I'm considering SMP and a local shop is quite reputable when it comes to tattooing in general. They also appear to have an experienced SMP practice with many examples. Many of them look great, but others I'm not so fond of - but this could also be client preference (hairline too perfect and hair too thick, which to me looks unnatural).
I'm hoping to get some opinions from the sub on the work as I'm still quite new to this: https://www.tattoobob.nl/micro-haar-pigmentatie/galerij
Would you trust them with your scalp?

** PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE APPLYING**
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If you’re interested, please PM me your resume.

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.

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)

1. Direct quotes from Ali herself are in italics.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Some people don't have anything simply because only a name was said or I couldn't find any details about the person/date
6. And of course, please be respectful of all the sub rules!

Names on the original FMH blog

• Mr. Adorable aka The Coach
• Trouble
• Waffles
• Future Husband Brian (FHB)
• Cookie
• Peter Pan
• Ambiguous Goodbye Guy
• Bad Bitch Man

AOL chatroom Boyfriend
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 Traveler
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 (?)

Ali and Roark start FMH: The Podcast February 2021

The Boomerang
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”

Ali’s Matchmaker contract starts in August 2021 - 6 matches

The Schmoozer
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”

2022

The Discoball
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

Roark leaves and Erica joins the pod Oct 31st 2022

Captain Kirk
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

2023

The Falcon
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 her 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. Laundry
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

So I have not played in my current legacy save file (Only on gen 2) for quite some time because I am having an issue with it that makes it unplayable. Essentially my sims are not following commands, specifically the command to eat or pick up the toddledo anything with the toddler. They just stand there hungry for hours on end and I get frustrated and quit the game. I do have CC and mods but I went through each folder and tested each one only to find nothing. When I put all the mods back in the game folder and ran it again, it was working fine for approximately one sim day, then the issue began again. My other save files are not having this issue so I am inclined to believe the mods are not the issue...? Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? I will list the types of mods I have below for reference:
Script Mods: MCCC, and MCWoohoo (V2024.3.0), Basemental Drugs (V7.17.169), UI Cheats (V1.40), More CAS Columns (UTD).
CAS Mods: CC Hair, Clothes, Tattoos, Makeup, Eyebrows, Skin Details, default eyes and skin (no sliders or anything like that)
No Build Mode CC.
Thanks in advance!

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

In a quiet, forgotten village nestled deep within a dense forest, tales of an ancient witch named Elara had been passed down through generations. They spoke of her ethereal beauty, her ageless face, and her dark, malevolent powers. Most believed she was just a story to scare children into behaving, but others knew the truth.
It began with a simple dare. Lucy, a rebellious teenager, scoffed at the old legends. "Witches aren't real," she declared to her friends one night around a bonfire. Determined to prove her bravery, she decided to venture into the forest alone and find the witch's cabin. Her friends tried to dissuade her, but Lucy was headstrong.
Armed with only a flashlight and her skepticism, Lucy trekked through the woods. The deeper she went, the quieter the forest became, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. After what felt like hours, she stumbled upon a clearing. In the center stood a decrepit cabin, exactly as described in the village's lore.
Despite a shiver running down her spine, Lucy pressed on. The door creaked ominously as she pushed it open, revealing a room filled with ancient artifacts, jars of strange substances, and books written in an indecipherable script. In the corner, a cauldron bubbled with a thick, green liquid, emitting a foul odor.
A sense of unease began to creep over Lucy, but she forced herself to stay. "It's just an old house," she muttered. She stepped closer to a bookshelf, her fingers brushing over the spines of the books, when she heard it – a soft, melodic humming.
Turning around slowly, she saw her. Elara, the witch, appeared as if from thin air. Her beauty was otherworldly, her eyes glowing with an eerie light. "You've come to visit me," Elara said, her voice like velvet. "How delightful."
Lucy couldn't move, couldn't speak. The witch approached her slowly, her smile never reaching her eyes. "So brave, so curious," Elara murmured. "But bravery has its price."
With a wave of her hand, the cabin transformed. The walls pulsed as if alive, and the artifacts seemed to watch Lucy with intent. Elara's face twisted into a malicious grin. "You wanted to see if the stories were true, and now you will be part of them."
Lucy felt a cold grip around her heart as darkness enveloped her. Her screams were swallowed by the night, leaving the forest silent once more.
The next morning, Lucy's friends, worried and guilty, ventured into the forest to find her. They discovered the clearing, the cabin... but no sign of Lucy. Inside, they found an old, dusty book open on the table. Flipping through its pages, they saw illustrations and descriptions of those who had visited Elara's cabin over the centuries. Each page bore a name and a fate.
They gasped when they reached the latest entry. There, sketched in excruciating detail, was Lucy, her eyes wide with terror. Beneath her portrait were the words: "Curiosity and defiance – a soul taken."
As they fled the forest, they could swear they heard Elara's melodic humming echoing through the trees, a reminder that the witch was very real, and her legend lived on.

It has been a bit since I've moved some goods and I've got a new car that's calling my name! Take a look at the wares!
PP FF only
Timestamp: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19DuDMHO3OAYF3SKeuof6ox03HSz03Tib?usp=drive_link
Spyderco Domino CTS XHP discontinued: 2nd owner, purchased here on the swap, light cut and carry I was told and believe. Blade has also been sharpened and they did a fine job, it is very very sharp. Cut myself taking the pics lol. They also polished the blade to a fine mirror and it looks pretty damn good IMO. Action is smooth, light shake shut. There are no flaws minus some straight slender scratches on the blade. They are kind of difficult to see in the pics, tried my best to show em. They most definitely don't jump out, but you can see em if you're looking at the blade closely. Have the OG box. $180
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fBYHLVZz1KaWAgPxp5wHiCp6vbJqH8ac?usp=drive_link
Spyderco Advocate orange peel titanium discontinued: 2nd owner, this one looks to have been carried a bit, but it does not appear to have been cut with at all. There is just like a bit of grime on the blade spine that looks like lube and pocket lint. M4 steel. Action is solid, could use a clean and lube. No flaws as far as scratches or blems. Blade centered. I accidentally grabbed the Spyderco Kapara box instead of the Advocate one, if this is important to you I will go back to my storage and get the OG one. $180SOLD SOLD
Spyderco Citadel Auto 92mm S30v discontinued: 2nd owner, Knife is in new condition, the safety does have some light wear and it is loose, but still functional. I'm sure this could be fixed with disassembly. Other than that fires hard and is flawless. Blade looks centered. Very cool collector piece. $230 SOLD SOLD
Ratworx Chain Drive: 2nd owner, knife has been carried and cut, many scratches on the scales, a little blade play. Blade is centered. Action is great and has a unique deploy feel. $150 SOLD SOLD SOLD
Benchmade Adamas black in D2: 1st owner, I don't believe they make this version anymore. No cut no carry. Blade centered. Action is fabulous. No blems. $175
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aD28rHJdWIQQKZe0xYtZbOchqnS4wsWX?usp=drive_link
Benchmade Claymore D2: 1st owner, no cut no carry, blade centered, action fabulous, no blems. $170
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aD28rHJdWIQQKZe0xYtZbOchqnS4wsWX?usp=drive_link
Rike Athron: Had no intentions of moving this guy, cuz it's a sweet thick blade. M390, LNIB, never cut or carried, centered, no blade play, never disassembled, action is excellent, 1st owner. $250
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1reGJ8nAJqlYJUp_uxkdamCKoOc9WScaP?usp=drive_link
Rike Knife M1 S35v: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, blade tip is a bent design so it looks off center, but it is centered. Action is smooth. $150
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QaupL3lCoE51KYKx1mTzTpwP8aNgEcJg?usp=drive_link
Ketuo Griffin M390: 1st owner, these are hard to find, no cut no carry, blade centered, action is awesome in any deployment method, no blems. $200
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1reGJ8nAJqlYJUp_uxkdamCKoOc9WScaP?usp=drive_link
Infinite tattoo timascus and MOP inlay: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action could use some break in. blade is centered. $200 SOLD SOLD SOLD
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jHRj_IcFZwK654d2clt2R6ALqGue_YAz?usp=drive_link
Protech emerson operator DLC: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. $160 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_8CEltstslXXlsTZklH7LAXTBTJOtt14?usp=drive_link
~~TwoSun Bundle: I have Two sun boxes for all of these, but the numbers do not match the knife models SOLD SOLD SOLD
TwoSun 162 M390: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered.
TwoSun 142 Integral M390: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered.
TS100 Integral M390: 2nd owner, knife is like new, no cut no carry. Only blem is microscopic on the spine near the bottom. blade is centered, action is great from the flipper, but the thumb deploy is tough.
TS 81 M390: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered.
TS 177 Fauxcuti anodized by WOK: M390, 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered.
Bundle Price: $250 SOLD SOLD SOLD~~
Clones:
Kevin John Matrix Clone S90v w/tritium on flipper tab: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. 150$SOLD SOLD SOLD
Green Thorn SMKE Spectre M390: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. This clip is essentially mirror polished. $75SOLD SOLD
~~Evil Eyes Strider SMF M390: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. ~~$140 SOLD SOLD SOLD
Jufule Strider PT3 154CM: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. $50SOLD SOLD SOLD
Jufule MT socom 154CM: 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. $50SOLD SOLD SOLD
Lemifshe MT Warhound flipper clone in D2 supposedly : 1st owner, no cut no carry, no blems, action is great and smooth. blade is centered. $50 SOLD SOLD SOLD
Free addons for sale over $700Will now give one of these addons with any sale $100 or more.
Premium chrome skull Zippo Gone
Premium glow in the dark Zippo
Sig Sauer Romeo 1 red dot NIB Gone

TLDR: Wife (32F) of 10 years cheated on me (34M) and got pregnant. She aborted and wants to get back with me. She has has contact a couple times with her ex in the past 6 months since they broke up for "closure". I'm not sure to believe her or not.
To be clear, I haven't been the best husband to her either. Since almost the first day of marriage I would get mad at her for minor things and yell at her or say things with an attitude sometimes, mostly without noticing. Unfortunately this went on for about 5-6 years. Within that time I was physically abusive to her a handful of times when I would lose my temper. Everytime I would would say that I was sorry and that I wouldn't do it again but it would continue. The whole time she swore to love me with her whole heart but I was slowly killing her love for me.
Finally on year 7 I attempted to hit her but she blocked me. At that moment she realized enough was enough. She swore to divorce me but I told her I wouldn't let her. She cried for about 3 months straight losing her mind because she could not comprehend how she could be over me and hate me even though she loved me so much. It was at that time that I realized my old internal methods of trying to stop me from abusing her would never work. It was then when I sought out therapy. It was only then when I gained the necessary emotional skills to control my emotions and not lose my temper that much and the physical abuse ceased completely. But it was too late.
A few months later I realized that she deserved for me to give her the divorce. It was the most loving thing to do. I told her I would agree to divorce her. But she never took me up on the offer and just blamed me for not initiating the process. I loved her so much that I also decided that if she would stay I would take all of her verbal abuse and scorn until one day she could forgive me because I felt I deserved it.
She would still explode on me for the smallest things but I would keep my calm as best as I could. Months later we went through with moving to a different city together and we bought a house in the new city. Something we had always been planing.
However before we left she told me she would start giving herself a chance with different men. So she started going out a lot and partying. As a matter of fact on year 6 she started being unfaithful and I caught her flirting over text with a bouncer she met. I cried for about two weeks straight. I tracked her phone and caught her outside the guys apartment talking with her along with her friend. She still didn't change her attitude. She stopped talking to the guy after I cussed him out. However between year 7-10 she had about 2 guys she had talked to romantically over phone and text but she never moved out. Always eventually breaking up with them and me having to deal with her sad moods.
Close to year 10 she started talking to a guy in the city we moved to when he reached out to her via social media. She was %100 convinced he was "the one" just because of how he talked to her and the trauma they shared. She told me he was an "ex" drug dealer and had tattoos all over and carried a gun all the time. But that he had left all that life behind him haha I told her she was making a mistake and he was a bad person and only bad things would happen to her if she gave him a chance. She didn't listen and at that point moved out to an apartment.
Long story short, their two month afair was, sure enough, full of manipulation, toxicity, controling, and the most stressful life she's ever had. She was forced to have her every move tracked. During this time she became very close to his 9 year old daughter. She would almost always spend nights over at his house but say she would sleep in the daughter's room every time. She would be partying with him almost 7 nights a week while trying to hold down a job. In the end, after him breaking up with her about 5 times within the span of two months she found out she was pregnant.
I visited her at her apartment on our 10 year anniversary while she was pregnant with another mans child. We had so many plans for our 10 year. She missed out on so much. Even then I gave her a few gifts that I had bought before I knew she was pregnant. I wouldn't have gotten anything otherwise. I didn't want to give them to her but I would've felt like an Indian giver if I didn't.
It was only then that she realized that it wouldn't work out with that piece of trash. She called me and told me she needed help. I never told her to get an abortion but she knew that if she didn't it would be the final straw for me because I never wanted kids and I'll be damned if I had to raise some scum of the Earth's child. It wasn't after I helpped her get the abortion that "she realized I would be with her through thick and thin". I didn't pay for the procedure though. She apologized pretty sincerely about that relationship and for cheating and all the other relationships she's had. She said she really regrets hurting me.
Shortly afterward she told me she wanted to try things again after 3+ years of disregard and emotional abuse trying to find her happiness. I held strong through it all but the fact she got pregnant was the ultimate sin against me in my book.
She never had sex with any other man until she met this trash of a human. And I believe her on that. We literally saw him with another bitch while my wife was pregnant by the way. When she first confessed she was pregnant to me I asked her how many times they had sex and she said two. Later, after the abortion, when I finally had courage to start talking to her about this very hurtful subject she said they only had sex once and that she was blacked out at the time and doesn't remember anything about that night. I don't know what to make of her changing her story from having sex 2 times to 1.
I asked her how many times she blacked out with him and she told me a total of two nights but that other night she blacked out she asked him if they had sex and he said no. The time they did have sex the next morning he right away told her they had sex. He also told her he wanted to get her pregnant because he wanted a family. This scumbag of a person probably planned it all out. He made sure to fuck her on her fertile days and make sure she was blacked out in the process. She had never wanted to be physical with any of the guys she's talked to and I believe her.
So if all of this is true then she was technically raped because she was blacked out. If that was true, then that would make me an ass hole for hating her for getting raped. We have been getting couples therapy but gaining trust in her again is hard. She is still really hurt from the pain I've caused her as well. However slowly my love has gone from a %10 right after she told me she got pregnant to a present %30. The pregnancy alone killed my love %60 for her instantly.
So this brings us to the present day. She has told me she thinks he's a piece of trash and even gave him the nickname "trash". However she has always missed his daughter she became very close to over those two months. However it's been about 6 months now since the break up and abortion and this trash requests her on social media and starts sending her messages again. At first for a week she ignored them and said she wasn't going to answer. But eventually she started saying there were some things she needed closure on. She also confessed she still had feelings for him, which I get, but also that the door is still open for him.
After a week she came into the house crying uncontrollably. She said this trash called her and she answered and he said that his daughter missed her a lot. He said he couldn't talk now but that he would call her back in a bit. She said she was crying so much because she felt sad that his daughter still missed her so much. She said she would answer when he called her back. I told her not to answer but she said she didn't care. I told her in that case I would be present for the call but she didn't want me to be there. I told her if she didn't have anything to hide to let me. She said she wouldn't feel comfortable if I was present. I told her I didn't want her talking to him and this would only push us apart and she didn't care.
After almost a whole hour talking to her ex she said he just told her how much the daughter missed her and how he was so sorry about everything blah blah blah. My wife told him it wasn't right for her to talk to the daughter with out the mother's permission. She later told me it was really selfish of him to just unload his feelings on her just to make himself feel better and to get it off his chest. She said she didn't even want to ask anything for closure anymore at that point.
I was fairly mad at her but I would probably let it slide if it was a one time thing. A few days later, he called her again. I told her not to call him back, she didn't care and said she would call him. So I told her, if she doesn't have anything to hide then record the call, again she refused. I told her if she called him back then our relationship would probably never work and I would love her even less than I do now. She didn't give a shit and called him back. A little while later she came back in very excited saying the daughter wanted to facetime her. I told her I didn't care. This time she went into the next room as opposed to making the call from inside her car.
At this point I got my stuff and started getting ready to leave to the gym. I couldn't be in the house anymore, I was so mad. She eventually ended the call and asked what I was doing. I told her I was leaving and I didn't want to talk with her at all until later that night. Once at the gym she text me saying I didn't care about leaving her alone even though I know she has abandonment issues. I told her how am I supposed to care if she doesn't care about me? She says whether she stops talking to him or not is her business. I told her it's my business if she wants a relationship with me. Then she proceeds to attack my flaws.
Is this relationship even worth fighting for anymore? Or am I finally on the cusp of finally gaining back the relationship that I always wished I had with her since day one? Or have I simply been a cuck this whole time? Or have I finally taken the punishment I deserved for the 5+ years of physical and metal abuse I inflicted on her? Am I overreacting about the no-contact I want her to have with the ex? What is your read on this situation? Am I stupid or commendable.

Hello all! I am obsessed with archeology and would love to get a quote tattooed in sumerian cuneiform, but despite all my research...I've yet to find anything. I'd like something that originates from a tablet, not just a random quote that's been translated. I've found some neat quotes from the Epic of Gilgamesh, but I haven't been able to find their corresponding cuneiform scripts. Any help is appreciated!

I got a tattoo on my back shoulder about 3 years ago now that has blown out pretty bad with age. It’s written in Sinhala script so the blow out makes it impossible to read 🙁looking for recommendations for tattoo artists nearby that specialize in camouflage or cover ups to see if anything can be done to salvage 🙌

Link to Previous Part
Somewhere around my head hitting the ground and that damn raccoon laughing hysterically at me, I drifted out of simple unconsciousness and into a memory. This particular memory was going to be unpleasant, I could tell that right away. It was part of the reason I left Wisconsin in the first place, that damn abandoned town of Imalone.
Something I’d always liked to do was explore, its one of the reasons I decided on somewhere like Eagles Peak in the first place when I left. It’s also the reason I ended up in Imalone. It was a new place to check out that had been left untouched for several years. As the story goes the town popped up around a gas station, the earliest any recorded records of the place include a date, is the 1940’s. For a while a church and bible camp garnered the interests of tourists and members of the church in Imalone but it wouldn’t last. One day the church closed its doors and so many of the towns residents packed up and left. Without the church and its bible camp what little revenue the place might have generated ceased to exist. After that, the town’s bones were left for nature to pick through. A few friends had relayed the story to me and I decided I just had to see it for myself. So I packed a bag one night, jumped in my car and headed out. That’s where this memory began.
I pulled off the old road embattled with undergrowth in my old Honda civic and stepped out into the night air. The town was faintly illuminated for some reason despite being abandoned years ago. The light flickering off into the otherwise pitch black forest was foreboding. For the first time that night a tiny part of me pulled back, away from the town.
“I’m sure there’s a reason as to why the power wasn’t cut. Maybe some homeless moved in or something, it was a town at one point and its not like anyones claiming this place.”
These thoughts did nothing to calm my nerves as I walked through the overgrowth and towards the town. In fact those thoughts inspired me to try and be as quite as possible.
“Just get in, see what there is to see and get out Keith.”
I was still really on edge as I came to the overgrown gas station that marked the beginning of the town and the end of the forest. Though, that border was a bit disputed as of late it would seem. A huge tree had grown in the middle of the wrecked gas station, bursting out of its windows and roof. Weeds grew up through the pavement and both old pumps lay on the ground, rusted and beaten. I walked into the decrepit gas station, searching for a way up onto the roof to see if I could find the source of the light in town. As I got inside I heard a rumble of thunder.
“Weird, the forecast didn’t call for any storms?”
I thought as lightning flashed through the sky. Briefly illuminating the room and showing me a path up the tree through the hole it bored in the roof. The flash from the lightning hung just a few seconds longer than I would’ve assumed and I swore I heard the very faint cry of a bird in the distance.
Up on the roof I dropped my bag and grabbed my binoculars. As soon as I focused them in on the town I saw a bedraggled man on a bicycle. Well, bicycle may not have been the right word as it was stationary and hooked up to a series of rusty gears. As I followed the path of rusted gears and cogs with my eyes it seemed to lead to a fallen silo. Inside this silo there was a turbine.
“They made some kind of rudimentary generator!” I exclaimed to myself, seeing the mess of wires sprouting from the far side of the collapsed silo. To call the setup ramshackle would’ve been a compliment. It looked like it was a light breeze from falling apart with all the corroded metal of the gears and turbine. I was far enough off that I couldn’t hear the contraption but I’m sure it sounded awful.
I turned my attention back to the man on the bicycle, paying more attention to what he was wearing. It was unusual to say the least. He was covered in bits of moss and dead branches all stuck to what looked to be a canvas tarp converted into some kind of robe. I couldn’t make out his face, but I imagined it would be marred with an unkempt beard, laden with bits of twigs and leaves. I put down the binoculars and put them back in my bag. Once again I felt like I shouldn’t be here, that I should just turn around and leave, but I still didn’t listen. Instead I climbed down from the roof, back into the gas station and started making my way into the town as quietly as I could. Thunder roared again as I crept through the overgrown town. This time when I heard it I was sure the flash of lighting that followed was accompanied by a distant bird’s piercing cry. It sounded like some kind of bird of prey. I shuddered but remained undeterred as I crept deeper into the town.
Eventually I came to a rotting building with half a wagon wheel attached above where its door used to be. My curiosity got the best of me and I decide to check out the building. Walking into what I could now see used to be some sort of bar, I was instantly hit with the distinct smell of mold.
“Maybe that’s why they left. Black mold has a way of clearing out the neighborhood, or so I hear” I mumbled to myself.
Bushes had sprouted up behind the bar and I thought the scene of nature taking over this building would make a good picture. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flash, as soon as the click sounded I dropped my phone. In the light of the flash I saw a figure nestled among the bushes. It was another man clothed in a similar way to the one I had seen on the bicycle. Only this time he was far closer to me and very aware of my presence. The man also wore a mask that looked like it may have been native american in origin. The mask was faded and scratched but obviously carved by an experienced hand. It resembled a bird with a large tuft of split feathers adorning the top of the mask. The man recoiled at the light of the flash at first but soon he was back on his feet. He said something as he stood but the mask muffled his voice to such a degree that I couldn’t make out a word. I jumped back screaming, it was all I could do to snatch my phone out of the air before it hit the ground as I turned and ran. As I burst back out of the building I found the street suddenly full of those ominously dressed men. I slid to a stop and looked behind me, finding my path blocked by the masked man from the bushes. I was weighing my options as thunder cracked again, louder than ever. Lightning followed with another bird like screech as loud as a train.
“SCREEEE!”
“SCREEEEET!”
“SCREEETH!”
“SKREIITH!”
“KIETH!”
“KEITH!”
I was shaken out of the memory and back into consciousness by Bianca. Shaking me from my position on the basement floor.
“Keith! Oh god! What the hell happened to you?! We found you thrashing around down here!”
Bianca screamed inches from my face, her eyes now undeniably glowing.
“There was a raccoon and, and…. It… talked” I strung together as I searched for an answer.
“You should have seen his face! He went as white as a sheet and fell like a bowling pin when I pulled the whole cat gag!” Cackled the raccoon in the corner as Bianca’s uncles stood over it glowering.
“Your eyes, They’re glowing!” I remarked, trying to change the subject.
“Yes of course they… oh damn it! I.. I’ll explain later Keith I guess you have to know now. You’ve seen enough in this basement alone to have questions. Here clean yourself up and meet us in the kitchen.”
Bianca tossed me a wet rag to try and clean the dust and sweat that had covered my face during my unconscious episode.
“And YOU Rocco, you’re going to stay here and we’re going to have a little chat about manners once I’ve cleared this mess up.”
She spit more than said, gesturing towards the raccoon who almost immediately stopped laughing and skulked off deeper into the basement.
Bianca and her uncles turned and went up the stairs leaving me alone. I washed my face off with the cloth as best I could and tried to come up with a strategy for the shit storm waiting for me upstairs. I had to come up with something believable for why I directly ignored their one rule, don’t go into the basement. Bianca had looked concerned more than angry. Had I said something while I was passed out reliving that memory? Do they all think I’m crazy now? Maybe I can use that, yeah plead insanity to them. They may send me off to a home, but If I told them I was remembering the time I got abducted by some crazy bird cultists it would definitely be the padded room for me. I pulled myself together and climbed the stairs opening the door into the last thing I would’ve expected.
Bianca was crying as her Uncles tried to comfort her. It was the first time I got a good look at her uncles. Both looked fairly old, I’d guess mid 60’s to early 70’s. One had a bald spot covering the top of his head and long har besides that with a mole on his right cheek. His face was weathered and a bit wrinkled with lines around his eyes that could only come from prolonged use of goggles. The other had a circle of hair on the top of his head but no more hair to speak of. This ones face was the mirror image of the other with the only difference being the mole on his cheek was on the opposite side. Their hair was really the only way to tell them apart.
“This one is all here at least, I’ve said before there’s a risk! You can’t just charm…”
Her uncle stopped suddenly as I walked into the room and Bianca suddenly looked up at me, Her tear stained eyes still shining an electric blue. I just couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
“I’m soooo sorry, I never meant to end up down there but there was this meowing noise and it sounded like it came fro..”
“Stop, just stop its ok. I guess I should’ve figured you’d end up down there, Rocco likes to torment new people. But I’m sure you have questions about us.”
“Oh I sure do but we’ll start with your eyes, what’s going on there?”
This conversation lead into something I didn’t quite expect to hear, these people weren’t entirely human. There I said it, I still don’t quite believe it but Bianca’s “uncles” tried to explain it to me. Her uncles names were Frank (the one with the small hair circle) and Stein (the one with the reverse bowl cut) and they weren’t her uncles at all. They were researchers, but not for the government like she had claimed, at least not anymore. They researched the supernatural and the paranormal. Rocco was one of their more successful experiments and Bianca, well that’s a different story. Bianca is a succubus, an honest to god supernatural entity. According to Stein she can influence emotions and how people feel about her. That’s what I felt when I met her yesterday and I lost control. I didn’t lose myself, she simply took the reigns and steered me in the direction she wanted. Normally you couldn’t tell there was anything off about her aside from her stunningly good looks. But, when she got overly emotional or she was trying particularly hard to influence someone her eyes would start to glow that trademark blue. This whole time Bianca looked like a scolded puppy. She was embarrassed it seemed, though I couldn’t say if it was because she got caught or if she really felt that bad about what she had done.
After those three explained what they could in such a short time they offered to let me spend the night, or well, at least the rest of it. Frank showed me to my room on the second floor and I slipped into a dreamless sleep… for all of about an hour before I heard a knock at my door. Groggily, I stumbled to the door and snapped it open.
“What is!… oh hey Bianca.”
Bianca stood in my door, eyes no longer glowing, looking sullen.
“I wanted to apologize, I had no right I, I… it wasn’t right I should’ve given you a choice.”
“Please just, stop. Apology accepted, ok. Look I don’t even know if its me talking to you or you jerking me around again. I wan..”
“It is, I promise, I’m not doing anything to you right now, what you feel is just you.”
Binaca responded, eyes beginning to faintly glow, choking back tears.
“Oh geez I’m sorry, its just hard to know if its really me in there with your whole…. you know”
“Funnily enough that’s exactly the problem. Anyone who knows about me always stays away because they don’t know if I’m in their heads or not. There’s Frank and Stein but that’s about it, and that’s only because my powers have no effect on them for some reason. Maybe all that exposure to the supernatural all their lives gave them some kind of immunity?”
“That must be rough, I never really thought about that”
“Yeah I know, why would you.”
For some reason that last bit cut pretty deep. Could have been because of how she looked away when she said it. Like I was just yet another person who didn’t get it. To some extent she was right, I only found out about exactly what she was an hour or so before. But I still didn’t like the fact she seemed to be judging me for it.
“Anyways, what’s Imalone?”
Bianca asked, breaking the awkward silence. The question threw me off guard right away.
“What?! Where did you hear that?”
“When you were trashing around in the basement you said it a few times.”
I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt guilty as I tried to come up with something to say to dodge the question. Maybe I was just tired of trying to pretend nothing happened. That I’d moved halfway across the country to some little nowhere town for no particular reason. Maybe I just wanted to talk about it finally. Maybe I just couldn’t come up with anything convincing to say. I think, what it really was though, was the fact that no-one had been genuine with each other since this whole thing at Bianca’s house started. I never spoke up about the fact I felt something was off, Bianca manipulated me into thinking I wanted to help her, and Frank and Stein just kind of tried to stay out of the whole thing. I had to at least try and show some honesty, which is why I decided to tell Bianca about Imalone.
“Imalone is the reason I’m out here in the first place. Something happened there that really shook me up, I couldn’t stay there anymore.”
“Stay where?”
“Wisconsin, where I’m from. I’m sure I don’t sound like I’m from around here, not that you cared to ask before.” A little bit of the venom from her comment earlier seeping into my own voice.
“But I’m sure you don’t want to hear that whole story tonight…. Or this morning? What Time is it anyways?”
“Late enough that I don’t really want to go to sleep. Besides, now I want to hear this story.”
To her credit Bianca didn’t fall asleep during my story. I’m sure she had to be tired cause there’s no way she slept before this given her earlier state, but she stayed up to listen. She didn’t try to tell me I was crazy. Which is exactly how I expected someone to act hearing about Imalone. When we got to the point in the story where she had shaken me out of the memory earlier I stopped.
“There’s more isn’t there?”
“Yeah its just… hard to relive is all. Maybe it doesn’t sound all that awful now but in the moment I thought I was going to die in that little ghost town.”
Then she did something I didn’t expect. She reached out and grabbed my hand and I immediately felt calmer. The feelings of fear washing away leaving nothing in their wake.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry about it just finish your story, its easier now right?”
Whatever it was she was doing she was certainly right, the fear of no-one believing me was gone and I found I was able to keep going.
"SCREEEE!” The screaming birds call resounded in my ears. So loud and unexpected that I briefly forgot I was surrounded by these strange canvas wrapped men. As I came back to my senses The one in the bird mask placed a gnarled hand on my shoulder and muttered something unintelligible. I pulled away but his grip was strong and he pushed me to the ground. The rest descended on me cackling and cheering to one another, all in words I couldn’t make out. Rain began to fall, thick and heavy as thunder rolled once more right on top of us. As the men picked me up I gazed into the sky to see something in the clouds illuminated by a flash of lightning.
The thing in the sky looked like a bird of prey, its form translucent against the dark and stormy heavens, only visible by the distortions it left around itself as it circled. Looking back down, I could see the men carrying me to the area I had seen from the top of the gas station. The bicycle sat deserted, though the lines of lights illuminating the town square still flickered, being blown around in the steadily quickening wind. What I hadn’t seen from the gas station roof was the device these people had built in the bones of an old house. The things purpose was clear, to restrain. It was constructed of wood multicolored by rot or the fact that it had originally been part of a building. Four shackles sat at the corners of the structure, each made of a different source of leather or metal. One was simply an old dog collar according to the tag hanging off of it that simply read “spot”.
The men carried me toward the structure that was giving me splinters just by looking at it. Once they arrived there they strapped me into the thing, each of my limbs splayed out in the cardinal directions as the storm raged around us. The rain tore like sandpaper at my skin as the one in the bird mask stood up on the wooden stage next to me. He “spoke” to the others, twelve by my count, in more of this gibberish language they spoke. Whatever he was on about the crowd seemed to be going wild until he held his hands up and they split down the center. I was thrashing around as best I could in my bindings this whole time. Trying to find some give in the ramshackle structure so that I might have a hope at freedom when I noticed what they had split for.
The bird from before had started to come in for a landing and it seemed huge. The beast looked to be about 10 feet tall with a wingspan almost four times that. As it flew closer to the ground lightning struck a house to my right, instantly showering us in wooden shrapnel and setting it alight. In the firelight I could finally behold the bird making its final approach to land. As the black mist surrounding it billowed away it became less translucent and more visible. I could make out Its scaly clawed talons that could’ve shredded a car, and its muscular legs that could’ve picked up that same car and thrown it with enough force to crush a building. Its head resembled an eagle and its deep blue feathers glittered in the rain, firelight, and lightning that crackled off of it and its steely grey pointed beak shown like a great and terrible razor. Once its talons had touched the ground it began to skink and warp, ultimately folding in on itself to reveal a woman, tattooed and naked as the day she was born. She had a hard angular face that demanded respect with nothing more than a glare. My eyes wandered over her body, tracing the lines of the numerous black tattoos that covered her. They were all tribal in nature, involving various wings and talons the came together in an eagle wreathed in lighting on her back. The tattoo resembled the creature she’d just been. She spoke to the masked man in a language that I immediately recognized as Algonquian from a class I took back in college. I still didn’t understand a lick of it but I had at least heard the language before.
The masked man responded with his gibberish which the woman seemed to understand. The man was visibly shaken by her and so was I. This lady radiated pure power and the air was electric. If the fact that she was naked wasn’t enough for me to try and turn my head from her bashfully, the aura she gave off was enough to make me do it out of fear. The woman finally turned to me and spoke,
“You should be honored little trespasser” Cooed the woman, grabbing my head in her hand and turning it up and toward her. With this closer look I could see her steel grey hair that whipped in the wind and her cracking white eyes that seemed to be little storms of their own.
“I’ve decided to spare you this once. Leave this place and forget.”
“And then I woke up back in my car the next day” I said to Bianca as she let go of my hand.
“Are you sure that’s all that happened?”
“Yeah, that was it. Then I started losing it with stress, always thinking I’d stumble into one of those places again. I decided it was time for a change and I moved here to get away from that feeling of being watched I had back home.”
Something about the way Bianca looked at me after I said that told me she didn’t quite buy it. I told her goodnight and rushed her out of my doorway where we had been talking after that. She was right to doubt me though, that last part was a lie. The woman had more to say to me and she certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about sparing me. Despite the calming effect Bianca had brought over me I couldn’t quite bring myself to put that last part of the story into words, at least not out loud.
The woman had told me the men brought me as a sacrifice to her, that the masked man had sought to be her “chosen” whatever that meant. Then she told me all I had to do to be free was allow her to pass a burden onto me. She would deal with these misguided men and I could go home. I’ll admit my decision was cowardly but I was scared for my life. As soon as she gave me an alternative to death I took it. The smile she cracked told me my decision was a mistake. She placed a hand on my back and white hot pain shot through my nerves. I couldn’t see but I could hear the screams. Screams that were cutoff with the brush of feathers against my cheek and the thunderous flap of wings. Thunder roared and lightning cracked, I could hear nothing but the cataclysmic storm that woman had apparently caused. Then as suddenly as it began it stopped.
I awoke the next morning in the middle of Imalone’s town square, it had been leveled and ash was strewn all around me. My clothes were singed but they would have to do on the walk back to the car. The further I walked from the town square the more the town looked as though nothing had happened last night. The ground wasn’t even wet by the time I made it back to my car, like the storm had been centered on the town square and that place alone. When I got home and went to shower I found a black mark seared into my back where the woman had touched me. The mark was a bird covered in lightning and mist, not unlike the woman’s own tattoo on the center of her back.
As that memory crept through my head another thing weighed on my conscious, see I haven’t been entirely honest with you either, whoever it may be seeing this. I didn’t leave Wisconsin just out of fear, no the dreams pushed me here as well. The dreams of storms and shrieks, the dreams of that woman speaking to me in a language I couldn’t understand, The dreams of this town.
It wasn’t random chance that I stumbled upon Eagles Peak. I had looked for places that resembled the flashes of images in my dreams. Ending up deciding that this place must be the town I’d seen. It’s also the reason Bianca’s house stuck out to me when I arrived. It may have been odd to see in this town but I’d also seen it in my dreams. When I came into town and finally went to sleep in my new house it was the first night I hadn’t dreamt in a long time. I’d done something right, or maybe wrong, who’s to say. But something about this town calmed my head, something about this town was connected to that night in Imalone. Whatever it was I intended to find out what. The only issue is I have no idea where to start.