The church's earliest visitors on Sunday are a group of kind-hearted do-gooders. And Lucas is there too.
The group, including Lucas, is diligently doing last-minute preparations, carefully and skillfully tending to the food they expertly prepared yesterday. Every single person involved in the work does their part with impressive ease and earned confidence. Lucas's careful contributions, both his direct, visible work, and the boons conferred by his presence allow them to do their work with newfound ease, confidence, and remarkable luck. Lucas occasionally makes minor missteps, but those are due more to the drawbacks he is enduring than anything he actually does. And every time he makes a mistake it's so minor a few deft movements are enough for him to overcome them. All the while he is texting Hannah and is visibly excited to volunteer, even though his motives are still quite selfish.
Lucas wisely does not take a leadership role here. The diligent figure follows the lead of his more experienced peers, and his endless, untiring contributions are enough to allow the group to be ready in an hour, completing work that normally takes them two or three thanks to the various perks Lucas grants them, as well as his actual, material contributions. When the group is ready, Lucas suggests they all swap stories about what led them to volunteer here.
The five volunteers and the pastor encourage the newcomer to go first, and he deftly weaves a tale that incorporates bits and pieces of the backstory he constructed for himself at his job. He explains that he grew up as the only child of a family in a small town and that he has been volunteering in minor capacities his whole life. He tells his new friends the same fanciful lies he told his coworkers and is a bit shocked when he gets the "Storytelling" skill. After that, his companions share their own stories with him. The pastor goes first, explaining that when he took over the church not one charitable act was occurring here and in only a few short years the pastor has massively changed that. The others all share various stories about how they've needed food before, or known people who needed a meal, and so they wanted to make sure that if someone needed a meal they could get it. The stories stir Lucas's heart, and he feels a pang of sincere admiration for his new friends. That said the pragmatic figure is not someone who is so kind-hearted that he'd lose sight of his larger objectives here.
While his companions share their stories he activates "Rogue", but focuses the skill on his hands. This decision almost completely cloaks his hands, rendering them invisible just long enough for Lucas to pour healing magic into the soup. He pours all of his magical energy into the stuff, exhausting himself but that is a minor inconvenience given one of his handy toys and especially when he receives a notification alerting him that he has gained an "Overcharge" skill; the ability to empower something by putting more into it.
As soon as everyone finishes their stories there is just enough time for the group of volunteers to go and get ready for the first of the arrivals at the kitchen. When Lucas is out of view of everyone he reaches into his inventory and pulls out his nifty arcane potion and downs it. The instant that the golden liquid touches his lips his power begins to flow back into him, suffusing his very soul. Minutes later the lad is welcoming guests and visitors to the church. People excitedly greet him, stunned in two different ways by his appearance.
Firstly there is the fact that Lucas is stunning, aesthetically. No matter one's preferences, no one can honestly deny his wholesome movie star looks, and no one tries to. But here, in the soup kitchen, that's the less important part of his appeal. The more important aspect of his appearance is his newness. Many of the people who appear early are people who come to the church regularly, and they recognize everyone there but him. This gives the young volunteer a chance to make several new admirers, and he navigates these social interactions with aplomb. The figure, at this point, doesn't even rely on his perks, having grown accustomed to his new life and reality.
As the figure encourages the visitors to come and grab food he is extremely pleased when he feels time freeze the first time someone tastes the food he made. This is due to the fact that he is making progress towards his quest to become a "White Mage" the formal name given to the "Healer" class he received a quest to become earlier this week, The quest asks him to heal 100 people, and this marks one of the first times he has made progress towards it. The figure smiles internally as he deactivates the notification that froze time and continues the important work he's been assigned; welcoming guests and working to log in the information they're willing to give about themselves. To achieve this task the eager go-getter has a clipboard and is stationed near the entrance to the part of the church that houses the kitchen where the chefs made the food. Every time someone new eats the food he spelled to be restorative the figure has to deal with paused time, but only the first time someone lifts some of the ensorcelled food to their lips, and each time his excitement at the prospect of obtaining a new class grows more intense.
For the first hour only long-term, regular members of the church's congregation, and their hungry friends, come to the kitchen. The pastor is one of the figures serving them food, while Lucas continues the important work he was asked to do. During this time 22 people make their way through the kitchen, greeting Lucas with excited smiles and happily volunteering the same information they've volunteered before to other individuals tasked with doing Lucas's current work. The young jumper listens to distant conversations even as he writes down the information of various individuals. He smiles internally whenever he overhears someone saying that the food tastes different somehow, better than it has before. Such individuals also sometimes notice how immediately the pain they're in lessens, their old aches and pains fading and in some cases disappearing altogether. They don't know about the magic that is repairing their bodies, the sacred energies that course into them with every faint bite or spoonful of food they eat. Also during this time the chef gains more experience
Lucas doesn't consciously know this but his decision to pour all of his magic into the food has supercharged it. If not for his decision to infuse the food with healing magic again time, coupled with the diffuse nature of the soup would have weakened the healing properties of the magic, but Lucas's choice to suffuse the food with as much magic as he could in short order before the hungry congregants and community members began to arrive has sanctified the food and empowered it's naturally restorative and fortifying properties almost making it something like a potion of sorts.
More people begin to arrive during the second hour of the meal serving period. Some of these people are brand new, and of them a handful gawk at Lucas. These individuals, include homeless youth. teen parents, and college students can't resist the urge to take in the cool glass of water on a hot day that is the charming volunteer. His ability to feign kindness and his almost but not quite eerie sense of their emotional states is enough to allow them to develop crushes, platonic or otherwise, on the figure. And in the space of the hour 40 such individuals come through and eat more of Lucas's cooking, enough to allow him to level up his chef class one more time. He eagerly takes a new class ability, one that allows him to grant food he cooks very minor buffs, though he finds that it's not retroactive.
During this time the pastor gives a very brief address to the crowd of gathered individuals, and introduces Lucas to everyone though Lucas has already been social enough and diligent enough to do that himself. Lucas eagerly thanks everyone for joining them today, and during this time he experiences a very subtle glitch where he says a word but no one notices it. The young adventurer simply ignores the glitch, but not before noting that it's the first one he's experienced in a public situation.
During the last forty five minutes of the meal more people come through, and this group is the oddest and the largest. These folks are the irregulars; people who occasionally need the meals the kitchen provides but who don't love prospect of coming to the kitchen. This group numbers a total 45 of individuals, and by the time they eat the effects of the food are less miraculous, but still solidly strong. At the same time when the next to last person to eat grabs a spoonful of soup and lifts it to her lips she is unknowingly responsible for time freezing and Lucas gaining a new class, The excited hero immediately changes classes and gains a boost to his intelligence and charisma as a result of it as well as just enough experience to boost the power of "Support", making this the first time that a perk of his has been directly strengthened to a quantifiable extent.
"Support" is the most subtle of Lucas's perks other than "The Devil's Own Luck". This perk makes him a more effective leader and teammate, and boosts the efforts of his c;lose-by allies by the equivalent of a "+2", until just now, modifier in TTRPG terms and weakens the efforts of his c;lose-by enemies by "-2", or now "-3". In layman's terms all of the efforts of his allies by a tiny but noticeable margin and weakens the efforts of his enemies by an equal amount. The perk also allows for buffs or debuffs to affect all allies or enemies in close proximity to each other, but Lucas has not had many chances to buff allies or fight enemies. One effect this perk has had is that it allows his friends to cook food that is more delicious, more filling, and healthier than their past efforts. Another effect of it is that it has helped those who eat said food to ingest it more easily and thus allows them to eat it without fears of stomach pains. New spells also appear in the hero's mental grimoire, ones that offer minor buffs or debuffs to friends and enemies, targeting their attributes, but none that consider Lucas a viable target.
The hero delights in his new class and is excited to have the chance to grow as a healer and support provider but the day isn't done. When the last of the crowd leaves Lucas and the rest of his friends stay behind to clean up. Lucas is eager to put his newly enhanced perk to the test, and during these efforts Lucas gains the "Cleaner" class, a class whose initial benefits to him include a boost to his senses and to his skill with anything intended to be used to clean something. During the cleaning, Lucas does not quite gain enough experience to level up, but he knows that he will in time.
Eventually Lucas bids his new friends farewell and makes his way to the gym. He works out somewhat intensely during this time, gaining a series of new skills in the form of swimming and boxing, thanks to his time engaging in a decently stimulating jaunt around the lap pool, followed by his participation in a class that revolves around self-defense. Thanks to "Master of All" and his decision to swap classes to "Fighter" he manages to level up both his "Mage" and his "Fighter" class, opting to give himself a boost to his endurance as a class skill for "Fighter", and a boost to the rate at which he regenerates arcane energy as his class skill for "Mage". It is during this time that Lucas figures out that for his classes to level up he needs to gain class-based experience, but this is the first time that he has seen that he can level a class up without having the class equipped, there just seems to be some relative debuff to the experience gained by the classes he doesn't have equipped. This insight boosts his intelligence, the realization itself serving as a sort of training of the attribute.
By the time Lucas returns to his apartment he is immensely satisfied with the day he has had. The moon is visible in the night's sky when he steps into his apartment he is ready to spend the rest of the day honing his skills and gaining valuable experience. He immediately starts this off by using some of his magic to mess with some of his possessions, positioning and repositioning them as he pleases with telekinesis. For the first time the figure shuts his eyes and practices his telekinesis by feeling alone, an exercise which results in the acquisition of a strange new skill: Extrasensory Perception, or ESP. The figure excitedly practices this skill, even as he levels up his "Spatial Magic" skill and gains an expensive new spell: "Minor Teleport". This particular spell lets him teleport objects he can see and hit with a small magical ray, causing light, small objects he hits to appear in his hand. The mage's skills with this are enough to allow him to hit a kitchen knife with it and teleport it to him without any issues. Lucas's mind fills with possibilities as he takes in the wicked potential of this spell. Still, the spell costs enough that he can only cast it once or twice without waiting for his pool of arcane energy to recover which limits it's usefulness somewhat but that's only a short term problem.
Monday rolls around and when it does Lucas is delighted to find that he is familiar enough with his surroundings that he settles into a routine. The jumper almost immediately throws himself into his work the minute he arrives at the office and he quickly grinds the day away. The only notable event is his realization that Amy is developing a crush on him, something he notices during lunch when he is eating with her and their small cadre of colleagues, when she eagerly asks him about volunteering. On Monday afternoon the lad goes to the gym and works out, taking another dancing class and leveling up the class partway through the workout. He gains a class skill which allows him to more easily persuade anyone who sees him perform a few dances, which he realizes probably won't be very useful in this jump but might mean something later on in his "Chain" as his employer called it several days ago.
The figure spends part of the night leveling his rogue class and gaining skills associated with it thanks in part to his "Rogue" perk and his new spells. He sticks to public places, and stays out just long enough for some shopping outlets and malls to close. He limits his targets to small objects like keys and wallets with his magic, and occasionally targets people with debuffs. He also levels "Observe" enough that he can learn the moods of living things just by using the skill, When his rogue class levels up he snags a new skill which boosts the effectiveness of his actions when he is unseen by the people he is targeting. He also snags a title: "Arcane Sneak", which boosts his magical regeneration when he is unnoticed by people or in the immediate aftermath of him using magic to take something that belongs to someone else.
The next month and a half passes in a blur, and Lucas develops a decently strict schedule he sticks to. On Mondays he trains a specific class, not necessarily rogue but definitely something. On Tuesdays he works out, including taking Zumba, a boxing class, and swimming. On Wednesdays he does meal prep and stays at home honing minor stuff. On Thursday he does some sort of volunteering, and on Fridays he actually relaxes and does something like writing or website design. The weekends are filled with volunteering and city exploration.
During this time his classes, other than chef, dancer, and mage, are slow to level up. He actively practices magic, he is a regular chef, and he turns a passive admiration he once had for dancers into something he is surprisingly passionate about. He also begins to volunteer at the hospital he visited, spending a few hours every Saturday in a small room in the back of the hospital looking through paperwork and doing stuff he didn't anticipate a hospital volunteer doing. Still, he quickly racks up trust and admiration from the few hospital staff members who know of him, thanks to his ability to just not complain, coupled with his stunning effectiveness at what he does.
As he begins to approach the two month mark he is a level 10 chef, level 12 dancer, and a level 6 mage, and a level 3 fighter, rogue, and white mage, as well as a level 4 cleaner. It turns out that each class levels a bit differently, which has inadvertently skewed his leveling but he's become an advanced enough chef that his food can be actively beneficial or detrimental and that there is now a 5% reduction in how long it takes him to cook something. He can also now gain modifiers to his interactions with people who've eaten several dishes he's made, provided they enjoyed them. His dancing is similarly useful, and he is a much better mage now than he once was. The figure can also cast spells and use an ability that prevents something from getting dirty, or magically cleanse objects. Despite all of this he remains a level 1 human, having not gained any experience that would level him as a member of his species; it seems that for him to gain such experience he needs to engage in combat and even when he's sparred with people he doesn't fight them to unconsciousness.
He leaves his apartment on the last Monday in October with a smile on his face, ready to begin a new work week.

Hi all! My friend from work is retiring, he's big into his allotment and instead of getting him the standard farewell alcoholic beverage, I'm looking to buy him something he can use for his allotment.
I'm really not aware of the allotment lifestyle but I'm looking to spend upwards of £50. Anything you guys can think of that he'd appreciate?
Thanks :)

I reach into my inventory and pull out the tablet I received from the gacha mechanism I am the "Owner" of. I watch as the thing turns on and I begin to fiddle with it, going through a brief registration as I walk over to the part of my apartment that serves as a kitchen and I open my refrigerator door. I take a step back and decide to get creative and practice using my powers.
I close my eyes and use magic, casting spells to telekinetically reach into the fridge and pull out ingredients. This is messy and difficult but it results in me gaining experience and a new skill "Spatial Magic". I feel the keen impact of "Experience Booster" as even simple motions, and failures, grant me valuable experience. I keep my eyes on the tablet and I deftly manipulate it while I maneuver the food I plan to cook over to the appropriate parts of the kitchen. I deal with bouts of "Buggy" all the while but nothing actually disruptive. The drawback is annoying but so far it's been a nuisance more than anything else.
The tablet is easy to use and I feel my appreciation for the technology growing as I sync it up to the local wifi and I notice that the thing has an unlimited battery. The device promises to be useful with its unlimited battery...
I switch my class over to chef as I begin to cook. At the same time I skillfully use the tablet to listen to the news and I finally begin to have a reliable mechanism through which I can learn about the world I'm in. My cooking grants me experience, which "Master of All" makes universal, while I actively advance my "Passive Listening" skill and I grow in my overall awareness of the world around me. I fastidiously store every morsel of knowledge I acquire as I cook, and in minutes I have more food than I made yesterday. I again taste some of it and smile, satisfied by the skill I'm showing. The food tastes noticeably better today than it did last night. This is a trend that will absolutely continue in the days to come thanks to MoA and my dedication to honing my skills.
I take a beat to photograph the food, carefully and diligently using the multitude of experience I've earned since I gained that skill last night to snap some good pictures before posting them on social media and quickly writing a caption about "Meal-Prepping" which this kind of is. I'm better at it than any normal person could ever hope to be, since my food is fresh and will stay fresh in my inventory. After I do that I store the food, placing it safely in containers I own and then storing said containers in my inventory.
For the rest of the night I use my tablet to learn about the world while carefully practicing the magic I can use on myself and other objects. I gain a skill named "Enhancement Magic" which is certainly handy, and I also gain a "Meditation" skill after looking online for what "Real Gamers" would do and finding that this concept seems to exist in this world as well. While I am meditating I do indeed recover my arcane energy faster, and I even improve my intelligence attribute! As of this point in time I have not improved charisma, but this is the only attribute of mine that hasn't risen by at least one point thanks to the incredible synergy between "Master of All" and "Experience Booster".
Before I know it it's Thursday and I am on my way to work. I have another uneventful day of simply working to fix the backlog my company is in and thus grinding experience for skills. At lunch I again surprise my friends, but I share more of my food with them and get more experience with my chef class, It is enough to level up, and I select a skill that allows me to prepare a touch more food with my ingredients than is physically possible, which I know will come in handy down the line.
At the end of the day I go to the gym again and this time I explore the place fully. I find that it has several amenities, such as a decently large pool, numerous studios and even a few rings for sparring and martial arts-based physical conditioning. I keep my workout today simpler than it was two days ago, and as a result of this I only gain two skills: jogging and sprinting. I test my endurance and jog for close to an hour as a sort of light workout. For the last five minutes of the hour I go as "Full tilt" as I can on a mundane treadmill and effortlessly endure the experience, thanks to the tenacious "Tough As Nails" perk. While I'm working out I activate my gacha machine and get a ring that I cannot use as it boosts my charisma and I am prohibited from using stat enhancers like this by one of my drawbacks. I tuck it away in my inventory and mentally sigh. I'll undoubtedly need to get used to this kind of thing, since my "Starting Equipment" drawback is actually pretty significant even if it's only a temporary inconvenience.
I work out for a decent bit before heading home. At home I initiate work on longer-term projects. I don't bother making food today, though I continue to hone magic while utilizing my "Mage" class, and I also use my tablet to begin to do creative things like create graphics, write, and even try my hand at making websites from scratch. One minor seed I plant while attempting to get new skills is that I email a few charitable groups, particularly soup kitchens, hoping to get the chance to more easily grind "Chef" since it seems I get the biggest amounts of experience whenever food I cook gets eaten by others. I do this all for the sake of gaining new skills, ones which I prove able to gain very easily and I will be able to grind even more easily. My ability to just... not sleep proves it's worth its weight in gold, or choice points, as I use another night to grind valuable experience.
Throughout the night I keep hoping to get assigned a quest for a class like "Psionic" or "Psychic" and so far I've had no luck. A part of me wonders if I should be tricky and try to use my pseudo-psychic powers in front of someone but I quickly realize that such an action would be just as likely to get me a deception-based class as it would be to get me what I seek...
Friday rolls around and I complete my work week with ease. Work really is just a chance for me to grind my skills, and each day my speed, accuracy, and overall badassery in the context of my boring job increase. In days I've managed to sort through a healthy portion of the backlog we've been stuck in thanks to the fact that my speed and accuracy with stuff like typing. "Buggy" becomes less and less meaningful, thanks my slowly improving luck, as well as my ever increasing speed.
I don't level up as a chef today, but it doesn't matter since towards the end of my shift I get an email from a coordinator of a soup kitchen that is based out of a church near my apartment that asks me to stop by tomorrow for a chance to discuss what volunteering would look like and potentially help out for part of a shift. This news delights me and for my first non-picture post on social media I share how excited I am to have the chance to learn about volunteering. This post immediately begins to get likes on websites like the local equivalent of Twitter, a website and app named Chitchat. Some of the likes come from my coworkers, a handful of whom have found me and followed me.
At home I finally take the time to thoroughly and properly clean spaces such as my bathroom and to effectively organize the tiny living space I have. The activities are enough for me to earn new skills, with one particularly handy new skill being the "Cleaning" skill. I don't gain a new class, but for the most part this is to be expected. I suspect if I level up a class enough I'll automatically get access to new, "Prestige" classes seeing as that's one of the features I paid for with regards to my skills, but aside from that it seems that to gain new classes I need to effect others with my skills. Gaining some type of cleaner class will probably take me cleaning a public space, which is a fascinating thought to entertain as I can do such a thing under the cover of acting "Charitably".
As I sit in the cramped space I'm currently calling a home I wonder how altruistic I would be in a fully mundane, completely organic situation...
Right now I am achieving selfless ends but for entirely self-serving reasons. I want to work at a soup kitchen, to volunteer my time and energy not to help someone but to empower myself as this provides me with the easiest means to cook food for other people in ways that will award me a significant amount of experience. It's true that I am achieving positive, beneficial ends, not only for myself but for others as well, but given the simple reality that my motives are so impure it's a bit difficult to sit here and pretend that I'm a righteous sort. Though I doubt the people I'm helping will actually mind that my motives don't stem from a heart of gold...
I am steadily continuing my journey towards getting stronger as I swiftly type away using my tablet's digital keypad. A video is playing via picture-in-picture and I'm listening to a chef talk about making delicious soup on a budget, mostly to get myself in the right state of mind. Eventually that video ends and I quickly listen to I'm writing out a short fantasy story, as an exercise in creative writing. The words are flowing and I'm easily getting into the grove.
The secondary train of thought I possess is keeping track of the bars associated with my attributes and is noticing that this odd exercise is directly increasing my intelligence and charisma attributes, as it seems that some activities are nice tests of more than one attribute.
I devote myself to this particular sort of training all while I use simple casts of my telekinetic magic to hone my growing familiarity with an incredibly vital field of magic. By the time Saturday morning rolls around I've gained a point in charisma and increased my writing level several times, which has the effect of granting me levels in other skills such as singing and speed typing. At this point I can write nearly 300 words a minute, a hilarious number for me to be able to type and by the time I'm done with this jump that number will surely be much, much higher thanks to the nature of my job as well as my favorite perk Master of All.
When it's late enough on Saturday that the sun is out I find myself on the sidewalk, slowly walking towards a cafe. I have a short bit of time before I need to go to the soup kitchen so I decide to grab some breakfast someone else cooked, as a bit of a treat. The cafe is a quaint little thing located not terribly far from my apartment and pretty close to the church the soup kitchen is operating out of.
Soup kitchens operating out of churches was something I heard of back on the "Earth" I hail from, but it's not something I ever actually saw... This version of Earth really seems to have taken after various stereotypes and assumptions about Earth that didn't always reflect reality.
I enter the cafe and walk towards the back of the line of people waiting for a chance to order their food. The line ahead of me isn't huge, but it's bigger than I would have thought if someone asked me to picture a line at a cafe. The cashiers diligently do their jobs and in a matter of minutes I'm walking towards a cashier. I feel the subtle effects of TDOL as I approach a strikingly pretty cashier.
The woman is a surprisingly tan, probably Hispanic, redhead whose hair smells of somewhat newly applied hair dye. She smiles brightly at me as I approach her. She is... quite pretty, and as I approach her I dare to wonder if there's a sort of persuasive route I can take to getting her number. Internally I smile as I sense the back of my mind, the unconscious part of my mind, sort through potential conversational strategies that might allow me to successfully flirt in the short time frame I have to interact with her. I pause time with one of my perks, and allow my rapid mind the time it needs.
I feel various perks working together as I use "Observe" on the cashier. A small load of information appears in my head allowing me to learn her name, as the cafe doesn't require nametags, and various minor facts about her. This is due to the fact that "Observe" has slowly and steadily increased in level over the last few days, and each time it increases in level it's cooldown decreases and how much I learn when I use it increases as well.
What I have just learned is factoring into the strategies and instincts I feel considering my desire. My perks powerfully hone my charisma, turning it into a valuable weapon and tool in my toolkit when it comes to interpersonal stuff. I allow my mind a second, as I decide on my strategy and then with a thought I unpause reality itself. I walk over to the redheaded Hispanic woman with a smile.
"Hey there, how's it going?" I ask with a happy grin and she smiles back at me. She asks what I'd like and I reply with whatever she thinks tastes the best. This surprises her, and my smile relaxes a touch.
"I'm about to go into an interview for a volunteering opportunity and I wanted to grab something light for breakfast. I'll be honest I'm not normally one for breakfast foods but I'm trying to broaden my horizons." I reply, relaxedly. She sizes me up and then taps some of the keys on her cash register. A number appears on the thing and she asks me for my name. I give it to her and she types it into the machine as well, before holding her hand out for my payment.
"You're not gonna tell me what it is?" I ask and she smiles in a curiously catlike fashion before replying.
"Only if you ask." She says, and for a moment I look at her and decide, instinctually, not to do so. She nods when I hand her my card, and she quietly calls me funny. She hands me my card and a receipt, and I fill out the paperwork with a confident grin on my face. I walk over to where other customers are waiting for their food, and I wonder if I made the right moves. I don't have to wait long, as when I get my order I am pleasantly surprised that the top napkin of the handful placed on the tray my food was given to me on has a number scrawled onto it, and the girl's name written in what I assume must be her handwriting.
The order I receive, Hannah's suggestion, is a light turkey croissant, and a delicious, fruity drink. I enter the number into my phone and text the cashier immediately, though I don't anticipate getting a response until a bit later. My message is simple, it's a short introduction and a thank you for the dish.
I do the stereotypically millennial act of photographing the food, posting it online, and then actually eating it, taking only a short few minutes to do so, and when I'm done I clean up after myself before I quietly leave the cafe. I smile as I feel the early morning sunshine beam down on me. This is the first chance I've really had to appreciate the sunlight during the day, as it's decently in the middle of Autumn and so most of my day is spent at work.
The church I'm heading to is visible from where I'm standing, so I appreciate its beautiful architecture, which reminds me of a Protestant church back in my version of the United States, for a second before making my way there. Reaching it only takes me the duration of a short walk and I arrive there early enough that I am about ten minutes early. This is within the window of polite earliness that I am used to back in my homeworld. I switch my class over to chef again as I wait to be seen. In minutes I am speaking to a kind-eyed older Black man who is the church's pastor.
Thanks to perks and my very specifically busted, for this kind of thing, build, I am able to make a hilariously good first impression on the kind pastor who runs the soup kitchen. I spend much of the rest of the day here, doing m. In minutes I'm assisting several more experienced cooks with doing minor preparatory work for tomorrow's meal hour. The soup kitchen is open every weekend, and I make a very good impression on my fellow chefs thanks to my class, skills, and knowledge I gained when it comes to soup making last night, though the food we make is varied.
I diligently follow instructions, having wisely told my fellow chefs that I'm new to cooking, and as I cook with the chefs, I level up my cooking class again. This time the upgrade I select is a boost to the speed at which I can produce food, cutting down how long it takes me to cook something by 2%, a rate which will increase as I level up more. This is not a big improvement, but in time... In time this'll become something astounding.
During this time I've also been getting occasional text messages from Hannah. We've been chatting and I've taken pictures with some of my new friends during brief lulls between intensive moments of culinary action. This habit of mine has gotten weird looks from my new friends, all of whom are older than me, but given my enthusiasm and "natural" skill, no one has actually tried to criticize me or get me to stop. It seems that everyone considers me a bit of a lucky charm, and to be fair... I am.
I cook with the chefs for well over five hours, and they are surprised to feel the effects of perks in my possession. This is a rare opportunity for me to be a leader and team player so I happily contribute my perks to the success of the kitchen. I am a dynamic, impossibly fast learner, and so by the time two hours have passed I'm cooking and engaging with my new friends with a stunningly natural rapport and flow, but beyond that I'm able to use "Teamworker" and "Motivator" two of my "Generic Cubicle" perks for the first time. This gets coupled with the power of "Support", which makes my allies far more effective at everything. By the tme the first hour passes and I get into my grove we're cooking faster, and we're making fewer mistakes, as well as finding it easier to manage the necessary chaos that comes with working in a decently large kitchen. Even my luck is contagious!
By the time the pastor, who has been cooking alongside us, says that we've done enough for today and can do the rest tomorrow it's partway through the afternoon. In a moment of inspiration, after a long day working in the kitchen, I ask the pastor to pray over the food and for us, which he smiles at me for and motions for everyone to bow their head in prayer. I do as everyone else does, and am thankfully when people do not grab hands around me. I have an idea I want to test out and to do it I need everyone to either leave or have their eyes shut for a moment.
I use my enhanced senses to easily track when everyone's eyes are shut and when they are I open mine and quickly cast a spell aimed at the food. The spell I cast is a simple healing spell and I am doing this to see if I can enchant and enhance food with magic. The big pot, filled with a healthy soup meant to supplement a smaller dish like some bread, begins to glow and I smile as I shut my eyes. The glow is subtle and only lasts a brief second so when it ends no one seems to notice it. This brings a smile to my face, as does the acquisition of a pair of new skills I get which freezes time for a split second but is worth it: one is named "Stealth-Casting" and even before I read the description I know what it does: it makes it harder to detect my magic, especially when I don't use it on living creatures. This skill is worth its weight in gold and when everyone looks at me I am cheesing pretty hard. The other skill is named "Enhancement" and it allows me to funnel supernatural energy into objects to subtly enhance them. This skill... this is one of the foundational attributes of some versions of alchemy, and the knowledge that I have acquired such a beauty of a skill is incredibly exciting. I tell everyone I'm excited for tomorrow, and no one has any difficulty believing me, definitely only thanks to my perks bolstering my charisma.
We all quickly get ready to go home, and I am sad to say farewell to my new friends but I am quick to assure everyone I'll be here bright and early on Sunday. On Sundays, the team, whoever can make it at leasr, is here from 9:30 until 2:30, primarily serving food and doing kitchen maintenance. I plan to join them. As I walk home I use my gacha mechanic and I get a water bottle that serves as an arcane energy potion I can use once a day to completely refill my arcane energy pool!
I arrive home uneventfully, and I make use of my new toy immediately, the instant that my arcane pool runs out of energy after I run out of energy the first time, as I train my magic and my other skills for the rest of the day. At the same time I text Hannah and a handful of my coworkers who message me on Flickpic, this world's version of Instagram, while I grind through the night. Sunday rolls around, and not super long after the sun peeks out over the horizon I make my way to the church, ready to serve the community and potentially level up some more. One minor thing I get, after using my gacha mechanic today, that I don't think I'll, personally, ever need is a pillow which protects against bad dreams. It's a neat curiosity, and I plan to keep it, but seeing as I don't sleep I think it'll be more for my friends, romantic interests, and anyone else who I might give it to for a short while.

Where do I even begin.
I have a wonderful customer who is apparently butthurt over something I didn't do. Claiming that I was rude when I was not. Even my coworkers don't believe him at this point.
He stopped coming through my lane, but I keep doing my job with greeting people and farewelling people as well. Told me to shut the fuck up both times.
Jokes on you fucker - we now have your face on one of our store cameras and he isn't going to like the repercussions of his glorious actions. Even now I am talking (texting on lunch) to another PiC and who is more than ready to tell him not to come back.
Can't wait for my store director or assistant store director to print it off, then the PiC will "kindly" tell him to not comeback.
Oh, how beautiful and ironic this situation has been.

I made a vlog style blog about getting laid off and my coworkers throwing me a farewell party. My Video is being pushed to teenagers that watch prank videos. My video is mainly being suggested to people who've never even had a job lol. My video is starting to get downvotes and they're immediately clicking off. How can I get youtube to target the right audience for my video?
These are the video titles that my video is being suggested after:
Wiping Sh*t On People Prank Part 3 : Bathroom Prank Gone Wrong
Fake call Hey Baby .... what she still around Tiktok compilation��
OPENING THE SUNROOF WHILE GOING THROUGH THE CAR WASH
CONSTANTLY BRINGING UP MY SISTERS EX’S PRANK
Milk Chug Challenge VOMIT ALERT
My hash tags for this video are #unemployment #laidoff #fired #fairwellparty #unemployed
The category is also people/blogs.

This atty I don’t even assist directly had it out for me because I’m not an a-hole to clients and can’t push back on them. I can push back on clients without being an a-hole and maintaining professionalism. She belittled me in front of my coworkers saying that me pushing back is “not my strongest suit.” I thought that day whatever her issue was had ended. I didn’t give in to her drama. But I cried later that day because I have been having it rough mentally these past few weeks among them self doubt and for this lady to come and make me feel worse was not cool.
The following morning I got a nasty email from this atty. She said “stop tasking me to do things. It is not your place to tell me how to do my job. You cannot keep telling me how to do my job when the issue is that you are unwilling to do what you have been instructed to do.” Instructed to do means being an a-hole to clients. I was taken back by her nastiness because all I’ve been doing as part of my job is relaying a damn message. I showed the email to coworkers to make sure I wasn’t crazy what I was reading. They were shocked and told me to talk to our supervisor who is the office manager.
Apparently it’s not the first time this atty acted like this. I have been feeling worse mentally because other Attys and coworkers like this atty. I had to miss out on a dear colleague’s farewell lunch because she was there. I’ve never experienced such hostility. If I was the problem, then my Attys and previous jobs wouldn’t have talked about me in such a positive way. Going forward, I plan to stay out of social gatherings because this lady will be there. I intend to ignore her and work less with her.

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Chapter 48
Nick Smith
Adventurer Level: 7
Human - American
​
I woke up feeling fully rested for the first time in quite a while. As I stretched away the remaining stiffness in my muscles, I found myself enjoying the fluffiness of the bedding against my skin. I hadn't been able to enjoy it much last night because I'd passed out right as my head hit the pillow. It had been an exhausting week of training and translating, but all that's over now. Well, the translating, at least. I'm sure Nash has something evil in mind for when we're on the road.
I let out a sigh when I realized I would have to be leaving this bed. The bed isn't even the best part about the inn, though. I'd been able to get a warm shower, a shave, and a haircut as well. I didn't have much beard to shave, of course, but the hairs under my nose and on my chin had been getting annoying. The shower was amazing, and very much needed. I'd become accustomed to my stench for the most part, but every now and again I'd get a whiff that made my eyes water.
Reluctantly, I left the softness of my bed and found my clothes. The Marfix Inn also had a laundry service, and I had taken full advantage of it to get my clothing and armor cleaned. On the wall near the door were two boxes that had conveyer belts inside them. In one box I found my clothes neatly folded alongside my armor, and in the other box I found the breakfast I had ordered. When we first began staying at the inn my meal orders had raised eyebrows, but now the staff was used to it. They even made recommendations of things that they thought might taste good together.
Normally I don't bother with a breakfast order and just pick something up from a stall, but I get one free meal a day during my stay and I wanted to use it on our last day here. The wonderful smell of the breakfast convinced me that I had made the right choice. There were two sides, one of thin meat strips that tasted like a mixture of canned ham and beef jerky, and a vegetable that looked like a dark green celery stick but tasted like asparagus. I'd been hesitant to try it at first due to my hatred of celery, but one of the elven chefs convinced me to give it a try. Now, I regret not ordering it sooner.
The entree was a mixture of eggs and meat, and I didn't know which animal either were from. This made me a little hesitant to try it, but the smell helped me fight off my doubts. I picked at my breakfast as I pulled on my clothes and armor. Unsurprisingly, the food was really good. Once I finished dressing myself, I moved my meal to the small table in the corner of the room and dug in.
My breakfast rapidly vanished, and once I was finished I leaned back and let the well-padded chair comfort me. I let out a burp, then reached into my nearly bulging coin purse and brought out a gold coin, placing it on the table next to the meal tray before turning my attention to putting my armor on. Once I squeezed into everything and all the straps were tied, I took one last look around.
The room itself was tastefully decorated with wooden walls and engraved stone trim. They had used a light colored wood which seemed to glow when the curtains were open. The window was able to be opened, which wasn't something I had seen in many other places. There were also some well done paintings depicting some exciting scenery, like a man arm wrestling a dragon and a mage casting fireball.
The bathroom had a toilet, sink, and the aforementioned shower. Even without any additional decorations, it was the fanciest bathroom I'd every personally seen. The toilet had a footrest and the shower had a seat, both of which made it easy to relax while taking care of business. I could see why Renv's coworker said some people use the inn as their vacation destinations. My entire stay had felt like one. I felt a small pang of sadness when I realized how much I'm going to miss these luxuries, but comforted myself with the thought that we'll probably find another Marfix Inn during our travels.
With another small sigh, I turned to the door and opened it to find Nash and Yulk waiting outside. Nash was holding his fist up as if he were about to knock. The three of us stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.
"Oh good, you're up," Yulk grinned.
"Yep, he sure is," Nash nodded. "That's good, we can get on the road right away. Come on."
I gave my room one final glance before I followed my brothers-by-adoption out of the inn. The staff bid us farewell as we left, urging us to visit again soon. We began to head to the place where Imlor had the cart set up when I spotted Regent Oakmor dashing our way. I debated whether or not to start running, but he caught up to us before I could make up my mind.
"Hello boys," he said with a beaming smile. "Glad I caught you before you left."
"Why's that, sir?" Nash asked. "Your business with Nick is done, right? You already paid us and everything, your highness."
"Oh yes, yes, don't worry. I have no further jobs for you," Oakmor laughed. "The reason I wanted to catch you is to let you know that we would normally throw a goodbye celebration, on account of Nick awakening our monarch and everything. Unfortunately, we can't due to... Well... Critical matters of state that must be addressed immediately."
"That's alright, sir. I understand," I said.
"Good, good. I didn't want you to think we were terrible hosts or anything. Anyway, the next time you visit Bolisir I'd ask that you send a message first so we can properly plan a thank you celebration."
"We already had a feast. Surely that counts, your majesty," Yulk added.
"Actually, the feast was specifically to celebrate the return of His Highness King Yssinirath," the elf shrugged. "Royalty get their own party. Plus, combining celebrations is tacky. No, even if it must be delayed for the moment, I am required to insist that we do a proper celebration for Nick's contribution as soon as we are able."
After a bit more back and forth on the merits of such a celebration, we relented to Oakmor's request. Or demand disguised as a request, rather. Once we agreed, he merrily sent us on our way. People waved as we passed, which was a welcome change from the awkward stares that we got when we first arrived. They actually seemed happy when I waved back, too, which made me feel good. People had been friendly like this back home, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. Before long, we found Imlor packing up his cart.
"Hi Imlor," I said as we approached.
"Hey guys, you ready to hit the road?" he asked.
"Yep," Nash said as he grabbed a heavy-looking sack from the gnome and carried it into the cart.
"Very much so," Yulk agreed as he climbed into the cart after Nash. "While I've enjoyed our stay, I'd very much like to check the mail to see if mother sent anything. I've been keeping her updated, but have told her to send her replies to Kirkena because we didn't know for sure how long we'd be in Bolisir."
I took one last look around the city built within the trees. Renv had said his farewells yesterday because his uncle was taking him to see the rest of his family. It ended up being a bit of a twist of fate. Instead of Renv seeing us off, we had seen him off. However, it appeared that someone else may want to see us off. The someone that was moving our way at an unnaturally fast pace.
"Uh... hey, guys?" I pointed at the figure racing toward us.
In the time it took for Nash and Yulk to turn their heads to look, the unidentifiable figure got close enough for me to figure out that it was a certain female vampire. The next thing I knew Olmira the Eternal was standing beside me, carrying a duffel bag and looking at Yulk. I questioned my sanity when I realized that she didn't look like she'd been running at all. She was breathing normally and her hair wasn't even out of place in the slightest. The hell kind of product does she use?
"Hi Olmira," Yulk's smile beamed. "Come to see us off?"
"And to chastise you," She placed her hands on her hips. "It isn't proper for a gentleman to fail to bid a lady goodbye, Yulk. Even when he's the one doing the leaving."
Yulk's smile faded, "Ah, I see. You're right, I apologize. I beg your forgiveness, milady."
Yulk stood and bowed, while Nash and I gave the two of them a befuddled look.
"I'll forgive you on the condition that you allow me to join your party," Olmira smiled, showing the briefest hint of fang.
"Really? Why do you wanna travel with us?" Nash asked.
"Well, the Regent is now advisor to the king. An advisor having an advisor is a bit much," She chuckled. "Plus, the king already has an immortal magical advisor. A djinn by the name of... um... Relph, I think it was? Yssinirath retrieved him yesterday. So, I am out of a job, haven't travelled in well over a century, and can't help but wonder what sort of hijinks my favorite pupil is going to get into with this human here."
As she was explaining herself, I turned to look back the way she had came. It had to be at least a half a mile from where I had initially spotted her, and it was a decent uphill gradient, as well. She'd run that distance in less than ten seconds without looking the least bit phased. And to top it off, she's a magic user. She could be pretty helpful in a fight.
'I suggest we bring her along,' Ten said. 'Her relationship with Yulk leads me to believe that she has a vested interest in helping us, and she would be a powerful ally.'
'Quit reading my mind,' I replied.
'I can't read your mind without you directing your thoughts at me. Yet. I was simply inferring based the context and your current gaze.'
"It would be an honor to travel with you, Lady Olmira," Yulk said.
"Wait a minute," Nash interrupted. "What are you going to do about blood?"
Olmira held up a jug and shook it, "I'm bringing some with me. Despite my youthful appearance, I'm an elder vampire. I don't need to feed as much as younger vampires do, so this is well over a years supply. Plus I can visit a blood-keeper if I need to top up."
"Are you royalty or nobility or something?" I asked.
"Pardon?" She gave me a confused look. "Oh, because of Yulk. No, I'm not. Not anymore. I was a noblewoman before I was turned, but my title was revoked due to my conversion to vampirism. Immortals aren't allowed to be nobles in Eldravia."
"Eldravia?"
"A nation to the south of Bolisir and the Unified Chiefdoms," Yulk interjected.
"Yes. Eldravia is known for its wine and multi-species elected monarchy. Yulk previously learned of my noble heritage and insists upon calling me by my former honorifics," Olmira explained. "It used to annoy me, but I've long since grown used to it."
"Oh okay, good," I laughed. "I didn't want to have to walk on eggshells the whole journey."
"Anyway, I'm obviously fine with Olmira travelling with us," Yulk grinned. "Are there any objections?"
"Nope," I said.
"I guess not," Nash shrugged.
"It'll be good to have another guard, I suppose," Imlor chimed in.
"It's unanimous, then. Allow me, milady," Yulk stood and offered his hand to Olmira.
She took his hand and climbed into the cart, taking a seat next to Yulk. I climbed up after her and took my seat next to Nash.
"Let our hopefully-uninteresting journey begin," Imlor said, turning back toward the hnarses.
The carts began to move and I watched the as the city that is constantly shaded by trees slowly shrank into the distance. Once we cleared those trees, my eyes stung trying to adjust to all the extra sunlight. We travelled for about an hour in silence before my curiosity got the better of me.
"So what's Eldravia like, Olmira?" I asked.
"I really wouldn't know what it's like these days," the vampire smiled sadly. "It's been well over a century since I left, and I haven't had reason to return. Nor do I seek out news of my homeland. I can tell you what it used to be like, though."
"Yes, please."
"Alright. Eldravia had massive tracts of land dedicated to growing fruit. Trees, bushes, and vines littered the landscape. These fruits were used to make all sorts of alcohol, but wine was by far the most popular. Most noble houses either directly owned or were heavily invested in wineries and the farms that supplied them."
"A nation of drunks?" Nash asked.
Olmira laughed, "Actually, most of their wine ended up exported. Eldravia doesn't have much in the way of metallic resources, so trade was important to make up the deficit. The quality of our wine made certain that it fetched a high price. So much so that it actually aided in our diplomacy, which in turn ended up being crucial for our national defense."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll give you an example that happened before I was born. Plimorno, one of the nations that border Eldravia, declared war as part of an expansion campaign. They won easily, but the people of Eldravia stopped making wine in protest. Once the wine stopped flowing other neighboring nations, including the Unified Chiefdoms, declared war on Plimorno to force it to give Eldravia back its independence. However, this war didn't get very far because the citizens of Plimorno revolted against their queen. She was executed along with most of their nobility, and Eldravia became independent once again."
"Wow," I whistled. "People really like wine, I guess. So you said Eldravia's led by an elected monarchy? How does that work?"
"A multi-species elected monarchy," she corrected me. "Essentially, nobility is decided by influence rather than by blood or species. Whoever can wave the most gold around becomes nobility, which results in their family also becoming nobility and forming a noble house. It is from these houses that candidates for the throne are chosen, and the general populace votes on which candidate becomes king or queen. These monarchs decide upon the laws of the land and rule until death or they are deposed."
"Deposed?"
"Yes. If a monarch doesn't live up to expectations, the noble houses have the right to dethrone them. They actually get together once per year to vote on whether or not to do so. It takes a four-fifths majority vote to get a king or queen off their throne."
"Doesn't the monarch put up a fight?"
"They don't have their own military forces, so they have to rely on the forces of their house. Assuming their house didn't vote to dethrone them, of course. Either way, any military they could muster would be heavily outnumbered, and they would likely face execution for their efforts."
"I see. So back to the noble houses, how do they become noble?"
"If a monarch takes note of someone's accomplishments, they elect them as a candidate for nobility. The populace, including the other nobles, then vote on whether or not this individual becomes a noble. If they do, they become the leader of a noble house comprised of their family members. If they don't, then they go about their business until next time."
"Sorry to interrupt," Imlor said. "If we're gonna have lunch today, now's the best time to do it."
"Alright, let's take a break, then," Nash replied.
Imlor nodded, then pulled the cart off of the road. We all climbed off and stretched our legs, then had a quick meal of dried meats and water. Except for Olmira, who didn't eat or drink. Once he finished his piece of road jerky, Nash walked up to me with an evil grin. The grin alone told me what was coming, and I felt a familiar dread begin to well up within my chest.
"Time for training, Nick."
​
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Dearest Seraph,
♫ - Resurrections (piano)
It's 66 degrees in my room. Dunno what happened. My sciatica flared up & my thigh & lower back aches. My neck is tense from the way I'm sitting. Jestem zpienta (?) everywhere.
I barely slept tonight after drinking a monster at work yesterday afternoon. It wasn't just the caffeine, it was also anxiety.
♫ - Scattered & Lost (piano)
Part of my head aches because my neck aches. Man, I wish my writing was better. I wrote better at 16 than I do now. I feel so stupid.
♫ - Quite & Falling (piano)
Contorting my leg into weird positions to put it under strain so when I release it I feel temporary relief from everything.
♫ - Madeline & Theo (piano) [I adore this song. It's one of my favourite things composed, ever.]
I want to cut off & pull out my lower spine & make it stop. I regret taking pain-free days for granted. Help me.
♫ - Little Goth (piano)
My sex work account is at 900 followers now. I've made less than $100 so far. Started findom. Going to lean into it heavily. I am 100% banking on being attractive, I need to survive. I would hate myself for this in the past. Not because of some weird moralist bullshit, but because I'm sexually traumatised. I started making "content" as a minor.
♫ - Exhale (piano) [Another one of my favourite pieces; though I like the original version better.]
No offense but this string instrument, violin/viola/whatever sounds like it's crying in pain. I don't like it in this track.
♫ - Night Market
Some people are "in love" with me. I'm taken aback by how many people are into me, even physically. It's surreal. I'm heavily dissociated from everything so I genuinely cannot feel why they like me. I guess, cognitively, I understand it.
♫ - The Empty Space Above
I'm well-spoken (not here, evidently) & precise in my language, I'm blunt with my expectations & demands in a polite way, I'm pretty...
♫ - Fear of the Unknown (one of my favourites from the Farewell OST)
...I'm kind, tolerant, accepting, sociable. I have clear boundaries & am assertive. I have interests & hobbies. I have a job other than SW. I don't beg people for tips. I don't complain about anything concerning SW, just my own life. I'm open about my struggles without shame. I don't cause or engage with drama. I retweet people's content & comment & compliment media & people I think are lovely. I'm flexible with people's payment for services. What's there not to like about me as a sex worker? I suppose a lot of people find me intimidating. It's possibly because of the way I speak; I don't always match energy.
Here it comes, the best part of the track. The quietest. It's just the four chord piano with the aggressive synth/bass & ticking & single note, I don't know how to describe it. I should take music theory in college. It would help tremendously.
♫ - In Stasis (my favourite track :>)
♫ - The Woman & the Bird
I'm talking to a moot who believes they love me. Telling them I'm a degenerate in a lot of ways & that they can ask me any questions & I'll answer.
♫ - Early Birds
He's not answering for now, lol. Someone DM'd me on discord calling me the cutest person ever.
My autism is very visible to other autistic people. A lot of allistic people just find me intimidating or weird. It kinda bums me out. I'm on good terms with all my coworkers, though. I make them all laugh with no exceptions. They certainly know I'm a little weirdo.
♫ - Forsaken City (b-side)
It's 7 am. Barely slept all night. Oh. I have a swollen lymph node in the place I said ached. Whoops.
Alright, that's enough for a first entry. I'm going to get up & make myself something to eat & drink.
With love,
derealise
༒︎♱༒︎♱༒︎♱༒︎♱༒︎♱༒︎♱⁴

First off, let's get the formalities out of the way.

What is this?

This is a note to and about the online trans voice community (mostly restricted to this subreddit and a couple big Discord communities), and in it, I'll be laying out all of my frustrations with this sub and those Discord servers over the like, 1.5 years that I've spent somewhat involved with them. I have a lot to talk about.

Why are you making this?

Because I've seriously become tired of how draining these places often are. There's a reason my post history has such an unexpectedly wide gap; it's that I discovered how unhealthy being here actually is. It's so unhealthy that I might delete this account after I figure out a solution for keeping the Selene clip collection alive. This is also a great segue into the next question:

Who the hell do you think you are?

I am u/Cosmic_Marmalade, a sort-of known volunteer on here and on Discord. I've made the Selene archive and the L's Guide critique and have just generally dedicated a serious amount of time to helping out folks (and learning myself) since late 2022. It's not much compared to some other recognizable characters on here, but I believe I've been in these spaces for long enough that I can say something of tangible value. Anyway.
Once again, I want to remind you that this won't exactly be a perfectly-summarized bullet list. I'm gonna ramble and there's gonna be a lot of words, so expect exactly that.
I'm gonna be using they/them to refer to myself here just because I want to. I'm letting you know this because I've consistently been "a she", so to speak, before this post. Don't think too much about it.

1. Just a little bit of lore about me while we're here

I first got into trans voice when I was 14 (two years ago; I'm 16 at the moment, how shocking) through Lsomethingsomething's infamous guide to voice feminization. I didn't really get anywhere using it so I started looking around for other methods and stuff online, and eventually decided I'll become active in the online communities to hopefully get a little bit of that learning-by-(supervised)-teaching going. From there, I started doing the whole helping-people-and-linking-to-resources thing, talked to and consumed the material of people more educated than I am, and eventually started kind of knowing what I was doing to a certain degree. I wasn't arrogant by any means, but I was a little more confident in myself. I got better at explaining stuff and made that clip post that I'm still quite proud of.
One thing I never told anybody before is the reason I spent so much time still learning and still helping: I wasn't actually satisfied with my voice just yet. It's quite the systemic problem really; most people who figure out the secret sauce have no reason to remain here, especially when they get nothing (or even less) in return. The thing I like blaming for my lack of vocal prowess is the fact that I live in... imperfect conditions for a transgender person practicing their voice. I can't exactly have a VFE routine since those get quite loud, nor can I start habitualizing my voice effectively (since that would require both never leaving my room and only speaking at a restrictively low volume in there to avoid suspicion). Things like yelling and overfullness have also been quite troublesome for similar reasons. Is this really the only reason I haven't gotten anywhere after flying way past the expected time-for-satisfaction for voice? I don't know. Maybe? I just want you to hold your "Oh I bet they've got some inherent FLAW in their throat that makes it UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to EVER make a pleasant female-coded sound" horses for the time being. One can't draw valid conclusions from an experiment with so many non-standardized variables like this one, okay?
Anyway, yes, that's my deathly secret. Oh yeah, here's one more directed to Sumi the voice teacher: So, remember that time I made you like, completely reinvent a new term for "compression" because you thought the reason I strained during speech was because I was going off my own intuition regarding what the term means? Well, I wasn't actually doing that. I was actually already vocalizing in a horribly strained manner before and just happened to attempt your idea of compression (directly from the wiki) to that faulty template. Whoopsies!
Now that that's done, let's get to the offensive parts of this essay.

2. The deeply alienating uwu transbian culture

Here's a characteristic of these communities that's probably great if you're one specific flavor of person but utterly dreadful if you're anything else. I really wouldn't mind this as much if the thigh-high-wearing boymoders were just a small portion of the crowd, but it really feels like everybody around me is a gamer catgirl even though that's obviously not true. With all due respect, my dear 4chan-browsing nyaa smol beans, you really... claim the space, let's say. You're just a lot louder than everyone else and I feel like it makes those of us who aren't inclined to skirt-go-spinny-on-the-blahaj feel really isolated.
I also want to note that this isn't exactly just a problem with trans voice spaces in particular; most mainstream online trans spaces (especially those featuring younger people) also suffer from this severe pressure to act like the ideal cute-girl transfem you see on traa and egg_irl and such. It's to be expected, really, but it still upsets me that it's so hard to find people with a similar personality and/or self-expression to mine. If you feel as lonely in these communities as I do, I sincerely wish you the goddamn best in the world and want to let you know that I get it. I really do. I'm not about to tell you it's society or internalized transphobia or whatever, I'm just here to tell you that I truly understand how you feel.
There's also not enough trans men and generally masculine-presenting individuals 'round these parts, which again makes sense considering how unwelcoming big online spaces are to them and the seemingly lower demand for voice masculinization, but I still wish there was more of them.
So, to conclude my thoughts on this matter: It's alienation. I don't fit in with the "gib pats :3" folks and it just so happens that they are the dominant demographic in both these spaces and online trans spaces as a whole. Kind of unsolvable really but I might as well put it here in this totally-unnecessary farewell note. Try to stop me, I dare you.

3. Misinformation and the ungrateful bastards (tone shift much?)

Volunteering out of the goodness of your heart to help people unfortunately doesn't result in heartfelt "thank you"s and smiley face emojis. On some occasions, you get annoying entitled brats who think they have any semblance of a right to disrespect the ones providing them with this free-of-charge service. People just blazing with anger and throwing it at you as you try to explain to them that no, this 4chan sissification voice guide they found online IS awful and WILL be less effective at getting you the results you want. Now, obviously these people are severely mentally troubled for all sorts of reasons and the stress of voice training (which is its own topic) doesn't help, but there comes a point where this lack of discipline is just too much. You don't even KNOW how often I've seen people treat Selene (well-known teacher) with zero goddamn respect as if she's doing anything but helping them at the cost of her precious time. Something a lot of you (obviously might not be you specifically but also it MIGHT be you specifically) gotta understand is that you don't actually deserve our help and our time. I think I'll refrain from naming people here, but us volunteers are doing this and getting very little in return. Some people think we're part of a conspiracy to brainwash the masses and that we're all evil dumb idiots lying to get you to buy lessons from the teachers we've been employed by. That's not the case! We're just normal (well...) people wasting our priceless time on people who clearly aren't worthy of it!
Let me be clear here: This is what I (in bold) think. I don't want to see you harassing my fellow unpaid coworkers because I said some things you don't like. They absolutely have different philosophies than mine. I don't like you, but maybe they do, so show them the appreciation they deserve (and yes, they do deserve it cause they actually did something). If you just wanna scratch that harassment itch, I'm right here. Send me alllll the hate you've got.
The other thing this section shall be dedicated to is the pitiful state of information and methodology on here despite all of our best efforts. As an example, scroll through the front page on transvoice real quick and stop when you see a Voice Tools screenshot or video. Chances are that all it took was a few seconds to come across one of those. I tried it and I'm pretty sure it took me under half a minute on the crappy new big-man Reddit UI. Take a shot every time you see some poor soul obsessing over muscles and the larynx and the nebulous "resonance" (which never means the same thing no matter who you ask). It's all just a mess and that is made even worse by the existence of the snake oil proponents who resist the size/weight model on the grounds of "uhhh ummmm everybody learns differently" as they explain how you need to look at your throat in the mirror and trial-and-error your way into contracting the appropriate muscles. Ughhhhh. You know, I was around for that whole thing. I don't know if they still swear by this oropharyngeal-closure stuff in Scinguistics these days, but oh man people loved that gif of the lady terraforming her throat and uvula and would look you in the eyes and say "do something like this for OPC". Long-time residents of this subreddit remember that one user who would show up every once in a while to preach the gospel of Swallow-and-Hold 2 and have multiple heated debates with Cathy. God that lady was exhausting. You still sometimes get people saying Big Dog/Small Dog saved them or whatever, but hey, at least it's not the gosh-darn swallow exercise.
Honestly, I don't really care anymore about this neverending debate of which methods are better. All I'm gonna say is that Z (who explains stuff really vaguely now for some reason?), Selene, and Clover have the tools that are to me, the most sensible out there. I just don't respect those "mimicry doesn't work" randos, man, like how the heck did you learn the English language we're communicating in right now? How did you learn that horrible mock British accent you keep using for laughs? Through mimicry, that's how! You weren't thinking about your aryepiglottic sphincter and your thyroarytenoid muscles when you were screaming and crying as a small child because you had to go to school! Fortunately, I'm not interested in actually debating this with anybody, so feel free to completely ignore the cognitive dissonance bubbling up in your head right now if that's what brings you joy. I don't care (that much).

4. IS IT OVER FOR ME???? AM I ETERNALLY DOOMED TO BEING ASS AT VOCALISTICS????

This acts as a sort of follow-up to the previous section because we're still looking at the numerous troubles of volunteering. This time, it's the hopeless, depressed, extremely not-okay voice trainees who are unintentionally making things worse for everybody.
So, I often see people going like "voice training sucks and is super stressful" and such, and like, I understand what you're talking about, but also please, for the love of all that is golden, consider the fact that you're not just screaming into a vacuum when you say something like that. Maybe someone was already having a bad day with practice, and when they saw that, they got even more pissed off than they already were because what are these posts saying but "I should abandon all hope of ever being happy with myself; success is impossible and to give up is to be honest". It's just a really crappy vibe to spread and just makes everybody sadder. What's also just wonderful is when people expect you to be their unlicensed (and unpaid) therapist and also simultaneously blow up at you whenever you attempt to comfort them. It's a great time! I love it when stuff like that happens! I love it when people make things all about themselves and have no sympathy for their elders! I know I'm younger than every single one of you (except for you, Luna, I see you) but I'm really playing the role of the elder here when I have to help this mentally unstable child not explode. I didn't sign up for any of this shit when I decided I wanted to help people explore size and weight, man.
The fact that there's so many of these please-get-therapy-for-the-love-of-god children (they sometimes are literal minors but that's irrelevant) really ensured that I'll never work as a voice teacher ever. Can you imagine sitting with someone like that except you can't just leave the Discord channel???? AND THEN PEOPLE TREAT TEACHERS LIKE WEALTHY CAPITALIST ELITES! Shit makes no goddamn sense! You wouldn't last a second in the arena with a mentally ill college student!
However, the true horror appears when these people channel their trauma into rhetoric. All of a sudden, you get the only thing worse than comforting a sad stranger who hates you: debating a sad stranger who hates you. I welcome thee to the shittiest pits of trans voice discourse: The "should I just give up and die" war.
On one side, we're gonna gonna have team C (completely arbitrary letter choice by the way), which is the crowd that lives by the slogan "not everybody can succeed at voice training" and really wants to convince everybody of that. Then, we have what I like to call "the other andies", which are the resistive force battling the formidable team C in the marketplace of ideas and cat ear headphones. Team C and the Other Andies are a tale as old as time, one that is as eternal as the breeze of twilight. Let's look a little further into it.
Team C consists of people who are disillusioned with the messages they're given by popular voice teachers, naive students, and kids' shows: that you just gotta work hard enough and all your dreams will come true. They've arrived at a solid brick wall in their harrowing quest for a biologically female (or male) voice and they don't believe they have the zuzz it takes to get past this obstacle. Are they right? Hell if I know! It's really hard to properly get a picture of this demographic because I bet a lot of it is people who are simply in a horrible headspace and just need to try harder when they feel better, but I'm sure there's individuals in there with actual muscle problems and hearing/speech trouble and all sorts of other issues I can't shrug off in good faith. Furthermore, they kind of DO make a good argument when you take this little clip into consideration. Now I'm not one to jump to conclusions necessarily, but I think the contradiction between what Z says here what she tells to the public speaks to a wider problem among many of the Other Andies, which is that they often overpromise just to make you feel a little better about yourself (or to make you buy their stuff, I guess? Sometimes, maybe? I'm not a conspiracist).
Something special about the Other Andies is that they're not as much of a monolith as team C, which tends to say more-or-less the same stuff (you know the drill: some people can't do it, stop lying to us you scumbag pigs, etcetera). Some other andies say delusional shite like "99.99% of people succeed", while others carry the much more honest and respectable "you're probably gonna be okay". I like the latter subsection, the other other andies if you will. They're not riding the toxic positivity train, but they're also not shooting corrosive substances at your face, yknow? I still think this is a stupid fucking debate. You wanna train? Then do it. Can't do it? Then either you try harder or you make peace with what you've got. I'm not saying this from a position of privilege because my ass is MUCH closer to the vocal ability of a team C member.
This goes out to all my team C friends, possibly including the mysterious grand general of the movement if such an entity even exists. I'm... worried about you. It's really not healthy to spend so much of your life on a place you hate, talking about a topic you hate with people you hate, perceiving yourself as the only soldier standing between the small Voice City and the monstrous hurricane of false hope... Please let your trauma heal and move on from this place. I'm trying to do the same too, just work towards it. I understand and respect that you still find some purpose in helping others find their footing in this cold, dark world, but I think it's time you extend that courtesy to yourself. You're so much more than this and you deserve so much more happiness in this weird world. Allow yourself to start a new chapter with all of this headache- and heartache-inducing garbage behind.
You have it in you to make it out of this dumpster fire and finally live a more fulfilling existence. Is it gonna be hard? 100%, but we're gonna do it together, even if I don't even know who you are in the slightest. It's all about that little idea. That flame of ambition, to quote the Fell Omen. Keep the desire for a better life alive within you, and I wish you the motherfucking greatest quantity of luck.

6. The future of the Selene clip collection

The reason I didn't make this post earlier was because I was worried about what would happen to my dear resource collection if nobody was around to maintain it (since this account is almost certainly hitting the dectus at this point), but I've decided I'll delegate this task to a fellow volunteer. I haven't properly decided on how exactly this shall happen, but rest assured that your Selene clip supply may never run dry, my lovely friends that I absolutely did not insult the fuck out of for the past three thousand words.
That is all I have to say! May we never meet again. Was lovely, but I'm fucking TIRED, man.
[EDIT 10/05/2024: For the record, I am very very thankful for the nice responses here and a heart emoji goes out to you folks <3. I'm not really too informed about the whole language acquisition counterpoint thing that user brought up, but I respect them and what they're saying.]
[The Selene Clip Collection has been updated with a new announcement. Once the GitHub organization becomes large enough, I'll finally be able to enter the florpus.]

Left my shitty job today (thank god). It’s been a hellish time and everything was extremely chaotic since the day I started. I found I got very little help from my coworkers during these tough situations, especially considering I’m young and this was my second proper job. I’m a friendly person and am usually well liked (my previous job I really got on with everyone and they even wanted me back!). However, today was my last day and barely anyone has bid me farewell or wished me luck in my new ventures. I know it shouldn’t matter but it has upset me. Only a couple of people were going to come to my leaving drinks so I cancelled them because even then it felt like they didn’t want to come. I feel really embarrassed about this. I haven’t even told my friends as I don’t want them to think I’m a loser for no one at work liking me.

Has anyone gone through something similar? Management and Director Retaliation. If so how did you proceed OR is moving on a better path on this matter.
I (28M) have been working at (Western States Lodging and Management) for 2 years as their in-house MedTech. I used to be a 1099 before I got persuade into becoming a full time employee, I have never had an incident/Warning while employed there I have a clean record as my attendance have always been 45-30 minutes early to count out and do report. I have always been a team player and played a role in Team Lead position for training purposes. I’m the kind of person to come in an hour or 2 hours early before my shift to help out on the floor passing meds or with new admit paper work. I’ve stayed late after my shift due to being short staffed. Believe it or not there’s been multiple I mean multiple occasions that I’ve worked 24hr shifts 32hr shifts to 40hr shifts due to shortage, they always would beg for me to stay or pick up more than usual throughout the week. My norm would be 12 hour shifts or simply 16 hour shifts to get my hours out of the way to be with my family (2 Boys) (Married) I would go home during my hour break to take a shower and change scrubs. I have always gotten nothing but great feed back from family and residents to management that would be passed down to me for doing such a great job and always going above and beyond, staff would always have nothing but positive things to say as I would always be there to help with coming in to help with MedPass or looking for coverage.
💢 Disclaimer 💢
🔘 I wouldn’t take on task that would jeopardize the well being of my residents as goes for my MedPass and compromise a Med Error or worse, if I knew I be beyond exhausted with the amount of hours being awake I would nicely decline to stay any longer or pick up another shift 🔘
💢For Myself 💢
🟢 I made sure to prioritize my health taking vitamins and doing IV treatments and B12 injections & CoQ10 with other additives, I don’t do caffeine just plenty of water and protein shakes & mushroom shakes like lions mane & consume a lot of vegetables while I put myself through this crazy hours of work. I’m aware of other factors that go into play and how it can affect my brain and other things 🟢
🔹 I always have my family in mind while doing this to myself 🔹
Management and the Director weren’t always so bad even doe we would work short most of the time. I have a mind set that I would simply say to myself “the shift eventually ends” “it is what it is let’s just adapt to whatever situation you’re in and do your best”. They would give in some occasions a Visa Gift Card of $150-$400 just for being that Guy. There was a few of other coworkers that would also work over 80+ hours a week and let me tell you they were amazing to work with and we would always boost one another up, and help with whatever situation we were in.
At times I’ll take a week of work to fully dedicate myself to my family and turn my phone off since management will still make every attempt to reel me back in using every excuse and pity story and bribe me with money just so they wouldn’t have to work the floor and Venmo me money if not using Visa Gift cards. I would let them in that I needed to spend more time with family which they would encourage me and be supportive than be hitting up my line within the second day, that’s when I started to completely turn my phone off or silence their notifications.
While working my 80 hour week by working 5 doubles in a row, I had 2 doubles left out of 5 when I received a frantic call from my wife that our youngest was running a fever and kept constantly throwing up and having really bad stomach cramps that I could hear him in the background, my oldest was showing minor similar symptoms, I had 3 hours left of my shift and we were already short handed, when all this happened it was close to 3:00AM. I’m the only person on the floor certified to handle the MedCart since I’m a certified MedTech, the on call was gonna arrive between 5:30AM-6:00AM since they were also short for the morning staff. I was put on a tight spot since this was the first time ever put in this scenario, I had a responsibility at work that I didn’t wanna commit abandonment and not follow through with passing my last MedPass which were narcotics and I had a couple patients that were hospice that were transitioning rapidly while families were inside the room saying there farewells, while other families would ask me questions about next morphine dosage, I ended up staying and finishing my shift while inside I let my wife and boys down… while my wife was blowing up my phone that she needed me and she didn’t wanna handle everything alone as my oldest started to get worse.
She took them into the Emergency Room as the fever kept getting worse. I was anxious to count out the MedCart and give report to rush over to the hospital 🏥 as I felt like the biggest scum in the world. They had agency staff that morning while I saw the on call show up at the nurses station I wanted to let her know right away my situation and that it was an emergency, before I could say anything she blew me off to address the agency staff, right behind her was the second MedTech which I took the opportunity to spill everything out and finish count and report, I told him if he could pass on to the On Call what we talked about, as I was heading out I saw her and she told me she was sorry from a distance for blowing me off even doe she didn’t care as it was obvious on the way she said it. At that point I was already at a different mind set as I felt annoyed and irritated by it.
I arrived at the hospital when I saw them both I felt completely broken inside just seeing them connected to the IV’s, never have I felt such disappointment in myself. My wife couldn’t even bear to look at me nor she spoke to me while we were there. I don’t blame her. After a couple hours we would finally be discharge and if it starts up again to not hesitate to bring them in. I swear the drive back home was completely silence and I just felt sick. We had our boys sleep in our room for supervision, I laid on the floor while all 3 of them slept in bed, after my watch was over she took over so I could take a nap to recover, she woke me up to get ready for work as she had already set everything up for me. While we were in the ER I removed myself from all group chats from work. I turned my phone off, I told her I wasn’t going to work today.
The following day she finally spoke to me saying “it’s the last time I ever experience this alone” she had every right to address me in anyway as I understood her anger. I told her I was gonna seek help from being a workaholic and have a better routine, that I was gonna change for the better of our family and my health. I attended therapy and counseling. I reset my sleep schedule to their schedule. She deserves better as she has always being supportive of my crazy hours at work.
A month had passed by when I went back to work to face any disciplinary act for no call no show, I spoke directly with the Director as I handle things in person as a form of respect not through text or phone call, the MedTech never passed on the message about my emergency. I told him everything that happened that night, how it affected my marriage and my family. How I attended therapy and was working on myself since my family deserves it. I told him I have documents from the hospital to prove for me not showing up, to which he told me there was no need that he understood my situation and he was grateful I came in to clear things out in person, I admitted to my wrongs and that I didn’t handle it professionally and I was just at a different mindset,. We left things on good terms as he said he was worried because I have never done something like that before and he took it as volunteer termination.
This incident happened the end of October of 2023, the Director and I spoke in November of 2023. when I reached out the beginning of February of this year 2024 to get rehired and back on the schedule speaking to the coordinatoscheduler I was told I was terminated and none rehire-able and black listed, I was confused as things have been cleared and I was told different by the Director. I made multiple attempts VoiceMail/Text/Email left messages to pass onto him from the secretary. Nothing not a single reply from him, he was avoiding me, I didn’t wanna show up to work and get denied or lie to that I end up wasting gas. After so many attempts I reached out to corporate, to find a way to fix this, after I spoke with corporate HR and stated my case I was told that it shouldn’t be an issue that they were gonna reach out to HIM and I was supposed to get a call back and waited a week and nothing. Made multiple attempts and nothing till yesterday 4/1/24 while I was talking to the receptionist someone took over the call and it was Coordinatoscheduler with attitude she told me they aren’t obligated to do anything for me. I asked if I can get a copy of the termination letter stating the reasons as well as verification of employment to which she denied it all.
So I was pretty annoyed the way all this is poorly handled that I mentioned an attorney and if we could set up a meeting, she didn’t like that one bit she hung up but before that she said take it up with corporate. Not even a minute later the Director reached out and talked to me like if we were buddies again and offered me a full time job but that he had to discuss it with the team which was just the DON that just got hired on and I haven’t met and the other individual the scheduler…
While on the phone he stated how I’ve been missed at work adding how reliable and helpful I was to the team and they could always count on me and went the whole 9 yards with compliments and adding all my accomplishments I’d achieved while being there. We ended up our phone call with I would love for you to come back to the team and it was nice hearing from me again. Even doe he has avoided me till I brought up the attorney meeting to retrieve my letter of termination with the reasons why and my verification of employment.
He called me back saying that they weren’t gonna proceed bringing me back due to setting a better example and it wouldn’t be fair to the other new employees even doe no one knows what happened. It’s been 6months since the incident. The Director himself told me he had to cover one of the shifts while I was handling things at the hospital, I apologize to him and told him I was beyond grateful & I would make it up to him once I came back. I have covered multiple times for him in the past because he didn’t wanna work the floor. I found out that the coordinatoscheduler had covered one of the shifts as well but even doe I have always gone above and beyond for that person I’m treated this way, came in when I wasn’t scheduled cause she needed help, stayed late because short staff etc… both times I’ve crossed words with this person she always has an attitude and I’m guessing because she had to cover one of my shifts.
The Director had told me it would be a fresh start and drop all bad blood and start a new. But they holding a grudge because of this incident that I have documentation backing up while I wasn’t at work, I know I handled it poorly, the communication wasn’t there which I understand. But all I have sacrifice and how committed I was this are the results…. He told me the same thing the scheduler told me they ain’t obligated to bring me back nor meet any of my demands. That why I believe this is retaliation it just doesn’t make sense that some employees there have been caught drinking, have walked out during halfway or the beginning of their shift or some that have had Med Errors after Med Errors and have died because overdose some don’t pay attention to the MAR and they continue to get away with it, they have been caught on camera doing shady stuff in a residents room and family had band them from entering their room and address it with management and they still continue to work there. They keep posting on Indeed and other sources that they need help and are hiring for all positions. It’s just insane the amount of chances those employees get, but at the end of the day that’s their business not mine as I have always kept it professional and not mingle in anyone’s business. I just honestly feel the way all this is being poorly handled is retaliation.
Went in to speak with department of workforce services told them everything didn’t leave anything out not even any minor detail, I started off mentioning my wrong doings just so it’s not a one sided story. I asked the agent if I should just cut my losses at this point which he replied to pursuit a case that it’s retaliation alright that it doesn’t make sense for the commitment I’ve given and the amount of hours I have invested that they wouldn’t work something out with me. Gave me Utah Labor Commission information to address this further and take legal action.
I’m posting this to seek helpful feedback and how should I continue to approach this. If anyone has a similar experience can you please share what worked and what didn’t. Thank You!

The last month was the worst hell Kenny had ever gone through. He lost his wife and daughter in a freak housefire, along with everything he owned. He was forced to find an apartment within short notice, buy all new clothes, bury his wife and daughter, and somehow maintain his sanity throughout the entire ordeal. Unfortunately, he failed miserably at that last part. The moment he had stepped foot into his new apartment, he started filling every counter, coffee table, and nightstand with alcohol. Didn’t matter what the poison was, just as long as it was cheap.
Work was somewhere he hadn’t been to at all in the last month. He was allotted a couple weeks off to get everything figured out, but after that, he still hadn’t shown up and became too wasted, hungover, or grief-stricken to even call in sick. Multiple coworkers, and his boss, had attempted to get ahold of him, but he never bothered looking at his phone. At this point, he didn’t even know where it was at.
Now we find ourselves in the early morning with the King of Anguish amongst his sloven empire of filth, adorned with his glass and aluminum mementos of sedation.
Kenny stared at the blank TV screen with an equally blank expression. He was laying on the couch in his apartment just waiting to go back to sleep again. The more he slept, the faster he would get to death. It was his way of time-travelling to the inevitable. He had put his state-issued gun to his head multiple times but could never get to pulling the trigger. It just never felt right to him. Why should he get the easy way out when his family had to suffer excruciatingly in their final moments? If you asked him, he’d say that he deserved every second of misery until his final, miserable breath.
“Hey, Kenny! It’s Arthur! You in there!?… Hopefully alive…”
Kenny didn’t move a muscle. Maybe if he just laid there, Arthur would eventually go away.
“Kenny! If you don’t get this door open in the next sixty seconds, I’m breaking it down!”
No such luck.
He slogged his mindless body off the couch and onto the floor, then got onto his feet and stumbled to the door.
When the door finally opened, Arthur reeled back in surprise and dismay. “Fuck… Kenny, what the hell? You look like shit, man,” he said with sincere concern.
He shrugged.
Arthur examined his friend, up and down. The man looked like a zombie. He was soaked in sweat, his shirt was covered in vomit, and his eyes looked like they were going through a decades-long drought.
“Can I come in?” Arthur asked.
He swayed back and forth for a moment, then hobbled to the side.
The moment Arthur walked into the apartment, he could see the numerous bottles and cans that decorated the entire place. “Geez, man. Do you even still have a liver?”
“Unfortunately,” he responded.
Arthur shook his head. “Fuck’s sake, man. Listen, I just came over to check on you and make sure that you’re still alive. The boss has been pretty pissed that you haven’t been showing up to work.”
Kenny nodded… very slowly.
Arthur stared at his friend, desperately trying to come up with a miracle fix for his depression. “The boss said that you have to show up this week or you’re fired. He doesn’t care if you only show up for a few hours each day, but he wants you in the office,” he said.
Kenny was leaned against the wall, trying his best not to fall over, and Arthur looked ready to spring forward and catch him in case he did.
“The boss also said that he wants you going to a therapist every week. Said that the county will pay for it,” Arthur said.
Kenny wiped his face. “I’m fine.”
“You call ‘drowning in liquor’ fine? You are far from being fine, Kenny. You seriously need help, my man.”
He shook his head… very slowly.
Arthur began to get frustrated. “Look. I don’t want you to lose your job, and I don’t want to lose you. Nobody does, Kenny. If you need me to, I can even come pick you up for work each morning until you’re a bit more on your feet.”
“I’m fine,” he responded as though he were a broken record.
Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. It was like he was watching his friend die right in front of him, and he hated it. But he understood why it was happening. He had never been married or had kids, so he didn’t know what it was like to lose all of that in an instant, but he could easily imagine that it probably fucking sucked.
He walked over to Kenny and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t I get you outside and take you to breakfast? I’m sure you could use the sunlight and a good meal.”
Kenny wiped the groggy hangover off his face, then stood up a little straighter; still leaning against the wall. He nodded. “Yeah. Outside would probably be good.”
“Breakfast then?”
Kenny winced as a surge of pain slammed against his skull, then slightly dissipated. “Nah. I’ll eat later. I just need to go for a walk.”
He gave him a suspicious glare. “Alright… maybe I should go with you, though.”
“Nah. I’ll be fine. If it’ll make you feel better, I can meet you for lunch later today.”
“I don’t know, Kenny.”
“I said I’ll be fine, Arthur,” Kenny reassured. “I’m just going to get a shower, go for a walk, then I’ll meet you for lunch later today.”
Hesitantly he nodded in agreement. “Ok… But I’m going to be calling you in an hour to make sure you’re actually out of the apartment. We can figure out lunch then.”
“Sounds good.”
Arthur closed in and gave Kenny a big, warm hug. “I love you, man. Like a brother. I just want you to know that,” he said.
Kenny felt a tear stream down his cheek. “Yeah. Me too, brother.”
They said their farewells, then Kenny did as he said he would. He took a shower, doing his best to clean off the two-week-long buildup of alcohol, sweat, and grime that caked his body like a film of slime. Afterwards, he got dressed, then left the apartment and leisurely strolled around outside.
The sun was a bit painful on the eyes at first, but they adjusted after a couple minutes. Breathing the Chicago air felt a lot better than breathing the musky fumes of his apartment. And as far as where he was going, he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Wherever his feet landed was fine by him.
Along his walk, he eventually wandered through a park and continually passed reminders of a life that felt like it was a century ago. There was a mother playing with her child, a small family enjoying a picnic, a little girl wearing a pink shirt with a fox on it. That last one hit him the hardest to the point that he started to feel all the pain surge back up, but he locked it in the back of his throat and swallowed it down.
He stopped and stared up at the clouds in the sky and felt himself getting smaller and smaller in a universe so vast and grand. For a moment, all his misery, all his problems, seemed so insignificant and small. It was just a brief moment of that feeling, but a very tiny part of his heart felt a little better afterwards.
“I’ll move on someday,” he said to himself as he watched a particularly fluffy cloud move across the sky. “Probably not today or tomorrow. But someday.”
He watched the cloud for a little longer, then felt himself sinking back into the void in his heart. “Time to stop running from it,” he said to himself, then continued on his walk.
As promised, Arthur called him to make sure he was alive and out of the apartment. They agreed to meet in a couple hours at their favorite diner, and for the first time in a month, Kenny happily looked forward to something.
His wandering eventually led him to a large church. He stared at its wide-open doors for a while, then decided to step inside and take a seat. Churches weren’t his thing, but he knew they could be a nice place to sit back and unwind all your tangled thoughts.
The inside of the church was stunning. The dark wooden pews were polished with a mirror finish. The stained-glass windows sparkled and glowed as the morning light passed through them. A towering crucifix stood at the end of the sanctuary, masterfully painted and sculpted.
He was the only person in the sanctuary, and he decided to sit in the third row of pews. The serene quiet felt nice, like a soft blanket draped across his shoulders. Everything was perfect for him to be able to sit and sort through things. The last month had not been spent grieving in a healthy way, and he started to realize that it was only by some miracle that he was still alive. Or maybe there was a tiny mote of hope that had always kept him from going too far. There were many times when he would think about all the people he would leave behind if he had decided to go, and that always brought him back down to earth, albeit, only a little. Maybe they all mattered that much to him. Or at least, maybe Arthur mattered that much to him.
Him and Arthur had been friends since highschool. Arthur was the reason he even joined law enforcement in the first place. All the fun times they’d had together started to come back and flood his memory: The parties they went to, that time they stole Arthur’s dad’s car and accidently ran it into a stop sign, the first time he set eyes on Donna and Arthur convinced him to go talk to her… As much as Arthur mattered, Donna and Nameah still mattered so much more.
A lone man entered the church. A shadowy haze followed him as he walked, like the very night was his servant that obeyed his every command. The fine black suit that adorned his body had a darkness that would make the very spaces in between the stars seem as bright as spotlights. His black hair was slicked back and matched the darkness of his suit. His pale skin echoed the light of a full moon and beheld the inevitability of death.
The man moseyed down the center aisle, his hand caressing the pews and each footstep holding an unnatural level of authority and dominion. He took a seat in the pew on the opposite side of the one Kenny was seated.
Kenny hadn’t paid any attention to the man because he was too wrapped up in the tangle of thoughts that he was trying to unravel.
The man stared at the crucifix for some time, then broke the silence. “This is probably the best time of day to go to church. It’s quiet,” he said.
Kenny looked over to him, scanned him up and down, then nodded and returned to his thoughts.
The man turned his attention to him. “My condolences for the loss of your wife and daughter.”
“Thanks,” he eventually responded. He wasn’t alarmed by the statement. The news of his family’s death had hit every headline like it was the news of the century.
Silence returned for some time, then the man said, “Such a shame, what happened to them. Certainly one of the worst ways to go.”
Kenny started to get annoyed. “Yep. I know, buddy,” he said as he got up and began to make his way out of the church.
The man stood up and yelled out, “Wouldn’t it be nice to find the man who killed them!?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Nobody killed them, buddy! It was just some freak accident!”
“Which is exactly why that man in the gray suit spoke to you, right!?”
He was at the doors when he paused and slowly turned around. “What?”
The man gestured, with his head, towards the pews. “Come have a seat.”
The doors suddenly slammed closed, startling Kenny. He looked at them, then cautiously went back to where he had been sitting. The memory of that man in the gray suit was faint, but it was there, and he wandered how this man knew about him. Did they work for each other? Was this man the one that killed his family? For his sake, he better not be.
Silence blanketed the church for some time. The man was staring at the crucifix with a strange look in his eyes.
Kenny was watching him, unsure what to do or say. “Who are you?” he finally asked.
The man looked at him, his silver eyes glinting with the cold haze of death. He smiled, then slightly bowed in his seat. “Rex Mortem. King of the Underworld.”
Kenny’s mind stuttered, turned off, then rebooted. “Ok. I’m leaving the crazy train,” he said as he stood up and went to leave.
The man got up and stood in the middle of the aisle. “You don’t want to find the man that killed your family?”
Kenny turned around, angry. “Look, man. I told you already, it was a freak accident. I don’t know who the hell you are, and I don’t care. I’m not getting involved with whatever crazy bullshit you got going on.”
He turned around and immediately ran into Rex. He jumped and stumbled backwards, his heart-rate surging. He looked behind him, then back again. “How the hell did you do that!?” he asked with a panicked tone.
Rex shrugged. “I told you: King of the Underworld.” He held out a hand, which Kenny reluctantly grabbed.
On his two feet again, Kenny nervously stepped a couple feet away from him. “What do you want?” he asked, his heart still beating fast.
“To offer you the chance to kill the man that killed your family, Kenny Luther.”
His mind stuttered, turned off, then rebooted. Again. “How do you know my name?” he stuttered.
Rex rolled his eyes. “The doors randomly slam shut. I teleport behind you. I mention I’m the King of the Underworld. And yet you still have the gall to ask how I know your name?”
He thought for a moment, then nervously nodded. “Fair point…”
Rex adjusted his tie and sleeves. “As I said, Kenny, I’m offering you a once-in-an-eternity chance to find the man that killed your family and enact some vengeance upon him.”
He felt his heartrate settle as he began to calm down. “I don’t understand. The firefighters said that the fire started because of faulty wiring.”
Rex nodded. “They’ll tell you whatever lie they’re told to tell you if it means their families don’t end up like yours did.”
He gave him a suspicious look.
“And honestly, Kenny, how do you explain them getting trapped in the closet like they did? How were they completely unable to get out of the house before it got consumed by the flames? You know, yourself, that a fire like that doesn’t just happen in an instant. They would have had plenty of time to find a way out, especially considering there were two entrances into the house and numerous windows.”
That was one of the details he had found odd, them getting trapped in the closet, but he figured they just weren’t able to get out in time and decided to hide there hoping for the best. Although, it was a little odd that they hadn’t been able to get out in the first place, but he had just assumed they hadn’t realized what was going on until it was too late. But how could that even happen? Wouldn’t they have smelled the fire and known something was up? Even if they were both sleeping, the fire alarms would have awoken them. And why did the firefighters take thirty minutes to show up when they lived only ten minutes away from the fire station? With a clearer head, he started to realize just how many things didn’t add up.
And then there was the man in the gray suit.
“I imagine whoever he worked for will be very upset that he’s gone.”
What that man had said really started to stand out to him. Was he the one that had killed them? Either way, there was a strange man in front of him that seemed to have the answers.
“So you know who killed them?” Kenny asked.
Rex thought for a moment. “Yes and no. I know who hired the man that killed them, but I don’t know whose hand directly started the fire.”
“And why are you telling me all this?
“Because the ones that did it have been a pain in my ass for centuries, and it’s time that they get removed.”
He gave him a confused look. “Centuries? What is it, like a cult or something?”
“Kind of,” Rex said with an amused smile. “They’re vampires.”
Once again, Kenny’s brain stuttered, turned off, then rebooted. “I’m sorry. Did I hear you correctly? You said, vampires?”
“Yes. Believe it or not, Kenny, there is an entire world right under your nose that you didn’t even realize existed. It’s a world so vast and powerful that it affects everyone’s lives.”
He slowly nodded, still utterly confused and surprised. “And you want me to kill these vampires?”
“That is correct.”
He thought for a moment. “Ok, but what makes you think I want vengeance?”
Rex smirked. “Come now, Kenny. Don’t play coy. Someone burns your wife and daughter to death, and you don’t want to find this person and bash their skull in?”
Kenny could admit that he had a point, but there was still something off about the entire interaction. Whoever this man was, he didn’t appear to be just some guy that was offering him a simple deal. The entire atmosphere around him felt like death and darkness; unnatural in every sense of the word. Kenny started to wonder if he was somehow talking to the Devil in disguise.
“So what’s the catch, then?” Kenny asked.
Rex raised an eyebrow. “Catch?”
“It all seems too simple. What are you? The Devil? Is this some trick to get me to sell my soul or something?”
Rex burst into laughter and took a while to recover. “No, no, my friend. You’ll need your soul.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “The only catch is that you’ll be working for me forever. And as far as the Devil is concerned, simply put, I’m not him, and he doesn’t exist in the way that you mortals view him.”
He thought for a brief moment, then nodded. “Alright then. Deal.”
Rex rapidly blinked, somewhat alarmed. “Ok? You don’t need time to think about it at all?”
“Nope.”
Rex gave him a cautioning look. “You do realize what forever means, right?”
He nodded. “I know, and I don’t care. I just want to kill the asshole that killed my family.”
“And what about the whole ‘Devil-thing’? You seemed to have gotten over that rather quickly.”
“You said you aren’t the Devil and that you don’t need my soul, right?”
Rex eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. “You are correct.” He held out his hand.
Kenny grabbed it and they shook.
“Are there any papers I need to sign?” Kenny asked, still shaking Rex’s hand.
Rex, smiling wide, said, “None at all. I deal in handshakes,” then pulled out a revolver from under his suit jacket and shot a hole through Kenny’s head.

So I’ve (23F) been seeing this guy, we’re gonna call him Javi (36M) for about 4 months, we used to work together before I quit and remained friends. (I worked at a Padel club and he was one of the coaches) A month after I quit, he asks me out and we’ve been seeing each other ever since. He’s an amazing and very sweet guy, but he’s moving to Dubai in 2 weeks and won’t be coming back for at least the foreseeable future. That’s when we decided we wanted to continue spending time together before he left as we really enjoyed each other’s company but agreed we don’t see this going further as neither of us want to do long distance.
About 2 months ago from today, a random guy, let’s call him… Angelo (I don’t know how old he is, but can’t be older than late 20s) follows me on Instagram and likes two of my old photos. I didn’t know who he was so I didn’t follow him back, after sometime I just forgot about it.
Fast forward a month, Javi and I are at my ex boss’s birthday party and he brings Angelo. Come to find out, they’re actually really close friends and coworkers. We spoke briefly and asked what his plans were after, as my girl friends and I were planning to hit the clubs and Javi and Angelo wanted to party as well. I had to leave to meet my girl friends but said “Let me get your Instagram and I’ll let you know if the party’s good”. We exchanged instagrams but I never ended up texting him to join us… just forgot.
The next morning I wake up and see that he’s once again liked my old photos. I stalk his instagram for a bit and finally realise Angelo was the same guy from a month ago.
He doesn’t message me or anything so I just kinda leave it but was kinda disappointed he didn’t message me, he is VERY good looking and so is Javi.
One day he starts liking all my stories about Italian food. He’s Italian so I just figured he’s just liking them because of that, but one day I posted I was at this specific Italian restaurant and 20 minutes later, he shows up! I was having dinner with my housemate’s brother but I when he walked in I was like “ANGELO?” and we spoke for a bit. I asked him for a cigarette as an excuse to talk for a bit. At one point i said “Well you should come out with my friends and I one day” (he’s still relatively new to the city) and he said “That would be great, I really appreciate that, I’ll be away for the next two weeks for work but i’ll be back after” and I said “I’ll text you”. Next two weeks, he would like my stories here and there but no conversation.
I never ended up texting him to hangout when he was back, which for context was just last weekend because I had too many events to go to but Javi, Angelo and I ended up being at our mutual friend’s restaurant’s anniversary party. We all hug and say hi and Javi leaves shortly because he was tired. Angelo stays and we barely speak, until at one point we were next to each other and i ask him how was Dubai. He hugs me and does one of those things where guys caresses the back of your head and plays with your hair. Lasted about 5 seconds when my friend interrupts me and tells me she’s leaving. She’s a DJ and tells him she’s gonna be playing at this club next Friday and he said he was there at 1AM and I was like “wait I was also there” and realised he actually liked my story of me being there but i left before he arrived.
I ask if he’s gonna be at this party next Saturday and he says he will be and I said I’ll see him there. He leaves shortly after but doesn’t say bye before he goes.
I’ve still been seeing and talking to Javi everyday but I have no idea if Angelo knows that we’ve been seeing each other. Javi is a pretty private person but they are very close. I want to get to know Angelo but I don’t want to hurt Javi’s feelings, he told me he wasn’t seeing anyone else. I also feel kinda bad because they are such good friends. Do guys talk about this type of stuff with each other? I don’t even know if Angelo is into me because why won’t he just text me and barely spoke to me at the restaurant? He’s been on my mind a lot lately and I want to get to know him. Not sure what to do right now, and from a guy’s is me seeing Javi going to cause Angelo to have reservations about me?
I was thinking of texting him first to ask if he was still coming to the party this Saturday we spoke about because a couple more events popped up and to ask if he signed up through the link yet. (I’m close with the organisers and they asked if I could help spread the word). Javi has been still texting me everyday and asked me to go to his farewell party tomorrow which I know Angelo is going to be at. What should i do?

My boss announced to the team over our team chat that my coworker is no longer at the company. This was really out of the blue. He's working on a project that I've really been counting on so I'm concerned. Last time someone resigned we had a farewell meeting and at least a week of knowledge transfer to one of our other team members, but this was out of the blue on a Tuesday. To be honest my curiosity is getting the better of me and I'm frankly a nosey bastard.
My boss said he'd give me his work to pick up if I wasn't so busy with other shit so he gave it to someone else. He was out of office at least once a week, but it seemed like he knew his stuff pretty well. I definitely never felt like he was the weakest link. If anything I'd say I am the LVP on my team (but I'm also one of the bosses favorites for some reason. No complaints there XD). Unless he did something really bad I don't think our team is in a position to fire anyone with how busy we've been.
It didn't seem like he hated his job, (I hate my job, but I don't really have any other options right now). What do you guys think happened? Also I couldn't find any obituaries with his name.

About a year ago, I (23M) had a drunken makeout with a coworker who I had been crushing on, who I’ll call Camille (26F). After the makeout, we planned a date. I confessed my interest toward her to another coworker, I’ll call Sam (32M), who I was really close friends with outside of work. We’d workout at lunch, play sports/games or drink after work, and surf before work. Sam had a sexual/emotional entanglement with another coworker, call her Lily (also 26F), in the office whom I rarely spoke to. Neither of them liked to talk about their situationship, but it was on/off and emotionally charged.
A week before my date with Camille, a group of us were playing Catan after work and drinking beers. Lily left to go home, and Sam, Camille and a few others came back to my place. All night, Sam had been overtly flirtatious with Camille and I was a little bummed that my “friend” would try so hard to pick up on her after I told him I was interested. Back at my place, Camille gets nearly incoherently drunk and Sam begins kissing her. He drives her back to his place and they have sex. I was sad that night, but I had a burrito from my local spot and felt better in the morning. The next night, I setup a fun date with a new woman off of hinge, and was really unbothered by the situation, other than the shadiness that had been committed by Sam towards Lily.
I continue to hangout with Sam and occasionally Camille and never grew close to Lily, despite some attempts to bond. Meanwhile Camille becomes persistent about growing close to Lily and they become best friends, doing nearly everything together. About 3 months after the original incident, Lily asked me to join her at the beach. In the water, she shakingly tells me that she found out Sam had been cheating on her with Camille consistently for months and the latter’s effort to grow close to Lily has just been to gain information about Sam. I essentially tell her she doesn’t deserve that, listen to her story, and go about my other plans for the night.
After learning about what happened, I was disappointed in Camille and Sam, but as they were both my friends I checked in with them and made sure they were ok. Sam told me he would rather be with Camille than Lily, and had been trying to end things with Lily but she wouldn’t let go. Essentially, he didn’t like her the same as she did him but he wanted to keep having sex with her. There was a large fallout between the women. Lily, liked by all, was the sweetheart of the work social scene so Camille was essentially banished from all events, and thus I mostly stopped seeing her. Shockingly, the innocent Lily did not blame Sam at all, and in fact saw him as a victim, blaming herself for his infidelity and apologizing to him.
After she opened up to me, Lily and I began to speak more and more, despite having maybe three 1-1 conversations over the previous 2 years. She would text me often and we grew close. We would do 1-1 activities over the weekend and her friends begin to think we were romantic. However, while she was very charming and beautiful, I never considered her romantically, because of her history with Sam, to whom I was still close. She would also ask my advice about more drama unfolding between her and Sam, making it clear they were back together. It’s also worth noting that none of this was emotionally charging to me - if anything, just a crazy story to share with people outside of work who didn’t know any of them.
One Friday after work, I went to a happy hour with Lily and Sam and they went home together. The very next morning, Lily asked me and another coworker if we wanted to go dancing that night. I met up with Lily and her friends and we went to dinner, a few dive bars, then a dance bar. All night Lily and I were laughing nonstop and lightly flirting. We ended up kissing a few times on the dance floor and shared her bed, as her house was across the street. Nothing sexual happened, which is good because Lily is very Christian and hopes to be celibate until marriage (a goal that was frequently thwarted by Sam, especially when alcohol was involved).
Lily was cold to me the next day and I asked if we could talk about what happened. We agreed that we just got carried away and would forget it and remain friends. She also told Sam what happened and he was ok with it as long as it didn’t happen again. 2 days later was a holiday, and Lily and I had lunch plans with a few other friends/coworkers. We ended up getting cocktails, and before we knew it, it was 2am and we had been dancing and drinking all over town. Lily and I had been kissing and touching all night. As she was very drunk, I walked her home, left her in her bed, and texted her roommate she was home. I ignored her drunken pleas for me to stay and get it on.
We spent the remainder of the week having very similar nights with the same friends. At the end of the week, we hangout sober and have sex. The next day at work, Sam asks her to talk and she tells him what happened. I then talk with him and he is very upset. I essentially apologize to him and empathize, but I knew I wouldn’t stop seeing Lily after how much fun we had the previous week.
Despite Sam pleading with her, writing her paragraphs, and sending letters/gifts, Lily and I continue to date, and I ask her to be my girlfriend a few weeks later. Sam and i are cordial, but no longer friends at this point. After he threatens suicide, she eventually blocks Sam’s number with my encouragement, and we date for six months and I fall in love with her. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was good for the most part and we got to know each-other’s friends/families and shared in each-other’s passions.
In the last month of the relationship, I noticed she started to message Sam a lot on our work’s messaging platform after hours, despite having his phone # blocked. In my mind, Sam’s post-breakup behavior was so atrocious that there was no way she could still be attracted to him, so it did not bother me. Also, I was occupied by being offered an interview at my dream tech company across the country. This position would be a massive raise in pay and prestige. Considering these things together, I internally concluded that if I got the job, I would take it and address the relationship then.
I got the official job offer while I was on vacation with Lily over Christmas. 2 weeks after, Lily breaks up with me citing ideological differences as the reason. In the next two weeks before I move, Lily continues to ask to see me and we have sex multiple times despite her insisting that next time she had sex would be with her husband. I attempted to help her stick to this goal, but she was persistent and I gave in a few times. I moved across country, not knowing anybody in my new city, but exited about the prospect of my dream job. For the first few weeks, Lily and I FaceTime every night and send each-other Valentine’s Day presents.
The Saturday after Valentine’s Day she calls me crying saying she got drunk the night before and doesn’t remember whether she had sex. Knowing how she is when drunk and that she was with my friend, Turner, who always had a quiet thing for her, I feared the worse. When I confront Tuner, he tells me that she drunkenly proposed sex after hitting on him all night, but despite being tempted, he dropped her off at home and left out of respect for me.
After hearing this, the reality of me and Lily’s breakup set in and I became overwhelmed with the standard breakup emotions of loneliness, guilt, and regret. Mistakenly, I shared these emotions over text to Lily. Understandably, she asked me to stop contacting her, and I respected that. As I keep up with people from my old job, I heard that she had gotten back together with Sam the very next week. It stung, but it wasn’t my business anymore.
Two months went by, and I viciously worked on myself to move on. I worked like a MFer in my new job, went to Therapy, cutout alcohol, improved physically, and made friends in my new city. After 1.5 months of no contact, I stopped worrying about Lily and felt great.
Well last weekend, I was back in town for a friend’s birthday. Curiosity got the better of me and I called Lily asking if I could get a possession that she had been holding on to for me. We were happy to see eachother after 3 months and joyously told stories for a few hours before wishing farewell and going on with our days.
Then shit hit the fan. These friends that I was staying with are party ANIMALS. We started drinking at 11 and went all day. That night I ran into my Lily and her friends at the very bar we were at the first night we kissed. Her friends ended up leaving and she and I started platonically dancing. Both of us love dancing, so naturally we were tearing up the dance floor. The night is blurry for me, but we kept drinking and dancing, and eventually started grinding up, then slow dancing, then grinding again, then kissing. She occasionally took out her phone to text Sam, but I was too drunk and having too much fun to worry about it.
After a few hours of this, we walked home to her place and had sex. This was my first time having drunk sex - it was a little sloppy, but for the most part almost exactly how we had done it for months. I’ve always been potentially over-cautious about having drunk sex due to concerns of giving meaningful consent while drunk, but there’s a first time for everything.
We then cuddled all night, had morning sex, cuddled/kissed, and pillow talked about how much fun we had dancing the night before. Then the guilt set in for her and she got super cold. She refused my offer to get breakfast and implicitly suggested I leave. After spending the day with my friends, I called her to see her if she wanted to meet up and she promptly declined.
The next day I texted her to check-in and she asked me to stop talking to her. I asked her if she and Sam were boyfriend/girlfriend and she refused to answer. After that, I stopped talking to her as requested. It made a lot of the feelings come back for me. I feel horrible for wasting months of work getting over this girl and for contributing to her lapsing in her moral goal of celibacy. I also feel terrible that she would return to Sam after he showed such blatant disregard for her.
Why am I getting solely blamed for the hookup? Is she guilty that she cheated on Sam? Should I feel guilty?

About a year ago, I (24M) had a drunken makeout with a coworker who I had been crushing on, who I’ll call Camille (26F). After the makeout, we planned a date. I confessed my interest toward her to another coworker, I’ll call Sam (32M), who I was really close friends with outside of work. We’d workout at lunch, play sports/games or drink after work, and surf before work. Sam had a sexual/emotional entanglement with another coworker, call her Lily (also 26F), in the office whom I rarely spoke to. Neither of them liked to talk about their situationship, but it was on/off and emotionally charged.
A week before my date with Camille, a group of us were playing Catan after work and drinking beers. Lily left to go home, and Sam, Camille and a few others came back to my place. All night, Sam had been overtly flirtatious with Camille and I was a little bummed that my “friend” would try so hard to pick up on her after I told him I was interested. Back at my place, Camille gets nearly incoherently drunk and Sam begins kissing her. He drives her back to his place and they have sex. I was sad that night, but I had a burrito from my local spot and felt better in the morning. The next night, I setup a fun date with a new woman off of hinge, and was really unbothered by the situation, other than the shadiness that had been committed by Sam towards Lily.
I continue to hangout with Sam and occasionally Camille and never grew close to Lily, despite some attempts to bond. Meanwhile Camille becomes persistent about growing close to Lily and they become best friends, doing nearly everything together. About 3 months after the original incident, Lily asked me to join her at the beach. In the water, she shakingly tells me that she found out Sam had been cheating on her with Camille consistently for months and the latter’s effort to grow close to Lily has just been to gain information about Sam. I essentially tell her she doesn’t deserve that, listen to her story, and go about my other plans for the night.
After learning about what happened, I was disappointed in Camille and Sam, but as they were both my friends I checked in with them and made sure they were ok. Sam told me he would rather be with Camille than Lily, and had been trying to end things with Lily but she wouldn’t let go. Essentially, he didn’t like her the same as she did him but he wanted to keep having sex with her. There was a large fallout between the women. Lily, liked by all, was the sweetheart of the work social scene so Camille was essentially banished from all events, and thus I mostly stopped seeing her. Shockingly, the innocent Lily did not blame Sam at all, and in fact saw him as a victim, blaming herself for his infidelity and apologizing to him.
After she opened up to me, Lily and I began to speak more and more, despite having maybe three 1-1 conversations over the previous 2 years. She would text me often and we grew close. We would do 1-1 activities over the weekend and her friends begin to think we were romantic. However, while she was very charming and beautiful, I never considered her romantically, because of her history with Sam, to whom I was still close. She would also ask my advice about more drama unfolding between her and Sam, making it clear they were back together. It’s also worth noting that none of this was emotionally charging to me - if anything, just a crazy story to share with people outside of work who didn’t know any of them.
One Friday after work, I went to a happy hour with Lily and Sam and they went home together. The very next morning, Lily asked me and another coworker if we wanted to go dancing that night. I met up with Lily and her friends and we went to dinner, a few dive bars, then a dance bar. All night Lily and I were laughing nonstop and lightly flirting. We ended up kissing a few times on the dance floor and shared her bed, as her house was across the street. Nothing sexual happened, which is good because Lily is very Christian and hopes to be celibate until marriage (a goal that was frequently thwarted by Sam, especially when alcohol was involved).
Lily was cold to me the next day and I asked if we could talk about what happened. We agreed that we just got carried away and would forget it and remain friends. She also told Sam what happened and he was ok with it as long as it didn’t happen again. 2 days later was a holiday, and Lily and I had lunch plans with a few other friends/coworkers. We ended up getting cocktails, and before we knew it, it was 2am and we had been dancing and drinking all over town. Lily and I had been kissing and touching all night. As she was very drunk, I walked her home, left her in her bed, and texted her roommate she was home. I ignored her drunken pleas for me to stay and get it on.
We spent the remainder of the week having very similar nights with the same friends. At the end of the week, we hangout sober and have sex. The next day at work, Sam asks her to talk and she tells him what happened. I then talk with him and he is very upset. I essentially apologize to him and empathize, but I knew I wouldn’t stop seeing Lily after how much fun we had the previous week.
Despite Sam pleading with her, writing her paragraphs, and sending letters/gifts, Lily and I continue to date, and I ask her to be my girlfriend a few weeks later. Sam and i are cordial, but no longer friends at this point. After he threatens suicide, she eventually blocks Sam’s number with my encouragement, and we date for six months and I fall in love with her. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was good for the most part and we got to know each-other’s friends/families and shared in each-other’s passions.
In the last month of the relationship, I noticed she started to message Sam a lot on our work’s messaging platform after hours, despite having his phone # blocked. In my mind, Sam’s post-breakup behavior was so atrocious that there was no way she could still be attracted to him, so it did not bother me. Also, I was occupied by being offered an interview at my dream tech company across the country. This position would be a massive raise in pay and prestige. Considering these things together, I internally concluded that if I got the job, I would take it and address the relationship then.
I got the official job offer while I was on vacation with Lily over Christmas. 2 weeks after, Lily breaks up with me citing ideological differences as the reason. In the next two weeks before I move, Lily continues to ask to see me and we have sex multiple times despite her insisting that next time she had sex would be with her husband. I attempted to help her stick to this goal, but she was persistent and I gave in a few times. I moved across country, not knowing anybody in my new city, but exited about the prospect of my dream job. For the first few weeks, Lily and I FaceTime every night and send each-other Valentine’s Day presents.
The Saturday after Valentine’s Day she calls me crying saying she got drunk the night before and doesn’t remember whether she had sex. Knowing how she is when drunk and that she was with my friend, Turner, who always had a quiet thing for her, I feared the worse. When I confront Tuner, he tells me that she drunkenly proposed sex after hitting on him all night, but despite being tempted, he dropped her off at home and left out of respect for me.
After hearing this, the reality of me and Lily’s breakup set in and I became overwhelmed with the standard breakup emotions of loneliness, guilt, and regret. Mistakenly, I shared these emotions over text to Lily. Understandably, she asked me to stop contacting her, and I respected that. As I keep up with people from my old job, I heard that she had gotten back together with Sam the very next week. It stung, but it wasn’t my business anymore.
Two months went by, and I viciously worked on myself to move on. I worked like a MFer in my new job, went to Therapy, cutout alcohol, improved physically, and made friends in my new city. After 1.5 months of no contact, I stopped worrying about Lily and felt great.
Well last weekend, I was back in town for a friend’s birthday. Curiosity got the better of me and I called Lily asking if I could get a possession that she had been holding on to for me. We were happy to see eachother after 3 months and joyously told stories for a few hours before wishing farewell and going on with our days.
Then shit hit the fan. These friends that I was staying with are party ANIMALS. We started drinking at 11 and went all day. That night I ran into my Lily and her friends at the very bar we were at the first night we kissed. Her friends ended up leaving and she and I started platonically dancing. Both of us love dancing, so naturally we were tearing up the dance floor. The night is blurry for me, but we kept drinking and dancing, and eventually started grinding up, then slow dancing, then grinding again, then kissing. She occasionally took out her phone to text Sam, but I was too drunk and having too much fun to worry about it.
After a few hours of this, we walked home to her place and had sex. This was my first time having drunk sex - it was a little sloppy, but for the most part almost exactly how we had done it for months. I’ve always been potentially over-cautious about having drunk sex due to concerns of giving meaningful consent while drunk, but there’s a first time for everything.
We then cuddled all night, had morning sex, cuddled/kissed, and pillow talked about how much fun we had dancing the night before. Then the guilt set in for her and she got super cold. She refused my offer to get breakfast and implicitly suggested I leave. After spending the day with my friends, I called her to see her if she wanted to meet up and she promptly declined.
The next day I texted her to check-in and she asked me to stop talking to her. I asked her if she and Sam were boyfriend/girlfriend and she refused to answer. After that, I stopped talking to her as requested. It made a lot of the feelings come back for me. I feel horrible for wasting months of work getting over this girl and for contributing to her lapsing in her moral goal of celibacy. I also feel terrible that she would return to Sam after he showed such blatant disregard for her.
Why am I getting solely blamed for the hookup? Is she guilty that she cheated on Sam? Should I feel guilty?

I worked at this job for approximately 2 years.
It was a big health center which did all sorts, including family practice which was where I worked. For the first part, the job was actually really good. We had a great team who got on really well.
Where it started to go array was when they hired all these new management staff who quite frankly did not know anything about the role, delegated responsibility (because they knew nothing about the role),and sat on their phones during meetings. None of us really understood why they were hired.
There were a few issues that unfolded when things started to go pear shaped. Ever since I started there, staff were in union negotiations for being underpaid despite being given more responsibility. There is a clause in all the contracts that say you get a payrise every year for increased responsibilities and knowledge. My role was quite involved. In addition to my normal duties, I had to train four new staff (including my new boss who was being paid more than me), take on students, and oversee certain procedures. When it came time to ask for my annual pay rise, I applied for it and it got rejected. I email HR to ask why, and they initially said it was due to a pay increase in the middle of the year. This pay increase was due to extra government funding to increase EVERYONES wages and was separate from our annual pay rises. I also knew other employees who had gotten this and also gotten their payrise. So I emailed her again and did not get a reply. Instead, HR emailed my line manager basically telling me not to ask them again and that I would have to wait a whole another year. Safe to say I was not happy. I got the union involved. We will get back to this.
At the same time this happened, they fired the most competent person in our team. It was out of the blue and it upset a lot of staff. Management was shocked that we were upset and afraid we were going to get fired. The other sticking point was the managers made little effort to inform patients their doctors were leaving (one was leaving in a week at the time of this meeting) despite multiple protests from staff. We started telling patients ourselves. The managers promised to talk to us in the future before making changes to our department without talking to us. They had promised to close the enrolment books for 6 months as we were understaffed. 3 months later, all the original Drs had left, and 5 nurses resigned.
As you can imagine, this never happened. They hired some “consultant” who was condescending to all the staff, wasted heaps of money buying new furniture (aside from being old, there was no issues with the current furniture) , converted a Drs room into a storage room, and got rid of all our clinical items, even losing expansive medical equipment. It was only 2 months after the meeting when they opened the books again. At this stage, 5 doctors had left, and they only had 3 left (2 new ones).
After three months of this , I was getting a bit disgruntled and since management did not want to listen, I decided to pass a message the only way they could understand. I had resigned by this point and had probably 4 weeks left. I also had 14 days of sick days. As management was hardly down to oversee us, I decided to put a meme up about bad managers for every day I had left. I got away with it for about 5days over 2 weeks and my coworkers had a laugh. They finally noticed it but I never got reprimanded for it. I also decided I would fall sick for 3 days a week. Never got pulled up on it. The best part though is I gave out free appointments to patients. You see, they had changed the computer system. I never got trained on how to use it but I figured it out. Management never made the effort to learn how to use it. There is a “No charge” option and this generates an invoice sign. Turns out some of the other clinicians were doing this too. This was also around Xmas so I just thought I was embracing the giving spirit. I did that for two months, and from what I’ve heard, this has continued to happen since I've left.
I then got a message from the union telling me to demand the backpay from my pay rise to be given to me with my final pay or I could sue them. I got all my money in that paycheck without hesitation. I had a great farewell and no management came to it. I had intended to make their lives difficult since they rejected my pay rise and I think I succeeded.
Since I’ve left, I heard they have lost a whole department of nurses and have had many resignations. They had over 20 ads out a one point. They put an ad out for a nurse, and no one applied. They had since used a recruitment agency to advertise their jobs as people in the region do not want to work for them. Every week there is a new one-star review on their google page. Karma is great.

I have been an HCA (health care aide) for almost a year now. HCAs are by far, the largest sector of healthcare workers in Alberta, however, I don’t hear many of them in this subreddit. The majority of that year has been spent working in Long Term Care, and as an HCA that works in LTC, I feel that while our abysmal acute care needs attention, other branches of our healthcare system need to be addressed, like long term care. I am particularly offended that Danielle Smith has cut funding for Long Term Care (LTC)
Anyone can become disabled at any moment. People aged 18 and up can end up in long term care over anything. While the majority of long term care residents are over the age of 65, there are people as young as 18 residing in long term care, which is provincially funded. A simple accident can take away your ability to live by yourself at any age and mean you require the aid of other people in order to complete your ADLs. Moving forward, the term ADL will refer to the 6 activities of daily living. These 6 activities are as follows: bathing, using the bathroom, getting dressed, ambulating, eating, and personal hygiene.
The residents in LTC are more than just residents to me. They are someone’s grandparent, parent, sister, brother, child, niece, nephew, friend, cousin, coworker, partner, etc, and I treat them as such. However, it is hard for residents to retain their dignity when the Government of Alberta doesn’t give us enough funding to maintain as such.
As an HCA, I am presently employed to assist LTC residents with the aforementioned ADLs. I approach doing so with compassion, empathy, and kindness the best I can, however, our LTC system has so many loops and gaps that it is hard to do so consistently and meet the needs of all my residents. I go above and beyond. I wipe the tears of my residents, laugh at their funny stories and cry along with them. I build relationships with their family and friends, not to mention the resident themselves, and advocate for their care needs. When they inevitably pass (oftentimes, we are a resident’s last home), I do post-mortem care with tears in my eyes and bid farewell as the funeral home takes them away, only for a new resident to take their place a week later. It’s hard not to build up some sort of attachment when you spend months looking after the same person. Many residents consider me a friend and share their stories and gripes with me, hoping I’m able to do the best I can, even when I’m stretched thinner than a piece of paper.
At my facility, there are 4 HCAs for 28 residents. There are 14 residents on each sub-unit, which have two HCAs assigned respectively, as well as a nurse (LPN/RN). Many residents require the usage of a mechanical lift, which is a machine that lifts someone off a surface, on to another surface. Such machines are mandated by the CCHS (Continuing Care Healthcare Standards) to be operated by 2 licensed healthcare professionals, which is most often HCAs, but can be nurses or physical/occupational therapists. Many residents are considered 3 person assists (3PA), which require 3 people to do. However, many times, we do not have the staffing to do 3PA, so we use 2 HCAs and hope for the best. Doing so has lead many of my coworkers to end up with workplace-related injuries, simply because we do not have the staffing to do our job properly. I do my best to ensure that we have 3 people when doing these lifts, however, when you’re unable to find another HCA or nurse to help, you simply don’t have the time to find a third person and still care for other residents, hence the injuries. We are expected to call a person from another floor, but that’s not realistic nor practical, because they’re also helping their own residents. Therefore, we do the transfer and hope for the best.
I am not a very big person myself, being shorter than average, as well as under 60kg. This poses a problem when my partner is even smaller than me, and we are expected to help a resident that weighs more than the two of us combined. If we had adequate staffing, this would be mitigated, however, my coworkers (and lately myself) have been trying to advocate for more scheduled staff for over 10+ years at my facility. This has been to no avail, given that we are still trying.
Most days, we are able to follow a routine of sorts. We have assigned residents to shower every day, following the same schedule every week. We get them up in the morning, help them get washed up and dressed, and then assist with breakfast. After breakfast, we help them use the bathroom, clean up incontinent residents, and take our breaks, and then we help feed them lunch. After lunch, we help them take their naps and assist them into their beds, help clean the incontinent residents up, and help the ones that aren’t use the bathroom. Then, with whatever time we have left, we do our charting. Throughout the day, we have call bells, bed alarms, and room stocking to do. Hardly, if ever, is there a spare moment. If something unexpected happens, our routine can get thrown off, for example, if someone falls, two residents get into an altercation, or if there’s unexpected behaviour from a resident, not to mention the thousands of other possibilities. If something like that happens, we have to deal with that before we can resume our routine. Stuff like this means things can easily get missed, due to our bare-bones staffing. I’ve had residents soil themselves because we simply haven’t had enough time to help them use the bathroom, because something happened.
When I spoke with my coworker once, she told me that we have less than ten minutes to spend on a resident in the morning prior to breakfast. Tell me- can you use the bathroom, do all your personal hygiene tasks and get dressed in less than 10 minutes? If so, congratulations! However, you probably don’t require the use of a mechanical lift, nor do you need two people to help you move around in bed. Honestly, we are so lucky that not every resident of ours are full care and some can do it on their own. Otherwise we would never be able to care for everyone. There are many times where people are late for breakfast because we simply can’t get them all up for breakfast. Thankfully, some residents are late risers and don’t get up until after so. This is all hard enough with full staffing- now imagine how hard it is if someone calls in sick and we don’t get a replacement.
Simply put, we can’t provide quality care to everyone in the amount of time that we are given. Oftentimes, it’s the HCAs that are blamed for being unable to do so, but we’re doing our best- I promise. We’re just spread so thin that we have to prioritize what needs are most important and plan our days from there.
Not to mention, the funding we get is spread so thinly that we often struggle to go above and beyond for our residents. Sure; they are fed, however, as my coworker put it, our meals are often worse than prison food. We have some residents that never complain about it, however, many often do. Weight loss is also a big problem in the elderly and can make many conditions worse. Many residents ask me for things like fresh fruit and vegetables that aren’t over cooked and stringy. Many residents want fresh fruit, however, we often have none, unless it’s being served as part of a meal. Many of the snacks we give our residents are loaded with carbs and not very nutritious.
Furthermore, we don’t have enough silverware on our unit for every resident. My coworker counted once and we have enough teaspoons for one out of every three residents. In turn, we end up using crappy wooden utensils that taste like biting into a tree. We have had to make do with less washcloths than residents being sent up. We’ve had to wrap residents in blankets because we haven’t had enough hospital gowns for them to wear. We’ve had to have injured staff members on modified duties assist in 2 person transfers (mostly by operating the remote of the mechanical lift) because we couldn’t find anyone else to help, but don’t want to break policy.
51% of LTC residents have some sort of dementia and can’t advocate for themselves. In fact, many of my residents are unable/unwilling/unsure how to do so. I am asking you to help them. Share this, advocate for them. Protest, send letters to your MLA. Your vote is the loudest voice.
Please, have some empathy. Think of how you’d like your family, friends, parents, and even yourself to be treated in LTC. While I can’t speak for every single staff member, I can speak for myself, and when I say I’m trying my best to make do with the resources that I have, I mean it. I’ve been pulled aside by family and thanked for my efforts, and my residents always look forward to seeing me. I joke around with them flippantly, after all, socialization is a vital need for them. I smile, I laugh, and I joke with them, all to make them feel more human. However, I can’t keep doing this forever. I’m under 25 and have already herniated a disk. in my spine. I suffer from PTSD (unrelated), along with a plethora of other ailments. I cry when I leave work sometimes because I feel so bad because I wasn’t able to do everything I could. The most discouraging thing is when the government seems to treat LTC residents as less than human, when in reality, they are no more different than you or I.

This may be a bit long - apologies in advance .
I 26M left my now ex-girlfriend 25F a few months ago. We met as coworkers a few years ago and then she got fired from our workplace for basically being a terrible employee. We met again at another coworker’s farewell dinner and I asked for her number and asked her out. A few weeks later we made it official. She was my first girlfriend and the first girl I ever fell in love with.
Around the time when she got fired, she was going through a rough patch in life. Her ex was a serial cheater, and he had gotten her pregnant and convinced her to keep the baby. He then destroyed her life financially and left her & their son. This contributed to her getting terminated from work, obviously. Her mental state was in ruins.
Once we became official, I started doing my thing to get her out of this financial mess, even took out a loan to help save her credit (I know, I’m dumb). I genuinely loved this woman with all my heart, but never had the time to get intimate with her. (She lived with her mom, and I am from a Pakistani Muslim family, meaning my parents live with me - girls? forget it.)
A few months into the relationship, we decide to do the deed as it was very much overdue. It was going to be a romantic date and after that we’d be off to a hotel room. Lol. We start talking about sex at the restaurant and she lets slip “I had sex with ex-boyfriend the first night I saw him!”.
I kinda zoned out when she said this. I waited 3 months for what he got the first night? I was in a relationship with someone who gave herself up the first night? Why the f*** would she even say that on a date before WE finally had sex? My whole mental image of her came crashing down. I don’t intend to sound shallow, but keep in mind my back ground.
We get to the hotel room and but my mind is still stuck back at the restaurant. Long story short, I can’t get it up, and end up driving her home.
I could tell the physical attraction from her towards me started to fade after this. I wanted to leave a few times, but didn’t have it in me to break her heart because of the situation she was coming out of. I also really loved the kid.
A few months later her financial demands also became burdensome. I had paid her childcare bill a couple times, I was responsible for paying for getting her hair done, nails, and facials. I have an okay job but was feeling the financial pressure. I eventually brought up sex again and got hit with the “it’ll have to happen naturally, I don’t want to plan it” and “Its not you it’s me”. Never had sex with her in 6 months lmao. Anyway that was the day I texted her and said I’m done. She didn’t seem devastated but she was crying.
TLDR; Fell madly in love with an ex-coworker with a shit ex-boyfriend who left her with a baby. She made me wait long af for sex, and then revealed to me that she hooked up with her ex the first night she saw him - the night we were supposed to have sex. I couldn’t get hard. She lost attraction. Felt like she used me. Lost feelings for her but didn’t want to hurt her more. Stuck around and kept getting used until I has enough and dumped her over text. AITAH?