Pop up mosquito net for bed

I cringe at anyone saying baby girl because he used that phrase so many times that night. Every time I have to put a tampon in I’m reminded of that night because it hurts to now. I can’t even imagine starting to trust someone new or remotely becoming intimate again. What if I’m a bad judge of character and I judge badly again? I could’ve made so many better decisions. I had to re layout my house because it was so fresh in my mind. Moving my bed against the wall to feel more protected. Sleeping with the covers over my head to feel safer. Curling up in a ball. Wanting to disappear into the couch or bed. I want nothing more than to not have to feel his hands phantom touching me when I’m triggered. To not feel like I’m suffocating. The involuntary shivers trying to shake the phantom touches. Scratching my skin silly trying to make the feelings go away. The bruises that resided for weeks. I wish I could undo time and never have met you. The incident remains so clear as day but for some reason I can’t remember his name anymore. To not see another red head and do a double take and feel like I can’t breathe for a couple minutes. To not be triggered to a point where my head feels like it’ll explode if I move to fast. The being hungry and then going to eat and not being able to stomach food, feeling absolutely nauseous at what happened. Being simultaneously exhausted and unable to sleep. The list could go on. I’m so tired.

I’ve loved you since the day we met. You ruined pragmatic me who loves logic and reason. I initially harbored so much anger and resentment over how you made me feel things I didn’t know one could feel. You felt like home the moment we met. What we had easily surpassed The Notebook level of chemistry. Ryan Gosling and Rachel Mcadams’ MTV best kiss was child’s play compared to our passion. And I couldn’t rationalize my feelings at 18,20,22 and lashed out…I feel like a delusional person 8 years later still wistfully thinking about what could’ve been. If I ever expressed the magnitude of my feelings I think I’d end up in the looney bin. It’s kind of pathetic to admit but 26 year old me still loves you and I think I’ll one day 50ish years from now be on my death bed hopped up on morphine calling out for you instead of my husband. You’ll forever be the one that got away…
-M

Hello DMs. I'm a fairly new DM running DoSI and the level 2 party is about to reach the Spore Servant Octopus in the Seagrow Caves. I was thinking it would be cool if the tentacles were independent creatures which could be chopped off.
I'm thinking this allows the body to 'hide' underwater and pop up after a round for the purpose of it being cool as hell. Would also mean it takes up more map space to make for a more epic seeming fight at a low level.
I'm also hoping the extra action economy will help even the fight as the base statblock is CR 1 and fairly weak. My question is; what do we think of this?
46 - hit points for the 'head' 6 - hit points for each of the 8 tentacles
I've lowered the creatures health a small amount to account for it being split somewhat over the tentacles.
Tentacles can be moved after the body moves, to any space within 15ft (they occupy their own 5ft squares like creatures) of the body. Hit +4 dealing 1d4 bludgeoning damage.
Tentacles can only attack and be moved, saving throws targeting them use the main statblock which is the body. Tentacles get no attack of opportunity.
My hope is creature can ambush the part with tentacles, surfacing on the 2nd round to give them the option of either going for the tentacles or focusing the head. I'm anticipating the tentacles not being able to fit in around the players to help with the outrageous difference in action economy I've proposed.
Please let me know what you think. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!

I got waitlisted for commerce and just received an email offer of admission. I’m really excited but it doesn’t appear in SOLUS or OUAC. Is there a mistake?

Big Thank you to Ok-Eye and SunrayDoc for recent posts on LT about M&A in the Pharma space.
I have been looking at M&A articles in the pharma space over the last couple of days to stay more informed of these activities just in case discussions that Cyrus was having regarding partnerships turned into more of a buyout/merger discussions. You never know !! I prefer partnerships for now; but does not matter what I prefer, it matters what is happening in the board room. Nonetheless, an article I read (Thank you Ok-Eye) about Prometheus being acquired by Merck was wonderfully similar to what could happen to CYDY: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/merck-inks-11b-prometheus-takeover-firing-starting-gun-roivant-race-blockbuster-bowel
Merck paid $10.8 billion for Prometheus's drug that finished a phase 2 study: Prometheus had $7 million in revenue (essentially nothing in the world of pharma revenue).
Quoting the ARTICLE: Their drug, PRA023, if it delivers on its midphase promise, the drug candidate could soften the blow of the initial biosimilar competition and then provide Merck with a series of new growth opportunities as it works to expand the label. Quoting analysts, Prometheus has predicted that the inflammatory bowel disease market will be worth upward of $49 billion by 2030. That opportunity alone could establish PRA023 as a big blockbuster, but, as Prometheus sees things, it is far from the only opportunity. The biotech is already going after systemic sclerosis associated interstitial lung disease, a market it values at $8 billion, and plans to add a fourth indication from a list of diseases worth $150 billion later this year."
Another quote from the article: "The breadth of Prometheus’ list of potential target diseases, which includes rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and other blockbuster indications, is underpinned by evidence that TL1A modulates the location and severity of inflammation and fibrosis. The opportunities have persuaded Merck to offer $200 a share for Prometheus, well above its $114 close last week and the $36 it traded for in December, but the evidence of the role of TL1A has also attracted other drug developers." End of ARTICLE quotes
Some of those indications sound just like Leronlimab's targets, but eventually there is always more than one player participating in these indications. Please note: that Pfizer came running into the acquisition discussions before Merck and there was a run on Prometheus stock price from $36 to whatever it was before Merck entered into the equation. Then it ran to $114 before Merck's offer was accepted at $200 per share.
So Prometheus had a promising mid-phase study in IBD, they probably were not on a 'clinical hold" and did not have to endure a former CEO who was indicted, and Prometheus did not have to deal with a CRO that severely crippled CYDY's progress. I could go on, but you get the point. Cyrus had to do a lot of cleaning up to just get to where we are today on June 2, 2023.
This is part of the reason why the lifting of the clinical hold is so damn important. When the hold is lifted by the FDA, Cyrus and team CYDY's work will have illustrated to the rest of the pharma world that leronlimab is safe and has the met the FDA standards of safety and the FDA standards regarding what the original five documents covered. MGK has the particulars of the five documents somewhere I am sure. But, you all get the point! Once the hold is lifted CYDY has a FDA sanctioned foundation to launch the future trials with. The concern is that trials cost money and we need partners for that or we straight up get bought out.
Why a buyout? CYDY right now has absolutely minimum infrastructure and of course minimum to no funding. Some partnerships require a true collaboration where each party is contributing equally to the process of advancing the drug from development to regulatory approval. In those type of partnerships we have minimal infrastructure support to offer. In that case a buyout might be better, but my preference is a partner that does not need our support at this time. I believe that is why Cyrus laid out the 12-7-22 Investor presentation the way that he did to build more value into CYDY/Leronlimab.
Prometheus was bought for $10.8 Billion with almost nothing for revenue. net income was -$141 million. If some pharma company felt the same about Leronlimab as Merck felt about Prometheus and I used the same buyout number $10.8 billion, CYDY has approximately 915 million shares outstanding. CYDY would get bought out for approximately $11 per share.
$11 per share is not what I was thinking about with CYDY when I first invested and as I continued to hold and dive deeper (over 2 years) I am confident that LL is worth a lot more. Thats why Cyrus's plan is important. He plans on delivering partnerships to fund subsequent trials in Oncology, NASH and HIV to help increase that value of the stock price inherently until such time that CYDY gets an "offer it can not refuse" Say that with Godfather voice!
Everyone has a different stock price exit point and thats fine. if Cyrus goes the partnership route, which I am in favor of, we will have a nice somewhat steady increase in value with each successful partnership announcement and subsequent clinically positive trial outcome. Eventually leading to regulatory approvals. CYDY will achieve those approvals in a more timely/expedient fashion when they announce partnerships. All along that journey the SP will continue to increase and any investor can sell at their exit point along the way up.
To add to the above value, depending on who CYDY partners with, I see the HIV MDR BLA resubmitted. It will be a quicker pathway to Leronlimab's first FDA approval. Does not matter that the indication is in a small market size ($40-$50 million market). Does not matter that there are other competitors participating in that market already. What matters is the partners begin to get LL on Hospital formularies and on insurance reimbursement protocols and it lays the foundation for all other future BLA submissions making it easier and faster to move thru the FDA process, Hospital formulary process and Insurance process. It is the BIGGEST NO BRAINER that CYDY has in front of them.
I wish the very best for all of us LONGS and the very best of HEALTH to Cyrus Arman.

Looking for the Butterwort (Pinguicula spp.) plant. Apparently it's not only carnivorous and will eat gnats and mosquitoes in my growroom, but is native to MN.
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flowebutterwort
Anyone know where I could pick one up? Had a run of bad luck with ordering fancy plants online so am looking to get one locally. Ordering locally is acceptable as well.
https://houseplantcentral.com/butterwort-plant/

The boy ran circles in the meadow, dashing headlong through kaleidoscopes of butterflies, scattering them, careless, laughing, their soft delicate bodies floating; he screamed—
Several doctors stared at the body,
its shredded skin,
its raw face.
This was violence, one of them thought, as the child's parents sobbed in the hallway and the hospital director made a telephone call. "Good evening, Dr. Schmidt?"
Jürgen Schmidt was still jet-lagged when he began addressing the audience of scientists and military men. There was little time to spare. "Danaus plexippus, the monarch butterfly," he said, "has evolved."
"Briefed by an entomologist," a four-star general bemoaned.
A lepidopterist, thought Schmidt, as he pressed a key on his laptop, bringing a projector to life—It illuminated the room.—and continuing, "But not evolved as we know evolution. Evolution as a sudden and seemingly targetted change. Watch this."
On screen, a freeze frame:
A Mexican soldier surrounded by monarch butterflies.
Zooming in on one:
Orange wings laced with black, supporting a black, deceptively humanoid body: thorax, abdomen, legs glistening like hideous scimitars—
Motion:
The soldier trying to swat the butterflies away. Trying. They swarm him. He is obscured by: landing on him, slicing him; finally they scatter, and on the ground, naked and half-consumed, lies the soldier's crumpled body, red and bones.
"Dear God…"
Within weeks, the monarchs had taken control of a swathe of central America, from Nicaragua to Panama, and attacks had been reported as far north as Ottawa.
It was as if they had suddenly leveled up, and human defense systems could not cope. It became a familiar symbol of futility: footage of soldiers firing wildly at an onrushing orange sky of beating wings and scimitar legs; the bullets passing as if through nothing; the orange unceased.
They hacked our nets.
They were impervious to fire and pesticide.
In the territory they controlled, they declared a Kingdom centered on the city of Managua, which they had thoroughly dehumanised. Flaesh they called it. Elsewhere, those who could not flee were enslaved and made to swear allegiance to a new leader, the Great Monarch, Thoraxion Nex.
Thoraxion Nex: unseen, feared—
"They've opened a diplomatic channel," Jürgen Schmidt said. "They desire a meeting between humanity and Flaesh."
It was organised.
A delegation of scientists, diplomats and politicians was flown to Managua, where they walked streets now littered with decaying human corpses toward a gargantuan chrysalis, suspended seemingly from the sky itself.
Thoraxion Nex, thought Schmidt, has not yet metamorphosed, but what breed of hideous beast could possibly emerge from this hanging horror-chamber?
It was under such dread that the agreement was signed.
To the monarchs: all the Americas, Australia and Asia as far west as the Altai Mountains.
To humanity: to migrate and squeeze into what remained.
Yet how does one evacuate entire continents? thought Schmidt, even as he scrawled his name.
Above, the chrysalis trembled.
This much was clear:
For ages, homo sapiens had alone dominated the Earth. The time for a bipolar world had come.

Had a bad break down this last week. Really paranoid delusional thoughts. And some small audio/visual hallucinations.
It started off with me getting up and doing my morning routine as normal. Then I ended up watching an electrical appliance that is un plugged for half the day waiting for it to turn on
Then my dad came home I had a paranoid delusional rant at him about nonsense things. He agreed not to talk to anyone else about what happend so it wouldn't make any issues due to others not realizing I was not me at the time .
I'm on meds now to try slow down my brain. Which are taking effect. I'm feeling a wee bit better but there is still that what if factor that keeps popping up. All I can really do is just carry on and wait for it to fade away and hope for the best that due to my craziness it doesn't effect my life or anyone else's to the degree that my delusions tell me it will.
Does anyone else suffer from this from time to time?
I'm usually good about keeping it to my self so nothing is blowen out of proportion . Which probably doesn't help. I really wish I wasn't mentally ill

The Bernina Pass is one of the most stunning rail routes in Europe - and a popular option for people interrailing. Lots of people continue beyond Tirano to Italy - and there are unfortunately 2 separate causes of disruptions on the Milan to Tirano route this summer affecting anyone thinking of doing that.
Firstly pre-planned engineering work has closed the line between between Tirano and Sondrio from 11th June to 10th September 2023 - with that section being replaced by buses.
Secondly on the 19th May 2023 a landslide on a different section of the same line as closed the line between Lierna & Bellano. A replacement bus is running non stop between Lecco and Colico - the reason for using these further out stations is so that the bus can stick to the highway rather than going down the local lakeshore roads. The smaller villages between Lierna & Bellano are being served by a replacement boat service. At the moment there is no public date for how long this will last.
Interrail passes are accepted on all the replacement buses and ferries but if using a mobile pass you may need to add them manually.
If you want to travel this route (the Bernina Pass is stunning!) you will therefore need to:
Get a train from Milan to Lecco. Then a bus from Lecco to Colico. A 2nd train from Colico to Sondrio. Then a 2nd bus from Sondrio to Tirano. (or the reverse in the other direction).
As well as the extra faff this will add about an extra 30-45 minutes heading South (Tirano -> Milan) to the end to/end journey times, and 60+ minutes heading North. Particularly if you are heading North and have a reservation in one of the panoramic carriages rather then using local trains you will need to leave Milan earlier. If have seat reservations beyond Milan that day make sure you will have enough time.
The times for the replacement buses from Tirano to Sondrio are available in the Trenord journey planner at: https://www.trenord.it/en/
More information on the landslide is at: https://www.trenord.it/en/news/trenord-informs/notices/from-monday-buses-and-boats-will-be-in-service-on-the-milan-lierna-and-sondrio-bellano-routes/ and the times of the replacement buses/ferries can be found at: https://trenord-europe-trenord-endpoint-prd.azureedge.net/fileadmin/contenuti/TRENORD/3-News/Trenord_Informa/Avvisi/2023/AvvisoTrenord_2023_069_interr_lierna_bellano-_new_new.pdf
At the moment Rail Planner is not showing any service after the 10th June across the whole route - this is incorrect - check both pages on the Trenord website.
Alternatively there are some other routes from Tirano into Italy to consider - these will likley add just as much extra time (and probably more) but it depends on your specific journey - and might be worth considering if you are mostly after a scenic ride through the alps:
There is a bus from Tirano to Lugano. Unusually this is included in interrail though you need a seat reservation. The bus leaves Tirano at 1420 reaching Lugano at 1730. In the other direction it leaves Lugano at 1000 reaching Tirano at 1300. This bus will show in the Rail Planner app for adding to an electronic pass but you must search to/from "Tirano Stazione Bus" rather than "Tirano". This bus does not run year round (and in the shoulder season does not run every day) but is running daily until 22nd October 2023. https://imgur.com/a/hwqjYvF There is more information at: https://tickets.rhb.ch/en/pages/bernina-express
Seat reservations for the bus cannot be bought through the Interrail Reservation Service but can be bought through https://shop.rhb.ch/en/bernina-express by following these steps: https://imgur.com/a/O1O0rNb Note that is is very popular - most June departures are already full. With most July departures only having a handful of seats left.
From Lugano regular trains run to Milan.
Another option is to get the local bus from Tirano to Edolo - these are not included in interrail and you will need to buy a seperate ticket. Buses leave Tirano at 0840, 1040 and 1240 taking 65 minutes. In the other direction buses leave Edolo at 0915, 1115, 1515 and 1715. There is no service on Sunday. You can check times at https://www.busperego.com/en/pdf-timetable (route A061) or on Google Maps. From Edolo trains run approximately every 2 hours to Brescia. Until late July this line is also replaced by buses between Breno and Edolo. However from 30th July direct through trains will largely return. Again check times from Edolo to Brescia at: https://www.trenord.it/en/ - this can be a good option if you are heading more to the North East of Italy (eg Verona, Venice).
Or you could get the ferry from Colico to Como - https://www.comoanditslake.com/timetablenavigation.htm (the current timetable is only valid until 4th June - hopefully a new one will appear imminently) - there are a few departures a day but journey times vary wildly depending on the number of intermediate stops. Once you arrive into Como it is about a 1km walk to the main San Giovanni station for fast trains to Milan - or the smaller Nord Lago station is about a 500m walk. The ferry is not included in interrail and you would still need to get the replacement bus from Tirano to Sondrio.
A final suggestion is to use local bus 811 between Zernez and Mals railway stations. This avoids the Bernina pass but still gives you a nice scenic right through the heart of the alps. More information on the bus is at https://www.postauto.ch/en/leisure-offers/excursion-tips/2022/zernez-mals-nauders-scuol - note that the 0934 and 1134 departures from Zernez require advance booking. As do groups of more than 10 on all departures. This can be made through that link. Times can also be found on Google Maps. The bus is not included in interrail - and nor are the Südtirolmobil trains which serve Mals. Once you reach Meran you can switch to Trenitalia and use your pass. Note though the engineering works are also affecting the Südtirolmobil line from Mals to Meran leading to replacement buses over varying parts of it: https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/news/details/venosta-vinschgau-valley-railway-1
And you can of course get one of the direct Zurich/elsewhere in Switzerland to Milan high speed trains - still scenic but not as much as heading right up into the alps! If you can and have the time I do still strongly think it is worth going over the Bernina pass and not trying to discourage anyone from doing so - more just trying to make sure no one gets an unpleasant surprise.

It's funny the way one's inner rationalizing voice adjusts. It seems to get a vague idea of how long it's been since I watched porn. So it'll suggest something like, "Hey, man, you've done *so* well for *so* long [making it seem longer than it is]. I'm sure your brain is totally healed. You've proven how strong you are. So a quick peek wouldn't hurt a strong guy like you, right? Even if you ended up slipping, it wouldn't harm you for more than an hour or so, right?"
Wrong, of course. And moments like that are when the STAY CLEAN [INSERT MONTH HERE] threads really help me. I'll pop in, let others on the thread know that I'm feeling tempted -- and the temptation will ease, even before anyone has had time to encourage me.
Just admitting to the readers of that thread -- and therefore to the rest of my brain: "Hey, I'm thinking about taking a peek, and I'm worried that I might" -- has been *tremendously* helpful to me.
Just typing those words seems to wake up another, more rational part of my brain, which says, "Whoa! We don't need to weaken ourselves for an ephemeral thrill, do we? Avoiding porn is *working* for us. That peaceful feeling you've been experiencing more and more? You know that if you slip now, you won't get that feeling back for a while -- maybe a few weeks, maybe much longer. Why would you give that up for a few seconds of tricking yourself into thinking you're having sex with someone who wouldn't recognize you if you passed her in the street? You've gotten this far. Let's keep avoiding that stuff."
And then I go on with my day. And the days turn into months -- more than nine months away, so far, this time. May it continue, and may your own journey continue, too.

25 female here. I feel like I am not experiencing life like I should at my age. I am single, and have been for 7 years now. My last relationship was sexually and mentally abusive. The last person I had feelings for and had feelings for me, didn't want to go into a LDR, despite being wishy washy anyways, coming back and leaving in my life at random. Finally left about two years ago, and now an online friend claims to have feelings for me, but they have not met me, only have done calls and played video games with me which has opened up some old wounds from the last time someone got feelings for me. And even if I were to try that possibility, they are even farther away from where I live, and I struggle with thinking that because we tend to argue or misunderstand each other, we might not even be a good match. Not that I haven't tried putting myself out there. But dating websites are a bust for me, I either have to deal with a ton of people wanting to "mess around" or people who don't really know how to be friends with someone first before trying to have a relationship with them. Everyone seems to expect me to be on my phone all of the time on dating websites, or else I'm not worth really going farther than just small talk. Going out in this world is daunting as a female, and even then, it can sometimes feel like everyone has someone but me. I feel very alone in crowded rooms.
I have deep and extensive SA trauma from three separate people that I have been working on and sometimes it feels like it prevents me from forming healthy relationships in the first place. Not to mention that a few months ago, I had repressed memories pop up about my mom who emotionally and mentally abused me, only rarely physically abused me. It wasn't uncommon for me as a kid to be called 'selfish' or be constantly compared to my other friends and to be told I'm just like family members she considered bad. I somehow got in trouble for being depressed but I was also dealing with SA and being bullied. My mom is judgemental and has gotten so far into religion and politics that she now sees everything as demonic or moreso black and white. She recently said Pokémon was demonic, a game that I have played for comfort for years now. She even somehow blamed me getting sick this winter on me. It's hard for me to have a conversation with her like I used to, because of both the abuse she's put me through and the guilt she makes me feel for mistakes or even accidents. If I try to come to her about my struggles, she either fires back with "her life sucked more" or that I need to pray more. She has guilted me enough for struggling with sin and mistakes and pushed me so far to actually distance myself from my religion (Christianity), something I held really dear to me and that kept me from snapping a lot. I feel like I'm always having to hide around her and walk on eggshells so she doesn't explode on me. I flinch when she yells at me and it makes me feel weak that at 25, I feel like I can't live my life or do what I want in fear of her.
I struggle to maintain relationships or even talk to some people because my self esteem is so low, that I consider myself to be unimportant, not special, and not really worth anyone's time. I feel guilty for being nerdy and geeky at times, and for liking the things I like. I feel like I barely know myself, because I've been playing a character for my mom and God knows who else out of fear of being hurt or hurting someone else's feelings. My mind is warped, I'm always second guessing every single move and thought I have. It's never quiet in my head, and I blame and talk down on myself whenever anything happens. My college and high school friends have moved on, and are getting married, having children, making friends and communities. I'm absolutely ecstatic for them, but sometimes it really gets to me that for the most part, I go to work and come home to an empty home. No one really talks to me other than an online friend I made through a discord server my other friend made. Occasionally I will get a message or two from the friend who made the discord server. I rarely get invited to do anything with anyone other than my parents. My dad sometimes takes me fishing, and some days we do have family days. But the recent revelation about my mom has taken some of the fun out of it. I rarely get out for anything anymore.
I desperately want out of this slump or pit or whatever anyone wants to call it but I never have the motivation to. I used to work out consistently as I used to be an athlete. Now I can barely muster up the energy and motivation to go for a 30 minute run. I want to meet my tribe or just SOMEONE new, but I have zero clue on where to even go to do that without going online and even so, I feel like I am not worth anyone's time and I feel like a fraud. I want to take care of my home, but I come home and I feel like I'm lead. I want to play and bond with my dog, but I feel too sad and depressed to even do anything. And then I kick myself because I have a good job. I have food to eat. I can pay my bills. I am planning on going to grad school in the near future if I can muster up the courage for it. Do I even have the right to really complain? I don't know. But I felt like I needed to get some off it off of my chest. A lot in my life feels like it's up in the air.

It was Danvers who finally pushed him in. We’d been feeding the fire with hardwood since the afternoon and it had gotten big as the wind picked up by nightfall, flickering cross our faces and warming our cheeks better than a gas heater. He didn’t even scream when he fell. The flames just swallowed him up—sparks shooting out like hot vomit. He knew what he’d done. He knew it was wrong. When he lifted himself up and came out of the fire he stood dead still, staring at us, smiling like we’d done him a favour. Maybe he thought he deserved to turn into ash. Maybe he did deserve it. I know I kept my fingers tight round the handle of the axe just the same till he keeled over and Cauley had touched the corpse with his foot and we knew he was dead. The three of us, we kept silent for a long while after that. There was just the sound of wood burning and it was better that way. None of us touched the body but none of us looked away, either: you could still make out his face, unmistakable, when the rest of him was dark and formless. He was a face on a pile. Then the wind started taking bits and pieces and carrying them away. Like I told the police, he didn’t touch me, but I knew some of the kids he’d done it to. He’d done it to Danvers. I remember once when all the other kids were gone, I’d stayed after class, Mr Gregor bent himself close to my ear and told me the real story. “You’re a wicked one,” he said when he was done, “just like Don Whitman.”
They used to scare us with Don Whitman, the adults: the other teachers, our parents, the priest. But no one ever explained it. They’d just say, “You better do what we want or else Don Whitman will come back and get you.” Mr Gregor was the only one ever to tell it to me with details. He told it different, too. He said he remembered because he was the same age as Don Whitman and they went to the same school. He said that what the others say they remember is like Cain and Abel or Little Red Riding Hood. Even the landscape tells the fairy tale. After it happened, Don Whitman’s school got torn down, then his house. And the bells in the Church got changed: the ones they rang after Elizabeth Cartwell had come back hysterical with the news.
You can’t tear down or change a man’s memory, Mr Gregor told me.
Once you see, it’s forever.
Elizabeth Cartwell’s parents moved away as soon as the police investigation finished. A lot of people moved away. But Mr Gregor showed me a newspaper from Hill City, North Dakota from some years later. The paper was yellow but you could read the black print fine. The story was about a girl who’d killed herself. The photo was of Elizabeth Cartwell. As he held it out for me to see, his hand shook and I felt his breath grow warmer against the skin around my neck. Nothing made him shake as much as what happened to Elizabeth Cartwell, not even the details.
Don Whitman was seventeen when he did it. He was handsome, with wide shoulders and played football. All the girls liked him. He was going to go to college. Maybe that’s why they thought he was ready: they thought he was a man. They thought he’d be with them. It was a school night when they woke him and drove out to the old pumping station, so that he could see everything for himself. They wanted to make him a part of it just like they were. If he saw, he would want it just like they did. I was always told that he drove out there by himself, but Mr Gregor told me that’s part of the lie. He said Don Whitman’s father was in the car with the mayor and the chief of police. He said, “How would he have found the place by himself—why would he have gone looking?”
The place is in a wood not far from the border. Of course, the whole underground is filled with cement now, but you can still see where the opening used to be: a fat tube sticking out of the ground, just big enough for a man to crawl down into. There was a hatch on it then, and thick locks. The hatch was sound-proof. If you stood right beside it, you couldn’t hear a thing, but as soon as you opened the hatch you could smell the insides and hear the moans start to drift upwards into the world. A steel ladder led down. Mr Gregor says they all knew about it, everyone: all the adults. They’d all been down that ladder. All of them had seen it.
Don Whitman went down the ladder, too. He must have smelled the insides grow stronger and heard the moaning echo louder with every rung but he kept going. On the ground above, his father spoke to the mayor and they both felt proud. Don Whitman must have been more scared of coming up and disappointing them than of not going down to the limit. But when he reached the bottom, the very bottom, and put his feet to the hard concrete and saw it before his own eyes, something inside of him must have broken—
“They sugarcoat it and they make a child’s game of it because they’re too scared to remember the truth,” Mr Gregor told me. “They can’t forget it, but it’s a stain to them, so they cover it up and pretend that everything’s clean.”
Don Whitman saw the vastness of the interlocking chambers and, within them, the writhing, ecstatic, swollen no-people of the underground, human-like but non-human, cross-bred mammals draped in plaster-white skin pinned to numb faces, men, women and children, male and female, naked, scared, dirty, with humans—humans Don Whitman knew and recognized—among them, on them and under them, hitting them, squeezing them, making them hurt, making monstrous sounds with them, all under slowly rotating heat lamps, all open and together, one before another, and then someone, someone Don Whitman knew, must have put a hand on Don Whitman’s shoulder and Don Whitman would have asked, “But what now, what am I supposed to do?” and then, from somewhere deep within the chambers, from a place not even Don Whitman would ever see, a voice answered:
“Anything.”
Mr Gregor pulled away from me and I felt my body turn cold. Icy sweat crawled under my collar and below my thighs.
I’d been told Don Whitman had found the old pumping station and lured the police to it, that they’d called others—including Don Whitman’s father—to talk him out of any violence, but that he’d snapped and murdered them all without firing a single shot, with his bare hands, and dumped the bodies into the metal pipe sticking out of the ground, the one just wide enough for a man to fit through. Then he’d disappeared. It wasn’t until days later that Elizabeth Cartwell found the bodies and there was never any sign of Don Whitman after that. The manhunt failed. So the church bells rang, the school was torn down, the pipe was filled in and, ever since, the adults scare their children with the story of the high school boy who’d done a terrible, sinful thing and vanished into thin air.
“And why would she decide to go out there?” Mr Gregor asked—meaning Elizabeth Cartwell—his eyes dead-set through a window at the raining world outside. “It’s as transparent as a sheet of the Bible, every word of it. They all pretend to believe because they’ve all made it up together. But the police reports, the testimony, the news stories, the court records, the verdict: a sham, a falsification made truth because a thousand people and a judge repeat it, word-for-word, every night before bed.”
I tried to stand but couldn’t. My heart was pounding me back into the chair. I was thinking about my mother and father. I had only enough courage for one question, so I asked, “What happened to the no-people?”
Mr Gregor turned suddenly and laughed so fierce the rain lashed the windows even harder. He came toward me. He put a delicate hand on each of my shoulders. He bent forward until his lips were almost touching mine and, his eyes staring at me like one stares at the Devil, said:
“Buried in the concrete. Buried alive, buried dead—”
I pushed him away.
He stumbled backward without losing his balance.
I forced myself off the chair, praying that my legs would keep. My knees shook but held. In front of me, Mr Gregor rasped for air. A few long strands of his thin hair had fallen across his forehead. He was sweating.
“He was a coward, that little boy, Don Whitman. Without him, we wouldn’t need to live under the whip of elaborate lies designed by weaker people turned away and shamed by the power of the natural order of things. They trusted him, and he betrayed us all. The fools! The weakling! Imagine,” Mr Gregor hissed, “just imagine what we could have had, what we could have experienced down there, at the very bottom, in the chambers...”
His eyes spun and his chest heaved as he grew excited, but soon he lost his venom and his voice returned to normal.
Finally, he said without any nastiness, “You’re a wicked one, just like Don Whitman.”
And I ran out.
Danvers prodded me awake. I must have fallen asleep during the night because when I opened my eyes it was morning already. The sun was up and the flames gone, but the fire was still warm. Mr Gregor’s dead face still rested atop a pile of ashes. Cauley was asleep on the dirt across from us. I could tell Danvers hadn’t slept at all. He said he’d been to a farmhouse and called the police. We woke up Cauley and talked over what we’d say when they got here. We decided on something close to the truth: Mr Gregor had taken the three of us camping and, when he tried to do a bad thing, we put up a fight and knocked him into the flames. Cauley said it might be suspicious because of how easily Mr Gregor had burned, but Danvers said that some people were like that—they burned quick and whole—so we needn’t say a word about the gasoline. When the police came, they were professional and treated us fair, but when they took me aside to talk to me about the accident, every time I tried to tell them about the bad things Mr Gregor had done, they wouldn’t hear it, they just said it was a shame there’d been an accident and someone had died.
At home, I asked my parents whether Mr Gregor was a bad person for what he’d done to Danvers and others. My mother didn’t say anything. My father looked at me like he was looking at the Devil himself and said morality was not so simple and that people had differing points of view and that, in the end, much depended not on what you did, but who you did it to—like during the war, for example. There were some who deserved to be done-to and others whose privilege it was to do. Then he picked up his magazine and told me it was best not to think about such things at all.
I did keep thinking about them, and about Don Whitman, too. When I got to high school, I was too old to scare with monsters, but once in a while I’d hear one of the adults tell a kid he better do as he’d been told or Don Whitman would come back and get him. I wondered if maybe people scare others with monsters they’re most scared of themselves. I even thought about investigating: taking a pick-axe to the pumping station and cracking through concrete or investigating records of how much of it had been poured in there. But I figured the records could have been fixed and one person with a pick-axe wouldn’t get far before the police came and I didn’t trust them anymore. I also had homework to worry about and I started seeing a girl.
I’d almost forgotten about Don Whitman by the time my mother sent me out one evening with my dad’s rifle to hunt down a coyote she said had been attacking her hens. I took a bike, because it was quiet, and was roaming just beyond town when I saw something kick up dust in a field. I shot at it, missed and it scurried off. I pedaled after it until it seemingly disappeared into nowhere. I kept my eye firm on the spot I saw it last and when I got close enough, I saw there was a small hole in the ground there. I stuck the rifle in and the hole felt bigger on the inside, so I stomped all around till the hole caved and where there’d been a mouse-sized hole now there was an opening a grown man could fit through. It seemed deep, which made me curious, because there aren’t many caves around here, so I stuck my feet in but still couldn’t feel the bottom. I slid in a little further, and further still, and soon the opening was above my head and I was inside with my whole body.
It was dark but I could feel the ground sloping. When my eyes accustomed to the gloom, I saw enough to tell there was a tunnel leading into the depths and that it was big enough for me to crawl through. I didn’t have a light but I knew it was important to try the hole. Maybe there were no-people at the bottom. Mostly, though, I didn’t think—I expected: that every time I poked ahead with the rifle, I’d hit earth and the tunnel would be done.
That never happened. I descended for hours. The tunnel grew narrower and the slope sharpened. Fear tightened around my chest. I lost track of time. There wasn’t enough space to turn my body around and I’d been descending for so long it was foolish to backtrack. Surely, the tunnel led somewhere. It was not a natural tunnel, I told myself, it must lead somewhere. I should continue until I reached the end, turn around and return to the surface. The trick was to keep calm and keep moving forward.
And I was right. Several hours later the tunnel ended and I crawled out through a hollow in the wall of a huge grotto.
I stood, stretched my limbs and squinted through the dimness. I couldn’t see the other end of the grotto but the wall curved so I thought that maybe if I went along I might get to the other end. My plan of an immediate return to the surface was on hold. I had to see what lived here. Images of no-people raced through my head. I readied my rifle and proceeded, slowly at first. Where the tunnel had been packed dirt and clay, the walls and floor of the grotto were solid rock. There was moisture, too. It flowed down the walls and gathered in depressions on the floor.
Although at first the wall felt smooth, soon I began to feel a texture to it—like a washboard. The ceiling faded into view. The grotto was getting smaller. And the texture was becoming rougher, more violent. I was thinking about the texture and Mr Gregor’s burnt body when a sound sent me sprawling. My elbow banged against the rock and I nearly cried out. My heart was beating like it had beaten me into my chair in the classroom. The sound was real: faint but clear and echoing. It was the sound of continuous and rhythmic scratching.
I crawled forward, holding the rifle in front. The scratching grew louder. I thought about calling out, but suddenly felt foolish to believe in no-people or anything of that kind. It seemed more sensible to believe in large rodents or coyotes with sharp teeth. I could have turned back, but the only thing more frightening than a monster in front is a monster behind, so I pulled myself on.
In fact, I was crawling up a small hill and, when I had reached the top, I looked down and there it was:
His was a human body. Though hunched, he stood on human legs and scratched with human hands. His movements were also clearly a man’s movements. There was nothing feminine about them. His half-translucent skin was grey, almost white, and taut; and if he had any hair, I didn’t see it. His naked body was completely smooth. I looked at him for a long time with dread and disgust. His arms didn’t stop moving. Whatever they were scratching, they kept scratching. Even when he turned and his head looked at me, even as I—stunned—frozen in terror, recoiled against the wall, still his arms kept moving and his hands clawing.
For a few seconds, I thought he’d seen me, that I was done for.
I gripped the rifle tight.
But as I focused on his face, I realized he hadn’t seen me at all. He couldn’t see me. His face, so much like a colourless swollen skull, was punctuated by two black and empty eye sockets.
He turned back to face the wall he was scratching. I turned my face, too. The texture on the wall was his. The deeper the grooves, the newer the work. I put down the rifle and put my hand on the wall, letting my fingers trace the contours of the texture. It wasn’t simple lines. The scratching wasn’t meaningless. These were two words repeated over and over, sometimes on top of each other, sometimes backwards, sometimes small, sometimes each letter as big as a person, and they were all around this vast underground lair, everywhere you looked—
Two words: Don Whitman.
He’d made this grotto. I felt feverish. The sheer greatness, the determination needed to scratch out such a place with one’s bare hands. Or perhaps the insanity—the punishment. If I hadn’t been sitting, a wave of empathy would have knocked me to the wet, rocky floor. I picked up the rifle. I could put Don Whitman out of his misery. I lifted the rifle and pointed it at the distant figure writing his name pointlessly into the wall. With one pull of the trigger, I could show him infinite mercy. I steadied myself. I said a prayer.
Don Whitman stopped scratching and wailed.
I bit down on my teeth.
I hadn’t fired yet.
He grabbed his head and fell to his knees. The high-pitched sound coming from his throat was unbearable. I felt like my mind was being ripped apart. I dropped the rifle and covered my ears. Again, Don Whitman turned. This time with his entire body. He crawled a few steps toward me—still wailing—before stopping and falling silent. He raised his head. Where before had been just eye sockets now there were eyes. White, with irises. Somehow, they’d grown.
He got to his feet and I was sure that he could see me now. He was staring at me. I called his name:
“Don Whitman!”
He didn’t react. Thoughts raced through my mind: what should I do once he comes toward me? Should I defend myself or should I embrace him?
But he didn’t step forward.
He took one step back and lifted his long fingers to his face. His nails, I now saw, were thick and curved as a bird’s talons. He moved them softly from his forehead, down his cheeks and up to his eyes, into which, without warning, he pressed them so painfully that I felt my own eyes burn. When he brought his fingers back out, in each hand he held a mashed and bleeding eyeball. These he put almost greedily into his mouth, one after the other, then chewed, and swallowed.
Having nourished his body, he returned to the wall and began scratching again.
As I watched the movements of his arms, able to follow the pattern of the letters they were carving, I no longer felt like killing him. If he wanted to die, he could die: he could forego water, he could refuse to eat. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to keep scratching his name into the walls of this grotto: Don Whitman, Don Whitman, Don Whitman…
I watched him for a long time before I realized that I would have to get to the surface soon. People would begin to worry. They might start looking for me. And as much as I needed to know the logic behind Don Whitman’s grotto, I also needed food. I couldn’t live down here. I couldn’t eat my own eyes and expect them to grow back. Eventually, I would either have to return to the world above or die.
I put my hand on the grotto wall and began to mentally retrace my steps. A return would not be difficult. All I would need to do was follow—
That’s when I knew.
The geography of it hit me.
The hole I’d entered was on the outskirts of town. The tunnel sloped toward the town. That meant this grotto was below the town. The town hall, the bank, the police station, the school—all of it was lying unknowingly on top of a giant expanding cavity. One day, this cavity would be too large, the town would be too heavy, and everything would collapse into a deep and permanent handmade abyss. Don Whitman would bury the town just as the town had buried the no-people. Everything would be destroyed. Everyone would die. That was Don Whitman’s genius. That was his life’s work.
I picked up the rifle and faced Don Whitman for the final time.
He must have known that I was there. He’d heard me and had probably seen me before he pulled out his eyes, yet he just continued to scratch. Faced with death, he kept working.
As I stood there, I had no doubt that, left in peace, Don Whitman would finish his project. His will was too powerful. The result would be catastrophic. It was under these assumptions that I made the most moral and important decision of my life:
I walked away.

hey!
here’s what I look like
I’m in chicago, in the middle of my phd, using the sacred few hours of sleep I got to scroll reddit while binging on the trashiest reality TV and early 00s MTV music videos… I’m known for taking wise choices :P
a few sentences about myself
I’m a very proud mexican doing his phd in theoretical biophysics in the US (somewhere in the midwest). sometimes I like to think I’m super smart… then I remember how much trashy reality tv trivia I know. tbh, since moving here I’ve been aching to meet people that aren’t related to my professional or academic sphere, and rarely got the time to do much outside the lab, so, here I am, it seems meeting people online could be good bet :O
some random trivia

• my work is on machine learning and proteins
• love running and cycling, pretty much any heavy cardio activity
• love playing soccer but suck at it
• love signing but suck at it
• love drawing but suck at it
• I only sing in spanish, because I got a thiccc accent and feel a bit self-conscious singing in english
• expert in early 00s shitty pop music
• best disney movie is ratatouille
• most overrated disney movie is up
• love dancing cumbia and bachata… and actually do not suck at it! lmao
• can move my ears on command
• have lived in 4 countries, 6 cities, 2 continents
• I’m trying to get into video games. help? I have a swtich, xbox, and pc
• not a fan of scifi or fantasy :(
• once got jump-scared by a possum while riding my bike
• knows two and a half languages
• love crafts (specially origami) and playing the accordion

here are two truths and a lie

• I was personally invited to a fancy rooftop party by a google hotshot, but bailed on it
• a mexican bill saved my life while I was stranded in serbia
• I was suspended from middle school for burning a whiteboard with body spray and a lighter

If you're interested in talking, send me a line about yourself!

What was I thinking? Opening up like that again. Being playful and forward. I was in a good mood I guess. I thought to myself fuck it life’s too short I’m not going to hold back anymore. Why do I hold back anyway? So I start sending all them texts. Flirtatious and funny. Silly really not really funny. I waited for you to reply. Nothing. Then sent more. You’re done work now. Send more. Nothing. Maybe you’re driving now. Nothing. You must be home now. Nothing. Maybe you stayed late for work. Nothing. It’s Friday though. Nothing.
Somewhere along these silly texts with no replies. The courage turns into shame. It physically hurts as I feel the tears build up. I’m in my bed curled up. Why do I do this? Tears rolling down now.

Amazing how quickly your life can change oftentimes because of circumstances beyond your control. I remember how all this started I was there that day when those fateful words were spoken wadia have to lose guadaluz it was the 1st time I. Went to a political rally. I didn't support any candidate yet. I knew of this guy and decided I'd hear what heard him speak the more. I liked what I heard he didn't speak like other politicians. He spoke plainly like a guy. I'd meet in the sports bar in many instances. It was like he was reading my mind. I thought some of these things but feared to say them out too comfortable. Talking about him to friends and family. They were starting to storm out of the room as soon as I entered. I didn't understand their hatred of my candidate. I certainly didn't get why they were calling him racist. I knew of him before he ran for office and everybody thought he was cool. He was the symbol of success to everyone from businessmen to rappers. Of course no knowing this I gave no thought to telling my fiance I was going to vote for him she got up from the couch we were sitting. On and stormed to the back of her house I stood up and was about to follow her to the back she stopped turned and looked at me with eyes. That cut me to the bone she went into her bedroom and quickly came backup the hallway towards me seemed to be in slow motion. She never looked up at me. I could always tell her mood by her eyes when she finally reached me she pushed past me and went straight to the front door she opened the door and said get out my house James. I was shocked because we had a dinner evening planned. So I said Tiffany what are you talking about? Aren't we going to dinner? She just screamed get out of my house James with that she let me see her eyes they were full of tears. She was so angry. I could see red on her cheeks and neck which was quite a feat considering her ebony dark complexion her anger was infectious because it made me. Angry so I stormed to the front door and just as I got 1' out. She stopped me she gypsy grabbed my right hand and opened it. She kissed the Palm of my hand then placed the locket. I gave her in my hand she closed my hand over the locket and turned away from me. It was a heart shaped locket that once belonged to my mother. My mother gave it to me from her hospital bed. She told me to give it to the woman I love because my father gave it to her. My mother died shortly after giving me the locket on my nightstand for years before I met some one worthy of it. I loved Tiffany after our 1st date but I dated her for a full year before I gave her the locket. Any of the gift her giving it back in this way told me 2 things she never wanted to see me again and she still loved me that made the. Break up more painful than I couldthere was a company in Alaska that was courting me for my engineering skills. I kept putting them off because I didn't want to leave Tiffany or Chicago. But now I hated the idea of running into Tiffany again or never being able to go to my favorite places because they all reminded me of her. So I called the company and told them I could start as soon as they wanted me. They requested. I catch a flight the next morning so I packed a few things and tried to get some sleep. I turned on the only news channel that was fair to my candidate but hearing even them say he might not win against his more experienced opponent made it impossible for me to sleep I felt like I had to do something right? Then so I got the absentee ballot that I received in the mail because I wasn't sure if I'd be in town on election night. I filled it out voted for my candidate. Put it in the envelope and then I fell asleep. I awoke early the next morning grabbed my luggage and made sure not to forget my important envelope. I requested a ride shared driver on my phone and thankfully one picked up quickly. I asked him to stop by the Post Office on the way to the airport. I didn't want to risk putting my letter in a Box that might not get picked up. It was early October and I wanted to be sure my ballot got in on time. It was early October and I wanted to be sure. My ballot got in on time with that done. I gave it no more thought for the sake of my sanity. I even managed to keep quiet about my candidate sometimes having to bite my bottom lip. When people? Elated about? The liberal running. Against my? Candidate how anyone could think that liberal's promises would be kept baffled me. But I didn't have time to be angry about politics. My job kept me busy once in Anchorage they wouldn't let me leave. They made me an offer. I couldn't possibly refuse they even paid a company to pack up my apartment and put everything in storage for me. I was happy making like minded friends. Alaska was a refreshing conservative change from liberal Chicago election. Night came quickly and I rushed home at 4 PM to turn on the coverage. I bought a 5th of brandy and a bag of ice. I wouldn't let myself pour a glass until the 1st States were called. By 5 PM the projection started coming in and it was closer than it should have been today. I wish my greatest trouble was not being sure if my candidate would win but I'll get to that soon by 8 PM it was still too close to call. My bottle was close to empty and I couldn't see clearly so I went to sleep the next morning. I woke up not caring about anything but my pounding headache. My breakfast that morning was Gatorade and chicken noodle soup. A cool rag over my eyes felt like heaven. I finally got close to my normal self and reached for the remote the television shut off during the night. I knew every channel would be blasting the winner and I was afraid to find out. I hit the power button and sure enough my guy one in my naive Tay. I thought the election craft would be over and people would start to be civil again. Fortunately. It was made clear any talk of the election at work would result in immediate termination. So other than salutations no one said anything to each other for fear of triggering a political discussion. Even me saying I couldn't wait for the inauguration triggered some dirty looks and a trip to HR that day finally came and left and the. Only thing that stood out was the new president's last statement of his speech he said I have made the deal of the century you will find out about it. Soon he was definitely a showman I couldn't wait to find out what it was he done. Life went as normal and people started to chill out then our president made the announcement of naval and military training exercises. The US in South Korea would have the biggest training exercise in their history as soon as the bulk of our navy and Pacific military assets were in South Korea. China attacked and captured Hawaii Japan lost half their navy trying to protect it for us before the news could finish reporting on that we heard explosions in the. Distance shortly after that our cell phones stopped working we all looked out our windows and saw smoke rising from the port we saw people in traffic rushing away from. The port and 1st responders heading toward the port in the confusion. There were crash alarms going off and we couldn't call anyone. Then the Wi-Fi and Internet stopped working. We rushed to the televisions poping the news would tell us something the screen flashed breaking news. They showed an empty podium the words at the bottom of the screen saying president to speak soon we finally see him walking to the podium with a handful of papers as he stands at the podium he fumbles through the papers before speaking he smiles at the cameras and says it's a great day for America. Ladies and gentlemen I have done what no one else could have done. I stand here today to let you know. The US is no longer in debt. That's right the 19 trillion dollars of debt is gone all it cost us was Hawaii and Alaska that is all good people I will not be answering. Question after his speech we lost the cable signal and of course control some people were crying others were screaming at the TVI just sat at my. Desk in disbelief he talked. About? Hawaii and Alaska as though. We? Were. Used cars and what did that mean was Alaska a part of China now? The thing that broke my dumbfounded trance was the window breaking and someone jumping out people began running into the buildings. They told us it wasn't the Chinese attacking the port. It was Russia. They landed troops and tanks on the ground and were headed inland the police and National Guard were trying to stop them. But they didn't have the weapons to stop tanks. The Russians had control of the capital in hours and we're pushing few Russian soldiers came into the building killing indiscriminately just before they entered my. Office I heard a Russian scream ostentatious YA. The firing stopped and the laughter started. They cheered as they walked into my office. I reached into my desk and grabbed the only thing. I valued at that moment the heart shaped locket that 2 women. I loved had given me as they said goodbye I put it in my pocket hoping. They hadn't seen an officer walked into my office with a big smile on his face. I assumed he was an officer because the men jumped to their feet at the side of him. He said something in Russian and they left the room. He then turned his reptilian like smile towards me he said. With a very heavy Russian accent hello James how are you my friend then? He laughed as he poured himself a glass of my brandy he smiled and said take it easy my American friend your name is on door I. Couldn't help but mess with you. Do you know what is happening here today James? I didn't answer him. I just look at him then the door multiple times. He poured himself another glass then spoke while looking down into the glass mother. Russia has taken part of America's debt in exchange for Alaska more specifically the oil reserves. You wouldn't drill for to protect the Winter moss or whatever you should thank your president. I should say your former president he has made you a Russian subject. I was forced to use my skill to find them oil in the wilderness the last. The heart shaped locket. I have to find ways to hide it every day. It's been a year since that day. I hope this ends soon.

(slight trigger warning for self harm) and please don’t read this if you have the feeling you are “not sick enough” (you are. every pain is pain and you deserve help and respect)
i want to start this off by saying that this post is going to sound very insensitive. i know it does but i really do want to get this off my chest.
for a long long time i have felt that i am not sick enough. my best (now ex) friend (goes by he/him but was afab, important later on) always had more mental issues then me. he was always sicker. which led me to have to comfort him. even when i couldn’t get out of bed. i get that he was busy with himself. but never has he asked how i was doing. even when i tried to reach out. when i tried he was always sad, or hurting himself or more in need of help than me.
once we were hanging out and i suddenly started having a pmdd episode. i was panicking and crying. trying to explain what was going on. even though i had been struggling with pmdd for 2+ years at this point he didn’t know the name, what it was or how it effected me.
all he could say to me when i told him what was wrong was “yeah i think i have that too” so i never talked to him about it after that. because hes sick too and i didn’t want to be a burden. and he never brought it up again. even when venting to me.
bout a year later we had a fight. it basically started because my mental was declining pretty bad and i just couldn’t muster up the energy to reply to friends. and especially not when all he did was require my comfort. and instead of talking about it he posted his feelings about me on his very public tiktok. the actual fight isnt important. just know he said really nasty stuff to me and i told him “i hope you get over the fact youre not the only sick person in the world” wich i know is cruel. but i dont regret it.
every since he told me he had pmdd too (no diagnosis, no prior mention of it.) i have become some sort of purist.
my case of pmdd is exceptionally bad. (4 week cycles. 1 week ok, 2,5 week completely unfunctional episodes and somwhere in that episode a period with god-offending cramps) its ruining my life, has been for years at this point. it started when i was 12 and im sixteen now. struggling just as much.
sometimes i doomscroll forums and sites. dozens of people sharing their horrible experiences. and i feel incredibly sympathetic towards them. i want everyone to get better
but somewhere deep down when is see people talking about their “hell week” or “the couple days bfore their period” i feel angry and jelous. deep down i feel like they are “not sick enough” and dont really have pmdd. or it makes me feel like i am just being dramatic. it feels so complicated. i feel insanely guilty. i know what its like to be set aside bc ur “not sick enough”
if you are reading this i want you to call me an asshole and tell me i’m the reason why people suffer in silence.
thanks for reading.

I've tried all the things i could find to fix multiplayer but they don't work -used northstar client. just gave me a pop up saying "could not find player account" or something -verifying file integrity on steam. restarted after on top of this and still didn't work -installing origin and launching the game through it instead of steam. didn't work because there was a stupid fucking pop up telling me to upgrade to the EA app i already had installed and i couldn't close it or use origin at all. tried launching in EA app instead and it still had the same problem. - https://r2northstar.gitbook.io/r2northstar-wiki/installing-northstatroubleshooting#intel doing the steps on this link. was supposed to help people with intel CPUs. i have an AMD processor but i tried anyway and restarted. still didn't help -also found fixes for it searching for data centers. i don't have this problem so no point in trying

Spoilers ahead. Its more like an 8 or 9 / 10 game. Its definitely better than Breath of the Wild by a mile. This game make breath of the wild look like a tech demo. There are some things it does right that I really enjoy, but then there are other things that just really detract from the experience.
The Story The story itself is pretty good. If I had to rate it I'd give it a 9 or 10 / 10. The only nitpicks I have is that I have no idea what Ganondorf's motivation is. I'm all for villains being evil to just be evil but from what flashbacks we were shown it didn't seem like that was the approach. Also, we were robbed of the master sword fetch quest. Every game builds up to link needing to find the master sword. In TP, he couldn't leave his wolf state until it was found. In OOT, its revealed to you after getting the stones. We have no idea how link found this sword in the Lost woods and knowing how the lost woods work, how he navigated them. We know he's from a family of knights so he didn't have the being raised by the deku tree buff.
Story Expression Now this is where the game starts to get penalized. My experience with LOZ has been OOT, WW, MM, TP, SS, PH, ST. This game series detracks from that quite a bit. Cutscenes are very minimal. I can't put my finger on it but for some reason the text cutscenes feel like less compared to other games and I don't know why. The tears are where we get most of the cutscenes and while from a gameplay perspective its fun to track it down, from a story perspective its a bit annoying that I have to play iSpy to get story information. Its even more annoying when after completing every temple the sage says 99% of the exact same thing. Another hindrance of this is that link doesn't have a partner in crime. Navi, Midna, Linebeck, King of Red Lions were all there will you. Don't really have that here and I would argue its a bit of a stretch to say that for this game its Purah. Also, I don't understand the aversion that they developed for Epona. There was no meeting Epona moment in BOTW or TOTK and while I know its an amiibo reward, why? Epona is link's ride or die so why are we relegating that character to an amiibo reward.
Combat This is where the game gets most of its penalty. In BOTW they introduced breakable weapons and I am one of the people who hate that system. So in TOTK, they decide to take it a step further and now make base weapons weaker and now you must fuse your weapons. Also for some reason we couldn't exempt the master sword from this system. Now this wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing but the process is so unsmooth. The nailed it somewhat for arrows but for shields and weapons it really slows down. When I get a new weapon, I have to go into my inventory, pick a monster material, drop it, then switch to fuse, and then fuse it to the weapon. That's a lot of steps compared to the arrow. To make it worse, if I forget to do this and am in a fight, I either have to flee, do it mid combat, or not do it and fight with that quality weapon. The arrow isn't so bad but they really should introduce a favorites array or something cause you can rack up a lot of fuse-able material. That's just the weapon system though, more to complain about actually fighting enemies.
I despise how they've made it so that enemies have ragdoll physics. after a weapon sequence I now have to either stand and wait for the enemy to get back up and approach me, or I have to run after them and literally beat a soon to be dead horse. These enemies don't feel very challenging. The only ones that do feel challenging are the gleok, groper, and lynel as they don't follow that same behavior. The hinox, talus, phantom ganon, and flux are very cheeseable.
Flurry rush is something that when it came out was really cool, but now it just trivializes combat. I'll have dodges that have no right to trigger flurry rush and then I also have dodges that have every right to trigger that ability. It makes fighting enemies more easy and I'd rather not have the ability so that it makes combat encounter a bit more challenging. Although I will say that having ganondorf use this against you was brilliant. Wish he did it more.
Also the final battle when he's a dragon. Surely we could have made it more challenging than just diving onto him and killing some lesions. Followed a similar flow to the Rito Temple which should never be the case for a final boss fight.
Also speaking of the final boss, I don't know how but it doesn't feel as daunting anymore. I remember playing TP and storming the castle and that was an endeavor. I knew back then to save before and to do it first thing the next day because it would be a long fight. Thats not the case here. I should time it but I would wager the ending cutscene is longer than the actual boss fight (from when you start fighting ganondorf).
Customization Alright. They do a pretty good job here with a few exceptions. I don't understand why Epona and the big horse can't benefit from being upgraded to max stats while Zelda's horse can. I also don't understand why if thats an option, Epona at the very least wouldn't have that option. I can understand why they wouldn't want player's to modify Epona's look, but I still think that choice should be given to the player. Another issue I have is with the towing harness. Its a great addition but its annoying that I have to visit a stable and put it on the horse instead of just being able to do that from the inventory screen. Its equally as annoying that epona can't equip it. So I can't have a quest like delivering a korok with epona towing the wagon or delivering the stable trotters. Nice.
The house construction is another exception. I don't know how they arrived at a 15 building limit. I also don't understand why rooms that are soley used to connect parts of the house (4 sided, 3 sided, stairs) count toward this total. This is where I start to really get confused because there is a 15 building limit but I can buy 15 each of those connectors. So they envisioned someone having a house solely of those 4 sided rooms? Also, why a furnished and unfurnished option? Why is there a 1x1 room that can't fit anywhere without looking out of place? I have so many questions for whoever was in charge of this part. I originally thought that if you put two rooms together with the netting attached to a closed wall, it would break the wall and connect them. Nope.
To further elaborate on the failings of this feature, really, no armor stand? There's so many different armor sets available that I would like to display in my house since I'd probably never wear them but they look cool.
Also no basement? How come Zelda gets one and I don't. The space is there so like why.
Gameplay
Overall the gameplay is pretty good with combat being an exception. Its annoying to have to play hide and seek with koroks to expand my stash but its something to do. The fact that they didn't give a better reward is shameful. Building and Ultrahand were great additions. No complaints there. The sages dude. Like wtf were they thinking. I don't need to say anything because I know for a fact everyone here has experienced the flaw that is this design. Just make it button combo.
Conclusion Now don't get me wrong, a game doesn't have to be perfect to be 10/10. For example, the rain causing you to slip when climbing is more so a quirk of the game than a design flaw. But enough stuff is done wrong here that there is no way I could say the game is 10/10. Definitely better than BOTW, but not 10/10. They delayed the game to polish it but I guess they needed more time?

I've seen this advice on here (and some other places) quite a bit: "let family members and friends know that you're available/looking for someone"
So my question is: how?
For one thing, that seems like a pretty awkward topic to start talking about with someone unless relationships somehow just naturally come up in a conversation. For me, it only comes up in conversation with close friends, all of whom already know I am available and looking for someone and have been absolutely zero help. (I mean, I love my close friends, but they are all married or in relationships, and they just aren't that concerned about my situation. They always say they don't know of anyone in their circles who would even be a possibility.) So how would one let others (family members, friends that aren't as close, co-workers, etc.) know that one is available? What would be the most appropriate and least awkward way to put something like that?
Secondly, I have, on a couple of rare occasions, mentioned to non-close friends that I wish I could meet some new people, hopefully to increase my chances of finding somebody to date. The typical response is: "why don't you try a dating app?"
I love the idea of "casting a wide net" as they say, and getting suggestions from friends and family, but I have a hard time seeing how to do that without it being awkward. And then if the response is to just try a dating app...how does one respond to that?