't know what went down, but when my mother came home she just told me that Mrs Bigmouth would not be our problem for the rest of the school year, and more importantly, that she was incredibly proud of me and that I did the right thing. Rarely in my childhood had my inability to integrate into normal society led me to doing the right thing, so I just remember crying and hugging and feeling vindicated about, I don't know, just existing or something.
So yeah. From the outside perspective here is what it looked like: I, the ringleader with a history of dismissing school rules, organised a sit-out strike amongst my class. I kept the protest peaceful and non-disruptive to other classes. When negotiations with the principal were finally arranged, as the representative I compiled a clear list of greivances, with evidence, and a list of reasonable demands. I mean, holy crap, yes, yes I clearly organised a student protest.
The actual results of it are mixed. We got a revolving door of substitute teachers of varying quality for the rest of the school year, occasionally being bundled into other classrooms entirely when they couldn't find someone. It wasn't a great learning environment and we continued to struggle a lot, but it was better than before. Mrs Bigmouth was not actually fired but put on leave for the rest of the school year, then returned and was put in charge of a different year level (which happened to be the class of the younger sister of a guy in my class: according to him, she was quiet as a church mouse that entire year so I hope at least she learned her lesson, or at least finally got divorced and went to actual therapy). The entire ordeal caused our already small and close class to become really really supportive and like family to each other and we all remain in touch until this day. And we became fierce about standing up for ourselves.
I kind of learned to parse the difference between when it was appropriate to go along with set societal rules even if I don't understand them, and when those rules were just straight up unreasonable and nobody should be required to follow them. I did, years alter, lead an actual (very small) strike at work but intentionally that time. My mother was proud of me then too. :)
2024.05.19 04:12 pizzapillowfort FMH Master Doc
The moment a lot of you have been waiting for is here!
A couple of notes before you read (or after because I would just jump into the list right away too)
Mentioned on Tiktok and on the pod once
Myspace Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok
Third Boyfriend
Met on eCrush.com in 2002 and this was mentioned on the Cracked Up podcast, The Dave Glaser Podcast and Tiktok
The Kiwi
Met on a 2 week Model UN type youth trip in high school when Ali was 15, never a boyfriend but she had a huge crush on him, he tried to kiss Ali and she literally ran away, didn’t talk the rest of the trip but exchanged numbers and screen names (Ali’s was FineGal13 or BeachJewel760), she made him a mixtape cd called “Ali’s really cool mix for The Kiwi” but never sent it and she still has it. In 2021, he DM’d her when she posted photos of her and her mom in France and invites her to visit him in London, she says she can’t but says they should catch up if he comes to NYC
Fourth Boyfriend
Met on OkCupid when you had to use it on the computer, this was mentioned on Tiktok
The Homecoming Date or Light Switch
First boyfriend? (she goes back and forth calling him her first bf or a situationship), a family friend, a month younger than Ali, dated in high school but went to different high schools, football player, made him ask her to her Homecoming dance over email (her words), Ali hid in the bathroom the whole Homecoming dance, 3-4 revisits of this situations as adults, saw him on Bumble a few years ago and texted him that he had a typo in his bio, “he very much wanted to be with me” and now he’s married with a kid. His mom is still “obsessed” with Ali and she listens to FMH
Random college guy
Freshman year of college, Ali doesn’t have a nickname for him/doesn’t remember his real name, met this guy through a friend, was texting him to invite him over to hot tub but her phone autocorrected to “how about some hot rubbing tonight?” but Ali didn’t noticed/didn’t correct it and he never replied, Ali had a house party and got really drunk and was all over him, he left the party early, she messaged him on MySpace 3-4 times asking why he left
The Resident
Matched on Match.com, first guy she dated in NYC after college, older than Ali, a doctor, lasted 3 months ”maybe”, he didn’t like Ali’s friends, got a card from him on her birthday and it said “Love, The Resident” and it took Ali back a little, Ali drinks black coffee because of him, he coordinated having her mom visit NYC for her birthday then he broke up with her a week later
The Ghost
Met at a bar when she was 25, turns out they matched on OkCupid and they already had a date scheduled next week, they dated for 6-8 weeks, had sleepovers, “The worst ghosting experience I’ve ever had”, he borrowed The Great Gatsby from Ali’s roommate, planned to make dinner together after a beach trip in August with her friends and never showed up, Ali is blowing up his phone and gets no reply, two weeks later she finally texts “are you alive? check yes or no” and he responds “Yes”, Ali then ask if he could return the book and gets no reply again, 5 months go by and she receives the book in the mail with the note: “Here’s the book back. Sorry. P.S. sorry about last summer. I was in a bad place. You’re a great person and your salmon is amazing”, since then she has ran into him twice on the streets and matched with him on Bumble
The Coach/Mr. Adorable
First serious boyfriend at 26/27 in 2013, matched on Match.com or met through work depending if you’re listening to the pod or reading her OG blog, clean-cut look, played volleyball, Ali invited him to a friend’s birthday party and they made out in the streets at 4am, on their second date he asked Ali if she was seeing any one and when Ali said no he ask her to be his girlfriend 3 days after their first date, dated for almost 1.5 years or almost 2 years depending on if you’re listening to the pod or the Patreon, first time saying “I love you” to a guy, “lovely guy“, never would posted Ali on his instagram until Ali said something, he “lived” with her for two weeks while he was in between apartments, tried blind folding/hair pulling during sex and she didn’t like it, by the end of their relationship Ali didn’t like sex and thought she wasn’t a very sexual person, after they broke up Ali drunk texted him at 2am and he picked her up and she spent the night and she took her things in the morning in a rolly suitcase, from her blog in 2015: “I just want to be careful I don’t end up with another Mr. Adorable situation, where I find myself dating my platonic best friend”, had drinks with him in 2016 from the blog: “Not in a romantic way (at least on my end)”, Ali still talks to him sometimes through casual instagram DMs, he’s currently (as of 2021) dating someone for 4+ years and Ali thinks they’re going to get engaged
Trouble
OG 2015 FMH blog, never mentioned on the pod, “I was immediately enamored with him”, met at a Beer Olympic party but he worked with one of Ali’s best friends (Ali was still dating The Coach at the time), lived in BK, tattoos and stubble, Ali’s best friend said he was a “fuck boy”, “he very much made me see that it was the right thing for me and The Coach to not be together”, from her blog in 2015: “he has this look in his eye like he’s constantly laughing at me – in a super sexy way”, he texted her saying he didn’t see anything romantically with her and she sent a gif of someone shrugging
Personal side note: Ali has mentioned she has cheated on someone but never disclosed who she cheated on or with. I feel like she cheated on Mr.A/The Coach with Trouble because of the timeline. Just a guess.
Waffles
Matched on Bumble, OG 2015 FMH blog, he asked Ali fuck/marry/kill breakfast foods, dated 2 months around summer time, on Fourth of July while watching fireworks he said how they had a great day and Ali replied with something along the lines with “yeah, it would be better if I could call you my boyfriend”, he said he wanted a relationship but just not with Ali and shortly afterwards they stopped seeing each other
The Buffalo
Lived in Buffalo NY, 6’5, Scorpio, met in 2015 at Adults National volleyball (Ali’s team won that year) where he was heckling her while she was playing, asks Ali’s mom for her number and Ali’s mom said “I guess you’re tall enough” and told him to ask her himself, he flew her out and she met his parents, dated over summer, exclusive but never boyfriend/girlfriend (but called him her LD boyfriend on TikTok), texted and talked on the phone a lot, Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “they had really good banter”, in October he invited her to his cousins wedding and she invited him to her friends wedding, after Ali bought her ticket to his cousins wedding (with the promise he would buy her ticket to her friend’s wedding) he ghosted and stonewalled her, she “poured her heart out to him on voicemail” and he never replied, she asked him to pay her back for her ticket and he got mad that she “made this about money”, 2 years later he told Ali that he freaked out because he really liked her and saw a future with her but knew she would never move to Buffalo and it would “never work”, Ali said at the time she would have considered moving for him, Ali used to have him blocked on Facebook and told all her friends not to update her on info about him (unless she asked). He’s now married and goes to Disney with his wife (which Ali kind of scoffs at?), Ali said on TikTok that she dodged a bullet
Baby Bic
Met him at Adults National years ago, had a flirtationship with him in 2016 when he was 19 years old, ran into him at the Adults Nationals 2021, last texts she got from him were about getting his fake ID taken away at the bar and him visiting her in NYC but Ali didn’t want to buy him beer and drink at her apartment
The Chef
Matched on Tinder around 2016, he loved karaoke, “total shit”, asked Ali to be his girlfriend and to meet his mom after a month, off and on dating, broke up the first time because he was talking to his ex, lied and flew to Mexico to see his ex while dating Ali, that ex sent Ali a Snapchat of them in bed together on that Mexico trip, Ali broke up with him via text and called him a shitty boyfriend, he’s the reason Ali deleted her Snapchat because of drunk Snaps he would send post break up, FB messaged Ali 6 years later (while Roark was visiting/staying with Ali) and said sorry for being a shit head. Ali’s best friends hated him
The Dentist
Met on Halloween in the wild, Canadian, dated NYE 2016- May 2017 “nice guy, not my guy”, one of Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “he adored you, “he was too sweet for me” and “he had no edge to him”, he painted Ali’s cat for her 30th birthday but she was annoyed it was just Rory and not both cats, The Chef texted Ali while on a date/sleeping at his house
ASV - Aspiring Sober Vegan
Met through a friend (her best guy friend’s college roommate) the day before she had to fly out to her dad’s memorial, a doctor, into meditation, remembered him “being cuter” when they went on a first date, felt “the spark”, had “omg this is awesome sex”, Ali described this relationship as a “slow burn” and “the most attracted she ever been to a partner” even thought she didn’t think he was that cute in the beginning, dated 2-3 months before he tried to ghost Ali but they talked and broke up, four months later they start casually dating/FWB because he’s moving but this turns into a ‘middle distance relationship’ and he moves to Philly, had a lot of communication issues but didn't have a lot of fights, wants to live in Ohio and give a % of his income to charity, Ali was close to saying ‘I love you’ but didn’t, he uninvited her to meet his extended family and they got in a fight, broke up with her a couple weeks before their 6 month anniversary at the park while on a picnic and told her that she’s still his favorite person, Ali used to think he was “the one that got away” and would frequently have dreams about him. From what Ali knows, he's sober but not vegan
The Scientist
2017 or 2018ish, from San Diego, went on one date, Ali ended up ghosting him due to the decline in her dad’s health, saw him on Hinge while she was in San Diego for 3 months in 2020, texted him and apologized for ghosting him, ended up going on 2-3 more dates, took a selfie in front of his house and sent it to him but acted like she didn’t know that was his house and made a TikTok about it, things ended up not working but she doesn’t make it clear on who ended it. She can now see she shouldn’t have been going on dates during this time when her dad was sick.
Good on Paper Divorced Dude
Met a couple of years ago (she told this story on TikTok in 2020) on Bumble
The Groomsman
Met at her friend Ashley’s wedding in Chicago Oct 2019, had a “two night stand” with him, texted/talked/FT’d for 3-4 months, divorced, never dated seriously/FWB, saw each other a couple time when he came to NYC, Ali stopped talking with him due to FMH and her trying to find a serious relationship, he starts dating someone, follows FMH on insta, slid into her DM in 2022 and then sent her soup while she was sick, turns out he’s single again, 2 months later Ali is heading to Chicago and texts him “Hello! Reminder that my arrival to your neck of the woods is imminent” and turns out he is now seeing someone and Ali doesn’t see him while in Chicago (at least she doesn’t mention it)
Unnicknamed person
He was her plus one at her best friend from college’s NYE wedding 2019/2020, met and hung out with Ali’s mom, posted photos of them together on her personal Insta story, “fully dating but weren’t official hehe” doesn’t have a nickname/never gave him a nickname? This could be The Latvian/the person she texted her friend in DC about saying “I think I’m on a date with my husband”
He was browsing Bumble while Ali was in the bathroom during their first date, he was banned from Bumble and was using his grandma phone number. Ali turned down a second date
The Duke
Early FMH, went for long periods of time in between texts, 7-8 Zoom dates while Ali was in San Diego and he was in NY, Ali said you could see three of his ex’s on his instagram page (without scrolling), they finally went on one date and it was “meh” but they did kiss on their date
The Oyster
Matched on Bumble (he had one photo and no bio) two weeks before Valentines Day, Gemini, a lawyer, part of the 13 First Dates in 30 Days series (he was #13), dated Feb 2020-Aug 2020, love bomber, felt “the spark” and became official after 3 dates, best first date ever??? at the time, said “I love you” to Ali after two weeks, “For most of my relationship with The Oyster, he didn’t live in the city he had moved to Connecticut without telling me”, would fight all the time, opposite political views, Ali felt like a “fucking summer camp director” because she planned all their dates and he would get upset if Ali didn't have a plan, sought out a therapist (Megan) because of her relationship struggles because of him, went to Mass/church, he wanted a traditional marriage/life/wife/kids (at one point had Ali thinking she wanted that), didn’t want to live in NYC, didn’t support BLM, Cindy hated him
The Pilot
Went on 3 dates, texted a lot, didn’t hear back from him in four days and when she said she was looking to date someone who showed more consistency, he replied saying he met someone the day after their last date who seems to have more free time than Ali and he wants to pursue that but would like to be friends, Ali said on TikTok that this other women “bent her schedule to his schedule” and she was unwilling to do that. Mostly talked about him on TikTok
The Analyst
Matched on Bumble two years ago and went on one date, re matched in 2021 and he stood Ali up, she send him a text “getting stood up” script and he never replied. Only mentioned him on TikTok (?)
First date on the pod? I couldn't find anything else about him
The Scuba Diver
The Music Man
One date, “he didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just not for me”, amped up small talk, complimented Ali a lot which made her feel awkward cause she wasn’t feeling it, he texted her and asked for a second date and Ali sent the no ghosting script
The Bet
Uses the phrase “ok bet”, 28 years old shoe designer, only went on one dinner date to a spot he picked, turns out its cash only and he didn’t bring cash, was not into him , not looking for the same thing
The Dinosaur
Nickname was previously The Hawaiian, first date at Dinosaur BBQ, stood in a parking spot to save for Ali, he asked for a kiss after their date and Ali declined saying maybe next time
The Rose
He sent her a rose on hinge, first date was an hour long walk in the park while drinking beer
The Comic
Matched on Hinge, older than Ali (Ali’s friends express how happy they were to hear that), had brunch on their first date (was the first part of a double header but the second guy canceled), listed as “moderate” politically on Hinge, good and easy convo, went back and forth twice over text and then never heard back from him, “technically not ghosting...”
The Camper
Met in the wild at a volleyball tournament in July, lives in Chicago, 27 years old, hung out the whole time, over heard Ali asking someone to get her a make out partner, gave Ali his number, drunkly ask him for a FT date in the future and he didn’t reply, Ali texts him again about a volleyball thing and he replied back with not a lot of enthusiasm, Ali is going to Chicago in Sept for a volleyball tournament and she’s already planning on playing 4-on-4 with her best friend vs. his roommate and maybe The Camper, he texts her saying he has to work on the date of the tournament and won’t be able to do the 4-on-4 game, “I feel like I got broken up with someone I never want to date in the first place”
Went on a dinner date, was chatting up the waitress in a kind of creepy way, was bragging about a lot of things and it turned Ali off and Ali texted him her no ghosting script
The Accountant
1st matchmaker match, 31 years old, lives in BK, his dad has also passed away, easy to talk to, on the third date she wasn’t sure if she saw a future with him and in her gut doesn’t feel like this would be a slow burn, Ali breaks things off with him, months (?) later he sent Ali a 5 min long voice memo and they said they were both down to see each other as friends. He later on dated and ghosted Erica
The Aussie
Matched on Hinge, in politics, from Australia but lived all over the place, asked Ali what she’s looking for on the first date and he said he’s “casually looking for something serious”, Ali accidentally walks up to a different person on their second date, Ali texts him saying she would love to see him before he leaves on a trip and she wasn’t happy that it took him till the next day to reply and he can’t see her before he leaves
The Goalie
Was supposed to be Ali’s 2nd match, he’s a paying client, Ali didn’t hear back from him for a while when she told him where she lived, he wrote to the matchmaker saying that she lived too far away even though it states where she lives in her matchmaker profile
The Journalist
2nd matchmaker match, ended things because she was dating/pursuing things with The Discoball and paused her matchmakers matches
The Threepeat
Matched multiple times on dating apps but this recent time with Hinge, Amazon seller, first date was a pizza lunch date (with bubbles aka champagne) and he gave her a single yellow carnation, talked a lot about her “side hustles” aka her food blog, coaching, FMH and the pod (Ali didn’t mentioned the name on FMH), had an awkward half kiss during the date and then gave her a peck when they said goodbye, he had no night stands by his bed?, spent the night but told public pod they had a movie night, different kissing styles, 6 dates, broke things off with Ali two days before her first date with The Rower WHILE Ali was on a Halloween girls trip
The Rower
Dated from Halloween 2021 till early Feb 2022, Pisces who is 6 days older than Ali, has an ex-fiancé (they dated for 8 years, engaged for two of them, she broke off the engagement with him 1.5 years ago once he started dating Ali), has a shared dog with this ex, slept together around Xmas on the fourth date and Ali got a UTI, first time having “omg this is awesome sex” since ASV, first person Ali slept next to wearing an eye mask "that's a big step for me", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, on New Years Day told her that he sees “long term relationship potential” with her but doesn’t want to be exclusive after 5 dates, “we didn’t talk all week”, he said he wasn’t as ready as he though to date someone seriously and “I don’t know why I don’t want to be in a relationship with you” they broke up over the phone, Ali said he’s a good human and wants to date someone like him, 3.5 weeks later Ali drunk texted him at 3:00 am saying “its really hard not to talk to you” which Ali said was a lie, he replied back (few days? A week later?) while Ali was on another date and it made her cry a bit, she replied back saying “the door is closed but not locked” in regards if he wants to get back together. “Fin… for now”
Matched on Hinge but didn’t go on a first date for two week, Gemini, used to be a singer in a band, moved from DC to NYC, went on 7 dates in 2022, had a dog w/ ex and ex got full custody once he moved, met one of his friends on the second date, slept with him on the second date “morning and night”, he tried to find the podcast without knowing the name, podcasted from his house in DC, he would send Ali photos of them together “all the time”, gave a virtual presentation from his hotel room, did Molly together in DC, had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, moved to BK (didn’t see each other for 2 months pre-move), had a sex-less sleepover (a milestone for Ali), he showed up for her on her dad’s death date (something that a person she’s dating has never done), used to listen to the pod but stopped before they stopped seeing each other, ghosted her after they had a talk about moving things forward to exclusive and Ali texted him something along the lines of “your silence is the answer” when she didn’t hear back from him for a week and he ghosted her. Ali said he sucks in #77 AUA
Lisbon
The Brit
M&M
The Come Back Kid
They went on 2-3 dates in Nov 2018 and reconnected in May 2022, "felt immediately comfortable", sat next to a very drunk lady on their second 1st date and was supportive but "didn't step on Ali's toes" when the drunk lady said something offensive to Ali, couldn’t remember if they slept together or not, knows about FMH, ghosted Ali
The Trainer
The Cold Brew
The Nomad
3rd matchmaker match, reminded Ali of The Oyster, wanted kids and didn’t want to live in NYC forever, Ali was upset at first because her matchmaker was supposed to screen for that but the matchmaker DID check and it wasn’t mentioned when she was screening The Nomad, no second date because those are dealbreakers to him
The Catcher
Matched on Bumble, “good not great” after their first date, ~April 2022, talked about sports a lot on their first date
The Gentleman
4th matchmaker match, knew about Ali’s FMH socials before their date, Ali didn’t like his texting style, awkward intro on their first date “like hugging a 2 x 4”, he runs a dating event company and actually email Ali to be a guest on the pod when FMH first started, awkward goodbye, didn’t discuss the actual first date on the main pod because she doesn’t want to give him a reason to reach out again
The Tennis Pro
Ali had a good time on their date, “He is an adult, he’s mature” BUT “I don’t think he was into it”
The Padre
Matched on Bumble, 3 dates, from San Diego, “energy mismatch”, doesn’t want to know or listen to FMH, no psychical connection/kiss, only a kiss on the cheek on their last date, “I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night [a week]”, she didn’t want to do what The Threepeat did to her (break up while on vacation/traveling), she said it might be a MOO
5th matchmaker match, found him on Bumble before their in-person date, ghosted Ali AND the matchmaker???
6th matchmaker match
Last match and Ali states she will not talk about this date or anything about it
JFK Kirk?
Matched on Bumble, didn’t realize he’s located in SD, exchanged personal instagram info, not sure where things went or how things ended
Kirk #1
Met in the wild, make out a lot the night they met, “stealing kisses throughout the night”, exchanged numbers, planned a date (no specifics, just the day) but when Ali texted him day of he asked to reschedule (no specifics again), he replied back that he’s picking up a rental car, told him she’s looking for someone to respect her time and he never replied back
First date of 2023, matched on The League, first nickname was “League Kirk”, hard to talk to, felt like Ali was always reaching for the next topic, likes to travel, “there wasn’t a vibe”, MOO
The Roommate
Used to be her friend’s roommate and have met before (Ali doesn’t remember but it was the day after that exclusive convo with The Rower), “totally cute”, reunited at their mutual friend’s engagement party January 2023, made out at the bar, comes back to her place and sleeps over (no sex), Ali questions why her friends never set them up and its because he was taking a break from dating, first date they made out a lot at the bar (again), “I really felt like we were already a couple”, “It didn’t feel like a first date”, mentions her FMH content has popped up on his FYP, tried texting him after their date and he wasn’t giving effort, she’s glad she didn’t sleep with him because “one night stands aren’t my thing”, MOO
The Belgian
Matched on Bumble, accidentally had their first date during a trivia night at a bar, easy to talk to
The Viking
Ali forgot they had a first date on the day of said date
Tinder Man
Matched on Tinder (duh) on Valentine’s Day, first Tinder date in three years, good convo on first date but got a pushy vibe from him at the second bar they went to, put his hand up her sweater and was kissing her in the bar, made Ali uncomfortable and she told him that after he asked her on a second date
The Historian
Matched on Bumble, good conversation on the first date with a wide range of topics like “urban planning and its impact on feminism”, he’s in grad school
The Georgian
Matched on Hinge, he asked if she was free on Friday and she said yes but didn’t hear back from him in two days and in that time she made plans for Friday, rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon date at a dive bar, ate on her way to her date “it would be next level rude to eat on the subway”, good first date, talked about places he wants to take her to
The Publicist
Matched on Tinder, lives in BK, Jewish, one year younger then Ali, good first date, invited him to the Chaotic Singles Party that night, came over to Ali's apartment (which Ali said was messy) before and he made her favorite cocktail for her, a couple of listeners met him at the CSP, goofy and silly convo mixed with deep and serious convos, second date was at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and a tasting menu dinner, he made a Resy reservation and Ali got an email saying she was added to it ”fuck receiving gifts, THAT’S my love language”, he's into words like Ali, he sneezed and Ali said "God bless you" but then corrected herself and said "gesundheit" and he leaned over and kissed her and said he loves that she cares about her words, he met her friends on the third date ”It felt so easy. It felt so comfortable”, her friends took “sneaky” picture and videos of them together which Ali said she loves a sneaky pic, took all their date recap videos on his phone, cooked Ali steak on their fourth date, "it's very comfortable", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, Ali met two of his friends and some of his teammates he plays a rec sport with, had sex the day they took a trip outside of the city, Erica met him before their trip to Greece and I said “he’s dorky in a good way”, WhatsApp video chatted while in Greece and told her “see you in two days!” at the end of their call, said she felt less anxious about him compared to other relationships while on vacation, sent him a birthday present while she was in Greece, felt an energy shift coming back from vacation and didn’t hear back from him 3 days after she came home, Ali requested a call to talk about this distances she was feeling, ”I did the 12 date rule and it didn’t work!”, she said the distance help her see that they’re not compatible, went on a total of 9 dates. Ali talks about the “break up” on episode 123
Mr. Chaotic
Matched on Tinder but he saw Ali at the Chaotic Singles Party and Cassidy the host is there mutual friend, went to a brewery and played games on their first date (Ali said this was her favorite first dates in episode 147 where they recapped 2023), works in entertainment industry, very high energy, knows about FMH and he said she's entertaining to watch, splits his time between NYC and some unknown city, texted while she was in Greece, ”The man gives good texts”
Random Matchmaker Match
Withdrew his match to Ali because he found her FMH socials. Talked about on #71 AUA
Gone with the Wind
Matchmaker match, said some gross things about women in volleyball outfits on their first date, Ali told her matchmaker about this, ”I would describe him as misogynistic overall”, Ali was glad he did say those weird things so early on so she didn’t waste her time, the matchmaker flagged his account. This was around June 2023
The Rock
Ali knows him from an activity that they used to be involved with in the city (she's very vague about what this is) from 8 years ago, he had a very serious/long term GF when they met, follows her personal Insta, has never talked about him because he’s never been a “prospect”, summer 2023 they met up to catch up and found out that he’s now recently single but he’s moving out of NYC for work, Ali texts Cindy saying she thinks this is a date, Cindy said to tell him that you really want to kiss him, he ends up telling Ali “I really want to kiss you”, made out at the bar, Ali invited him back to her apartment and they had sex the night before Ali ended things with The Publicist, “one night stand vibes” but she said she was down to do it again, Patreon only and talked about on #75 AUA
The Tourist
Matched on Hinge, just moved to Brooklynn, went to a brewery in BK for their first date, Ali showed up to the date dripping in sweat, allergic to cats, he sent Ali a ‘no ghosting’ text the next morning
The Stout
Matched on Bumble, ”we had really great banter right away”, laughed the whole time on their first date, talked about going on a second date during their first date
Speed Racer
Matched on Bumble, drinks first date, axe throwing second date, made out after their second date, MOO, randomly texted Ali ~6 months later because he said one of Ali’s date recap videos about him popped up on his FYP (Ali and Erica think this is a lie), he thought Ali wasn’t into him, he claims he was doing all the work with texting even though there was only a few messages since they exchanged numbers after their second date
Billy Joel
Recently sober, Ali said she felt like they had several inside jokes before they met in person, ate pizza on her way to their first date, second date was getting coffee and going to the museum, they cooked dinner together for their third date at Ali’s apartment and they watched 90 Day Fiancé (he didn’t like it), he Googled how to clean a red wine stain when it spilled on her countertop, he asked if she wanted to have sex and she turned it down, the next day/the day before a 7am flight Ali booty called him and they had sex, she was drunk and said the sex wasn’t good/they stopped mid way, helped Ali pack for her flight, Ali said he’s at a crossroad and he doesn’t seem like a long term fit, Erica found a condom on the ground while cat sitting, Ali said she didn’t regret hooking up with him but wishes she hadn’t done it, MOO
Sales Cycle
30 seconds in and Ali said he was very boring, only really talked about his job, stared at Ali’s boobs, “might be a MOO”, texted her ‘merry christmas’
Matched on The League, 34 years old, requested a nickname change from Pie Guy to Dr. Laundry, he had to cancel their second date because he got hit by a car, went on two dates, Ali sent him a pic of his subway stop saying something along the lines of “the stop isn’t looking as cute today” and turns out someone he dated with in that photo, were supposed to go on a third date the night she got back from a bachelorette party but he didn't answer her text when she said she landed, the next day he asked her how her trip was not acknowledging her previous text at all, Ali expressed her disappointment and he replied that he was tired last night, she said she would've been understanding if he said something then ghosted her
Andddd I stopped listening to the podcast around the Dr. Pie Laundry Guy but have stayed up to date with everything via this sub.
I have a huge interest in dating culture, human behavior and data similar to Ali and this little project of mine was really interesting once I got the framework of this list. I started this list once I found this sub in December 2023 and started re listening to the Patreon while working out (and lost 10 lbs ayeee) and writing down information in my notes app. I did my best to keep this list unbiased and just give facts and information that was said.
My own thoughts after making this list is that I'm very sad for Ali. I didn't realize the extent of her dating history. I think about my own dating history or even my friends who are in their 30's and dating and Ali's dating lore runs so deep. Is Ali unlucky with love? Did she pass on someone that could have been great for her? How has she had so many dates with little success in a long term partner or even going beyond 6-8 dates? Or is Skyline the person she has been waiting for? What's the pattern with all this dates/men? So many questions.
I truly do hope Ali finds her guy because I believe theres someone for everyone. Until then, I'll be hopping into this sub (cause y'all are too funny and give the best advice) and waiting for Ali to find Mr. Height.
Enjoy and I look forward to everyone thoughts! I'll keep my eye out for any edits that need to be made.
Bonus quotes:
“Longest relationship was a little under a year and a half. Haven’t made it past 6 months with anyone else” - AUA #7 11/27/21
“I spent the first 10+ years of my dating life being sort of perennially single” -1. The Actual First One episode 2/21/21
"I think my parent's story is the reason why I think that I can romantically get back together with an ex and it'll work out" -The Dave Glaser Podcast 4/5/21
“Almost every relationship I’ve ever been in, with a couple of exceptions, started as a situationship.” -21. The Undefined One 7/11/21
“All of my boyfriends have been white” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“You definitely need an older guy” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“I’ve been on the dating apps since high school. Dating websites at the time” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Who would be the perfect man for Ali?”
“Clearly a combination of the The Dentist and [the early stages of] The Buffalo” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Do you consider The Rower or Disco ball to have been situationships?”
“No, I don't consider either The Rower or The Disco Ball to be situationships” -question asked on TikTok 11/9/22
submitted by pizzapillowfort to findingmrheight [link] [comments]
A couple of notes before you read (or after because I would just jump into the list right away too)
- Direct quotes from Ali herself are in italics.
- I tried my best to keep everything in timeline order. Some people like The Come Back Kid I placed in the order where they reconnected/talked about on the pod. But I did my best to note this.
- All this information came from the FMH podcast, the Patreon, the original FMH blog, TikTok and other podcast that feature FMH/Ali. I also crossed reference information with this sub. I got most of this done with the help of the Patreon and listening to 1.75x speed but I lost accessed to the Patreon because my subscription ended.
- I'm open to edits! Things around the matchmaker era confused me and if anything is incorrect or if I'm missing someone, please let me know! I will note where corrections are made.
- Some people don't have anything simply because only a name was said or I couldn't find any details about the person/date
- And of course, please be respectful of all the sub rules!
- Mr. Adorable aka The Coach
- Trouble
- Waffles
- Future Husband Brian (FHB)
- Cookie
- Peter Pan
- Ambiguous Goodbye Guy
- Bad Bitch Man
Mentioned on Tiktok and on the pod once
Myspace Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok
Third Boyfriend
Met on eCrush.com in 2002 and this was mentioned on the Cracked Up podcast, The Dave Glaser Podcast and Tiktok
The Kiwi
Met on a 2 week Model UN type youth trip in high school when Ali was 15, never a boyfriend but she had a huge crush on him, he tried to kiss Ali and she literally ran away, didn’t talk the rest of the trip but exchanged numbers and screen names (Ali’s was FineGal13 or BeachJewel760), she made him a mixtape cd called “Ali’s really cool mix for The Kiwi” but never sent it and she still has it. In 2021, he DM’d her when she posted photos of her and her mom in France and invites her to visit him in London, she says she can’t but says they should catch up if he comes to NYC
Fourth Boyfriend
Met on OkCupid when you had to use it on the computer, this was mentioned on Tiktok
The Homecoming Date or Light Switch
First boyfriend? (she goes back and forth calling him her first bf or a situationship), a family friend, a month younger than Ali, dated in high school but went to different high schools, football player, made him ask her to her Homecoming dance over email (her words), Ali hid in the bathroom the whole Homecoming dance, 3-4 revisits of this situations as adults, saw him on Bumble a few years ago and texted him that he had a typo in his bio, “he very much wanted to be with me” and now he’s married with a kid. His mom is still “obsessed” with Ali and she listens to FMH
Random college guy
Freshman year of college, Ali doesn’t have a nickname for him/doesn’t remember his real name, met this guy through a friend, was texting him to invite him over to hot tub but her phone autocorrected to “how about some hot rubbing tonight?” but Ali didn’t noticed/didn’t correct it and he never replied, Ali had a house party and got really drunk and was all over him, he left the party early, she messaged him on MySpace 3-4 times asking why he left
The Resident
Matched on Match.com, first guy she dated in NYC after college, older than Ali, a doctor, lasted 3 months ”maybe”, he didn’t like Ali’s friends, got a card from him on her birthday and it said “Love, The Resident” and it took Ali back a little, Ali drinks black coffee because of him, he coordinated having her mom visit NYC for her birthday then he broke up with her a week later
The Ghost
Met at a bar when she was 25, turns out they matched on OkCupid and they already had a date scheduled next week, they dated for 6-8 weeks, had sleepovers, “The worst ghosting experience I’ve ever had”, he borrowed The Great Gatsby from Ali’s roommate, planned to make dinner together after a beach trip in August with her friends and never showed up, Ali is blowing up his phone and gets no reply, two weeks later she finally texts “are you alive? check yes or no” and he responds “Yes”, Ali then ask if he could return the book and gets no reply again, 5 months go by and she receives the book in the mail with the note: “Here’s the book back. Sorry. P.S. sorry about last summer. I was in a bad place. You’re a great person and your salmon is amazing”, since then she has ran into him twice on the streets and matched with him on Bumble
The Coach/Mr. Adorable
First serious boyfriend at 26/27 in 2013, matched on Match.com or met through work depending if you’re listening to the pod or reading her OG blog, clean-cut look, played volleyball, Ali invited him to a friend’s birthday party and they made out in the streets at 4am, on their second date he asked Ali if she was seeing any one and when Ali said no he ask her to be his girlfriend 3 days after their first date, dated for almost 1.5 years or almost 2 years depending on if you’re listening to the pod or the Patreon, first time saying “I love you” to a guy, “lovely guy“, never would posted Ali on his instagram until Ali said something, he “lived” with her for two weeks while he was in between apartments, tried blind folding/hair pulling during sex and she didn’t like it, by the end of their relationship Ali didn’t like sex and thought she wasn’t a very sexual person, after they broke up Ali drunk texted him at 2am and he picked her up and she spent the night and she took her things in the morning in a rolly suitcase, from her blog in 2015: “I just want to be careful I don’t end up with another Mr. Adorable situation, where I find myself dating my platonic best friend”, had drinks with him in 2016 from the blog: “Not in a romantic way (at least on my end)”, Ali still talks to him sometimes through casual instagram DMs, he’s currently (as of 2021) dating someone for 4+ years and Ali thinks they’re going to get engaged
Trouble
OG 2015 FMH blog, never mentioned on the pod, “I was immediately enamored with him”, met at a Beer Olympic party but he worked with one of Ali’s best friends (Ali was still dating The Coach at the time), lived in BK, tattoos and stubble, Ali’s best friend said he was a “fuck boy”, “he very much made me see that it was the right thing for me and The Coach to not be together”, from her blog in 2015: “he has this look in his eye like he’s constantly laughing at me – in a super sexy way”, he texted her saying he didn’t see anything romantically with her and she sent a gif of someone shrugging
Personal side note: Ali has mentioned she has cheated on someone but never disclosed who she cheated on or with. I feel like she cheated on Mr.A/The Coach with Trouble because of the timeline. Just a guess.
Waffles
Matched on Bumble, OG 2015 FMH blog, he asked Ali fuck/marry/kill breakfast foods, dated 2 months around summer time, on Fourth of July while watching fireworks he said how they had a great day and Ali replied with something along the lines with “yeah, it would be better if I could call you my boyfriend”, he said he wanted a relationship but just not with Ali and shortly afterwards they stopped seeing each other
The Buffalo
Lived in Buffalo NY, 6’5, Scorpio, met in 2015 at Adults National volleyball (Ali’s team won that year) where he was heckling her while she was playing, asks Ali’s mom for her number and Ali’s mom said “I guess you’re tall enough” and told him to ask her himself, he flew her out and she met his parents, dated over summer, exclusive but never boyfriend/girlfriend (but called him her LD boyfriend on TikTok), texted and talked on the phone a lot, Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “they had really good banter”, in October he invited her to his cousins wedding and she invited him to her friends wedding, after Ali bought her ticket to his cousins wedding (with the promise he would buy her ticket to her friend’s wedding) he ghosted and stonewalled her, she “poured her heart out to him on voicemail” and he never replied, she asked him to pay her back for her ticket and he got mad that she “made this about money”, 2 years later he told Ali that he freaked out because he really liked her and saw a future with her but knew she would never move to Buffalo and it would “never work”, Ali said at the time she would have considered moving for him, Ali used to have him blocked on Facebook and told all her friends not to update her on info about him (unless she asked). He’s now married and goes to Disney with his wife (which Ali kind of scoffs at?), Ali said on TikTok that she dodged a bullet
Baby Bic
Met him at Adults National years ago, had a flirtationship with him in 2016 when he was 19 years old, ran into him at the Adults Nationals 2021, last texts she got from him were about getting his fake ID taken away at the bar and him visiting her in NYC but Ali didn’t want to buy him beer and drink at her apartment
The Chef
Matched on Tinder around 2016, he loved karaoke, “total shit”, asked Ali to be his girlfriend and to meet his mom after a month, off and on dating, broke up the first time because he was talking to his ex, lied and flew to Mexico to see his ex while dating Ali, that ex sent Ali a Snapchat of them in bed together on that Mexico trip, Ali broke up with him via text and called him a shitty boyfriend, he’s the reason Ali deleted her Snapchat because of drunk Snaps he would send post break up, FB messaged Ali 6 years later (while Roark was visiting/staying with Ali) and said sorry for being a shit head. Ali’s best friends hated him
The Dentist
Met on Halloween in the wild, Canadian, dated NYE 2016- May 2017 “nice guy, not my guy”, one of Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “he adored you, “he was too sweet for me” and “he had no edge to him”, he painted Ali’s cat for her 30th birthday but she was annoyed it was just Rory and not both cats, The Chef texted Ali while on a date/sleeping at his house
ASV - Aspiring Sober Vegan
Met through a friend (her best guy friend’s college roommate) the day before she had to fly out to her dad’s memorial, a doctor, into meditation, remembered him “being cuter” when they went on a first date, felt “the spark”, had “omg this is awesome sex”, Ali described this relationship as a “slow burn” and “the most attracted she ever been to a partner” even thought she didn’t think he was that cute in the beginning, dated 2-3 months before he tried to ghost Ali but they talked and broke up, four months later they start casually dating/FWB because he’s moving but this turns into a ‘middle distance relationship’ and he moves to Philly, had a lot of communication issues but didn't have a lot of fights, wants to live in Ohio and give a % of his income to charity, Ali was close to saying ‘I love you’ but didn’t, he uninvited her to meet his extended family and they got in a fight, broke up with her a couple weeks before their 6 month anniversary at the park while on a picnic and told her that she’s still his favorite person, Ali used to think he was “the one that got away” and would frequently have dreams about him. From what Ali knows, he's sober but not vegan
The Scientist
2017 or 2018ish, from San Diego, went on one date, Ali ended up ghosting him due to the decline in her dad’s health, saw him on Hinge while she was in San Diego for 3 months in 2020, texted him and apologized for ghosting him, ended up going on 2-3 more dates, took a selfie in front of his house and sent it to him but acted like she didn’t know that was his house and made a TikTok about it, things ended up not working but she doesn’t make it clear on who ended it. She can now see she shouldn’t have been going on dates during this time when her dad was sick.
Good on Paper Divorced Dude
Met a couple of years ago (she told this story on TikTok in 2020) on Bumble
The Groomsman
Met at her friend Ashley’s wedding in Chicago Oct 2019, had a “two night stand” with him, texted/talked/FT’d for 3-4 months, divorced, never dated seriously/FWB, saw each other a couple time when he came to NYC, Ali stopped talking with him due to FMH and her trying to find a serious relationship, he starts dating someone, follows FMH on insta, slid into her DM in 2022 and then sent her soup while she was sick, turns out he’s single again, 2 months later Ali is heading to Chicago and texts him “Hello! Reminder that my arrival to your neck of the woods is imminent” and turns out he is now seeing someone and Ali doesn’t see him while in Chicago (at least she doesn’t mention it)
Unnicknamed person
He was her plus one at her best friend from college’s NYE wedding 2019/2020, met and hung out with Ali’s mom, posted photos of them together on her personal Insta story, “fully dating but weren’t official hehe” doesn’t have a nickname/never gave him a nickname? This could be The Latvian/the person she texted her friend in DC about saying “I think I’m on a date with my husband”
Starts FMH on January 2020 on Instagram/TikTok
The TravelerHe was browsing Bumble while Ali was in the bathroom during their first date, he was banned from Bumble and was using his grandma phone number. Ali turned down a second date
The Duke
Early FMH, went for long periods of time in between texts, 7-8 Zoom dates while Ali was in San Diego and he was in NY, Ali said you could see three of his ex’s on his instagram page (without scrolling), they finally went on one date and it was “meh” but they did kiss on their date
The Oyster
Matched on Bumble (he had one photo and no bio) two weeks before Valentines Day, Gemini, a lawyer, part of the 13 First Dates in 30 Days series (he was #13), dated Feb 2020-Aug 2020, love bomber, felt “the spark” and became official after 3 dates, best first date ever??? at the time, said “I love you” to Ali after two weeks, “For most of my relationship with The Oyster, he didn’t live in the city he had moved to Connecticut without telling me”, would fight all the time, opposite political views, Ali felt like a “fucking summer camp director” because she planned all their dates and he would get upset if Ali didn't have a plan, sought out a therapist (Megan) because of her relationship struggles because of him, went to Mass/church, he wanted a traditional marriage/life/wife/kids (at one point had Ali thinking she wanted that), didn’t want to live in NYC, didn’t support BLM, Cindy hated him
The Pilot
Went on 3 dates, texted a lot, didn’t hear back from him in four days and when she said she was looking to date someone who showed more consistency, he replied saying he met someone the day after their last date who seems to have more free time than Ali and he wants to pursue that but would like to be friends, Ali said on TikTok that this other women “bent her schedule to his schedule” and she was unwilling to do that. Mostly talked about him on TikTok
The Analyst
Matched on Bumble two years ago and went on one date, re matched in 2021 and he stood Ali up, she send him a text “getting stood up” script and he never replied. Only mentioned him on TikTok (?)
Ali and Roark start FMH: The Podcast February 2021
The BoomerangFirst date on the pod? I couldn't find anything else about him
The Scuba Diver
The Music Man
One date, “he didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just not for me”, amped up small talk, complimented Ali a lot which made her feel awkward cause she wasn’t feeling it, he texted her and asked for a second date and Ali sent the no ghosting script
The Bet
Uses the phrase “ok bet”, 28 years old shoe designer, only went on one dinner date to a spot he picked, turns out its cash only and he didn’t bring cash, was not into him , not looking for the same thing
The Dinosaur
Nickname was previously The Hawaiian, first date at Dinosaur BBQ, stood in a parking spot to save for Ali, he asked for a kiss after their date and Ali declined saying maybe next time
The Rose
He sent her a rose on hinge, first date was an hour long walk in the park while drinking beer
The Comic
Matched on Hinge, older than Ali (Ali’s friends express how happy they were to hear that), had brunch on their first date (was the first part of a double header but the second guy canceled), listed as “moderate” politically on Hinge, good and easy convo, went back and forth twice over text and then never heard back from him, “technically not ghosting...”
The Camper
Met in the wild at a volleyball tournament in July, lives in Chicago, 27 years old, hung out the whole time, over heard Ali asking someone to get her a make out partner, gave Ali his number, drunkly ask him for a FT date in the future and he didn’t reply, Ali texts him again about a volleyball thing and he replied back with not a lot of enthusiasm, Ali is going to Chicago in Sept for a volleyball tournament and she’s already planning on playing 4-on-4 with her best friend vs. his roommate and maybe The Camper, he texts her saying he has to work on the date of the tournament and won’t be able to do the 4-on-4 game, “I feel like I got broken up with someone I never want to date in the first place”
Ali’s Matchmaker contract starts in August 2021 - 6 matches
The SchmoozerWent on a dinner date, was chatting up the waitress in a kind of creepy way, was bragging about a lot of things and it turned Ali off and Ali texted him her no ghosting script
The Accountant
1st matchmaker match, 31 years old, lives in BK, his dad has also passed away, easy to talk to, on the third date she wasn’t sure if she saw a future with him and in her gut doesn’t feel like this would be a slow burn, Ali breaks things off with him, months (?) later he sent Ali a 5 min long voice memo and they said they were both down to see each other as friends. He later on dated and ghosted Erica
The Aussie
Matched on Hinge, in politics, from Australia but lived all over the place, asked Ali what she’s looking for on the first date and he said he’s “casually looking for something serious”, Ali accidentally walks up to a different person on their second date, Ali texts him saying she would love to see him before he leaves on a trip and she wasn’t happy that it took him till the next day to reply and he can’t see her before he leaves
The Goalie
Was supposed to be Ali’s 2nd match, he’s a paying client, Ali didn’t hear back from him for a while when she told him where she lived, he wrote to the matchmaker saying that she lived too far away even though it states where she lives in her matchmaker profile
The Journalist
2nd matchmaker match, ended things because she was dating/pursuing things with The Discoball and paused her matchmakers matches
The Threepeat
Matched multiple times on dating apps but this recent time with Hinge, Amazon seller, first date was a pizza lunch date (with bubbles aka champagne) and he gave her a single yellow carnation, talked a lot about her “side hustles” aka her food blog, coaching, FMH and the pod (Ali didn’t mentioned the name on FMH), had an awkward half kiss during the date and then gave her a peck when they said goodbye, he had no night stands by his bed?, spent the night but told public pod they had a movie night, different kissing styles, 6 dates, broke things off with Ali two days before her first date with The Rower WHILE Ali was on a Halloween girls trip
The Rower
Dated from Halloween 2021 till early Feb 2022, Pisces who is 6 days older than Ali, has an ex-fiancé (they dated for 8 years, engaged for two of them, she broke off the engagement with him 1.5 years ago once he started dating Ali), has a shared dog with this ex, slept together around Xmas on the fourth date and Ali got a UTI, first time having “omg this is awesome sex” since ASV, first person Ali slept next to wearing an eye mask "that's a big step for me", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, on New Years Day told her that he sees “long term relationship potential” with her but doesn’t want to be exclusive after 5 dates, “we didn’t talk all week”, he said he wasn’t as ready as he though to date someone seriously and “I don’t know why I don’t want to be in a relationship with you” they broke up over the phone, Ali said he’s a good human and wants to date someone like him, 3.5 weeks later Ali drunk texted him at 3:00 am saying “its really hard not to talk to you” which Ali said was a lie, he replied back (few days? A week later?) while Ali was on another date and it made her cry a bit, she replied back saying “the door is closed but not locked” in regards if he wants to get back together. “Fin… for now”
2022
The DiscoballMatched on Hinge but didn’t go on a first date for two week, Gemini, used to be a singer in a band, moved from DC to NYC, went on 7 dates in 2022, had a dog w/ ex and ex got full custody once he moved, met one of his friends on the second date, slept with him on the second date “morning and night”, he tried to find the podcast without knowing the name, podcasted from his house in DC, he would send Ali photos of them together “all the time”, gave a virtual presentation from his hotel room, did Molly together in DC, had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, moved to BK (didn’t see each other for 2 months pre-move), had a sex-less sleepover (a milestone for Ali), he showed up for her on her dad’s death date (something that a person she’s dating has never done), used to listen to the pod but stopped before they stopped seeing each other, ghosted her after they had a talk about moving things forward to exclusive and Ali texted him something along the lines of “your silence is the answer” when she didn’t hear back from him for a week and he ghosted her. Ali said he sucks in #77 AUA
Lisbon
The Brit
M&M
The Come Back Kid
They went on 2-3 dates in Nov 2018 and reconnected in May 2022, "felt immediately comfortable", sat next to a very drunk lady on their second 1st date and was supportive but "didn't step on Ali's toes" when the drunk lady said something offensive to Ali, couldn’t remember if they slept together or not, knows about FMH, ghosted Ali
The Trainer
The Cold Brew
The Nomad
3rd matchmaker match, reminded Ali of The Oyster, wanted kids and didn’t want to live in NYC forever, Ali was upset at first because her matchmaker was supposed to screen for that but the matchmaker DID check and it wasn’t mentioned when she was screening The Nomad, no second date because those are dealbreakers to him
The Catcher
Matched on Bumble, “good not great” after their first date, ~April 2022, talked about sports a lot on their first date
The Gentleman
4th matchmaker match, knew about Ali’s FMH socials before their date, Ali didn’t like his texting style, awkward intro on their first date “like hugging a 2 x 4”, he runs a dating event company and actually email Ali to be a guest on the pod when FMH first started, awkward goodbye, didn’t discuss the actual first date on the main pod because she doesn’t want to give him a reason to reach out again
The Tennis Pro
Ali had a good time on their date, “He is an adult, he’s mature” BUT “I don’t think he was into it”
The Padre
Matched on Bumble, 3 dates, from San Diego, “energy mismatch”, doesn’t want to know or listen to FMH, no psychical connection/kiss, only a kiss on the cheek on their last date, “I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night [a week]”, she didn’t want to do what The Threepeat did to her (break up while on vacation/traveling), she said it might be a MOO
Roark leaves and Erica joins the pod Oct 31st 2022
Captain Kirk5th matchmaker match, found him on Bumble before their in-person date, ghosted Ali AND the matchmaker???
6th matchmaker match
Last match and Ali states she will not talk about this date or anything about it
JFK Kirk?
Matched on Bumble, didn’t realize he’s located in SD, exchanged personal instagram info, not sure where things went or how things ended
Kirk #1
Met in the wild, make out a lot the night they met, “stealing kisses throughout the night”, exchanged numbers, planned a date (no specifics, just the day) but when Ali texted him day of he asked to reschedule (no specifics again), he replied back that he’s picking up a rental car, told him she’s looking for someone to respect her time and he never replied back
2023
The FalconFirst date of 2023, matched on The League, first nickname was “League Kirk”, hard to talk to, felt like Ali was always reaching for the next topic, likes to travel, “there wasn’t a vibe”, MOO
The Roommate
Used to be her friend’s roommate and have met before (Ali doesn’t remember but it was the day after that exclusive convo with The Rower), “totally cute”, reunited at their mutual friend’s engagement party January 2023, made out at the bar, comes back to her place and sleeps over (no sex), Ali questions why her friends never set them up and its because he was taking a break from dating, first date they made out a lot at the bar (again), “I really felt like we were already a couple”, “It didn’t feel like a first date”, mentions her FMH content has popped up on his FYP, tried texting him after their date and he wasn’t giving effort, she’s glad she didn’t sleep with him because “one night stands aren’t my thing”, MOO
The Belgian
Matched on Bumble, accidentally had their first date during a trivia night at a bar, easy to talk to
The Viking
Ali forgot they had a first date on the day of said date
Tinder Man
Matched on Tinder (duh) on Valentine’s Day, first Tinder date in three years, good convo on first date but got a pushy vibe from him at the second bar they went to, put his hand up her sweater and was kissing her in the bar, made Ali uncomfortable and she told him that after he asked her on a second date
The Historian
Matched on Bumble, good conversation on the first date with a wide range of topics like “urban planning and its impact on feminism”, he’s in grad school
The Georgian
Matched on Hinge, he asked if she was free on Friday and she said yes but didn’t hear back from him in two days and in that time she made plans for Friday, rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon date at a dive bar, ate on her way to her date “it would be next level rude to eat on the subway”, good first date, talked about places he wants to take her to
The Publicist
Matched on Tinder, lives in BK, Jewish, one year younger then Ali, good first date, invited him to the Chaotic Singles Party that night, came over to Ali's apartment (which Ali said was messy) before and he made her favorite cocktail for her, a couple of listeners met him at the CSP, goofy and silly convo mixed with deep and serious convos, second date was at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and a tasting menu dinner, he made a Resy reservation and Ali got an email saying she was added to it ”fuck receiving gifts, THAT’S my love language”, he's into words like Ali, he sneezed and Ali said "God bless you" but then corrected herself and said "gesundheit" and he leaned over and kissed her and said he loves that she cares about her words, he met her friends on the third date ”It felt so easy. It felt so comfortable”, her friends took “sneaky” picture and videos of them together which Ali said she loves a sneaky pic, took all their date recap videos on his phone, cooked Ali steak on their fourth date, "it's very comfortable", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, Ali met two of his friends and some of his teammates he plays a rec sport with, had sex the day they took a trip outside of the city, Erica met him before their trip to Greece and I said “he’s dorky in a good way”, WhatsApp video chatted while in Greece and told her “see you in two days!” at the end of their call, said she felt less anxious about him compared to other relationships while on vacation, sent him a birthday present while she was in Greece, felt an energy shift coming back from vacation and didn’t hear back from him 3 days after she came home, Ali requested a call to talk about this distances she was feeling, ”I did the 12 date rule and it didn’t work!”, she said the distance help her see that they’re not compatible, went on a total of 9 dates. Ali talks about the “break up” on episode 123
Mr. Chaotic
Matched on Tinder but he saw Ali at the Chaotic Singles Party and Cassidy the host is there mutual friend, went to a brewery and played games on their first date (Ali said this was her favorite first dates in episode 147 where they recapped 2023), works in entertainment industry, very high energy, knows about FMH and he said she's entertaining to watch, splits his time between NYC and some unknown city, texted while she was in Greece, ”The man gives good texts”
Random Matchmaker Match
Withdrew his match to Ali because he found her FMH socials. Talked about on #71 AUA
Gone with the Wind
Matchmaker match, said some gross things about women in volleyball outfits on their first date, Ali told her matchmaker about this, ”I would describe him as misogynistic overall”, Ali was glad he did say those weird things so early on so she didn’t waste her time, the matchmaker flagged his account. This was around June 2023
The Rock
Ali knows him from an activity that they used to be involved with in the city (she's very vague about what this is) from 8 years ago, he had a very serious/long term GF when they met, follows her personal Insta, has never talked about him because he’s never been a “prospect”, summer 2023 they met up to catch up and found out that he’s now recently single but he’s moving out of NYC for work, Ali texts Cindy saying she thinks this is a date, Cindy said to tell him that you really want to kiss him, he ends up telling Ali “I really want to kiss you”, made out at the bar, Ali invited him back to her apartment and they had sex the night before Ali ended things with The Publicist, “one night stand vibes” but she said she was down to do it again, Patreon only and talked about on #75 AUA
The Tourist
Matched on Hinge, just moved to Brooklynn, went to a brewery in BK for their first date, Ali showed up to the date dripping in sweat, allergic to cats, he sent Ali a ‘no ghosting’ text the next morning
The Stout
Matched on Bumble, ”we had really great banter right away”, laughed the whole time on their first date, talked about going on a second date during their first date
Speed Racer
Matched on Bumble, drinks first date, axe throwing second date, made out after their second date, MOO, randomly texted Ali ~6 months later because he said one of Ali’s date recap videos about him popped up on his FYP (Ali and Erica think this is a lie), he thought Ali wasn’t into him, he claims he was doing all the work with texting even though there was only a few messages since they exchanged numbers after their second date
Billy Joel
Recently sober, Ali said she felt like they had several inside jokes before they met in person, ate pizza on her way to their first date, second date was getting coffee and going to the museum, they cooked dinner together for their third date at Ali’s apartment and they watched 90 Day Fiancé (he didn’t like it), he Googled how to clean a red wine stain when it spilled on her countertop, he asked if she wanted to have sex and she turned it down, the next day/the day before a 7am flight Ali booty called him and they had sex, she was drunk and said the sex wasn’t good/they stopped mid way, helped Ali pack for her flight, Ali said he’s at a crossroad and he doesn’t seem like a long term fit, Erica found a condom on the ground while cat sitting, Ali said she didn’t regret hooking up with him but wishes she hadn’t done it, MOO
Sales Cycle
30 seconds in and Ali said he was very boring, only really talked about his job, stared at Ali’s boobs, “might be a MOO”, texted her ‘merry christmas’
2024
Pie Guy/Dr. LaundryMatched on The League, 34 years old, requested a nickname change from Pie Guy to Dr. Laundry, he had to cancel their second date because he got hit by a car, went on two dates, Ali sent him a pic of his subway stop saying something along the lines of “the stop isn’t looking as cute today” and turns out someone he dated with in that photo, were supposed to go on a third date the night she got back from a bachelorette party but he didn't answer her text when she said she landed, the next day he asked her how her trip was not acknowledging her previous text at all, Ali expressed her disappointment and he replied that he was tired last night, she said she would've been understanding if he said something then ghosted her
Andddd I stopped listening to the podcast around the Dr. Pie Laundry Guy but have stayed up to date with everything via this sub.
I have a huge interest in dating culture, human behavior and data similar to Ali and this little project of mine was really interesting once I got the framework of this list. I started this list once I found this sub in December 2023 and started re listening to the Patreon while working out (and lost 10 lbs ayeee) and writing down information in my notes app. I did my best to keep this list unbiased and just give facts and information that was said.
My own thoughts after making this list is that I'm very sad for Ali. I didn't realize the extent of her dating history. I think about my own dating history or even my friends who are in their 30's and dating and Ali's dating lore runs so deep. Is Ali unlucky with love? Did she pass on someone that could have been great for her? How has she had so many dates with little success in a long term partner or even going beyond 6-8 dates? Or is Skyline the person she has been waiting for? What's the pattern with all this dates/men? So many questions.
I truly do hope Ali finds her guy because I believe theres someone for everyone. Until then, I'll be hopping into this sub (cause y'all are too funny and give the best advice) and waiting for Ali to find Mr. Height.
Enjoy and I look forward to everyone thoughts! I'll keep my eye out for any edits that need to be made.
Bonus quotes:
“Longest relationship was a little under a year and a half. Haven’t made it past 6 months with anyone else” - AUA #7 11/27/21
“I spent the first 10+ years of my dating life being sort of perennially single” -1. The Actual First One episode 2/21/21
"I think my parent's story is the reason why I think that I can romantically get back together with an ex and it'll work out" -The Dave Glaser Podcast 4/5/21
“Almost every relationship I’ve ever been in, with a couple of exceptions, started as a situationship.” -21. The Undefined One 7/11/21
“All of my boyfriends have been white” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“You definitely need an older guy” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“I’ve been on the dating apps since high school. Dating websites at the time” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Who would be the perfect man for Ali?”
“Clearly a combination of the The Dentist and [the early stages of] The Buffalo” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Do you consider The Rower or Disco ball to have been situationships?”
“No, I don't consider either The Rower or The Disco Ball to be situationships” -question asked on TikTok 11/9/22
2024.05.19 02:14 lordOVnazgul That time Adam was trying to get fresh with the girls from ABNDN
 | You can really see the cycle of his type that he goes for... he goes for The old school Suicide Girl type look but it always bites him in the ass LOL maybe he should hook up with a cute innocent Christian girl. I'm sure his mom knows some single girls from church. This video in particular when looking back on it has a lot of creep shots of the girls and it couldn't be more noticeable,this was when he visited Murphy Ranch here in Los Angeles. submitted by lordOVnazgul to Adamthewoocriticism [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 01:17 sunny_the2nd Was it just a phase?
A couple of months ago my egg cracked…… or so I thought it did.
I discovered that I might be a transgender woman, but I wasn’t sure. But once I realized this might be the case, it was exciting. I became excited at the thought of feminizing myself and wearing feminine clothing. I started thinking of names and putting them on a list of which ones I liked the most. I asked my friends online to refer to me with she/her pronouns. It didn’t feel bad to be called she, but it didn’t like… elate me like I’ve heard with some other people. I figured the only reason it didn’t feel as amazing as I was expecting was because it was new.
Even so, I still found the idea of being a woman exciting. I kept looking up clothes I might want to buy once I can afford them. I started engaging with trans people online and they were very accepting and made me feel welcome.
But then. A few weeks ago. I started doubting myself. I started doubting my motivations and thinking maybe I shouldn’t be a girl because I wasn’t doing it for reasons that were good enough. I started reading things about AGP (which I know is a debunked theory that is highly criticized, but even so it started to make me doubt myself) and after a while I just fell into a depression and thinking maybe I shouldn’t be a girl.
But speaking to a therapist who specializes in transgender issues, they told me that a lot of these doubts I was having were normal, and over these few weeks I’ve been trying to come to terms with myself even more.
But now, today, I don’t feel anything when I look at women’s clothing or cute hairstyles or anything like that. I haven’t felt anything for over a week now.
And it’s making me worry that this was all just a phase. That these doubts made me push this out of my mind forever and now I can’t ever pursue it because the feelings are gone.
I do know one thing: I’m not a guy. I don’t enjoy he/him pronouns at this point. But as for she/her, I can’t tell. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling.
submitted by sunny_the2nd to asktransgender [link] [comments]
I discovered that I might be a transgender woman, but I wasn’t sure. But once I realized this might be the case, it was exciting. I became excited at the thought of feminizing myself and wearing feminine clothing. I started thinking of names and putting them on a list of which ones I liked the most. I asked my friends online to refer to me with she/her pronouns. It didn’t feel bad to be called she, but it didn’t like… elate me like I’ve heard with some other people. I figured the only reason it didn’t feel as amazing as I was expecting was because it was new.
Even so, I still found the idea of being a woman exciting. I kept looking up clothes I might want to buy once I can afford them. I started engaging with trans people online and they were very accepting and made me feel welcome.
But then. A few weeks ago. I started doubting myself. I started doubting my motivations and thinking maybe I shouldn’t be a girl because I wasn’t doing it for reasons that were good enough. I started reading things about AGP (which I know is a debunked theory that is highly criticized, but even so it started to make me doubt myself) and after a while I just fell into a depression and thinking maybe I shouldn’t be a girl.
But speaking to a therapist who specializes in transgender issues, they told me that a lot of these doubts I was having were normal, and over these few weeks I’ve been trying to come to terms with myself even more.
But now, today, I don’t feel anything when I look at women’s clothing or cute hairstyles or anything like that. I haven’t felt anything for over a week now.
And it’s making me worry that this was all just a phase. That these doubts made me push this out of my mind forever and now I can’t ever pursue it because the feelings are gone.
I do know one thing: I’m not a guy. I don’t enjoy he/him pronouns at this point. But as for she/her, I can’t tell. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling.
2024.05.19 01:11 ExcitingTrust888 Things I wish to see in future updates of the game
I’m enjoying this game for what it’s worth and I know that it’s not even officially out yet, but I hope that before the official release they can add these things to the game. I don’t know if the devs are reading this sub, but I’m sure at least one of them does lol!
Different looking gear: This is definitely one of the main complaints in the game and they should really address this. Legendary weapons and gear should look like their in-game counterparts if they have any like in Fallout Shelter. I mean Cicero is wearing a mail, he should be wearing his jester costume. Tiber Septim should be wearing his gold armor, and so on. It just helps differentiate it from other items and also make them look more “Legendary”. They don’t even need to make their 3D model look similar to the source material, just their gear is fine, but at least give them the right skin tone and hairstyle.
As for the other gear with just special effects but are not from the other ES games, literally just add particle effects on them like a sword with a fire bonus should be on fire, an axe with a frost bonus should be icy, a dagger with a lifesteal effect should be dripping in blood, and so on. It makes it more obvious that the item has an enchantment. I swear people would love this game more if you add that.
Return the “Wasteland Expedition” feature(forgot what it’s called) that Fallout Shelter had: You know, just drop a unit or a party in a carriage placed maybe at the entrance of the castle or something and let them explore the world where they will get items, gold, and so on, without your intervention, and the longer they explore, the more items they get, then give it a cap that when they die, they automatically go back home instead so they don’t go exploring forever.
Maybe add a small animation where they are doing stuff like running, fighting enemies, eating, and so on to make it more interesting while they are just exploring and have dialog options here and there so you have to check them for then to move forward. Then have some checkpoints so you can continue travelling the said route and discovering new areas and dialog options to get better items.
They can connect this with exploring new locations for the game to have a more coherent story and questlines. Tbh exploring locations is what makes Fallout Shelter fun and interesting, I really hope that they return that feature someday. Imagine exploring towns and castles where you can go inside rooms, look for items and talk to other NPC’s, then at some point you get to fight enemies or while running around town you fight bandits and stuff, then the game switches to the normal combat screen. Man that would really elevate Castles to a more fully fleshed out game. Like imagine going to Whiterun or Cyrodiil, man that would be amazing 🤩
Imagine having a Thieves’ Guild Questline or a Dragonborn quest where in the end one of your units becomes a dragonborn with special gear and stuff like that. And they can make it seasonal since units die of old age anyways, so like this month you can get a dragonborn unit with a unique trait if you complete the quest, then next month you can get a thieves guild unit and so on. And these traits cannot be inherited so the only way to get them is by doing the quests. One can only dream 🙏
More decorations that the subjects can interact with: I only have a low level castle right now so I don’t have all the decorations, but I notice units can interact with the fountain and have a ruling that say the fountain is being filled with gold coins and such. I don’t know if there are other decorations like this in higher levels, but I hope they add more of them. Like maybe someone reads the red book and suddenly they get an enduring trait since the description says it contains the “Secret to Enduring Health”, or they read the green book and they become 5 years younger, someone hangs around the purple tree too much and they become temporarily haunted, that would be really nice to see.
Oh and animation-wise too they definitely should add more interactions. I’ve only noticed two decorations that the NPC’s interact with, the fountain and the purple tree. Adults steal coins from the fountain, and kids play ring-around-a-rosie around the tree. It’s cute when they do that, just small details that add more life to the game. Oh and they sometimes taste the soup in the kitchen and check out their clothes in the sewing table, which is funny. I hope they add more of these to the other workstations, like they can test a weapon in the blacksmith, scribble over the battle plans in the war room, steal a sweet roll at the buffet, and so on.
Hard mode quests: Quests where if your units die, you lose your units permanently, but the rewards are better. They can implement this at the gauntlet for more seasoned players to try.
Bookshelf should have books that players can read: I bought the Lusty Argonian 1 and 2 for some gold, I should at least be able to read them, right? Isn’t that why we even choose what book to buy in the first place?
Music Stage should let us choose what background music to play: The music plays on a loop but it changes, at least give us an option to choose what we want to hear and maybe get new music to play from the shop. And definitely should add a musician/bard trait or something where if they play music at the music stage, they increase happiness for other NPC’s. To make it balanced, they can only increase the happiness to the lowest green level and will only affect their family and friends, I guess that would be reasonable without being too gamebreaking.
Allow us to destroy items to get back their raw materials: Not really necessary but it would be a nice feature to have. I’d be okay with destroying items to get half or 1/3 of the resources used to make them, at least my useless items will have some other use except for selling them.
Have an alchemy/wizard table that produces potions/scrolls: 1 potion per day is good enough. In the same vein, having a wizard table that produces scrolls is nice too, maybe not just resurrection scrolls, but temporary buffs that work only for the current battle is good too.
Have a leveling system for the units: Like someone using their workstation for 5 years should at least get a +1 bonus productivity in their job, up to a maximum of +5, with rarer units getting more, like gold units can get up to +9, purple +8, blue +7, green but with 2 traits +6, while fighters should get more proficient with their weapons the more they fight. A 10% increase for having weapon proficiency isn’t so overpowered anyway but is nice to have. Maybe each weapon should have a specific unit that they need to kill, and when they accomplish it they unlock the proficiency? Like “kill 100 goblins to get 10% more damage with this weapon”? I dunno, but it’s a nice thing to have and adds something more to do in the game with a tangible reward.
That’s all I have for now, hope you guys like my ideas and definitely your comments will be much appreciated! If you have ideas of your own you can share them below 😊
submitted by ExcitingTrust888 to ESCastles [link] [comments]
Different looking gear: This is definitely one of the main complaints in the game and they should really address this. Legendary weapons and gear should look like their in-game counterparts if they have any like in Fallout Shelter. I mean Cicero is wearing a mail, he should be wearing his jester costume. Tiber Septim should be wearing his gold armor, and so on. It just helps differentiate it from other items and also make them look more “Legendary”. They don’t even need to make their 3D model look similar to the source material, just their gear is fine, but at least give them the right skin tone and hairstyle.
As for the other gear with just special effects but are not from the other ES games, literally just add particle effects on them like a sword with a fire bonus should be on fire, an axe with a frost bonus should be icy, a dagger with a lifesteal effect should be dripping in blood, and so on. It makes it more obvious that the item has an enchantment. I swear people would love this game more if you add that.
Return the “Wasteland Expedition” feature(forgot what it’s called) that Fallout Shelter had: You know, just drop a unit or a party in a carriage placed maybe at the entrance of the castle or something and let them explore the world where they will get items, gold, and so on, without your intervention, and the longer they explore, the more items they get, then give it a cap that when they die, they automatically go back home instead so they don’t go exploring forever.
Maybe add a small animation where they are doing stuff like running, fighting enemies, eating, and so on to make it more interesting while they are just exploring and have dialog options here and there so you have to check them for then to move forward. Then have some checkpoints so you can continue travelling the said route and discovering new areas and dialog options to get better items.
They can connect this with exploring new locations for the game to have a more coherent story and questlines. Tbh exploring locations is what makes Fallout Shelter fun and interesting, I really hope that they return that feature someday. Imagine exploring towns and castles where you can go inside rooms, look for items and talk to other NPC’s, then at some point you get to fight enemies or while running around town you fight bandits and stuff, then the game switches to the normal combat screen. Man that would really elevate Castles to a more fully fleshed out game. Like imagine going to Whiterun or Cyrodiil, man that would be amazing 🤩
Imagine having a Thieves’ Guild Questline or a Dragonborn quest where in the end one of your units becomes a dragonborn with special gear and stuff like that. And they can make it seasonal since units die of old age anyways, so like this month you can get a dragonborn unit with a unique trait if you complete the quest, then next month you can get a thieves guild unit and so on. And these traits cannot be inherited so the only way to get them is by doing the quests. One can only dream 🙏
More decorations that the subjects can interact with: I only have a low level castle right now so I don’t have all the decorations, but I notice units can interact with the fountain and have a ruling that say the fountain is being filled with gold coins and such. I don’t know if there are other decorations like this in higher levels, but I hope they add more of them. Like maybe someone reads the red book and suddenly they get an enduring trait since the description says it contains the “Secret to Enduring Health”, or they read the green book and they become 5 years younger, someone hangs around the purple tree too much and they become temporarily haunted, that would be really nice to see.
Oh and animation-wise too they definitely should add more interactions. I’ve only noticed two decorations that the NPC’s interact with, the fountain and the purple tree. Adults steal coins from the fountain, and kids play ring-around-a-rosie around the tree. It’s cute when they do that, just small details that add more life to the game. Oh and they sometimes taste the soup in the kitchen and check out their clothes in the sewing table, which is funny. I hope they add more of these to the other workstations, like they can test a weapon in the blacksmith, scribble over the battle plans in the war room, steal a sweet roll at the buffet, and so on.
Hard mode quests: Quests where if your units die, you lose your units permanently, but the rewards are better. They can implement this at the gauntlet for more seasoned players to try.
Bookshelf should have books that players can read: I bought the Lusty Argonian 1 and 2 for some gold, I should at least be able to read them, right? Isn’t that why we even choose what book to buy in the first place?
Music Stage should let us choose what background music to play: The music plays on a loop but it changes, at least give us an option to choose what we want to hear and maybe get new music to play from the shop. And definitely should add a musician/bard trait or something where if they play music at the music stage, they increase happiness for other NPC’s. To make it balanced, they can only increase the happiness to the lowest green level and will only affect their family and friends, I guess that would be reasonable without being too gamebreaking.
Allow us to destroy items to get back their raw materials: Not really necessary but it would be a nice feature to have. I’d be okay with destroying items to get half or 1/3 of the resources used to make them, at least my useless items will have some other use except for selling them.
Have an alchemy/wizard table that produces potions/scrolls: 1 potion per day is good enough. In the same vein, having a wizard table that produces scrolls is nice too, maybe not just resurrection scrolls, but temporary buffs that work only for the current battle is good too.
Have a leveling system for the units: Like someone using their workstation for 5 years should at least get a +1 bonus productivity in their job, up to a maximum of +5, with rarer units getting more, like gold units can get up to +9, purple +8, blue +7, green but with 2 traits +6, while fighters should get more proficient with their weapons the more they fight. A 10% increase for having weapon proficiency isn’t so overpowered anyway but is nice to have. Maybe each weapon should have a specific unit that they need to kill, and when they accomplish it they unlock the proficiency? Like “kill 100 goblins to get 10% more damage with this weapon”? I dunno, but it’s a nice thing to have and adds something more to do in the game with a tangible reward.
That’s all I have for now, hope you guys like my ideas and definitely your comments will be much appreciated! If you have ideas of your own you can share them below 😊
2024.05.19 00:32 Lindsey1122 Please help with wedding insight
I am not sure if this is the right place to post. I have been dating and living with an exmuslim for about a decade. I've found out I'm pregnant and we've decided to get married. By the time the wedding rolls around I will be 5+ months pregnant. His family is Ismaili so the ceremony would be in a khane. I am Roman Catholic but my family hasn't attended church in decades. I have so many questions and such little time. What is the traditional wedding dress called? What colour can it be? I am not a fan of red. Do they make these wedding dresses in "maternity" format? What sort of accessories do I need? What hairstyles are acceptable that can be transitioned to the reception? How expensive can these dresses be in the Toronto area (Canada)? If anyone knows. I was given a brief rundown with his sister but I still have all these worries. If I am in the wrong place please let me know.
submitted by Lindsey1122 to exmuslim [link] [comments]
2024.05.18 23:51 Condition-Sea What are some webtoons that ended well?
When I first started reading webtoons I had my first webtoon-ending disappointment with Flow. Maybe it was because I was young and didnt understand the ending. I think it was similar with Bastard.
But one that had me bawling on my way to church was Gormet Hound. Im not one for slow burns, but I love a good character story. I want to do a character anaylsis on all of these wonderful characters. What makes them tick. Also the food names were very cute and the entire webtoon fundamentally changed my brain chemistry.
Also Uriah I have been following that sucker since I saw it on Tapas in 2015(?). The artist is so good at drawing gore and I loved MC's development. I'm definitely gonna read it again. It is a horror webtoon full of gore so if you wanna read it please be careful. People do die. Horribly.
submitted by Condition-Sea to webtoons [link] [comments]
But one that had me bawling on my way to church was Gormet Hound. Im not one for slow burns, but I love a good character story. I want to do a character anaylsis on all of these wonderful characters. What makes them tick. Also the food names were very cute and the entire webtoon fundamentally changed my brain chemistry.
Also Uriah I have been following that sucker since I saw it on Tapas in 2015(?). The artist is so good at drawing gore and I loved MC's development. I'm definitely gonna read it again. It is a horror webtoon full of gore so if you wanna read it please be careful. People do die. Horribly.
2024.05.18 21:48 10grundrisse06 Memorial Day weekend
Hi everyone, Thanks for any input. I'm taking my kids to P'cola for Memorial Day Weekend. We're staying in a cute little place in the old church area of downtown, and we're super excited. Our plan is to go to the beach on Sunday, bop around downtown/historic districts on Monday, and then kayak to Deadman's Island on Tuesday. We leave on Wednesday.
Reading this plan as a local person who wants working facilities but is not the sort to bum it up with crowds of people, what would you tell me about beach access? Working showers and bathrooms are really all we need. A pavilion would be nice but optional. Some people a plus, but not the throngs at the beach ball place.
Additionally, my boyfriend and I will go out probably once to bar hop downtown and walk back to the place. We appreciate good cocktails and also dive bars, so suggest your local haunt if you live or go downtown.
We really like trying to find out what sorts of things locals do and where they go even if it's off the path. If it's cool, we want to know. I'm a sucker for adhering to local etiquette, so let me know if there are some glaring faux pas I should be aware of.
Thanks a ton, y'all. We're from Memphis and enjoy going to NOLA several times a year if that might put some flair in your advice. Spicy food, art, music, etc.
submitted by 10grundrisse06 to Pensacola [link] [comments]
Reading this plan as a local person who wants working facilities but is not the sort to bum it up with crowds of people, what would you tell me about beach access? Working showers and bathrooms are really all we need. A pavilion would be nice but optional. Some people a plus, but not the throngs at the beach ball place.
Additionally, my boyfriend and I will go out probably once to bar hop downtown and walk back to the place. We appreciate good cocktails and also dive bars, so suggest your local haunt if you live or go downtown.
We really like trying to find out what sorts of things locals do and where they go even if it's off the path. If it's cool, we want to know. I'm a sucker for adhering to local etiquette, so let me know if there are some glaring faux pas I should be aware of.
Thanks a ton, y'all. We're from Memphis and enjoy going to NOLA several times a year if that might put some flair in your advice. Spicy food, art, music, etc.
2024.05.18 21:32 lliv1ngdollyyy Islamic countries are fucking boring lmao
The other day I commented on tunisia that one of the reasons why I wanna leave my country is that I'll finally be able yo wear whatever I want without bring judged ot getting too much attention, the people there IMMEDIATELY assumed that I was trying to show my nipples and be a whore, and said that why would I want to wear something revealing if I don't want attention, like what the fuck is wrong with these people? The styles that I wanna wear are NOT revealing at all, just really hyper feminine clothing styles like ryousangata , coquette, jiraikei or darker fashion style like emo, nothing revealing, no showing nipples.
And even when I wore a dress with pigtails hairstyle I've noticed a teen male recording me without my consent, or the other day when I was compared to mia khalifa by teenage boys walking past me for having pigtails hairstyle? it's honestly so fucking Tiring, why can't women do anything or wear anything that isn't so fucking basic or just a straight up hijab in islamic countries? Why can't I wear cute clothes like western or east asian women without being called a slut, a whore or just harassed in public even if they're not revealing at all? Why do I have to please islamic standards and not express myself in ANY WAY? why fo we have to be so boring as if we're NPCs?
submitted by lliv1ngdollyyy to exmuslim [link] [comments]
And even when I wore a dress with pigtails hairstyle I've noticed a teen male recording me without my consent, or the other day when I was compared to mia khalifa by teenage boys walking past me for having pigtails hairstyle? it's honestly so fucking Tiring, why can't women do anything or wear anything that isn't so fucking basic or just a straight up hijab in islamic countries? Why can't I wear cute clothes like western or east asian women without being called a slut, a whore or just harassed in public even if they're not revealing at all? Why do I have to please islamic standards and not express myself in ANY WAY? why fo we have to be so boring as if we're NPCs?
2024.05.18 19:13 CatherineL1031 The Beginning of my Descent [Lorepost Part 3]
![The Beginning of my Descent [Lorepost Part 3]](https://preview.redd.it/8c06qddww71d1.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6bbe7ddd2b8b39cfcd833a7fb4252a0169ab6677 "The Beginning of my Descent [Lorepost Part 3]") | Hello again everyone, I’ve decided to put the baking tips here this time. This is one that has been a huge help for me when it comes to cutting cakes. It’s much easier and cleaner to cut a cake when it’s been chilled for a few hours. So, once your cake has baked and firmed up in the pan (about 15-20 minutes, you want to make sure it’s set but still slightly malleable), take it out, let it come to room temperature, and then cover with foil or plastic or something to prevent it from drying in the fridge. Let it cook for a few hours to finish solidifying, and then cut. Also, if you have the means, a sheet cake cooks and cools a lot faster and more evenly and a cutter can be used to make perfect even circles. submitted by CatherineL1031 to wizardposting [link] [comments] Now, it’s a bit strange to start with the baking tips, I know. But, those are saved as a reward for making your way through my ramblings about youth and glory and adventures. This time, I wanted to put it here as a sort of apology for what’s to come. The last two stories have been very positive, very upbeat, very fun. However, the next century of my life I’m about to share with you all… I wouldn’t blame any of you if you looked at me differently, I’ll just say that. I’ll stop beating around the bush, and get right to the point. So, my immortality was secure, I’d have my perfect body for as long as time existed or until I was killed by a stronger, more capable opponent. I had a good group of friends who knew they could depend on me whenever they needed help with something, and I got to kick the ass of a lich! I had accomplished so much in just over 100 years of life, and now I had a supposedly infinite amount of it to spare if I played my cards right! I felt unstoppable, and wanted to help others like I had helped my companions. I became a mercenary, a witch for hire for adventures that might be too dangerous for parties. I stopped lying about my strengths, making sure it was known I held Master rank in two magic fields. Most people do not like to play the role of support, and it’s never a bad idea to have extra healing, so I started to hone my craft in Healing and Protection magic as well. I was a force to be reckoned with, and I would make sure the world knew it! I had wished to continue adventuring with my previous companions, but each of them had decided to take their own path in life. Har decided to take a more involved approach with his church, Ralin returned home to overtake her brother as chief of her clan, and Vex was heading back to the mountains to further hone her building expertise and learn to become an artificer for enchanting! It was sad parting ways, we had been together for such a short time but we had accomplished something so impressive! Oh well, that’s life, you know? I made them promise to keep in touch, and we did for the most part! Har became a bit hard to reach at times due to moving around, so it was always a treat to see him when I could. Anyways, I soon began to gain some fame. I was a topic of conversation now who had been promoted to expert in the matter of a month after I helped some newbies on their quests. I was someone who everyone knew was dependable and talented. Best of all, I was a cutie, and everyone loves to have a cute witch on their team! I had all but abandoned my previous life’s calling in favor of glory seeking, which is something I still look back on with regret. I was becoming more selfish, more focused on building myself up instead of using my powers for the good of those who might not be able to ever have access to these powers. The Phoenix Rebirth had become a popular spell among us in the community, though, so people were still getting help. I had published it free to all magic shops, all magical teachers, even sent the entire process and methods for casting it through the OrbNet before I left to go on my mission to fight the lich. I just wanted to be sure it was in the world, pending the potential worst. It was at a huge loss, but it has now become the platform by which a lot of Gender spells are cast, so it was all worth it. My time as an adventurer was amazing, I met so many cool people, fought so many horrifying and awesome beasts, even got to kiss a dragon! They don’t have lips, so it’s not the best kiss, but it’s still something worth bragging about. I felt so good helping people in a different way, and I was becoming more and more popular through the years. I was now Catherine, Lady of Flames, Master of Forms, a stable in the adventuring party call list. It felt amazing. The excitement lasted for about 15 years of being called to help on missions, but then it was quickly soured after a single mission. Nobody mentions this, but once you become a powerful enough fighter, you start to garner the attention of those in need of protecting. This is definitely not a bad thing, especially when it is someone who is in genuine need of it, but that is not usually the case. Particularly, you garner the attention of the wealthy, who believe all problems can be solved with money. I would liken them to devils or demons, but that isn’t fair to them…devils and demons at least have codes they follow. Anyways, one such noble approached me. Well, not actually her, one of the elves she had employed in her service. Her name was Duchess Cordelia, Lady of Farlon, Heir to the Rose Throne, Daughter of Zavier Goradel and Collector of Fine Arts. Yes, she made you say each one of those every time you addressed her, and in the correct order. She was…there’s a word I don’t like to use to describe her, a word that to me is very offensive but to others means nothing. I’m sure you can guess the word of which I speak, I simply refuse to say it outloud. She was, though, and a massive one at that. She had called upon me after an omen in the sky had warned her of an invasion by some of the forces of hell. It was something we all saw, and while it was a terrifying experience, I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t the coolest and most spectacular shit I had ever seen. Whoever had cast it had placed some illusion magic to make the sun look like a flaming skull that called specifically her and her family out. I still remember what it said because it was just that cool. ‘Cordelia, Zavier, Helena…you have toyed with forces beyond your control, and for that you will be punished…My legions will march on your town, turning it and everything your pathetic hands have dared to touch into naught but a fine ash. You cannot stop me. You cannot persuade me. You cannot survive…’ and then it was over, the sun was back to normal. Fucking baller move, right? That’s how you threaten some assholes’ life! So, I was called, along with Magnus Haradel and Desdamona Torres. Magnus was another high ranking member of the guild, an older Drow chap who still remains the most talented sword wielder I’d ever seen. His white hair was always tied into a neat bun, and he dressed simply. His armor was enchanted, but looked similar to any generic armor you could buy. He held a very respectable air about him, a sense of power that told anyone he could easily defeat them, but a calming sense that assured them he would only do it if he was threatened. Mona was an alchemist who concocted and brewed the strangest potions I had ever seen. Some of them would cause an opponent to explode, some would freeze them in place, some when opened and poured onto the ground summoned these giant venus fly-trap looking creatures with razor sharp teeth that would devour whatever she commanded. She was a half-goblin, parents being a full goblin and an elf. Their genes worked together very well, because Mona herself was truly stunning. She has black hair, lime green skin, and wore a long back robe that flowed down her slender body. More impressive, however, was that she was Archmage levels in her Alchemical field, the highest one could get back in the day. It was our job to protect Cordelia and her parents, Zavier and Helena. They would not share any information with us about what they had done, how it had pissed something off, or what to expect, but they did tell us we’d be ‘handsomely compensated should you survive’. Assholes…we needed information to do our job! Holes in information leads to holes in strategy, holes in strategy leads to unnecessary risk, and unnecessary risk leads to uncertainty and potential death! Ugh, whatever, it was just one job, then hopefully we’d never have to deal with them again and they’d descend into obscurity. So, the job was set. Magnus, Mona and I got better acquainted with each other and started to plan our defensive means and offensive responses. We had no idea what we were facing, how many it would be, where it would be coming from, or when! We had one of the five answers we desperately needed, so we had to do the best we could. Magnus suggested we employ the help of additional adventurers; clerics, paladins and the like who are good at protecting and supporting. Their job would be to round up the town to a safe location and watch over them until one of us gave the all clear. Mona and I agreed, and I decided to spread the word that the people needed to be taken to safety and guarded until whatever was going to happen had happened; he did threaten the entire population, so better to be safe. Mona started to lay a protective parameter around the Goradel mansion in the form of explosive concoctions that seeped into the ground and bottles of Acid Arrow that, when broken, would attack the nearest hostile creature. She had also managed to brew a few potions of invisibility for the townsfolk, given the guards potions of strength, mana regeneration, health regeneration and spell boosting, and gave herself, myself and Magnus potions of regeneration, potions of Free Casting (basically downing one allows you just have a reserve of mana to pull from without worry), and potions of Iron Skin that would give us amazing defense without slowing us down. She was a really, really talented Alchemist, even crazier was that she was only 30, very young for a half-elf/half-goblin. She definitely had a gift. I, meanwhile, decided to try something new. I had been toying around with a few things in my off-time, and with my knowledge of Shifting Magics I decided to try out something that could prove beneficial. I had come across many beasts in my time, some of them easy to understand and study, others so wildly complicated that it took me years of dissecting, studying and charting to get a solid understanding of what the hell was going on internally. I had taken some lessons from Grandmaster and Archmage Shifter’s who were willing to teach, and with enough practice I was finally able to harness the form of other, less common creatures! I had mastered the standard offensive animal forms like tiger, wolf, bear and eagle, but didn’t know how dangerous our targets were going to be, so I decided that we needed to go hard, fast, and leave no possible room for error. I downed the two bottles of Free Casting that Mona has brewed, and began my shift. I had again mixed my Phoenix Rebirth with these form changes, so the only pain I was receiving was to my mana pools. However, thanks to Mona’s amazing abilities, I was able to shift without trouble! I got down on all fours, and soon my size began to expand. My teeth turned from their normal human color to a stained and dark brown. My face started to extend forward into a muzzle, my teeth being replaced by sharp, deadly fangs. My canines extended further than the rest, creating a deadly row of fangs. My lips retracted back, and my face began to turn scaly and red as my face became more and more canine. The only thing unchanged on my face was my eyes, as they were my Keepsake (many Shifters have a certain aspect of themselves they keep permanent, no matter what, to remind themselves of their true form). The scales continued down, a large, fleshy tail sprouting from my back and extending out. From snout to tail, I was now 30 feet in size, but I was not yet finished. The scales extended down my whole body, but they looked more like regular sinew and flesh as my body was covered in a protective coat of blood red scales. My legs began to crack and bend as muscle appeared to support my now larger weight and size, and my toes extended a double set of claws on each foot. The form was complete, now for one final touch. All across my red tail, bones began to jut out like my sharpened fangs, covering it from my hindquarters to the very tip of my tail. It was definitely an easy target should something decide to attack my tail, but the shards and spikes allowed me to slice through weaker enemies that dare to try. Even better, I could slam my tail against the ground to loosen some of the shards and fling them towards my target. I was a true beast, an imperfect dragon known as a fanged drake. While not near as strong as a true dragon, I had seen first-hand the damage and strength they possess, and now it was all mine. Magic was a bit harder to cast in this form, but I still had access to Apprentice level Pyromancy and some support spells like Enhance Speed, Feather Fall and Enhance Ability. The stage was set, we were ready to fight whatever came our way. Magnus had enchanted his greatsword with every enchantment he could cast without overloading it, Mona held potions in her hands, and I stood at the front, smoke coming from my body as I waited. We were ready, we were going to defend these poor villagers and the shitty people who barely even gave a shit about their safety! We waited, and waited, and waited. Seems I had used my change too early, and turning back would just be a waste of mana, so I decided to travel into town and help with carrying or leading others to safety. I had modified the vocal cords of this beast to be more in-line with standard humanoid ones, so it allowed me to speak. It was just not very fun, given my voice was incredibly gruff and deep due to the creature's size. I ran to the guards, my now muscular legs allowing me to jump great distances, my long claws able to help me climb with relative ease. It didn't take long to find the groups and their protectors as they were leaving town. I jumped down to check and make sure everything was okay, and even got to meet Har again! He looked so much more mature, his black hair and green eyes showing a bit of age, but it seemed he was happy. We used a few minutes of walking time to catch up, and I got to hear all about his journey. After our mission, he made it his job to find undead who had been driven mad, and help them see the light again. He had seen many undead who had been brought back against their will, and many who suffered purely because they weren't allowed a choice in their rest being disturbed. He had helped them find peace, shown them the light of Theia, his goddess, and allowed them to return to their peaceful slumber in their designated afterlife. He had even married the cute man at the bar that I had convinced him to chat up, and they had a daughter named Athena! Apparently she was 7 years old and the sweetest thing, according to Har. I told him he better let me visit her once this was all over, and he happily accepted. Our sweet reunion was cut short, however, as the clouds in the night sky started to swirl and gather. Once again we saw the decrepit and harrowing skull that we had seen yesterday appear again. Except, this time it didn't talk. It merely let out an ear-splitting screech that rattled your very soul. A few of the people were so terrified they had fainted, so I yelled at them to carry all they could, and run! Fast! They were quick to agree, those who could carry grabbing the unconscious and those from my back with haste so that I could rush back to the mansion. I arrived right in the nick of time to see absolute hell spewing from the mouth of this skull. We heard horrid shrieks and cries of birds, the hissing roars of giant snakes, and the unholy screams of Abyssal Spiders. The birds were like Corvids, but towering in height. They easily reached 30 feet in size, their beaks sharpened and rigged with teeth-like bumps running down the entirety of their beaks. Their eye sockets were sunken and shallow, small eyes giving off a haunting and piercing glow. Parts of their body showed their exposed, fleshy bodies underneath. Their skin was red, and covered with scars, exposed bone and sinew from what looked to be countless battles. The snakes were unlike anything I've ever seen, they were black and blue striped, with arms and legs, and stood upright! They were not as tall as the Corvids, only measuring 15 feet tall, but they possessed a whip-like tail that flowed almost the same length as their bodies. Their mouths oozed a green venom that coated their fangs, and their necks were able to flare into hoods like a cobra. Finally, were the spiders. Along with being giant, like the size of a Clydesdale giant, they possessed hundreds of eyes across their entire body. Their fangs dripped with venom, and thick hairs were present across their entire bodies. Each hair on their back was able to pierce skin and inject with the same poison in their fangs, and their webs were known to carry a necrotic slime that would eat away at skin. We definitely had our work cut out for us, this horde of creatures was coming right for the Goradel residence and they were ready to kill anything and everything in their path. The crows rushed through, their massive size crushing smaller houses and easily breaking through larger ones that were in their way. The spiders simply crawled over them, leaving a trail of webs and venom in their wake, and the snakes…apparently their tails were going to be quite the problem, as not only were they long, they were sharp enough to slice trees, wildlife and building cleanly with just a single slice of the tail. We were truly, without a doubt, up a fucking creek with this one. We sprang into action as quickly as we could. We saw our foes pouring out, and our objective was simple protection of the village, her people, and the asshole nobles that caused all this. I ran right towards the spiders, knowing that they were the threat that could cause the most damage with their necrotic webs and flesh-melting venom. The smoke coming from my mouth started to turn black as I approached one of them, letting out a blast of fire from my mouth that quickly set it and its attempted web in flames. It shrieked as it skittered and writhed in pain, trying to attack me in retaliation. I was quick to slice one of its legs off with my claws, and sink my teeth into the back of its head. It gave a few more twitches and finally fell still. I threw it to the side as I continued doing my best to draw them towards a common area, minimizing the potential risk of them running out of town and tracking down the other parties currently in hiding. It worked very well, as once they notice a threat, they will continue to attack! The problem was, it worked very well, and once they noticed a threat they would continue to attack until it died! The horde of spiders was gaining on me, all I could do was use some flames to burn the webs they attempted to ensnare me with and use my claws to slice any that came from the front. I was not doing well by any means, but I was now at least within sight of my companions. My joy was quickly cut short as I felt a burning string of web wraps itself around my tail. I had gotten careless, and was definitely paying the price. If you’ve never been hit by necrosis, allow me to explain the feeling as best I can. Imagine a hot knife being thrust deeper and deeper into your body and feeling your cells, muscles, tendons and fat dying around it. Not just cut, or severed, dying with little chance to repair it without some heavy magic. If it goes around a vital part, like a shoulder, leg or neck, you will start to slowly feel yourself losing all feeling as it just falls. It’s a truly horrible experience, avoid it if you can. This is to say, I was currently in for absolute hell as I felt this experience being run through the part of my tail that carries most of my projectile spikes. I could feel each tendon snapping, my skin burning away, and the discs of my now expended spine starting to crack and rip. I had to make a choice, fast. My desperation led me to only one single solution; I knew the tail had to go. With a pained howl I raised my claws, and sliced clean through the tail on my back. I cannot explain how truly horrible of an experience this was, mostly because I think my mind has blocked it out to protect itself. It fell to the ground with a wet squelch, blood pouring out of the open wounds on my back. I sent a breath of flame onto the spider and his silk, and sent another onto my nubbed tail. Again, another experience I believe my mind has blocked out to protect itself! Don’t get hit by necrosis, kids. I ran to Mona, who was currently being swarmed by a group of Corvids, and offered my assistance. I was pissed, I was angry, and I wanted to kill! As one of them dived down, I jumped onto its chest and sunk my fangs directly into its neck. It let out a pained screech as I felt its blood fill my mouth, my claws wildly slashing at its chest through skin, flesh, bone, whatever I could scrap and slice, I did. I had truly let this creature’s feral nature take over my mind for the time being, but I did not give a damn, we needed to win. The beast fell back to the ground, and I let out another challenging roar to the other beasts nearby. My claws and fangs erupted in flames as I continued to wildly attack the ones threatening Mona, knowing I needed to protect her as she concocted and threw brew after brew onto what she could. Magnus was doing absolutely amazing, without a doubt the best of us. He was handling the snakes by himself, expertly dodging and slashing at them each time they tried to grab him, bite him, slice with their tails, or trample him. He would wait for them to attack and in the blink of an eye, whatever they tried to attack him with would be gone. Heads, tails, legs and arms started to litter the ground near him as he showed absolute power and authority. Mona, meanwhile, had been mixing something special while I distracted the snakes and corvids. Her alchemical traps had mostly been activated already, melted and bubbling piles of what were some of our enemies scattered through the warzone. She yelled at me to give her a boost, and I managed to snap free from my feral state. She held something in her hands I cannot even begin to describe. It was completely dark, but…empty. The energy that came from it was unlike anything I have ever seen since, it was like staring into the nothingness of space while being surrounded by it on all sides. She slammed it onto the ground, and the darkness surrounded her. Flesh and feathers from the Corvids started to break from their destroyed and lifeless bodies, attaching itself to her back and clothes. One of their skulls burst into pieces as it flew towards her, reassembling itself onto her face in a makeshift mask. Their bones and talons began to collect into her hands, and within a matter of seconds she was holding a powerful, pulsating scythe. In that moment I saw something I truly hope to never see again. I saw death. The truest form of death was standing before me, and its energy chilled my very soul. I could feel the contempt the energy had for me, as if it knew I had extended my life outside of its natural reach. She ordered me to come, and I knew I had to obey. I grabbed her with my fangs, and placed her onto my back. Her body was cold, I was terrified of what I saw before me, but so was everything else. I felt a hand rest onto my head, and I could feel…warmth. Mona reassured me that it was going to be okay, and pointed her scythe forward. I collected myself again, and sprinted towards our enemies. Mona sliced and slashed them each with one clean swipe from that scythe, each of them falling dead in our path. I used my flames to burn any webs that had been placed, focusing on the ground while she focused on taking down these enemies with the grace and power of a god. As I saw this, I truly understood how far the gaps between Master and Archmage truly were when it came to the arcane arts. I still had so much to learn… Our combo attacks came to a screeching halt, however, as we heard a pained scream from behind us. We both looked to where Magnus was, and we could see that he had been injured. One of the snakes had managed to sink its tail through his shoulder, and another currently had its fangs embedded into his side. We let out a scream as we charged towards them as they bit, stabbed, and slashed poor Magnus. I tackled one of the snakes off, sinking my burning fangs into its neck and ripping its head off in one solid motion. Mona jumped from my back, holding her hand out as she said…something, and the snake was turned to dust. Magnus fell to the ground, howling in pain as he regained his footing. I cried out that he needed to be healed immediately, and begged Mona to throw him something from her belt. He paid me no mind, and just ran back into the fight. He was so badly injured, but that did not stop him for a second. He continued fighting as if nothing had happened, and we knew we had to do the same. The fight lasted for hours, the hordes of enemies seeming endless. The town had been turned to rubble at this point, any signs of life save for the Goradel mansion had vanished from this now tarnished and barren land. As the sun rose on the next day, we saw the warzone in fresh light. Mona had returned to normal, her breathing short and labored as she laid on the ground. I had turned back to normal, wounds covering my body and in desperate need of healing, but I didn’t care. I saw Magnus sitting on the corpse of one of the Corvids, a cup of ale in his hand and blood pouring from him. I rushed to him, begging him to let me help him, but he just shook his head. He took a long, slow sip of his ale, let out a deep sigh and motioned for me to sit with him. I got down as best I could, every instinct telling me to heal me, but he continued to refuse. Eventually he spoke as we stared at the sunset. ‘Catherine,’ he said to me, ‘everyone has a torch to burn. Some burn longer than others, and we don’t get to decide how long they burn…’ He leaned against his sword with a smile, taking one last sip of ale. I asked him what the hell he was talking about, but as I looked at him, I could tell… He was gone… The light had gone from his eyes, but that smile remained on his face. As I saw this, all I could do was cry. I had lost people before in my life, but I was always able to help the ones that could be helped from injuries! I just hugged him as I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. Even worse was having to heal Mona back to consciousness with the remainder of my magic and share the news with her. We cried together; we hadn’t known each other for more than a day, but we all held a deep respect for each other. Knowing that we had failed him and caused his demise, the town being destroyed, our barely achieved victory…none of it felt worth it in the end. As we cried, we heard the doors to the Goradel manor open. Out stepped Zavier, Cordelia’s father. He looked at the scene, nodding as he saw our handiwork and commended us. ‘Weren’t there three of you?’ he asked as he looked at us with such lack of regard. ‘Magnus…he’s dead…’ Mona said as I helped her up, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘Hm, pity…very well, would you like his share? We had already set aside 3 payments, we will split it between you both should you wish’. I still don’t know why what he said caused me such anger, but I could feel my blood boil. Our comrade that had been one of the best members of the guild, the one who had fought to defend his worthless ass, the reason he was standing here right now and not a pile of meat being devoured by beasts didn’t even give a shit that he was gone! ‘This isn’t fair’, I thought to myself, ‘we protected them and they are treating us like pawns!’ Mona could tell I was getting angry, so she answered that we’d take his share and have it sent to our accounts at once. She pulled me away from this pitiful excuse for a human, and I just screamed in anger. She told me that she agreed, that it wasn’t fair to Magnus, or us, or the people of this village, but that we couldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain. With his share of the cash and ours, we could afford to build a new settlement for the displaced of this village. She managed to talk me down from my anger, she was really talented like that. I took a few deep breaths, patted my cheeks, and nodded. It would be better to use the money for good in Magnus’ honor, all the stories I had heard of his exploits usually ended with him donating a large portion of his earnings to those affected by disasters such as this. Mona left to inform the survivors that the victory had been achieved, but at the loss of Magnus. While she did that, however, I began to plan. I don’t know if it was the loss of a comrade, the pain still coursing through my body, the stress and trauma of what we had just gone through, but letting it go was not an option for me at this point. I knew I had to show these fuckers torment, I knew that they needed to pay for the callous disregard for anyone who wasn’t themselves. So, I gathered samples. I had a bag of holding on my side and began to stuff it with the bodies of our defeated enemies. The spiders had all been burned and crushed beyond study, but many of the Corvids and Serpents were still able to be studied and understood. Once I had my samples, I looked at Magnus with more tears. I was going to avenge him, I was going to show these rich pieces of crap just how insignificant they were, and I was going to make sure they paid the price… There was no way I could carry his body with my strength, he was far too bulky for me, so I used my magic to carry him. Even with my weakened state I couldn’t stop myself from giving him a proper burial. He deserved it, he deserved so much more than what he got. I summoned a shovel into my hands, and began to dig. I think I made it about 3 minutes of digging before my body finally gave up on me, and I fell. I don’t remember much of what happened after that, I guess I had passed out from exhaustion. When I awoke, I heard Har’s voice calling to me. I was so tired, my body aching and burning in such pain as I tried to move every muscle I could. I looked up, and we were in a cemetery. I could see Magnus’ body laying in a now dug grave, dressed in his elegant but simple armor, eyes closed and mouth still holding that same smile as I had seen before. A ward of protection was currently being cast around his burial grounds, designating this land as sacred ground that could not be touched by any means. No necromancer could get to his body, and no thieves could rob him of his belongings. I was sitting next to a patched up and tired looking Mona, and we both just sobbed gently as we watched him being buried. Hundreds had gathered to pay their respects, all of those that Magnus had saved, protected, worked with, allied, even some who I later came to learn saw him as a rival. All of them were paying their respects to this true paragon of an adventurer, and all I could think about was getting revenge for him… Ah, sorry, I didn’t realize how long I had been sending through the OrbNet. It might be best to end this part of my life here for the time being. Thank you again for reading, if you managed to find an old witch’s story interesting. Once I work up the courage to share the next part with you all, I hope you will continue to view me in a positive light. You will hear things that…well, you’ll see. Thank you for your time, I love you all, my siblings in the arcane. |
2024.05.18 14:26 juliaakatrinaa0507 Tylee Memorial Piece
 | I've seen a few posts recently asking who is there for Tylee, who is in her corner, etc. Her aunt (Lori's sister) Summer Shiflet did a memorial piece for her and I thought it was really beautiful. Say what you want about Summer, I don't know what I even think about her myself, but I did enjoy reading this and learning more about Tylee. Here it is: submitted by juliaakatrinaa0507 to LoriVallow [link] [comments] Tylee Ashlyn Ryan was born Sept. 24, 2002. Making her my almost birthday twinner, as I was born Sept. 23 at 11:55 p.m. She was a tiny baby, just over 5lbs, and had beautiful dark hair. I lived in a different state, so I didn’t get to see her nearly enough, but when I did see her, she was a happy baby with beautiful pink cheeks, fierce blue eyes, and her hair had lightened to a soft golden blonde. Tylee was extremely bright and learned how to do everything: rolled over, walked, talked, read, and many other things earlier than expected. She was a darling bright baby who laughed easily but hardest at Colby, who entertained her 24/7! Tylee was a little mermaid. I remember visiting her at the age of 2, almost 3, and she got in the pool with no floaties and swam all around the pool. She was amazing!! I have never seen another child swim that early. But she loved the water, and she and Colby would swim as early as February when the water was too cold for everyone else, and swim into the later winter months. Later in life, Tylee also patiently helped JJ learn to swim when they lived in Hawaii. Tylee was extremely clever, witty, and hilarious as a little girl, even from a young age. She adored her older brother, Colby like no other. Tylee’s mother had a hair salon built into the house, and Tylee saw her mom working on lots of clients. Tylee loved to get into her mother’s chair and get her hair done like a big girl. Tylee had a happy life and a hard life. She was adored by her immediate family, especially her big brother, Colby, who saw her birth as the first step to “Texas sizing” their family! Her hardships included her father’s abuse of her and 7 episodes of pancreatitis — an extremely painful disease. Each time she had an attack, she was in the hospital for 10 days and would have been longer if Lori had not advocated for Tylee with her doctors. We all went to visit her through each attack and did all we could to show her love and support. Lori did the most. She spent every night with her each time and would not eat in front of her since she could not eat or drink for at least 8 days of her stay. Tylee loved Lori more than anyone and Lori was right there helping her with schoolwork so she wouldn’t get behind, coming up with fun things she could do and arranging visits from school friends, church friends and family. Lori’s dedication as a mother was undeniable…Tylee was a straight A student most of her life. She did a science project that won a prize on tsunamis! She had a beautiful singing voice and was a very talented dancer. It was easy to see that she was a natural-born performer and we loved watching her shows. Tylee learned to do expert makeup and loved trying new hairstyles. On a side note, I will forever miss hugging Tylee and smelling her hair, it always smelled so good and was so soft. Tylee was very artistic. She could draw, design, do calligraphy and also had an incredible eye for photography! Her photographs are some of our most precious treasures, especially the beautiful pictures she took of little JJ. Tylee was funny, kind, but could also be bitingly sarcastic. She really came into her own when she turned 16. She tested out of high school at college-ready levels in every subject; she got her driver’s license, and she took a job with my husband’s chiropractic office for her first job. She had a great interest in physical therapy and enjoyed her short time working with patients. She was so cute wearing her scrubs proudly every working day! To celebrate and honor all of these accomplishments, we did an all girls big celebration for her. We had so much fun and we were thrilled to celebrate her. One of the most precious memories I have is the night Tylee spent at my house when Ryley was born. I will never forget her beautiful little face and the huge tears in her gorgeous blue eyes that rolled down her slightly pink cheeks and watching her shake with emotion when Colby texted her a picture of her first little niece. She said “she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” It was instant love. It hurts my heart so much that Ryley and Ava will be deprived of being spoiled and played with by the most loving aunt they could ever have. I know how much Tylee adored Colby and JJ. I wasn’t able to witness her relationships with her step brothers Cole and Zach as much, but I know her love and respect for them was present. When Charles was shot, Tylee was the one who pushed her mother to tell them. Tylee was also responsible for tracking down the kennel that Charles had placed Bailey in when he left Houston so that they could bring him home. Tylee was a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She had great faith in her Savior Jesus Christ. She loved the Young Women’s program. She went to the temple frequently. The first time my daughter went through the temple, Tylee walked her through everything and was so sweet and patient with her. Tylee and my oldest son were only a year apart and had so much fun together. They both spoke sarcasm fluently and were such good friends. My youngest son, Tylee’s name sake, loved to banter with Tylee. My children also loved JJ and will ever be deprived of their special friendships with their cousins. Tylee was sensitive, thoughtful, considerate, humble, generous, caring, and tough. She would have been the best mother, as she loved children. Her favorite color was a bright blue, she called it the color of Hawaii. Her favorite dessert was a no-bake cheesecake. I have yet to be able to make one without completely breaking down in tears as I think of that precious girl!! Tylee loved the shows ‘The Office,’ ‘Friends,’ ‘The Bachelor’ and others. She loved music. She loved her friends and had so many fun times with them. Her friends truly loved Tylee and will have to live with this enormous hole in their hearts, and confusion as to why they had to lose their friend. Tylee loved her mother above all and was protected by her mother most of her life. We know that only the severe mental illness that her mother has would be stronger than a mother’s love. Tylee and JJ both wanted to be with their mother more than anyone else. But after Lori met Chad Daybell, Tylee and sweet little JJ were served up on a platter like a lamb to the slaughter. There is no sense, logic, or explanation that will ever be satisfactory in their murders. The world would have been a better place with Tylee in it. The world would have been a better place with JJ in it. We will always be grief-stricken over their untimely deaths and are beyond sad that they were betrayed by the very mother they loved. There are no excuses for Lori’s actions regarding Tylee and JJ; but we do see that she is mentally ill. It’s such a tragedy that this beautiful bright girl and most precious little boy were murdered but that in no way reflects on the wonderful people the were and the many contributions that they were poised to make in this world. ** this was found on East Idaho News |
2024.05.18 11:41 LawsickP Furina and the Prodigal Son: How Genshin Impact Led Me Back Home to the Catholic Church
Hello. I posted a meme in the Catholic Memes subreddit with a Genshin Impact meme template, and I felt moved when I shared a testimony, and it was taken well. So, I want to share a more in-depth story as someone who used to simply just be a lukewarm cultural Catholic, because having played Genshin Impact and meeting Furina moved me in a way no other fictional character ever had. It was a time when I started to notice God’s love more clearly. I did not expect to feel God’s love over a Chinese anime gacha game. I did not expect to be so moved to the point it served as a road for me to return to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that I drifted apart from for almost a decade.
I will only enter a Church if I am convinced with reason, and because I learned Catholic theology and am convinced by apologetics (by listening to and reading the works of different Catholic apologists, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Trent Horn), I was already won over by the Catholic Church in the battle for reason. This time, I want to share another aspect of my faith journey, not focusing too much on apologetics.
Spoiler warning: Particularly, major story details regarding the Fontaine Archon Quest (Archon Quest, Chapter 4) and Act 1 of Furina’s story quest, all from Genshin Impact, are present.
Part I: The World as Theater
I was the type to be convinced through reason, and I always thought faith and reason must be intertwined. With how Catholicism handles truth (including morality) rigorously, I knew that the Church is beautiful for that: in fact, many of the greatest Western scientists in history are Catholic. Yet even as I learned Catholic theology, I still felt separate from the Church even though I had a great deal of respect for it.
I found Furina to have lived virtually her entire life as an "actor," and the entire world was a stage to her. To save the nation of Fontaine (based on France), her nation, from destruction, she had to deceive her own people into believing her to be the Hydro Archon, a god who rules over that water nation. This is part of a plan to subvert a prophecy that will engulf Fontaine in a flood of Primordial Seawater that kills all Fontainians who touch it, but the full details are beyond the scope of this post. And as such, she lived for 500 years building her image as a "perfect goddess." Virtually Furina's entire life involves her putting up a mask. However, regardless of intent, having to live a lie is a painful experience to behold, and Furina would cry herself to sleep over her loneliness.
The masquerade worked on the player, as throughout the beginning of the Fontaine Archon Quest (Archon Quest, Chapter 4, Act 1), we see Furina as bratty, flamboyant mascot of the nation. A superstar that citizens would pay to see. However, we eventually learn Furina to be a flawed human, and not the perfect archon as what is conveyed in her public image. The citizens also found out about it in her court trial, where she was tried by her own people to check if she’s the Hydro Archon.
Though the prophecy was subverted in a way that the citizens were still saved anyway, Furina nevertheless was disheartened as she went through years and years of failure, where she felt she didn’t do enough to save the citizens of Fontaine. After all, there were still those whose lives were claimed by the Primordial Seawater, most notably in the flooding incident at Poisson Village. After Fontaine was saved, she felt she no longer had any use, for in her eyes, the Fontainians are angry at her because their beloved “Hydro Archon” did nothing. But Furina felt liberated in the sense that she can now live her life again in a way that she does not have to please the world.
Furina as depicted in the music video “End of All” by Aimer. In that scene (Archon Quest, Chapter 4, Act 5), the player “watches” the daily life of Furina in the form of a stage play. By day, she plays the role of a superstar. By night, she feels powerless in her attempt to stop the prophecy, and because she cannot tell anyone about the truth, she cries herself to sleep. A daily cycle that goes for 500 years. Before going to sleep, Furina ends each day with the following words: “So interminable… so lonely… how much longer?” When I played through this scene in the game, I felt this to be one of the most painful I have ever went through in fiction. And that's because I can see myself in Furina.
Part II: Walking With the Little Oceanid
What pushed away from the Church was that I suffered from scrupulosity over sin. In fact, it was only this year that I learned there is a word for that. I had a period of contemplating about the Catholic faith last March, and I felt deeply conscious about the sins I have made over the past years. I took a visit to my school’s local campus ministry one day, and I had a conversation with a minister there. At that time, I felt a longing to return to God and a desire to be loved. The minister had me read The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), and it was a very familiar parable to me, but it made me remember when one of my past theology instructors would love to talk about this parable to remind us that God loved us first, even if we don’t love Him back, and even if we do not love ourselves. When I cried reading that parable again, I felt similar feelings to what I felt when playing through Furina’s story.
At some point earlier in my life, I studied the teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, including that we can find God in all things. Thus, I wonder if introducing me to Furina was God’s way of comforting me and attempting me to bring me home. How God exactly worked behind the scenes, I admit that I have no answer to that, but I nevertheless appreciate the talents of the artists and writers at Hoyoverse to make this possible. It is interesting because I have sidelined God from my life for years and could not remember the last time I fully enjoyed praying before then. What is amazing is how Furina was also that one character I anticipated the longest for her release, as I saved almost an entire year’s worth of Primogems (in-game currency used to get characters) patiently waiting for her release because I was excited ever since her design was revealed. At the time of this writing, she’s my most-invested character in terms of Primogems.
A lot of Genshin Impact players would point out various Biblical references in the Fontaine Archon Quest (like original sin and salvation), and some would say Furina and Focalors are a reference to the Holy Trinity. However, when I walked with Furina, she also reminded me of the Prodigal Son. Furina may be resilient, but she also desires to be loved despite her imperfections, just like I do. So for a time, I had Furina keeping me company while I play.
Part III: The Return Home
On the fourth week last March, I went to confession for the first time in seven years: it was one scheduled after my confessor had presided in a Mass. I felt deterred at first to go to confession, especially since I had bad experiences of confiding in people who will just betray my trust. And that’s why I sympathize with Furina when she was secretive about her own faults. Perhaps it made me appreciate the Seal of the Confessional even more: when you enter the confessional and mention your sins out loud, you are not speaking to the priest directly; you are speaking to Christ who is acting through the priest. The priest is In Persona Christi, and it’s something a lot of lukewarm Catholics forget about. If ever we are lonely like Furina, we have a place to feel safe in God’s embrace. The seal exists to ensure that our loving relationship with God is respected, and that we no longer have to fear like Furina did. I was in the confessional for about half an hour, but that day was the day I knew I was back at home, the same home I ran away from even though I have claimed to belong there. I was lost, but now I was found.
The Church is a hospital for sinners, and not a club for saints. I fell out of the Church when I treated it like a club for saints when I was younger.
Epilogue
I now go to confession monthly (at minimum), attend Mass weekly, and I also pray the rosary daily. I also started to appreciate receiving the Eucharist by the tongue. A few people I talk to have said that my faith in God and my prayer habits have helped me be more optimistic and mentally resilient. I think they’re right, and I hardly feel lonely anymore. Living without God (and my Heavenly Family, which includes Mary and the saints) felt like Hell on Earth.
As a disclaimer, the only god I worship is our Lord, and I don’t use fictional characters as a substitute for a relationship with God, haha. But I hope I have enlightened you on why I appreciate Furina a lot, for no fictional character has ever touched my heart as she did. I felt like I was sailing in a lost ship, and God just placed a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean to help me navigate the fog and return to Him. I will be forever grateful to God for setting up the stage to get me to know Furina because she reminds me a lot about myself and the Prodigal Son. I felt like reflecting as I walk with Furina was very helpful in softening my heart to receive God’s love and mercy.
I always had doubts being initiated into a church I am hesitant to commit to. And now those doubts are gone, I am happy to say that I hope to be confirmed into the Catholic Church this year.
submitted by LawsickP to Catholicism [link] [comments]
I will only enter a Church if I am convinced with reason, and because I learned Catholic theology and am convinced by apologetics (by listening to and reading the works of different Catholic apologists, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Trent Horn), I was already won over by the Catholic Church in the battle for reason. This time, I want to share another aspect of my faith journey, not focusing too much on apologetics.
Spoiler warning: Particularly, major story details regarding the Fontaine Archon Quest (Archon Quest, Chapter 4) and Act 1 of Furina’s story quest, all from Genshin Impact, are present.
Part I: The World as Theater
I was the type to be convinced through reason, and I always thought faith and reason must be intertwined. With how Catholicism handles truth (including morality) rigorously, I knew that the Church is beautiful for that: in fact, many of the greatest Western scientists in history are Catholic. Yet even as I learned Catholic theology, I still felt separate from the Church even though I had a great deal of respect for it.
I found Furina to have lived virtually her entire life as an "actor," and the entire world was a stage to her. To save the nation of Fontaine (based on France), her nation, from destruction, she had to deceive her own people into believing her to be the Hydro Archon, a god who rules over that water nation. This is part of a plan to subvert a prophecy that will engulf Fontaine in a flood of Primordial Seawater that kills all Fontainians who touch it, but the full details are beyond the scope of this post. And as such, she lived for 500 years building her image as a "perfect goddess." Virtually Furina's entire life involves her putting up a mask. However, regardless of intent, having to live a lie is a painful experience to behold, and Furina would cry herself to sleep over her loneliness.
The masquerade worked on the player, as throughout the beginning of the Fontaine Archon Quest (Archon Quest, Chapter 4, Act 1), we see Furina as bratty, flamboyant mascot of the nation. A superstar that citizens would pay to see. However, we eventually learn Furina to be a flawed human, and not the perfect archon as what is conveyed in her public image. The citizens also found out about it in her court trial, where she was tried by her own people to check if she’s the Hydro Archon.
Though the prophecy was subverted in a way that the citizens were still saved anyway, Furina nevertheless was disheartened as she went through years and years of failure, where she felt she didn’t do enough to save the citizens of Fontaine. After all, there were still those whose lives were claimed by the Primordial Seawater, most notably in the flooding incident at Poisson Village. After Fontaine was saved, she felt she no longer had any use, for in her eyes, the Fontainians are angry at her because their beloved “Hydro Archon” did nothing. But Furina felt liberated in the sense that she can now live her life again in a way that she does not have to please the world.
Furina as depicted in the music video “End of All” by Aimer. In that scene (Archon Quest, Chapter 4, Act 5), the player “watches” the daily life of Furina in the form of a stage play. By day, she plays the role of a superstar. By night, she feels powerless in her attempt to stop the prophecy, and because she cannot tell anyone about the truth, she cries herself to sleep. A daily cycle that goes for 500 years. Before going to sleep, Furina ends each day with the following words: “So interminable… so lonely… how much longer?” When I played through this scene in the game, I felt this to be one of the most painful I have ever went through in fiction. And that's because I can see myself in Furina.
Part II: Walking With the Little Oceanid
“If you become human, you can reveal your secret to no one. You will face suffering and loneliness. Is this what you truly want?” (Animula Choragi Chapter, Act 1: The Little Oceanid)I was excited when the Fontaine region came out, and even knew I wanted to get Furina as soon as news of her character design was made public. I hardly cry for a fictional character, but when I do, it was merely crying for said character. But when I witnessed Furina’s antics in the events of the game, and eventually walked with her through her struggles, my experience was different because I cried together with her and sharing the same pain. Furina is someone I could relate to a lot as someone who felt imperfect and broken. As a student who experienced Impostor Syndrome, I felt like I had to meet societal expectations in the discipline I am specializing in (I study math), or that I am not doing enough. Furina and I chased for a desire to be simultaneously honest and be loved. That was why I felt so happy getting to know Furina, and why I regard her as a comfort character. It significantly helped that I liked her design and other fun aspects of her personality, particularly her cuteness and her wit. At that time, and even as I played Genshin Impact especially since I have Furina in my party, I had a great feeling of inner peace and comfort. When I finished the final act of the Fontaine Archon Quest, I fondly remember that Sunday last November because although I was not a weekly mass-goer yet, I felt so moved to attend Mass that day. Yet back then, I did not understand exactly what made me go.
What pushed away from the Church was that I suffered from scrupulosity over sin. In fact, it was only this year that I learned there is a word for that. I had a period of contemplating about the Catholic faith last March, and I felt deeply conscious about the sins I have made over the past years. I took a visit to my school’s local campus ministry one day, and I had a conversation with a minister there. At that time, I felt a longing to return to God and a desire to be loved. The minister had me read The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), and it was a very familiar parable to me, but it made me remember when one of my past theology instructors would love to talk about this parable to remind us that God loved us first, even if we don’t love Him back, and even if we do not love ourselves. When I cried reading that parable again, I felt similar feelings to what I felt when playing through Furina’s story.
At some point earlier in my life, I studied the teachings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, including that we can find God in all things. Thus, I wonder if introducing me to Furina was God’s way of comforting me and attempting me to bring me home. How God exactly worked behind the scenes, I admit that I have no answer to that, but I nevertheless appreciate the talents of the artists and writers at Hoyoverse to make this possible. It is interesting because I have sidelined God from my life for years and could not remember the last time I fully enjoyed praying before then. What is amazing is how Furina was also that one character I anticipated the longest for her release, as I saved almost an entire year’s worth of Primogems (in-game currency used to get characters) patiently waiting for her release because I was excited ever since her design was revealed. At the time of this writing, she’s my most-invested character in terms of Primogems.
A lot of Genshin Impact players would point out various Biblical references in the Fontaine Archon Quest (like original sin and salvation), and some would say Furina and Focalors are a reference to the Holy Trinity. However, when I walked with Furina, she also reminded me of the Prodigal Son. Furina may be resilient, but she also desires to be loved despite her imperfections, just like I do. So for a time, I had Furina keeping me company while I play.
Part III: The Return Home
“God loves us; we need only to summon up the humility to allow ourselves to be loved.”I believe that if there is one thing to be learned from Furina, it is humility, the mother of all virtues. C.S. Lewis describes humility as “not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” I am amazed by Furina’s character arc and how much she grows even at the conclusion of the Fontaine Archon Quest. Throughout her character arc, she opens up to the Traveler (player character). She opens herself up to love. And that to be a recipient of love, you must humble yourself to receive.
– Pope Benedict XVI
On the fourth week last March, I went to confession for the first time in seven years: it was one scheduled after my confessor had presided in a Mass. I felt deterred at first to go to confession, especially since I had bad experiences of confiding in people who will just betray my trust. And that’s why I sympathize with Furina when she was secretive about her own faults. Perhaps it made me appreciate the Seal of the Confessional even more: when you enter the confessional and mention your sins out loud, you are not speaking to the priest directly; you are speaking to Christ who is acting through the priest. The priest is In Persona Christi, and it’s something a lot of lukewarm Catholics forget about. If ever we are lonely like Furina, we have a place to feel safe in God’s embrace. The seal exists to ensure that our loving relationship with God is respected, and that we no longer have to fear like Furina did. I was in the confessional for about half an hour, but that day was the day I knew I was back at home, the same home I ran away from even though I have claimed to belong there. I was lost, but now I was found.
The Church is a hospital for sinners, and not a club for saints. I fell out of the Church when I treated it like a club for saints when I was younger.
Epilogue
I now go to confession monthly (at minimum), attend Mass weekly, and I also pray the rosary daily. I also started to appreciate receiving the Eucharist by the tongue. A few people I talk to have said that my faith in God and my prayer habits have helped me be more optimistic and mentally resilient. I think they’re right, and I hardly feel lonely anymore. Living without God (and my Heavenly Family, which includes Mary and the saints) felt like Hell on Earth.
As a disclaimer, the only god I worship is our Lord, and I don’t use fictional characters as a substitute for a relationship with God, haha. But I hope I have enlightened you on why I appreciate Furina a lot, for no fictional character has ever touched my heart as she did. I felt like I was sailing in a lost ship, and God just placed a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean to help me navigate the fog and return to Him. I will be forever grateful to God for setting up the stage to get me to know Furina because she reminds me a lot about myself and the Prodigal Son. I felt like reflecting as I walk with Furina was very helpful in softening my heart to receive God’s love and mercy.
I always had doubts being initiated into a church I am hesitant to commit to. And now those doubts are gone, I am happy to say that I hope to be confirmed into the Catholic Church this year.
2024.05.18 07:24 KiwiBeautiful732 Kody's hair
Obviously there's a lot of hate about this guy's hair. Even in earlier seasons I was like wtf why is this guy so into his hair but like intentionally styles it so fucking ugly. But also like...what hairstyle even would look good on him? Lol.
I've seen a few of his brothers and they're all bald and have a lot similar features, but kody is developing increasingly harsh facial expressions and I think maybe he spent so much time in a blame game pity party that his face stuck like that, just how moms tell you not to go cross eyed lol.
Bald guys with a sweetness about them and kind faces can look super cute without hair, but I feel like bald guys with rage face are just scary af lol. What hairstyle do you think would even work for him if the one he's currently working is not actually working for him?
I'm sure there has to be some sort of hairstyle testing app or something and I'm too lazy to do it myself, but if anybody out there is bored and curious, you should see how different hair would look on him lol. I literally cannot picture anything that would look better than the current, but that definitely doesn't mean that I approve of it 😂
submitted by KiwiBeautiful732 to SisterWivesFans [link] [comments]
I've seen a few of his brothers and they're all bald and have a lot similar features, but kody is developing increasingly harsh facial expressions and I think maybe he spent so much time in a blame game pity party that his face stuck like that, just how moms tell you not to go cross eyed lol.
Bald guys with a sweetness about them and kind faces can look super cute without hair, but I feel like bald guys with rage face are just scary af lol. What hairstyle do you think would even work for him if the one he's currently working is not actually working for him?
I'm sure there has to be some sort of hairstyle testing app or something and I'm too lazy to do it myself, but if anybody out there is bored and curious, you should see how different hair would look on him lol. I literally cannot picture anything that would look better than the current, but that definitely doesn't mean that I approve of it 😂
2024.05.18 03:00 MarioSonicMadokaFate My Honest Opinion on why I really like Madoka Kaname vs Sailor Moon
 | Now I know a lot of people seem to really either like or despise the matchup. Well here's what I think about Madoka vs Sailor Moon as a matchup. submitted by MarioSonicMadokaFate to DeathBattleMatchups [link] [comments] I made this btw Madoka vs Sailor Moon is a great matchup and..................... https://preview.redd.it/soax4c9sz21d1.jpg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cc221727b5305610bba8058967348dc0ce1a587 Whoops I've must've caused an outrage from the community. Well before you guys get mad at me and get your pitchforks and torches at me, let me just tell you guys on why I think this is a really good matchup. Connections: Two main protagonists from popular magical girls anime with different take (Sailor Moon being inspiration for modern magical girl genre while Madoka Magica being deconstruction of modern magical girl genre). Both of them started as normal middle-school girls who life completely changed (for better or worse) after met alien "cat" (Luna for Usagi & Kyubey for Madoka), With massive contrast that Luna geniunely care for Usagi while Kyubey simply just using Madoka for his own "selfish" goal. Both of them later gained superpowers to become magical girls (Sailor Moon & Puella Magi). Both of their main color are also white. Both of their powers came from special jewel/stone/crystal (Silver Crystal & Soul Gem). Both of them become members of magical girl team (Sailor Guardians & Holy Quintet) though while Usagi & her friends officially called their team as Sailor Guardians (IIRC), Madoka & her friends never called their team as Holy Quintet (IIRC, Again). Both of them fighting against dangerous monsters (Yoma & Witches). Both of them are best friends with blue-haired girls with "water element" (Ami Mizuno & Sayaka Miki), Along with being friends with mysterious, Dark-haired girls who seemingly emotionless but actually has harsh past (Hotaru Tomoe & Homura Akemi). Both of them later found out shocking truth but very opposite & different truth (Usagi & rest of her team members being reincarnation of previous sailor guardians from ancient time, With Usagi being reincarnation of Princess Serenity, Princess of Moon Kingdom while Madoka & other magical girls found out that the witches that they always fight are actually magical girls who turned into monsters after their soul gems corrupted by negative emotions such as despair). Both of them has winged forms (Super Sailor Moon & Ultimate Madoka). Both of them also have defeated powerful cosmic entities that want to destroy humanity (Chaos & Kriemhild Gretchen). Interestingly, Usagi is destined to stop Chaos & bring peace (IIRC) while Madoka was actually destined to become most powerful & destructive witch AKA Kriemhild Gretchen. Both of are known as cheerful girls but Usagi is sarcastic person compared with Madoka who is more polite (IIRC, Again!). Both of them also has twin-tail hairstyle. Yellow vs Red (Because pink is actually just lightish red). Now the connections might not be trust able, but I think the connections are good enough. Now before you think some of the connections are wrong well keep a reminder there was Machamp vs Goro on Death battle because of the battle of the four arms champions. So if battle of the Four Arm Champs is allowed to exist, then so can Madoka vs Sailor Moon. While this is from Rewind Rumble listen to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2-LOVVhQA&t=127s it shows that you don't need big connections for a fight to exists. Ok for that being said let's move on to something important. Animation Potential: Imo the fight potential...................................... surprisingly is really freaking fantastic. Not only would their magical abilities make a good clash with the arrows and beam shots, but so can their transformations. Before you say (Madoka can only shoot arrows), remember their's a rumor that Madoka might have abilities from other magical girls. Also Madoka's multiple arrow shots according to the anime and game could have great counter to Sailor Moon's other impressive magical abilities. It's like Sailor Moon is in a Touhou fight which fits the fight dynamic perfectly. Fun fact, the Death battle team talks about the Archetype vs Twist, and Billy from the team sees the potential to incorporate the bizarre art styles into the fight. My reaction to their reasons is "Finally someone who actually sees that the matchup's fight potential is insane." So yeah once the matchup happens, the episode itself should be great if not awesome. Considering how important the fight animation is to me, I'm excited to see how this fight will turn out to be especially when the Team actually likes the matchup a lot. I also think the story behind this fight is great and emotional, similar to Tanjiro vs Jonathan and Spongebob vs Super Friends Aquaman. Now I'm gonna address some of it's flaws I see people bring up. "Connections aren't very good." I just showed you the connections and Ahmad2345Light was the one who actually discovered there was more between these 2. And like I said, not every matchup needs big connections. I know some people like Full_Metal_Douchebag brings up "Madoka became a god in order to prevent the suffering of all magical girls throughout all of time. Having her fight another magical girl misses the point of her character." I'm gonna be honest with you guys, but I really hate that argument so much. My real issue with this argument is that Madoka only wants to stop and prevent magical girls suffering, but there's no rule saying Madoka can't fight another magical girl. She fights other magical girls in the magia record game and anime, heck she even fought the other members of the Holy Quintet in the Battle Pentagram portable game, so therefore she has fought magical girls. And before you say "What if the fight ends brutally? Wouldn't that be out of character for Madoka to ultimately murder Sailor Moon?" Well the fight would end in death, but no the fight wouldn't end in a brutal way. If you read this https://deathbattlefanon.fandom.com/wiki/Usagi_Tsukino_vs_Madoka_Kaname#HyperSsonic then you can actually see that Madoka vs Sailor Moon's fight potential actually ends on an emotional state. Once Sailor Moon dies, Madoka can give her a peaceful Death and show her the sailor scouts. So yeah I really hate it when people say "Madoka fighting another magical girl misses the point of her character" because if she fights another magical and possibly wins, then she can give them an emotional and peaceful death. I mean remember Goku vs Superman 3? That fight was a friendly battle and at the end, both Goku and Superman were friends even when Goku died. If Goku vs Superman 3 can do that, so can Madoka Kaname vs Sailor Moon and I wish people would really understand this. Heck I didn't even want Goku vs Superman 3, but that episode was still good, so Madoka vs Sailor Moon can have the same thing (And the fact that Sailor Moon vs Goku being planned as a Death battle was so hilarious imo). I'm not gonna mention the whole "Abilities are limited" because remember there's a rumor saying Madoka has abilities from other magical girls, and I just explained the fight potential, and I think the multiple shot arrows are more than enough to make the fight potential good. Also let's not forget the fact that Autobots from Transformers can't harm humans. But if you watch this video (I don't care if you dislike AnimationRewind, he makes a good point about Autobots having to fight humans) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaHfcxri1I8 then Autobots might have no choice but to fight humans. So Madoka might not have a choice but to fight Sailor Moon, and I already mentioned the emotional ending (Or the Goku vs Superman 3 ending). Now I don't want Madoka vs Sailor Moon just yet. The reason why is because the new Madoka Magica movie isn't out yet, and we don't know what other feats Madoka will be doing yet. So for that said, let's wait for the new Madoka Magica movie to come out because I want to see Madoka's new abilities and feats. Music potential: Well since Madoka Magica was composed by Yuki Kajiura, the music potential speaks for itself so no reason to talk about the music potential. Alternatives: I'll just go with Sailor Moon's Alternatives first (And no I'm too lazy to do TN's for these matchups, and I don't want to take other people's TN's) Sakura Kinomoto I'm gonna be honest, I think this is an ok matchup. It's not horrible, but I'm just not super interested in it. I think Sakura Kinomoto has better like Illyasviel (Kaleid) and Yugi Muto, so Sailor Moon just doesn't interest me. Plus I'm not sure how the ending will be like, so that I'm a bit curious on. I also heard PitTheSwordMaster the same guy who has Sakura Kinomoto as one of his favorites thinks Sailor Moon vs Sakura doesn't fully work. I don't know of his opinion on that matchup, but I don't really care since Sailor Moon vs Sakura doesn't concern me. Pegasus Seiya Now this is a pretty cool matchup. Not only is this thematic, but the fight potential can be pretty cool. I'm aware of it's flaws from the fight potential, but I think this can work out well. Also yes I know Toei would likely get mad at Death battle for doing this matchup, so why not just watch this animation, it can help save you the trouble of getting Pegasus Seiya vs Sailor Moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuhmbwTuLg And no it may not be Death battle, but seriously do I need every matchup to be a Death battle episode? I don't think so. I mean I love Sonic vs Goku, but look how awesome the fight on Studio B was, like do I need it to be a Death battle? So let Pegasus Seiya vs Sailor Moon stay on Luis Animation, it saves the trouble of getting that matchup as an animation. Sora I mean Sailor Moon vs Sora is................. there I guess. I'm fine if people love this matchup, but since Sora has like many good fight animations that I like (Sora vs Joker on Rewind Rumble was sick), I'm not interested in Sora coming back in another vs animation again. Plus if I want a Sailor Moon vs Kingdom Hearts matchup, why not Sailor Mars vs Axel? PitTheSwordMaster likes it and created it, so why not have that matchup instead (He also isn't a fan of Sailor Moon vs Sora and I'm honestly with him on that one). Goku It may not seem like it's worth mention, but I'm gonna have to mention because of these reasons. Goku vs Sailor Moon was surprisingly planned to be a Death battle episode. But they thought Goku had gotten stronger and wasn't comfortable with Goku beating the crap out of a teenage girl. Which is why they went with Superman in the 3rd round. Can you believe it that this match-up was actually planned instead of Seiya vs Sailor Moon? Yeah that's crazy. I do love Goku and all but I'm not a fan of Goku beating up a teenage girl as well (Similar to another matchup I'll get to in a little bit). I'm not gonna discuss her other alternatives since they aren't important to me. So let me start talking about Madoka's alternatives. Reimu Hakurei No need to explain, read this https://www.reddit.com/DeathBattleMatchups/comments/1bjr4el/why_i_like_madoka_kaname_vs_reimu_hakurei_and_why/ Nanashi I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again, I'm not really a big fan of this matchup. The only best thing I can see this matchup having is connections (Even if I think some of it is wrong). Other than that, it just exists. The fight potential is fine, but the ending will just come off as generic. Since Nanashi is a silent protagonists, there's no dialogue potential and I want Madoka to fight against characters with actual talking and sensible words. And this is just my opinion, but I find the fight potential a little iffy and way too over hyped. Like Madoka's magical arrows and possible abilities from other magical girls against Nanashi's elemental attacks and YHVH abilities (Which also uses elemental attacks) doesn't feel like the best fighting style mesh in my own personal opinion. So yeah I'm not really into this matchup, and thankfully it's not that requested so that's a relief. Now I don't dislike Nanashi as a character, he does have great matchups but out of all his matchups, Madoka is rather in a lower tier to me. And I'm gonna be honest, I'm not comfortable with an edgelord beating the crap out of a cute character (similar with Goku vs Sailor Moon reasons), and Nanashi vs Madoka is that same reason. Similar to why I don't like Doomguy vs Kirby since I've noticed how much stronger Doomguy got and I'm not comfortable with Doomguy beating the crap out of Kirby. Jade Harley This matchup does work well. It has connections, and I think the fight potential can work. I may not know Homestuck too well, but I can see this being a great fight. I'll want AnimationRewind to do this matchup since he's done Homestuck before. Knull Now I don't hate this matchup, but I think it works better as both a Record of Ragnarok and AnimationRewind. Since this is known to be a joke matchup, then AnimationRewind can handle this since he's done joke matchups before (Goku vs Dora says hi). Also I don't believe in Knull being high outerversal, he should be Multiversal+ in my opinion, so the fight should be close to me at least. If Knull wins, then it'll be the same reasons to why I wouldn't want Madoka vs Nanashi as Knull is an edgelord as well. https://preview.redd.it/cr0kqjaw321d1.jpg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=912986400013b3ebbc693f1e321c7b7f1ff7b1c6 Now unlike Sailor Moon vs Sakura Kinomoto, I actually love Madoka vs Sakura Kinomoto so much. Yes it's not my preferred, but I really like and vibe with this matchup. And of course the ending can end off emotionally so that works great. I also prefer Madoka to fight a magical girl, so that's why I vibe with Madoka vs Sailor Moon, so I can also vibe with Madoka vs Sakura as well. Also Sakura Kinomoto should be Multiversal+, so this fight is closer than you think. Wadanohara I'm surprised to see how much people actually know about this matchup. Not only is it close, but the fight potential is great. My friend Salttheshark77 can explain the matchup better than I can so you can discuss with him. Kamen Rider Gaim Now this is a really cool matchup that I can vibe. Not only is it thematic but the fight itself is pretty close. I'm aware if Madoka either wins or loses this fight. But if Madoka loses, at least it's not an edgy character so that's something. And whoever wins, the fight can end emotional since both characters have good strong feelings. The fight potential would be solid, tho I've heard some people say it might not be the best, but who knows I think this fight could work. Gaim uses martiel arts, but Madoka can use her bow as a melee weapon so I think it can work well. But who knows, maybe some other vs channels like Super Powered Beatdown can get their hands on this matchup and see it working well. Arceus Now these 2 don't have a lot in common besides being 2 gods with a demon counterpart. However what I really like about this matchup is it's actually insane fight potential. After rewatching Arceus and the jewel of life, I can't believe I'm saying this but fight potential actually works better than a lot of Madoka's other alternatives. Madoka's arrows and Arceus judgement would have an insane counter towards eachother. And if Madoka has like abilities from other magical girls, and Arceus can use other moves that isn't judgement, then the fight potential is even more insane. The story would be interesting with Arceus getting mad while Madoka will try to calm Arceus down and see what his problem was. Whoever wins, Madoka can probably show Arceus the truth and the fight ends peacefully. How is this possible that the fight potential is just so good for Madoka vs Arceus? The fight potential surprisingly works even better than the likes of Nanashi, Kamen Rider Gaim, Jade Harley, Knull, and other of Madoka's alternatives and I actually like Madoka vs Jade and Gaim more as matchups. At times matchups with way less connections have better fight potential, and Madoka Kaname vs Arceus is one of them. It worked with Shadow vs Sakuya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PF4NF6gROs and I'm not even a big fan of that matchup, but it works insane so that's a huge surprise. How do I feel about the matchup in general? Well Madoka vs Arceus is a fine matchup in my opinion. But due to the fight potential being great, I'm impressed Madoka Kaname vs Arceus can actually work super well. Also Arceus and Madoka should be close in power so yeah the debate also somewhat makes up for this matchup as well in my opinion. So yeah in fight potential, Arceus is easily one of the best for Madoka Kaname, and that's a surprise for a matchup with little connections. Conclusion: In all seriousness Madoka Kaname vs Sailor Moon is a great match-up with good amount of connections, and absolutely amazing potential that even the Death battle team knows this. I also want the ending to be sweet and emotional, or have the Goku vs Superman 3 ending. It's also a legacy matchup so that makes it even better. My favorite matchup personally for Madoka is Wadanohara, but I can save that for someone like AnimationRewind. Considering that Madoka vs Usagi has a high chance, that makes it more the winner. Once that matchup happens, I don't need to defend it anymore since it's already an impressive animation. Madoka vs Sailor Moon is also a matchup that will help me finally regain my interest for Death battle. I didn't say I dislike Death battle, but I just want to finally like Death battle even more often once Madoka vs Sailor Moon happens. That or Tails vs Coco Bandicoot (Since I want Tails to get a good fight that isn't Luigi rematch) which either one can help me like Death battle more. So I hope to see Madoka vs Sailor Moon soon and if it happens (Which is possible), then case is closed and I'm all set. Reimu is also Madoka's legacy so who knows she might also be a possible choice for Madoka to fight on Death battle. Also the reason why I want Madoka vs Sailor Moon to happen is because I want Madoka to fight a magical girl. That's what I've always wanted to see and "Madoka fighting a magical girl is against her character" will always come off as BS to me, as the fight itself can just end in a peaceful death and touching ending. So yeah and it's also a matchup that will possible happen in the future especially once the new Madoka movie comes out. Now if you're wondering why I mention other vs channels like AnimationRewind, well it's because I like watching variety fights and not just Death battle. I mostly want to see Madoka (And other characters from Madoka Magic as well as Fate) get good fights and it doesn't need to be a Death battle. I can just let Death battle do Madoka vs Sailor Moon, and just let other vs channels handle Madoka's other matchups. Madoka vs Sailor Moon being on Death battle tho will help save me the trouble of Madoka Kaname getting a good animated fight. |
2024.05.17 22:00 duppydouble An old friend just joined my church. AITAH for avoiding his friendship because I slept with his ex-wife after their divorce?
I had a college friend, Mark, who had married when he was still in high school. We weren’t close friends but I usually saw him and his wife, Beth, at gatherings with mutual friends. Beth always seemed very loving and loyal to Mark. She was cute, but not really the type of girl I preferred. Everything was fine during our friendship but there were two times I thought Beth might have been up to something. Once, during a poolside push up contest, Beth unexpectedly laid face down on my back to add extra weight. I was wearing short swim trunks and she had on a bikini. Mark (and everyone else) seemed to think the sudden weight was funny so I tried to shrug off the feeling that it was inappropriate physical contact. Beth and the other girls there (who were single) also jumped on the other guy’s backs so it had to just be a little harmless fun, right? But there was something about how she grabbed my shoulders and giggled as her hair fell over my face as I did push ups that just seemed like something more in that moment. The other incident happened when we were all in a jam packed elevator while going to a party. I was against the wall and as more people got in, she backed up until my junk was squarely pressed between her ass cheeks. I tried to readjust but there was no room. During the ride down it felt like she was intentionally rubbing into me and I got throbbing hard. I know she had to have felt it but she never acknowledged it, which I was grateful for at that time.
Fast forward to about two to three years after graduation. I had lost contact with Beth and Mark well before graduation, but I ran into Beth at the store. She looked so different I didn’t recognize her when she called after me. She looked great. She and Mark were divorced. He moved to a different state. She said she felt college was the wrong time to be tied down. All of her friends were having fun, but she was “stuck with old man Mark”. She began secretly seeing someone else which eventually led to their divorce. I had tried my best not to see her in any sexual way because she was a married woman, but now she was divorced and I was horny. We exchanged numbers and ended up having casual sex a few times. She once confirmed after having sex that she’d wanted to sleep with me in college, but I seemed aloof and didn’t pursue her. I remained her that she was married. I also learned the bikini and elevator incidents had occurred when she was first testing the waters to step outside her marriage.
Now the problem at hand. I’m in a completely different place in my life. I have been happily married for a few years and have kids. My wife and I joined a church and became involved. A few weeks ago, I saw Mark at church with his family. It’s a big church so I hadn’t noticed he was attending until then. He said he was going through the membership process and was genuinely happy to see me there. Our kids are the around the same age and our wives seemed to really hit it off as they both work in the same profession. My wife has suggested several times that we should have them over. When I see them at church, I’m constantly on edge that I’ll slip up and say the wrong thing. I never thought I would see Mark again in any capacity, let alone as a fellow church member and family friend. I haven’t told my wife about Beth either. Not sure if I should at this point. I’m just super hesitant to pursue a friendship with someone knowing that I slept with his ex-wife after their divorce. To further exacerbate my fears, I found Mark’s Facebook page and he is friends with Beth on there. I have no idea what their relationship looks like today or if they even talk. AITAH for not wanting to tell my wife or Mark about what happened with Beth?
submitted by duppydouble to AITAH [link] [comments]
Fast forward to about two to three years after graduation. I had lost contact with Beth and Mark well before graduation, but I ran into Beth at the store. She looked so different I didn’t recognize her when she called after me. She looked great. She and Mark were divorced. He moved to a different state. She said she felt college was the wrong time to be tied down. All of her friends were having fun, but she was “stuck with old man Mark”. She began secretly seeing someone else which eventually led to their divorce. I had tried my best not to see her in any sexual way because she was a married woman, but now she was divorced and I was horny. We exchanged numbers and ended up having casual sex a few times. She once confirmed after having sex that she’d wanted to sleep with me in college, but I seemed aloof and didn’t pursue her. I remained her that she was married. I also learned the bikini and elevator incidents had occurred when she was first testing the waters to step outside her marriage.
Now the problem at hand. I’m in a completely different place in my life. I have been happily married for a few years and have kids. My wife and I joined a church and became involved. A few weeks ago, I saw Mark at church with his family. It’s a big church so I hadn’t noticed he was attending until then. He said he was going through the membership process and was genuinely happy to see me there. Our kids are the around the same age and our wives seemed to really hit it off as they both work in the same profession. My wife has suggested several times that we should have them over. When I see them at church, I’m constantly on edge that I’ll slip up and say the wrong thing. I never thought I would see Mark again in any capacity, let alone as a fellow church member and family friend. I haven’t told my wife about Beth either. Not sure if I should at this point. I’m just super hesitant to pursue a friendship with someone knowing that I slept with his ex-wife after their divorce. To further exacerbate my fears, I found Mark’s Facebook page and he is friends with Beth on there. I have no idea what their relationship looks like today or if they even talk. AITAH for not wanting to tell my wife or Mark about what happened with Beth?
2024.05.17 21:25 lotus-flower-0309 hair problems
i pretty much never feel satisfied with my hair due to it being too feminine, but the thing is, where the issue lies is not in the hairstyle itself but in how people perceive it on me. this might not make sense but i’ll try to explain…
basically, if there were no such thing as judgmental people, i would love my current hairstyle. it looks good with the shape of my face and everything. but my ONLY issue is that people often tell me that it’s “actually not their fault for misgendering me because i have feminine hair” (whatever that means)
but the thing is, it’s not actually that “feminine” to me? it hits my shoulders, and there’s these cute layers and kinda long bangs that i tend to part down the middle or side. i actually took direct inspiration from my favorite music artist, who imo basically has the coolest gender expression i’ve ever seen and is my #1 male role model. (i’ll link his hair: https://x.com/houriysuga/status/1791302622378664393?s=46&t=JvcUD8za01sTvSuQTSMX6A , https://x.com/pm5_twt/status/1617070019418165258?s=46&t=JvcUD8za01sTvSuQTSMX6A)
and it’s not just him, i’ve always liked guys with longer hair. my favorite actor, my favorite athlete, several other musicians i like and even my closest male friend all have hair my length or longer. but no one ever tells them they look too girly? it’s not fair!
this isn’t really an advice post because i’m not looking for a different cut, i literally like the one i have. i guess it’s a rant. like, why do i sometimes feel like i have to do things i don’t want to do regarding my hair or my fashion just so people MIGHT gender me correctly for once? why do people think they have the right to accuse me of not being trans enough just because i like having longer hair… it’s not fair
submitted by lotus-flower-0309 to TransMasc [link] [comments]
basically, if there were no such thing as judgmental people, i would love my current hairstyle. it looks good with the shape of my face and everything. but my ONLY issue is that people often tell me that it’s “actually not their fault for misgendering me because i have feminine hair” (whatever that means)
but the thing is, it’s not actually that “feminine” to me? it hits my shoulders, and there’s these cute layers and kinda long bangs that i tend to part down the middle or side. i actually took direct inspiration from my favorite music artist, who imo basically has the coolest gender expression i’ve ever seen and is my #1 male role model. (i’ll link his hair: https://x.com/houriysuga/status/1791302622378664393?s=46&t=JvcUD8za01sTvSuQTSMX6A , https://x.com/pm5_twt/status/1617070019418165258?s=46&t=JvcUD8za01sTvSuQTSMX6A)
and it’s not just him, i’ve always liked guys with longer hair. my favorite actor, my favorite athlete, several other musicians i like and even my closest male friend all have hair my length or longer. but no one ever tells them they look too girly? it’s not fair!
this isn’t really an advice post because i’m not looking for a different cut, i literally like the one i have. i guess it’s a rant. like, why do i sometimes feel like i have to do things i don’t want to do regarding my hair or my fashion just so people MIGHT gender me correctly for once? why do people think they have the right to accuse me of not being trans enough just because i like having longer hair… it’s not fair
2024.05.17 20:02 channies-laptop Anyone know any tips on how to tame frizzy hair?
 | I’ve got (sort of) thick curly hair because of my mother (she’s Pakistani so I get the thickness from her) and my father (he’s Nigerian so obviously I get my curls from him) but my hair didn’t really turn out like my siblings’ hair did. My sister has gorgeous 4c hair that really match her cute round face and my brother has proper short African hair that is actually really long when you pull it because of shrinkage. But I’m guessing that I have like a 3ab hair type as it’s not curly enough to be 3b but way curlier than 3a but I might be wrong. And because my hair is a mix of both of my parents’ hair it’s really thick, frizzy (if I don’t finger roll it) and curly. I was wondering if anyone knew any products or hairstyles that could help stop the frizziness because I can’t keep finger rolling my hair everyday before school as it’s grown so long that it reaches my hips when pulled so it takes forever (I’m also sort of a perfectionist) and I also don’t have the time to drench it, make sure the chickens have enough food/water, get dressed and showered, revise for my Spanish GCSE and then walk to school. I was thinking about asking some girls in my year group but there’s only one girl curly hair and she’s a different hair type to me (same hair type as my sister I believe) and her friend’s mum is a hair dresser so she she can have her hair in different styles every other week (sometimes she has braids, other times it’s straightened, natural and down or in a ponytail). I’ve tried a few different styles but the ones I use the most are having it half up half down or just in a regular bun with my bangs finger rolled so they don’t go frizzy. I’ve been using a leave in conditioner and this other weird hair thing. I don’t know what it does but it kind of helps when I finger roll my hair but I’m getting sick of finger rolling so I need some help. I might also need help with my bangs because I’m banned from using straighteners to protect my hair so I can’t straighten them but they also get much frizzier than the rest of my hair and I can’t finger roll them because when they dry I kinda look like a slug and I don’t have the time to individually roll them (I can barely do my whole hair without being late). I don’t use any gel so I don’t know what I should get(and if I should get some). I know different hair types need a different hair routine but I’m honestly stuck right now. Can anyone help me??? And any quick alternative hair styles would help me so much too.(In the second photo I didn’t finger roll and didn’t have my bangs at the time. In the first photo it’s half up half down with my bangs) submitted by channies-laptop to curlyhair [link] [comments] |
2024.05.17 17:28 blackberrycow88_ I [16f] have a crush on a guy [17m] who is lds, but I am currently not religious. Any advice or guidance for me?
I just want to note that we are 16 and 17 so please be nice. I have feelings for this guy, and I met him where I work. We immediately hit it off and had a lot of things in common and I’ll note that I did think he was cute before we talked for the first time too. We were immediately very sassy with each other and he made me smile a lot. The other work friends around our age definitely felt any chemistry and one even went to him and said “ooohhh I can feel the love in the room” when she thought I couldn’t hear. He’s very sweet and funny and has not spoken about being religious at all, so I was surprised when I found out he is lds online. I looked up if he had a facebook or instagram or something and he didn’t, but I found his dads facebook and looked at it a little out of curiosity, and that’s where I found out he is lds.
I have quite the developing crush on him and we make eye contact and always try to talk to each other at work and I kinda suspect that he likes me a little too but obviously I don’t want to assume things. I grew up Christian, and my parents even helped start a new church, but later learned that they were atheist and left. I was probably like 8. The feelings about religion my parents have are kind of toxic about it so I don’t know how I feel about it, but even though I’ve picked up on some of those feelings, I never judge people for their religion. But as I said he doesn’t seem very religious himself, but the fact that his family is and most likely him scares me a little because I don’t want to offend him or his family by trying to pursue a relationship. I’ve heard some things about lds and live in a heavily populated Mormon area. What advice would you have? He’s really cute and I don’t like throwing away connections like that. Has anyone else dated/serious relationship/married a Mormon without being religious yourself, or vice versa? Thank you 💕💕
Ps. Please do not comment anything saying “run”. I find it rude and I would prefer you give helpful advice than scare me.
submitted by blackberrycow88_ to lds [link] [comments]
I have quite the developing crush on him and we make eye contact and always try to talk to each other at work and I kinda suspect that he likes me a little too but obviously I don’t want to assume things. I grew up Christian, and my parents even helped start a new church, but later learned that they were atheist and left. I was probably like 8. The feelings about religion my parents have are kind of toxic about it so I don’t know how I feel about it, but even though I’ve picked up on some of those feelings, I never judge people for their religion. But as I said he doesn’t seem very religious himself, but the fact that his family is and most likely him scares me a little because I don’t want to offend him or his family by trying to pursue a relationship. I’ve heard some things about lds and live in a heavily populated Mormon area. What advice would you have? He’s really cute and I don’t like throwing away connections like that. Has anyone else dated/serious relationship/married a Mormon without being religious yourself, or vice versa? Thank you 💕💕
Ps. Please do not comment anything saying “run”. I find it rude and I would prefer you give helpful advice than scare me.
2024.05.17 17:07 ikieneng My fanfiction - episode 3!
 | The next part is here! This episode is actually so long that I'm going to split it, so today, you're only getting part 2 of 3. submitted by ikieneng to teamleanne [link] [comments] DISCLAIMERS (the same ones as before) The point of this fanfiction is not to be a straight-up continuation of events with the same themes, intensity, and tone. If you go into it with those expectations, you are probably not going to like it. Rather, it’s supposed to be how I wish things went if these events were real life. The resolution you want for a real-life situation isn’t often the right choice for a show, but it can be incredibly beautiful. Think of what you’re about to read to be a separate show then. Episode 1 of this fanfiction begins after the episode “2:00” (season 2 episode 4), so it replaces the episode “Cake” and the ones that follow it. This fanfiction expects you to have seen the entirety of seasons 1 and 2, so you should watch those first. I myself am bursting into the story here. The narrator and me are the same. While my character is like 95% real me, don’t take events about my life described here as facts. Some aspects of my life have been changed for the story. In my head, I started writing like an “alternate me” character in 2016, fulfilling a lot of the things that I wish I had in life, adding that to my story. I’m not really from Ukraine. I speak fluent Ukrainian as a foreign language, I started learning it in 2014, and I’ve talked to tons of people from there, but I’m not from Ukraine. I also don’t have as much money as I do in the story. I wish lmao. If you want to post your own fanfiction, feel free to do so! To get your own post flair for your fanfic, and to appear in the side bar, please message me. Just some code, so the thumbnail of the first link isn’t used as the thumbnail of the post: .thumbnail.default { background: https://i.ibb.co/TT09vzM/IMG-2842.jpg(%%img-name%%); } .thumbnail.self { background: https://i.ibb.co/TT09vzM/IMG-2842.jpg%%img-name%%); } Part 2 (day 2) During the first day of us being together in the attic, Leanne would not tell me about her powers yet or any aspect of how that played into the events with the doll, etc., because she knows how crazy the truth sounds. She's always kept it pretty much a secret from everyone outside of the Church of Lesser Saints (although Sean is slowly figuring it out), but with how we might not have a choice than to go the police if we run out of rations before someone comes up into the basement, she knows she has to tell me, because if the police come, they will figure out that there was a living baby there, which was Jericho reanimated by her, but what are the police going to think? That either Dorothy, Sean, Julian, or Leanne snatched a baby, and they're not going to believe any of the supernatural explanations that are the truth. So Leanne knows that she has to convince me of her powers somehow, so I can know the full picture of what happened, so we can come up with a plan for how to handle that. So while it's still our first day locked up together in the attic, she asks me if I'm left-handed or right-handed. I say I'm right-handed. Without telling me, she uses her powers so that when I wake up, I will have lost all sensation in my left hand. When waking up on day 2, at first, of course, I'm a freaked out, but then, she reveals to me that she did it because otherwise, I'd never believe that she really does have supernatural powers. While I’m still pretty freaked out, she takes her Bible and prays over it while reciting some verses, and suddenly, my hand is back to normal. https://preview.redd.it/wonqhlu0301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab7872b90a369ef81293d4f8d95fef8298c355f3 I’d need a minute to process what just happened, discovering the supernatural, and once Leanne has reassured me, she’d break down crying, telling me that she has to tell me the full picture of what’s going on with the Turners. I’d hug her and tell her she can tell me when she’s ready. She’d tell me I’d never have believed her otherwise, and I’d tell her that because I know why she did it now, it’s okay, no hard feelings or anything. And she’d tell me the full story of how, when she first came to the Turners and saw the doll, she wanted to give Dorothy a second chance and make her happy by giving her Jericho back, so she made the doll real, so when the Church of Lesser Saints (which she’d tell me about as well) forced her to leave under threat and forced her to turn the baby back into a doll, Dorothy's illusion broke, and she came to the false conclusion that Leanne kidnapped Jericho, and that's why she kidnapped her and why she’s torturing her and locking her up… That would be another really hard thing to hear, and she'd cry as she'd tell me the rest, like how Sean refuses to wake Dorothy up, which could end all of this in an instant, and how Julian is protecting them, and how there's nothing Leanne can do to change her situation because there is no baby that she can give to her. She'd cry so hard in my arms, and I'd just comfort her a lot more and hug her... My mind would still be blown that I got proof of the supernatural for the first time ever, but I'd feel even more sorry for her than before and that she's being put through all these horrible things while she's completely powerless to change the situation, and I'd be so angry at Sean for refusing to tell Dorothy the truth, and how he's willing to have Leanne go through all this horrible abuse because he can't convince himself to tell Dorothy… “I can’t give Jericho back to her”, she’d tell me, and I’d be like “I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t trust that woman with caring for any human being, much less a baby”, and Leanne would silently nod with a hint of a smile for a second after the first bit of reassurance that she’s making the right decision before I’m asking her if she knows how Jericho died, and she’d tell me. I'd reassure Leanne that none of this is her fault, that it's horrible what everyone is putting her through instead of facing the hard decisions that could solve it all and end her suffering. “I just wanted to give Mrs. Turner a second chance and make things better for her again because I saw how awful things were with the doll…” My face would like be halfway happy because I think that’s so sweet, it’s such a perfect encapsulation of Leanne’s intentions in season 1, and I’d like rub her back 🥺 https://preview.redd.it/mj2n72u3301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c0ae718794fe9a0ca2a2d0087260e6afec5ae0d And she’d tell me about all the bullying she’s received by Sean and Julian for it, even after Sean decided to keep the baby, like swapping the labels of the cans of tomato soup with dog food, how they put hundreds of crickets in her room, how Sean went through her things, how Julian hired Wanda to be her fake friend, and how she even overheard Julian even suggesting turning off the heating in her room (she wouldn’t know about the camera because there’s no indication that she ever noticed it). https://preview.redd.it/0skxtxs5301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=694d0e76c7bacf4da279c406c2b872b43cd2791b She'd tell me about the baptism. People have seen the living baby, so if the police come, they will find out about it, so what do we do then, since they would never believe the truth that Leanne reanimated the doll, and that it was literally Jericho? I’d be like “plausible deniability”, and I’d explain that, by that, I mean “If you reanimated the baby and turned it literally into Jericho, then there’s no living baby that the police can find anywhere. If they find DNA in the house, it will be Jericho’s, so they will assume that it’s not the baby’s. There’s no actual missing baby that they can confidently link to the case. Screw it, if the police get involved, let’s say that Sean, Julian, or heck, even Dorothy must have brought the baby in, and that they threatened you not to tell anyone with non-specific threats, and how could you not take those threats seriously after one of them brought someone’s baby into the house” Leanne would be surprised that I’d be willing to do that and ask me about it. I’d be like “After all you’ve just told me, yeah, let’s do that. It will be your word against theirs, so no one’s gonna actually actually go to prison for this particular crime, and if we’re open about the fact that there was a baby, they might take our account of things more seriously. And are you saying that they continued with the bullying against you after they decided to keep the baby? Did I get that right?” Leanne would nod. “Oh my God… That is so fucking awful, I’m so sorry… Then what’s the point? What are they even trying to achieve? Oh my God…” and hug her again. “You’d do that for me?”, she’d ask, almost in disbelief. “To keep you safe, after I get you out of here? Yeah, I would. You deserve it! Honestly, you deserve to get spoiled so much when we’re out of here!”, and we’d just smile and laugh at each other so much in that moment. She’d say “Thank you!” with a big smile, and I’d say “Of course!” I'd ask her if there's any evidence of the baptism, and she'd tell me about the tape of it that was shown in the season 1 finale, where George and May showed up in the background, and that's how they knew they were gonna show up soon. https://preview.redd.it/ym15sb48301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=4755713239115181f0d74c712bfbc7ddf0a9f14e And I'd see an opportunity to help her there, because this proves that George and May are still alive, that they faked their deaths. In the season 2 premiere, of course, when Dorothy claimed that May was in her house while showing the police her old news segment where she was reporting about May's likely death, Dorothy sounded crazy to the police, https://preview.redd.it/3mz45xy9301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb4b3fd9db46ed9267e4d0f178b4ec00b2ea8a01 but if we showed them the tape of George and May showing up less than three weeks ago, then not only would there be a second witness (Leanne) swearing that they saw May, but the police would have proof, and we could have the police go up against the Church of Lesser Saints and prosecute them and lock them up for their heinous crimes and abuse, and if successful, Leanne could finally be safe from them. I wouldn't know much about them yet because Leanne hasn't told me much, but when I suggest that, she'd almost laugh on shock and the joyous thought of maybe not having to be afraid of them anymore at some point, and that would make me smile and say "Let's do it! Big task, I know, but let’s do it!" I'd ask her if she knows where the tape is, and she'd say it's probably among the other DVDs in the living room or still in the DVD player. I'd tell her that when I sneak out of the house whenever that's hopefully gonna happen, I'll take the tape with me, which is when she tells me to please also take Dorothy's news tape from March 11, 2011 with me (the tape of the pageant where she first met Dorothy). I'd ask her why, and she'd tell me she's gonna tell me another day. She'd tell me I can watch it when I got it, and I'd say okay to that. https://preview.redd.it/laugwe4c301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=c541fb92132d0a42e697923234e2f834af6e1555 Leanne and me would make the most of the time in the attic until either
https://preview.redd.it/pf6j9vgf301d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c780bdf397f3f5b1369f751b0b2a87d3873c1e3 I’d be like “That’s horrible… They didn’t even let you listen to songs?” Leanne would be like “That’s probably all really strange to you”, and I’d say “No, it’s really not. I mean, it’s pretty awful that they put you through that, but it’s far from something unrelatable for me. My parents are Christian, and growing up, all the music I knew was Christian music. It wasn’t, like, explicitly forbidden or anything, but until 2008, when I got into middle school - fifth grade for us, I only knew one single song that wasn’t Christian, and I only knew it because it played over the end credits of a movie I saw in the theater with my father. I listened to it a lot of years later after I’ve researched what it’s called, and it wasn’t actually that great because I’ve gotten to know so much other music since, but yeah, religiously speaking, I had a really hard time growing up, which I didn’t even realize until I came back from America”. We’d just look at each other for a second and realize without words just how much we can relate to each other in this regard. I’d be like “I think we just opened up another bottomless barrel. God, we got so much to talk about!”, and we’d just laugh for a moment because of how understood we feel by each other now! I’d suggest finally listening to some music. My YouTube channel about it didn’t exist at the time, but I have a passion for the Eurovision Song Contest (I can’t stand the EBU, the organization that runs the whole thing, but at the time of this story, in December 2022, I didn’t have a problem with it yet) Opening up Spotify on my phone, I’d think what songs from it she might like, and instinctually, I’d think she’s probably never heard anything like Eastern European modern folk music before, which would make me think that she’d probably really like Željko Joksimović’s entries (he wrote and performed Serbia & Montenegro 2004, and Serbia 2012, and he also wrote Bosnia & Herzegovina 2006, Serbia 2008, and Montenegro 2015), and I’d take out my dual AirPod adapter (please tell me if such a device actually exists, because I really want one lol) and put on “Lejla” by Hari Mata Hari (Bosnia & Herzegovina 2006). This is the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyB09CWhzb4 She’d listen with intrigue. The beautiful instrumental intro, the many unfamiliar instruments, the rich melody, the emotional expressiveness, and how it’s in a language she doesn’t understand. She’s heard nothing like it before, and she’d love it! After I explain Eurovision to her, I’d tell her it’s one of my favorite entries ever and ask her if she wants to hear more, and she’d emphatically say yes! I’d show her the other entries I already mentioned ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgBJjzivCc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sn3TKoPeA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48_wOw1SLyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnrTDS85rC8 Honestly, we'd enjoy these moments so much, and she'd want to hear more and more, she’s known nothing like this kind of music. Considering how she likes the jazz and popera music the Turners got playing sometimes, I think she’d love these songs. I'd show her more music, like the Netherlands 2022 ("De diepte" by S10, which I think would be her favorite entry ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NyzU1ob_M ), and a lot more, and in the middle of this horrible situation we're in, we'd have such a great and happy time listening to all this music! After a while of listening to a lot of music together while sitting close together shoulder-to-shoulder, we’d get talking again. She’d wanna know more about my religious background. Side note, I’m gonna be pretty honest about what I think here, but this is not exactly the kind of show that attracts fundamentalists or religiously intolerant people, so you probably won’t have a problem with it. I'd tell her my parents are specifically Protestant Christians, and they are crazy fundamentalists whose version of their faith was beyond hateful to so many people. I'd tell her that while my faith was already waning, I switched to Catholic Christianity (I’d tell her that I made the change because I thought they were right about some core issues in the faith, but in retrospect, I’ve realized what a complete mess the Bible is, that it contradicts itself at every turn, and that what you think about any specific issue really depends on where you look, and what explanations you come up with to dismiss the rest), but about a year later, I left Christianity behind. I lost my faith in the New Testament first, so I became a Noahide for a while (I'd tell her what that means, it's basically what Judaism would like someone who isn't a Jew to do because there's no obligation to convert and join the Jewish people) because I still believed in God and Tanakh (the Old Testament), but after getting really deep into the Mitzvot (Law of Moses), I was so disgusted by God and the horrible things he expects of people and does to them (particularly Deuteronomy 22:28-29…), how cruel and oppressive he is all throughout scripture, and so, I then believed for a while that there's SOME higher power out there, but that it's not Yahweh (since I don't believe in Tanakh anymore, I have no problem saying that name), but with the radio silence I received from whatever higher power is out there, and how the explanations I made for myself to make myself belief in its existence faded, I became an Atheist and just left it all behind. It was a gradual process for me. Hearing that for the first time would be so therapeutic for her with how she's had doubts in her faith for a long time, coming closer and closer to losing it completely (I mean, the whole reason she’s in the show in the first place is because she physically left the Church of Lesser Saints, knowing she’d be hunted down. People tend to forget that when talking about Leanne’s religiosity). I'd ask her what she believes now, and she'd say she doesn't really know. She's struggling so much with how she sees God because of all the things he's willing to put her through and the things that are done in his name in the Church of Lesser Saints that she still believes he's connected to, and she just wants to let go of it all sometimes and finally defy God, but she's afraid. I'd tell her that she doesn't need to be afraid. When I found out that Jesus and Christianity and all of it are fake, it was really hard for me at first, and it hurt like crazy knowing that it was all a lie, but that it will get better quickly after that because then, you'll realize that life after religion is life free from religion and its crazy rules and nonsensical restrictions for the sake of restrictions, restrictions for the sake of pleasing someone that would never do the same for you and won’t even reply to you. I know what Leanne is about to tell me because I've seen the rest of the show, but she'd tell me about what happened when she died in the fire. I'd be like "What? What fire?", and because it’s not the point, she'd quickly say that her house burnt down when she was six years old with her, her mother, and her father in it, and that she died and was resurrected by the Church of Lesser Saints, and that's how she joined them. I'd say like "Oh my God... Oh my God, I'm so sorry" and just hug her… Giving her comfort about all these things she's never talked about with anyone, that makes me happy to imagine, helping her heal from her wounds! I just want nothing but to make her feel better and make her heal 😔 And then, she'd say what she wanted to say, that when she died, she went to Heaven and saw other people that died there, so how can God not be real? After asking about some of the details, I'd say that that doesn't mean that Christianity is true. She saw a place where people who died had another life, but that exists in so many religions, and maybe whatever created that place didn't tell people about it, so it might not even be any religion that is practiced. And most importantly, she went to Heaven before the Church of Lesser Saints ever knew her, so if outsiders go to Heaven, then they can't be the truth. (I don’t think that the Church of Lesser Saints is the truth in-universe because of that, to be frank. Also because Julian went to Heaven as an Atheist in “Goose”). That would blow her mind, and she'd say she'd have to think about that, and I'd say sure, like, when I first had the realizations that doomed my faith, I had to think about a lot of it at first as well, it took quite a while to unwind. And I'd tell her that in Tanakh, Heaven is never a place where people go after they die anyway, but where God, the angels, and Satan reside (and Satan is something completely different in Tanakh, not the supervillain of the universe). Later, Christianity just came along and introduced Heaven as a place where people go after they die, and it doesn't line up with Tanakh at all because it's a lie. And Tanakh is just as fake as the New Testament anyway, so whatever she saw is not the concept of Heaven, neither the Jewish nor the Christian concept. Considering how close Leanne already was to losing it before I came along, this would really get her thinking, and this whole conversation would really deepen how much we understand each other on such a deep level, and how close we feel! ❤️ And not only would I make HER feel the love she's never received and help her so much in life in so many ways, but having someone understand ME that well and finding her, omg, she would lift ME up so much just by being who she is! Honestly, Leanne is like the person who, if she were real, would be the one who'd understand me like no one else, and you can see how much in love I am with her just through a screen, now imagine we'd actually be there in real life, that's the most wonderful thing ever to imagine, for both of us! Side note lol: In the show, it's clear that Leanne likes boys, but I honestly think that my headcanon where she slowly falls in love with me (a woman) would work. Leanne's sexuality is enough of a blank slate of the show for this to work. There's no indication that she likes girls in that way, but also absolutely nothing to contradict it. It's also shown how she explores her sexuality for the first time in season 1 once she comes to the Turners after running away from the Church of Lesser Saints. When Dorothy grabs Sean, Leanne sees it and later imitates it on Julian, showing how she is exploring these concepts for the first time, something that was clearly forbidden at the Church of Lesser Saints. If the writers made her fall in love with a woman in the show, it would have worked and been really believable because of all this. Leanne's sexuality is an almost completely blank slate. Just wanted to say that ahaha… We still don’t know when the next time will be that someone will come up into the attic and “give” Leanne a few hours or less out of there, presenting an opportunity for me to sneak out and get the plan in motion to free Leanne with less risk than there would be if we called the police right now with us unarmed. And we’d listen to some more music. A little bit into us listening to music, I’d create a Spotify playlist right there, going through my liked songs and creating a long playlist of music I think she might like, with her right next to me, seeing that I’m creating that playlist for her! And she’d find that really sweet 😊 I actually created it lol: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Y8Skhmf72ElUFKPxoT4e4?si=f9ceac038fa84f61 Giving her another hint. I’d show her pictures of Eurovision 2017, when it was in my city Kyiv. I’d also show her the picture I took with Blanche from Belgium at the opening ceremony back then and tell Leanne that she was my biggest celebrity crush of my life, that I was so in love with her, another reminder that’s testing the waters 😁😊❤️ And she’d find that really sweet! I’d wanna show her the livestream where the moment is forever immortalized (in the story, not in real life, which would be here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPaJxwFFZGk ), only to realize that it’s blocked in America lol, “but anyway, that was at Mariyinskyy Palats in Kyiv, it’s like a red carpet ceremony that’s done every year during rehearsal week, the week before the actual contest, and I went there wearing my best dress and best makeup and… [laughing because I’m so embarrassed] I gave her red roses with a card inside that has some text and my phone number on it, painted in the colors of the rainbow flag to be as explicit as possible” Leanne would smile big time, and she’d ask “Did she reply?”, and I’d be like “She messaged me after the contest, thanking me and saying that she has a boyfriend, and I wished her all the best, and that was it. Doesn’t really matter though. I like to look back on it all, but I’m not interested in her anymore. Her political views are kind of yikes anyway, we’d only argue because of that” (none of this happened in reality, we never actually met). After a tiny bit of silence while sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, I’d ask her “You ever really been in love?”, and almost giggling, she’d be like “I don’t know. I just… I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else. This was in your city?”, and I’d say yes, and that Eurovision is usually held in the winning country of the previous year, and Ukraine won in 2016, so Kyiv it was in 2017. She’d carefully ask me if I came to America because of the war, and with some sighing, I’d tell her yes. She’d ask if I wanna talk about it, and I’d say “A little bit is okay”. I’d tell her it’s been going on in the East of Ukraine since 2014, but when the full-scale invasion began in February (this takes place in December of 2022), they bombed Kyiv, and troops moved toward Kyiv really fast. I had a complete mental breakdown for days. It was only after two days that I could snap out of it, and I packed my things and decided to flee the country… I was just so scared, I knew I wouldn’t survive mentally or physically if I stayed, and I definitely didn’t wanna live under R_ssian occupation. I hitchhiked to the city of Bila Tserkva south of Kyiv, took trains to Poland, and flew to America from there. I’d tell her “I lived here before and really liked it, like I said, it was the best year of my life, so that’s where I instinctually decided to go. I definitely didn’t wanna stay in Poland”. I’d probably really start crying when I tell her this because it’s such a painful memory, and Leanne would slowly start to hug me (physical affection is something new for her, she’s still figuring out how to do these things, and that’s okay), and I’d just take a sudden pause from crying for a moment and look up to her (I’m four inches shorter lol), seeing her look at me, and we’re almost realizing our mutual empathy and understanding without words in that moment! She’d say at the end how scary that must have been and if I was alone the entire time. It would honestly mean so much to me, her comforting me, especially about these difficult moments, and I’d tell her that I was alone the entire way… I’d tell her my sisters and nieces live in Poland now, and that my father is still in Ukraine. She’d ask about my mother, and I’d say that as far as I know, she’s still there, but I haven’t spoken to her since 2017, and I never will again. She’s absolutely destroyed my life and put me through so much trauma that I can never forgive her for. Leanne would go “Me, too” (about her own mother), and we’d both giggle a bit in that moment because we get how alike we are in that experience, having had our mothers wreck both of our lives, and how crazy it is that we’re here right now just talking about all this so openly. It would be rather late by that point, and we’d start eating the other half of that day’s rations. Leanne would go straight for the canned tomato soup again, and I’d tell her how cute I find it that she loves it so much! She’d smile and react non-verbally in her typical way that is so hard to put into words, and I tell her how cute I find the little ways she reacts to things with her face! She’d smile some more and then say “Most people just think I’m weird” with a less happy tone and face, but I’d say “People find the most stupid things to complain about, and people like you and me who don’t fit in, we’re easy targets. The things about you that people find weird, I’d rather call them peculiar, and I like them! These little things about you are so cute for real!”, and she’d really smile and just look at me for a moment. https://preview.redd.it/fhn0kcd1401d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b28057c33607827da751b6a008dbde2f63f1c71 I’d be like “What?” (in a happy and curious tone), and she’d be like “I like it, too when you do this with your eyes!”. I’d roll them over toward her and say “You mean like this?” and make her laugh while she says yes, then roll them back and forth and ask “Or like this?”, and we’d laugh even more! We’d hear a sound from downstairs and quiet down pretty much immediately as the reality of our situation kicks in again and we know that we can’t have the Turners hear us, or we’re both screwed. We’d wait until we’re sure they’re not coming into the attic and only THEN, we’d continue to talk. She’d just say “I’m scared”, and I’d say “Me, too”, and we’d just hold each other before we eat the rest of the small meal. I’d be like “Like I said yesterday, I’m almost as obsessed with Ben & Jerry’s as you are. Almost! I really gotta get you some when we leave here! In fact, I promise you I will! I wanna see the reaction on your face the first time you taste it!”, and she’d say “I’d like that very much!” with a smile! And back on a more somber note, I’d ask her how long they usually leave her in here for… She’d say that the last time was a whole weekend, so three nights… I’d say “Let’s hope it’s sooner than that this time…” We’d make plans for how I’m gonna sneak out the next time that happens, like, specifically. I’d tell her that when they let her out of the attic and leave the door unlocked as a result, I’d wait a minute and wait for everyone to get downstairs. I’d tell her to give me an audible signal that it’s safe to sneak one floor further downstairs, like saying something loudly or kicking something. I’d then sneak onto the third floor, and then the second one, and wait for Mrs. Turner to go back to the third floor and the attic. I’d then sneak into the living room, get the DVDs, and go into the basement, where I’d go through the side door. She’d confirm my question that it leads to the garden behind the kitchen. I’d say I’ll hide there until I can see that no one’s in the kitchen. She’d confirm that the code in the back is the same as the one at the front door - 0603. And I say I’d then leave through the back door, into the park, take the bus home, take a shower, write down everything I’ve seen in a letter meant for the police, send it to my online friend Liam, and tell him to alert the Philadelphia police if I’m not back online confirming I’m safe within 24 hours, and to not read the letter until then. The rest of the plan is to then fully load and get my gun, get to the Turner house by bike, have a large taxi wait one block away, and then force the Turners to let me in by displaying my gun and disengaging the safety lever right in front of whoever’s at the door, and explain to everyone that I am there to get Leanne, and that I’ll call the police and report them right then and there if they refuse to cooperate in any way. If Dorothy tries to do anything to stop me like she probably will, I’d tell her that Sean and Julian know where Jericho is (I mean, they do, because Jericho is dead and they refuse to wake Dorothy up), that they knew this entire time, and that’s that’s the reason Leanne is not talking, because there is nothing she can do. I’d add something like “And they’ve been lying to you this entire time, all while YOU put Leanne through the most disgusting abuse imaginable! I’m getting her out of here right now!” Leanne would say that Dorothy wouldn’t believe me because this sounds so different from the version of events she believes in. I’d ask when Jericho died, and Leanne would tell me August 26. I’d go “Then I’ll tell Mrs. Turner ‘ Here’s what I want you to do after I leave, Mrs. Turner. If you want to find out where Jericho is, there’s a pretty straightforward way for you to do it. You go look up death records in Philadelphia from August 26 this year. There, you will find something really weird. You’ll know exactly what I mean when you see it. Then you ask these two lying motherfuckers about it until they tell you the truth! They will keep on lying like they have this entire time, but you push them until they give you an explanation that explains what you’ll see among the records. Do it right after I leave, you can do that online! August 26 this year! And when they try to keep you from doing that, that’s how you’ll know I’m telling the truth!” I think Leanne would be really impressed by what I’m saying and the sheer boldness of it. I’d look over at her, and with a heavy smile, I’d say “Of course” and embrace her again. And I’d tell Leanne that if I can’t find the baptism tape, I’ll take all the tapes that aren’t news tapes or movies and whatever disc is in the player, if there is one there. Leanne would tell me to make sure the police can’t find the news tape, and I’d say “Sure. I’ll hide it somewhere at home after I watch it.” Then, Leanne would tell me to please take her Bible and the porcelain baby and card from the cake I gave her with me https://preview.redd.it/kxw1lfv5401d1.png?width=780&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b7ddb40216f5a5217c18faffe8be104b51955f6 (in the real show, she actually keeps her Bible even after she loses her faith, probably because she needs it for some of her powers) because she doesn’t know if she can take it with her herself, depending on how things go on the day, so she can be sure that she doesn’t lose either, and of course, I’d promise her. I’d also say that I’m really glad that the porcelain baby from the cake means so much to her now, just like I intended, to make her happy 😊 And I’d say that when I’m done saying what I’m planning to say to Dorothy when I go rescue Leanne, I’ll tell the Turners to empty their pockets and put everything on the table and tell them to go into the bathroom and lock it. I’d stay right there to make sure they’re not getting out, then call Leanne on the Samsung phone I already gave her and tell her to get whatever she needs, put on some clothes from the attic that don’t make her look suspicious outside (because if she walked outside with me in sleepwear while I got a gun, that would make it look as if I was kidnapping her), and come downstairs. As soon as she’s past the bathroom door, I’d unlock it, and we’d walk backwards together while still pointing the guns in the direction of the Turners. I’d tell Dorothy again to go look up the death records right now (the timing is important to keep them from calling the police immediately, so we can get to the police first), and we’d get out of the house, run to the taxi, and drive off, and call the police from inside the taxi. Leanne would ask me where we’re gonna ask the taxi to take us, and I’d suggest maybe a hotel in Allentown, where we’ll be safe from the Turners, and because we probably need to stay in Pennsylvania, so the police can come to us without leaving their jurisdiction. I’d hold Leanne’s hand tight and promise her everything’s gonna be okay, that I’ll make damn sure that she’ll be safe! Since we have no idea when the Turners will let her out of the attic again, we’d clean up immediate giveaways that that someone else is there (mostly just meaning we’d put the rest of the food in my backpack and hide my backpack). She’d then give me the porcelain baby, the card, and her Bible for safekeeping, and I’d put it in my pocket. We’d then take videos to document everything that’s in the attic, showing that we are indeed locked up, to keep as evidence for the police. We’d then get ready for bed. Again, we have to share a mattress and covers. I’d insist this time that I sleep on the side of the mattress that’s closer to the stairs leading up into the attic in case Dorothy decides to assault Leanne again, so I’m in the way. And when we lay down, because we still only have one mattress and covers for the both of us, we’d actually be really close together physically, and before falling asleep, we’d just look at each other again and again and smile every time we open our eyes and catch each other just looking at the other 😊 |
2024.05.17 16:48 AdministrativeLeg745 ideas for activities in october?
hi, my cruise is passing through tromso in the very start of october and i was wondering what are some good activities to do there?
like i'm honestly not too pressed to see the northan lights since we are going on entire cruise with a chance to see them, and while the husky wilderness camps and the raindeer feeding looks cute, their prices feel kind of outlandish to me?
the botanical gardens look cool, and i'll probably climb the sherpa steps and go through the arctic church and all that, but are there any like cool areas to go for hikes in? or some cool things that are exclusive to tromso? thanks!
submitted by AdministrativeLeg745 to tromsotravel [link] [comments]
like i'm honestly not too pressed to see the northan lights since we are going on entire cruise with a chance to see them, and while the husky wilderness camps and the raindeer feeding looks cute, their prices feel kind of outlandish to me?
the botanical gardens look cool, and i'll probably climb the sherpa steps and go through the arctic church and all that, but are there any like cool areas to go for hikes in? or some cool things that are exclusive to tromso? thanks!
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