Gacha life body base poses
Chakras
2013.01.28 22:54 Jenbirdy Chakras
This is an open community for the discussion and exploration of chakras, energy centers and energy channels, the subtle energetic/electric body as a whole; as well as the practices related to the learning, activating, and mastery of these energetic channels and energy pathways.
2008.06.10 16:36 TechSupport
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2014.10.05 23:51 hotmachine1234 A place to discuss Serial: The Podcast
Serial began in 2014 as a spinoff of This American Life. Each season explored a nonfictional story in weekly installments. In 2020 Serial joined the New York Times Company. serialpodcast is an unofficial discussion forum for all seasons of Serial but heavily focused on Season 1.
2023.05.29 16:58 mackenzietennis Are there people that just don’t tolerate serotonergic meds?
I have very bad back and pelvic pain that came out of nowhere. Doctors suspect Covid imitated but aren’t sure if it is neurological, neuromuscular, autoimmune, etc. I’ve been diagnosed with interstitial cystitis and tarlov cysts and still going through long differential to figure out if those root cause of pain or how to control. I’ve tried ton of meds for IC, pelvic floor PT, injections, etc.
Anyway the only reason I bring this up is because this whole process of trying to find relief and go through all the differentials and grieve the life I once had (I was active, healthy, a top performer at a big four consulting company in a senior role) has pretty much broken me. And I probably need something to help get past the fear, anxiety, grief, etc that comes with constant pain and a possible chronic diagnosis (in addition to the usual therapy and lifestyle stuff).
The only gotcha is I just can’t seem to tolerate any SSRIs or SNRIs. I can tolerate a very low dose of the tricyclics but I feel like maybe the impact on norepinephrine makes me too anxious or jittery.
But I’ve noticed even supplements that seem to act on serotonin are ones that I don’t tolerate well.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I do well (in terms of at least not having bad side effects even though symptoms persist) on meds that act on different gaba receptors. Because of IC, I’ve tried a ton of different things like lyrica, baclofen, vaginal Valium, etc. And the weird thing is, I can barely feel them at the doses I guess most people respond to? Like I can take baclofen, vaginal Valium, and lyrica and literally not notice any change in my anxiety or mood or cognition. I don’t feel sleepy or high or anything.
So I guess I’m wondering if:
1) are there really people that just don’t do well with SSRIs or is it just finding the right one or dose or combo of meds to add on?
2) does my response to gaba-related meds suggest that maybe that is what my body needs or would do better with? My psychiatrist did say my body is stuck in fight or flight and might have adjustment disorder so he put me on a low dose of Ativan (I don’t take lyrica or vaginal Valium anymore) after trying alot of other things. But again, literally don’t feel a difference and obviously I’m very reluctant to up the dosage because I know how they work and know they aren’t viable long term since you habituate. But then I wonder if maybe there is small subset of patients where gaba meds are the answer? I have a very long and deep history of alcoholism on both sides of the family (my parents are the only ones that broke the generational pattern and I don’t drink because of this bladder condition) so perhaps there is some genetic predisposition?
Just curious what you have seen?
submitted by mackenzietennis to AskPsychiatry [link] [comments]
Anyway the only reason I bring this up is because this whole process of trying to find relief and go through all the differentials and grieve the life I once had (I was active, healthy, a top performer at a big four consulting company in a senior role) has pretty much broken me. And I probably need something to help get past the fear, anxiety, grief, etc that comes with constant pain and a possible chronic diagnosis (in addition to the usual therapy and lifestyle stuff).
The only gotcha is I just can’t seem to tolerate any SSRIs or SNRIs. I can tolerate a very low dose of the tricyclics but I feel like maybe the impact on norepinephrine makes me too anxious or jittery.
But I’ve noticed even supplements that seem to act on serotonin are ones that I don’t tolerate well.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I do well (in terms of at least not having bad side effects even though symptoms persist) on meds that act on different gaba receptors. Because of IC, I’ve tried a ton of different things like lyrica, baclofen, vaginal Valium, etc. And the weird thing is, I can barely feel them at the doses I guess most people respond to? Like I can take baclofen, vaginal Valium, and lyrica and literally not notice any change in my anxiety or mood or cognition. I don’t feel sleepy or high or anything.
So I guess I’m wondering if:
1) are there really people that just don’t do well with SSRIs or is it just finding the right one or dose or combo of meds to add on?
2) does my response to gaba-related meds suggest that maybe that is what my body needs or would do better with? My psychiatrist did say my body is stuck in fight or flight and might have adjustment disorder so he put me on a low dose of Ativan (I don’t take lyrica or vaginal Valium anymore) after trying alot of other things. But again, literally don’t feel a difference and obviously I’m very reluctant to up the dosage because I know how they work and know they aren’t viable long term since you habituate. But then I wonder if maybe there is small subset of patients where gaba meds are the answer? I have a very long and deep history of alcoholism on both sides of the family (my parents are the only ones that broke the generational pattern and I don’t drink because of this bladder condition) so perhaps there is some genetic predisposition?
Just curious what you have seen?
2023.05.29 16:57 DukeofBazlandia 120 into Pyanodon's is it just a Boot Strap?
So here I am 122 hours into Pyanodons. Actually, having the time of my life worshiping at the altar of Spaghetti, watching as undulating belts wrap around the very soul of my base. It feels and looks like utter madness at times. It is great! I'm almost completely done with all tech that I can research with Automation and Py Science Pack 1. So I now have trains and construction bots.
I am looking for a little bit of advice. I am thinking I need to call this first base a boot strap (though how big and sprawling it is, it is anything but).
SO, I think I go through and revamp and restructure everything. Start a whole new base structure from the ground up. There are definitely somethings I want to change and there are definitely some production change layouts I want to alter. Looking for suggestions.
submitted by DukeofBazlandia to factorio [link] [comments]
I am looking for a little bit of advice. I am thinking I need to call this first base a boot strap (though how big and sprawling it is, it is anything but).
SO, I think I go through and revamp and restructure everything. Start a whole new base structure from the ground up. There are definitely somethings I want to change and there are definitely some production change layouts I want to alter. Looking for suggestions.
2023.05.29 16:57 StaticNocturne Why some guys find it so much easier than others (it's not just looks)
Brothers are out here are trying to crack the fucking Da Vinci code to win the affection of womenfolk, meanwhile other brothers are naturally attracting ladies by being unapologetically themselves.
Case in point: I know a knuckledragger who has little emotional intelligence or self-awareness (or at least he doesn't show it) and a dimwitted demeanor akin to James Franco in the Pineapple express. He's got a stable but low paying and unglamorous job, and he's a bit above average in the looks department but not nearly handsome enough to counteract the aforementioned issues... only they rarely prove to be issues since he seems to be able to attract casual partners and longer term partners much more easily than some of us would assume based on complex calculations using the Fibonacci sequence and Hipparchus' star charts and whatnot.
Anyhow, as far as I can tell there's no sorcery at work, the fact is he's just being himself - or more accurately the character mold of what I would call your average blue collar sports fan in the city I live in. He essentially says and does what he wants when he wants, doesn't seem to have any grand plan, and I would eat my shoe if I were to learn that he had ever looked for advice on a dating forum or referred to a guide of some sort.
There's some definite je ne sais quoi to be felt whenever anyone is being unapologetically themselves - even if it isn't exactly appreciated and even if there isn't any real wit or charm to them. Conversely it's difficult to be truly charismatic when one is attempting to play a game of sorts, it's usually perceptible, and is partly what people refer to casually when they say 'the vibe was off'.
An obvious yet crucial point to bear in mind is that some men simply have personalities which are naturally aligned with that which a large portion of women are drawn toward - even if it includes some less politically or socially acceptable elements and even if they'd be loathe to admit or perhaps even unable to consciously rationalize their attraction.
Some guys - many guys - are quite effortlessly drawing women in by being brash and assertive, lustful and a bit vulgar, by engaging with their manly sports and hobbies, getting inked and shaving their head and so on - It wouldn't be quite right to say it all comes naturally because it's socially conditioned, but it doesn't involve painstaking strategizing and planning when it comes to courtship, and I think that has an enormous impact both in rendering them more charismatic and in helping them to avoid a lot of the burnout that comes with the more calculated approach.
Of course this personality profile is going to absolutely repel certain types of women, just as a meek and geeky personality will repel certain types of women (perhaps not as viscerally but it will dry them up like the Atacama) but in general, if a guy isn't equipped with many of the traditional / prototypical male traits and behaviors, even the arguably cunty ones, they're effectively playing the game on a harder difficulty.
So, what's to make of all this?
I suppose it supports the view that we'd be better off sticking to our guns and accepting that we won't find appeal with most women, just as we aren't attracted to the majority of women we cross paths with.
It's possible to fake it and make it - I have a close friend who did exactly this with a lady with whom he was (as much as I revile the idea of dating tiers) punching well above his weight... in fact he lied about a range of things relating to his lifestyle and work to try and position himself in the most flattering light, as he knew her preferred type. They dated, he got crushed by the guilt and burden of keeping up the charade, came clean, they very nearly parted ways but ultimately remained together. Seems like a lot more trouble than its worth, not to mention it's pathetic, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't lose a bit of respect for him.
Most likely the optimal strategy is to identify and remedy a few pain points that are likely to be posing the biggest blockades to connecting with women - in my case this involves things such as oversharing personal information too soon (including mental health struggles) and hesitation around physical escalating (it doesn't come naturally so I need to consciously remind myself to be more touchy) - being the most appealing version of yourself, not acting like somebody else.
I was going to delete this after realizing it's all so obvious, but it's written now so I'm posting it
submitted by StaticNocturne to PurplePillDebate [link] [comments]
Case in point: I know a knuckledragger who has little emotional intelligence or self-awareness (or at least he doesn't show it) and a dimwitted demeanor akin to James Franco in the Pineapple express. He's got a stable but low paying and unglamorous job, and he's a bit above average in the looks department but not nearly handsome enough to counteract the aforementioned issues... only they rarely prove to be issues since he seems to be able to attract casual partners and longer term partners much more easily than some of us would assume based on complex calculations using the Fibonacci sequence and Hipparchus' star charts and whatnot.
Anyhow, as far as I can tell there's no sorcery at work, the fact is he's just being himself - or more accurately the character mold of what I would call your average blue collar sports fan in the city I live in. He essentially says and does what he wants when he wants, doesn't seem to have any grand plan, and I would eat my shoe if I were to learn that he had ever looked for advice on a dating forum or referred to a guide of some sort.
There's some definite je ne sais quoi to be felt whenever anyone is being unapologetically themselves - even if it isn't exactly appreciated and even if there isn't any real wit or charm to them. Conversely it's difficult to be truly charismatic when one is attempting to play a game of sorts, it's usually perceptible, and is partly what people refer to casually when they say 'the vibe was off'.
An obvious yet crucial point to bear in mind is that some men simply have personalities which are naturally aligned with that which a large portion of women are drawn toward - even if it includes some less politically or socially acceptable elements and even if they'd be loathe to admit or perhaps even unable to consciously rationalize their attraction.
Some guys - many guys - are quite effortlessly drawing women in by being brash and assertive, lustful and a bit vulgar, by engaging with their manly sports and hobbies, getting inked and shaving their head and so on - It wouldn't be quite right to say it all comes naturally because it's socially conditioned, but it doesn't involve painstaking strategizing and planning when it comes to courtship, and I think that has an enormous impact both in rendering them more charismatic and in helping them to avoid a lot of the burnout that comes with the more calculated approach.
Of course this personality profile is going to absolutely repel certain types of women, just as a meek and geeky personality will repel certain types of women (perhaps not as viscerally but it will dry them up like the Atacama) but in general, if a guy isn't equipped with many of the traditional / prototypical male traits and behaviors, even the arguably cunty ones, they're effectively playing the game on a harder difficulty.
So, what's to make of all this?
I suppose it supports the view that we'd be better off sticking to our guns and accepting that we won't find appeal with most women, just as we aren't attracted to the majority of women we cross paths with.
It's possible to fake it and make it - I have a close friend who did exactly this with a lady with whom he was (as much as I revile the idea of dating tiers) punching well above his weight... in fact he lied about a range of things relating to his lifestyle and work to try and position himself in the most flattering light, as he knew her preferred type. They dated, he got crushed by the guilt and burden of keeping up the charade, came clean, they very nearly parted ways but ultimately remained together. Seems like a lot more trouble than its worth, not to mention it's pathetic, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't lose a bit of respect for him.
Most likely the optimal strategy is to identify and remedy a few pain points that are likely to be posing the biggest blockades to connecting with women - in my case this involves things such as oversharing personal information too soon (including mental health struggles) and hesitation around physical escalating (it doesn't come naturally so I need to consciously remind myself to be more touchy) - being the most appealing version of yourself, not acting like somebody else.
I was going to delete this after realizing it's all so obvious, but it's written now so I'm posting it
2023.05.29 16:56 VladtheImpaler21 Is there a fantasy book where a person is split into multiple aspects of their personality?
Is there a fantasy story about a person who gets split into multiple bodies and each one is an anthropomorphic personification of an aspect of their personality? I mean positive, negative and somewhere in between such as: hatred, generosity, ambition, curiosity etc.
I think its a fun idea that would make for a fun and interesting journey of self discovery and I'm looking to see if someone thought of it and brought it to life.
submitted by VladtheImpaler21 to Fantasy [link] [comments]
I think its a fun idea that would make for a fun and interesting journey of self discovery and I'm looking to see if someone thought of it and brought it to life.
2023.05.29 16:56 ThrowRAdwin I (M26) am bad at reading situation. What are my options here with F28 ?
I'm super respectful and cautious before making a move (that costed me often).
I work with this girl (from country x) and we joined at the same time. We always get along well have chat from time to time. There's a catch (big one), I know from someone that she is married. She left country x few years for study in the UK (where we are) and now working here, but the husband is still in X. Also she never mentioned/ talks about being married, like never and says she doesn't want to go back to X.
Last month at work I asked her (in a friendly way) if she wanted to come to a house party with me on that same day and she said yes. We had a good time there, the vibe was super chilled and she talked about her life / family/friends etc (except the married part).
I can feel she's interested and involved in our chats and like meeting up.
Now she has recently moved flats and I asked her about how it went etc... She asked me if I wanted to meet up after work this week for drinks and to "chill" at her place.
Obviously I know I can't read to much into that but based on passed experience I'm not sure about how to take this.
submitted by ThrowRAdwin to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
I work with this girl (from country x) and we joined at the same time. We always get along well have chat from time to time. There's a catch (big one), I know from someone that she is married. She left country x few years for study in the UK (where we are) and now working here, but the husband is still in X. Also she never mentioned/ talks about being married, like never and says she doesn't want to go back to X.
Last month at work I asked her (in a friendly way) if she wanted to come to a house party with me on that same day and she said yes. We had a good time there, the vibe was super chilled and she talked about her life / family/friends etc (except the married part).
I can feel she's interested and involved in our chats and like meeting up.
Now she has recently moved flats and I asked her about how it went etc... She asked me if I wanted to meet up after work this week for drinks and to "chill" at her place.
Obviously I know I can't read to much into that but based on passed experience I'm not sure about how to take this.
2023.05.29 16:56 bimbo_wannabe_ [I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 6: On The Organizational Habits of Unrested Spirits and The Taste of Demon's Blood, Part 1.
![[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 6: On The Organizational Habits of Unrested Spirits and The Taste of Demon's Blood, Part 1.](https://preview.redd.it/8u7ykhosst2b1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=5b744f64a6da09632ac427471bc1cbaa47eb9911 "[I Accidentally Joined The Mafia In South Brooklyn] Chapter 6: On The Organizational Habits of Unrested Spirits and The Taste of Demon's Blood, Part 1.") | Previous Part: https://www.reddit.com/redditserials/comments/13trg6g/i_accidentally_joined_the_mafia_in_south_brooklyn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button submitted by bimbo_wannabe_ to redditserials [link] [comments] Becca invited me to her apartment when we made it back, sent me through the alley behind the building to keep the prying eyes at the minimum. That was fine with me as I was a lot more noticeable than I liked to be, at the moment. I had already lit a cigarette by the time she opened the back door of the stairwell to let me in. It was the last in the pack, and I'd only opened it this morning. The temperature on my phone screen had finally hit zero. "You're gonna have to give me a second, B, I don't wanna smoke around you in your condition but I really need one." She gave me another watery grin. "Little too much blood in the nicotine system, huh?" "Exactly, my young friend, exactly that." She propped the door open and sat herself down on the ground. I could tell the high heels were starting to hurt her because she kicked them off and set them neatly to the side, though I knew the concrete had to be freezing her feet off. She tucked her skirt between her legs and sat with her back against the wall, her elbow propped on her bent knee, the other leg stretched out straight before her. It was exactly how what was left of Antoni had been sitting beside me less than two hours ago. I was getting a little tired of all the patterns appearing in my life these days. I flipped to my news app, as was my habit. There was an article at the top of page about the preparations the SDNY were making to get ready for the coming storm, but frankly I didn't really give a fuck so I just kept scrolling. "Your old neighborhood is in the news, B." "You ain't had enough bad news?" Beccs asked with a rueful laugh. "Eh, I like to stay abreast of current events. I mean, you got me pegged, B. I'm a nosy fuck. But, uh, fifteen years on the inside, you learn that it pays to pay attention to the shit other people don't notice, cause you never know when the information you pick up is going to end up being the information you need." She gave me a look that said she had to yield to my point. "So what's the news from Koreatown?". "Somebody shot a wedding up, apparently. Says seven were killed, including the bride and groom and the bride's father, as they was leaving the reception. You know, most of these names are Rhees. Ain't nobody you know, is it? Kinda feel like you've had enough death for the day, kid." There was another look on her face, one I couldn't quite read even with all my people-watching prowess. "Lemme take a wild stab at it. Two of those names are Rhee Seong-Min and Rhee Bong-Cha." "Yeah," I nodded. "You do know 'em. I'm sorry, B." She gave a low, almost rumbling, chuckle. It gave me a little shiver, not from the cold, and not one of enjoyment, either. She flashed a sign, one I'd seen her flash before, but it wasn't from any gang I knew personally, and lacking any official affiliation of my own, I'd dealt with my fair share of different gang members in the Upstate Correctional Facility. Double E's, one backwards, one forwards, three quick shakes of each hand. "God bless old K-town. But you ain't got to worry about it. I'll not shed a tear over any of them. They's family, but they ain't exactly family, you know. I might tell you about it one day." The last sentence had a note of finality to it, so I didn't ask any further questions in that regard, but I was still as curious as always. "If all your family has Korean names, how the hell did you end up as Rebecca and your Dad as Sam?" "My Dad's name is Park Kyung-Sam. Just Sam was easier to tell people and he, uh, he wanted me to have the same benefit of blending in in American society, and he liked the name Rebecca. So, Rhee Rebecca Hyo-Jin. My Mom's name was Rhee Chung-Cha, but everybody just called her ChaCha, like from Grease." "So your Mom was the Rhee?" She made an affirmative noise and nodded. "She didn't exactly wanna give up her family name, and… my Dad didn't exactly give a fuck cause he was in love with her crazy ass. You know, that's where I get this from. Except my Moms, if she was still around she'd make me look like I grew up to be a calm, quiet girl." I'd hate to see what was worse than Beccs. "You done?" Becca asked. I nodded, tossed my cigarette into the sand-filled bucket we kept here for just that purpose. I followed B inside and we climbed the stairs to the third floor. I leaned against the wall as she pulled a ring of keys from her coat pocket and waited while she unlocked the knob and the three deadbolts on her door. "Pretty serious about your home security, B?" She shot me a look but didn't say anything as she opened the door. A steady beeping greeted us, and Becca stopped just inside and punched in a code on a security panel. As I stepped around her and entered the apartment, I understood why. Do you know that part in Coming To America where Akeem comes home to his dilapidated Queens apartment and realizes Semmi has filled it with expensive furniture? Well, it was exactly like that. Becca locked the door back behind her, threw her stilettos onto the shoe rack, and hung her coat on the brass tree beside it. I did the same, removed my boots to place them on the rack as well. "Jesus Christ, B, this place looks amazing." There was a gray suede sectional in the center of the living room, a 152 inch Panasonic plasma bolted to the wall. The coffee table, the wool Oriental rug beneath it, and the end tables looked antique, as well as the green velvet chaise set near one window. There were three ornately-carved bookcases set against the far wall between the two windows facing the street, one filled with DVDs, and on the other two almost all the books were old and leather bound. The kitchen was open to the room, separated by a butcher block bar from the living room, all matching stainless steel appliances and black marble countertops. All along the walls were family pictures dotted between massive paintings held in golden Baroque style frames. They were… stunning was the only word I could think to describe them. Most of them were portraits done in a slightly impressionist style, impasto if my memory served me, seemingly random strokes of thick paint that somehow managed to form the perfect images of faces and a few nudes. "Jesus Christ, these paintings must have cost a fortune alone." Becca stepped beside me, her arms crossed over her chest as she surveyed the painting I was looking at. It was done in mostly black and red, the image of a sleeping nude man, one arm tucked behind his head, his other draped across his stomach, his hips and legs covered with a sheet. If I touched it, I could have felt the wrinkles in the bunched fabric. There was something oddly familiar about it. "They didn't cost shit," she answered. That made me look away from the painting and back to Beccs. "What the hell? Did you rob a gallery?" "No, you mook, I painted them. They didn't cost anything but the price of the canvas and the paint, which, you know, I stole most of that from school." "You painted them," I repeated, looking back. As I looked closer at the canvas, I realized why it was familiar. The sleeping man was our dear friend Antoni Zabrowska. I had mistaken his tattoos for shadows, though I had to admit I had never seen him look quite so relaxed. As I glanced around the room, I realized I recognized many of the paintings. I was able to pick out her father's face, Rossi's, and I realized the model for the two female nudes was none other than Nia Bianchi. There was one of a woman in white with bloody skeletal wings that bore a strong resemblance to Becca and I imagined that was the infamous ChaCha. "That's what I go to Columbia for. Visual Arts." "You're a goddamn genius, B." She scoffed. "No, I'm fucking serious, kid. My sister collects art, and she refuses to go for the big names. Shit like this, she pays 10 to 20 grand for a painting half this size, more if it's one of the artists she likes." Now she snorted. "What? Your sister got a money tree?" "No, my older sister Aurie's a writer. She wrote her first book when she was ten. She's published 20 so far, but she's got 30 or 40 more in backlog that she's still tweaking. She's kind of a perfectionist when it comes to writing, but I guess it pays off. Her books sell like fucking hotcakes everytime she puts one out, two of her series got picked up by Netflix, and Lion's Gate turned her seventh book into a movie. She even got to be involved in the productions. "She's got a penthouse on the Upper East Side that she bought about six years ago. That's where I lived when I got out of the Upstate. Aurora, she's a fucking Saint, you know. I mean, I had a shitty PO that was up my ass every five minutes but Aurie never said a word about it. She just… always told me she was glad I was home, which, you know, was nice to hear considering that according to my grandparents I died 19 years ago. She was the one that helped me get this place down here, paid in full for a two year lease." Becca raised an eyebrow at me. "No offense, Tony, I can tell you're crazy about her, but she couldn't have picked a better place for you than this hell hole?" I laughed as softly as I could, to save the muscles in my stomach. "I picked this place myself, B. Cheapest apartment I could find in any of the boroughs, and it even had three bedrooms. I was thinking about having space for a library and a home gym." Becca snorted. "Yeah, it's cheap cause the fucking place is about 90 years old. Nobody's been able to get a hold of the slumlord who owns it for repairs in 8 months, but I bet you the motherfucker still collects the rent checks we deposit in his fucking bank account every month." "Yeah, I figured that out just about as soon as I moved in, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, Antoni always used to help me out whenever something broke." Becca gave a small smile. "They did that for everybody. I used to call them the apartment elves, cause instead of making shoes they were skittering around fixing fucking toilets and sinks, and rewiring burned up outlets and bringing in new refrigerators and stoves when shit broke in everybody else's places. And they bought it all with their own money. Everybody tried to pay them, but they never took a dime for any of it. Ironically enough, Pops used to talk about Antoni all the time because of all the money he'd spend over there every week. Said he had a good heart, just no good sense when it came to what was his responsibility and wasn't. You know, I had my own opinions about Antoni's heart, but I kept them to myself." "I really wish I had paid more attention when Antoni was working on the boiler, though. Instead of just passing him tools and running my mouth." "Yeah, you're good at that," she replied with a smirk. "And fuck you, too, Miss Rebecca. You might be the strong type, but you're not exactly silent yourself." She laughed. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back." I nodded and obeyed as she exited into what I saw was the bathroom as she opened the door and closed it behind her. The sectional was goddamned heaven, and she'd said make myself comfortable so I kicked out the recliner and leaned back. I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed, and when I opened them I nearly jumped out of my skin. I barely managed to stop myself from letting out a yell as I jerked back up to sitting. Antoni's corpse was standing by the picture wall, looking intently at a photo of a child Becca wearing a ruffled, cream colored dress with a ribbon in her long black hair. It was the picture of her first Communion. "Goddamn, you can't give somebody a warning before you do that?" He neither answered me nor turned to look at me because he was using the stumps of his wrists to adjust several of the frames back straight again. "Fucking neat freak," I laughed. "She wasn't lying." He finally turned toward me. You ever seen a corpse try to look annoyed when he's missing about a quarter of his face? I mean, what am I saying, you probably haven't, but suffice to say, it's pretty fucking funny. He raised his left wrist, and if he had hands, he'dve been shooting the bird. Almost hysterical laughter burst out of me as Becca exited the bathroom. "Least the pipes ain't frozen yet," she muttered. She gave me a strange look. "Who are you talking to out here? And what's so funny?" I glanced back to Antoni, but he was gone again. "Don't mind me, B, I'm pretty sure I got a concussion. I'm pretty much seeing pink elephants at this point." Or, you know, the mutilated corpse of my best friend, but it's probably best I leave it at elephants. "Yeah," she answered, and crossed the room to hand me something. "Speaking of." It was a mouth guard. "What is this for?" She didn't answer me, but headed to the kitchen and opened a cabinet, withdrawing a cut crystal scotch glass and then opening the refrigerator and withdrawing… two bags of blood. Nia's blood, to be exact. She unscrewed the cap at the bottom of one, punctured the seal with a fresh insulin needle, and to my supreme discomfort squeezed some into the glass. The mouth guard suddenly made sense. It was so I wouldn't break my teeth or bite my tongue off when the convulsions started and my jaw locked down from consuming demon blood. "Oh no, B, I don't want that." "Yeah. That's why I didn't tell you why I wanted you over here, cause I knew you was gonna be a pussy about it." I tried one more last-ditch effort. "You need that more than me, B." "I can just take my next dose early, but you, you can't go down and see Ma looking like that. She's gonna ask too many questions." That one stopped me. "I've had enough of interrogations for one day, B." "There ain't no interrogation when it comes to Ma. She just puts it in your head that you ain't got no choice but to tell her the truth, and you do. She's made state witnesses get up on the stand and confess their own crimes, pleading the fifth be damned." She screwed the cap back onto the bag and carried them and the glass over to the coffee table and set them down. She walked over and opened a closet door, pulling out an IV pole with a little box attached to it, and grabbed a small cardboard box from off a shelf and what looked like a tackle box. She set it on the coffee table after she pulled the pole over to the sectional and plugged it into the wall, opened the cardboard box and removed a cassette from inside and inserted it into the box on the pole. "What's that?" "It's a blood warmer for rapid transfusions, so I don't go into hypothermia or hemolysis. Little bastard cost 137 thousand, but at least you can buy them online. You put a fresh cassette in every time, the blood runs through it, by the time it gets to my arm it's body temp." She opened the tackle box and removed two fresh lines, attaching one to the bottom of the warmer and one to the top, hanging the bags of blood but not connecting the first of them yet. The top had a drip chamber with a filter, and the bottom held the flow regulator and the hypodermic needle with the cannula inside. "You know, it's not fucking fair, B, you shouldn't have dealt with half the shit in your life that you have." She snorted and her lips pursed with anger as she sat down beside me. "You sound like Rossi with that shit. That's why he wouldn't let me die, said it wasn't fair. I was ready to go into hospice, fuck it, I was ready to see my Mom again. But I'll tell you the same thing I told his stupid old ass. Life ain't fair. Cause if it was I'd have my mother and my baby's father and Jimmy's ass would be the one laying in the morgue. You think it's fair you almost lost a finger because of what he ordered?" I laughed. "No, I actually think that's pretty fair. That's karma, B. I was usually the one doing the beating. How do you think I ended up in prison?" She looked hard at me for a moment. "I mean, you never told me. You were pretty open about having gone to prison, but you never said why." "Well, I learned to be open about it. Some people get real upset when they find out they're dealing with someone who's been through the system, so I didn't really wanna go through that again. So now I just tell people up front, let them decide for themselves if they wanna deal with me or not. That way they can't throw it back in my face, say I lied to them." Becca let out a bitter chuckle. "So what's your story?" "Well, we still ain't finished your story, yet, but we'll take a detour. The whole thing started my Senior year of high school. First game of the year, I blew my knee out, big as a bitch, tore everything there was to tear, shit was basically hanging on by the skin alone. Orthopedics said I had two choices, keep playing football or, retain the ability to walk on that leg, so… there went all my big dreams of college ball and making it onto the Giants." "Linebacker?" I nodded. "Middle linebacker. I was good at it. 6'7, 265 pounds but light on my feet, all muscle. Back then I was running 7 percent body fat, and wasn't even trying. Shit just… all came natural to me. It all blew up in my face. Shitloads of surgery and physical therapy, and then one day the pain pills stopped but the pain didn't. Everyday, every night, I was still hurting." She nodded. "I know about bone pain. I could always tell when I needed to up the dose when my bones started hurting. When I started out all it took was an insulin needle. Now I take so much, I'm not even sure I qualify as human. But I guess I won't be much longer. That's always been the plan. Just keep me alive till 30 and Ma's gonna make me like her. That's the preferred age for the Entrance, something to do with the Trinity." I nodded. "I started asking around school if anyone knew where to get some Percs but pain management keeps that shit so tight I could only get a few at a time. Not only was they expensive, it wasn't enough. I got hooked up with this kid named Alessandro, he told me if I really wanted to control the pain, he could get me something better and cheaper. He took me to meet his uncle, Colombian guy named Marco. First shot is free and it was… it was beautiful. Everybody always gets sick the first time, but I didn't. And then after that, all my free money from my after school job started going to horse, and uh, I got my last six months off school. I already had all the credits I needed from AP classes, started working full time. They didn't piss test. But, my tolerance was rising faster than my income was." I took a deep breath. "I'd been buying enough that Marco was offering me fronts but I never took it. So next time I went, I asked him for my usual and I asked how much it would be for two O's on the front, cause I knew a lot of other users and I was thinking of starting to sell myself. So, he told me he'd give me a pound, and we could settle up at the end of the month." "Jesus Christ, if you were selling a pound a month you must have been making bank." I shook my head. "I wasn't in it for the money. I was in it to keep myself supplied. If I kept my prices right, I could use for free, and I had enough left over to pay my portion of the rent and help pay for the groceries. I got good at it, I'd take a shot, and nod out for a few minutes, then get up and start walking the streets." Becca snorted. "You wasn't standing on a street corner?" "Fuck no. Too visible. I did all my business by phone. I had a burner and gave everyone the number, and when they needed some they'd give me a call and I'd meet them or they'd meet me. I had ethics. I used to have people offering me fucking blowjobs for a bag, but I always said no, shit felt wrong. All they had to do was pay me by the end of the month but, sometimes…" She gave a grin. "But sometimes, 'Bitch, where's my money?'" "Yeah, sometimes people would try to skip out, so I had to apply a little pressure to persuade them to pay. I never killed nobody, it's hard as hell to get money out of a dead man. But, black a few eyes and break a few bones and suddenly they had money they didn't before. Being my size, there wasn't many of them that could fight back. But, I fucked up the wrong lowlife. "There was this prick, he'd been dodging me for weeks. He owed me like two grand, I'd given him that much because I knew he had money, so when I finally caught up to him, I was pretty mad and, the bitch, he told me he wasn't going to pay me. Thought he was better than me, thought he could fuck me and get away with it. So I beat the mortal hell out of him, took his wallet. He had five grand in there but I figured, 3K surcharge for wasting my time." I shook my head. "But I should have done some better research on who I was going after. Turned out the little prick had a socialite for a mother and his Daddy was a hedge fund manager and… I'd hurt him pretty bad. First three months, not only was I dealing with DTs, I was waiting to see if they were going to add Murder to my charges. He was in a coma for that long, and when he woke up, he had to learn to walk again, how to feed himself. I beat him so bad I gave him brain damage." "Goddamn, Tony." "Apparently his parents knew their son's habits and knew exactly who I was, cause they went straight to the police, and two days later SWAT showed up, turned the house upside down. I smashed my phone into pieces, flushed it so they couldn't get my contacts, but I didn't think about the fact I still had the wallet with his driver's license in it. My grandparents disowned me, right then and there. I had just reupped so they caught me with 14 ounces, all it takes is 8 for Class A felony possession. I spent 13 months in Rikers, but my sister got me a good lawyer, he knew the judge and the prosecutor personally, golfed with them, so he got me a plea deal. I was looking at life in prison, but he argued that I was a good student that had made a bad mistake because of a chronic pain issue, and they were both first offenses, so if I pled guilty, agreed to go through a substance abuse program and anger management, then they'd give me the minimum sentence. "15 years, Class A Felony Drug Possession, 3 years, Class B felony First Degree Assault, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm while in the commission of another felony. But, at my sentencing, the judge said I was a big guy, with a big anger problem. I hadn't killed anyone, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Said I was a danger to society, so when I got to the UCF, they put me in dark red." "Supermax?" I nodded. "23 hours a day in a box by myself, no visitors, barely saw the guards. But, I stayed quiet, made no problems. Prison was overcrowded so I ended up with a cellmate, and I was glad to see him. It could have been Hannibal Lecter and I would have gave him a hug. He might have been a murderer but he was actually a decent guy. Him and his crew had knocked over some jewelry stores in Manhattan, last job went bad. He'd killed three cops, so he wasn't never getting out. Neither was his wife. Life in Bedford Hills." "That's where they was gonna send me if Ma hadn't got the jury to give me a Not Guilty verdict." I knew Becca had a tendency to get in trouble because beside the cheerleading pictures in the bodega, there was also a mugshot. "What did you do?" She gave a bitter chuckle again. "Unlike you, I killed someone. 2021, this fucking crackhead tried to rob the store. He shot the customer that was in there, old guy named Mickey, killed him. He used to live in your apartment. Tried to shoot me, too, but the gun jammed and I had the aluminum baseball bat under the counter. I just started swinging. He went down, but I jumped the counter, and hit him again. Blood lust is a real thing. Once I saw he was bleeding, I wanted to see more. I beat his brains out, literally, he was dead long before the cops ever got there. Bat looked like a toothpick when I was done. "They arrested me, and the DA himself showed up at my arraignment. Said self defense didn't apply, sent me straight up to Murder 2, requested I be denied bail because I had a passport and plenty of money so I was a flight risk. But we all knew the truth. He was still pissed that he hadn't been able to send Rossi away for longer, and I was the next best thing. Ma had to pull a lot of strings to make sure I still got my transfusions when I was in lockup. I was in Rikers for four months, had my eighteenth birthday sitting in the Singer Unit." "Goddamned patterns," I muttered, then raised my voice again. "You, me, and Antoni all got that in common, except he wasn't like us. He was already in prison. That's what the rose meant, turned eighteen in prison. Life sentence, triple murder." "He told you that?" She looked betrayed, so I was quick to answer. "No, the tattoos told me that. Google is my best friend, B. That's what the skull and crossbones, and the coffins on his arm meant." She swallowed, and nodded again. "But, I moved down," I continued. "Went to orange when they moved me to Gen Pop, and I had friends waiting for me. Marco was very appreciative of me keeping quiet about my source at trial, so outside Abuela Bogota's was where I hung out the most. But I had friends all over. My sister was smart. She always put way more in my account than I could spend, so whenever I heard that somebody needed something, I'd go to the canteen and buy it myself and pass it to 'em. Nobody had to owe me shit. All I wanted was to be left alone, so I had people watching my back from all sides. I ended up in blue, got moved to the dormitory, started working in the kitchen, ended up running it, cause I was a 'model prisoner.'" "You ever fool around with any of your cellmates?" Becca asked with a grin. "Cause I did." I gave an uncomfortable laugh. "I mean, yeah. 15 years is a long time to be alone. I don't consider myself bisexual even, but if somebody offers, you know…" I shrugged. "I think the word you're looking for is heteroflexible. That's how Antoni referred to himself. He had a thing for you, you know." That stopped me dead. "You're fucking with me, B." "Nope. He asked me once if I'd mind if he ever got the chance to hook up with you, and I told him no, as long as he didn't mind I still hooked up with my old girlfriends from high school. But he never asked you, said he loved you too much, was afraid of ruining your friendship." "Jesus Christ," I shook my head, finally decided I needed time to process that, and moved on. "But, my last year there, Covid hit, and, I volunteered to work in the infirmary, but pretty soon the infirmary was filled, they started keeping people in the hallway, and finally they just ended up leaving them in their beds, I was all over the place. People dropping like flies. Everytime someone coughed or sneezed, everbody'd get nervous. I been smoking since I was 16, so I cough my lungs out every morning. "People was looking at me like I was Death Incarnate. But I never caught it, not even once. And I was all around the sick, I was taking the bodies out to the truck outside the gate. Could've run but I didn't. Only had a few years left. It worked in my favor. They cut the last three years off my sentence, put me on supervised release and now, here I am, 36 years old, and just starting my adult life." "Rossi got let out of lockup right before lockdown, poor bastard. Me, him, and my Dad all quarantined at Ma's, but of course, you know, me and Dad was essential workers so at least I got to get out of the house everyday. I graduated early, at 16, been working seven days a week since." I glanced at the glass on the table. "So let's get back to your story." She shook her head, lips pursed again. "Uh-uh, you're not wasting anymore time. Take the blood, but first," she reached out, quicker than I could even register, and used her thumbs to set my broken nose back straight. I let out a yell, momentarily unable to see as my eyes filled with tears. "Jesus wept, Becca, fucking hell, goddamn." "Sorry. It would've hurt more if you'd known it was coming. Besides, you're a good looking guy, Tony, you don't wanna ruin your face." "Thanks, B," I muttered as I pressed the toilet paper back to my freshly bleeding nose, tears streaming down my cheeks. "Need a haircut though." "Nah, you oughta keep it. It's very The Dark Knight Joker, just black, not blonde and green." I laughed quietly. "Not sure that's the best association, B. A little too psychotic and violent." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Alright, alright. It's probably an accurate association, just a little less arson and murder." I sighed and looked at the scotch glass. "So how do I do this, B?" "Think about it like a tequila shot. Take the shot and then slip the guard in quick. Then sit back, try to relax." I nodded and grabbed the glass before I lost my nerve. I raised it in her direction. "Saluti." "Geonbae." She responded. |
2023.05.29 16:56 girl_from_the_crypt Stuck on earth and looking for a job: There's something in the caves
I spent the remainder of the evening after the "hike" sorting out my thoughts. Trying to, at any rate. Writing it all down helped, but I was still exhausted and confused.
I woke up in Frankie Preston's bed the following morning. I instantly knew it wasn't mine due to the lack of Dorito crumbs in the sheets. Even so, it took me a while to come to. Once I'd rubbed my eyes and untangled myself from the blanket, I found the man himself sitting upright beside me, fully dressed with his shoes on, presently reading a book. "Morning, Sunshine," he muttered, not looking up. "There's water on the nightstand for you. A muffin, too. I wasn't sure what to get."
I let out an incoherent murmur to which he huffed a laugh and rested his hand on the side of my face. "You were still as a rock, you know."
"I'm sorry for messing up last night," I said, my voice cracked and dry from sleep. "I shouldn't have gone looking for trouble. I should've stayed low and just watched those two."
"What's with that tone? I'm not about to lecture you. I get wanting to take revenge. You did fine as far as I'm concerned. And I think Markov is okay with everything, too. After all, any proceedings against the Collective are highly legitimate now or whatever. Plus, she got that lady cultist in custody now, and she's looking forward to the interrogation. She called and explained it to me on the phone earlier, but I wasn't paying attention." He shrugged to himself and I reached up to tug aside his book's cover. "It's Wuthering Heights," he told me, gently removing my hand. I tried to grab it again, but he pulled it out of my reach. "Oh!" He sounded amused as he finally set the book aside to hug me. "You could have just said something."
"Don't you have to work today?"
"I called in sick. Of course, my six moms know I don't actually get sick so they'll suspect something's up. They're probably gonna be all over me."
"You never get sick?" I inquired.
"No. It's one of the nicer aspects of inhuman nature."
"I'm still not getting any answers on that?"
"Don't worry, you will. Sooner or later."
We went out and took a walk in the park, which was equally weird and nice. It seemed such a normal thing to do. It was a bright, nearly windless day, and the sun shining down on us provided a gentle warmth. The previous days' rain had left the trees heavily laden with drops of water. Occasionally, some would dislodge from the leaves and branches they occupied and plop down on our heads.
I asked Frankie whether he would be alright with checking in on Nettie Peterson together. He chuckled, joking that she would probably just love to see him, but ultimately agreed. Once my best friend was due to be off work, we went around to her house.
Strangely enough, the most drastic changes in other people seem to happen without me really being there to witness them. Kit Sutton had somehow turned into a somewhat responsible roommate without me even noticing. Before I knew it, we had become friends. When my savior human opened the door for us, I felt distinctly reminded of that other development. Nettie, not unlike a butterfly emerging from whatever they call that odd little sleeping bag caterpillars make for themselves, had apparently come out of her dark state of mind all by herself. Her eyes lit up when she saw me and she wheedled us inside with much the same enthusiasm I was used to. She had us sit down in the garden while she tended to her flowers.
I watched her closely. Her skin had regained much of its healthy glow, her hair was washed and shiny, the clothes she wore clean—a flowing blouse, mom jeans and sneakers. She had clearly picked them out with care, like she normally did. It was good to see her restored to her old self, but I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.
"I have to be, don't I?" she replied, her cheerful tone coming out more forced than she'd likely intended. She was cutting away crushed and wilted leaves from one of her small bushes, shaping it in the process. "It's over. Life goes on."
"Does it?" I tilted my head at her.
"Can we talk about anything else? Literally anything?" The snapping movements of her garden shears came faster; more forceful. Frankie Preston and I exchanged uncomfortable looks. Figuring it would make for an interesting topic, I proceeded to tell Nettie about our exploits the night before. Halfway through my story, she had ceased her plant styling activities, blankly staring at me from where she sat on the ground. By the time I was done, she had taken off her rubber gloves and was slowly massaging her temples.
"One of these days, Eva. One of these days, you're gonna give me a heart attack. I don't even want to ask about what you get up to anymore, I think. I'm afraid of the answer." She threw Fran a grateful glance. "Thank you for getting her out of there safely."
The waiter smiled placidly. "Sure." Turning to me, he added in a whisper, "So we're not going to mention that you saved me from the FunFlair guys twice before this?"
I grinned mildly and shook my head before assuming a more serious tone. "Nettie, it's great that you're all better, but you were really down before. If this is just an act, I'd prefer you didn't put it on."
"It's not an act," she said sternly, raising her hands to her hips. "I've resigned myself. That's all. There's nothing to be done, I've accepted it and I've moved on."
"That can't be healthy," Frankie remarked. "You know what would help? Punishing the world in some way. You could take it out on your kindergarteners. Tell them a scary story so their parents have to stay up all night with them. Incite a dirt throwing fight and send them home all muddy. Set up a boxing ring and have them go at each other like in a dog fight. Wouldn't that be far more rewarding than sucking it up?"
Nettie Peterson looked unimpressed. Her dark eyes roamed the young man like she was trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. "You're some kind of sociopath, aren't you?"
That she shouldn't have said. Frankie's serene expression morphed into his customer service smile. I don't know when I started deciphering this being's voice and countenance, but there I was, picking up on the spiteful undertone in what he said next.
"I'm just saying, if the woman I fancied disappeared in such a way, I'd find outlets for my grief." His eyes darted over to Nettie as if to ensure she'd heard him correctly before settling on me, observing my reaction. All I could do however was stare at my best friend.
Her glossy lips had parted. She met my gaze, her thick, expressive brows rising a good deal. "I…" she began, faltering and starting to fumble for words. "That's to say, Kit was… we, um…"
"Oh, Eva didn't know?" Frankie asked, perfectly flat and monotonous. "I had no idea it was a secret. I'm sorry, it wasn't my place to say. I wouldn't have mentioned it, really."
Something about that sent a chill down my spine. I shot him a glare, to which he drew himself up and turned away. Meanwhile, Nettie finally broke from her stupor and blurted out, "We were together, okay?"
For a moment, I sat quietly. “Frank, please go home,” I said at length, not quite looking at him. “We’ll talk later. We will.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but quickly thought better of it, rising to his feet and storming off. Ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach, I walked over to Nettie and plopped down on the ground beside her. “So that’s what this was about,” I began.
My savior human nodded meekly. “We… we didn’t want to tell you. Not for the time being, at least. We hadn’t defined the relationship yet, i-it was all so new and weird, I felt weird, but it was good, you know? I just wasn’t ready to think about it that way yet. And you’ve only ever seen me date guys, I didn’t know what you’d think…”
“I wouldn’t have thought anything,” I replied. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long. She called me up before she came back to you a couple weeks ago. That’s kind of when we started seeing each other in… in that way.”
“Romantically?”
“Yes.”
I hesitantly extended a hand to caress her upper arm, locking eyes with her. There was a profound sadness in her expression, a watery gleam. She took a deep breath. “Before that, we used to text back and forth occasionally. I always felt kind of weird about her. Somehow, she got under my skin everytime she was goofing off, what with her little jokes and all. We kept talking, though. I was always so irritated when she was around, and that’s so unlike me, I just ended up wondering… And then when she showed up here, it all kind of came together. W-we did. She stuck around and we spoke and everything simply made sense all of a sudden. I didn't know she liked me, too.” She swallowed audibly, her voice brittle and husky as she went on. “Kit isn't like anyone else I’ve ever had feelings for.”
“Not like anyone else, as in… a woman?” I prompted, raising a brow.
Nettie grunted. “Oh, shush! Don't make me feel guilty for being hesitant at first. I know it’s not a big deal to you, but try going through life believing you’re straight and suddenly running into some cute ditzy punk girl and realizing you’re not. It’s all sorts of confusing, believe me. I was scared it was gonna be weird because it was my first time with a woman but Kit somehow made it easy. It was a bit of a whirlwind, sure, but it felt natural and… just good.”
“Did you tell Eli?”
“No. But I think he suspected. That man knows me like the back of his hand. We’re basically siblings, remember? He was always tactful, never really pressured me into admitting anything, but he made a couple puns here and there, so… I do believe he knew.” She fumbled with her limp gloves, fixing me with a wavering smile. “So?”
“So what?”
“What do you say?”
“Is there something you want me to say?” I shrugged. “I’m only glad I understand now. I wish you’d told me sooner, but that’s your business. Also, I didn’t tell you that I’ve been running around with our waiter, so I guess we’re essentially even. By the way, I’m sorry he put you on the spot like that. You didn’t deserve that. How did he know about you two anyways?”
Nettie pursed her lips. “He might have seen us around the diner or something. I’m not sure. I’m, uh, not gonna comment on whatever you two got going on. You know what you’re doing. Hopefully.”
“Ah, thanks. Then I won’t be giving my opinion on whether or not I consider that deadbeat dork Kit to be worthy of you.”
My savior human snorted. “Much appreciated. Though I guess it’s not really an issue anymore either way.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think like that. We can’t let her go. I certainly won’t, not after this.”
“What do you mean?”
I rose to my feet. “I’m going to drag her blue ass back out of the ocean and have her make an honorable woman of you.”
I don’t believe she thought I was serious. The realization had set in by the time I’d dragged her down to the beach with me, though. We had taken Wammawink for the drive. Wammawink is the name of Nettie’s pastel pink motor scooter. It has a sidecar, which she straps me into with great care whenever we ride. It took her about twenty minutes to get us down to the shore. The more I talked about possibly retrieving my roommate, the brighter and realer the shine in her eyes became. Hope was not yet dead, that much was for certain. I led her down the cliffside and past the rocky expanse to where the concert had been held. It seemed ages ago. Some wistful part of me thought I could hear the faint sound of Kits singing above the gentle murmur of the waves.
The beach was golden in the afternoon sunlight. The sleepy tide sent water steadily dribbling into the sand beneath our feet, the drier patches giving way ever so slightly as we walked along. The faint outline of a plan had taken shape in my mind. We headed for the grotto.
"It makes sense now," I thought aloud. "The creature we fought at the concert was targeting you. The deep ones must have known that you two had a bond."
"I guess so," she replied uncertainly, eyeing the maw that opened up in the natural stone wall before us. "Going spelunking will help us how, exactly…?"
"I figure it tried to take you in there for a reason. This place has to be special. If you want, you can always wait here, but I'd prefer to have you with me. I only want to look around a bit. Maybe there's a clue of sorts on how we can contact Kit."
She sighed. "Now I know why you wanted me to bring my flashlight." She produced the object in question and handed it over before linking arms with me. "Of course I'll stick with you."
The inside of the cave was far too quiet for comfort. The eerie silence was only broken by the occasional plinking of water dripping from the walls and ceiling. We made an effort to step around the puddles glittering on the bumpy ground as we proceeded into the dimness. The sunlight threading through the grotto's mouth didn't reach very far, so we were glad for the bright beam of our torch. I let it travel the hollowed rock, the light crinkling oddly as it reflected off the pools of water that seemed to grow larger the further we got. Nettie Peterson was hanging onto my arm, her grip growing a little tighter with every passing minute. Her face was a set mask of grim determination, belied by the nervous twitch of her eyelid and the occasional quiver of her lower lip.
My own discomfort was undeniable as well. My heart was thundering in my chest and clammy beads of perspiration were running down my face. Every step we took caused a dull thud, the echo of which bounced off the rough stone walls to be funneled by the length of the cave. There were several smaller passages leading off into all directions, but Nettie and I agreed on always picking the largest entrance. This way, the path we took was far easier to memorize and there was little possibility of getting lost. After the third or fourth time we ducked through one of the doorframe-like archs, we were met with an imposing sight. A large room with high ceilings opened up before us. There was natural light seeping through several small cracks overhead. Stringy, pale plant life hung down or clung to the walls. A round lake filled up its entire bottom half.
Both Nettie and I stopped in our tracks. There was no solid ground to walk on anymore. On top of that, the beauty of this subterranean body of water had literally stunned us. Ripples were rolling off the center of its surface, casting a faint shimmer onto the ceiling. The stone-filtered light from outside set the lake aglow, bright speckled dancing across it like sprightly wisps. All I could do was taken in a soft, reverent breath while the very thoughts running through my head escaped Nettie's trembling lips.
"Have you ever seen something so beautiful?"
I would have told her yes, but I truly could not remember when. Unfortunately, the lake also appeared to form something of a dead end. I considered turning and checking out another passage, only for my savior human to point out a ledge running along the side of the room. It was narrow, but no doubt wide enough for the two of us to walk it single-file. We clambered up the shelf-like protrusion and, hand in hand, began to move along. It was bumpy and wet, and I almost regretted continuing this way. I couldn't seem to properly place my feet, my soles slipping a few inches with every step. Glancing over my shoulder, I could tell from Nettie's grim expression that she was experiencing similar difficulties. My pulse was racing, my lower lip caught between my teeth as I attempted to focus on safely making it across.
The cold sweat that leaves my palms was actively working against me at this point, and before I could react, the flashlight had slipped through my shaking fingers. It bounced off a bump in the shelf, then rolled off the edge entirely to disappear in the dark water with a thick, loud plop. I cursed, turning to Nettie with an apologetic expression.
"It's fine," she assured me, squeezing my hand. "It's bright enough here as it is and we'll still have our phones for light later."
I smiled gratefully, about to take my next step when a deep, guttural gurgle came rumbling up from the depths of the lake. The sound hovered in the damp, salty air for a moment or two. My best friend and I froze in place, her grip on my hand turning into an iron vice. For a split second, I believe even my own heartbeat stilled.
"What was that?" Nettie Peterson whispered, her voice barely audible over the sudden charged hum of the water below. Her question would not remain unanswered for long. The droning noise of vast water masses shifting began to fill the air as from deep, deep beneath, something made its way up. My savior human and I helplessly pressed our backs up against the wall, trying to keep steady against the force of the vibration shuddering through the rock. The ledge we were standing on was quaking as though the cave itself had come alive and was trying to throw us into this growling, cold abyss.
Within seconds, the thing broke the surface, causing enormous splashes and sending countless drops of water raining down on us. I blinked them out of my eyes just in time to see it unfurl.
It was not a living being in its entirety, merely part of one. That however only made the sight before us all the more terrifying. Simply put, it was a human arm. Just not of any human I had ever encountered. It was enormous; every webbed finger of the hand it ended in was about my size. There were six of them, each bending in far too many places—I thought I could count as many as eight joints on the longest one. Its nails were more like claws, long and sharp with what looked like barnacles growing underneath them. The thin, nearly translucent skin between its fingers was stony gray, just like the rest of it. The hand slowly began to grope around, searching the walls of the cave. I knew right then and there that I couldn't possibly fight it. If it came to it, I'd try to hold it off with everything I had, but something this huge couldn't possibly be defeated. We had to flee, as long as we still could.
"Oh God," Nettie breathed. "Oh God, oh God, oh God…" Her hand was trembling in mine.
"Quick," I hissed. "Turn around, we gotta get out of here!"
She nodded helplessly, her eyes blown wide in terror. When she began her retreat from the ledge, she nearly took up running. I pulled her close just in time to prevent her from slipping. "Watch out!" I uttered, unable to suppress the fear in my tone. "Don't slip, we're dead if we fall in."
My savior human let out a whine, then took a deep breath and bit her lip. Slowly but steadily, she placed each foot in front of the other, leading us off the ledge. My ears were ringing. I couldn't tear my gaze away from the gigantic arm as it blindly felt along the walls, its nails coaxing a grating sound as they scratched upon the rocks. It was getting closer and closer, the side of its thumb nearly brushing the top of my head for a split second before I could withdraw. I had to press my eyes shut for a moment as my chest tightened painfully. Finally, we had reached the end of the shelf and wasted no time in jumping off.
We didn't even bother with any cell phone flashlights. As soon as we were on solid ground again, we darted through the entrance of the room, back through all of our carefully chosen passages before finally staggering out the mouth of the cave into the sunlight. We were panting like dogs; Nettie was forced to crouch down and sit still for a while to catch her breath. Meanwhile, I was seeing stars. Colorful dots and sparks of lightning seemed to dance before my inner eye as I blinked furiously into the afternoon sun.
"What the fuck was that?" my best friend, having regained her ability to speak, rasped out.
I turned to face her, my knees wobbling like jello. "I have no idea."
"You think it… you think that fish person from the concert was trying to take me there? Dump me into that lake?" She lowered her voice. "It would have fed me to that giant thing, wouldn't it."
I held her gaze, my mind racing. "I don't know. Maybe the giant's different."
"What do you mean?"
"I think we might have just seen Kit's father."
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
submitted by girl_from_the_crypt to nosleep [link] [comments]
I woke up in Frankie Preston's bed the following morning. I instantly knew it wasn't mine due to the lack of Dorito crumbs in the sheets. Even so, it took me a while to come to. Once I'd rubbed my eyes and untangled myself from the blanket, I found the man himself sitting upright beside me, fully dressed with his shoes on, presently reading a book. "Morning, Sunshine," he muttered, not looking up. "There's water on the nightstand for you. A muffin, too. I wasn't sure what to get."
I let out an incoherent murmur to which he huffed a laugh and rested his hand on the side of my face. "You were still as a rock, you know."
"I'm sorry for messing up last night," I said, my voice cracked and dry from sleep. "I shouldn't have gone looking for trouble. I should've stayed low and just watched those two."
"What's with that tone? I'm not about to lecture you. I get wanting to take revenge. You did fine as far as I'm concerned. And I think Markov is okay with everything, too. After all, any proceedings against the Collective are highly legitimate now or whatever. Plus, she got that lady cultist in custody now, and she's looking forward to the interrogation. She called and explained it to me on the phone earlier, but I wasn't paying attention." He shrugged to himself and I reached up to tug aside his book's cover. "It's Wuthering Heights," he told me, gently removing my hand. I tried to grab it again, but he pulled it out of my reach. "Oh!" He sounded amused as he finally set the book aside to hug me. "You could have just said something."
"Don't you have to work today?"
"I called in sick. Of course, my six moms know I don't actually get sick so they'll suspect something's up. They're probably gonna be all over me."
"You never get sick?" I inquired.
"No. It's one of the nicer aspects of inhuman nature."
"I'm still not getting any answers on that?"
"Don't worry, you will. Sooner or later."
We went out and took a walk in the park, which was equally weird and nice. It seemed such a normal thing to do. It was a bright, nearly windless day, and the sun shining down on us provided a gentle warmth. The previous days' rain had left the trees heavily laden with drops of water. Occasionally, some would dislodge from the leaves and branches they occupied and plop down on our heads.
I asked Frankie whether he would be alright with checking in on Nettie Peterson together. He chuckled, joking that she would probably just love to see him, but ultimately agreed. Once my best friend was due to be off work, we went around to her house.
Strangely enough, the most drastic changes in other people seem to happen without me really being there to witness them. Kit Sutton had somehow turned into a somewhat responsible roommate without me even noticing. Before I knew it, we had become friends. When my savior human opened the door for us, I felt distinctly reminded of that other development. Nettie, not unlike a butterfly emerging from whatever they call that odd little sleeping bag caterpillars make for themselves, had apparently come out of her dark state of mind all by herself. Her eyes lit up when she saw me and she wheedled us inside with much the same enthusiasm I was used to. She had us sit down in the garden while she tended to her flowers.
I watched her closely. Her skin had regained much of its healthy glow, her hair was washed and shiny, the clothes she wore clean—a flowing blouse, mom jeans and sneakers. She had clearly picked them out with care, like she normally did. It was good to see her restored to her old self, but I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.
"I have to be, don't I?" she replied, her cheerful tone coming out more forced than she'd likely intended. She was cutting away crushed and wilted leaves from one of her small bushes, shaping it in the process. "It's over. Life goes on."
"Does it?" I tilted my head at her.
"Can we talk about anything else? Literally anything?" The snapping movements of her garden shears came faster; more forceful. Frankie Preston and I exchanged uncomfortable looks. Figuring it would make for an interesting topic, I proceeded to tell Nettie about our exploits the night before. Halfway through my story, she had ceased her plant styling activities, blankly staring at me from where she sat on the ground. By the time I was done, she had taken off her rubber gloves and was slowly massaging her temples.
"One of these days, Eva. One of these days, you're gonna give me a heart attack. I don't even want to ask about what you get up to anymore, I think. I'm afraid of the answer." She threw Fran a grateful glance. "Thank you for getting her out of there safely."
The waiter smiled placidly. "Sure." Turning to me, he added in a whisper, "So we're not going to mention that you saved me from the FunFlair guys twice before this?"
I grinned mildly and shook my head before assuming a more serious tone. "Nettie, it's great that you're all better, but you were really down before. If this is just an act, I'd prefer you didn't put it on."
"It's not an act," she said sternly, raising her hands to her hips. "I've resigned myself. That's all. There's nothing to be done, I've accepted it and I've moved on."
"That can't be healthy," Frankie remarked. "You know what would help? Punishing the world in some way. You could take it out on your kindergarteners. Tell them a scary story so their parents have to stay up all night with them. Incite a dirt throwing fight and send them home all muddy. Set up a boxing ring and have them go at each other like in a dog fight. Wouldn't that be far more rewarding than sucking it up?"
Nettie Peterson looked unimpressed. Her dark eyes roamed the young man like she was trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. "You're some kind of sociopath, aren't you?"
That she shouldn't have said. Frankie's serene expression morphed into his customer service smile. I don't know when I started deciphering this being's voice and countenance, but there I was, picking up on the spiteful undertone in what he said next.
"I'm just saying, if the woman I fancied disappeared in such a way, I'd find outlets for my grief." His eyes darted over to Nettie as if to ensure she'd heard him correctly before settling on me, observing my reaction. All I could do however was stare at my best friend.
Her glossy lips had parted. She met my gaze, her thick, expressive brows rising a good deal. "I…" she began, faltering and starting to fumble for words. "That's to say, Kit was… we, um…"
"Oh, Eva didn't know?" Frankie asked, perfectly flat and monotonous. "I had no idea it was a secret. I'm sorry, it wasn't my place to say. I wouldn't have mentioned it, really."
Something about that sent a chill down my spine. I shot him a glare, to which he drew himself up and turned away. Meanwhile, Nettie finally broke from her stupor and blurted out, "We were together, okay?"
For a moment, I sat quietly. “Frank, please go home,” I said at length, not quite looking at him. “We’ll talk later. We will.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but quickly thought better of it, rising to his feet and storming off. Ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach, I walked over to Nettie and plopped down on the ground beside her. “So that’s what this was about,” I began.
My savior human nodded meekly. “We… we didn’t want to tell you. Not for the time being, at least. We hadn’t defined the relationship yet, i-it was all so new and weird, I felt weird, but it was good, you know? I just wasn’t ready to think about it that way yet. And you’ve only ever seen me date guys, I didn’t know what you’d think…”
“I wouldn’t have thought anything,” I replied. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long. She called me up before she came back to you a couple weeks ago. That’s kind of when we started seeing each other in… in that way.”
“Romantically?”
“Yes.”
I hesitantly extended a hand to caress her upper arm, locking eyes with her. There was a profound sadness in her expression, a watery gleam. She took a deep breath. “Before that, we used to text back and forth occasionally. I always felt kind of weird about her. Somehow, she got under my skin everytime she was goofing off, what with her little jokes and all. We kept talking, though. I was always so irritated when she was around, and that’s so unlike me, I just ended up wondering… And then when she showed up here, it all kind of came together. W-we did. She stuck around and we spoke and everything simply made sense all of a sudden. I didn't know she liked me, too.” She swallowed audibly, her voice brittle and husky as she went on. “Kit isn't like anyone else I’ve ever had feelings for.”
“Not like anyone else, as in… a woman?” I prompted, raising a brow.
Nettie grunted. “Oh, shush! Don't make me feel guilty for being hesitant at first. I know it’s not a big deal to you, but try going through life believing you’re straight and suddenly running into some cute ditzy punk girl and realizing you’re not. It’s all sorts of confusing, believe me. I was scared it was gonna be weird because it was my first time with a woman but Kit somehow made it easy. It was a bit of a whirlwind, sure, but it felt natural and… just good.”
“Did you tell Eli?”
“No. But I think he suspected. That man knows me like the back of his hand. We’re basically siblings, remember? He was always tactful, never really pressured me into admitting anything, but he made a couple puns here and there, so… I do believe he knew.” She fumbled with her limp gloves, fixing me with a wavering smile. “So?”
“So what?”
“What do you say?”
“Is there something you want me to say?” I shrugged. “I’m only glad I understand now. I wish you’d told me sooner, but that’s your business. Also, I didn’t tell you that I’ve been running around with our waiter, so I guess we’re essentially even. By the way, I’m sorry he put you on the spot like that. You didn’t deserve that. How did he know about you two anyways?”
Nettie pursed her lips. “He might have seen us around the diner or something. I’m not sure. I’m, uh, not gonna comment on whatever you two got going on. You know what you’re doing. Hopefully.”
“Ah, thanks. Then I won’t be giving my opinion on whether or not I consider that deadbeat dork Kit to be worthy of you.”
My savior human snorted. “Much appreciated. Though I guess it’s not really an issue anymore either way.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think like that. We can’t let her go. I certainly won’t, not after this.”
“What do you mean?”
I rose to my feet. “I’m going to drag her blue ass back out of the ocean and have her make an honorable woman of you.”
I don’t believe she thought I was serious. The realization had set in by the time I’d dragged her down to the beach with me, though. We had taken Wammawink for the drive. Wammawink is the name of Nettie’s pastel pink motor scooter. It has a sidecar, which she straps me into with great care whenever we ride. It took her about twenty minutes to get us down to the shore. The more I talked about possibly retrieving my roommate, the brighter and realer the shine in her eyes became. Hope was not yet dead, that much was for certain. I led her down the cliffside and past the rocky expanse to where the concert had been held. It seemed ages ago. Some wistful part of me thought I could hear the faint sound of Kits singing above the gentle murmur of the waves.
The beach was golden in the afternoon sunlight. The sleepy tide sent water steadily dribbling into the sand beneath our feet, the drier patches giving way ever so slightly as we walked along. The faint outline of a plan had taken shape in my mind. We headed for the grotto.
"It makes sense now," I thought aloud. "The creature we fought at the concert was targeting you. The deep ones must have known that you two had a bond."
"I guess so," she replied uncertainly, eyeing the maw that opened up in the natural stone wall before us. "Going spelunking will help us how, exactly…?"
"I figure it tried to take you in there for a reason. This place has to be special. If you want, you can always wait here, but I'd prefer to have you with me. I only want to look around a bit. Maybe there's a clue of sorts on how we can contact Kit."
She sighed. "Now I know why you wanted me to bring my flashlight." She produced the object in question and handed it over before linking arms with me. "Of course I'll stick with you."
The inside of the cave was far too quiet for comfort. The eerie silence was only broken by the occasional plinking of water dripping from the walls and ceiling. We made an effort to step around the puddles glittering on the bumpy ground as we proceeded into the dimness. The sunlight threading through the grotto's mouth didn't reach very far, so we were glad for the bright beam of our torch. I let it travel the hollowed rock, the light crinkling oddly as it reflected off the pools of water that seemed to grow larger the further we got. Nettie Peterson was hanging onto my arm, her grip growing a little tighter with every passing minute. Her face was a set mask of grim determination, belied by the nervous twitch of her eyelid and the occasional quiver of her lower lip.
My own discomfort was undeniable as well. My heart was thundering in my chest and clammy beads of perspiration were running down my face. Every step we took caused a dull thud, the echo of which bounced off the rough stone walls to be funneled by the length of the cave. There were several smaller passages leading off into all directions, but Nettie and I agreed on always picking the largest entrance. This way, the path we took was far easier to memorize and there was little possibility of getting lost. After the third or fourth time we ducked through one of the doorframe-like archs, we were met with an imposing sight. A large room with high ceilings opened up before us. There was natural light seeping through several small cracks overhead. Stringy, pale plant life hung down or clung to the walls. A round lake filled up its entire bottom half.
Both Nettie and I stopped in our tracks. There was no solid ground to walk on anymore. On top of that, the beauty of this subterranean body of water had literally stunned us. Ripples were rolling off the center of its surface, casting a faint shimmer onto the ceiling. The stone-filtered light from outside set the lake aglow, bright speckled dancing across it like sprightly wisps. All I could do was taken in a soft, reverent breath while the very thoughts running through my head escaped Nettie's trembling lips.
"Have you ever seen something so beautiful?"
I would have told her yes, but I truly could not remember when. Unfortunately, the lake also appeared to form something of a dead end. I considered turning and checking out another passage, only for my savior human to point out a ledge running along the side of the room. It was narrow, but no doubt wide enough for the two of us to walk it single-file. We clambered up the shelf-like protrusion and, hand in hand, began to move along. It was bumpy and wet, and I almost regretted continuing this way. I couldn't seem to properly place my feet, my soles slipping a few inches with every step. Glancing over my shoulder, I could tell from Nettie's grim expression that she was experiencing similar difficulties. My pulse was racing, my lower lip caught between my teeth as I attempted to focus on safely making it across.
The cold sweat that leaves my palms was actively working against me at this point, and before I could react, the flashlight had slipped through my shaking fingers. It bounced off a bump in the shelf, then rolled off the edge entirely to disappear in the dark water with a thick, loud plop. I cursed, turning to Nettie with an apologetic expression.
"It's fine," she assured me, squeezing my hand. "It's bright enough here as it is and we'll still have our phones for light later."
I smiled gratefully, about to take my next step when a deep, guttural gurgle came rumbling up from the depths of the lake. The sound hovered in the damp, salty air for a moment or two. My best friend and I froze in place, her grip on my hand turning into an iron vice. For a split second, I believe even my own heartbeat stilled.
"What was that?" Nettie Peterson whispered, her voice barely audible over the sudden charged hum of the water below. Her question would not remain unanswered for long. The droning noise of vast water masses shifting began to fill the air as from deep, deep beneath, something made its way up. My savior human and I helplessly pressed our backs up against the wall, trying to keep steady against the force of the vibration shuddering through the rock. The ledge we were standing on was quaking as though the cave itself had come alive and was trying to throw us into this growling, cold abyss.
Within seconds, the thing broke the surface, causing enormous splashes and sending countless drops of water raining down on us. I blinked them out of my eyes just in time to see it unfurl.
It was not a living being in its entirety, merely part of one. That however only made the sight before us all the more terrifying. Simply put, it was a human arm. Just not of any human I had ever encountered. It was enormous; every webbed finger of the hand it ended in was about my size. There were six of them, each bending in far too many places—I thought I could count as many as eight joints on the longest one. Its nails were more like claws, long and sharp with what looked like barnacles growing underneath them. The thin, nearly translucent skin between its fingers was stony gray, just like the rest of it. The hand slowly began to grope around, searching the walls of the cave. I knew right then and there that I couldn't possibly fight it. If it came to it, I'd try to hold it off with everything I had, but something this huge couldn't possibly be defeated. We had to flee, as long as we still could.
"Oh God," Nettie breathed. "Oh God, oh God, oh God…" Her hand was trembling in mine.
"Quick," I hissed. "Turn around, we gotta get out of here!"
She nodded helplessly, her eyes blown wide in terror. When she began her retreat from the ledge, she nearly took up running. I pulled her close just in time to prevent her from slipping. "Watch out!" I uttered, unable to suppress the fear in my tone. "Don't slip, we're dead if we fall in."
My savior human let out a whine, then took a deep breath and bit her lip. Slowly but steadily, she placed each foot in front of the other, leading us off the ledge. My ears were ringing. I couldn't tear my gaze away from the gigantic arm as it blindly felt along the walls, its nails coaxing a grating sound as they scratched upon the rocks. It was getting closer and closer, the side of its thumb nearly brushing the top of my head for a split second before I could withdraw. I had to press my eyes shut for a moment as my chest tightened painfully. Finally, we had reached the end of the shelf and wasted no time in jumping off.
We didn't even bother with any cell phone flashlights. As soon as we were on solid ground again, we darted through the entrance of the room, back through all of our carefully chosen passages before finally staggering out the mouth of the cave into the sunlight. We were panting like dogs; Nettie was forced to crouch down and sit still for a while to catch her breath. Meanwhile, I was seeing stars. Colorful dots and sparks of lightning seemed to dance before my inner eye as I blinked furiously into the afternoon sun.
"What the fuck was that?" my best friend, having regained her ability to speak, rasped out.
I turned to face her, my knees wobbling like jello. "I have no idea."
"You think it… you think that fish person from the concert was trying to take me there? Dump me into that lake?" She lowered her voice. "It would have fed me to that giant thing, wouldn't it."
I held her gaze, my mind racing. "I don't know. Maybe the giant's different."
"What do you mean?"
"I think we might have just seen Kit's father."
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
2023.05.29 16:55 wtfpumpkin Transitioning Ruined My Life
I miss being handsome. I miss my fiancée. I miss my old life.
I hate my body, now.
But I was seemingly fine with Estrogen until antipsychotics screwed with my hormones and aged me, re-masculinized me, and made me saggy/wrinkly.
That made my old personality come back.
I feel as though I have nothing to 'go back' to, if I detransition.
Still on Estradiol, as doctors want me to get more counseling before I get Testosterone.
I barely remember being trans, and the memories of the life and body I threw away are haunting me more than ever. I'm riddled with constant panic attacks.
2013-2018 feels like yesterday. The trans thing feels like a distant nightmare I'm still in the fallout of.
I had my life mostly together before all of this. I was a loser who got extremely lucky, before going down this path. And then this path was lonely, but I managed to cope until it was ruined, too.
I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm really scared, because I want to live and be happy. I feel I will have to go back to being male, for sure, but everything will greatly pale in comparison to the amazing life I had before.
I peaked, then ruined it by transitioning. I wish I'd coped with the 'dysphoria' in another way, because I'll ultimately have to anyways.
I wish I listened to all the little doubts I had.
Sorry, I just had to get it all off my chest.
submitted by wtfpumpkin to detrans [link] [comments]
I hate my body, now.
But I was seemingly fine with Estrogen until antipsychotics screwed with my hormones and aged me, re-masculinized me, and made me saggy/wrinkly.
That made my old personality come back.
I feel as though I have nothing to 'go back' to, if I detransition.
Still on Estradiol, as doctors want me to get more counseling before I get Testosterone.
I barely remember being trans, and the memories of the life and body I threw away are haunting me more than ever. I'm riddled with constant panic attacks.
2013-2018 feels like yesterday. The trans thing feels like a distant nightmare I'm still in the fallout of.
I had my life mostly together before all of this. I was a loser who got extremely lucky, before going down this path. And then this path was lonely, but I managed to cope until it was ruined, too.
I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm really scared, because I want to live and be happy. I feel I will have to go back to being male, for sure, but everything will greatly pale in comparison to the amazing life I had before.
I peaked, then ruined it by transitioning. I wish I'd coped with the 'dysphoria' in another way, because I'll ultimately have to anyways.
I wish I listened to all the little doubts I had.
Sorry, I just had to get it all off my chest.
2023.05.29 16:55 cruisingNW Foundations of Humanity 26 (First Impressions) - an NoP fanfic
Foundations of Humanity 26 (First Impressions) - an NoP fanfic
Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!
Thank you again, u/Braquen, u/Acceptable_Egg5560, u/Liberty-Prime76 and u/BiasMushroom721 for proofreading! This is my side of the Nature of a Giant crossover!
Huu boi this got to 34k characters, so had to split the chapter. Hooray making a backlog!
First - Previous - [Next]
Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I thought of happy memories of the last time my class and I had visited, “I couldn’t figure it out last time, but I was just a pup with a bunch of other pups back then. I know it has something to do with reattaching lines in the right configuration, but every time I got close--”
A black mass. A yawning, toothy pit! Hungry barks! “Teeth! TEETH! PREDATOR!”
I could see the beast’s gaping maw crawling forward to swallow me whole! I couldn’t let it get me! It would eat me! I couldn’t stop my momentum; I just kept getting closer to the inky void and gnashing teeth! I collided with the predator and thrashed and flailed against its wild mane, before my back legs found purchase and I launched myself back from whence I came.
Maeve’s voice shouted from behind just before her arm wrapped around me and halted my retreat, “What the hell, Valek? There’s no Predators he-EOLY SHIT!”
Finding sanctuary against my mate, I found my voice once more. “Big! Teeth! Call the Exterminators! Help! Teeth!” I thrashed in Maeve’s arm, trying to scratch at my prowling assailant.
A voice echoed from near the threat as another form appeared. “What happened?” A human? Another threat? He’s near the predator! He was looking at us! “Y’all okay?” His head turned toward the beast. “You okay?”
“I’m fine! Mostly surprised!” It imitated a Venlil with its movements, but I knew better! “It’s okay! I’m not here to hurt you!”
It was toying with us! Trying to get us off-guard! “Don’t eat us!” Protect your mate! “She’s dealt with Predators already! You’ll be sorry!”
I suddenly felt Maeve shake me. “That’s enough, Valek; get a hold of yourself.”
Get a hold of myself? Doesn’t she realize the threat? The-
“You forgot to say I should be set on fire, or that I’m a freak of nature.” I heard the beast say, now grabbing the edges of the hallway. “In case you need suggestions for insults.”
My voice faltered as I tried to understand it. The words were there, but my mind just couldn’t accept them. Maeve fell silent above me, but continued to hold me fast.
The other human brought itself beside the giant, “Oh my! ‘Nother human! Howdy there!” He raised his hand to his head, touching two fingers to his forehead, then flicking them in our direction. A gesture of greeting.
My ears snapped to the human as I tried to reconcile the friendly gesture amid my panic. Maeve, however, was undeterred and floated past me, coming closer to the monster. Alvi held my shoulder, and supported us against a nearby rope.
“Wow! You… You’re huge!” She had that same wonder in her voice that she always had when she found something new.
In response, I heard the familiar whistle of a Venlil laugh. It was coming from the… it’s a Venlil? “Yes. It’s a condition.”
Maeve continued her approach. She didn’t look the least bit afraid. Even though her arm remained in a cast; a cast given to her by the last predator she tangled with. But continue, she did. “I didn’t know Venlil could display gigantism! That’s incredible!”
I blinked. Gigantism? The translator was unhelpfully vague, something about making things big. The giant seemed similarly confused, “I’m sorry, my translator didn’t quite get that. Display what?”
Maeve reached back to us and I took her hand, and Alvi’s in my other, before she pulled us with her along the corridor. “Gigantism. It’s when a tumor grows on the pituitary gland controlling growth hormones, which causes it to overproduce. It can cause people to grow extremely tall.”
The creature’s confusion seemed to grow, though its body wobbled along with its tail; excitement? “Humans have Marklen-Jauntes syndrome??” Maeve asked for clarification before it continued, “Marklen-Jauntes Syndrome, named after twin giants. Its symptoms are basically exactly what you described!”
Maeve clapped her hands together with a quiet snap, “Oh! It sure sounds like it!”
The giant pushed off from the doorway, and Maeve pulled us into the boxy junction. Their conversation faded in my ears as the realization hit me. It was a syndrome. A medical condition. Maeve had moved to float around the giant as she and the other pair began talking in earnest. I felt Alvi squeeze my paw. “Valek. You okay there?”
My ears fell in worry, “I… I don’t know. I mean look at it! How can Maeve not be terrified of that?”
Alvi ran her paw through the fur on my shoulder, “I think she may have seen worse by now.”
The memory of those shadestalkers on the ground, and Maeve’s shriek of furious pain on the wind sent a chill down my spine. “But shouldn’t that make her more cautious? Make sure that doesn’t happen again?”
Alvi tapped the tuft of her tail against me, a lilt of humor on her voice, “If Maeve were cautious, do you think she would have joined the program? Or came to the Berrypatch?”
I pulled Alvi tighter against me; she was absolutely right. My attention drifted back to their conversation; they were talking about the medical issues of giants. I fully focused on what they were saying as Maeve was finishing her thought,
“... Hopefully, with the Venlil's help, that will change!"
The giant’s ears fell in...shame? It has shame? “You would have to keep it secret. If it was known it was to help giants, the Venlil might refuse.”
Hold on, we would gladly help! “W-we wouldn’t!” The giant’s eyes and ears focused on me, while Maeve and the other human turned to face me. "Our people wouldn't keep secrets like that just because they're big! We may not be the ones in the clinic, but we would gladly offer medicine and equipment.”
The giant let out a deep huff, as if I told a bad joke! “Sir… I’m guessing you haven’t heard of me. Is that correct?”
“N-no?” My tail curled around Alvi and I at my admission. “Should I…?”
The giant’s massive tail swayed behind them, “I guess introductions are in order. My name is Tarlim.”
“The Venbig!” The human announced with a flourish while he slowly floated past ‘Tarlim’s’ front, while the latter whistled in amusement.
“Yes. The ‘Venbig.’ And the Texan there is Jacob.” I saw his tail wag at the name. A sign of fondness for a friend. “May I know who all of you are?”
“I am Maeve, a pleasure to meet you,” She nodded, as she shifted her grip on the rope to reveal Alvi and I behind her. “This is Valek, my exchange partner,” I reflexively flicked my ears in acknowledgment, “And this is Alvi, a close friend of ours.”
Alvi hadn’t moved much beyond floating. She had one eye turned to stare fully at the giant, but otherwise seemed to have locked up, as she had before.
The giant, Tarlim, returned our greeting with a polite bow as he steadied himself on some overhead netting. “Good to meet you. Now, the reason I asked is this: I was imprisoned in a correctional facility before I was able to escape.”
Escape?! I exclaimed, in thought and in voice, “Y-You escaped??”
The giant tried to deceive us, but it couldn’t keep its condition a secret! I put myself between it and Alvi, “Get away from him! He’s dangerous!”
Maeve tried to be kind, “Valek if he’s here I would hardly think-”
But she didn’t know what that meant! We made a promise that we would teach each other about our people, even the bad parts. I had to warn her about it! “Correctional Facilities are where we put dangerous Venlil! People with Predator Disease who have shown themselves to be a threat to the Herd! We try to teach them how to live with the Herd, but if he escaped? He's gotta be dangerous if he had to break out!” I kept the threatening beast in my sight as I put myself between them and my herd.
The beast crouched threateningly, Fixing me with a predatory stare as its ears locked onto me, “Dangerous? Do you know what they put me through in there? The people running those places are monsters!”
“They help people!” I protested, amazed that someone could see their own care as harmful. “They treat people so they are safe around the herd!”
“Oh, HA!” The beast’s face cracked in an angry snarl, “You must feel so safe when we’re strapped into chairs and electrified! Or jammed into rooms where the only safe floor is too small for everyone! It must be soooo perfect to hear about that!”
“Th… That…” They WHAT?! No! “No! Even if that were true, it would be to teach you to stick together! They… They wouldn’t do something like that if it didn’t work!” …right?
A tiny voice spoke behind me, but the beast bore down on my senses, “Stick together! Suuuure!” It’s tail lashed behind it. It was going to pounce! “That’s why they tried to kill me for making sure more people could fit in the Circle! And obviously the electric chair was for proper fear response! That's why they commissioned a chair with enough voltage to fry me from the inside out!”
“Electric chair? You were in an electric chair?” That same tiny voice. Alvi’s words pulled me from my maelstrom and I reached for salvation. I needed Maeve.
“Yes!” The Giant had turned his attention to Alvi as I flew towards my human. “I have been put in that-”
“I saw you on the TV!”
I was wrapping myself around Maeve when Alvi said that. She… saw him? He was on TV? All of us had fallen silent to watch her, including the giant.
“Which part?” It asked with a heavy breath. “The final judgment? The election debates?” I heard a whimper coming from its throat. “When… when my father…?”
Father? It had a father? Wait, why is that a surprise? They were born, so they must have had one.
Alvi spoke with what kindness she could, “I don’t remember much. I was still just a pup when the trial started, but I remember seeing your photo on the TV. My parents didn’t let me watch it after that. I started to research it after I moved out, that’s when I saw the Chair.”
I heard the giant growl. “That Brahking photo! They were so proud to hold me up even though I couldn’t!” Their attention swung back to me. “I don’t suppose, mister Valek, that was also justified?”
I stood tall at the challenge. This… They would not get past me. “I…! I don’t know about any photo! My Family doesn't have a TV, just a radio.”
They flicked their ears dismissively, before bringing them back to Alvi. Was it… kinder? When it was addressing her? “So you saw the chair.” They sighed. “It was only shown after the trial was done. Then you had to have seen what that management did. Instead of letting the place be investigated, they drove all the inmates outside so they could cause chaos! And slipped away while everyone was trying to figure out what happened!” It whistled a derisive laugh, “What about the crimes revealed? Producing and testing drugs to sell on the streets? How the sessions were altered for higher voltage? Oh! And do I even need to mention what happened to the women there?”
Its eye never left me, and I shrunk beneath it while Alvi spoke behind me, “No. No you don’t. What happened there was terrible, there’s no grooming that!”
“Worthy of the Arxur!” It huffed again. “What a title for that place. And you know what the worst part is?” It pointed directly at me with its primary claw; the insult clear in its seething voice. Singling me out as outside of the Herd. “I was in there because of that! Not some test, not Predator Disease, just stupid people Scared. O-Of. My. Size!!”
The rage in its throat was broken by its sobs, as its eyes bubbled with gathered tears, unable to fall for lack of gravity. This thing was crying? It had family, and it cried from remembered pain?
Maeve pushed off of her line, and drifted to the giant, her hand curling around their pointed claw and putting its paw back to their chest. Her words were quiet, a sharp contrast to the giant’s anguish. “I think that’s enough of that. I’m sorry that we had a rough start. We were in the wrong, and it wasn’t, and isn’t, ok for us to react like we did.”
We weren’t wrong! Look at it! How can we be wrong to be careful around something that could eat us without a thought?
I bet your dad thought the same thing.
The thought stopped my heart and flared my wool. When I saw it - No. Saw Him. - when I saw him I scratched and kicked, and I came out unscathed. He hadn’t so much as taken a single step toward us. Only talking. What happened? Why was I so afraid…
Maeve’s voice continued as my thoughts swirled, “We… are sorry for what happened, and want to make it right. I don’t want to intrude any more on your day with your partner, but can we treat you to something here? Valek tells me they have really good fried veg? I’ve never had Venlil Tempura before.”
Why is this familiar? What about this fear… The Meetup.
It-He… Tarlim? Heaved and hacked against waning sobs, barely croaking, “Y-You…you can’t make it right,” the words were only a whisper; barely captured at this distance. “This, all this, just made you more afraid of me. E-Every moment would be forced and shamed. Not genuine.”
This is the same fear I felt when I met Maeve. The same fear that was wrong. Fundamentally and completely. This fear…
Maeve answered without pause, “I think we could surprise you. But I won’t press it. Before I let you go, I’d like to end on a good…noooote…” Maeve checked her empty pockets, as her voice grew a more boisterous timbre, “ah man, I left my pad in the locker. Anyway, you’re way fluffier than the average Venlil, aren’t you? Well, humans have recorded something else called Hypertrichosis; Jacob may know it as Werewolf Syndrome. It manifests in humans as rapid and thick hair growth over their entire body! Jacob can show you when you get back to your pads. ”
Tarlim’s tail thrashed in distrust, but it-NO! HIS! ears fluttered, giving away their conflict. Maeve turned away and pulled herself back down the corridor we came from, scooping up Alvi and I as she passed. But I pulled away from her hand, meeting the eye of the giant.
Nothing about this fear is real. Who I am and what I do is MY CHOICE, and I had the gall to forget that.
“I reacted to you the same way I reacted to seeing Maeve for the first time - well, her hair, anyway. I’ve tried to be better, but I mess up sometimes. I’m… I’m sorry I messed up with you.”
I pushed off down the hall, and met my herd before we continued on.
“Wait!” We found our anchors, and turned to meet the bellowed plea. Tarlim dried his tears on his wool, before looking back at us. “There's a food court near the arcade.” Barely a pause as Tarlim took another breath; the same one I take when I make a Choice. “If we see each other there maybe… maybe we can start over…”
My mouth cracked in a human smile, and my tail swayed at the invitation. “I think I’d like that.”
Tarlim returned our kindness as we floated back down the corridor.
I wanted to just get back to having fun. I had come here with Maeve and Alvi to get away from reactions like that! Not… Not Be the reaction! This was- this was a vacation! Please just…
Breathe.
In. and Out. The Paw is not gone. We can make this work.
“Hey, Valek?” It was Maeve. My love, and my Choice. Her mask met my eye as I spun to meet her. “Are you OK?”
“I will be. I’m sorry for how I reacted.” I feigned a joyful flick and invited them to follow, “Come on! We can take another path and find something fun that way.” I floated ahead of my herd and led the way.
I checked behind me at the next turn and they were following a distance behind. Alvi showed her concern with her tail, while Maeve was unreadable through her mask. It was ok, we can put this behind us once we find something else to occupy us.
Well that was a disaster.
The Maze was more of a problem then I expected it to be. The maze itself was easy enough, but the ‘puzzle rooms’ turned out to be all of the rooms, but they were randomly activated. Sometimes we would fly into a room and it would shift color, pulling the supports into the wall and starting to list the game rules. The last room before we got out kept shifting the gravity, so by the time we made it to the exit we were exhausted in mind and body. Well, Alvi and I were. I don’t believe I had seen Maeve so energized.
“Wanna go again?!” Her voice was bubbling with sarcasm, and she couldn't contain her mischievous cackle when Alvi and I met her mask and signaled an emphatic No! In unison.
She pulled Alvi against her and asked her to hold on, quickly doing the same to me. She pushed off from the Maze exit to the open air in the center. She did the same kick as back in the maze and we started to spin, at which Maeve let go of the two of us to slow our inertia. We spun there together, holding paws and hands, before I spoke into the space between us.
“I’m sorry that I ruined the day. I thought we could go back to having fun, but I spoiled the mood.”
Maeve spoke first, “It’s alright Valek,”
Then Alvi, “It may not have been the best start, but he offered to try again.”
Maeve squeezed my paw and met my eye, “And I look forward to it. That's all we can really do: move forward.” She pulled us back into a tight hug, “Thank you, both of you, for a wonderful day.”
An angry gurgle bubbled up from our embrace, and Maeve continued, “But I could really do with a proper meal. Valek, you mentioned something about fried veg?”
I pulled away and looked around at the various signage, pointing at the exit we had entered from. “The food court connects with the Visor Arcade, so we can go out the way we came in.”
“Alright! Alvi, you hold on, and Valek? Don’t.”
“What?”
Maeve kicked her legs again and set us spinning quickly, before flinging me in the direction of the exit, and she and Alvi the opposite way. I may or may not have squealed in terror during my hasty flight.
I was able to catch a support line as I passed. I looked out to see that Maeve had done the same, and was just pushing off to come my direction; Alvi was completely wrapped around her torso, like she was caught out in Galetime.
My tail thrashed behind me in admonishment when Maeve was in ear-sense. “You evil woman! You could have killed me!”
I could hear her - no, Alvi! - giggling as they floated over! She was having the time of her life! Maeve defended herself breathlessly, “Oh, come on, that was barely a brisk walk. I knew you’d correct yourself, that’s why I threw you instead of Alvi.”
I hit the pad and opened the bulkhead as they met me, Maeve barely correcting against a passing line to float cleanly through the threshold. Alvi disengaged once we were all inside. “Also because I’m her favorite.”
I flattened my ears in playful anger while she stuck her tongue out at me, and Maeve spoke up from the button. “Now, now, children, I love you both equally. One is just a little more biblical than the other.”
A little more religious? What?
“But I think it is time to come back to earth.” her hand hovered over the button while Alvi and I found our supports.
A button pressed, a growing hum, and our feet met the floor … Eventually. We had forgotten to remember that the floor was White, so we all collapsed on the semi-soft ground head-first. Thank the Sun for padding!
“Okay!” I heard Alvi comment, “Seems we’ve been re-educated on where the ground is.” She stood, shaking her wool. “Wish it hadn’t been a crash course.”
Maeve cackled from the floor as I stood, “HaHa! Multilingual pun! I love it!”
She was still giggling when we walked over to help her up. We were just dusting ourselves and flattening errant tufts when the exit hatch opened, and we stepped outside.
Alvi was last to step over the bulkhead, nearly tripping as her paw caught its lip. Having recovered, she asked, “Anything else you would like to do before lunch Maeve?”
Maeve took a quiet breath as we all waved an excited goodbye to Shishi, cold can of Sprunk in paw. “Speaking from experience, if we wanna do VR, and I kinda do, eating before may be unwise.”
Having reached our locker, I waited for Maeve to don her burka, “The Visor Arcade is on the way, and I’d love to show you this quick sightseeing game. It’s pretty basic, but it will show a few other Federation Homeworlds too!”
Maeve’s voice lit up, and I regretted that her eyes were hidden, as I knew they were shining! “I can see More worlds?! Yes, please! Let’s do that!” Maeve bounded forward almost to around the corner. “Uh… Where is it?”
I flicked my tail teasingly, “It is where we are going. You shouldn’t go running off, you know how strangers are.”
Maeve stood at the corner with her good hand on her hip, “Well then be a good boy and lead the way!”
I could feel my snout quickly blooming.
Oh, that’s not fair.
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submitted by cruisingNW to HFY [link] [comments]
Thank you u/SpacePaladin15 for establishing the Nature of Predators Universe, and for allowing Fanfics to flourish!
Thank you again, u/Braquen, u/Acceptable_Egg5560, u/Liberty-Prime76 and u/BiasMushroom721 for proofreading! This is my side of the Nature of a Giant crossover!
Huu boi this got to 34k characters, so had to split the chapter. Hooray making a backlog!
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Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
I thought of happy memories of the last time my class and I had visited, “I couldn’t figure it out last time, but I was just a pup with a bunch of other pups back then. I know it has something to do with reattaching lines in the right configuration, but every time I got close--”
A black mass. A yawning, toothy pit! Hungry barks! “Teeth! TEETH! PREDATOR!”
I could see the beast’s gaping maw crawling forward to swallow me whole! I couldn’t let it get me! It would eat me! I couldn’t stop my momentum; I just kept getting closer to the inky void and gnashing teeth! I collided with the predator and thrashed and flailed against its wild mane, before my back legs found purchase and I launched myself back from whence I came.
Maeve’s voice shouted from behind just before her arm wrapped around me and halted my retreat, “What the hell, Valek? There’s no Predators he-EOLY SHIT!”
Finding sanctuary against my mate, I found my voice once more. “Big! Teeth! Call the Exterminators! Help! Teeth!” I thrashed in Maeve’s arm, trying to scratch at my prowling assailant.
A voice echoed from near the threat as another form appeared. “What happened?” A human? Another threat? He’s near the predator! He was looking at us! “Y’all okay?” His head turned toward the beast. “You okay?”
“I’m fine! Mostly surprised!” It imitated a Venlil with its movements, but I knew better! “It’s okay! I’m not here to hurt you!”
It was toying with us! Trying to get us off-guard! “Don’t eat us!” Protect your mate! “She’s dealt with Predators already! You’ll be sorry!”
I suddenly felt Maeve shake me. “That’s enough, Valek; get a hold of yourself.”
Get a hold of myself? Doesn’t she realize the threat? The-
“You forgot to say I should be set on fire, or that I’m a freak of nature.” I heard the beast say, now grabbing the edges of the hallway. “In case you need suggestions for insults.”
My voice faltered as I tried to understand it. The words were there, but my mind just couldn’t accept them. Maeve fell silent above me, but continued to hold me fast.
The other human brought itself beside the giant, “Oh my! ‘Nother human! Howdy there!” He raised his hand to his head, touching two fingers to his forehead, then flicking them in our direction. A gesture of greeting.
My ears snapped to the human as I tried to reconcile the friendly gesture amid my panic. Maeve, however, was undeterred and floated past me, coming closer to the monster. Alvi held my shoulder, and supported us against a nearby rope.
“Wow! You… You’re huge!” She had that same wonder in her voice that she always had when she found something new.
In response, I heard the familiar whistle of a Venlil laugh. It was coming from the… it’s a Venlil? “Yes. It’s a condition.”
Maeve continued her approach. She didn’t look the least bit afraid. Even though her arm remained in a cast; a cast given to her by the last predator she tangled with. But continue, she did. “I didn’t know Venlil could display gigantism! That’s incredible!”
I blinked. Gigantism? The translator was unhelpfully vague, something about making things big. The giant seemed similarly confused, “I’m sorry, my translator didn’t quite get that. Display what?”
Maeve reached back to us and I took her hand, and Alvi’s in my other, before she pulled us with her along the corridor. “Gigantism. It’s when a tumor grows on the pituitary gland controlling growth hormones, which causes it to overproduce. It can cause people to grow extremely tall.”
The creature’s confusion seemed to grow, though its body wobbled along with its tail; excitement? “Humans have Marklen-Jauntes syndrome??” Maeve asked for clarification before it continued, “Marklen-Jauntes Syndrome, named after twin giants. Its symptoms are basically exactly what you described!”
Maeve clapped her hands together with a quiet snap, “Oh! It sure sounds like it!”
The giant pushed off from the doorway, and Maeve pulled us into the boxy junction. Their conversation faded in my ears as the realization hit me. It was a syndrome. A medical condition. Maeve had moved to float around the giant as she and the other pair began talking in earnest. I felt Alvi squeeze my paw. “Valek. You okay there?”
My ears fell in worry, “I… I don’t know. I mean look at it! How can Maeve not be terrified of that?”
Alvi ran her paw through the fur on my shoulder, “I think she may have seen worse by now.”
The memory of those shadestalkers on the ground, and Maeve’s shriek of furious pain on the wind sent a chill down my spine. “But shouldn’t that make her more cautious? Make sure that doesn’t happen again?”
Alvi tapped the tuft of her tail against me, a lilt of humor on her voice, “If Maeve were cautious, do you think she would have joined the program? Or came to the Berrypatch?”
I pulled Alvi tighter against me; she was absolutely right. My attention drifted back to their conversation; they were talking about the medical issues of giants. I fully focused on what they were saying as Maeve was finishing her thought,
“... Hopefully, with the Venlil's help, that will change!"
The giant’s ears fell in...shame? It has shame? “You would have to keep it secret. If it was known it was to help giants, the Venlil might refuse.”
Hold on, we would gladly help! “W-we wouldn’t!” The giant’s eyes and ears focused on me, while Maeve and the other human turned to face me. "Our people wouldn't keep secrets like that just because they're big! We may not be the ones in the clinic, but we would gladly offer medicine and equipment.”
The giant let out a deep huff, as if I told a bad joke! “Sir… I’m guessing you haven’t heard of me. Is that correct?”
“N-no?” My tail curled around Alvi and I at my admission. “Should I…?”
The giant’s massive tail swayed behind them, “I guess introductions are in order. My name is Tarlim.”
“The Venbig!” The human announced with a flourish while he slowly floated past ‘Tarlim’s’ front, while the latter whistled in amusement.
“Yes. The ‘Venbig.’ And the Texan there is Jacob.” I saw his tail wag at the name. A sign of fondness for a friend. “May I know who all of you are?”
“I am Maeve, a pleasure to meet you,” She nodded, as she shifted her grip on the rope to reveal Alvi and I behind her. “This is Valek, my exchange partner,” I reflexively flicked my ears in acknowledgment, “And this is Alvi, a close friend of ours.”
Alvi hadn’t moved much beyond floating. She had one eye turned to stare fully at the giant, but otherwise seemed to have locked up, as she had before.
The giant, Tarlim, returned our greeting with a polite bow as he steadied himself on some overhead netting. “Good to meet you. Now, the reason I asked is this: I was imprisoned in a correctional facility before I was able to escape.”
Escape?! I exclaimed, in thought and in voice, “Y-You escaped??”
The giant tried to deceive us, but it couldn’t keep its condition a secret! I put myself between it and Alvi, “Get away from him! He’s dangerous!”
Maeve tried to be kind, “Valek if he’s here I would hardly think-”
But she didn’t know what that meant! We made a promise that we would teach each other about our people, even the bad parts. I had to warn her about it! “Correctional Facilities are where we put dangerous Venlil! People with Predator Disease who have shown themselves to be a threat to the Herd! We try to teach them how to live with the Herd, but if he escaped? He's gotta be dangerous if he had to break out!” I kept the threatening beast in my sight as I put myself between them and my herd.
The beast crouched threateningly, Fixing me with a predatory stare as its ears locked onto me, “Dangerous? Do you know what they put me through in there? The people running those places are monsters!”
“They help people!” I protested, amazed that someone could see their own care as harmful. “They treat people so they are safe around the herd!”
“Oh, HA!” The beast’s face cracked in an angry snarl, “You must feel so safe when we’re strapped into chairs and electrified! Or jammed into rooms where the only safe floor is too small for everyone! It must be soooo perfect to hear about that!”
“Th… That…” They WHAT?! No! “No! Even if that were true, it would be to teach you to stick together! They… They wouldn’t do something like that if it didn’t work!” …right?
A tiny voice spoke behind me, but the beast bore down on my senses, “Stick together! Suuuure!” It’s tail lashed behind it. It was going to pounce! “That’s why they tried to kill me for making sure more people could fit in the Circle! And obviously the electric chair was for proper fear response! That's why they commissioned a chair with enough voltage to fry me from the inside out!”
“Electric chair? You were in an electric chair?” That same tiny voice. Alvi’s words pulled me from my maelstrom and I reached for salvation. I needed Maeve.
“Yes!” The Giant had turned his attention to Alvi as I flew towards my human. “I have been put in that-”
“I saw you on the TV!”
I was wrapping myself around Maeve when Alvi said that. She… saw him? He was on TV? All of us had fallen silent to watch her, including the giant.
“Which part?” It asked with a heavy breath. “The final judgment? The election debates?” I heard a whimper coming from its throat. “When… when my father…?”
Father? It had a father? Wait, why is that a surprise? They were born, so they must have had one.
Alvi spoke with what kindness she could, “I don’t remember much. I was still just a pup when the trial started, but I remember seeing your photo on the TV. My parents didn’t let me watch it after that. I started to research it after I moved out, that’s when I saw the Chair.”
I heard the giant growl. “That Brahking photo! They were so proud to hold me up even though I couldn’t!” Their attention swung back to me. “I don’t suppose, mister Valek, that was also justified?”
I stood tall at the challenge. This… They would not get past me. “I…! I don’t know about any photo! My Family doesn't have a TV, just a radio.”
They flicked their ears dismissively, before bringing them back to Alvi. Was it… kinder? When it was addressing her? “So you saw the chair.” They sighed. “It was only shown after the trial was done. Then you had to have seen what that management did. Instead of letting the place be investigated, they drove all the inmates outside so they could cause chaos! And slipped away while everyone was trying to figure out what happened!” It whistled a derisive laugh, “What about the crimes revealed? Producing and testing drugs to sell on the streets? How the sessions were altered for higher voltage? Oh! And do I even need to mention what happened to the women there?”
Its eye never left me, and I shrunk beneath it while Alvi spoke behind me, “No. No you don’t. What happened there was terrible, there’s no grooming that!”
“Worthy of the Arxur!” It huffed again. “What a title for that place. And you know what the worst part is?” It pointed directly at me with its primary claw; the insult clear in its seething voice. Singling me out as outside of the Herd. “I was in there because of that! Not some test, not Predator Disease, just stupid people Scared. O-Of. My. Size!!”
The rage in its throat was broken by its sobs, as its eyes bubbled with gathered tears, unable to fall for lack of gravity. This thing was crying? It had family, and it cried from remembered pain?
Maeve pushed off of her line, and drifted to the giant, her hand curling around their pointed claw and putting its paw back to their chest. Her words were quiet, a sharp contrast to the giant’s anguish. “I think that’s enough of that. I’m sorry that we had a rough start. We were in the wrong, and it wasn’t, and isn’t, ok for us to react like we did.”
We weren’t wrong! Look at it! How can we be wrong to be careful around something that could eat us without a thought?
I bet your dad thought the same thing.
The thought stopped my heart and flared my wool. When I saw it - No. Saw Him. - when I saw him I scratched and kicked, and I came out unscathed. He hadn’t so much as taken a single step toward us. Only talking. What happened? Why was I so afraid…
Maeve’s voice continued as my thoughts swirled, “We… are sorry for what happened, and want to make it right. I don’t want to intrude any more on your day with your partner, but can we treat you to something here? Valek tells me they have really good fried veg? I’ve never had Venlil Tempura before.”
Why is this familiar? What about this fear… The Meetup.
It-He… Tarlim? Heaved and hacked against waning sobs, barely croaking, “Y-You…you can’t make it right,” the words were only a whisper; barely captured at this distance. “This, all this, just made you more afraid of me. E-Every moment would be forced and shamed. Not genuine.”
This is the same fear I felt when I met Maeve. The same fear that was wrong. Fundamentally and completely. This fear…
Maeve answered without pause, “I think we could surprise you. But I won’t press it. Before I let you go, I’d like to end on a good…noooote…” Maeve checked her empty pockets, as her voice grew a more boisterous timbre, “ah man, I left my pad in the locker. Anyway, you’re way fluffier than the average Venlil, aren’t you? Well, humans have recorded something else called Hypertrichosis; Jacob may know it as Werewolf Syndrome. It manifests in humans as rapid and thick hair growth over their entire body! Jacob can show you when you get back to your pads. ”
Tarlim’s tail thrashed in distrust, but it-NO! HIS! ears fluttered, giving away their conflict. Maeve turned away and pulled herself back down the corridor we came from, scooping up Alvi and I as she passed. But I pulled away from her hand, meeting the eye of the giant.
Nothing about this fear is real. Who I am and what I do is MY CHOICE, and I had the gall to forget that.
“I reacted to you the same way I reacted to seeing Maeve for the first time - well, her hair, anyway. I’ve tried to be better, but I mess up sometimes. I’m… I’m sorry I messed up with you.”
I pushed off down the hall, and met my herd before we continued on.
“Wait!” We found our anchors, and turned to meet the bellowed plea. Tarlim dried his tears on his wool, before looking back at us. “There's a food court near the arcade.” Barely a pause as Tarlim took another breath; the same one I take when I make a Choice. “If we see each other there maybe… maybe we can start over…”
My mouth cracked in a human smile, and my tail swayed at the invitation. “I think I’d like that.”
Tarlim returned our kindness as we floated back down the corridor.
I wanted to just get back to having fun. I had come here with Maeve and Alvi to get away from reactions like that! Not… Not Be the reaction! This was- this was a vacation! Please just…
Breathe.
In. and Out. The Paw is not gone. We can make this work.
“Hey, Valek?” It was Maeve. My love, and my Choice. Her mask met my eye as I spun to meet her. “Are you OK?”
“I will be. I’m sorry for how I reacted.” I feigned a joyful flick and invited them to follow, “Come on! We can take another path and find something fun that way.” I floated ahead of my herd and led the way.
I checked behind me at the next turn and they were following a distance behind. Alvi showed her concern with her tail, while Maeve was unreadable through her mask. It was ok, we can put this behind us once we find something else to occupy us.
The Maze was more of a problem then I expected it to be. The maze itself was easy enough, but the ‘puzzle rooms’ turned out to be all of the rooms, but they were randomly activated. Sometimes we would fly into a room and it would shift color, pulling the supports into the wall and starting to list the game rules. The last room before we got out kept shifting the gravity, so by the time we made it to the exit we were exhausted in mind and body. Well, Alvi and I were. I don’t believe I had seen Maeve so energized.
“Wanna go again?!” Her voice was bubbling with sarcasm, and she couldn't contain her mischievous cackle when Alvi and I met her mask and signaled an emphatic No! In unison.
She pulled Alvi against her and asked her to hold on, quickly doing the same to me. She pushed off from the Maze exit to the open air in the center. She did the same kick as back in the maze and we started to spin, at which Maeve let go of the two of us to slow our inertia. We spun there together, holding paws and hands, before I spoke into the space between us.
“I’m sorry that I ruined the day. I thought we could go back to having fun, but I spoiled the mood.”
Maeve spoke first, “It’s alright Valek,”
Then Alvi, “It may not have been the best start, but he offered to try again.”
Maeve squeezed my paw and met my eye, “And I look forward to it. That's all we can really do: move forward.” She pulled us back into a tight hug, “Thank you, both of you, for a wonderful day.”
An angry gurgle bubbled up from our embrace, and Maeve continued, “But I could really do with a proper meal. Valek, you mentioned something about fried veg?”
I pulled away and looked around at the various signage, pointing at the exit we had entered from. “The food court connects with the Visor Arcade, so we can go out the way we came in.”
“Alright! Alvi, you hold on, and Valek? Don’t.”
“What?”
Maeve kicked her legs again and set us spinning quickly, before flinging me in the direction of the exit, and she and Alvi the opposite way. I may or may not have squealed in terror during my hasty flight.
I was able to catch a support line as I passed. I looked out to see that Maeve had done the same, and was just pushing off to come my direction; Alvi was completely wrapped around her torso, like she was caught out in Galetime.
My tail thrashed behind me in admonishment when Maeve was in ear-sense. “You evil woman! You could have killed me!”
I could hear her - no, Alvi! - giggling as they floated over! She was having the time of her life! Maeve defended herself breathlessly, “Oh, come on, that was barely a brisk walk. I knew you’d correct yourself, that’s why I threw you instead of Alvi.”
I hit the pad and opened the bulkhead as they met me, Maeve barely correcting against a passing line to float cleanly through the threshold. Alvi disengaged once we were all inside. “Also because I’m her favorite.”
I flattened my ears in playful anger while she stuck her tongue out at me, and Maeve spoke up from the button. “Now, now, children, I love you both equally. One is just a little more biblical than the other.”
A little more religious? What?
“But I think it is time to come back to earth.” her hand hovered over the button while Alvi and I found our supports.
A button pressed, a growing hum, and our feet met the floor … Eventually. We had forgotten to remember that the floor was White, so we all collapsed on the semi-soft ground head-first. Thank the Sun for padding!
“Okay!” I heard Alvi comment, “Seems we’ve been re-educated on where the ground is.” She stood, shaking her wool. “Wish it hadn’t been a crash course.”
Maeve cackled from the floor as I stood, “HaHa! Multilingual pun! I love it!”
She was still giggling when we walked over to help her up. We were just dusting ourselves and flattening errant tufts when the exit hatch opened, and we stepped outside.
Alvi was last to step over the bulkhead, nearly tripping as her paw caught its lip. Having recovered, she asked, “Anything else you would like to do before lunch Maeve?”
Maeve took a quiet breath as we all waved an excited goodbye to Shishi, cold can of Sprunk in paw. “Speaking from experience, if we wanna do VR, and I kinda do, eating before may be unwise.”
Having reached our locker, I waited for Maeve to don her burka, “The Visor Arcade is on the way, and I’d love to show you this quick sightseeing game. It’s pretty basic, but it will show a few other Federation Homeworlds too!”
Maeve’s voice lit up, and I regretted that her eyes were hidden, as I knew they were shining! “I can see More worlds?! Yes, please! Let’s do that!” Maeve bounded forward almost to around the corner. “Uh… Where is it?”
I flicked my tail teasingly, “It is where we are going. You shouldn’t go running off, you know how strangers are.”
Maeve stood at the corner with her good hand on her hip, “Well then be a good boy and lead the way!”
I could feel my snout quickly blooming.
Oh, that’s not fair.
First - Previous - [Next]
2023.05.29 16:55 AutoModerator Andrew Tate Courses (PhD Included)
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submitted by AutoModerator to TateProgramsHere [link] [comments]
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2023.05.29 16:54 Impossible_Week4787 Nueropsyc testing(kind of long, story with it.)
Hi everyone. Last July I had severe dehydration from mom stop vomiting that landed me in the hospital with an aki for 2daya. While there I caught covid. However due to a coding error I was out, and for the next week I got worse. I was sick all Wed night until my body gave out and I passed out. I woke up on the bathroom floor at 2pm and couldn't walk. My wife got home at 5, EMS came, ER bound. I had severe Rhabdomyolysis with ck levels topping 200k, covid and dbl pneumonia. I had to have a temp picc for dyalisis until I was healthy enough for a permanent catheter. About a week later.
My levels did not improve and I was awaiting outpatient dyalisis. On my 14th day I went into cardiac arrest. I had to stop dyalisis earlier than normal bc of my dropping BP. They performed CPR and it took an hour to stabilize me. Meanwhile they called my family in. Luckily, I came off mechanical ventilation within 2 and 1/2 to 3 days.. however it seemed to start curing my kidneys, I couldn't walk unaided(still can't, have had home health care for 11 months now.) Intense brain fog, and speech issues that have mainly cleared. However I still suffer from cognitive issues, as well as being mostly bedridden. I just got out of the hospital after a 12 day stay. (5 this year.) Lots of diagnoses, the main cause would be hypoxia and antioxic ischemic events during the stabilization of being put on life support. I wish I could know if I had a seizure since I have epilepsy, or a stroke. I have notable loss of power to my left side.
So offff coooourse I didn't get my SSDI the first 2 times under an adjudicator. I'm 39 years old and have only been paying into FICA since I was 15! I knew all about their bullshit and hired a lawyer ASAP and am awaiting an alj hearing. All due to age ladies and gentlemen. My file alone should be enough, however I have had my PCP and my psychiatric doctor to fill out the forms about what was wrong as the percentage I could stand and use my hands(as well as other things. They have a pretty good reputation and don't just fill these out for randos.)
Thanks for hanging with me so far. My Nuero and PCP wanted me to go get tested by a neurosight so my appointment is June 7th and I know it's about a six to eight hour test, but I was wondering if any of you had any advice as to how to get through this thing as I don't know what I am up against here, although I'm having to pay out of pocket so any advice to help me would be great. I really appreciate you guys sticking with my story. I know it was a long one just like all of yours. I think it's disgusting that we have to deal with this as Americans who have mainly paid into this system while these greedy ass politicians would like to rape and pillage what's left of it. Happy Memorial day, I feel like everyone here has damn sure sacrificed.
submitted by Impossible_Week4787 to disability [link] [comments]
My levels did not improve and I was awaiting outpatient dyalisis. On my 14th day I went into cardiac arrest. I had to stop dyalisis earlier than normal bc of my dropping BP. They performed CPR and it took an hour to stabilize me. Meanwhile they called my family in. Luckily, I came off mechanical ventilation within 2 and 1/2 to 3 days.. however it seemed to start curing my kidneys, I couldn't walk unaided(still can't, have had home health care for 11 months now.) Intense brain fog, and speech issues that have mainly cleared. However I still suffer from cognitive issues, as well as being mostly bedridden. I just got out of the hospital after a 12 day stay. (5 this year.) Lots of diagnoses, the main cause would be hypoxia and antioxic ischemic events during the stabilization of being put on life support. I wish I could know if I had a seizure since I have epilepsy, or a stroke. I have notable loss of power to my left side.
So offff coooourse I didn't get my SSDI the first 2 times under an adjudicator. I'm 39 years old and have only been paying into FICA since I was 15! I knew all about their bullshit and hired a lawyer ASAP and am awaiting an alj hearing. All due to age ladies and gentlemen. My file alone should be enough, however I have had my PCP and my psychiatric doctor to fill out the forms about what was wrong as the percentage I could stand and use my hands(as well as other things. They have a pretty good reputation and don't just fill these out for randos.)
Thanks for hanging with me so far. My Nuero and PCP wanted me to go get tested by a neurosight so my appointment is June 7th and I know it's about a six to eight hour test, but I was wondering if any of you had any advice as to how to get through this thing as I don't know what I am up against here, although I'm having to pay out of pocket so any advice to help me would be great. I really appreciate you guys sticking with my story. I know it was a long one just like all of yours. I think it's disgusting that we have to deal with this as Americans who have mainly paid into this system while these greedy ass politicians would like to rape and pillage what's left of it. Happy Memorial day, I feel like everyone here has damn sure sacrificed.
2023.05.29 16:53 Maxson_method5138 A fan fiction about Michael afton’s soul wandering around the world for a while and ending up possessing Glamrock Freddy
Once Michael Afton's body burnt to ashes in the fire, his soul had no place to go. It wandered around the world of animatronics for a while, lost and confused. Michael had faced so much terror and horror working at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but now he was beginning to feel as though it was all for nothing.
After a while, Michael's ghost happened upon a brand new establishment - Glamrock Freddy's Mega Pizza Plex. It was a massive, state-of-the-art animatronic entertainment center, complete with games, rides, and the most advanced animatronics the world had ever seen. Michael was shocked - he had no idea that out in the world, things had progressed so much since his time working at Freddy Fazbear's.
But as he roamed around the dimly lit corridors, he suddenly felt a strange pull towards one of the animatronics - a large, hulking figure that seemed to be glowing with some kind of inner energy. As he approached it, the figure spoke to him. "Hello, Michael," it said, its voice smooth and warm. "I've been waiting for you."
Michael was startled - how had this animatronic known his name? But as the figure stepped closer, Michael suddenly felt everything snap into place. He realized that this animatronic was none other than Glamrock Freddy itself - and somehow, it had become infused with his own ghostly essence.
At first, Michael was excited - he realized that he could finally be something more than just a lost and wandering soul. With Glamrock Freddy's advanced animatronic body, he could start anew - maybe even find his way back to the world of the living.
But as he started to manipulate the body, to learn its movements and abilities, he realized that something wasn't quite right. The animatronic seemed to be glitching out - twitching spasmodically, its eyes flickering in and out of focus. And then, he realized with dawning horror that the programming that brought Glamrock Freddy to life was starting to merge with his own consciousness.
As Michael struggled to keep himself separate from the overwhelming force of the animatronic programming, he began to realize the true extent of what had happened. He had become a part of something far greater than himself - a new type of entity that condensed both soul and machine. And as he stood, staring off into the distance, he knew that he was part of something that would change the animatronic world forever.
submitted by Maxson_method5138 to fivenightsatfreddys [link] [comments]
After a while, Michael's ghost happened upon a brand new establishment - Glamrock Freddy's Mega Pizza Plex. It was a massive, state-of-the-art animatronic entertainment center, complete with games, rides, and the most advanced animatronics the world had ever seen. Michael was shocked - he had no idea that out in the world, things had progressed so much since his time working at Freddy Fazbear's.
But as he roamed around the dimly lit corridors, he suddenly felt a strange pull towards one of the animatronics - a large, hulking figure that seemed to be glowing with some kind of inner energy. As he approached it, the figure spoke to him. "Hello, Michael," it said, its voice smooth and warm. "I've been waiting for you."
Michael was startled - how had this animatronic known his name? But as the figure stepped closer, Michael suddenly felt everything snap into place. He realized that this animatronic was none other than Glamrock Freddy itself - and somehow, it had become infused with his own ghostly essence.
At first, Michael was excited - he realized that he could finally be something more than just a lost and wandering soul. With Glamrock Freddy's advanced animatronic body, he could start anew - maybe even find his way back to the world of the living.
But as he started to manipulate the body, to learn its movements and abilities, he realized that something wasn't quite right. The animatronic seemed to be glitching out - twitching spasmodically, its eyes flickering in and out of focus. And then, he realized with dawning horror that the programming that brought Glamrock Freddy to life was starting to merge with his own consciousness.
As Michael struggled to keep himself separate from the overwhelming force of the animatronic programming, he began to realize the true extent of what had happened. He had become a part of something far greater than himself - a new type of entity that condensed both soul and machine. And as he stood, staring off into the distance, he knew that he was part of something that would change the animatronic world forever.
2023.05.29 16:53 Zestyclose-Spring602 The secret of Beerus' ever-growing power in the manga and its uncertain status relative to the anime
I've seen quite a lively discussion here about Beerus' power being retconned, but I think this might be a good post explaining why no one has outdone him yet including Goku and Vegeta.
5 In the manga, Beerus doesn't have to fear Goku as much in the form of Ultra Instinct or True Ultra Instinct, because he has a technique opposite to the silver-haired technique, namely Ultra Ego, which is at a tremendously higher level of mastery than Vegeta who, despite crawling with this technique, can only match Goku in his white-haired form. The peak of Beerus' power in the manga was more theorized than actually addressed (see the words of the kaioshin in Future Trunks saga). When in the anime Beerus was shocked by something every now and then (see Blue kaioken, the power of Jiren and Goku at the power tournament) when in the manga he didn't seem as scared of Jiren or Goku in silver form as in the anime.
I invite you to discuss
submitted by Zestyclose-Spring602 to dragonball [link] [comments]
- in the anime Beerus was overtaken at the power tournament by Goku in his Ultra Instinct, then nahpoewe repeated this feat by Gogeta and Broly, this was especially suggested by Goku claiming that Broly might be stronger than Beerus, which is even more suggested in SH because as soon as Beerus heard that Broly was on his planet he reacted panically and a little in fear rather than rage as if he feared him.
- people combine the anime and manga but it's pointless because both continuities have their own power scaling, since Toyotaro conducts the power narrative in a completely different way than Toei animation. In the anime continuity Ultra Ego does not exist therefore Beerus' strength is more balanced, when in the manga he still has to be the strongest thanks to Ultra Ego which allows his strength to grow. In the manga, Ultra Instinct has its own rules of operation based on getting rid of unnecessary emotions and thoughts when in the manga it is a limit breaker that allowed Goku to break the limit and move his body on his own.
5 In the manga, Beerus doesn't have to fear Goku as much in the form of Ultra Instinct or True Ultra Instinct, because he has a technique opposite to the silver-haired technique, namely Ultra Ego, which is at a tremendously higher level of mastery than Vegeta who, despite crawling with this technique, can only match Goku in his white-haired form. The peak of Beerus' power in the manga was more theorized than actually addressed (see the words of the kaioshin in Future Trunks saga). When in the anime Beerus was shocked by something every now and then (see Blue kaioken, the power of Jiren and Goku at the power tournament) when in the manga he didn't seem as scared of Jiren or Goku in silver form as in the anime.
I invite you to discuss
2023.05.29 16:53 Oooops158 Cried after sex
For a bit of background, I have been with my AP for nearly 5 years. Some things have come to light recently with him and his SO that have caused me to feel I should end it with AP. For now I have told him I need a few weeks away to think things over and he needs to focus on his relationship with his SO. We both agreed to talk again in 2 weeks and plan to meet at our spot to talk things over. Anyway....
My biggest reason for stepping out is our sex life and lack of passion. It's not a dead bedroom, if you asked my H he would say he's very satisfied. I am not. Sex for us is a few seconds of him groping my tits or slapping my ass once or twice before he sticks it in, humps me for a couple minutes and finishes. (We pretty much have sex when he wants unless I'm sick or something like that.) I have told him I need more, I have told him I need foreplay and that just because he came doesn't mean I did. I have even told him I'm bored with our sex life and I want to spice things up. Whenever I talk to him about this, he makes a halfhearted attempt at foreplay the next few sessions but he doesn't listen to my suggestions about what feels good and soon it's back to the usual. He acts like foreplay is a chore that he has to complete to get what he wants. If I complain that I didn't cum he says go get your vibrator and finish yourself. Just like in many other aspects of our relationship, it's about him and what he wants. I feel like a human fleshlight with him.
We had sex last night and when he finished, I nearly burst into tears. I excused myself to the bathroom and cried. My AP and I have such an amazing sex life, he's made me scream in pleasure and I have never had so many orgasms in a row. He genuinely enjoys pleasuring me and he likes to take his time, exploring every part of my body and what feels good. He's adventurous in bed and always wanting to try new things. The thought of not having that anymore makes me so sad. I know by not cheating on my H I'm doing the right thing. But it fucking sucks that "the right thing" means a lackluster sex life. I mean yes I do have a few toys that get the job done but I am feeling like I'll never actually get to enjoy and look forward to having sex again.
I have posted a lot of ventilation posts lately and I feel like a whiny brat. But as usual I can't talk about this with my girlfriends (I mean I can about the bad sex stuff but not so much about the missing AP). So here I am. Thanks for putting up with my sad whining adultery.
submitted by Oooops158 to adultery [link] [comments]
My biggest reason for stepping out is our sex life and lack of passion. It's not a dead bedroom, if you asked my H he would say he's very satisfied. I am not. Sex for us is a few seconds of him groping my tits or slapping my ass once or twice before he sticks it in, humps me for a couple minutes and finishes. (We pretty much have sex when he wants unless I'm sick or something like that.) I have told him I need more, I have told him I need foreplay and that just because he came doesn't mean I did. I have even told him I'm bored with our sex life and I want to spice things up. Whenever I talk to him about this, he makes a halfhearted attempt at foreplay the next few sessions but he doesn't listen to my suggestions about what feels good and soon it's back to the usual. He acts like foreplay is a chore that he has to complete to get what he wants. If I complain that I didn't cum he says go get your vibrator and finish yourself. Just like in many other aspects of our relationship, it's about him and what he wants. I feel like a human fleshlight with him.
We had sex last night and when he finished, I nearly burst into tears. I excused myself to the bathroom and cried. My AP and I have such an amazing sex life, he's made me scream in pleasure and I have never had so many orgasms in a row. He genuinely enjoys pleasuring me and he likes to take his time, exploring every part of my body and what feels good. He's adventurous in bed and always wanting to try new things. The thought of not having that anymore makes me so sad. I know by not cheating on my H I'm doing the right thing. But it fucking sucks that "the right thing" means a lackluster sex life. I mean yes I do have a few toys that get the job done but I am feeling like I'll never actually get to enjoy and look forward to having sex again.
I have posted a lot of ventilation posts lately and I feel like a whiny brat. But as usual I can't talk about this with my girlfriends (I mean I can about the bad sex stuff but not so much about the missing AP). So here I am. Thanks for putting up with my sad whining adultery.
2023.05.29 16:53 PagodaPanda I think I'm finally feeling tiny lucky
 | Yesterday Sera dropped after I asked what 3 card should be claimed after you guys helped me. I caught it with 40 minutes on the clock. submitted by PagodaPanda to MarvelSnap [link] [comments] Ignored game because I'm trying to enhance my life right now by reading until today I get Death in a collector cache after hopping back on I don't know how excited I should be but based on context I imagine I finally got a good string of luck? |
2023.05.29 16:52 Bulrat Good Vs Evil in Star Wars VS Light vs Dark
Good Vs Evil in Star Wars
The Empire is EVIL, in fact the Empire is the archetypical EVIL government
and there is little of nothing to say that can redeem it.
However in the aspect of good vs evil the individuals that make up this EVIL government may be both good and evil and in fact most may in fact be good.
While Tarkin was one of the Archeyptical EVIL Imperials we can easily argue that with the wast number of planets there would be planets that is controlled and ruled by imperial governors that do treat their people well, even very well
making them essntiianly good people, but of course overall servants of an evil government but still individually good.
I think we can all agree this is how the world works, both in star wars and in the real world.
Now lets look at the good vs evil aspets where it comes to the force.
How do we define good vs evil when dealing with the force?
I have found that we deal with the good vs evil aspects as they are seen by the eyesof a religion, this religion has been defualted to be the "only" good and "light" and that all other are "evil" and "dark" in some form, this is nonsense.
We have the famous scene where Luke actually uses the force to choke the Gamorrean gurds at Jabba's Palace.
Luke her by the rules would have been issued a Dark Sie Point, with the Insinuation that his was an EVIL act, where as I would disagree totally, it was in fact bot a good act and a light act and extremely jedi act, and thus even when the RPG rules says to issue a DSP when using the power to injure or kill, this was the LEAST of EVILS, with the alternatives being, choke and scare but not kill, or risk a fight and having to draw weapon and suffer a high RISK of KILLING.
I say the non killing using choke even if a DSP by rules is NON DSP act and the light and jedi way as it prevents a fight that can easily become deadly, and it leaves nobody dead or permanently injured, only stunned and with possible lack of movement for a limited time and with a little bit of a lack of breath for a while.
We have a "sith" power called Aura of Uneasiness
Aura of Uneasiness
Control Difficulty: Easy. Modified by proximity, but limited to line of sight.
Alter Difficulty: Easy.
Warning: Any character who uses this power gains a Dark Side Point.
Note: This power is a Sith discipline
Effect: This power allows a Sith to project a field of vague discomfort and unease around him, which causes non-sentient creatures to avoid him
This by being an automatic DSP is also insinuated to be and EVIL act.
The player group have crashed in the wilderness and have set up camp
they can either SHOOT balsters and risk KILLING the beasts that may attack them in the night, OR they can be dark and truly sinster and evil and simply project negative energy through the force causing a filed (aka some Area of Effect however limited) where in this case nothing idicated that the other party members can not be within the field of effect, casing all beast to simply stay away from everyone thus peventing the risk of KILLING the beasts.
here we again see the force and good and evil aspects being seens from the JEDI code being the default definition of both good and evil and light and dark.
I would argue that the alternative reducing the risk of killing even the non senitent beasts is a more good, altruistic and light alternative then risking killing them.
Inflict Pain
Control Difficulty: Very Easy. Modified by proximity
Alter Difficulty: Target’s control or Perception
Required Powers: Control pain, life sense
Warning: A character who uses this power
immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Effect: The target experiences intolerable pain.
The user causes damage by rolling her alter skill,
while the target resists damage with their control, Perception, or willpower.
The damage is figured as a stun attack, although if the target suffers any damage at all, they are so crippled by pain that they are incapable of acting
for the rest of the round and the next round.
Inflict Pain, a Power listed on more "light" jedi than I can count
when USED, not when "how it is used" it gives a DSP and the insinuation is EVIL.
yet what does the power do?, it casues crippling pain, it is a Force Taser, a Stun Gun, that is it.....
The Evil dark DSP SOAKING Force User descids to solve the situation where he seens that force is needed, he chooses to inflict pain on the bandit leader scearing both him and his henchmen so that they may be both scared and hesitate seeing this power that is absoultuely not common.
Becuse there is nobody DEAD or even Injured, but STUNNED and with loss of temoprary movement, this is a VILE AND EVIL act,
BUT simply arguing and risking to provovke a fight with both the pirate leader and the henchemen as "people are different but the blaster makes them all equals " both sides now fight equally and the pirates have no reason to assume they can not get out ahead since both sides are "equal"
in having the blastrers, thus increasing the risk of a fight that could leave both side with far more serious injuries than being stunned , and even with serious injury or death on both sides is the ALTRISTIC PEACEFUL JEDI way?
I will argue that there there needs to be a GOOD/EVIL axis to follow to deterimine if a character is good or evile, not DSPs ot what aspect of the force used.
DSP of course should have negative effects to limit abuse of certian powers, however the DSP should not be automatically given for any power, not even force lighting or sith scorcery. becuse all can be argued to be used in a non evil way.
Motive and Intent on the otherhand is always on the Good/Evil axis, where even a Healing act can easily be evil becuse the intent is to have the victim in debt to his healer.
I heal the people in the village and act as their shaman becuse it gives me power and status and I can manipulate them without going so far as they see thoguh it and I am now an evil manipulator, Uisng the force and powers that is no "automatic DSP" and I am basically not as "evil and dark" as the Protctor Knight Warrior that used force push 8 times though the war, injuring even slightly the enemy, earning a DSP for each and thus falls in to abyss of utter evil and darkness...lost.......becuse of the evil....
It makes no sense, so we can not give DSP for any power use alone, we must always have a MOTIVE/INTENT aspect to it and use this to determine DSP awarded and Good or Evil act.
Should we maybe have Good Points and Evil Points?
and a threshold?
I can see 6 Evil Points and you have demonstrated that you are in fact EVIL
Much like the thrshold of 6 DSP making you a "fallen to the dark side-evil"
So maybe have a Evil Point Count where blatant EVIL MOTIVED acts give 1 point, and at 6 points total there is no return.
We can of course mix in DSPs here where being issued a DSP for and act is only given when also given an Evil Point.
Inflict Pain
Control Difficulty: Very Easy. Modified by proximity
Alter Difficulty: Target’s control or Perception
Required Powers: Control pain, life sense
Warning: A character who uses this power immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Effect: The target experiences intolerable pain.
The user causes damage by rolling her alter skill,
while the target resists damage with their control, Perception, or willpower.
The damage is figured as a stun attack, although if the target suffers any damage at all, they are so crippled by pain that they are incapable of acting
for the rest of the round and the next round.
Here we have a Power listed on more "light side" jedi than I can count
And a power that illustrates perfectly how this can be used in a evil and non evil way.
Joe is a martial artist and he loves to make it known that he is the best in class, and he too often make it known by inflicting a little but more pain than needed and this is of course not a "good motivated" act, but rather in the spectrum of evil.
he gains a DSP when he uses this power, perhaps not every time but often enough to accumulate 6 DSP and fall to the dark side and become and "evil NPC"
Ana on the other hand is also a martial artist and does also cause extrme pain to her opponents but only if she must and only when the alternative is something far worse. She does not automatically get DSP for using the power. becuse her motive is not the same as Joe, she does not use it to prove a point, but to avoid something possibly worse, a decition motivated more in the "good" spectrum than in the "Evil" spectrum as with Joe.
Perhaps the esiest way is for the GM to be the one to decide if the Act is a DSP act based on common sense and playecharacter motive more than RAW?
I placed this under House rules falir, but of course it could elswwhere as well
submitted by Bulrat to StarWarsD6 [link] [comments]
The Empire is EVIL, in fact the Empire is the archetypical EVIL government
and there is little of nothing to say that can redeem it.
However in the aspect of good vs evil the individuals that make up this EVIL government may be both good and evil and in fact most may in fact be good.
While Tarkin was one of the Archeyptical EVIL Imperials we can easily argue that with the wast number of planets there would be planets that is controlled and ruled by imperial governors that do treat their people well, even very well
making them essntiianly good people, but of course overall servants of an evil government but still individually good.
I think we can all agree this is how the world works, both in star wars and in the real world.
Now lets look at the good vs evil aspets where it comes to the force.
How do we define good vs evil when dealing with the force?
I have found that we deal with the good vs evil aspects as they are seen by the eyesof a religion, this religion has been defualted to be the "only" good and "light" and that all other are "evil" and "dark" in some form, this is nonsense.
We have the famous scene where Luke actually uses the force to choke the Gamorrean gurds at Jabba's Palace.
Luke her by the rules would have been issued a Dark Sie Point, with the Insinuation that his was an EVIL act, where as I would disagree totally, it was in fact bot a good act and a light act and extremely jedi act, and thus even when the RPG rules says to issue a DSP when using the power to injure or kill, this was the LEAST of EVILS, with the alternatives being, choke and scare but not kill, or risk a fight and having to draw weapon and suffer a high RISK of KILLING.
I say the non killing using choke even if a DSP by rules is NON DSP act and the light and jedi way as it prevents a fight that can easily become deadly, and it leaves nobody dead or permanently injured, only stunned and with possible lack of movement for a limited time and with a little bit of a lack of breath for a while.
We have a "sith" power called Aura of Uneasiness
Aura of Uneasiness
Control Difficulty: Easy. Modified by proximity, but limited to line of sight.
Alter Difficulty: Easy.
Warning: Any character who uses this power gains a Dark Side Point.
Note: This power is a Sith discipline
Effect: This power allows a Sith to project a field of vague discomfort and unease around him, which causes non-sentient creatures to avoid him
This by being an automatic DSP is also insinuated to be and EVIL act.
The player group have crashed in the wilderness and have set up camp
they can either SHOOT balsters and risk KILLING the beasts that may attack them in the night, OR they can be dark and truly sinster and evil and simply project negative energy through the force causing a filed (aka some Area of Effect however limited) where in this case nothing idicated that the other party members can not be within the field of effect, casing all beast to simply stay away from everyone thus peventing the risk of KILLING the beasts.
here we again see the force and good and evil aspects being seens from the JEDI code being the default definition of both good and evil and light and dark.
I would argue that the alternative reducing the risk of killing even the non senitent beasts is a more good, altruistic and light alternative then risking killing them.
Inflict Pain
Control Difficulty: Very Easy. Modified by proximity
Alter Difficulty: Target’s control or Perception
Required Powers: Control pain, life sense
Warning: A character who uses this power
immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Effect: The target experiences intolerable pain.
The user causes damage by rolling her alter skill,
while the target resists damage with their control, Perception, or willpower.
The damage is figured as a stun attack, although if the target suffers any damage at all, they are so crippled by pain that they are incapable of acting
for the rest of the round and the next round.
Inflict Pain, a Power listed on more "light" jedi than I can count
when USED, not when "how it is used" it gives a DSP and the insinuation is EVIL.
yet what does the power do?, it casues crippling pain, it is a Force Taser, a Stun Gun, that is it.....
The Evil dark DSP SOAKING Force User descids to solve the situation where he seens that force is needed, he chooses to inflict pain on the bandit leader scearing both him and his henchmen so that they may be both scared and hesitate seeing this power that is absoultuely not common.
Becuse there is nobody DEAD or even Injured, but STUNNED and with loss of temoprary movement, this is a VILE AND EVIL act,
BUT simply arguing and risking to provovke a fight with both the pirate leader and the henchemen as "people are different but the blaster makes them all equals " both sides now fight equally and the pirates have no reason to assume they can not get out ahead since both sides are "equal"
in having the blastrers, thus increasing the risk of a fight that could leave both side with far more serious injuries than being stunned , and even with serious injury or death on both sides is the ALTRISTIC PEACEFUL JEDI way?
I will argue that there there needs to be a GOOD/EVIL axis to follow to deterimine if a character is good or evile, not DSPs ot what aspect of the force used.
DSP of course should have negative effects to limit abuse of certian powers, however the DSP should not be automatically given for any power, not even force lighting or sith scorcery. becuse all can be argued to be used in a non evil way.
Motive and Intent on the otherhand is always on the Good/Evil axis, where even a Healing act can easily be evil becuse the intent is to have the victim in debt to his healer.
I heal the people in the village and act as their shaman becuse it gives me power and status and I can manipulate them without going so far as they see thoguh it and I am now an evil manipulator, Uisng the force and powers that is no "automatic DSP" and I am basically not as "evil and dark" as the Protctor Knight Warrior that used force push 8 times though the war, injuring even slightly the enemy, earning a DSP for each and thus falls in to abyss of utter evil and darkness...lost.......becuse of the evil....
It makes no sense, so we can not give DSP for any power use alone, we must always have a MOTIVE/INTENT aspect to it and use this to determine DSP awarded and Good or Evil act.
Should we maybe have Good Points and Evil Points?
and a threshold?
I can see 6 Evil Points and you have demonstrated that you are in fact EVIL
Much like the thrshold of 6 DSP making you a "fallen to the dark side-evil"
So maybe have a Evil Point Count where blatant EVIL MOTIVED acts give 1 point, and at 6 points total there is no return.
We can of course mix in DSPs here where being issued a DSP for and act is only given when also given an Evil Point.
Inflict Pain
Control Difficulty: Very Easy. Modified by proximity
Alter Difficulty: Target’s control or Perception
Required Powers: Control pain, life sense
Warning: A character who uses this power immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Effect: The target experiences intolerable pain.
The user causes damage by rolling her alter skill,
while the target resists damage with their control, Perception, or willpower.
The damage is figured as a stun attack, although if the target suffers any damage at all, they are so crippled by pain that they are incapable of acting
for the rest of the round and the next round.
Here we have a Power listed on more "light side" jedi than I can count
And a power that illustrates perfectly how this can be used in a evil and non evil way.
Joe is a martial artist and he loves to make it known that he is the best in class, and he too often make it known by inflicting a little but more pain than needed and this is of course not a "good motivated" act, but rather in the spectrum of evil.
he gains a DSP when he uses this power, perhaps not every time but often enough to accumulate 6 DSP and fall to the dark side and become and "evil NPC"
Ana on the other hand is also a martial artist and does also cause extrme pain to her opponents but only if she must and only when the alternative is something far worse. She does not automatically get DSP for using the power. becuse her motive is not the same as Joe, she does not use it to prove a point, but to avoid something possibly worse, a decition motivated more in the "good" spectrum than in the "Evil" spectrum as with Joe.
Perhaps the esiest way is for the GM to be the one to decide if the Act is a DSP act based on common sense and playecharacter motive more than RAW?
I placed this under House rules falir, but of course it could elswwhere as well
2023.05.29 16:52 Formal-Information36 Even though the break-up was something we planned, she has become so cold and emotionless towards me..is that normal?
I suppose I am the dumper for initiating the break up but I feel towards the end it was rather mutual.
Here is my story:
I dated a co-worker for almost 8 months and she is much younger than me. It was the most intense, romantic and passionate relationship I was ever involved in (she has the zodiac sign Cancer), despite us sharing different cultural beliefs and religions. We were very much in love and it showed. On three seperate occassions thoughout the 8 months she sent me three love letters and her gifts were always so thoughtful. For context, I am a muslim and she is a christian (not very practicing though on her end). I knew from the first day it would be challenging because of the circumstances, including the fact we work in the same office and on the same floor albeit in different teams and the fact that the age gap meant we had different levels of emotional maturity. Also, I am at a stage in my life where I want to date to marry, whereas, I do not think she is ready for marriage. That was showing as the relationship progressed. Around 4 months in, we had a talk where I told her that I was starting to feel somewhat guilty because being in the relationship after all and not knowing how secure our relationship would be and that I am not conforming to my faith was overshadowing all the beautiful moments we kept experiencing. She was open to learn and try and embrace Islam but of course needed a lot of time for this. We agreed 4 months in around December that come March (when it would be Ramadan and I wanted to focus on trying to be a good muslim again) we would try and transition from being romantic partners to friends or something of the like, considering we work on the same floor and that we did not want to totally cut each other out of our lives. I also told her that I did not want to close the door on her completely but that maybe if we gave ourselves the chance to work on ourselves and the flaws that were causing friction between us, who knows, we may reconnect and be in a much better place like 12 months down the line. I was also open with her that maybe I needed to give myself a chance to try and meet someone from my own culture (as that would make marriage easier to some extent) and she can figure out what kind of man she really wants to be with (for exampe she has the more western mentality of wanting to do everything with a partner lik they were married without yet being married if you know what I mean).
In terms of the flaws, I brought to her attention that she needed to stop being judgmental, confrontational, impulsive and to give me the benefit of the doubt when things are not always so rosy or when there is a difficult moment. Our arguments were emotionally draining everytime there was a moment of adversity. We had several arguments where everytime something was not particularly pleasing to her, or where she had a different optionion / disagreement, she would often handle such situations differently to me. Needless to say, she is, in my view, not very emotionally mature. Of course, I also committed some mistakes like not always being very attentive to her emotions. Like, some situations could have also been avoided if I was a bit more tactful.
Our last argument was mid march and even though I apologized to her and explained to her my point of view, when I made three attempts to talk to her in person (to ensure we remain amicable as the break up was looming), she did not show much enthusiasm to meet in person based on her replies (i.e.. telling me she cant meet without implying a future time to talk OR telling me to call her instead of in-person) . I took that as a sign she was not willing to talk and I never reached out again. I felt I also needed to respect my dignity and stop trying to reach out.
I took the advice of many experts to undergo NC and its been two months of no contact whatsover. When she sees me in the office, she may walk past me but not make eye contact. Literally, she would look downwards.
Last week, since we work in the same company, an assignment came to me where I had to involve her because of her background knowledge. I noticed, in writing as well as verbally, her tone with me was rather sharpish, direct and straight-to-the-point. It was not one of warmth. At one point she called me on MS Teams (work communication system) to discuss the report but it was like "hi, okay, so I read your email, what do you mean by XYZ". She was simply direct and kept it stricly work related. Towards the end of the call, I asked her "do you have a minute as I wish to discussing something non-work related with you.." to which she replied "I am in the office actually" but her attitude still showed she was not willing to talk about something private (granted also someone else was in the office). However, I thought to myself, she would still write to me on the chat and say that after work she may have a minute, or, she would have taken the laptop to another empty room to be alone. So, that made me feel again she was not very willing to speak to me. After the call, we messaged each other regarding the assignmnet and I wrote "Thank you for the collaboration" to which she replied "pleasure". Again, a straight and direct response.
So, technically, I did not break the no contact rule but after 2 months and since it was work-related, we did end up having some form of communication without touching on the unresolved issues of the past. It is akward for me and it hurts to walk past her office (literally 4 meters apart).
I would like to know whether I assesed the signals correctly that she is not open to talk right now? Or, has she simply moved on? Is she still angry because she thought I would try harder to speak since March? Should I give it more time and wait for her to speak to me? This is a girl who kept writing and saying to me she is madly in love, wanted to have children with me, travel the world, and just be beside me. I just do not understand how cold she has become, yet we both knew and were aligned on the transition months ahead of the break-up.
She has not deleted my number from whatsapp.
Notwithstanding the above, I very much love her. I think of her everyday.. I hope you can guide me and tell me if you think there is any hope she will reach out on her own or if I should just move on completely? This is my first real break up.
submitted by Formal-Information36 to BreakUps [link] [comments]
Here is my story:
I dated a co-worker for almost 8 months and she is much younger than me. It was the most intense, romantic and passionate relationship I was ever involved in (she has the zodiac sign Cancer), despite us sharing different cultural beliefs and religions. We were very much in love and it showed. On three seperate occassions thoughout the 8 months she sent me three love letters and her gifts were always so thoughtful. For context, I am a muslim and she is a christian (not very practicing though on her end). I knew from the first day it would be challenging because of the circumstances, including the fact we work in the same office and on the same floor albeit in different teams and the fact that the age gap meant we had different levels of emotional maturity. Also, I am at a stage in my life where I want to date to marry, whereas, I do not think she is ready for marriage. That was showing as the relationship progressed. Around 4 months in, we had a talk where I told her that I was starting to feel somewhat guilty because being in the relationship after all and not knowing how secure our relationship would be and that I am not conforming to my faith was overshadowing all the beautiful moments we kept experiencing. She was open to learn and try and embrace Islam but of course needed a lot of time for this. We agreed 4 months in around December that come March (when it would be Ramadan and I wanted to focus on trying to be a good muslim again) we would try and transition from being romantic partners to friends or something of the like, considering we work on the same floor and that we did not want to totally cut each other out of our lives. I also told her that I did not want to close the door on her completely but that maybe if we gave ourselves the chance to work on ourselves and the flaws that were causing friction between us, who knows, we may reconnect and be in a much better place like 12 months down the line. I was also open with her that maybe I needed to give myself a chance to try and meet someone from my own culture (as that would make marriage easier to some extent) and she can figure out what kind of man she really wants to be with (for exampe she has the more western mentality of wanting to do everything with a partner lik they were married without yet being married if you know what I mean).
In terms of the flaws, I brought to her attention that she needed to stop being judgmental, confrontational, impulsive and to give me the benefit of the doubt when things are not always so rosy or when there is a difficult moment. Our arguments were emotionally draining everytime there was a moment of adversity. We had several arguments where everytime something was not particularly pleasing to her, or where she had a different optionion / disagreement, she would often handle such situations differently to me. Needless to say, she is, in my view, not very emotionally mature. Of course, I also committed some mistakes like not always being very attentive to her emotions. Like, some situations could have also been avoided if I was a bit more tactful.
Our last argument was mid march and even though I apologized to her and explained to her my point of view, when I made three attempts to talk to her in person (to ensure we remain amicable as the break up was looming), she did not show much enthusiasm to meet in person based on her replies (i.e.. telling me she cant meet without implying a future time to talk OR telling me to call her instead of in-person) . I took that as a sign she was not willing to talk and I never reached out again. I felt I also needed to respect my dignity and stop trying to reach out.
I took the advice of many experts to undergo NC and its been two months of no contact whatsover. When she sees me in the office, she may walk past me but not make eye contact. Literally, she would look downwards.
Last week, since we work in the same company, an assignment came to me where I had to involve her because of her background knowledge. I noticed, in writing as well as verbally, her tone with me was rather sharpish, direct and straight-to-the-point. It was not one of warmth. At one point she called me on MS Teams (work communication system) to discuss the report but it was like "hi, okay, so I read your email, what do you mean by XYZ". She was simply direct and kept it stricly work related. Towards the end of the call, I asked her "do you have a minute as I wish to discussing something non-work related with you.." to which she replied "I am in the office actually" but her attitude still showed she was not willing to talk about something private (granted also someone else was in the office). However, I thought to myself, she would still write to me on the chat and say that after work she may have a minute, or, she would have taken the laptop to another empty room to be alone. So, that made me feel again she was not very willing to speak to me. After the call, we messaged each other regarding the assignmnet and I wrote "Thank you for the collaboration" to which she replied "pleasure". Again, a straight and direct response.
So, technically, I did not break the no contact rule but after 2 months and since it was work-related, we did end up having some form of communication without touching on the unresolved issues of the past. It is akward for me and it hurts to walk past her office (literally 4 meters apart).
I would like to know whether I assesed the signals correctly that she is not open to talk right now? Or, has she simply moved on? Is she still angry because she thought I would try harder to speak since March? Should I give it more time and wait for her to speak to me? This is a girl who kept writing and saying to me she is madly in love, wanted to have children with me, travel the world, and just be beside me. I just do not understand how cold she has become, yet we both knew and were aligned on the transition months ahead of the break-up.
She has not deleted my number from whatsapp.
Notwithstanding the above, I very much love her. I think of her everyday.. I hope you can guide me and tell me if you think there is any hope she will reach out on her own or if I should just move on completely? This is my first real break up.
2023.05.29 16:50 _MARGHLY_ I need help understand my own mental health
I don’t understand. I feel as if my mind or body refuses to let me feel my true emotions. I am 19M and just feel out of touch with myself and no matter what I do nothing changes. I can talk about my feelings with people and do but it doesn’t change the fact that I can just brush it off as if it doesn’t matter.
This feeling has been maybe for the past 4/5 years and came after some real traumatic stuff family wise involving money, parents, living situations etc. during that time I would be able to cry almost daily and actually express how I felt and how it affected me. It’s almost as if I made a pledge to myself to never be that vulnerable again.
The reason I’m posting this is that my GF of 2+ years just broke up with me, I have exams right now for uni, mum Is sick in hospital and I am basically my sisters primary carer at this point in time and my cat just got put down. I am devastated and cannot imagine myself with anyone else and on top of that it was an unexpected break up and also experienced stress and anxiety from having to step up and care for my sister while also studying and doing my exams. However, every time I truly try to feel these feelings I just brush it off and put it to bed even though I don’t want to.
I just want some insight into why I cant feel emotions properly. This doesn’t occur to happy emotions and in fact I love my life. But I just want to be able to feel how I should feel.
To be honest I just want to be able to cry and feel vulnerable with myself.
TLDR: I don’t feel emotions like I want to and used to and want to know why.
submitted by _MARGHLY_ to selfhelp [link] [comments]
This feeling has been maybe for the past 4/5 years and came after some real traumatic stuff family wise involving money, parents, living situations etc. during that time I would be able to cry almost daily and actually express how I felt and how it affected me. It’s almost as if I made a pledge to myself to never be that vulnerable again.
The reason I’m posting this is that my GF of 2+ years just broke up with me, I have exams right now for uni, mum Is sick in hospital and I am basically my sisters primary carer at this point in time and my cat just got put down. I am devastated and cannot imagine myself with anyone else and on top of that it was an unexpected break up and also experienced stress and anxiety from having to step up and care for my sister while also studying and doing my exams. However, every time I truly try to feel these feelings I just brush it off and put it to bed even though I don’t want to.
I just want some insight into why I cant feel emotions properly. This doesn’t occur to happy emotions and in fact I love my life. But I just want to be able to feel how I should feel.
To be honest I just want to be able to cry and feel vulnerable with myself.
TLDR: I don’t feel emotions like I want to and used to and want to know why.
2023.05.29 16:50 Panasit My Students Tried to Eat My Liver
I taught at a strict vocational college that forced students to wear uniforms and bow to elders. As someone who let students call him by his first name and played Valo with them, I was not surprised when my boss called me into his office. I was ready to defend myself, but I was hit with: “Are you aware that your students are descendants of a cannibal?”
Truthfully? Sort of. I knew that in 1600, colonists invaded the island and enslaved the natives. A pirate named Sur-Linyao slaughtered the colonists and became the island’s folk hero.
Murals and statues of Sur-Linyao were all over the island. His signature look was his very long tongue sticking out of his mouth. The symbol on his pirate flag was a six-dot triangle. Technically, Sur-Linyao didn't eat ALL of the colonists, just one organ. First, he tied each colonist to a tree. Sur-Linyao then cut out each man’s liver and ate it raw with chili paste while staring into the person’s eyes. Sur-Linyao then threw that bleeding and squirming colonist into a dirty shallow pond, where Komodo dragons, attracted to the blood, devoured the victim alive.
The school rector handed me a photograph. It showed a male Westerner smiling while kicking a statue of Sur-Linyao while two women cheered him on. The three in the photo were humanitarian workers. Traces of candle wax at the base of Sur-Linyao’s statue showed that the islanders worshipped the liver-eating pirate, and for some reason, the workers felt they needed to do something about that. The three thought that their 6 months long relationship-building with natives on the island earned them enough goodwill for them to get away with that kind of stunt. Just a few hours after the photo was taken, the hacked body parts of all three were found scattered all over the beach. Their livers were missing.
The rector then stared right at me, preparing me for his next sentence. “Before you think that I’m a racist who is prejudging the modern-day natives as liver-eating savages based on what their ancestors did hundreds of years ago, you should know that the killings happened in 2017. To put things in perspective, the Nintendo Switch was already out.”
The rector then revealed that he called me into his office to ask me about an incident a day before.
There was a report that a White man with a goatee whistled at a native girl inside a convenience store on the south side of the island. He asked if that was me.
I was shocked. That was the reason he called me in here? I told him no. Apparently, there were only about 30 Caucasians on this island of 20,000 people, and only a few had a goatee. The rector then told me that a cop and the girl’s father and an older brother went to my dorm to look for me but I wasn’t there.
After seeing the look of horror on my face, wondering what would have happened if I was at the dorm, the rector told me not to panic and that he will talk to the cop and the girl’s family on my behalf. The rector ended our meeting with, “Just be careful AJ. We are the minority here. I hope to god you know what that means.”
For the past few classes, I started letting my students analyze Western media and culture. Thanks to globalization, these island kids watched and played the same media content as others their age around the world: Stranger Things, MCU, Fortnite, etc. As their teacher, I was often asked to comment on controversial topics like: “AJ, what do you think about a Neo-Nazi being punched before he does anything?” “AJ, what do you think about Black Lives Matter?” “AJ, what do you think about Go Woke Go Broke?” “AJ, what do you think about Don’t-Say-Gay-Bill?”
My answer was always to not ask me what I think, but for them to gather information from various sources and come to their own conclusion. Since more than ⅔ of the class were teenage males, their views were… not very much aligned with mine. But even though I disagreed with them, I felt like we had a healthy discussion.
I then noticed a student, Stephanie, seemed very unhappy as she shoved her notebook into her bag at the end of class. “You know I used to love your class. But I think these past few classes were shits.”
I was confused. Stephanie was one of my best students. She always sat in front and answered all questions correctly last semester. I asked her right away what was wrong.
“Is it going to kill you to just outright say that racism is wrong, misogyny is wrong, homophobia is wrong, and Naziism is wrong? Why does it have to always have to be a healthy debate?” I was shocked by her response. I told her that I don’t think a teacher should just outright tell students what to think, especially when it comes to social issues.
I mean, of course, I think racism, misogyny, Naziism, and homophobia are wrong. But I guess I would feel like I was brainwashing the students if I just tell them: this is what you must believe.
Stephanie scoffed. “Well, now Benny and his gang think that you approved of their homophobia and misogyny. You didn’t want to correct them not because you are this free-thinker, but in reality you just want them to think that you are a “too cool to care” edge lord just like them, right? Do you think the disenfranchised people enjoy watching others debate whether or not they should have the right to exist and feel safe? How would you feel if one day the island natives have a healthy debate about whether you should live or die?” Stephanie then stormed out.
Needless to say, I was not in a good mood that evening. I took it out on the students playing survivors while I was playing as a killer on Dead by Daylight. After getting slaughtered the students were not happy. “AJ, why were you tunneling me?”
A student named Benny asked after I sacrificed him within fifteen minutes. I thought that was rich coming from Benny, who, as a killer, only played Leatherface and Facecamp-ed all his victims the entire match. My response was snarky. “Benny, why don’t you try hiding like the other survivors instead of running around the map like a decapitated chicken?” The other students laughed. Benny didn’t respond right away, which made me feel kind of bad. Benny eventually responded after about two minutes. “I can’t wait to eat your liver, AJ.” My heart dropped to the floor. Did Benny just threaten me? I was waiting for the other students to call him out on that comment, but they were silent. After about thirty seconds, Benny continued, “I bet your liver tastes delicious, AJ. I bet it is so sweet and juicy I won’t even need a chili sauce.” The day after, I tried to spin that whole experience as a teachable moment. I decided the next class lecture was going to be about influential people and why people are so divided over them.
I listed some controversial ‘a hero to some, a villain to others’ figures for them.
Che Guevara Napoleon Edward Snowden
Hoping to have some more healthy debates. But the students do not have strong enough opinions about the figures that were so distant in relevance to them.
So, I did something that was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I asked them about the island's liver-eating hero, Sur-Linyao. Benny said that there’s nothing controversial about Sur-Linyao unless some douchebag wants to sympathize with the genocidal colonists he slaughtered.
I reminded Benny that if someone were to hear his comments in the previous class, they could accuse him of sympathizing with sexist racist homophobic Nazis too. Like an arrogant idiot, instead of leaving it at that, I decided it was healthy to hit them with some truth about Sur-Linyao.
Sur-Linyao was a horrifying villain to the islanders before the colonists arrived. He was a pirate after all. Sur-Linyao would regularly pillage several villages on the island, killing several innocent people in the process. Seeing the six-dots triangle jolly-roger from the distance must have been a nightmare for the islanders at the time.
And Sur-Linyao didn’t kill the colonists out of the goodness of his heart. There were pieces of evidence that showed Sur-Linyao worked with the colonists for years, and in the end, betrayed the colonists just because he wanted to rob them. Benny shook his head. He told me that several people in this class were direct descendants of Sur-Linyao, including him. I chuckled, thinking that he just WISHED he was a descendant of Sur-Linyao. But Benny said he could prove it.
More than half of the male students in the class stood up. They slightly tilted their head down but their eyes kept on looking forward, staring at me. Suddenly, their tongue started to slither out of their mouth. The tongues were too long, longer than a foot, but it was not the length that unsettled me, but the way it wiggled out of each of their mouth as if they were separate creatures. I was horrified looking at the dozen students standing in front of me, staring at me with their long tongues dangling out.
Benny then said, “Do you know what the six-dots triangle means, AJ? It means that the man seeing it was about to lose his liver.” I always parked my car a bit further away from the school because I didn’t want to fight with other faculty members over the parking space underneath the building. Besides, I didn’t mind walking a bit since there was a nice view of the ocean. As I was getting out of the car, I saw that someone painted the six-dots triangle on an abandoned water tank in the middle of the field. It was new, I didn’t see it the day before. And I was more than certain it was meant for me to see. No one parked where I parked and the surrounding area was abandoned.
I went and told the school administrator about this. They said that the six-dot triangle symbol was a symbol of Sur-Linyao who has pictures all over the island, including that symbol on his forehead.
It was not an intimidation symbol like a swastika and that I should relax.
Frustrated, I went back to my dorm. The view from my balcony was almost great, but there was a weird Ferris wheel-like structure blocking part of it. I didn’t even know what the circular structure was, but there seemed to be a bunch of neon light bulbs attached to it. I hoped it never got turned on or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
As I went into my closet, I found a T-shirt that was not mine. On it was a phrase, ‘I’m the Other White Meat’ on it. Why was this in my closet? Did the dry cleaner mix in someone else’s clothes with mine? Who would dry clean a T-shirt? I realized then that my room may have been broken into.
I was nervous and scared out of my mind. Am I being targeted or am I just overreacting? Is the entire island gaslighting me, or was it just Benny and his friends? Heck, it could have been Stephanie doing this, trying to teach me a lesson.
I opened Discord to see if some of my students want to play some games, but none of them were online, at least not in the group chat I set up. Some of them changed their profile picture to a six-dot triangle, including Benny.
That evening, I went to a gas station to fill up my car. As I was just about finished, I saw a truck coming down a steep hill, heading straight into the station. It was an old truck, but an intimidatingly large one, and loud. Then, I saw the six-dot triangle symbol painted on the side of the truck.
Logically, I shouldn’t have panicked. The symbol was a symbol of the island’s folk hero and the gas station is brightly lit and full of people. But out of nowhere, this feeling of dread overwhelmed me. The hair on my arm just rose straight up. I felt chills as if something was telling me to get out of the gas station now. I trusted my instinct and quickly started my bike and bolted out of there.
The next day, I walked past a hallway where a colleague named Beth was putting up a poster made by her students. The poster was showcasing English words that came from French. For some reason, there were also photos of faculty members floating alongside words like “Garage”, “à la carte”, and “Cache”.
I stopped in my track when I saw my photo with the word, ‘Foie Gras’ underneath it.
That word and my picture seemed so out of place being in its own little corner on the poster. I almost had a panic attack right there. Another threat? Are you kidding me? I thought. Beth asked me what was wrong. I decided to tell her.
That evening, I went to have dinner with Beth and her husband Jan on the beach. Just three White expats talking. I told them about what I had been experiencing in the past few days. The three dotted symbols painted where I parked, the comment from the student made on the game chat, the mysterious T-shirt, the racial profiling, all of it. “You are being very racist,” Beth said right at the very second I had just realized that I never really liked her.
She continued, “Don’t you get it, AJ? The students are threatening to eat your liver because they know you are a racist white man who thinks they were going to eat your liver. Kids will always try to exploit what they think the adults are afraid of. It’s your fault for showing them your cards.
Have you ever been outside of the States before? Do you not know how to be a minority? You came to an island paradise with so much special privilege but you suddenly have a male Karen racist nervous breakdown moment because you think that your teenage students are going to eat your liver? Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in you."
Her husband Jan tried to save the mood of the dinner. “So AJ, what are your plans for when the island shut off the power on July 7th?”
For one day every year, the island shut off all electricity for maintenance. Nothing electronic will work on that day, most importantly the ATM and the Internet. People, even the island natives, would go to the mainland for one day. There’s a problem with that idea. The ferry itself takes 3 hours to reach the mainland. And, with so many people thinking of doing the same thing, the line at the dock will be extremely long, both to the mainland in the morning, and back from the mainland in the evening.
For the last two years, I rode out the annual power outage by just chillaxing on the island. But this year, a Facebook post by Benny made me reconsider.
On the day of the power outage, I waited almost five hours in line to get my car onto the ferry. The ticket machine no longer works so everything was written on a notecard with pen and paper, which I found amusing. When the ticket man came to my car. He said to me that I have to wait for the next one. I looked at the ferry and it was not even half full. I asked him why and he pretended to suddenly not understand English.
I looked in my rearview mirror and then saw it, the truck with the six-dot triangle painted on its side only three cars behind me. How did it get there? I didn’t see it behind me before. I realized then that the truck wanted to get on the next ferry with me. I told the ticket holder that I will leave my car there and I will get on the leaving ferry with just me. Before he could say anything, I quickly maneuvered out of the line and parked in front of a cafe. The ticket boy said I couldn’t park there. I asked him if he owned the cafe, then quickly ran and jumped onto the suddenly departing Ferry.
After riding the ferry many times, I figured out that the top deck gave me the least motion sickness. I climbed up there and found a surprising person. Stephanie. She smiled at me, which made me so glad. I didn’t think what I did was something so bad that she would be holding a long grudge anyway. We made small talk, I asked her about what she was planning on doing for the day, etc. After a bit, I couldn’t help myself and showed her Benny’s Facebook post. I always thought she didn’t like Benny. I told her I was disappointed in him and was so shocked that he would threaten me like that.
I looked up at Stephanie and was shocked to see her eyes bulged out and her foot-long tongue dangling from her mouth. “Just like Voltaire, I may disagree with what Benny says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it." I was so scared, I backed away automatically. But, the teacher in me still corrected her and said that Voltaire didn’t say that. She laughed, “Good. Voltaire was a smart person. Only an idiot would say something like that.”
I moved down to the lowest level where the cars and the smoking passengers were. I tried not to fall asleep as I could feel the eyes of the other passengers staring at me.
The sound of people barfing almost made me want to barf myself. I went and sat on the edge of the front of the ferry. The wind blowing into my face did calm me a little. I was scared and frustrated. I wondered if I should just never go back to the island after reaching the mainland.
After looking at my watch and realizing that it had been three hours, I looked out the window and saw what made my soul leave my body. We were heading to the island? I didn’t even realize we had turned around.
I asked the ferry driver what was going on. He said there was a storm coming and he has to head back. Besides, it was already close to 5 PM, and the power should be coming back on soon.
I was extremely angry that I was about to be back on the island. Stephanie was nowhere to be found on the ferry also. Since I was farsighted, I could see the tires of my car were slashed.
There were also a couple of men standing there doing nothing, blocking my path toward my car. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that the natives were planning to do something to me. I was targeted and was about to be beaten or killed for whatever reason.
I surprised them all by jumping from the ferry before it was properly docked and sprinting in the opposite direction of where my car was. I climbed up the steep hills next to the road leading to the dock and disappeared into the woods The light was not coming back on and it was getting dark.
I was shaking in fear but I had to calm myself so I could think of the next move with a clear head. I wondered if Beth and Jan came back from the mainland yet. I could ask them to use their boat or at least hide me, and if they say no, at this point, I was at a level of desperation where I was willing to just cause chaos until they let me. On my way to their house, I had to pass my dorm. I considered going to gather some of my things until I saw something moving in the dark.
I almost peed my pants from fright when I saw a floating pair of eyeballs approaching my dorm. Despite everything else being in complete darkness, the eyes of a person and his dangling red tongue were glowing in the dark. I had never seen anything like this. Several more pairs of eyeballs and long red tongues emerged from the dark woods.
I couldn’t tell if the floating eyeballs and tongue belonged to Benny or any of my students, but they were right outside my dorm. As my eyes started to get used to the darkness and started to see shapes, I could see that they were each holding a machete. I quietly made my way to Beth and Jan’s house. When I got to their boathouse, there were flies everywhere. I tried to brush them away, but I could feel the thickness of the swarm. I felt like I was touching a bunch of floating chunks of meat.
I saw their boat at the dock. So did they come back? But why wouldn’t they turn on their boat’s light? I finally decided to use my phone flashlight to help me search for the boat key inside the boat house. I didn’t use my phone earlier because I was trying to conserve battery and also I didn’t want to draw attention to where I was. As soon as I shined the phone’s flashlight inside the boathouse, I was shocked to find the hacked-up heads of Beth, Jan, and the school’s rector covered in flies. Suddenly, I heard a wood creaking sound coming from outside. I quickly grabbed the boat key and jumped into the couple’s speed boat.
I hurriedly start the boat and just drove off, not caring about anything else. I used my phone’s compass to find the direction towards the mainland and I just kept going.
Suddenly, lights came back on the island. It shined brightly behind me as a nuclear bomb had just been detonated. I couldn’t help but look back, and then I saw it: a giant face formed by the neon lights, making the entire island look like it had a demonic face. The circular Ferris-wheel-like structure that was outside my dorm’s balcony was part of one of the giant face’s eyes.
I told myself to just ignore it and kept on driving. It was their world and they didn’t want me in it. I could do nothing but kept on going into the darkness.
submitted by Panasit to nosleep [link] [comments]
Truthfully? Sort of. I knew that in 1600, colonists invaded the island and enslaved the natives. A pirate named Sur-Linyao slaughtered the colonists and became the island’s folk hero.
Murals and statues of Sur-Linyao were all over the island. His signature look was his very long tongue sticking out of his mouth. The symbol on his pirate flag was a six-dot triangle. Technically, Sur-Linyao didn't eat ALL of the colonists, just one organ. First, he tied each colonist to a tree. Sur-Linyao then cut out each man’s liver and ate it raw with chili paste while staring into the person’s eyes. Sur-Linyao then threw that bleeding and squirming colonist into a dirty shallow pond, where Komodo dragons, attracted to the blood, devoured the victim alive.
The school rector handed me a photograph. It showed a male Westerner smiling while kicking a statue of Sur-Linyao while two women cheered him on. The three in the photo were humanitarian workers. Traces of candle wax at the base of Sur-Linyao’s statue showed that the islanders worshipped the liver-eating pirate, and for some reason, the workers felt they needed to do something about that. The three thought that their 6 months long relationship-building with natives on the island earned them enough goodwill for them to get away with that kind of stunt. Just a few hours after the photo was taken, the hacked body parts of all three were found scattered all over the beach. Their livers were missing.
The rector then stared right at me, preparing me for his next sentence. “Before you think that I’m a racist who is prejudging the modern-day natives as liver-eating savages based on what their ancestors did hundreds of years ago, you should know that the killings happened in 2017. To put things in perspective, the Nintendo Switch was already out.”
The rector then revealed that he called me into his office to ask me about an incident a day before.
There was a report that a White man with a goatee whistled at a native girl inside a convenience store on the south side of the island. He asked if that was me.
I was shocked. That was the reason he called me in here? I told him no. Apparently, there were only about 30 Caucasians on this island of 20,000 people, and only a few had a goatee. The rector then told me that a cop and the girl’s father and an older brother went to my dorm to look for me but I wasn’t there.
After seeing the look of horror on my face, wondering what would have happened if I was at the dorm, the rector told me not to panic and that he will talk to the cop and the girl’s family on my behalf. The rector ended our meeting with, “Just be careful AJ. We are the minority here. I hope to god you know what that means.”
For the past few classes, I started letting my students analyze Western media and culture. Thanks to globalization, these island kids watched and played the same media content as others their age around the world: Stranger Things, MCU, Fortnite, etc. As their teacher, I was often asked to comment on controversial topics like: “AJ, what do you think about a Neo-Nazi being punched before he does anything?” “AJ, what do you think about Black Lives Matter?” “AJ, what do you think about Go Woke Go Broke?” “AJ, what do you think about Don’t-Say-Gay-Bill?”
My answer was always to not ask me what I think, but for them to gather information from various sources and come to their own conclusion. Since more than ⅔ of the class were teenage males, their views were… not very much aligned with mine. But even though I disagreed with them, I felt like we had a healthy discussion.
I then noticed a student, Stephanie, seemed very unhappy as she shoved her notebook into her bag at the end of class. “You know I used to love your class. But I think these past few classes were shits.”
I was confused. Stephanie was one of my best students. She always sat in front and answered all questions correctly last semester. I asked her right away what was wrong.
“Is it going to kill you to just outright say that racism is wrong, misogyny is wrong, homophobia is wrong, and Naziism is wrong? Why does it have to always have to be a healthy debate?” I was shocked by her response. I told her that I don’t think a teacher should just outright tell students what to think, especially when it comes to social issues.
I mean, of course, I think racism, misogyny, Naziism, and homophobia are wrong. But I guess I would feel like I was brainwashing the students if I just tell them: this is what you must believe.
Stephanie scoffed. “Well, now Benny and his gang think that you approved of their homophobia and misogyny. You didn’t want to correct them not because you are this free-thinker, but in reality you just want them to think that you are a “too cool to care” edge lord just like them, right? Do you think the disenfranchised people enjoy watching others debate whether or not they should have the right to exist and feel safe? How would you feel if one day the island natives have a healthy debate about whether you should live or die?” Stephanie then stormed out.
Needless to say, I was not in a good mood that evening. I took it out on the students playing survivors while I was playing as a killer on Dead by Daylight. After getting slaughtered the students were not happy. “AJ, why were you tunneling me?”
A student named Benny asked after I sacrificed him within fifteen minutes. I thought that was rich coming from Benny, who, as a killer, only played Leatherface and Facecamp-ed all his victims the entire match. My response was snarky. “Benny, why don’t you try hiding like the other survivors instead of running around the map like a decapitated chicken?” The other students laughed. Benny didn’t respond right away, which made me feel kind of bad. Benny eventually responded after about two minutes. “I can’t wait to eat your liver, AJ.” My heart dropped to the floor. Did Benny just threaten me? I was waiting for the other students to call him out on that comment, but they were silent. After about thirty seconds, Benny continued, “I bet your liver tastes delicious, AJ. I bet it is so sweet and juicy I won’t even need a chili sauce.” The day after, I tried to spin that whole experience as a teachable moment. I decided the next class lecture was going to be about influential people and why people are so divided over them.
I listed some controversial ‘a hero to some, a villain to others’ figures for them.
Che Guevara Napoleon Edward Snowden
Hoping to have some more healthy debates. But the students do not have strong enough opinions about the figures that were so distant in relevance to them.
So, I did something that was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I asked them about the island's liver-eating hero, Sur-Linyao. Benny said that there’s nothing controversial about Sur-Linyao unless some douchebag wants to sympathize with the genocidal colonists he slaughtered.
I reminded Benny that if someone were to hear his comments in the previous class, they could accuse him of sympathizing with sexist racist homophobic Nazis too. Like an arrogant idiot, instead of leaving it at that, I decided it was healthy to hit them with some truth about Sur-Linyao.
Sur-Linyao was a horrifying villain to the islanders before the colonists arrived. He was a pirate after all. Sur-Linyao would regularly pillage several villages on the island, killing several innocent people in the process. Seeing the six-dots triangle jolly-roger from the distance must have been a nightmare for the islanders at the time.
And Sur-Linyao didn’t kill the colonists out of the goodness of his heart. There were pieces of evidence that showed Sur-Linyao worked with the colonists for years, and in the end, betrayed the colonists just because he wanted to rob them. Benny shook his head. He told me that several people in this class were direct descendants of Sur-Linyao, including him. I chuckled, thinking that he just WISHED he was a descendant of Sur-Linyao. But Benny said he could prove it.
More than half of the male students in the class stood up. They slightly tilted their head down but their eyes kept on looking forward, staring at me. Suddenly, their tongue started to slither out of their mouth. The tongues were too long, longer than a foot, but it was not the length that unsettled me, but the way it wiggled out of each of their mouth as if they were separate creatures. I was horrified looking at the dozen students standing in front of me, staring at me with their long tongues dangling out.
Benny then said, “Do you know what the six-dots triangle means, AJ? It means that the man seeing it was about to lose his liver.” I always parked my car a bit further away from the school because I didn’t want to fight with other faculty members over the parking space underneath the building. Besides, I didn’t mind walking a bit since there was a nice view of the ocean. As I was getting out of the car, I saw that someone painted the six-dots triangle on an abandoned water tank in the middle of the field. It was new, I didn’t see it the day before. And I was more than certain it was meant for me to see. No one parked where I parked and the surrounding area was abandoned.
I went and told the school administrator about this. They said that the six-dot triangle symbol was a symbol of Sur-Linyao who has pictures all over the island, including that symbol on his forehead.
It was not an intimidation symbol like a swastika and that I should relax.
Frustrated, I went back to my dorm. The view from my balcony was almost great, but there was a weird Ferris wheel-like structure blocking part of it. I didn’t even know what the circular structure was, but there seemed to be a bunch of neon light bulbs attached to it. I hoped it never got turned on or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
As I went into my closet, I found a T-shirt that was not mine. On it was a phrase, ‘I’m the Other White Meat’ on it. Why was this in my closet? Did the dry cleaner mix in someone else’s clothes with mine? Who would dry clean a T-shirt? I realized then that my room may have been broken into.
I was nervous and scared out of my mind. Am I being targeted or am I just overreacting? Is the entire island gaslighting me, or was it just Benny and his friends? Heck, it could have been Stephanie doing this, trying to teach me a lesson.
I opened Discord to see if some of my students want to play some games, but none of them were online, at least not in the group chat I set up. Some of them changed their profile picture to a six-dot triangle, including Benny.
That evening, I went to a gas station to fill up my car. As I was just about finished, I saw a truck coming down a steep hill, heading straight into the station. It was an old truck, but an intimidatingly large one, and loud. Then, I saw the six-dot triangle symbol painted on the side of the truck.
Logically, I shouldn’t have panicked. The symbol was a symbol of the island’s folk hero and the gas station is brightly lit and full of people. But out of nowhere, this feeling of dread overwhelmed me. The hair on my arm just rose straight up. I felt chills as if something was telling me to get out of the gas station now. I trusted my instinct and quickly started my bike and bolted out of there.
The next day, I walked past a hallway where a colleague named Beth was putting up a poster made by her students. The poster was showcasing English words that came from French. For some reason, there were also photos of faculty members floating alongside words like “Garage”, “à la carte”, and “Cache”.
I stopped in my track when I saw my photo with the word, ‘Foie Gras’ underneath it.
That word and my picture seemed so out of place being in its own little corner on the poster. I almost had a panic attack right there. Another threat? Are you kidding me? I thought. Beth asked me what was wrong. I decided to tell her.
That evening, I went to have dinner with Beth and her husband Jan on the beach. Just three White expats talking. I told them about what I had been experiencing in the past few days. The three dotted symbols painted where I parked, the comment from the student made on the game chat, the mysterious T-shirt, the racial profiling, all of it. “You are being very racist,” Beth said right at the very second I had just realized that I never really liked her.
She continued, “Don’t you get it, AJ? The students are threatening to eat your liver because they know you are a racist white man who thinks they were going to eat your liver. Kids will always try to exploit what they think the adults are afraid of. It’s your fault for showing them your cards.
Have you ever been outside of the States before? Do you not know how to be a minority? You came to an island paradise with so much special privilege but you suddenly have a male Karen racist nervous breakdown moment because you think that your teenage students are going to eat your liver? Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in you."
Her husband Jan tried to save the mood of the dinner. “So AJ, what are your plans for when the island shut off the power on July 7th?”
For one day every year, the island shut off all electricity for maintenance. Nothing electronic will work on that day, most importantly the ATM and the Internet. People, even the island natives, would go to the mainland for one day. There’s a problem with that idea. The ferry itself takes 3 hours to reach the mainland. And, with so many people thinking of doing the same thing, the line at the dock will be extremely long, both to the mainland in the morning, and back from the mainland in the evening.
For the last two years, I rode out the annual power outage by just chillaxing on the island. But this year, a Facebook post by Benny made me reconsider.
“I just want to say, my favorite teacher is AJ. He surely delivered. And soon I will de-liver him.”Jan said that he and Beth will drive their speedboat to the mainland, which is 5 times faster than the ferry. They are also taking the rector with them. Judging from the way Beth glared at me, I don’t think she will say yes if I asked her if I could come too.
On the day of the power outage, I waited almost five hours in line to get my car onto the ferry. The ticket machine no longer works so everything was written on a notecard with pen and paper, which I found amusing. When the ticket man came to my car. He said to me that I have to wait for the next one. I looked at the ferry and it was not even half full. I asked him why and he pretended to suddenly not understand English.
I looked in my rearview mirror and then saw it, the truck with the six-dot triangle painted on its side only three cars behind me. How did it get there? I didn’t see it behind me before. I realized then that the truck wanted to get on the next ferry with me. I told the ticket holder that I will leave my car there and I will get on the leaving ferry with just me. Before he could say anything, I quickly maneuvered out of the line and parked in front of a cafe. The ticket boy said I couldn’t park there. I asked him if he owned the cafe, then quickly ran and jumped onto the suddenly departing Ferry.
After riding the ferry many times, I figured out that the top deck gave me the least motion sickness. I climbed up there and found a surprising person. Stephanie. She smiled at me, which made me so glad. I didn’t think what I did was something so bad that she would be holding a long grudge anyway. We made small talk, I asked her about what she was planning on doing for the day, etc. After a bit, I couldn’t help myself and showed her Benny’s Facebook post. I always thought she didn’t like Benny. I told her I was disappointed in him and was so shocked that he would threaten me like that.
I looked up at Stephanie and was shocked to see her eyes bulged out and her foot-long tongue dangling from her mouth. “Just like Voltaire, I may disagree with what Benny says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it." I was so scared, I backed away automatically. But, the teacher in me still corrected her and said that Voltaire didn’t say that. She laughed, “Good. Voltaire was a smart person. Only an idiot would say something like that.”
I moved down to the lowest level where the cars and the smoking passengers were. I tried not to fall asleep as I could feel the eyes of the other passengers staring at me.
The sound of people barfing almost made me want to barf myself. I went and sat on the edge of the front of the ferry. The wind blowing into my face did calm me a little. I was scared and frustrated. I wondered if I should just never go back to the island after reaching the mainland.
After looking at my watch and realizing that it had been three hours, I looked out the window and saw what made my soul leave my body. We were heading to the island? I didn’t even realize we had turned around.
I asked the ferry driver what was going on. He said there was a storm coming and he has to head back. Besides, it was already close to 5 PM, and the power should be coming back on soon.
I was extremely angry that I was about to be back on the island. Stephanie was nowhere to be found on the ferry also. Since I was farsighted, I could see the tires of my car were slashed.
There were also a couple of men standing there doing nothing, blocking my path toward my car. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that the natives were planning to do something to me. I was targeted and was about to be beaten or killed for whatever reason.
I surprised them all by jumping from the ferry before it was properly docked and sprinting in the opposite direction of where my car was. I climbed up the steep hills next to the road leading to the dock and disappeared into the woods The light was not coming back on and it was getting dark.
I was shaking in fear but I had to calm myself so I could think of the next move with a clear head. I wondered if Beth and Jan came back from the mainland yet. I could ask them to use their boat or at least hide me, and if they say no, at this point, I was at a level of desperation where I was willing to just cause chaos until they let me. On my way to their house, I had to pass my dorm. I considered going to gather some of my things until I saw something moving in the dark.
I almost peed my pants from fright when I saw a floating pair of eyeballs approaching my dorm. Despite everything else being in complete darkness, the eyes of a person and his dangling red tongue were glowing in the dark. I had never seen anything like this. Several more pairs of eyeballs and long red tongues emerged from the dark woods.
I couldn’t tell if the floating eyeballs and tongue belonged to Benny or any of my students, but they were right outside my dorm. As my eyes started to get used to the darkness and started to see shapes, I could see that they were each holding a machete. I quietly made my way to Beth and Jan’s house. When I got to their boathouse, there were flies everywhere. I tried to brush them away, but I could feel the thickness of the swarm. I felt like I was touching a bunch of floating chunks of meat.
I saw their boat at the dock. So did they come back? But why wouldn’t they turn on their boat’s light? I finally decided to use my phone flashlight to help me search for the boat key inside the boat house. I didn’t use my phone earlier because I was trying to conserve battery and also I didn’t want to draw attention to where I was. As soon as I shined the phone’s flashlight inside the boathouse, I was shocked to find the hacked-up heads of Beth, Jan, and the school’s rector covered in flies. Suddenly, I heard a wood creaking sound coming from outside. I quickly grabbed the boat key and jumped into the couple’s speed boat.
I hurriedly start the boat and just drove off, not caring about anything else. I used my phone’s compass to find the direction towards the mainland and I just kept going.
Suddenly, lights came back on the island. It shined brightly behind me as a nuclear bomb had just been detonated. I couldn’t help but look back, and then I saw it: a giant face formed by the neon lights, making the entire island look like it had a demonic face. The circular Ferris-wheel-like structure that was outside my dorm’s balcony was part of one of the giant face’s eyes.
I told myself to just ignore it and kept on driving. It was their world and they didn’t want me in it. I could do nothing but kept on going into the darkness.
2023.05.29 16:49 maxxhazard Hermes Genisus
The following quotes are from; book 2 of Hermes’s 17 books; the divine pomander;
also; ancient language did not uses punctuation nor capitals;
Quote-the father of all things the mind being life and light brought forth man like unto himself whom he loved as his proper birth for he was all beauteous having the image of his father for indeed gd was exceedingly enamored of his own form or shape and delivered unto it all his own workmanships
but he seeing understanding the creation of the workman in the whole would needs also himself fall to work and so separated from the father
being in the sphere of generation of operation and having all power he considered the operations or workmanships of the seven
but they loved him and everyone made him partaker of his own order and he learning diligently and understand their essence and partaking their nature resolved to pierce and break through the circumference of the circles to understand the power of him that sits upon the fire
and having already all power of mortal things of the living and of the unreasonable creatures of the world stooped down and peeped through the harmony and breaking through the strength of the circles so shewed and made manifest the downward born nature the fair and beautiful shape or form of gd;
Which when he saw having in itself the insatiable beauty and all the operation of the seven governors and the form or shape of gd he smiled for love as he has seen the shape of likeness in the water the shadow upon the earth of the fairest human form
and seeing in the water a shape like unto himself in himself he loved it and would cohabit with it and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation brought forth the unreasonable image or shape
nature presently laying hold of what it so much loved did wholly wrap herself about it and they were mingled for they loved one another and from this cause man above all things that live upon earth is double mortal because of his body and immortal because of the substantial man
for being immortal and having power of all things he yet suffers mortal things and such are subject to fate or destiny and therefore being above all harmony he is made and become a servant to harmony
Therefore being above all harmony he is made and become a servant to harmony for nature being mingled with man brought forth a wonder most wonderful for he having the nature of the harmony of the seven from him whom I told
the fire and the spirit nature continued not but forthwith brought forth seven men all males and females and sublime of on high according to the natures of the seven governors
This is the mystery that to this day is hidden and kept secret; - Un-quote
The statement; “being in the sphere of generation of operation and having all power he considered the operations or workmanships of the seven”; is about the workman; not gd;
Also; “and seeing in the water a shape like unto himself in himself he loved it and would cohabit with it and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation brought forth the unreasonable image or shape; is also about the workman; not gd;
The lines starting: “but they loved him” and "breaking through the strength of the circles so shewed" may indicate a conflict with gd before he left or a abandonment-issue; which either one; may give reason for the workman making an agreement by partaker of his own order and to work diligently to learn; because; the motive was to pierce the circles to learn of gd
In ancient times; in order to make this story understandable to the common man;
it could go like this;
One day Gd created man and woman in his image; but woman ate from the tree of knowledge and both man and woman were kicked out of heaven……etcetera etcetera
submitted by maxxhazard to Hermeticism [link] [comments]
also; ancient language did not uses punctuation nor capitals;
Quote-the father of all things the mind being life and light brought forth man like unto himself whom he loved as his proper birth for he was all beauteous having the image of his father for indeed gd was exceedingly enamored of his own form or shape and delivered unto it all his own workmanships
but he seeing understanding the creation of the workman in the whole would needs also himself fall to work and so separated from the father
being in the sphere of generation of operation and having all power he considered the operations or workmanships of the seven
but they loved him and everyone made him partaker of his own order and he learning diligently and understand their essence and partaking their nature resolved to pierce and break through the circumference of the circles to understand the power of him that sits upon the fire
and having already all power of mortal things of the living and of the unreasonable creatures of the world stooped down and peeped through the harmony and breaking through the strength of the circles so shewed and made manifest the downward born nature the fair and beautiful shape or form of gd;
Which when he saw having in itself the insatiable beauty and all the operation of the seven governors and the form or shape of gd he smiled for love as he has seen the shape of likeness in the water the shadow upon the earth of the fairest human form
and seeing in the water a shape like unto himself in himself he loved it and would cohabit with it and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation brought forth the unreasonable image or shape
nature presently laying hold of what it so much loved did wholly wrap herself about it and they were mingled for they loved one another and from this cause man above all things that live upon earth is double mortal because of his body and immortal because of the substantial man
for being immortal and having power of all things he yet suffers mortal things and such are subject to fate or destiny and therefore being above all harmony he is made and become a servant to harmony
Therefore being above all harmony he is made and become a servant to harmony for nature being mingled with man brought forth a wonder most wonderful for he having the nature of the harmony of the seven from him whom I told
the fire and the spirit nature continued not but forthwith brought forth seven men all males and females and sublime of on high according to the natures of the seven governors
This is the mystery that to this day is hidden and kept secret; - Un-quote
The statement; “being in the sphere of generation of operation and having all power he considered the operations or workmanships of the seven”; is about the workman; not gd;
Also; “and seeing in the water a shape like unto himself in himself he loved it and would cohabit with it and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation brought forth the unreasonable image or shape; is also about the workman; not gd;
The lines starting: “but they loved him” and "breaking through the strength of the circles so shewed" may indicate a conflict with gd before he left or a abandonment-issue; which either one; may give reason for the workman making an agreement by partaker of his own order and to work diligently to learn; because; the motive was to pierce the circles to learn of gd
In ancient times; in order to make this story understandable to the common man;
it could go like this;
One day Gd created man and woman in his image; but woman ate from the tree of knowledge and both man and woman were kicked out of heaven……etcetera etcetera
2023.05.29 16:49 FrenemiesDayZ Frenemies US PC 1PP Chernarus Vanilla+ BBP TF No Traders No Map
Frenemies 1PP Vanilla+ CodeLocks C4 RaidFrenemies aims to strike a balance between the “mega-modded” base servers and vanilla by adding quality of life mods and balancing base building and raiding, alongside some new content. We’re growing a vibrant community and putting on interactive events to add competitive and fun aspects to the experience.
IP: 98.21.52.125:2302
Discord: dsc.gg/frenemies
Check out our custom bunker, alongside many other new locations around the expansive map, we think you’ll love it!
Admins are very active and span multiple time zones ranging from USA to Central Europe.
Some of our mods to compliment the vanilla experience include Tactical Flava, Advanced Weapon Scopes, BBP, CodeLock, Breaching Charge, MMG Base Storage, Ear Plugs, SimpleAutorun, Flip Transport, and Cl0ud’s Military Gear.
This week on Frenemies!
Join us for a week-long scavenger hunt for who can find, obtain, and grow the most Cannabis seeds. Winners can choose from several pre-determined prize packs, plus punch cards to gain access to the Bunker where high-tier loot resides in addition to a custom T-Shirt that will have your name on it live in the server indefinitely. There will be PVP events in addition to scavenging around the map so it has a little something for everyone's play style. We hope you'll have fun with this one!Stay safe out there!
2023.05.29 16:49 Beneficial-String180 I think I lost weight with the worst method
For a few years from now I've been trying to loose weight, and overall I'm doing a pretty good job at it.
But I think the worst thing about is because I'm doing because of health or anything like that, even when I was fat I was never even close to being obese according to my doctors.
The only reason I decided to loose weight is because of PTSD. I was constantly bullied at school because of my weight, I was called and even considered "ugly" by others.
'Til this day I don't feel good about my body, and the fact that I'm changing it because of other's opinions on it is really hurtful. Like I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this because of people who aren't even part of my life anymore.
I wish that this whole diet thing of mine was something I choose for myself, not because of other's hurtful words.
submitted by Beneficial-String180 to teenagers [link] [comments]
But I think the worst thing about is because I'm doing because of health or anything like that, even when I was fat I was never even close to being obese according to my doctors.
The only reason I decided to loose weight is because of PTSD. I was constantly bullied at school because of my weight, I was called and even considered "ugly" by others.
'Til this day I don't feel good about my body, and the fact that I'm changing it because of other's opinions on it is really hurtful. Like I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this because of people who aren't even part of my life anymore.
I wish that this whole diet thing of mine was something I choose for myself, not because of other's hurtful words.