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Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Note: this text is only for single man without kids, who searchs for wife. You can be atheist or christian (practicing or not).
I'm a single female from Ukraine (can meet with you in another country, more safe for you). I search for a single childless man older than 35 (older- better) for a serious relationship, first without physical aspects. Your age and appearance are not important. I wish you are self-employed, your own master and bos or digital nomad but that is not a strict demand.
Sometimes men expect these aspects very fast and leave fast if not get it soon. In my opinion, this means the first interest was not in the relationship itself but in physical aspects. That's why I want to find a relationship first without it. So I can be sure that a man stays near me because he really likes me, not for physical satisfaction itself. That means not only one sphere of relationship. People divide into 2 groups. Those who give more than take and opposite. Wishing to gain satisfaction fast leads to frustration and disappointment.
I have got few marriage offers in the past, but felt that they were not serious because the men were too young, not well settled and made these offers trying to gain something. Being not a young girl, I still wait for a right person—a man who will be happy staying with me and will do everything for me. Wished person is his own boss and master thought being employee with a plan to become self boss one day is fine too.
If things work, I can relocate to you or to invite you to live in Ukraine after the war ends. If you are able to set up app called telegram for chat and meet in real life within one month, then please text me. I prefer well written letter that was sent in inbox letters, not in chat requests and chat itself.
Now more detaily about me. Never been married, no kids (will not have in the nearest time but not a childfree), no pets (had shepherd, after his death decided not to have new). Was raised in small village at farmer's house (the nature was great but didn't like the hard working lifestyle) and prefer city life. I don't smoke, don't drink alcohol . You will not have to suffer dealing with numerous people around me because I don't have friends (people disappear when interests and lifestyles become different) and my family is very small. I don't visit bars, clubs or parties and not addicted to social networks. As an introvert, I can't open to someone fast because have been cheated by those whom trusted. Life teaches, only real actions show the true person's intentions, not just his words.
About two negative moments. The first is my passivity. I was raised in a culture where it was considered vulgar if a woman is too active in the path of creating a relationship. Yes, it is obvious that active women will get success sooner than passive one but I can't change myself and prefer the one who will take initiative.
The second negative moment is that being introverted, I totally dislike situation when I have to contact with unknown people, especially with men, especially in field of relationship. That sounds not logical because how can someone know anyone if he/she doesn't like starting this contact? There is only one solution for me. I can start contact only if I have already got very detailed information about person so this makes illusion that he is already not a stranger. Most of men send short message, expecting that I will ask many questions trying to find out his personality. The truth is that I will not do it. Yes, you can call me bad for that, but I will reply only to well written detailed letter from someone who will not make me to ask many questions but will write proper letter with basic information by himself. Man's appearance means nothing for me, but what he says and what is more important, what he does - that's important.
That were negative moments. Obviously, there are much more of them but I'll let you discover size of all iceberg by yourself. Thanks for reading.
P.S. Please, be patient and don't expect fast replies, sometimes it is not easy to do due to many reasons. That one who puts efforts in his first letter will get reply faster.
P.S.S. Chat doesn't work correctly and doesn't show messages and requests there. Text only in letters section.

First/wiki/Patreon
Pirates in Unity
The crew was much less willing than Alwen had anticipated. For a ship full of horny sailors, they were way to squeamish about providing Alwen with the samples she needed. Alwen eventually had to go to the Captain to get the whole crew in line. But even with a direct order from the Captain Alwen still had plenty of complaints to deal with.
“This is humiliating.” Alice grumbled as she passed Alwen an opaque jar.
“How do you think I feel.” Alwen shot back. “If the results of my research ever get published I will forever be marked as the doctor who learned about this because she was having cramps.”
“I don’t even see why any of this is important.” She mumbled.
“You don’t see how potential Terran/Torweni genetic compatibility is important?”
“I don’t see why we have to be your test subjects?”
“Have a care Alice” a voice said from behind Alice. Captain Astarte had just entered the med bay. There was a suspicious flush to her cheeks as she passed Alwen a labeled container. “There’s a whole ship of us to provide the Terran samples, and only five of them for the Torweni samples.”
Alice watched Astarte suspiciously. “It still feels like a violation of privacy.”
Aster raised an eyebrow “You’re a Marine, you’re in the wrong career for privacy.”
“Yeah” Alwen agreed “this isn’t even the grossest sample I’ve asked from you.”
“Don’t remind me.” She muttered, her ears falling flat as she shuffled out of the med bay.
Alwen turned to Astarte and added her sample to the batch. “Thanks again Captain.”
“Don’t mention it, after all this isn’t just about Terran/Torweni compatibility. This could finally unravel the secrets of the Uplifted, might even give us conclusive proof of Union tampering.”
Alwen nodded; they were keeping that potential discovery from the crew just in case it didn’t pan out. Most Mammaloids went about their everyday life like any other person, but there was always a thought in the back of their mind. Why are we here, why are we like this? No point in getting their hopes up.
Aster put a hand on Alwen’s shoulder “Well, do your best. We’ve got time until we pull into Unity and I would love to see some progress before things get messy.”
“Of course, so long as the crew behaves I’ll have plenty of time to research.” Alwen answered, though she knew it was a pipe dream the moment she said it. Because in that moment a crewmen with a twisted ankle hobbled in.
~~~*~~~
The Arbiter stepped through the door into Judge’s private office before slowly closing the door and dropping the privacy field. Rachel looked around the office, but nothing had changed since she last met with Judge. His office never changed, even when he was promoted to Chief he still kept the same spartan furnishings from his original office. There were no signs of his new power and influence changing his personality.
That’s what Rachel liked about Judge, he was born into the very epitome of power and wealth, and he turned away from it all to be a lowly station officer. Even as he climbed the ranks and earned more influence, it couldn’t compare to what he gave up.
“You wanted to see me?” Rachel asked as she stood at attention.
Judge glanced up and gave her his full attention. “I wanted a report.”
“Yes sir,” Rachel said as she reached into her heavy black cloak and produced a manila file folder. The Union had been in the digital era for so long that the idea of paper folders seemed exotic and bizarre, but most police work was done on paper due to the inherent security in physical print versus a vulnerable digital database. Some of it was eventually scanned into the database, but only files that were deemed unimportant.
He took the folder and began to scan through its contents. His naturally stern expression deepened as he read. “Nothing but dead ends.” He muttered.
Rachel felt a flush of shame, “Yes, I exhausted every lead I had, but nothing came up. Your bro… I mean our suspect is very thorough.”
“Indeed. I have been looking into him for thirty years, and I’ve begun to suspect that someone very powerful is covering his tracks.”
A thought occurred to Rachel “It might be councilman Ozzath.”
He looked up “Explain your reasoning?”
Rachel had been keeping her mother’s visit from Judge, and had been doing her best to keep it from interfering with her job. But she couldn’t ignore the coincidence. “As you know Ozzath appeared at one of my arrests, well after our talk my mother appeared in my apartment for the first time in years. Said she wanted me to come back to the family. My family and Ozzath have been in business for as long as I can remember, and I doubt she really wants to welcome me back.”
He folded his hands and brought them up to his chin. “An interesting theory, but we can’t just investigate a councilmen without good cause. But this does explain your slower than average progress, your mothers been interfering.”
Rachel gritted her teeth at the thought. “Yes, Alexandra has been dragging me out to her vain parties with little notice. Its been cutting into my investigation time.”
He looked thoughtful. “Problematic, we’ll need to figure out her part in this. Is she just a pawn, or does she have a larger role in all this?”
Rachel felt a bitter shame at not wondering the same herself. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It was because Alexandra was in her head, clouding her thoughts.
He put his hands back down “It will have to wait, I called you here for another reason.”
“What?”
“I have received word from Chief Kera’keck of Femeri, it seems the pirate angle is back.”
“Pirate angle?”
He nodded gravely “According the Kera’keck this Astarte women and her companies have several strong connections to local pirate organizations. She was in the middle of the pirate attack on Femeri, and escaped on legal technicalities.” He turned over the folder on the potential pirate and Rachel began to scan through the contents.
She read for a minute before closing it “I see a lot of maybes and potentialities, but nothing concrete.”
“Of course not, if he had something concrete that women would be in jail. But look at the report on her ship.”
Rachel flipped a few pages until she got to several pictures of a strange gray hulled ship, “Is this for real?” she asked incredulously.
“Afraid so.”
“This looks like an old maritime battleship, not a space ship.”
“Indeed, specifically it seems to be modeled after one of the Iowa’s, some of the last battleships ever built. Look at the name.”
She looked to the top “Astaroth? Really? Isn’t that some sort of catholic demon?”
“It is, and after a quick internet search I found a curious connection. The demon Astaroth was based off the Phoenician goddess Astarte, which seems to imply that Astarte isn’t our pirates original name. I’m currently trying to dig up records to see if I can’t find her original name, but I doubt I’ll find anything. Her birth certificate was filed less than a decade ago, and lists her city of birth as New Mombasa.”
“Why so late? I doubt she’s only ten years old.”
“No, but things are different on deathworlds. Not everyone has access to hospitals, and the births aren’t always recorded. Those people later officially file their existence with local magistrates, but there is little the magistrate can do to confirm the details. Our pirate likely never had an official birth record, which makes looking into her past close to impossible.”
Rachel thought for a minute. “What about the last part, Maidens-Daughter doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. It might be a connection to her past.”
“I thought the same, I did a quick search but couldn’t find many people named Maidens-Daughter, at least not officially. Earth society is an enigma at the best of times, and its going to be tough to try and link that name to anything solid.”
“This still begs the question, what does a pirate want with terraforming tech? And why would they steal it from themselves?”
“My new working theory is insurance fraud. Order something expensive, steal it, then try to claim insurance on it. But then our assassin killed off the office, likely saving the company millions in damages.” He explained.
“This still links my assassin to Amaterasu, and it could explain why I can’t find anything on the missing equipment. I doubt our pirates will let this go.”
Judge nodded “I thought the same thing. I’m currently monitoring port offices for the next time the Astaroth pulls into a station-” he stopped short as his computer beeped. He turned back to and opened up a new screen. “Speak of the Devil” he muttered.
“Is that them? Where are they?” Rachel asked.
Judge nodded “Its them, they just pulled into Unity.”
“They’re here!” she asked in shock and incredulity. Known pirates pulling into the heart of the Union, how brazen were these people?
“It would appear so, they just checked in with the orbital controllers and have booked berth 239 in industrial section 7. Their stay is listed as indeterminate. No cargo to off load.” The winkles on his brow furrowed. “They’re due to pull in soon, maybe an hour.”
Rachel scowled “That’s more than enough time for me to get there.”
“And do what?” he asked, there was a sharp bite to his question.
“Not sure, I won’t know until I get there. But we can’t let a warship full of pirates enter Unity without challenge. I might get lucky and get them to make a mistake.”
He frowned “Or you’ll tip them off.” He began to tap one of his fingers “But your right, we can’t let them in unchallenged.” He thought for moment “Fine, you are to go there as a representative of the ADCU to inform our guests of the rules here, and look into their visit.”
Rachel nodded and turned away to leave promptly. She put her hood back up and began to march back to the ADCU to recruit a few extra officers. Pirates or not, they couldn’t allow a ship like that to enter port without challenge.

i apologize if there are some grammatical errors, english is not my first language
my (f18) roommate (f18) found a new boyfriend (m18?) in January, they got together very quickly. at first I liked him because he looked really nice we hit it off really well to the point we were joking that were some sort of lost siblings because we are so similar. but the more I heard about him and what he was doing and saying to her the more I started to dislike him. he yelled at her and threatened people after saying his name “wrong” (it had different first letter but they had no idea about that because he never told them) and I lost all my respect for him and really started despising him was, when she hysterically cried because of him for 2 hours straight.since then I can't even think about him without having massive amount of rage build up in me.
but wait! it gets worse. today I was stopped by her classmates who asked me if she told me about the thing he did. I was confused because she didn't. so they told me.
the boyfriend and one of the classmates have mutual friend. the classmate asked the friend if he knew the boyfriend. he said yes. he said that he was massive prick (we already know that) and that he, get ready, raped 3 girls. my jaw dropped but honestly i'm not surprised at this point. so they told my roommate this. they told her in their gc when I was with her at her house for the weekend. we played games the whole day and were talking like nothing was happening. they told her on Saturday. the next day we were going back to the city where our dorm was AND WE ALL HUNG OUT. she didn't even bat an eye. no mention of it to me, no nothing. after that they were hanging out at my job with me while I was working at least 3 or 4 times and she absolutely didn't even think about telling me about it.
we were trying to make her realize that he's a piece of shit but she's not listening! she's convinced that she will die alone the second she's out of relationship so she doesn't care about health of the relationship, she just wants to be in one so she's not alone. shes is beautiful and gorgeous and funny and all that, alt chich with good sense of humour, guys would literally fight to be with her but she has so fucking low self esteem that she thinks she will never find anyone ever again. she's never listening.
and now she looks like she's about to throw away 3 years of friendship with her classmates for him. they're trying to talk some sense into her but she just gets upset and offended that they're saying those are bad things about him. apparently she “talked about it with him” and that it's okay now. how can it be okay because they “talked”???
also i know her opinion on rapists is the same as mine - hang them by the balls on a flag pole into a wind at least - because theres this one person in our school we hate with passion because they are a rapist, but apparently that doesn't apply to her boyfriend. she will come into the dormroom later in the evening I'm guessing but i am going to confront her about it and at this point i am not going to be nice to her.

Hey I’m a recording artist and I need a professional music video shot as well as some photos taken. Please send examples of your work. I’m about a half hour north of the city but would love it if you could help with planning and location scouting.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Note: this text is only for single man without kids, who searchs for wife. You can be atheist or christian (practicing or not).
I'm a single female from Ukraine (can meet with you in another country, more safe for you). I search for a single childless man older than 35 (older- better) for a serious relationship, first without physical aspects. Your age and appearance are not important. I wish you are self-employed, your own master and bos or digital nomad but that is not a strict demand.
Sometimes men expect these aspects very fast and leave fast if not get it soon. In my opinion, this means the first interest was not in the relationship itself but in physical aspects. That's why I want to find a relationship first without it. So I can be sure that a man stays near me because he really likes me, not for physical satisfaction itself. That means not only one sphere of relationship. People divide into 2 groups. Those who give more than take and opposite. Wishing to gain satisfaction fast leads to frustration and disappointment.
I have got few marriage offers in the past, but felt that they were not serious because the men were too young, not well settled and made these offers trying to gain something. Being not a young girl, I still wait for a right person—a man who will be happy staying with me and will do everything for me. Wished person is his own boss and master thought being employee with a plan to become self boss one day is fine too.
If things work, I can relocate to you or to invite you to live in Ukraine after the war ends. If you are able to set up app called telegram for chat and meet in real life within one month, then please text me. I prefer well written letter that was sent in inbox letters, not in chat requests and chat itself.
Now more detaily about me. Never been married, no kids (will not have in the nearest time but not a childfree), no pets (had shepherd, after his death decided not to have new). Was raised in small village at farmer's house (the nature was great but didn't like the hard working lifestyle) and prefer city life. I don't smoke, don't drink alcohol . You will not have to suffer dealing with numerous people around me because I don't have friends (people disappear when interests and lifestyles become different) and my family is very small. I don't visit bars, clubs or parties and not addicted to social networks. As an introvert, I can't open to someone fast because have been cheated by those whom trusted. Life teaches, only real actions show the true person's intentions, not just his words.
About two negative moments. The first is my passivity. I was raised in a culture where it was considered vulgar if a woman is too active in the path of creating a relationship. Yes, it is obvious that active women will get success sooner than passive one but I can't change myself and prefer the one who will take initiative.
The second negative moment is that being introverted, I totally dislike situation when I have to contact with unknown people, especially with men, especially in field of relationship. That sounds not logical because how can someone know anyone if he/she doesn't like starting this contact? There is only one solution for me. I can start contact only if I have already got very detailed information about person so this makes illusion that he is already not a stranger. Most of men send short message, expecting that I will ask many questions trying to find out his personality. The truth is that I will not do it. Yes, you can call me bad for that, but I will reply only to well written detailed letter from someone who will not make me to ask many questions but will write proper letter with basic information by himself. Man's appearance means nothing for me, but what he says and what is more important, what he does - that's important.
That were negative moments. Obviously, there are much more of them but I'll let you discover size of all iceberg by yourself. Thanks for reading.
P.S. Please, be patient and don't expect fast replies, sometimes it is not easy to do due to many reasons. That one who puts efforts in his first letter will get reply faster.
P.S.S. Chat doesn't work correctly and doesn't show messages and requests there. Text only in letters section.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Note: this text is only for single man without kids, who searchs for wife. You can be atheist or christian (practicing or not).
I'm a single female from Ukraine (can meet with you in another country, more safe for you). I search for a single childless man older than 35 (older- better) for a serious relationship, first without physical aspects. Your age and appearance are not important. I wish you are self-employed, your own master and bos or digital nomad but that is not a strict demand.
Sometimes men expect these aspects very fast and leave fast if not get it soon. In my opinion, this means the first interest was not in the relationship itself but in physical aspects. That's why I want to find a relationship first without it. So I can be sure that a man stays near me because he really likes me, not for physical satisfaction itself. That means not only one sphere of relationship. People divide into 2 groups. Those who give more than take and opposite. Wishing to gain satisfaction fast leads to frustration and disappointment.
I have got few marriage offers in the past, but felt that they were not serious because the men were too young, not well settled and made these offers trying to gain something. Being not a young girl, I still wait for a right person—a man who will be happy staying with me and will do everything for me. Wished person is his own boss and master thought being employee with a plan to become self boss one day is fine too.
If things work, I can relocate to you or to invite you to live in Ukraine after the war ends. If you are able to set up app called telegram for chat and meet in real life within one month, then please text me. I prefer well written letter that was sent in inbox letters, not in chat requests and chat itself.
Now more detaily about me. Never been married, no kids (will not have in the nearest time but not a childfree), no pets (had shepherd, after his death decided not to have new). Was raised in small village at farmer's house (the nature was great but didn't like the hard working lifestyle) and prefer city life. I don't smoke, don't drink alcohol . You will not have to suffer dealing with numerous people around me because I don't have friends (people disappear when interests and lifestyles become different) and my family is very small. I don't visit bars, clubs or parties and not addicted to social networks. As an introvert, I can't open to someone fast because have been cheated by those whom trusted. Life teaches, only real actions show the true person's intentions, not just his words.
About two negative moments. The first is my passivity. I was raised in a culture where it was considered vulgar if a woman is too active in the path of creating a relationship. Yes, it is obvious that active women will get success sooner than passive one but I can't change myself and prefer the one who will take initiative.
The second negative moment is that being introverted, I totally dislike situation when I have to contact with unknown people, especially with men, especially in field of relationship. That sounds not logical because how can someone know anyone if he/she doesn't like starting this contact? There is only one solution for me. I can start contact only if I have already got very detailed information about person so this makes illusion that he is already not a stranger. Most of men send short message, expecting that I will ask many questions trying to find out his personality. The truth is that I will not do it. Yes, you can call me bad for that, but I will reply only to well written detailed letter from someone who will not make me to ask many questions but will write proper letter with basic information by himself. Man's appearance means nothing for me, but what he says and what is more important, what he does - that's important.
That were negative moments. Obviously, there are much more of them but I'll let you discover size of all iceberg by yourself. Thanks for reading.
P.S. Please, be patient and don't expect fast replies, sometimes it is not easy to do due to many reasons. That one who puts efforts in his first letter will get reply faster.
P.S.S. Chat doesn't work correctly and doesn't show messages and requests there. Text only in letters section.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Note: this text is only for single man without kids, who searchs for wife. You can be atheist or christian (practicing or not).
I'm a single female from Ukraine (can meet with you in another country, more safe for you). I search for a single childless man older than 35 (older- better) for a serious relationship, first without physical aspects. Your age and appearance are not important. I wish you are self-employed, your own master and bos or digital nomad but that is not a strict demand.
Sometimes men expect these aspects very fast and leave fast if not get it soon. In my opinion, this means the first interest was not in the relationship itself but in physical aspects. That's why I want to find a relationship first without it. So I can be sure that a man stays near me because he really likes me, not for physical satisfaction itself. That means not only one sphere of relationship. People divide into 2 groups. Those who give more than take and opposite. Wishing to gain satisfaction fast leads to frustration and disappointment.
I have got few marriage offers in the past, but felt that they were not serious because the men were too young, not well settled and made these offers trying to gain something. Being not a young girl, I still wait for a right person—a man who will be happy staying with me and will do everything for me. Wished person is his own boss and master thought being employee with a plan to become self boss one day is fine too.
If things work, I can relocate to you or to invite you to live in Ukraine after the war ends. If you are able to set up app called telegram for chat and meet in real life within one month, then please text me. I prefer well written letter that was sent in inbox letters, not in chat requests and chat itself.
Now more detaily about me. Never been married, no kids (will not have in the nearest time but not a childfree), no pets (had shepherd, after his death decided not to have new). Was raised in small village at farmer's house (the nature was great but didn't like the hard working lifestyle) and prefer city life. I don't smoke, don't drink alcohol . You will not have to suffer dealing with numerous people around me because I don't have friends (people disappear when interests and lifestyles become different) and my family is very small. I don't visit bars, clubs or parties and not addicted to social networks. As an introvert, I can't open to someone fast because have been cheated by those whom trusted. Life teaches, only real actions show the true person's intentions, not just his words.
About two negative moments. The first is my passivity. I was raised in a culture where it was considered vulgar if a woman is too active in the path of creating a relationship. Yes, it is obvious that active women will get success sooner than passive one but I can't change myself and prefer the one who will take initiative.
The second negative moment is that being introverted, I totally dislike situation when I have to contact with unknown people, especially with men, especially in field of relationship. That sounds not logical because how can someone know anyone if he/she doesn't like starting this contact? There is only one solution for me. I can start contact only if I have already got very detailed information about person so this makes illusion that he is already not a stranger. Most of men send short message, expecting that I will ask many questions trying to find out his personality. The truth is that I will not do it. Yes, you can call me bad for that, but I will reply only to well written detailed letter from someone who will not make me to ask many questions but will write proper letter with basic information by himself. Man's appearance means nothing for me, but what he says and what is more important, what he does - that's important.
That were negative moments. Obviously, there are much more of them but I'll let you discover size of all iceberg by yourself. Thanks for reading.
P.S. Please, be patient and don't expect fast replies, sometimes it is not easy to do due to many reasons. That one who puts efforts in his first letter will get reply faster.
P.S.S. Chat doesn't work correctly and doesn't show messages and requests there. Text only in letters section.

I'm in US. Going to start when I first moved out on my own, almost a decade ago, I was single and was unable to afford food while working 2 jobs(grocery stocker and fast food something). I smoked cigarettes' and drank coffee to keep my hunger away. My now wife moved in with me. I told her I just needed a roommate to help keep up with bills. She applied for foodstamps about 3 months into it and that was the first time I could afford food and rent ($350).
A year later we're pregnant. I had moved to being a pizza delivery driver and we still need foodstamps to get by. My daughter was about 8 months when the restaurant closed. We ended up moving in with family.
After a year of that, we come up with the idea to go to college. My wife had one in mind that was 3 cities over and a 5 hour drive. I took off one day to find a job and an apartment. Total success. Move my family across state. Put myself through college delivering, still needed foodstamps and the college loans were the only thing helping my life make sense. My wife at this point didn't drive ever and I was picking up my daughter and dropping her at daycare (This was 1 1/2 years later and she was about 3 at the time.) I landed a job straight out of college(Feb 2019), it didn't last long because the manager sucked. I then ended up bouncing from job to job for a full year. Super stressful when I was the only one that could pull off holding down a job at the time(wife still wouldn't drive for another year).
I landed a job I liked(Oct 2020). I was told that the manager was getting ready to retire. I thought things were going to work out finally. I work there for 6 months, taking on more work than I should be comfortable with. CEO promises me a raise. CEO goes to prison. New CEO says I deserve a raise. fast forward 18 months my boss is getting more and more toxic and I finally get a 3% raise after holding out for 18 months(I like what I do, doing it safely without people breathing down my neck is above getting paid top dollar). Manageboss declares he's isn't going to retire( I would've taken his job). I've been looking for another job for 6 months at that point. Land a job with a government contractor. Get paid top dollar for SIGNIFACANTLY less work. Am eating peanuts still because it's a scary world.

I've enjoyed a fantastic 6 months of sobriety namely from alcohol, just hit it the other day. I'm no longer out doing club drugs and stuff like years ago, and it just feels great. I believe this is the third longest stretch of sobriety in my life, the others being 3 years and 1.5 years. Being older, having a family, a promising career, and really supportive people around me has me feeling very confident about it. While I do fine in environments where people are drinking, I'm just not in them much anymore so that's surely helped too.
However, every winter is a battle. It usually leads to one alcohol or benzo fueled meltdown, which did not happen at all this year!! But then it's usually followed by drinking kratom on and off through the next few months until winter ends, and when that sun returns, I have no issue stopping. Given my overall progress, I've been congratulating myself this winter instead of being harder on myself. Year over year, I have dramatically improved my life as a whole, addiction and otherwise.
I've set a few quit dates for kratom (which I usually drink a few days on, a week or two off), and nicotine (which I quit for over a month at the new year). Because of this, I don't expect terrifying withdrawals. I do however have way too much tied to both as far as habits.
My life has still gotten a little more boring the last 9 months or so. No travel really, work has slowed down, I have fewer friends these days (who all have commitments too), and I'm in a much healthier relationship that doesn't occupy all my time scrambling to solve problems. I'll start a fresh new day, no cravings or anything, but I swear as soon as I go outside (I live in NYC) the immediate stress leads me to pick up another vape pen. Then settled at my office (or home on weekends) I get bored after my morning work routine is done, the ongoing construction under my office begins, so I escape to the kava/kratom bar for a few hours to work around others and not hear pounding impact drills half the day.
It's weird because alcohol has hands down always been my most destructive vice (or maybe benzos, but not as drawn to those), and once I quit for a few days, I'm free for a long time. But kratom and nicotine, being relatively less destructive, are much harder to avoid. I sit there at my office, do my work, and in between it, I just watch the clock tick by. Yes there are busier days still sometimes, but not as often. I try setting up more stuff to help my staff, but there's only so much I can do. The kicker is, I know my motivation in general would surge after 1-2 weeks of stopping both habits.
It's just getting over that damn hump of a few days. I almost wish I could handcuff myself at home and force myself to stay put for 72 hours!
Hoping for any advice here. It's hard to find interests to distract me - they tend to have to be high level ones (building a computer, working on a car...not collecting coins or going for a walk). But when I stop and the motivation drops, it basically rules everything out, and I eventually crack. The worst part? I usually crack within an hour, not a day or anything I could more easily work with.
​
Edit: one thing that has helped me clear it all up in the past is travel. I visited my parents for Christmas, no issues. Visited Mexico early in the winter, and the nicotine withdrawal sucked, but I just strolled around and chilled, and it passed. Returned to NYC and fucking cracked within hours from swarms of people yelling and screaming. But money is tight right now...or I'd go visit some friends I have in Ecuador.
Another thing that has definitely not helped is my temporary 1 year return to NYC, so my life (and hobbies) are in a storage unit in NC. My apartment is very nice, but it's small and really only gives me access to my sofa, TV, and bed. Not a lot to do. But again, if I could get over that 1-2 week hump, I become more active and can go wander the city and stuff.
Lastly, I'm not sure if this has helped or hurt, but I did start ketamine therapy this winter. It's helped my depression and stability MASSIVELY - I'm not blowing friendships, I'm much more calm, I'm taking very positive steps with my job and career. But it's the first time in my life I constantly get this feeling where I NEED...SOMETHING. I'm guessing that's the boredom, but I know ketamine does mess with dopamine. Even focusing several ketamine sessions on breaking these bad habits has only proven minimally effective. I fight as hard as I can the whole session to burn into my brain that I am strong and do not need these things, but it fades the next day when I "need something" again.
The one really good asset I have right now? I've never in my life wanted to eliminate these annoying habits more than I do now. I would do nearly anything to break them and keep them out of my life, and I feel confident that I can stay away from them for good if I can break them once more. Like really really confident.

Part 52
Glenda Wilmington, Kinda Digging This Whole Cop Gig
"If you hear anything else, give me a call," Glenda said, handing the woman a business card with her cellphone number on it. The woman accepted it and then squinted skeptically at it.
"Cooperation with an investigation is the sort of thing that parole boards like to hear about," Glenda said in response to the woman's look. That seemed to do the trick. The woman slipped the card into her ample cleavage and met Glenda's eyes.
"I will call. I have no loyalty to that man." Her sing-song Norwegian accent, as well as her tall, thick frame and bright, yellow-blonde hair contrasted with the environment; a run-down housing project in the heart of Compton. But housing for convicted felons on parole was limited, and she'd had few choices in this area. Glenda wondered idly why the woman hadn't elected to return to Norway, where they tended to be a bit more sympathetic to ex-cons. The woman, Duke's one-time head channeler, didn't seem prepared to answer any more questions, however.
Glenda nodded and stepped back. The woman took a step outside, careful to keep the foot with the ankle monitor inside the door and took a look around before withdrawing back into the house. Glenda turned and walked down the steps off the creaky wooden porch and back to the rental car, where Jack dozed lightly in the passenger seat, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes. She climbed behind the wheel, trying not to wake him, and started the engine.
He woke anyways. Jack had always been a very light sleeper. He turned his head slightly towards her, not adjusting the hat at all.
"Anything?" he asked. Glenda shook her head. "Nobody's heard from him. I think it's safe to say he's not looking to connect with any of his old associates, at this point."
"Ayup," Jack agreed. Glenda pulled away, heading north, towards the 105 that would take them back to the airport. They were done here. As she drove, she couldn't help but note the scowling, suspicious faces that turned to watch them. She took in the low, chain-link fences that separated yards, the equally low concrete block walls that surrounded paved driveways. The odd mix of Spanish colonial and more traditional American architecture was like a sign. It told her that she could find a bag of the white lady, a bag of weed, or a bag of something more exotic here. She could find a gang, beefing with another gang, and maybe convince one side to pay her to make someone on the other side vanish.
It was almost nostalgic.
They passed a tan-painted Spanish colonial house with a faux wrought-iron fence, and she knew right away that a dealer lived there. The child's play set in the front had never been touched by anything more careless than the wind and rain. The SUV in the driveway might have belonged to a small family, except for the large speakers she could see through the rear window. The tint on the windows of both car and home added to the effect. The kicker, though, was the white-haired, middle-aged man stepping out the front door to squint suspiciously around before heading back up the street in the direction of the channeler's home, where Glenda had spotted him walking this way just a few minutes ago.
Without bothering to ask anyone, she could say with confidence that whoever lived there sold mainly cocaine, but he also had cheap weed for those who couldn't afford the prices at the dispensary. He'd have rocks too, but he probably wouldn't sell them to you if you knew where he lived. He'd sell them on the weekends, manning a street corner, alongside a thug from whatever gang he ran with or paid tribute to.
Everyone knew they were cops, of course. Years of living in rural Canada had faded Glenda's tan and affected her fashion choices. Once, she'd had moved through an area like this in gym shorts, sneakers and a faded old t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Showing off enough muscle to make the usual idiots think twice about harassing her, but not showing off so much skin than people might take her for a street worker with a schtick. Today, she drove in blue jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt. Next to her, Jack wore the same, complimented with a denim jacket. Only a couple of cops would dress like that in this neighborhood.
Though that wasn't strictly true -Jack's jurisdiction ended many hundreds of miles north of here- it might as well be. They were private investigators, working on behalf of the federal government, who was footing the bill for Dylan's recapture. Whether or not they were technically considered law enforcement officers depended entirely upon their needs and some paperwork. So far, they hadn't needed any LEO powers.
As she turned onto the 105 and marginally sped up in the dense traffic of the highway, Jack's phone rang. He begrudgingly lifted the brim of his hat up, squinting in the bright daylight at his screen. Apparently satisfied with what he saw there, he hit the accept button and pressed the phone to his ear.
"S'Jack," he said, then he listened for a bit.
"Ayup," he said. He glanced out the window, then covered the tiny mic at the bottom of the phone. "Get off the highway," he said to Glenda. She nodded and put on her turn signal, eyes searching for a chance to get over. A minivan in the next lane, slightly ahead of them, promptly slowed down to pace them.
"Awwright," he drawled into the phone. "We'll check it out. 'Preciate the heads up. Take care, now."
He pulled the phone away from his ear and tapped the screen again before slipping it back into his pocket jacket.
"That was intel. Said that a bank account belonging to one Dylan Boucher just got emptied by a wire transfer to one Derek Garcia. Just a hair over ten grand. Transfer woulda taken place about a week ago, intel didn't pick up on it until it cleared."
"Garcia, that's the one that calls himself the 'Planewalker', right?"
"Ayup," Jack said. Glenda finally got tired of trying to get behind the minivan and sped up to cut him off, instead. Jack could see that it was being driven by a heavily tattooed white kid with dredlocks. He honked and flipped them off, but she ignored him. She'd had her turn signal on, and tried to get behind him, but he had slowed down and sped up to block her.
Out of pure spite, she tapped the brakes a few times.
Jack bounced forward against his seatbelt as she did and gave her a dirty look. She smiled sweetly at him. "What? That's how you drive around here. You used to live in Atlanta, you've got to know this by now."
"We didn't generally make an effort to piss people off in Atlanta," he grumbled. Glenda turned onto the ramp to get off on Crenshaw, heading south.
Glenda scoffed. "Now you're just lying. I've been to Atlanta. Worst drivers in the bottom half of the country by far."
"You sure about that?" Jack said, eyeing the rear-view mirror. Glenda glanced up to see the minivan still behind them, the driver jabbing his finger at them and ranting.
"Huh," she said. "Maybe this fucker's about to prove me wrong."
"Well, we need to get gas anyways, if we're driving all the way down to San Clemente," Jack said. "Might as well pull over at the first station we see and get it over with."
Glenda chuckled, mostly at what the angry man behind her was about to experience and kept her eyes peeled for a gas station.
The minivan never wavered, staying behind her through multiple lane changes, all the way down to Artesia Boulevard, where she finally found a Shell station. She pulled in and pulled up to a pump.
"You wanna have a white knight moment, or is today an 'equality of the sexes' day?" Glenda asked as the minivan pulled in behind them and stopped, blocking the entrance.
"Sheeeit," Jack drawled. "I mean, I guess I'll handle him if ya want..." He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door as the irate young metalhead stomped towards them. He made sure to be outside the car by the time the kid got within angry dick-measuring distance.
"What the fuck is your bitch's problem, asshole?!" the young man demanded. Jack didn't answer, he simply strode forward, within striking distance. Normally, Jack liked to deliver a good, bone-chilling threat, followed up by taking a more reasonable tone as he continued to stare through whomever was causing problems and imagine himself blowing their head off as he de-escalated the situation. It was a tactic that had served him well, many times. But today, Jack was tired.
He'd been hunting Dylan down for weeks now, and only just got their first promising lead as this little shit had gone out of his way to stop them from changing lanes for no discernible reason. So Jack simply slugged the kid right in the nose. He caught him off guard and sent the kid sprawling onto his ass. Before he could gather himself back up, Jack kicked him in the chest with the sole of his boot and drew his large revolver. He crouched down, boot still pinning the kid to the ground, and held the gun casually where the kid could see it.
"You know what a turn signal means?" he asked calmly. The kid's eyes went wide as he spotted the gun.
"Y-y-yeah," he stammered.
"Good. Ya had a little lapse of judgement there. Ya might wanna see to that." Jack stood, holstering his gun and walked back over to open the gas cover and insert the company credit card into the pump. He picked the mid-grade and inserted the fuel handle, locking the valve open before he turned back.
The kid was still sitting there, wiping blood from his mouth where his nose was bleeding. "They oughta have napkins inside," Jack told him mildly. "They're usually by the hot dogs."
Jack filled the tank while the kid picked himself up and went inside. A cop arrived a few minutes later, stopping in the entrance that the kid was blocking and turning his lights on. The cop stepped out and walked around the minivan and into the gas station.
Jack waited for the tank to fill, then replaced the nozzle and climbed back in the car.
"You wanna stick around?" Glenda asked. "Shoot the shit with the locals, make sure the kid gets the short end?"
"Naw," Jack said. "Read about the LA cops. Not exactly whom I'd like to consider comrades-in-arms, if you catch my meaning."
Glenda shrugged and they pulled out right as the kid and the cop both emerged back into the parking lot. Glenda thought the cop look pissed and the kid looked dejected.
They got on the 405 and drove it down to California 73, then took that south to Interstate 5, which brought them to San Clemente an hour later. Glenda got off the highway and turned into a neighborhood full of upscale, tightly-packed Spanish colonial homes. Unlike Compton, most of the yards weren't fenced, and those that were tended towards white picket fences. The lawns were universally well-cared for and nobody looked twice at them as they drove through the neighborhood and up to the address highlighted on the GPS.
It was a small, modest-looking home with a distinctly 70's asthetic. It didn't match most of the tile-roofed, square walled homes around it, but it hardly stood out, either. A BMW sat in the driveway, framed by a pair of shaped topiary trees. It looked like something off the cover of some homemaking magazine, Glenda thought.
They parked on the street and climbed out.
"The air is crackling with magic," Glenda said. "He's in there, doing something right now."
Jack walked up and pounded on the door. Glenda held up a hand, fingers splayed. Jack would understand what she meant. The magic was currently at a five, and she'd let him know if it diminished, and by approximately how much.
She kept her hand still for a while as nobody answered the door. Five minutes passed before Jack turned to her.
"Okay, this is your gig, now," he said. He walked back to the car, opening the trunk to reveal the bound, squirming and sweating Caliope there. He yanked her gag down and fed her from a water bottle.
"Been a long drive, ain't it?" he asked, conversationally. Caliope sucked greedily at the bottle, managing to drink every drop that didn't get splashed into the trunk.
"Fuck you," she muttered weakly. Jack smiled. "Looks to me like you're the one what's fucked, darlin'. Guess you shouldn'ta gone and fucked with your sister's collar like that. I mean, if you'd played by the rules, we'd have overlooked the whole issue of you not actually being any help whatsoever, and taken your good faith efforts as enough to fill your end. But ya had to go behind our backs, causing trouble. So now you're stuck in a trunk until we get back to the airport."
"Fuck you," she gasped again.
"'Scuse me," Jack said, reaching past her for an armored vest. He pulled it out and tugged it over his head, getting the flaps velcroed in place and adjusting it. When he was done, he pulled Caliope's gag back up.
"Awright, girl, you jes sit tight while we check this out. Won't be but a little bit, then we'll be heading to the airport."
She tried to say something, but the gag turned it into a muffled wail. Jack smiled as he closed the trunk and returned to the front door. Glenda stood there, watching him, fully kitted up with her armor and a carbine in her hands.
"Ready," Jack said. Glenda turned and, without preamble, kicked the door open with a thunderous blow. She rushed inside, rifle up and leading the way, Jack hot on her heels. Neither made it very far, though.
The living room had been converted into a ritual chamber. The walls were festooned with runes and the twisting lines that connected them. The floor had a large, ornate circle in the middle, runes etched into it and twisting, spiral designs encasing the whole thing. But that wasn't what gave them pause.
In the middle of the circle hovered a shimmering mirage, through which Glenda could see a city. It looked like something out of a sci-fi film, all rounded corners and smooth, off-white concrete. The windows in the buildings were mirrored, or else none of them had lights on inside, because they all reflected a sunrise coming from behind the view.
"What the hell's that?" Jack asked. Glenda carefully felt the magic around the apparition. "I think it's a portal."
"Okay, so where does it go, do ya think?"
"I haven't got a clue. I don't recognize that city."
"Kinda looks like Mos Eisley, a hundred years after they found oil or something," Glenda said.
"Think that's what Dylan was paying for? A trip to wherever that is?"
"Looks like," Glenda mused. "We're gonna need to call this in."
"Ayup. Let's clear the house, first."
They did just that. They found a den set up in one of the bedrooms, an obviously-lived-in kitchen and a master bedroom used for its intended purposes. In the last bedroom, they found an arsenal and storage space. It was full of survival and camping gear, weapons and ammo.
"Missing rifle," Jack said, peering at a gun rack.
"Yup," Glenda agreed. She opened an ammo tin. It was only half full.
"Somebody geared up here," she said.
Jack sighed. "Let's call it in, then. We'll hand over our little helper when the backup gets here."
----
It took two hours to get a team there, mostly because the LA regional office was all the way up in Burbank. But they eventually arrived. Two security officers took Caliope off their hands, to bring her back to prison. They brought another collar, to replace the modified wet blanket spell Glenda had been holding since the riot. It hadn't seemed like a lot of effort to hold the spell in place, but as soon as she finally let it go, she felt a wave of relief.
"Julie sent some extras along," the leader of the relief force told Glenda once Caliope had been seen to. She'd already spotted the two middle-eastern men in different uniforms than the rest. She thought she recognized the older one.
"We'll take all the help we can get. Any of you boys willing to go jaunting across reality with us?" The man chuckled. "No, thanks. Besides, we've got orders to secure this building and wait for the feds. Gonna see if there's anything illegal here, so we can nab this Garcia fellow as soon as he gets back."
Glenda nodded, then looked at the two middle-eastern men. She jerked her head in a 'come here' gesture and they stepped forward.
"Glenda, right?" the older one asked, holding out a hand.
"Yup," she said as she took it. He shook firmly, then let go. "I am Aqib, and this is my assistant, Mateen. We've been running around, helping out where we can for months now. It seems it is your turn to accept our assistance."
"Either of you got any magic?" Glenda asked. Mateen hefted his rifle and then tapped his body armor. "All of our gear is enchanted. We have rings, as well," he held up a hand bedecked with silver bands. "They will help us heal from injuries and allow us to see in the dark and other such useful things."
"Good, good," she said, then stopped. Aqib. That name rang a bell. She squinted at the middle-aged man.
"You were at the Wyrm facility when we took it," she said. "About six years ago." He nodded.
"I was with your friend when she fell. She saved my life," he said. Glenda nodded. "I remember that. I'm glad you're still here, then. Glad you're with us. I, uh..." She stopped speaking before she got choked up and cleared her throat.
"Are you two ready?" she asked.
"We have our gear," Aqib said, nodding at a pair of large backpacks leaning against one of the DCM branded trucks. "Camping gear, food and water for three days. Spare ammo, tools. We were told you had much more supplies yourself."
"Yup. I've got fresh food, enough for a couple of weeks for the four of us. Plus a couple months worth of dehydrated foods, MRE's and other food that'll keep for a while. I've got water and other shit to drink, camping gear, etcetera, etcetera. As long as you guys brought your own tents, we're golden."
"That is good," Aqib said.
"Do you have battery packs?" Mateen asked.
"Battery packs?" Glenda responded.
"Yes, for phones and other electronics. To keep them charged. I have a solar recharger, but it takes a long time, and it isn't always convenient to set it up."
Glenda shook her head. "Nope. Never been much for carrying a bunch of electronics around. Besides, I doubt our phones will work, where we're going."
Aqib grinned at his companion. "No video games until we're done, Mateen," he said. Mateen rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."
"Mateen is still a child at heart, even though he has children of his own," Aqib explained as he stepped forward to get a good look at the portal, still hovering in the middle of the room.
"As long as he can fight," Glenda said. Jack approached, finished with the field paperwork. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and a rifle slung over the other. He still wore his armor.
"He fights like a cornered dog," Aqib said mildly. At Glenda's quirked eyebrow, he clarified. "He is very fierce."
"Good," Glenda said. She turned to Jack and gave him a quick kiss. "We ready?"
"Ayup," Jack confirmed. "All the paperwork's done, we're good to go."
Glenda pushed past Mateen and Aqib as they moved to pick up their packs. "I'll take them," she said. Mateen frowned, but Aqib simply nodded and stood back. She grabbed both packs and sent them to hammerspace, accepting Jack's pack and giving it the same treatment. Mateen shook his head slowly, but Aqib seemed unimpressed.
"Okay, let's boogie," Glenda said and strode through the portal before she could work up any doubts.
----
"None of 'em rotted," Jack said. "They're all mummified. All the plants are dead, but none of them are rotted, either." He stood in what seemed like a small park, a few trees growing in clusters at the four corners, and an open field of dead grass in the middle. Bodies lay strewn about, adults and children alike. Many lay draped over the benches, or slumped in a pile in front of them. One cluster of small bodies had a large, rubber-ish ball laying next to them, as if they'd died in the middle of some sort of game.
Glenda eyed the surroundings. They hadn't encountered a single living being in the hours they'd been moving through this city. "What do you think happened here?" she asked.
"I'll be honest, I ain't got a fucking clue, darlin'," Jack said. They stood in silence for a bit, reflecting on what they'd seen and wondering about it. An entire city, dead. No signs of decay, except for rusted metal. Glenda had seen large piles of rust that she took to be cars, based on the plastic and ceramic components still in them, along with the bodies. An entire city, dead. And yet the bodies remained. They'd held up better than the metal, for sure.
Mateen came around a corner at a jog and made a beeline for them. "Aqib has found something, a fresh body. Recently killed."
"Lead the way," Glenda told him. They followed him back around the corner, two blocks down and then around another corner, where they found Aqib standing over a bloody, headless corpse, resting against a building under a sign written in a language Glenda didn't recognize.
"Sheeit," Jack said as they drew up. "That's certainly out of place. Wonder where his head got to."
"Over here," Mateen said. He gestured to what looked like a bus stop with a trash can next to it. There, fetched up against the trash can was a severed head. A sparse trail of blood led from the body to it. Glenda walked over and crouched down, peering at the head.
"I think this is Garcia," she said. She pulled the photo she had of the man from hammerspace, checking it against the head.
"I think you're right," Jack said, peering over her shoulder. "And the chopped off head. That sounds like something Dylan would do."
"I think we're on the right track then," Glenda said. "But how do we know what direction he went?"
She straightened up as they all looked around. Nothing stood out to them.
A moment later, a terrifying roar sounded from off in the distance. They all turned towards it, weapons rising.
"I do not like that, but I think we know what direction to check now," Aqib said.
"'Fraid I gotta agree with ya," Jack said.

My city has been dealing with gentrification for about a decade, what was once a blue collar port city is quickly becoming a trendy destination for the upper class. Housing prices have risen exponentially and it is driving most of the working class out of the city.
I live in a finished basement apartment attached to my landlords home just outside of the city. Until now, they had been gracious enough to keep the rent reasonable so I could continue to live and work in the city.
Well its finally happened. Greed has gotten the better of my landlords and they have decided to kick me out of the apartment to renovate, and then increase the rent by around 73%. But because I am a good and reliable tenant they told me I am welcome to "discuss" moving back in at the new rate. Which despite my financial success over the past few years I cannot afford.
I work in this city and I do not have a car. Where I live a studio is more than I can afford, even working40 hours a week at a 9-5, and 20 at a second job cleaning office spaces in the evenings. My entire life is being uprooted and it feels very much as if I have been run out of my home.
I need to get a car and find a new apartment and potentially a new job depending on where I can find somewhere to live. All so my already well-off landlords can get an extra monthly buck.
So fuck you S*** and J******, fuck you and your noisy kids who skateboard and bounce basketballs inside at 7am that I literally never complained about. Fuck you and your loud dance parties and your sauna that I funded but cannot use and the back and front yard you fenced off to keep me out of and scowl at me if I so much as walk across to get my mail. Fuck you and your annual month-long vacations to Costa Rica and your refusal to replace my fridge after it broke down over the summer. You never respected me as a human, and my apartment as my home**. I was the tenant you TOLERATED living on your property for 7 years so you could afford your sauna and trampolines and backyard skate park and tropical vacations.**
Fuck you right to hell. That apartment is NOT worth what you are pricing at at and won't be even after your shitty renovations. Especially without access to any amenities and with the two crotch goblins who are WAY more noise than I think you are aware of since I have always tolerated it without complaint. I hope you can't fill it and you lose your extra source of passive income entirely.

2)
In addition to making a trip between 3 different "(star) systems" without FTL within at most a few months, and clearly having the ability to pick between all kinds of systems to choose to go to without FTL (even if limited by "somewhere around here", of course), as highlighted in this earlier thread:
https://old.reddit.com/MauLecomments/11hki5e/ot_discontinuity_thread_number_3_schroedingers/ ""OT discontinuity" thread number 3: Schroedinger's gigantic space distances"
, an additional aspect of this scene here:

"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... Any ideas?"
"No, where are we?"
"The Anoat system."
"Anoat system, there's not much there..."
"No...
Oh, wait - this is interesting... Lando!"
"Lando system?"
"Lando's not a system, he's a man; Lando Calrissian. Card player, gambler - scoundrel, you'd like him."
"Thanks..."
"Bespin, it's pretty far, but I think we can make it..."
"... A mining colony?"
"Yeah, a tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it... We go back a long way, Lando and me."

is that this is the 1st time traveling to Lando ever occurs to Han - does he just pop into existence (with a fully (or partially) formed past) in that very moment?
They're looking for a place "somewhere around here", a place they could reach without hyperspace within a reasonable amount of time or something (or perhaps without losing their fuel) - and the place they've found themselves at here, the "Anoat system", also isn't that far away from Hoth;
so if all it took Han to learn / be reminded of the fact that Lando is residing "nearby", was to spend like 10 seconds looking at his blue display screen, why hadn't they looked around who was residing near their new rebel base all this time - and learned that Lando was among them?
This would've certainly been some kind of potential fact of interest, given the Rebels' as well as Han's unstable position and possible need for refuge or assistance or who knows what, if particular situations were to arise.
And that's provided Han did learn new things from that screen, as opposed to just being reminded of what he already "knew" - in which case his years-long obliviousness would be even less explicable, since now all he would've had to do was just think of Lando, without even having to go through space charts for 20 seconds.
That's whom he got his current spaceship from... something one would think ought to have been closer to the surface of his mind this whole time.
(And it's really quite impossible to tell from the scene which parts of what he tells Leia about are his own additional knowledge, or new information he's seeing on the screen - which may or may not be reminding him of further knowledge that he already has - but Leia is struggling to catch for some unclear reason.
Is the text on the screen encrypted / in a different language/alphabet?
Or is it no text and just graphics/maps/images that Han for some reason gets more information out of than Leia is able to?
She manages to see that it's a "mining colony" - but he clarifies that it's a "tibanna gas mine"; is that also explained on the screen but only comprehensible for him, or is he already familiar with this mine? Or this "type" of mine?
He says "this is interesting" as if he did just see something that was news to him - but what could that be? The fact that Lando happens to be nearby running this mine that he's already familiar with somehow?
Or did he see something that made him indirectly recognize that Lando's involved? But how would that work?
It's rather clear that there are no words on this screen that Leia can read, because:

Han: "Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here... [blue light...] Any ideas?"
Leia: "No, where are we?"
Han: "The Anoat system." [.../blue light]
Leia: "Anoat system, there's not much there..." [blue light...]
Han: "No..." [.../blue light]

Somehow they have no idea which system they're in (just how many star systems did they cross on their way from Hoth to the asteroid field to now?), and need the information from that blue viewing screen to learn that they're in the "Anoat system";
and Leia is apparently unable to read this information from the screen despite looking at it intently, since she asks "where are we" while it's beaming blue light into their faces - however Han can read it and learns that it's the Anoat system. (Which she then turns out to already have been familiar with, enough to know "there's not much there.)
All in all it's not entirely clear why Leia is lagging behind him in reading that screen - while Han is seemingly getting some kind of unclear combination of new information, things he recognizes, and/or things he's being reminded of.)
Although more precisely, he doesn't mention he got the ship from him either (only saying "they go way back"), that's only "revealed" in their subsequent meeting when Han tells him the ship is damaged - so does THAT piece of history also pop into existence at that very moment?
Just like Lando hadn't existed before Han opened that particular slide on his blue viewing screen?
Can an old friend with a history + a gas mine pop into existence in the middle of a scene, the way a man can pop into existence inside a casino's prison cell?

"We go back a long way, Lando and me."
"D-d-don't let the wrapper fool you, friend... Me and the First Order codage... - go way back. And-t-t-t-the.... ..If the price is right... - I can break you into old man Snoke's boudoire."

And there are two additional questions arising from this pivotal scene:
2a)
Aside from the question what would happen to the Falcon if their Stardestroyer had gone into hyperspace with them on the hull (without warning, and without having dumped the garbage first in accordance with their protocol, giving them the opportunity to detach unnoticed) - what makes Han think the Stardestroyers are gonna go into lightspeed?
And why are they going into lightspeed?

"Lord Vader - our ships have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it'll be on the other side of the galaxy by now."
"Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory."
"Yes, my Lord. We'll find them." "Don't fail me again - Admiral."
"Alert all commands. Deploy the fleet."

Does "deploy the fleet" mean go into hyperspace, and why would the do that? Either the Falcon had jumped into hyperspace and could now literally be anywhere, or it didn't and is still somewhere around here.
And Vader said to calculate their trajectories.
So why are they jumping into lightspeed, where are they going?

"The fleet's beginning to break up.

Does that necessarily mean they're gonna go into hyperspace? As opposed to splitting to go search for the Falcon in the surrounding area?

"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."

Well, if it was just a guess and then it turned out they weren't jumping to lightspeed, at least nothing bad would've happened - however Han seems really sure that it'll happen, and then it does. How and why again?
2b)

"Transfer circuits aren't working."

Has anyone confirmed that this means they now definitely can't fix their hyperdrive on their own, and need external help now?
They noticed that while in the middle of a desperate situation:

"One more direct hit on the back quarter and we're done for."

, but no one said they had no options left if they got out of that hairy situation and could calmly take a look at those transfer circuits?
So now that they've found themselves in this lucky situation with all the Imperial ships having zipped away from the area (for reasons about as inexplicable as the Falcon's success at hiding from them on the hull of the Stardestroyer and no one managing to think of it aside from Boba Fett) - why have they seemingly completely abandoned that line, instead of resuming their work as they're floating among the garbage, or after flying away from it?
If they succeeded, they wouldn't have to rely on "finding a safe port", or Lando fixing it, or any of that, and could head directly to the rebel base....
So why even look through all those charts of space ports when their Plan A should've been

"Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we'll just float away."
"With the rest of the garbage... Then what?"
"Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here...

to float away and then start working on their hyperdrive; and then maybe contemplate other options if that completely failed and turned out to be hopeless?
3)
So the Emperor is a "plain man" in Ep4, but is then Vader's Force Master in Ep5 - not much more needs to be said here?
Alongside with this drastic retcon, there's also a general subgenre shift that takes place between ANH and ESB:
in the first, the Empire is primarily a "space fascist" government, militaristic technocracts that have one high-ranking sorcerer-knight among their ranks - he's the last remnant of the magician order that they wiped out in order to get into power;
however in the second, the Empire is Space Mordor led by a Dark Lord and his right-hand Dark Lord Knight, the latter of whom operates from a demonic-looking fortress ship with red lights - and all the admirals and officers are no longer individuals with their own ambitions, agendas and views, but rather glorified minions doing their masters' bidding on the pain of death.
The Ep7-9 trilogy is seen playing around with the juxtaposition between these 2 paradigms, when Kylo takes over as Supreme Leader and now starts pushing all those previously confident and autonomous fascist higher-ups with their own views and voices around and forcing them to follow along.
4-5 don't show such a "development" however - even if one can be assumed to have taken place off-screen.
(Just as it's possible to suggest that the Emperor has revealed himself as a Dark Lord at some point between 4 and 6, after having kept it secret initially - and that this is therefore not a real retcon.
However that's just an interpretation that relies on an huge assumption.)
So then when the ST presents another "subgenre shift" by having lightsabers act more like Excalibur, or the Sith having a forbidden Black Speech language (or having Rey instantly instinctively download new Force powers like the Matrix or Marvel mutants), then yes, that's what's going on here - however it's also true that the OT has pulled this sort of thing before, reinventing its genre and continuity in the very 1st sequel.
4a)

"To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did - if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him.
That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous."

Aside from the most obvious question of "why then NOT have Luke also anonymous and instead have him live with his real family, under all their real names, with "Ben" living right next to them also under his real surname" - which of course would've already been the way to go even in ANH's "Luke's father was killed by Vader" continuity - the slightly less obvious question arising from this piece of information is:
If Luke was "hidden" "after he was born", does that mean he was initially born way elsewhere, and then given (as in ""hidden"") to Owen and Beru?
In which case the obvious next question is (which still applies to the RotS ending, even with all its altered continuity issues), why not hide him with Obi-Wan instead - so he can raise him into a Jedi hero from the get go, all in secret and properly anonymous and far away from his family's known home at that?
In addition to properly taking care of the world's "only hope (or one of 2, anyway)", it would've also freed up Obi-Wan to do all kinds of useful things throughout the galaxy, trying to influence things in a positive direction, and available as an asset to the nascent and eventually fully emerged Rebellion;
this way however, he's now stuck on Tatooine, seemingly completely inactive in all of this until Leia's message, because he now has to guard Luke all the time whom his family is emphatically keeping close to home and away from the cause?
Before this line, and within ANH, it seemed like Luke had simply been already born into his family, and Obi-Wan simply didn't want to forcibly take him away from them or even go against Owen's wishes to keep him away from his father's light saber, all the relevant truths, and so on (plus, hey, maybe that was even literally impossible cause it would've "led to the Dark Side" or something - like Gandalf forcibly taking the Ring to do good, or something) - so he had no choice but to stay on Tatooine and prevent himself from being a great asset to the emerging Rebellion.
But now it turns out they apparently voluntarily gave Luke to his family, leading to this outcome? Well, maybe Owen started out with a different attitude but then soured on the idea of exposing Luke to the truth - although he had already been against his brothecousin leaving and getting involved, so wouldn't really much seem that way.
(Of course, the "in order to watch over Luke" reason for Obi-Wan living there as a hermit wasn't ever explicitly stated in 4 or 5-6 - it could be very reasonably concluded to have been the reason, but it still wasn't stated; and certainly didn't have to be the only reason for this choice.
What could some of the other reasons have been? Intending to hide as much as possible from the Empire, lest some kind of "not absolutely crucial and most desperate hour" involvement with the Rebellion compromised him and endangered his potential role in some, well, absolutely-crucial-and-most-desperate-hour task down the line - i.e. like the Death Star destruction? As well as his role as Luke's protector?
Not absurd, except a lot of his behavior in ANH of course isn't consistent with that mindset - from the "real surname" thing, to not thinking about the Empire searching for these droids until seeing the destroyed Sandcrawler, to displaying his lightsaber in a bar with Stormtroopers looking for them outside on the streets;
however those behaviors "inconsistent with the imperative to lead a hidden life" don't automatically disprove the presence of such an imperative outside of these inexplicable deviations.
Some yet entirely different reason for living as a quiet hermit and having cut himself off from the cause? Even having forgotten details from his past active life, like "having owned R2", or seemingly not having even thought about his real name for a long time, in addition to not having heard it?
And of course a related question is why no one had contact him until this moment - was he only known as a potential asset to Leia and her father, and really no one else? Or they knew not to contact him unless absolutely necessary?

"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing..."

Well there certainly was a period where he wasn't too old and would've been of much more help than baby Luke, right? So why was LUKE the "only hope" and not Obi-Wan while he was alive and not too old?
Loads of unresolved questions here.
4b)
So albeit "safely anonymous", Leia was then given to an adoptive father (let's call him "Organa Sr.") whom "Obi-Wan had served during the Clone Wars";
a possibly prominent figure from the Clone Wars, that shouldn't have been unknown to the Empire or Vader (who now is the Skywalker Sr. who fought in the same (Clone) wars as Organa Sr. and Obi-Wan), and someone who'd go on to become an active Rebel (and possibly had been a proto-Rebel from the get go, analogously to Bail) - and Leia then also joins, either raised to do so from the start, or autonomously perhaps even despite her "father's" efforts, who knows.
So was this whole outcome in accordance with the original intention to "protect the children from Vader and the Emperor" (while also having them as the "only hope" to topple them)? Like, Leia remains anonymous, but as a prominent figure of the Rebellion, not "safe from Vader" in any way - except from getting pulled into the Dark Side that is - and in fact almost gets executed.
How much worse would it have been to start training her in the Force, if she was already a prominent Rebel with a huge target on her back?
Or would Organa Sr. also have been against this somehow? No indications for that.
Or was this outcome not in accordance with their intentions, and Leia was supposed to keep a low profile before quietly being recruited into the Only-Hope apprenticeship?
Did Obi-Wan only find out about all this now, having had no clue what's going with that other sibling? Or was he fully aware and up to date (despite having such a buried recollection of his name and active life)?
Questions here as well.
HOWEVER - this is firmly "well duh, of course the Leia=sister reveal was invented on the fly and makes no sense if you go back to 4 - RotJ has big issues after all" territory now, so there's less of a need to keep covering this "a lot more obvious" ground here now;
and I've been told that EFAP are in fact "RotJ skeptics" to at least some extent - so until I know more about that extent, going through more points (and there are quite a few) and potentially getting increasingly redundant might be a bit pointless.
However one further thing probably worth highlighting here, given its high relevance to the ST:
4b.1)
Has anyone noticed how there's essentially 3 different Leias in RotJ?
It's kinda of very similar to Padme/Amidala, who switches between several personas/personalities/attitudes depending on dress/appearance or the chapter in the story - though not quite as extreme, one might think.
There's the almost Blues Brothers like version that shows up to free Han (not quite counting the "bounty hunter role" and "slave" phases of that chapter), there's the "normal" friendly-but-sarcastic-and-assertive Rebel General version, and then there's the emphatically diminutive and vulnerable "Ewok princess" one - before she changes back to the "General" personality in the final act following this scene here:

"If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."
"Don't talk that way - you have a power I don't understand... and could never have."
"You're wrong, Leia - you have that power, too. In time, you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And... my sister has it."

So the obvious question here is, is it "RotJ Leia" who's suddenly never had any hint of Force powers and sensed Luke hanging on below Cloud City, or is it just this particular version of her within RotJ?

"Yes. It's you, Leia."
"I know. Somehow... I've always known."

This sounds like a semi-psychic intuition of some sort, or at least it makes one think of psychic abilities since she's supposed to have dormant talent in that area - however since it's described as having been a subconscious kind of thing that she's only realized now, it doesn't really contradict the "I could never have these powers, since I'm definitely not related to your wizard bloodline" from seconds ago.
However this "somehow known that Luke is her brother" is clearly not taking place in the same continuity as "somehow known that Luke is in trouble under Cloud City", just to highlight this point an additional time.
So in TFA, Leia appears to be a "regular" person, knowing much about the Force just like Han but showing no signs of having access to it herself, or seen talking about it in any way distinct from how Han talks about it - except the moment where she senses a disturbance when Han is killed.
Then in TLJ, there are no psychic moments before or after, except the part where she shows powers while frozen in space and floats inside a ship, while an emphatic version of her leitmotif is played - almost as if the movie suddenly remembers how this side of her character has been neglected too much and at least 1 epic moment like this was needed;
at the very end, she and Rey talk about they've sensed Luke's death.
And finally in TroS (but using archive footage, originally intended for the earlier movies I think?) Leia turns out to be a full Jedi Master now training super-Rey, and is also shown in a lightsaber flashback with Luke;
in the movies the way they were released, where was all of that in TFA, or even TLJ? Leia seemed to be slightly psychic there, someone who's never really worked on or developed these sklls after all, but shows being tuned into it at the very least in the most dramatic moments - but who could've guessed she was a full ultra-Master who could've been giving lessons and instructions that whole time, incl. when interacting with Rey?
Lots of off-screen development between these 2 happened at some unspecified point.
However... it'd be prudent to remember that this confusion and cognitive dissonance about just how magical Leia was supposed to be after showing emerging powers in Ep5, started right then and there in 1983, and the Sequels merely inherited this already schizophrenic and contradictory legacy and naturally only continued the confusion, forgetfulness and cognitive dissonance instead of successfully "fixing" it in some way.
(One could say the same also applies to most every other aspect of 7-9 and 4-6, in fact.)
And fittingly enough, the film with the least cohesive seeming vision, TLJ that is, is the one that pulls the bizarre "oh f, we need Leia to be magical, completely forgot that!" moment - while the other 2 movies with the much more coherent tone and approaches are the ones that at least committed to 1 interpretation/version of her character each, respectively, in mostly convincing ways:
TFA to the "almost non-psychic" one, and TRoS to the "full-on Jedi Master" - amounting to a splintered narrative, just like RotJ was, and the 1st 2 films as well (even if not necessarily with Leia's character in particular - although even then, it's clear that ESB decided to leave the whole "princess trope" emphasized so much in the 1st movie behind, in all but name - somewhat justified in-universe by them having been chased off Yavin where they had some kinda old culture and huge throne rooms going on; then again them having been chased out into a cold outpost goes against ANH's sequel set-up, see 1st thread).

Hey there! Hope you’re having a great day.
I’m a 28 year old Irish guy, called Dec. 6’2, rugby player build, hairy chest, the works. Thankfully still got the hair on my head where so many other brave soldiers have lost theirs. I live just outside Dublin a short commute to the city (and the airport).
Hobbies of mine include cooking, tech, DIY, YouTube binges and sports (playing and watching). Love to play a bit of rugby, played hurling in my youth but have since had to give that up. Shame, but I do love going to watch it. Also a fan of soccer, NFL, ice hockey and honestly, would sit and watch any sport. Even golf can be exciting if you’re in the right mood for it.
I work in IT, like it seems most people on Reddit. I work a usual 9-6 most of the time, those days Dolly sang about are long gone, they get the full 8 hours out of you now. I’d like someone to chat to throughout the day and in the evenings. I am happy to chat about anything and everything. I can listen as well as I can talk.
I like playing games, videogames are cool (I am playing the Hogwarts Legacy game and shortly starting the new God of War shortly. Also love a bit of physical games (make of that what you will). One of my favourite icebreakers is two truths and a lie, so can you guess from the below:

• I can speak 5 languages
• I have been to over 10 countries
• I have no qualifications in IT despite working in it for years.

I’ll leave this here as I don’t want to give away too much, happy to swap pics in chat, if you think we could get on send me a message!
Hoping to hear from you!

My brain’s tired right now, so apologies if the explanation doesn’t make sense. Also on mobile.
So I’ve (F19) been seeing this guy (M23) since early November. The way we met was pretty dumb on my end, but he basically saw my profile on Tinder and sent a message about going on a fun date on my college campus. I thought he was pretty tall and attractive so why not. At that time, I wasn’t really serious about dating and was kinda just having fun experiences exploring my city with interesting people.
Just to give you an idea of how little I cared about getting to know someone over text, we basically met up after exchanging less than 15 messages. We were gonna meet up after I got back from a road trip the same day, so I didn’t realize that my college was having a huge football game which means insane traffic. It was gonna be a rain check until I suggested we head to another urban area a few miles away with tons of stuff to look at and do. Fast forward, and we’ve spent 10 hours together not really wanting the night to end.
He asks me out on more dates, and the texts are super consistent. Everything is super fun and we’re both spontaneous so we’re always coming up with the wackiest date ideas. Pretty soon, we’re barely texting and our main form of communication is either video calls or voice notes. We both aren’t clingy or jealous so we have our own hobbies and friends outside of each other.
Right so, back to the title, we basically act like we’re already in an official relationship. Here are some examples of stuff he does specifically: - pays for virtually all of our dates even when I insist I can pay for the both of us - visited me (2 hr drive) for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve where we spent the whole day together - is willing to drive to me to hangout last minute (when he’s not working, playing sports, or doing other stuff) - has gone on road trips and talks about future trips + concerts (we’re currently planning an 8 hour drive to New Orleans to spend a weekend over the summer) - has some spend the weekend at his apartment almost every other week - really great listener and tolerates my ocasional rambles - involved me in searching for a new apartment in another city he’s moving to - calls me for no reason (sometimes just to talk or check in or fall asleep on the phone)
Anyway, blah blah blah, he’s pretty cool. About a month ago, his job moved him from our city to a city an hour and 30 minutes away and I suggested ending things if he wasn’t into the idea of pseudo long-distance. He was super adamant about not doing that and we had a long talk about how important I am to him.
Every so often, especially these past few weeks, I’ll attempt to bring up the topic of being bf and gf, but he always manages to cut me off or change the subject.
The whole reason I’m making this post is because last night, when he wanted to drop off some stuff I left at his place before driving to his new city, I asked him “why [we] weren’t… (official yet)” I didn’t even get to finish my question when he asked if he really wanted to know what the question was. I just dropped it and wished him a safe drive.
It’s not that I’m obsessing over a title. It’s just easier to explain to friends what we are with it. I could wait, but I also don’t want to be a year in or something just to find out that he never wanted anything like that. I should also add that we haven’t done anything sexual, and he never pressures me towards that direction.
I’ve never been in a relationship before so I understand the sentiment if he’s scared of making the jump. We haven’t talked about our past dating experience, so I wouldn’t even know if he’s had a girlfriend before. A small part of my mind wanders to race as I’m Nigerian and he’s German. I know my parents wouldn’t 100% approve, so I wonder if that’s his thought process. I’m pretty sure his family doesn’t know about me either.
Anyway, dumb post over. How do I interpret this situation? Advice would definitely be appreciated.

Hey All,
Is anyone else getting a bit frustrated with the incessant protestors that show up at CityCenter a few times a week and protest for a few hours at a time, against the fur trade? I'm an animal lover myself, and frankly, I agree with them on the treatment of animals. That said, their antics are beginning to disappoint me. At this point, I feel that they're mostly just harassing those who live, work or hang out around CityCenter. I typically don't work from home, but this past week I did, and I was pretty suprised to see them all out there during work hours, screaming and blaring sirens. It's just a really crummy thing to do during work hours, on a week day, underneath a residential building. I had to explain to several coworkers/clients that I was on Zoom calls with what was going on because they could hear it in the background, despite my being on the 9th floor with the window closed.
Again, I'm all for protesting for better treatment of animals, but that's not an excuse you can use to act poorly and uncivil towards your fellow community members while harassing the general public. At this point they play sirens and chant "shame on you" to people going into the Tiffanys store. Tiffanys doesn't even sell fur, no?

I live in a small town with a population of a thousand or so, Everyone knows everyone and most all are overly nice people. I didn’t find this strange as most small towns stuck together as a community.
There are 5 businesses in this town a gas station, a restaurant, two bars, and a butcher shop that had just opened in town this year. Everybody loves the meat from there and it’s at such a great price you can’t go wrong.
It was a Friday night, around 11pm and I seen police lights at the edge of town a horrible accident had occurred as two linemen fixing power lines had gotten electrocuted and there charred bodies laid lifeless on the ground below the power lines. The police were first to leave as after they got there details they took off. The ambulance hadn’t arrived yet, as it had to come from another city over an hour away. Only a man in a bloody white apron stood out in the darkness crouched down looking at the bodies and it was then I realized it was Marc the Butcher. I watched quietly outta sight wondering what the hell he was doing. Did he know the guys? Was it friends? family? All these thoughts kept running through my mind. Then I saw it, he took a hunting knife from his pocket, and starting carving big chunks of flesh from the charred bodies. I rubbed my eyes as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He stopped looked around then started hiding the slabs of flesh by a nearby bush. After several minutes of slicing most all meat from the bodies there wasn’t much left but bone. I couldn’t watch much more as I was so scared he would see me. Then he moved in a creature like way but super fast like a hunched over zombie from 28 days later. Super fast he zipped right by where I was and was gone.
I went home feeling dread, trying to come to terms with what I had seen. I didn’t sleep at all that night. The next day, curiosity had gotten to me so I had to go see if the slabs were still hidden off under the bushes. As I drove up I seen crime scene yellow tape was all around the power line and the bodies were gone. I walked over to where I seen him stash the flesh and it was all gone too. Only blood remnants remained and it looked like it left a trail off towards the woods on the outskirts of town. I followed the trail the best I could before it went cold.
I had to find out what happened to the slabs of meat. Did the butcher come back and make it seem like an animal did this? Did an animal or creature do this? I should’ve stayed and watched longer. I had to know, so I went by the butcher shop parked and observed for several hours. I saw nothing but the usual customers coming and going. I decided to go home and take a nap as I was short on rest from the whole situation.
I had a terrible dream, Marc the butcher was in it. He was chopping up human remains and making them into steaks, burgers, you name it. He was a bloody mess and he had me tied up saying now you know my secret you will become human meat. I woke up in a cold sweat. Thank god that was a dream, but was it a sign. Have all the townsfolk including myself been eating human remains? Is that why he has the best prices in the state on red meat? I asked myself. I gotta get to the bottom of this.
I skipped work the next day as I thought to myself I need to know what’s going on. It all seems like a bad dream and I havnt woke up yet. But I know what I saw and how Marc ran that night like something not from this earth. Like a cryptid of some sort in a human body. Whatever he is he must be stopped.
I went to the butcher shop again only to see that it was closed on a weekday how strange. I tried to break in knowing it was wrong but I knew something wasn’t right. It was an older warehouse building and in this small town with little to no crime nobody had alarms. I grabbed my ladder from home and climbed up to the roof, I searched around and found a possible way in through the air duct. It was a commercial sized system so rather large, I had no problem climbing down into the passageway. It smelled like death so bad I dry heaved a few times before I made it part of the way through. Then I broke through and fell a good 15 feet. Gasping for air, air I didn’t want to breath as I was in the meat locker. I seen the horror that I had imagined. Two policeman and a paramedic were hanging upside down with pools of blood below them as there throats have been cut nearly clean off to the spine. They stunk like they had been there for awhile. Expressionless were the bodies.
I then heard a door and a weird grunting and shrieking noise I ran and hid behind a stack of crates. Fear was filling my body now as I didn’t know what to expect. Bursting through the door, there was Marc all freakish looking and making animal like noises as he hobbled quickly over to the bodies. I was a nervous wreck if he finds me in here I am surely dead. He started sawing the bodies limbs from the bodies one by one throwing only the heads hands and feet in a black plastic bag. Then he started tasting the meat raw I almost puked as he was making ravenous creature noises as he was feasting on the remains.
He then started grinding the meat through a hamburger grinder and was packaging it and throwing it in the freezer. I didn’t know how much more I could take, his eyes were all black he had blood all over him. He was acting very strange then finally he left the room. I heard more tools grinding, cutting, chopping in the next room. Now was my chance to find a way out. The shit luck there was only one way in n out. So I was gonna have to stay until he left to go unnoticed.
It’s been hours now, It’s finally quiet, I never heard anyone leave. Trembling in fear I crawl out from behind the crates and make my way to the front entrance door. I creep as quietly as possible and I still hear nothing. I push the door slowly open peeking out in the dark front of the shop. The coast looks clear so I decide to make a run for the front door, as I do I notice a pale white skinned person out of the corner of my eye. It starts to growl. I run full speed towards the front door crashing into it. The glass breaks I’m cut all over bleeding barely conscious. As I hear something sprinting toward me from behind. It sounds like it’s from hell, I gathered myself and stumbled outside calling for help. But it’s 2am and nobody is around. I start to run best I could up the street, looking back I see Marc deformed hunched over making dreadful sounds as he starts running at me.
Then I see a man on his porch waving me over. He has a gun it appeared and he pointed it right at me shouting don’t move. I put my hands up stating there is something after me, but as I turned around to see where Marc was he was gone. Trying to explain myself the guy got on the phone with the police, not taking his eyes off me gun still pointed at my chest. Then outta nowhere the man was tackled and tore to shreds it was Marc, I took that as my chance to get away. I hobbled home not looking back, made it to my front door and hurried inside, I grabbed a bag full of clothes out of my house got in my pickup and took off fast as I could without looking back. I moved outta state leaving everything behind.
It has been six months since I left. I have browsed the web on that small town to check the status on things and in just the short six months I’ve been gone that little town has been completely erased. Unsolved disappearance of the whole city. It’s been abandoned and is now a restricted area.

A question has been plaguing me since I-know-not-when. An eternal question that I could not, for the life of me, figure out the answer for:
Where does the song "Goodbye Earl" by The Chicks take place?
We get a couple of clues as to geography. We know it's somewhere rural in the United States (The "4-H club" is an organization run by the Department of Agriculture, and the "FFA" stands for the Future Farmers of America - an organization that is only active in the United States. These are clubs that are usually popular in rural areas of the US).
However, we also know that the location is a "red-eye midnight flight" away from Atlanta. Where in the U.S. is a red-eye flight away from Atlanta? A red-eye flight is, by definition, a flight where you board the plane at night and disembark in the morning. A flight from Atlanta to the west coast is approx. 6 hours long, and, with the three-hour time difference, a midnight flight would get in at 3:00 am - hardly a red-eye. A flight up to Maine from Atlanta is only 3 hours as well. A flight from Atlanta to Hawaii is 10 hours, which, with the time difference, would make 6 hours. This could constitute a red-eye, but with the current ways that the flights are scheduled, the only flight that leaves for Honolulu is in the morning. So, there is nowhere in the U.S. that (1) has a 4-H club, and a chapter of the FFA and (2) is reachable from Atlanta by a red-eye midnight flight. Therefore we can establish that "Goodbye Earl" takes place in some alternate United States.
But, why Watchmen? Well, as you might recall, in the universe of Watchmen, the United States annexed Vietnam after Dr. Manhattan won the Vietnam War for America. As such, part of the attempted assimilation would likely include the 4-H club and FFA opening up Vietnamese chapters. Does this work with our flight schedules? Well, the song specifies a "red-eye midnight flight" but it does not say that the flight was non-stop. Tonight, there is an 11:55 PM flight scheduled for Paris, and a 12:15 AM flight scheduled for Seoul-Incheon, both of which are red-eyes. There are direct flights to Vietnam from both Paris and Seoul. Alternatively, in the Watchmen universe, it's highly likely that there would be a direct flight from Atlanta to Vietnam. Atlanta is a hub city for Delta Airlines and has been one of the busiest airports in the world for many years. As the annexation of Vietnam would require closer ties, it's probable that Delta would have started an Atlanta/Saigon route that could have been a "red-eye midnight flight."
Let's consider the other geographic markers. First, once Earl is dead, Mary Anne and Wanda open up a highway stand selling "Tennessee ham and strawberry jam" off "Highway 109." Highway 109 is a fairly common designation and could be used in Vietnam. But, Tennessee ham? That seems somewhat more problematic.
Doubt not, dear friends - these are, in fact, more support of the setting. Vietnamese cuisine is known for its wide variety of pork products. The traditional banh mi has three different types of pork in it (head cheese, ham, bologna). Nem chua, gio lua, thit kho tauo - these are all traditional Vietnamese pork dishes. Further, Vietnamese cuisine has a unique history of assimilating elements of colonizing powers' cuisines (see: the evolution of the banh mi from the French baguette). It's entirely possible that what's labeled as "Tennessee ham" in the song could be an American re-naming of cha lua (vietnamese sausage). Moreover, southern-style "country" ham is similar to a southern Chinese dish, jinxua ham. Maybe there was a population exchange, and, due to the presence of Tennesseean GIs in the area, Jinxua ham was given the name "Tennessee ham."
Further, strawberries do grow in Vietnam. And, seeing as Mary Anne and Wanda opened up their stand "as summer turned into Fall," it's likely that this strawberry jam could be made from fresh strawberries grown in humid, equatorial Vietnam, rather than somewhere in the comparatively chillier continental US.
Indeed, by setting "Goodbye Earl" in the Watchmen universe, the Chicks have placed their song in thematic dialog with Alan Moore's graphic novel. Watchmen roundly condemns vigilantes, arguing that they are selfish, weak, and violent. In contrast, "Goodbye Earl" paints a situation in which vigilantism is necessary - recall the lyric: "Earl had to die." As such, the Chicks add nuance to Moore's thesis - while vigilantism to save society will largely lead to drastic results, the Chicks argue that sometimes violence is needed where the state will not act.
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TL;DR:
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-"Goodbye Earl" takes place in Vietnam, in the Watchmen universe where the U.S. has annexed Vietnam.
-The geographic references in the song support this
- The two pieces are engaged in a thematic dialog.

she said that she didn’t know where he was, and even helped me look. she said “oh, maybe you say him down somewhere else by accident”. So we looked around our farm for and the city we made for like an hour before she said that she pushed him into a fire by accident and he died. I know it’s stupid but I feel betrayed. If she just told me the truth, I wouldn’t feel so shitty but she didn’t. She lied and even helped me look. Why would she do that?:(

Hi newbie to the big city from Europe here, I’d like to do some hiking in the surrounds of NYC but when I went off on my own to what I thought was a fairly rural town with maybe some trails and a lake (Croton Harmon), I was disappointed to find all of it required a car and spent 2 hours in a residential neighbourhood being stared at by all the locals.
Where’s the best spot accessible by public transport within 2-3 hours of NYC for which you don’t need a car?

Hello, I'm taking my son to SNW on the week of April 17th. We'll be in LA from Tuesday to Thursday, will the park be packed? According to is it packed, it's not busy, so should we get express tickets?
For SNW, if we get express tickets, do we still need to buy early access?
We'll be staying near Monterey Park. If we try to be there for early access, how long do we need to plan on the road? Is it realistic to find parking at the metro universal city station and take the shuttle or walk there at that hour?

I'm so sorry, this is going to be a long post, so I am adding a TLDR; Partner has GAD, major depression, and BPD in a rural area without family or support network. Behavior is becoming more erratic. It's affecting marriage and parenting. Any advice?
My husband and I have been together for over a decade. We have an elementary-aged child together. He was diagnosed with GAD and depression in his teens, and BPD in his early 20's. He had lived with these issues for such a large chunk of his life that they were fairly well-controlled. We moved to a rural area about 6-7 years ago to be closer to my mother-in-law, who passed away almost 2 years ago. Since she passed away, he has developed major depression. Losing his mom has caused his behavior to become increasingly erratic. He'll seem ok one minute and then something I do (or something at work, or the dog barking, or a neighbor) will trigger him and he will react with a lot of anger and frustration. He's also really struggling with being tired all of the time and is too tired to contribute around the house, but then gets upset and frustrated with himself for not having energy and contributing more. I've rushed him to the ER twice when he has made claims that he wants to take his own life, once in our rural area and once up in a city an hour and a half away with bigger hospitals. Unfortunately, both were an awful experience, the hospital out here put him in a room with a camera to observe him for a few hours, had him video chat with a psychiatrist in the city for about 15 minutes and declared that he was fine to go home and follow up with his primary care doctor. When we followed up with the primary care doctor, she prescribed Effexor and Buspirone and recommended that my husband start online counseling (think BetterHelp, Sondermind, etc...), which he did. He is still taking the Effexor daily, but doesn't typically take the Buspar because he feels "it's not anxiety." The hospital in the city did something similar, except they had a counselor come into the room rather than meeting over video chat. Otherwise, they monitored him for a few hours and sent him home with a "mental health plan" that I didn't feel was very detailed. I've had to hide his keys multiple times (he says he will take the car and go crash into a tree), hide the knives from the kitchen, etc... to try and protect him at home. I'm not sleeping well because I'm so worried about him, and I really feel like it's affecting how well I'm parenting my son, taking care of chores around our house, and performing at my own job. I also have generalized anxiety disorder and more recently, depression, so I can sometimes be needy and need lots of reassurance from a partner. I'm sure I haven't always been the easiest person for my husband to live with at times, but I also don't know what else I can possibly do. On top of everything else, my only family lives about 2 hours away and my dad is currently going through a terminal illness and requires full time care from my mom, so I don't want to reach out and stress them out or bother them by adding more to their plate. And I'm especially concerned about my husband today because we had an argument last night, and this morning, he went to work without his cell phone, so I have no way of contacting him, and I am terrified that he's going to hurt himself or not come home. :(
I guess I am just looking for reassurance and if anyone has any advice, especially if you yourself or your partner have dealt with BPD or major depression, I'd greatly appreciate it.