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Ceele strolled through the damp grass along the outskirts of the village, a spring in her step and the dwindling scent of dew following behind. It rained yesterday, which had prevented her from going out to gather supplies, but the mild morning air had been accommodating enough for her to get an early start and make the trip. She was glad she did.
One hand clutched her new prize to her chest, while the other held a fraying wicker basket filled with herbs and some edible roots she gathered by exploring the forbidden forest. Despite her reservations regarding where she chose to go, her excitement now lingered like a steady thrum of shifting stones, giving her energy that defied how long she had been walking. She all but pranced beneath the burgeoning night's sky, gleefully toeing the line between the dirt pathways of the settlement’s outskirts and the trees of unclaimed land. Normally, her path back home would never be so close to the village, but she was far too gleeful to mind. She had come back with a sense of fulfillment and a rare object—or if not rare, then hopefully of great value.
It was hard to point to any one specific reason that she came across the orb. There had always been a ‘draw’ during her travels, urging her that there was something missing in her life, yet it was no more than a mild whim to walk in a particular direction more often than not. Once she reached this part of the continent, she was compelled to wander, never quite able to explain why she obliged the sensation besides having nowhere in particular to be. Even when she finally settled somewhere, it stayed in the back of her mind, suggesting that she was close to whatever would make the pit of vacancy go away. She ignored it, purposefully distracting herself with her work and responsibilities, yet that could only last so long. When she awoke this morning with plans to resupply, and all of her newfound spots had been picked clean by wildlife, she turned to the depths of the forest where she was warned not to tread. It was all too easy to follow the subtle tug in her chest through the loose justification.
The urge to be somewhere grew unbearable with every step closer to the forbidden area. That sense of having a direction she needed to go became stronger and stronger, until she was well into land long since forgotten. She came across an overgrown depression in the hillside, and was entranced by the foreboding image. Something about the cave just…beckoned her. She was far too weak to resist.
Horrible tales echoed into her ears as whispers of fearful voices, warning and unending, yet but a dull drone compared to her hammering heart. She navigated the trees and brushed aside unkempt vines, stepping into the cavern with a mix of expectation and trepidation, then laid eyes on the small obsidian stone perched atop a crumbling pillar. The feeling of needing to travel somewhere…stopped.
The pull was absent, which was why she held the orb close instead of placing it into her basket. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but she recalled overheard tales of hidden gemstones, deep cavernous expanses, and the untold terrors that lay within. Comparing the scenes of those fables to the cave seemed foolish now; it wasn’t some torturous chamber, but a dusty depression in a small hillside. Besides, anything this pretty was sure to be worth a fair sum, and she needed the coin. Yet the thought of selling the precious-looking stone was a conflicting one. She shook off the thought for the time being, turning her attention back towards where she was going.
Shadows stretched and faded as the moon stole the last of the illumination afforded by the sun, replacing it with a calming glow that caressed the log frames and thatched roofs of various homes. A star-filled sky came into prominence as clouds lazily drifted away, revealing the promise of tomorrow’s fair-weathered arrival. It was too late for anyone to notice her treading on the edge of their town while lost in thought, but she was still careful not to get too close to the houses or livestock pens where people might be finishing the evening’s duties. It was best that they didn’t see her returning from a place she was told not to go. Still, her feet carried her near the dwellings as she took in the noises.
Ceele enjoyed the comforting chatter from a distance. Indistinct words floated freely. Meaningless gossip and warm goodbyes were exchanged between friends and family. Places of various occupations were dark and quiet, only the faint contented mewls and clucks of livestock coming from their pastures as they ate what was recently put out for them. No metal rang throughout the streets as it was struck inside a centralized smithy, no heated bartering came from an overactive trade house, and the crunch of dirt beneath transport or merchant wagons was absent, replaced by the rapid steps and yelps of children rushing to their homes before it got too dark out. It was all just gentle conversation and life drifting through the wind, taking the rustle of leaves along for the ride, just so she could hear it. Tranquil, in a word.
She wondered what it would sound like if she were yet one more voice within that crowd of kindness. Would it be loud like the larger cities? Would she struggle to maintain a thought with so many stray topics floating about? Would she once more yearn for the peace and quiet of solitude that she had grown used to, or would she immerse herself, free of judgment and laughing like the carefree young that scampered about? Did thinking about it even matter?
Her smile fell from its genuine intensity—still worn, but not as fully. She glanced downward as her stride lost its jubilant bounce, her tail losing its sway as her grey eyes examined the dry black scales that adorned her body against her wishes. It was the ugly hue of tarnished oil, unlike the skin of any other kobold she had met. Some had reds or greens, yellows or whites, while most were between a sandy tan or earthen brown. The rainbow of peculiarities was displayed by the lucky few, and she was one of them…
…Yet she was different in the worst of ways.
Even if she would rather any other colour, she supposed it was that way to make sure no one came near without accepting the unspoken risks. That was what her mother always said, anyway, though the woman hardly feared much of anything in her old age, and dedicated herself to giving her offspring all the love she had left to give—a perk of living a full life. She would always help her daughter bathe, complimenting the colour of what most were unnerved by. That was more than a decade ago now, however. Ceele’s parents had passed on while she was still young, and she took to travelling not long after, working at what she could to afford what little she needed. Never for long, though—just enough to get to the next town between where she was and where the urge to go lay. There were certainly moments she looked back on fondly, but the journey had taken its toll.
The crude material of her ‘dress’ was coarse, old, and heavy, but it helped ease the worst of spring's chill—even if it was more of a modified sack than proper attire. Still, it was all she had after the last of her clothing fell apart, and giving the repurposed material a name that reminded her of something else made it less uncomfortable to wear, somehow. It would have to do until she could afford a pitying seamstress or the like. Until then, she would pretend she didn’t look so desperate, even if it only highlighted her status and made finding work difficult.
But it did. The dishevelled garment was a far cry from the wonderful silks or breathtaking designs she had seen some women wear, harshly marking the distinction between herself and those of affluence. The clothing of commoners was also a leap in style and quality, so she couldn't say her attire was up to even modest standards. No matter how hard she squinted, and no matter how much she fantasized otherwise, she seemed every bit like the vagrant she was, down to the soil embedded in the curvature of her claws and the stains throughout her fabrics. She looked like a serf from the more oppressed lands, yet they too wore crude cottons, which said a lot about how she appeared to those who had never lived a life of servitude. It was obvious that she was an outsider. That she didn't belong amongst the rest. It made changing something as simple as her appearance all the more difficult; prospective employment always saw a young woman who seemed more likely to steal or swindle than make an honest day’s living.
There was one good twist of fate in recent memory, however, and she came upon the result of it after leaving the slowing bustle of the village behind. Her steps carried her through a small copse of trees on the outskirts of town, the small shaded path leading to the back of a large, carefully pruned clearing, a scattering of fruit-bearing trees providing even darker shadow than the already dim moonlight. She skirted along the aging fence on the border that kept predatory animals away, carefully hoisting herself over the barrier where a large vegetable garden she was responsible for tending resided. If one were to tell her she would be living in such an area several months ago, she would have smiled politely and walked away, yet here she was.
A modest, warmly lit home occupied the middle of the clearing, sitting front and centre when one approached from the village path. It looked quite cozy, surrounded by berry bushes that were just beginning to bloom as the last dregs of winter slipped away. A front patio displayed a nice table and well-loved chairs, the rustic appearance only adding to its charm as a place where friends and family spent the warm summer afternoons. A smithy to the left of the house functioned as an additional heated building during the colder months, but usually served as a storefront and to muffle the sounds of hammered iron, though that had become less common. An old stable was nearby, close enough to be accessible, but not so close as to disturb the once occupying animals with sounds of iron craft. It hadn't seen a horse in quite some time, apparently, so it was mostly a workshop for whatever tasks didn’t require fire or metal.
There was a long history attached to each little detail—from the scuffs along the wooden siding to the depressions in the ground where daily routine wore into the earth. Every fault suffered throughout the years was matched by a thousand quirks that made it feel welcoming, like the house itself was merely waiting for the next friendly face with one of its own. She knew that the inside of each building would look just as cared for.
Her concern lay outside, however. It was a comparatively miniscule space just barely visible through the sheltering trees, true, yet it was where her efforts turned into tangible results, and where a stranger’s trust was painstakingly repaid. Once overgrown grass had been laboriously trimmed, the weeds plucked and disposed of, and now nothing distracted from what she could claim she had done.
The small plots of rock-bordered soil had little buds of growing vegetables, a sense of pride never failing to bloom in her breast with the knowledge that it would be barren without her touch. When her troubles and concerns grew heavy, and fears of the future or spectres of the past loomed over her head, she could look at where she had brought life where it wouldn't otherwise be. Some days, that was enough. She smiled in appreciation at what was admittedly amateur work, the night’s sky helping to hide any inevitably made mistakes.
She enjoyed the sight for a moment longer, then turned to walk towards a neglected old tool shed that was well out of sight within the trees, far away from whatever warmth and comfort the larger house offered to everyone and anyone. She put a hand on the degrading wood of the entryway, giving one last sad smile at the garden as she dismissed selfish thoughts of taking the eventual harvest for herself. A breath cleared the uncertainty from her voice, and she pushed open the door.
“I'm home!”
= = = = =
It took a while for Altier to adjust to his situation, and even once he accepted that his mana wasn't being siphoned, he was still reeling from confusion. He had spent centuries with every year passing by without his notice, yet now he was painfully aware of each creeping second languidly dragging on with the expediency of growing grass. It was as disorienting as it was painfully nostalgic.
Time was something he was never good with, and it only got worse as a dungeon. He'd get lost in creating rooms, corridors, creatures, and whatever else needed doing, only pausing to watch or listen to the few adventurers he became interested in. There was a stint where he spent what felt like hours agonizing over new abilities or options while he let the system manage things in the background, though he supposed it might have been much longer. So many wasted days, yet he still hadn't managed to try everything he had gained access to. Some abilities were simply too niche, came with concerning titles, or held descriptions that made him wary. Anything with ‘Decay’ in the name was instantly ignored—he didn't need more reasons to fear his affinity, and from the few he took the effort to read through, they were always vile.
But his existence for the moment was no longer like those endless stretches spent pondering the minutiae of what would help his adventurers grow stronger. Now, he could follow the rhythmic sounds of footsteps and steady breathing that set a calming pace. They were someone else's, yes, but they contextualized how easy it was to slip away without the subtle noises of life that he had long since surrendered to help his family. Of course, there were more differences that he noticed since being removed from his crumbling cavern, and his sight was the newest change.
He never gave much thought to how far he could see before. Why would he? As a man, his world extended as far as he could fathom, yet was also confined to the room where he spent his days, and as a dungeon… Well, who was he to consider distance when an event happening miles away could be seen with a flicker of thought? Nothing was too far when it was within his creation. Or his ‘body,’ he supposed. Sadly, his entire perception currently consisted of the small sphere of his obsidian core, and maybe a finger's length beyond it—which is to say, not much. He could make out the fine details in the dirty burlap he was held against, and how pale moonlight slowly took over the blurred reds of sunset, but hardly anything more. It was all just frosted colours after a certain point, and he found it infinitely frustrating. He just wanted to peer beyond the haze and scaly hand holding him to confirm that the sky he remembered was still there. Alas, the sunlight faded at too quick a pace, yet one oh so agonizingly slow.
The ensuing darkness gave him nothing to do but think about where he was, not that he had any ideas. He was too curious about why he wasn't dead to bother much with his blurry surroundings after the soft-spoken kobold abducted him, thus why he only belatedly noticed how limited his worldview had become. There might have been a forest beyond his cave, but the greens and browns were gone, and the sounds of steps through brush was replaced by the distant din of a village. An idle curiosity pondered if he would recognize any descents of his ‘family tradition’ adventurers there, but he was being carried by what most considered a monster, so likely not.
That short musing was short-lived, however, and he brought his focus back to the matter at hand. He supposed he was being taken somewhere specific, but that was an obvious deduction, considering he was taken at all. The why of the matter was less so; for what purpose would someone want a Decay-aligned core? He hadn’t heard of them before…well, before he was made into one, but he couldn’t imagine many uses. Maybe he was being sold? His…kidnapper? His sudden companion seemed rather pleased by their discovery of him, so that might be the case, and it was morbidly amusing to think that a frail, sickly young man might one day become a coveted, highly valuable item. His abduction could also be a part of some cult’s nefarious activities, but he didn't want to think about that too hard. He experienced enough odd ceremonies from the adventurers who took the time to tell him their tales.
Either way, he wasn't in the dungeon anymore, and he couldn’t see where he was going. He tried to query his menu to glean an answer, but was met with a scrambled mess he suspected read ‘Synchronizing…’ and little else. It gave him a headache trying to make sense of it—which he didn't know was possible anymore—so he dismissed the text and distracted himself with blurs from whatever diluted senses he still had. There wasn’t much to observe other than the constant footfalls and the flicker of shadows on his companion’s burlap garment. They might have travelled through brush again, but it was too dark to really say for certain.
Eventually, there was something new. He heard an old latch rattle and rusted door hinges groan, then a shuddered clack that confirmed he was now in a building. His kobold acquaintance gently cooed at something before moving about the nearly pitch-black space, finally setting him down on a… He wasn’t sure what it was, besides old and wooden.
[D$#@m$n E@$*ded]
The headache from before became a blinding migraine that suffocated him under a flash-flood of suffering. Seconds passed in abject torture until it blissfully abated, the mental blinks clearing his mind enough to notice a change in his existence. Specifically, he could actually see something besides the rotting wood grain he was placed on top of.
And it wasn’t anything promising…
He was more or less in the centre of a room no bigger than twelve paces by maybe ten. Not a terrible size for a space, but it was clearly never meant to house someone. His resting place looked about as neglected as he surmised; it was an upturned feeding trough, he supposed, since calling it a table seemed too generous. The surface was rife with holes and degraded iron, so it was something that once saw regular use before being replaced and tossed into storage, never to see the light of day again.
Actually, most things in the room seemed to fit that description. The window shutters were installed with metal hinges that had since rusted them closed, the misalignment letting in a draft—and whatever weather was outside as well, most likely. A poorly carved bowl sat on the floor, the stain beneath it hinting that it collected any rainwater that slowly dripped from the leaky roof. The wooden floorboards looked old, splintered, and in need of maintenance or replacement, though an effort had been put into abrading it somewhat smooth lately.
A tiny and decrepit fireplace was to the left of the door upon entry, its brickwork slowly crumbling due to weathering and age. It was sized more for keeping the room warm during mild days than to keep away the frigid chill of night. Its base only held cold ashes, but there was a collection of deadwood and scraps nearby, so that would probably be rectified soon. A small wheel-less cart had been turned into storage against the opposite wall, some herbs and other foraged items stowed away in it for future use. Various things he remembered seeing his father and brothers use in the fields were scattered about, too. It was nostalgic to see, honestly, even if his recollections had blurred over time.
Bundles of tattered blankets formed a pair of nests in the far corner, the smaller of the two had a pile of rough plants nearby. That answered his silent pondering of the room's purpose somewhat, though he was pretty sure the bedding material was salvaged, and there didn’t seem to be any hay or padding underneath whoever was sleeping on it. He didn’t know what to think about the weeds; they were purposefully placed there, and whoever did so had taken the time to wash them, but it was still strange.
He couldn’t see a doorway besides the entrance, yet most of the hallmarks of residency were put where space could be afforded, however crude. All in all, he surmised that it was a gardening shed of sorts, and his new acquaintance apparently lived here. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when a creature he had only read about came into his dungeon, but it wasn't being brought to a rundown and decrepit shack for unknown purposes.
Even if he had been raised by parents who made a humble living at the best of times, and they had emptied their coffers for unsuccessful attempts to ease his ailments, his acquaintance's living space made him uncomfortable. His family's house was never anything fancy, true—it shared some of the worn qualities that inevitably gathered over the years—but it was never this bad. His home benefited from a father's touch keeping it robust and a mother’s love keeping it warm, whereas this place had seen neither in quite some time. Oh, there was evidence that such was once the case; a wall was adorned with carefully made and well-spaced hangers for the various gardening tools, though the implements themselves had become a victim of neglect. That being said, he could make out the fresh soil and recent scratches exposing furrows of silver, so they were seeing use again.
A scrape and clack of flint drew his attention to his kobold companion. They were kneeling in front of the fireplace, methodically sparking life back into a dead flame with twigs and dried leaves. A slow, steady breath into the reddened base illuminated its face with a dull orange glow, revealing its weary visage and the permanently etched smile that rested beneath its cold grey eyes. The black-scaled kobold looked tired, if he were to guess—much the same as Altier did when he spent countless days watching everyone living a life he could never have through the mossy window of his bedroom. He was probably humanizing it too much. Still, he was surprised by the muted pang of sympathy, and how he would feel much more than blithe curiosity after spending so much time alone in the crumbling crypt of his own making.
A mental breath cycled through him as he looked at the odds and ends yet to be observed. Hardly anything else was of note—everything else was degraded and neglected, too. He did notice a nest of blankets move though, which was as good a distraction as any. The answer to his previous ‘pile of weeds’ inquiry poked a tiny nose from a crease in the fabric, then rapidly pawed at the blankets to dig itself out. Altier stared at the creature in both recognition and confusion.
It was a rabbit…or at least it looked like one, assuming you were to also describe a porcupine and a sea urchin as well. He was pretty sure he didn’t remember any hare that had jagged metal-tipped fur, nor that had said fur arranged into a row of spiked horns that flowed down its spine, terminating at a large fluffy tail, which was equally bizarre to see. The whole of its coat could double as a weapon, with semi-sharp barbs sticking off seemingly at random, yet he remembered an adventurer saying most animals used that sort of thing defensively. He increased his focus as he tried to make sense of the odd creature. Surely he would have heard about—
[Hoppittttttt#%%÷ — Ferro-o-orabbit-it (Ma%$le)
Abil—]
[Null]
[Er0Rrrrrrrr—]
[Und#$f—]
He bit back the pain caused by the sudden intrusion of his menu, blanking out the text and mentally retreating to hide from the source. Did he just inspect something? How? Shouldn’t his entire…‘framework,’ was it…? Yes, that was it. Shouldn’t that have been corrupted? Why could he see the creature’s information when his entire framework was damaged? That was the first ability he lost, so why is it the first to be functional? How was it functional? Was it? It did just spit garbled text at him, but it was something, and that was more than he had gotten from it in a very long time. If it was somehow working—no matter how poorly—then that left the question of why he hadn't heard of anything called a ‘ferrorabbit’ before, assuming he read that correctly.
A soft thud vibrated the tro— table, startling him out of thought. He turned his attention to the button nose wiggling erratically at him, the short, stubby muzzle leading to surprisingly expressive and curious red eyes. Dull brown fur jutted off in random tufts and patches, changing to a darker tint on its paws and the upper half of its ears, while the tips of its spikes were a muted hue of iron. It still seemed just as soft as the less pointed variety he remembered, if a touch dirty. Upright ears twitched this way and that way as its head vigorously shook, eventually settling on pointing in his direction when it calmed down enough.
It was apparent that he had its undivided attention…for all of a few seconds. His scaly companion called something out in their foreign tongue, and whatever conclusion the pointy-furred animal came to, it seemed more interested in the kobold, parting from him after nudging his core with its nose.
[Cre-e-e—]
[Errrrrrr0r: Undefiiiiiiii—]
[Acceeeeep-t-t-t??]
[Yeeee— s s / Nnnnnnn—]
He winced at the intrusion, but the contents detracted from the pain. He couldn’t remember the system ever asking him a question without his explicit intent being involved. It wanted him to…accept something? Was it the system prompting him, or the animal? What was he to accept?
[Creatuuuuu—]
[Acce-e-e-%#@ed!]
…What?
= = = = =
“Hoppit, that's not food!” Ceele admonished half-heartedly, placing a larger branch on the burgeoning flame before she got to her feet. She wasn’t actually that worried; the stone was as big as his head, and she was pretty sure he couldn't bite into it. Hopefully. “Come here, momma has a treat for you!”
The ferrorabbit playfully bumped the gemstone and jumped off the low table, landing with a soft thud that belied how heavy he was for his tiny size. He wiggled in excitement, his ears flailing and releasing a slight clack whenever the two connected. It got even louder when she grabbed her basket and put away the useful herbs, taking out a specific item that she had gathered just for him. The little bun wasted no time in scurrying over and standing tall on his hind legs to judge if the offered plant was to his liking—and it was, based on how he dug in with enthusiasm. She stifled a laugh as she contentedly watched him nibble away on the treat, ignoring the guilt that came with knowing she couldn't afford proper vegetables for him. He had a hard life too, and it tore at her to have so little to give.
She came across Hoppit a year ago, during a storm that worsened while she was travelling between towns. The day had darkened to night in spite of it still being about noon, but the weather didn't care for how bright it was supposed to be. Wind and rain became a typhoon, forcing her to seek shelter in a thankfully abandoned den of what was probably a larger animal. She was fine with waiting out the squall, since the stone roof over her head was more than she usually had back then, but the sounds of dull bangs and thuds near her hideaway was followed by cries of animals yelping in pain. Curiosity won over reason, and she left the safety of her shelter to see what was causing the disturbance. Truthfully, she was hopeful that she'd come across scraps or the like, her hunger driving her forward, and she could always turn back if it seemed dangerous. Yet when she arrived at the source of the commotion, she found herself thinking of anything but food.
Two predators had fought over a small burrow, both trying to dig out a meal and taking offence to the other doing the same. What they didn’t know was that they were assaulting the home of ferrorabbits. Specifically, the home of an angry, protective, and well-fed mother that was keeping her newborns safe from the storm when predators decided to try their luck. From the scene Ceele came across, it was certainly obvious why most people dislike trying to hunt the creatures.
Sadly, the rabbit didn't survive an attack from two predators, but she did make their victory pyrrhic; neither could do much about their hunger with their bodies full of cuts and holes, and it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to blood loss or infection. The mother's sacrifice meant that the babies had avoided the imminent threat, but they were left unattended as a consequence, and it took an opportunistic bird swooping down to shake Ceele out of her shock. Despite her subsequent hurry, she only acted in time to save one of the orphaned young. The warren was new and barely dug out, which meant that it didn’t take much effort for the kits to be found—by both her and hungry maws. All she could do was scoop the ball of fluff into her arms and run back to the cave before anything else tried to eat it.
In retrospect, it was a stupid decision for a number of factors. She barely had the resources to supply herself, and an attempt to raise offspring of any type would only make the inevitable heartbreak worse. But when she saw how quiet and scared he was… How his tiny, shaking body calmed in her arms, those terrified red eyes seeking comfort… She should have just walked away when she knew there wasn’t going to be anything to fill her stomach. She should have put the baby animal down and let nature take its course…yet the preciously furry face stole her heart far too quickly for it to grow so cold. The next day was spent backtracking to the nearest town to get him something suitable to eat, which used most of her meagre savings. Still, it was worth every coin.
Hoppit had been accompanying her ever since. He grew quickly, transitioning from something she saved that stormy night into a presence she had grown to love like a child. The little lagomorph would bounce along beside her during her travels, then ride in her arms as he rested—though the latter happened with worrying frequency as of late. She hadn’t learned much about the springy herbivores, but she knew enough to say that he wasn't as big as he should be, nor was his fur as sharp. No matter how startled he was, his spiky coat never managed to do more than stiffen slightly, which was apparently a side effect of poor diet, according to snippets of conversation she had overheard on the topic. She wanted him to be healthy, but she didn't know what he needed. Not many farmers raised ferrorabbits, and those that did were far away, so she didn’t have anyone to ask what she should be doing. Her best course of action was to give him what little she had.
Ceele was well aware of how he would be better off on his own, but he followed her whenever she tried to set him free. Hoppit just kept launching into her arms and wiggling his ears, ecstatic that he was with her again, uncaring that food was scarce and that they spent most of their days travelling. No amount of cold nights spent bundling up under the tattered blankets she managed to find ever dampened his spirits, and he was content to eat the grass or flowers whenever he felt like it, oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t getting enough nutrition. He would dig and excitedly drag back oddities that he found, and the one time he found a plant that looked particularly good for him, he insisted that it be shared with her.
A black pit still lingered in her chest when she recalled how pleased he was while he munched on the rare vegetable he discovered, then how distressed he became when she wouldn’t have any as well. He bumped and nipped at her, all but begging her to eat. His ears pinned back against his head, his fur bristled in a way she hadn’t seen since. It was only when she took a small bite and let him inspect the new teeth marks that he seemed to calm down, but perhaps she had been looking too deep into the actions of her tiny friend. All she could say for certain was that he was scared she was going hungry.
A morbid thought wondered if his first mother had refused food shortly before being attacked, and he—as small and simple as he was—had connected the two events in his mind, making him absolutely terrified that something would happen if Ceele didn’t have something too. All of that fear, and desperation overwhelmed him, just because she was happier watching him eat. She was determined to erase that issue. She would find something that needed a worker and earn enough to feed them both. One day, she would be able to smile at how big and healthy her little fluffy boy had become, but until then, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to think about how she was spending so much time growing vegetables and fruit that he couldn’t have…
Every morning was an exercise in tending to the gardens while actively shoving down images of a pleased ferrorabbit happily eating the results. That never went well; no matter how determined she was to complete her duties without a single selfish thought, most tasks were done while picturing his full belly and delighted bounces. There were a few weeks until the fastest of the crops would be ready for harvest, and Ceele would have to collect them while fighting the urge to bring back just a few for him.
She couldn’t, because she knew exactly how quickly that could escalate. It would start small—A vegetable here, a fruit there—but seeing Hoppit happy was one of the precious few good things she had in her life. Crossing the line would only become easier each time. They couldn’t risk losing their new home over greed, and she was already betraying the trust given to her by housing a wild animal, especially one known to be a pest for crops. She didn't want to know how angry it would make her benefactors if she was caught taking their vegetables for one.
No matter how tame and precious Hoppit was, and no matter how well he listened, they would only see him as the same creature that ruined harvests in droves. Thus was why she had to tell him to stay cooped up by himself while she was working or scavenging. And to her surprise, he did.
Honestly, she had made the initial request with the expectation of needing to carry him back into their home until he understood that she wasn’t leaving him forever. There wasn’t much she could do to stop the ferrorabbit from digging through the old wooden building if he wanted to get out. He wouldn’t need to damage anything either—a rotting board on the door only needed a little push to nudge it out of the way, and his natural curiosity made sure he was aware of it. But no, Hoppit was well-behaved as always, keeping hidden until she walked through the door, where he would leap from the shadows to personally show her how good he was and how he stayed put like she asked him to. It never stopped amazing her that he had such a surprising level of understanding despite being an animal, and that was to say nothing of how young he was.
All that intelligence, joy, and companionship he offered her…and yet the best she could give back to him was the weeds from the garden and the odd plant she found while scavenging…
Soft clacks of flicking ears dragged her from her pondering, her mind returning to the present. Hoppit finished his treat of the small plant, then bounced in place and scurried over to his bowl of water, perfectly happy to have eaten only that. He was so joyful with how little she provided, approaching every day of scarcity with the same enthusiasm she could never muster, as if certain that everything would be alright.
“It’s bedtime, Hoppit,” Ceele announced through a soft sigh, stoking the fire with enough branches to hopefully last the night. The ferrorabbit perked an ear in her direction, then sat on his haunches to extend the rest of himself up, his two little forepaws adorably held to his chest as he inspected the room like he always did. She smiled and made sure everything was stored away, then laid down on her bundle of blankets, covering herself with the warmest one. Hoppit bolted over to snuggle once he decided everything in the shed was up to his standards, throwing himself to the floor in a dramatic flop of comfort. Her quiet laughter subsided as they both settled in for the night, her tail completing the rabbit’s encompassing cuddle, but her eyes fell towards the obsidian orb on the table, her thoughts following suit.
It sat there, just as she left it, as benign as anything else ever placed atop the improvised furnishing. Yet there was a sense of ease and purpose as well. The old wooden trough seemed…important with its adornment firmly laid upon its surface, and she couldn’t puzzle out why. She was starting to doubt her earlier excitement.
Should she sell it? Would anyone know where it came from? Would anyone know what it was, or if it was worth anything? If she could get even a modest sum for it, she would be able to buy clothing, food, and new bedding. It would be easier to convince someone to give her work if she was dressed better and wasn’t so thin, and then she would have the income to slowly improve both of their lives. She could pay for a wandering merchant to ask a ferrorabbit rancher about the animal, even if it would take time to get back to her, or maybe she could hire a local if they needed to go near one for some reason. The cost didn’t matter to her as long as it happened.
But there was something else bothering her about the idea of selling the stone. She had travelled so far with a tug in her chest, only for the feeling of wanderlust to dissipate as soon as she held it. Was that a sign? She was never one for things like ‘fate,’ but a niggling doubt in her mind discouraged the idea of making a profit off her discovery. Even if what she could gain was so very tempting, and even if Hoppit would be happier if she did…
She tore her dampened eyes away and closed them, ignoring the burning trails running across her face. It would be another early morning, and she needed to sleep so she could take care of the garden. Decisions like this could wait. Once she had nothing else distracting her, and she had time to properly think about it, she would see how she felt about the stone.
Eventually, she dozed off with Hoppit pressed against her chest, and a longing in her heart.
Next
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A/N: Patreon and Ko-fi will be 1 chap ahead this time around, and I've set it so everything from the lowest tier up can read the newest trashfire! Anything above that is sheer show of love. Hope you enjoyed!

Hi I just came across a novel, chosen by the moon novel by izabella W. Its on pay by chapter websites, I've opened and read a few chapters but I can't seem to find any free version or chapter version anywhere. Please help. If anyone has read it I'm willing to take spoilers. Here's the advert I found below of it on Facebook.
Lycanthrope species is a disgusting race. And I, Delan Riley, am nothing more than a human scum in their eyes never expected those species would turn my world upside down. Since when the lycans managed to penetrate our town, like in the early 1900's we have a hierarchy, upper class = the lycans, middle class = mated humans, and lower class = the normal humans, who were basically considered scum. I endured their torment day after day, vowing to run away from them one day, until that day came and everything changed.
Dylan POV "Humans," I scowled at the principal's words from tannoy. "The Alpha twins will be celebrating their birthday tomorrow, as such, festivities are in order." Oh great, the Alphas twin children. Adrian and Arya are the worst lycans alive. I swear just because they are the alphas kids they literally get away with everything. If their birthday is tomorrow, then the wolves are going to be worse than ever. "All students will be present to greet them, two lines will be made, with humans on the left and the lycanthrope on the right. Any mated human will be at the front of the line for their year, you will all also be in order of your school year. That is all." Chat broke out the minute the tannoy was finished. "We haven't had a school gathering since the alpha king visited three years ago, before his sons coronation." Nick was right, the last time we all gathered like that was for the king and queens visit, when he decided to let the world know that he was to renounce his title to his only child, son Josh. "That sick bestard, he wants to make sure everyone is there so those idiot twins can find their mates." Yes I was mad, my fists connected with the table in front of me once more as I thought about how disgusting the situation was. You see the twins will be turning 17, so it's very possible someone in our school could be their mate, finding a mate is sacred to a wolf, the minute they say that one word your fate is sealed. They will turn your mind, morph you into being a lover of their kind, and then you'll give in.

That won't happen to me, I'm growing old to see the world as it once was, and I'm going to choose who I'll be with. No one will take that dream away from me.

Once dinner was finished, I just wanted to sleep. I'd had a very long tiring day, I quickly sat down on a small stool my mother kept in the storage closet and removed my shirt while my brother Freddy sat at the table to do his simple homework. It wasn't long before my mother came in with a large bowl of warm salt water and some cotton, this was going to sting I just knew it. She was here to help me with the wounds caused by wolves yesterday. She slowly began to unwrap the bandage from around my torso and slowed down drastically when it came to the final layer, I felt it peel off every wound and my fists clenched in pain. "Jesus!" I heard my mom exclaim once the dressing was completely removed. The air on my back was nice though and I sighed as my arm covered my once again exposed brests. "This is more than 15!" I began to hear sniffles coming from her and sighed turning round to look at her face, only to notice tears streaming down it. "Mom I'm fine, it's alright." She shook her head. "It's not alright, I'm your mother I shouldn't let these things happen. I'm so sorry. Your father would have..." here she goes again. Every single time something happened she'd always bring up dad, it really annoyed me because no matter how much we all wish he was here, he just isn't. My father was kiled by THEIR kind, almost 5 years ago when they actually managed to take over. When the lycans managed to penetrate our town my father rose up with some people from the neighborhood, to defend our livelihood, it was futile to say the least. We lost many people and I watched as my dad was ripped apart by two fully shifted wolves, I ended up shoting him to stop his suffering before they dragged me to the courtyard, i was the person to receive the first lashing of the town when I was 12! The wolves have been pretty strict with me since that day. "Stop being stvpid!" Was I harsh? Definitely! Did she need to hear it again, absolutely. "Dad is dead, we don't know what he'd do because he never knew this life. He never knew this world." I know what he'd have done, most likely attacked the guy who held the whip and got himself kiled in the process. "The best thing you can do for me, is stop crying and help me, next time don't insist on helping if you can't handle it." She began to wash my open wounds with the warm salt water causing loud winces to leave me, I knew it was necessary to prevent infection, but my god it hurt like a betch. "Some of these are really deep Dylan!" She sniffed again and my eyes rolled in my head. "I told you, I'm fine, just wrap me back up so I can get to bed." My mom was obviously more impacted by my injuries than I was, I suppose that always the case though. When it's happening to you, you've just got to get through it but when it's happening to someone you love, you just want to take their pain away. She quickly placed a fresh bandage around my waist and chest and wrapped it tightly for compression. The bowl of water that was used was now red in color, I guess from the blood my back was dripping with. "Can you keep your head down please? At least just this week. You can't take any more lashings." I simply nodded before standing up away from the stool, I walked over to Freddie and ruffled his hair in affection. "Good night squirt." He giggled and fixed his hair slightly. "Night Dilly." I smiled walking upstairs to my little bedroom, as soon as I was inside i shut the door and flopped down on to my bed on my stomach and I took a minute to cry to myself at the pain in my back, what my mom did was important but it hurt, not that I'd ever tell her. My hand covered my mouth quickly to muffle any noise I might be making. I couldn't tell anyone, I had to be strong because more and more people were crumpling these days, and my mom would break if she knew how much I was suffering. Sleep followed me shortly after, she was right though about me needing to keep my head down for the time being, I could not take another lashing! After a long night and an even longer morning, we were all finally stood in the hallway at school waiting for the twins to arrive. "Mine!" Everyone that was stood in the hallway tensed up, as we were seniors, me and Nick were stood towards the very back of the human line. All the mated people were situated directly opposite their wolf mates in their years. We stayed silent and still as Arya walked down the hall and stopped directly in front of Nick. His eyes widened in fear, unsure of wether to look up or keep his head lowered. "Look me in the eye, mate." He glanced at me slightly as if asking what he should do. "I said, look me in the eye." He slowly moved his eye line up to look at her face. I took a glance myself to see her eyes pitch black with lust. "I... can't... I mean... erm." Before he was able to mutter anything else, two wolves from opposite, grabbed him out of the line and dragged him behind Arya. "Hey!" My head shot up before I could stop myself. My mouth also forgot its place as I jumped out of line. Everyone's head shot to me as my eyes widened in realization at what I'd done. Adrian, the other twin, walked up to me before punching me right in the stomach, I doubled over instantly. Feeling the sting in my slightly healed back. "I know you... You were publicly flogged only two days ago." God I hate this guy. "I also have it on good authority, that you openly spoke out against our rules and regulations in yesterday's class." My head shot down the line slightly to see Erin, looking a little frightened, her mate, the beta to be was looking at her, nodding his head in reassurance. "You traitor, you grassed on your own kind?" I yelled at her before feeling a fist connect with my cheek. My head whipped to the side from the force, while my class members gasped. I'm so done with this treatment, right then, I wasn't in charge of my actions. My fists curled up and my stance became a lot more defensive. My head snapped up to the alpha to be, and I looked him in the eye. "You don't know the meaning of the word disrespect." I suddenly hurled my fist towards his head, which he easily dodged, but my foot came up and kicked him instead. He stumbled backwards from the force with wide eyes. "You... you Actually hit me!" He didn't even sound annoyed, more shocked. Everyone in the hallway was watching, waiting for the alpha to do something but instead he simply stood up straight, regaining his composure. "I think everyone should get back to class." He began to walk away, following his sister when I called him back. "What about Nick?!" "Simple, He's my sisters mate. He now belongs to her." Argh, he's not an object. "He's not her property." A chuckle left his mouth, before turning his back to me again. "All humans are property." A short while later everyone made it to science class, our teacher Mrs Mathews is mated to the lycans pack doctor, she also now has a four and two year old with him. She was one of the first humans to be cohered into a false relationship. "What were you thinking young lady?" I rolled my head at her before looking at the empty seat next to mine. Nick was with that stvpid wolf girl right now. Being changed, I'm so angry it's ridiculous. "I was thinking, this guy is being a prick. Did you hear him? 'All humans are property.' It's bull shet." I looked up and the whole class looked at me like I had three heads. Talking shet about wolves is one thing, but talking about an alpha is punishable by death, attacking an alpha is an even worse offense. There was then a knock at the door and in walked Erin and her band of mated bestards. "Sorry we're late Mrs." "Erin, how are things between you and bata Monroe?" She blushed, the traitor actually blushed at the mention of his name. "He spoke to me last night about trying for a baby. We need a good strong boy to take over as beta." I scoffed looking at her as she took her seat. "You guys are actually pathetic, why can't it be a girl? Those mutts are basically Neanderthals" I voiced my opinion and saw all the shocked faces around me. Calling the lycans mutts, is the same as them calling us scum. After lesson had ended the entire school was called into the hall for assembly. This is where any human who has been found to have broken the rules were punished, usually 10 lashings were goven out or something similar. "Welcome to the school assembly, congratulations to the alpha twins for finding both your mates. Now on to the business at hand, as the 5 year anniversary of the new world is coming up, we have been informed that the alpha king will be visiting our district next week, this is very exciting news. We want you all to look your absolute best, she wolves and mated females will wear exemplary dresses made by seamstress. Male wolves and mated men will wear tailored suits. Anyone who doesn't comply will be reprimanded." The Alpha King?! No one has met him yet, he took over the throne three years ago when he turned 18. He really didn't make any appearances though, great, this month is going to be a nightmare. "As for the humans, you will be given a new uniform to wear for the visit, these are to be neatly ironed and worn to the highest standard. As for the following humans, based on your attitude this past week, you will be coming to the front and facing punishment. Tony summerset?!" Tony's head shot up as he looked around, he was in the year below but he shared my views when it came to the lycans. He slowly walked up to the front of assembly, almost instantly his top was t0rn in two and he received 10 lashings. A girl named Kara was next and she too received 10 lashings. A few more people went up slowly accepting their fate then suddenly my name was called. "Dylan Riley." Inside I was terrified but I simply shrugged my shoulders, I guess I did kind of expect this. Although I'm not sure if my back can take any more damage. "You attacked an alpha, correct!" His eyes bored into mine as I bowed my head submitting to his authority. "Technically, no." Everyone in the school gym looked on in fear, as my head moved to the front row of the wolf side. Adrian sat, with a werewolf girl in the year below, her name was Jana, I guess he found his mate. Nick and Arya were no where to be seen though. Adrian gave me a shrug as if to say he didn't tell, before smirking at my comment. "He hasn't officially taken the alpha title yet, so he's just..." i looked at the principle and noticed his eyes black and his claws out, he was in what lycans call a half shift, triggered when the subject has become angered. He turned to two security wolves and gave them a nod, Almost immediately i was forced onto my knees, my arm was slammed on a table and held in place by one wolf, while my body was held in place by the other. "Ok, I don't think this is needed, I have alpha blood, a stvpid human girl can't hurt me." My head snapped to Adrian who had stood up in front of the school to stop what was happening. "Nevertheless, humans need to know their place." With that the pressure on my arm increased as our principals hand pulled my sleeve up before a long claw punctured my skin. The searing pain shoting from the fresh wound had my eyes scrunched and my fist clenched, I bit the inside of my cheek hard instantly tasting blood, however no sound left my mouth. He continued to write, using my skin as a canvas and his claws as a marker, it went on forever, my vision blurred slightly at one point as I turned my head away. After minutes of torture, he was done and the pressure on my arm eased, instantly I snatched my arm away, hissing through my teeth at the pain. I was about to scurry off stage, when I was roughly grabbed yet again, my arm being held in the air by the principal while my feet were inches off the floor, blood dripped from the wound and the pattern he had made was on show for everyone to see. Loads of people gasped, even the wolves looked slightly horrified at what had happened. "This is what happens when a human decides to speak out. I can promise, anyone who so much as says one word about our way of life, will have the same punishment." My arm was starting to seriously ache from being held in the air for so long, and the lack of blood flow to my suspended arm was causing me pins and needles, still I refused to make a sound. I held the tears back and I bit my cheek harder causing more blood to fill my mouth. "That's enough Bradley!" Adrian growled, he was still stood up and looking at the scene in front of him. His eyes hard as he stared at the principal a low warning growl erupted from his chest which had the head teacher gulping, he quickly let go of my arm causing me to crash to the floor. A small cry left my mouth as I hit the hard floor. Immediately I scrambled away, my foot just missed the high step leading to the stage and I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, but it never came. Two strong arms wrapped around me catching my weak body causing me to look up, my eyes widened as I noticed Adrian had caught my falling form. "This isn't part of the human punishment program!" Adrian growled causing me to tense in his grip, I pushed him away from me before fixing my uniform top. The room was deadly silent, taking in the scene in front of them, while I stole a glance at my forearm. Carved into my skin by his devastating claws were two words, words that would most definitely scar my body for life. 'Human scum' "Lessons must be learned, she received lashing merely two days ago, and clearly it had no effect on her." Another growl left Adrian's chest as he stepped on to the stage, I wasn't bothered though, you would think I'd be ashamed but I simply smiled slightly. I fixed my sleeve a little so it wouldn't rub on the fresh wound before speaking. "It doesn't matter," the whole room looked at me shocked by my attitude. "I would rather be labeled human scum, than have any resemblance to your kind. I'm proud of what I am, how many of you can say that?" After my amazing little speech, I walked right down the middle between the humans and lycans and out the door. No more compliance, I'm going to get away with as much as I can without getting into too much bother. There will come a day when the lycans power will fizzle out. When it does I'll be ready, I'll be waiting for the day we take our world back. As for the best part about my plan...

No one can stop me.

"Ouch, not so hard." I seethed as the school nurse cleaned my new wound with antiseptic. "If you had of just kept your mouth shut, this wouldn't have happened." I turned to my right looking out the window at the few clouds that were floating in the blue sky. "Like I said, I'm proud to be human, and now everyone knows what I am." I clenched my fist together as the nurse began wrapping a bandage around my forearm. It had been a good few hours since the incident in the hall, and I had been forced to come to the nurces office after I had tried to clean my wound by splashing it with water from the tap, it also refused to stop bleeding. "You are impossible. Can you please just try and stay out of trouble? For one day, that's all I ask." Our school nurse is a wolf, she's one of them. However she hates the way they treat us mere humans, she thinks we should all just live in peace with equal rights. Like that would ever happen. "All I've done is stay out of trouble, but you are just going to humiliate me anyway, so what's the actual point?" "The pack were discussing a public execution, Dylan. You need to walk on egg shells from now on, not just for you but for your family as well." No ones been publicly executed in over 4 months, I'm flattered they're considering it. They only execute people who they believe are the biggest problems to society. "Well then... I'm flattered." I chuckled, before looking at the patch job. 'Huh, not too shabby.' I quickly stood up from the human nursing station and pulled the sleeve of my shirt down covering the evidence of ever being hurt. "This is serious!" I just gave her a blank look before leaving the room. On the way out I heard her call back to me. "Please just think about it." I gave a clipped nod as I walked away wondering how I'm going to tell my mom about this. Later in the evening... "Dilly why you say that?" Freddie looked up at me with a mouth full of bread. "Don't speak with your mouthful!" My mom scolded him as a bashful blush made its way to his cheeks. "Sowwy mommy." His reply was muffled as he swallowed the last chunk of food. "I said it Freddie, because it's the truth. The wolf race are a pathetic excuse for..." my mom cut me off with an extremely stern look. "Dylan! They have ears everywhere, one more word out of you and it's your room." I scowled, my hatred for the Lycan kind growing stronger as each day passes. "What more can they do to me, lash me? Beat me? Brand me? They've ran out of options." I stated slamming my hands down, then severely regretting it as sharp pain shot though my wound. "What was that?" My head shot to regard my mothers worried expression. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were dull and judging as she looked at me. "Nothing, it was nothing." I quickly took my plate in my hand and began to walk to the kitchen. "I'm not really hungry, and I have homework to do!" My mom caught hold of my forearm causing me to drop my plate suddenly, I watched it slowly fall before shattering on the floor. I retracted my arm quickly and turned to Freddie. "Stay there and don't move until it's cleaned up ok sport?" He just nodded with wide eyes, I turned back to my mom and noticed her curious stare on my arm. Her grip shifted to the other side as she turned it around before pulling my sleeve up. The bandage was showing and a bit of blood was seeping though after the wound had been disturbed. "What the hel happened?" My moms eyes widened as she began to fumble with the bandage. Before she could unravel any of it I snatched my arm away. "I had an accident at school. No big." I began to gather the large pieces of the broken plate up ready to put them in the bin. "What did you do Dylan?" She looked at me with pure worry and only then did I realize what the wound must look like to someone who didn't know. "For gods sake! I didn't do it to myself! I got publicly punished at the assembly alright? It's no big deal." Her face dropped instantly and she stepped towards me, causing me to step backwards. "Mom, I'm ok. So back off will you." "What did you do? I've never known them to cut someone's arm as a punishment." Her shock and accusation was evident in her voice and I sighed heavily. "I spoke against the alphas son." I may have hit him too, but I wasn't going to divulge that part to her. "It's not one big cut, mom, it's a brand, 'human scum' carved onto my arm." "They've branded you now too?!" My eyes rolled at her hurt tone as I went to get the dustpan and brush. "You're so much like your father." A sigh left her mouth as she spoke, running a hand through her hair, while I quickly swept up the little pieces of the broken plate. "You've had a new uniform delivered. It's laid out on your bed. Dylan, Please just try and stay respectful in the future, I don't want my daughter to be completely mutilated. Although you're not far off." "Gee, Thanks." I then walked over to my little brother Freddy before blowing a kiss into his neck and hearing him giggle. "So sport, how's school going?" "It's ok." He shrugged before going back to coloring a dinosaur picture in. "Well that's good, stay out of trouble, ok little man?" Heading upstairs and into my room, my thoughts wandered to the permanent graffiti scar very slowly healing on my arm. Disgusting beasts. Think they own the world because they're faster, stronger and can shift. Pah. If you ask me they are not all that.

The second I walked into my room my mouth dropped open. On my bed was some grey pants laid out neatly, which wasn't the surprising part, no, what shocked me was the grey high neck no sleeved button down shirt, every single set of uniform had sleeves except this one. They've done this on purpose those, mutts. They want the world to see my arm and know what a disgusting creature I am. They want the world to know that I, Dylan Riley, am nothing more than 'human scum'.

During the last week, I've been horrible, in class I've been loud in voicing my views, I've insulted at least everyone to some degree, I didn't care about the consequences, and I certainly didn't think about them. I haven't seen Nick at all since he was claimed, and to make matters worse today was the royal visit. Oh yes, werewolves and mated humans alike were spending every waking minute preparing themselves to meet his royal majesty, king of the wolves. Unclaimed Humans however would rather stick pins in their eyes. "Dylan, get down now... you're going to be late." She was right, I was dawdling this morning, I really couldn't be bothered today, I gave myself one last look in the small mirror and sighed when my eyes met my newly uncovered brand. It had bad bruising around the letters, and was still extremely tender to touch, it was definitely healing now though. I made my way down the stairs and came face to face with my mother who was seeing to Freddie, she was helping my brother get his coat on when she turned to me. "You ready sport?" Freddie nodded his little head at me and smiled while I quickly slid my shoes on. "Just Remember, the alpha is bad enough, Dylan, please, please don't do anything to anger the king." My mother stopped us from walking out the door to tell me something she had been telling me continuously for the last couple of days, it was almost as if the entire human population of our district was expecting me to do something stvpid. "Try and have a good day." I rolled my eyes but nodded, even I know not to push the king, he could kil me in the hallway like it was nothing. In fact I plan on staying out of his way for the entirety of the day. "We will see you tonight mom." I stated before me and my brother began our walk to school, his little hand clutched my own tightly as we went. Usually Nick would be with us, as he lives next door, well he used to, now he's residing in the main pack house. I quickly dropped Freddie off at his school and watched him get the wolfsbane neutralizer before walking into him building giving me a small wave before he went in. With my new scar on complete show, and my figure being complimented by the skin tight shirt I was wearing, I sauntered down the street to school, I gave my name and year in and took the wolf's bane neutralizer injection with no problems at all. It was finally getting into school that the problem occurred. Walking through the halls I was met by many looks, some of pity some of disgust. You see every single non mated human in the school was wearing a long sleeved version of the uniform I was given. All the Wolves and mated couples were scattered around in fancy floor length dresses or tailored suits. As I turned the corner I noticed a couple, now this couple happened to catch my eye the most out of all of them because it consisted of Arya and Nick, eating each other's faces off. "What the hel!" Nicks head shot to me as his eyes widened. He too was dressed in a tailored suit, a navy blue tie hung on his neck to match Aryas dress. Why was this happening all the time? It's always my friends that get completely brain washed. I shook my head in disbelief before turning my back on him. I heard his fast footsteps behind me as I rounded the corner. "Dylan?!" He ran right in front of me, stopping me in my tracks, making me drop my bag off my shoulder and almost causing me to bump into him. "Let me just explain..." "Has she marked you?" I mean you could almost see it in his eyes, she had marked him, and knowing the way life goes he's probably even mated with her. "Actually... Don't even answer that." I aggressively picked my bag up off of the floor and stormed off down the hall. "Dylan, just listen to me, Erin was right, it's so hard to resist your soulmate, and Arya is actually ok once you get to know her." I just kept walking, he caught up to me walking beside me but it didn't matter, I completely ignored everything and everyone. 'I'm so not in the mood today' getting into class was good though, I said hello to Mr Foley and took my usual seat. Nick sighed then took his bag off ready to sit next to me, but I snapped before he had the chance. "Traitors and mated idiots sit on that side of the room." I didn't look him in the eye as I pointed to a seat right at the front of the classroom on the opposite side. His eyes widened as he turned his attention back to me. "You can't be serious Dylan." I gave him a blank look before grabbing my book out of my backpack, I placed it on the desk then began to write the date on the top line. "I've sat in this seat for as long as I can remember." I ignored him, his voice sounded sad and shocked. "Dylan? Wait! What is that?!" Before I could react Nick had grabbed hold of my branded arm and turned it to see the letters. "Oh my God! What happened?" I snatched my arm away from him and shrugged as I continued to write in my book before grabbing my water bottle out of my bag. "The principal happened, it was my punishment for speaking out against Adrian and Arya. I wear it with pride." He just held a complete look of disbelief. "You spoke out against them?" I shrugged, what did he think I'd do. "It's no secret that I despise this stvpid new world and the mutts that control it. You were my friend, I wasn't going to let them just take you without saying something, although that is exactly what you seem to have done. Enjoy the view from your new seat!" "Don't be like that, Dylan, I'm your best friend, I'm sorry about your arm, but..." my eyes rolled inside my head at my friends words. "Anything with the word 'but' in, isn't an apology, it's a rationalization." I took a drink of water from my bottle and kept my eyes facing forward, ignoring his every attempt to try and talk to me. "Dylan?.. Dylan?... Do you know what? Erin is right, if you push us all away you won't have any friends left." He huffed before walking over to the empty seat and sitting down, I could feel him glancing up at me every now and again but I didn't respond. "Good morning class, please settle down." He looked at me then at Nick and frowned, we've never sat apart, we were friends before the new world even began. I just shook my head telling him to forget it. "So... as you know the king will be arriving in a short while, but until then lessons will go on as normal." Its funny seeing teachers in the same uniform your wearing, mr Foley and his wife are the coolest. Human teachers and doctors only have slightly more respect than we do. Because of Mr Foley's status him and his wife have better access to food and drink, Mrs Foley is cool, sometimes she even makes sure mr Foley brings some in for me. Ya know, coz I'm their favorite student. It's not in a weird way, it's just they were friends of the family before the new wold took effect. Mr Foley and my dad were buddies from high school, so it goes without sayin really. "All the mated humans will be at the front of each years line again, after that you will all be placed in status, Nick, as your mated to Alpha Arya, you'll be at the front of your line. Dylan as you have been branded..." his voice trailed off as he looked at me. "Yeah yeah, I'll be at the back of the line behind everyone. I get it." I huffed, moving my sight towards the window once more. "I am sorry." I turned to face Mr Foley again, he looked genuinely upset and that look of pity wasn't something I wanted to see. I gave him a clipped nod then turned away again. "Anyway, on to the subject matter, 'Of Mice and Men, page 64, Nick why don't you start us off with the reading."

"Of course sir." Nick began reading the book but I switched off, today is going to be a long day. After almost an hour and a half of reading comprehension, the bell chimed signaling lunch. I shot up and out of the classroom before anyone could say anything. Today, I was avoiding drama like the plague.

I wandered the corridors straight to the lunch hall. All the people I would normally hang out with we're all mated so I grabbed my lunch quickly, and sat down at the end of the human table. Let me lay the lunch hall out for you. On one side of the room you have two long rows of tables, with simple benches that make it look like prison, on the other side of the room you have multiple round tables with fancy chairs. Yup you get it. The humans sit at the prison tables and the wolves and traitors sit on the fancy tables, they get fancy food, fancy drink and most importantly they get pudding. what I would give to have some pudding. "Dylan can we just talk?" Nick quickly took the spot next to me as he set his lunch tray down. I looked at his food which had been placed on a ceramic, circular white plate. God that looked good. I sighed knowing he was going to talk anyway. "Fine, you have two minutes." I used my fork to take a bit of pasta off his plate and shoved it into my mouth. God that was good. "After I left school, I was taken to the pack house with Arya, and I really got to know her. It took a few days for me to finally accept being with her, but ever since life has been ok, and the sax... well that's a whole other story." Eww, I didn't need that mental image in my head. "I'm glad your happy." I stated before deciding I had no appetite. His face held shock before he sighed in relief. "That means a lot Dylan, I mean you know that your opinion matters to me." I cut him off before he could say anything else. "I said I was glad your happy. I didn't say I approved of what you've done. You've basically turned into one of THEM, I can't ever forgive you for that." He looked hurt, but I couldn't care less about his feelings. He placed his hand gently on my arm and went to open his mouth when a growl sounded out. All heads whipped to where it came from, Arya was stood holding a glass of soda and a plate, she was looking right at me and Nick and I would totally be dead if looks could kil. Nick quickly retracted his hand, his whole face fell and you could see sorrow flood his irises. "You sit with me now, get away from that, that... scum!" Wow, Nick was such a lucky guy. NOT. "You heard her. Get away from me, go sit with your new friends. I'm happy for you, and I understand where your coming from, but don't come up to me again and pretend you didn't betray your own kind. Don't pretend you didn't betray me." I shoved a little bit of food into my mouth before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria, leaving my tray on the table. I was walking through the hallway to the classroom, you see I decided to spend lunch with Mr Foley in his room, when I happened to hear voices in the corridor. "Is it wise for her to actually be present when the king arrives? Surely she could be placed in the dungeons, it might actually teach her some respect?" My principal was speaking to the alpha of our district, huh, if I stayed and listened do you think they'd notice, maybe they could smell me?! "Everyone is to be present, if the Riley girl does one thing out of line she will be dealt with severely, child or not. That girl has been a blight to the district since day one, she's dangerous, if she puts one hair out of place I will personally break her into submission." Oh shet, they were talking about me specifically, and they mentioned the dungeon, that's not been used in months. Normally I would have listened in more but something about the entire situation didn't sit right with me, all of a sudden, I was on edge, and simply wasn't interested in the slightest in hearing how my misery was to be enhanced. I backed up slightly before turning around and bumping head first into one of the hottest man I had ever seen. I lost my balance immediately and fell straight on to the floor letting out a small grumble in the process. His eyebrows knitted together quickly and his breath hitched in his throat as he looked upon my fallen state and gasped. "Mate!" He whispered, his eyes fixated on mine. Now, I had seen and heard that many times to know what that means, I gasped before taking a step back. 'No, no, no, no, no. This can not be happening.' He growled slightly before stepping towards me. Oh Shet!

Here's my situation:
Recently I visited with an aunt who was neglectful of her two grandsons of 2 and 5 years old. In addition to this, she was also very hostile and impatient towards my 85 year old grandmother. These behaviors led me to shift into "surveillance mode".
Regarding the neglect of the boys, she would:
1.) Allow them to trip and fall without ever tending to them, no matter how bad the fall.
2.) Not give them water or fluids/food on a consistent basis.
3.) Leave them confined in "crib cages" that were bungee corded shut with blankets thrown over them for significant proportions of each day, despite begging to be let out. She would do the same with high chairs, leaving them there often in excess of 60 minutes.
4.) Ignore them whilst in said cages despite them clearly being ill with a respiratory infection that featured a nasty croup cough, leaving them with no water.
5.) Fail to tend to them for said respiratory illness at any point in any way throughout the day, including a failure to have them seen by a physician.
6.) Would respond with harsh unkindness to their pleas for attention.
She has near total control of the children, despite my cousin and the father of the children also living there.. I got the sense that this is something about which they are unhappy, but powerless to change. They would consistently want their children with them, yet she would quietly go about getting them back out to the living room where she would just ignore them.
I got the feeling that she is coercing my cousin and her boyfriend into submission in some way for some reason, when I was defending my grandmother and my cousin came and rallied with me on such in agreement, that she should be treated better.. my aunts response to her about this in a moment she thought I wasn't paying attention, was a nasty scowl and neck chop gesture that I believe meant "knock it off, or else", of which clearly intimidated my cousin and silenced her immediately followed by a quick retreat to her room. Her boyfriend also tended to display signs of similarly fearful or anxious submission.
Fast forward to my last night there.....:
1.)The children are locked in the cages, and she's finishing up showering or whatever in the bathroom.
2.)She comes out in a robe and sits across from me on her bed, and begins to part her robe and expose her undergarments whilst groping her inner thighs and clearly enjoying it, during which she attempted to make eye contact.
3.)After about 30 seconds of me paying "zero attention" to what she was doing and looking about the room, she huffed, closed her robe and stood up, and began displaying obvious indifference towards me.
4.)Approximately 5 minutes after standing up and acting clearly "moody", she approached the cage in which the 5 year old was residing. She crouched down to his level and out of sight and began repeating "Come over here my little boys name, grandmas not gonna love you until you come right here". He seemed to hesitate to do so, because she said it numerous times before stopping.
5.)Almost immediately after she stopped repeating those words, he began to giggle and laugh intensely for a period of roughly 30 seconds, followed by a single "suction pop" like sound, after which the giggling laughter ceases.
6.)She stands up and pivots away from the cage with a huge grin on her face whilst still looking towards the cage, and proceeds to lick her lips and wipe her mouth.
I tried to tell myself it couldn't have been what I thought it was and tried to suppress the extreme uneasiness welling up inside me, convincing myself she was just tickling him innocently like a grandma... Until she was sitting down moments later on the couch and he started coughing badly, gasping for air, managing to utter once before falling silent "Grandma, please let me out!", to which her response was cold hearted "Nope, uh uh!"
Long story short, I damn near lost it and left the house for a 'walk' which was actually me calling the police and trying to report her for neglect, police did nothing, I went to my oldest cousin who I thought was a mature adult and tried to convince her to plant nanny cams in her home near those cribs because I believe 100% she's sexually abusing at least the older boy, to which her response was to flip shit and tell the whole family, whom now despise me for having the "gull" to "fabricate" such a story which has made me in turn despise them for calling me a liar.
I've been plotting ways to try and see what the fuck is really going on... It's been on my mind every fucking day since...
Am I overreacting...?

Hi there! First post on reddit so please forgive me if i'm not using any fancy text.
I've been DM'ing now on and off for around near 5 years, originally I ran for 2 separate friend groups with Vastly different likes and dislikes. I had to stop one groups campaign due to work schedules and as the such (gotta love adult life ;-;)
So recently my current group consists of close friends so it is quite easy to get things across but it can also be very easy to lose control of the table if we start having jokes and a good laugh.
the above is not the issues I'm having as the DM however the stuff above i'm fine with as long as we are hanging out and having a good time. My issues span from multiple small issues which I will list below Beginning with myself as I know I make plenty of mistakes as I DM but I'm looking for advice to make sure i'm not going crazy and being a C**T with some of my table rules i've implemented
My Issues I need to work on: Note Taking - I lose track of my notes (this has been getting better moved to an app called obsidian which I have stuck with and this seems to be working wonders for me) but still needs work.
World lore - Kinda a addition to the note taking issue I have, I like to chop change some things but I still want it to make canonical sense to the worlds timeline which can be a little messy at times.
Pacing - Oh god I'm awful for pacing sometimes I'm too fast or i'm far too slow my players spend an entire 7 hour session on 1 street corner being my worst example.
Sometimes Retconning Small things - I Don't know if I think its okay to do this, I've only had to do it twice in total I Hate retconning stuff as I feel like if maybe a player that doesn't shine to often finally gets out their shell i'm worried if I retcon something It can really take away from that players motivation.
So above are my issues for sakes of time I'm going to copy paste a recent paragraph I sent to my players parts like player names will be edited of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So shappening dudes and dudets, DnD is going to be on the back burner for me for a Little bit cause personally feeling burnt out for a couple reasons that I'll get to in a little bit. So first things first the main thing I'm going to an induction day so I'm hoping I get this job (I got the Job whoop whoop) and DnD will be moved to every 2nd Saturday if thats gonna be a issue we can discuss that down the line. Now couple of mini Issues I want to get off my chest. So the Number 3 joke died ages ago for me and its just annoying so stopping that would be nice thank you, anyone that says it going forward you'll just take 3 damage. Unfortunately the interrupting and pacing is horrendous I'm gonna do my best to keep my focus on the game and I ask so do you. For the time being kinda a add on to the previous my max player count I can do is 6 no more, "Player Name" please let "His Partner" know I do not mind if she watches but I can't have her play not until I feel like the pacing is better and no ones shouting over each other. The Cards, They are fun but i'm gonna rejig them to be less annoying and alot less OP, (I'm removing that bag of holding card) personal thing - If I ask something to do with in the game could you please just acknowledge you have seen it, cause I've typed in plane text plenty of times before and it just doesn't get listened to it starts with one person then everyone else follows if you get me and it can make some little instructions that make things easier for me alot harder. As the DM I want a bit more control So one of the major ones that I ask is NO ONE calls "Roll a persuasion to persuade me" or anything along that lines, it is unnecessary and tbh I find it a bit rude. NO Rape or Rolling Cock size. (its just weird and its disgusting you'd think of it tbh)
There are a few more other things that personally bother me but those are the main ones, the minor ones just consist of 1. Don't Make up your own lore of my own creation and then treat it as cannon, I didn't ask and I don't care.

1. Don't ask for any more custom items, if I give you something be happy and let it be a surprise. 3."did we level up?" i know its a joke but tone it down before it gets worse.
2. If you create a backstory please give me the footnotes of the main points that I can work with, don't give me a lore book about how garfunkle the black white man slain a beast. I won't read it. (Edit - I don't mind if they give me a book to read I do like lore I just mean here that I'd prefer notes of the main points in their characters story)
3. I would prefer Game things are sent on discord concerning characters thats a personal thing, I created the discord for me to be organised and have it all in one place so if you please could just send me stuff on that even if its a dnd beyond link I would like it all in one place. I get this is gonna be alot to read but I hope I get my point across. I am the dungeon master and I want to create a game for you guys to enjoy but I have neglected my own joy for the game and have been more lazy with it because of this. I have alot of stuff to fix from last session especially and I'm gonna try to be more focused on the game and create a better experience and all I ask is please listen, pay attention and any question on the world so you can clarify things you may ask me, if there is any issues during the session call for a break if its that major so we may discuss at the table and if its a small issue we discuss it after the session. I may rule things wrong but i'll attempt to rule it in a way that makes sense and then I shall research and let you know afterwards, I'd rather not search rules in the middle of the game and taking half a hour per turn. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So context for some things the number 3 joke is from shrek "NUMBER 3 MY LORD" and I use magic the gathering cards for little 1 session boons they are a hell of a lot of fun and I'll post under this if anyone else play's DnD and MTG (I'd recommend using the Dungeons and dragons sets for Magic if you wish to try this out)
Revitalize x2 - Add a Medium Potion to Inventory
​
Treasure x3 - Add 100 Gold
​
Choose Your Weapon - Choose one for the Remainder of the Session
Archery - +2 to Range attacks
or
Two Weapon Fighting - +2 to Melee Attacks
​
Curse of Surveillance - You Grow an eyeball onto the palm of your hand, something or someone is watching you (The DM determines who) This curse is passed on
when someone else draws the card or removed with the "Remove curse Spell"
​
Improvised weaponry - You feel compelled to use the first random object as your weapon for the session.
​
Triumphant Adventurer - Roll a D20,
Even Numbers add 3 Platinum to your Inventory.
Odd Numbers Summons a Gold Plated Cocky knight to gloat how rich he is for 1 minute.
​
Hunters Mark - You Gain the Ability Hunters Mark for the Session it does not Require Concentration.
​
Contact Other Plane - You ask anything from the DM roll a d100 to discover the outcome.
​
Hoard Robber - The best robber in all the land has found you and took every bit of coin you have leaving a single fake gold piece.
​
Dawnbringer Cleric - You can Choose One to use throughout the session
Cure Wounds
Dispel Magic
Gentle Repose
​
Priest of Ancient lore - A old Dwarf appears in front of you radiating a holy light asking "Would you like to know the lore of this land?"
​
Boots of Speed - You Gain Extra 15ft Speed for the Session.
​
Silver Raven - A Unknown Vampires Raven Follows you.
​
Check for Traps - You becoming Increasingly paranoid of traps for the session the DM at Random will ask you to check for traps at your feet.
​
Blessed Defiance - You Summon A white Spirit, it says nothing, it is friendly to only you, it will follow and defend you for this session.
​
Chaos Channeler - A wild magic sorcerer Explodes from the multiverse, he looks excited as he transports himself again creating a Minor wild magic effect.

So this is a pretty large post But I am looking for advice on maybe rules I should consider going forward, how to keep proper control of a party of 6 and just anything I should improve as a DM and anything I can further communicate to my players at the table.

My girlfriend and I are in a long distance relationship for the next couple of years in which we meet for 1-2 months a year. Last time we met which was about 4 months ago, I find texts of her flirting with another guy on who she would also meet in group settings. She’s given me a lot of reassurance that nothing physical happened and she never met the guy alone but idk. She met this guy and had all this going during her 1 month trip to me( idk how she was able to do that if she “ loves” me because it’s literally 2 months out of an year she sees me) and to top that off, she’s also been talking to an ex-fling who is a “good” friend of hers but her conversation sounds like she’s been having an emotional affair. She also deleted chats w the ex on Instagram. I found both of these things out by myself. When I talked about this w her she blamed her mental health and that she didn’t realise it was wrong at the time.
After this happened, I tried breaking up multiple time but I’d grow weak because this did blow me away or she would say something. She has tried a lot to make it right over the last couple of months. However I just can’t take relationship seriously anymore, I don’t feel as in love with her anymore and my feelings towards her are very on off where I’ll treat her very good one day but be distant the next. I do still have feelings for her but I’m scared I’ll cheat on her if I stay. The problem is whenever I try and break up it ultimately comes down to her threatening to hurt her self if I leave.
I’d appreciate if y’all can advise me on how to move forward w this?

I was meant to go to an event today with a friend I haven’t seen in ages. Our last few plans had been cancelled due to them double-booking plans with other people and even though I was upset, I brushed it off, and they apologised and said that they didn’t want to piss off the other person they had plans with. I took a step back and decided to let them put the effort in to our friendship.
They called me this week and asked me if I wanted to go to this daytime event/festival today. I said yes, I was really excited tbh. They can’t stay out past late afternoon because they’re working early tmrw and also they were going for a few drinks the night before, but nothing big and even suggested we meet in the morning. I texted last night to confirm and still good, but pushed back meeting by an hour. I woke up to texts from late last night/this morning saying they basically felt rough and asking to push back again a couple of hours and meet mid afternoon.
I just feel like cancelling because I honestly feel pissed - the best bits of the event will be over by then, they’re going to be hungover, we won’t have as much time before they have to go, and if they’re tired/hungover they’ll likely leave earlier anyway and it’s annoying me because I know they absolutely 100% are not expecting me to be annoyed or cancel. I get that it’s easy to lose track of time when you’re having fun, and 9 times out of 10, I wouldn’t mind. A huge part of it is that they know I never get mad, and it hurts that they made decisions knowing it would impact the time/ability they had to be present when they’ve been so busy that I haven’t seen them in months, whereas the people they were out with last night are people they see regularly. They also know that I’ve been going through a really hard time, and this meant a lot to me, and there’s just a lot more history there that’s making this more hurtful.
What makes it worse is that some new friends (who have been so so lovely) invited me to the same event literally a few hours after I’d been asked, and I didn’t want to turn them down and they kind of know my friend through a mutual friend (met a few times on nights out) so I asked if they could come along/we all meet up, or I could join after they left, and they just haven’t responded at all and I’m a bit confused and not sure if I overstepped. I also didn’t want to just say no because I knew there was a good chance my friend would flake, and they seemed like healthier friends than my old friend group tbh so I wanted to put effort in buuuut I kind of feel like I fucked that up lol.
I’ve just been noticing it more and more since going through a really rough patch in my life and ig reaching my limit on being an afterthought - I’m constantly the one that people let down when given the choice between me and someone else, and I feel like it’s something I’ve created in my relationships by always choosing to let it go, or not wanting people to feel like they have to worry about me getting mad. Now I don’t really know how to change it, or whether the friendships I’ve formed will survive that.
I don’t know whether me cancelling is just punishing myself/an overreaction, or setting a boundary. I don’t want to disrespect myself by brushing off my feelings and still going to this thing with them just because I don’t want to go alone/want to catch up with them. I also genuinely know that they do love me a lot (we’ve known each other a long time), these things happen, and it’s maybe just not that deep, or I just need to think about it from a different perspective. I’ve not replied to their messages and we’re supposed to meet in a couple of hours. I just feel really lost.
Has anyone else experienced similar things, or maybe have any suggestions/advice, please? Ty in advance! xx
tl:dr; friend changed up plans last minute due to going out the night before, want to cancel bc I’m hurt and feel like they see me as a pushovewouldn’t do this to other friends, but don’t want to act out of emotions/go about this the wrong way.

Switching to Instagram's dark theme mode has a ton of perks and is super easy to do. Whether you're into the sleek look or just want to save your eyes and battery life, dark mode on Instagram is a simple way to boost your overall experience. Here’s why you should make the switch and how to set it up:

Benefits of Using Dark Theme Mode on Instagram

Eye Health and Comfort Using Instagram in dark mode can significantly reduce eye strain. Studies show that dark mode reduces blue light exposure by up to 60%, which can lead to better sleep and less discomfort from prolonged screen time. Users browsing in low-light conditions report feeling less eye fatigue compared to the standard light mode.
Aesthetic Appeal Dark mode offers a sleek, modern look that many users find visually appealing. The increased contrast between the black background and the images and videos makes your content pop, providing a more immersive viewing experience.
Battery Life Savings For devices with AMOLED screens, dark mode can save significant battery life. Black pixels on these screens use up to 20% less power than white pixels, meaning enabling dark mode can extend your phone's battery life, making it a practical choice for heavy Instagram users.
Enhanced Readability The increased contrast between text and background in dark mode improves readability. This makes reading captions, comments, and messages more comfortable, especially in dim lighting. Reduced screen glare also contributes to a more enjoyable browsing experience.

How to Enable Instagram Dark Theme Mode

For iOS Users:

1. System Requirements: Ensure your iPhone is running iOS 13 or later.
2. Step-by-Step Guide:
   • Open the Settings app.
   • Go to "Display & Brightness."
   • Select "Dark" to activate dark mode.
3. Automatic Adjustments: Toggle "Automatic" to switch between dark and light mode based on the time of day.
4. Instagram Activation: Open Instagram, which will now follow your system settings and display in dark mode.

For Android Users:

1. App Settings Method:
   • Open Instagram and go to your profile.
   • Tap the menu icon (three lines) and select "Settings."
   • Tap "Theme" and select "Dark" to enable dark mode.
2. System Settings Method:
   • Open the Settings app on your Android phone.
   • Navigate to "Display" and activate the "Dark Theme" toggle.
3. Automatic Adjustments: Some devices allow automatic switching to dark mode after sunset or when battery saver mode is activated.

Additional Tips and Troubleshooting

Browser-Specific Instructions: If accessing Instagram via a web browser like Safari, you can enable dark mode through browser settings.
Updates and Maintenance: Ensure the Instagram app is updated to the latest version for optimal performance and new features.
Compatibility and Troubleshooting:

• Supported Devices and Operating Systems:
  • iOS Devices: Requires iOS 13 or later. Dark mode must be enabled at the system level as Instagram follows the device’s settings.
  • Android Devices: Compatible with Android 10 and newer versions. Users can enable dark mode within the Instagram app or through the system settings.
• Common Issues and Solutions:
  • Dark Mode Not Activating: Ensure your Instagram app is updated to the latest version. Restart the app or device if changes don’t take effect.
  • Inconsistent Dark Mode Behavior: Check system-wide dark mode settings and ensure they are configured correctly. Reinstall Instagram if persistent issues occur.

Happy browsing in dark mode! If you have any questions, feel free to drop them here.

My girlfriend (20f) and I (21m) have been together for a year and a half. Over the last month, I've noticed her becoming distant. She texts less, and everything is colder and shorter. She doesn't say nice things as often, and when we hang out, she's kind of 'off.' She studies medicine and has a lot of anxiety about exams. When I confronted her about this, she was in finals and told me she wasn’t sure how she felt about me, that lately she hasn’t felt the same as she did at the beginning. But she thought it was probably all the stress from the exams.
She finished her exams the other day, but everything remained the same. Yesterday, we hung out and while we were talking and sharing some anecdotes, I talked about our first date. I had just finished changing the strings on my guitar, and I sang her a song under the stars. It was beautiful. At that exact moment, she started to cry, saying she didn’t want to feel this way, that she didn’t understand why she felt this way, and that she thought it was the exams. She told me "I love you" several times, and it sounded real.
We both ended up crying because we knew what was coming next. I had been expecting it for the last month and a half. But nothing prepares you. Yesterday was the worst day of my life. It's like something was ripped out of my chest, and now I have a void that I can't heal. It physically hurts.
We ended up breaking up, both of us crying. I kissed her for the last time. The saddest kiss in history. I said to her that maybe is just a "see you later" rather than a final goodbye. She said she hopes it turns out that way.
I'm broken. I wish ending it was as easy as starting it was.
I'm going to study abroad for a whole year starting in September. It was going to be difficult, but I wanted to make it work. I start my exam session on Monday, and I can’t study. She was probably waiting for me to finish. But it couldn’t be.
It’s also hard because I was very integrated into her family, and I feel like I’ve lost them too.
I feel like it's wrong. That it shouldn’t end this way. I have the urge to write to her. To tell her that we still have time before it’s too late. It doesn’t feel right. I'm devastated. I don’t know what to do. I need help.
—- Thinking of sending her this:
Hello. I know I said I wouldn't write to you again, but I had the worst night of my life and if I don't do this, I will regret it forever.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened yesterday. I don't feel like what we've done is right. I don't feel like we've talked enough. We haven't had the chance to really sit down and discuss it. I don't want to believe that everything we've built has vanished overnight. I didn't feel that way yesterday. Everything has happened so fast.
With this message, I just want to say that if you're having doubts about whether you did the right thing yesterday, tell me. Before it's too late. Whatever it takes. Even if we need to sit down in therapy, I'll pay for the sessions, I don't care.
You don't have to respond immediately. You can take some time and reflect on it. If the answer is no, I'll accept it. But at least I want to have a clear conscience knowing that I tried until the end.

Hey y’all!
This is really long but I’m really struggling with what to do, and all of this is necessary to provide context. I checked out the trans allyship resources on this subreddit and didn’t find anything useful to this specific context. I really really need advice.
TW: transphobia
I (24tm) have a very close friend (32f) who is cisgender. I’ll call her A.
I was at a bar with A and someone came up to me and immediately tried to debate me and was saying really transphobic stuff and using the T slur. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to explain to him that he was wrong but he kept talking over me. A didn’t say much during this conversation. I told him I was going to leave because he wasn’t listening, turned to walk out and A was a little behind me. He told her, “you know you guys can’t have babies, right?”
Yeah. Gross. So when talking about this after the fact, every time it was mentioned A belabored on how she wasn’t involved and she just can’t believe he said that to her. I just kind of thought this was annoying and let it go, until one night, when we were talking to her dad about this I said something about how that’s just what happens when you’re friends with trans people, you get caught in the crossfire. Later that night she explained to me that she wasn’t actually centering herself and it just made him more of an asshole that he said it to her, and I’m realizing now as I type this that the implication of that is that it would have been less bad if he had said it to me. I told her it’s annoying because she should have said something to him and defended me, and gotten involved to begin with. Her response was, verbatim, “I’m a cancer mars.” (For context, I believe in astrology and so does she. But. Really?) She then told me that he was being homophobic because I had said something to him about how I was gay and he thought I was a woman and that we were a couple, which is why he said that. I was like, nope, he was pretty explicitly being transphobic. And she then explained again how it wasn’t transphobia it was homophobia and doubled down that he thinks I’m a woman.
I got home to a text further explaining how she wasn’t centering herself by talking about that stuff, and I responded that I was actually bothered by her trying to tell me it was homophobic and not transphobic (she has never dated a woman and is married to a cis man). I also said something about how I didn’t have the emotional capacity for the argument because I was having some other issues with transphobia right before that (which she was aware of) that didn’t involve her. I think the words I said were about being surrounded by cis people. I also think I said something about how she always thinks she’s right. I know that’s not a great thing to say in conflict. But I did say that.
She started getting incredibly defensive around my language of saying cis people, and saying “oh what? I’m just like (insert other person I was in conflict with) now?” And telling me that her saying it was homophobia was just “her perception” and seemed to not understand why that was wrong. She also said I was “fucking on one recently” in regards to marginalization. I backed down and apologized for the cis thing. Honestly I don’t remember too much else of the conflict other than we were arguing for quite a while, and it ended with her and I both apologizing. The next day I re read everything and texted her that I wasn’t happy with the argument. She said “yeah I’m not happy either.” I sent a paragraph about how I don’t know how to proceed and this could change how safe I feel around her, and how I don’t know what to do because she proved by getting defensive and doubling down that I can’t express things like this to her or expect her to defend me in any real capacity. a couple hours later sent me a long text, basically saying that I was (verbatim) “just trying to get my pound of flesh” because she had already apologized. Also some stuff about how I apparently had pointed out her privilege too many times recently (that’s probably true, I thought I was being funny though and didn’t realize I was being annoying) and essentially said that she “crossed a boundary (she) didn’t know existed” by trying to tell me it was homophobia and that some random stranger thought I was a woman. Honestly? I kind of just lost faith that she was going to be rational so I backed down.
That really bothered me for a while. I was going to email the bar to tell them about the transphobic guy, because he had a music show scheduled for the following week and I wanted them to drop him. She asked me at one point if I had sent the email, I said no and explained it was because the whole thing was too much for me, and she offered to send it. She wrote something, I added a couple things, she sent it, the bar dropped him. She sent this in her family group message that I’m in and everyone was congratulating her and saying they were proud of her. That was super triggering because after she was so explicitly transphobic to me I felt really annoyed at watching everyone eat her ass over sending an email. During this conversation, her kid (10nb) sent a voice memo “explaining the situation” and basically just recapped that someone was transphobic to me, and said that I was going to send the email but didn’t because I was “lazy” so their mom sent it. I texted A to say, hey, I probably want to have a conversation with your kid at some point about why they shouldn’t call marginalized people lazy when they don’t stick up for themselves. She explained that she didn’t know where they got that verbiage from. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal, reiterated multiple times (in very explicit wording) that they did nothing wrong, but I was frustrated because I had conflict with A which made me unable to deal with the transphobia and then her kid calls me lazy because of, essentially, what A did.
A texted me an hour or so later telling me that I was “putting my emotions on her to handle” and I “should pick my battles with more discernment” because I was “triggered from our conflict” that happened the previous week. She said I need to “process my emotions longer” before I come to her. She also listed off some things she was dealing with and said she was pissed off that she even had to be frustrated with me. It was a long conversation where I asked if she was okay because her extreme emotional reactions are out of character and she said she was okay. I ended up disingenuously backing down and apologizing and said I knew I was triggered and I explained exactly that, she basically said that I’m “not the only one the conflict was hard for” the implication I gathered is that I shouldn’t bring it up to her, I guess.
Tonight I was with her and someone got aggressive with me in the men’s room and I had to leave the bar twice to drive down the street to pee somewhere else. It wasn’t really about the way she handled that specifically but I don’t feel safe talking to her about any transphobia at all anymore, and there’s no way for me to express this and explain why she’s messing up basic allyship because I tried twice now already.
She’s my main support system, we’ve been tight for the last three years and I’ve known her my whole life. Her biological family is also a huge support system for me and I don’t want to cut any one of them off.
So here’s the question: what the actual fuck do I do? Does anyone have any books, or resources, or like good nuanced explanations of allyship stuff that I can send her? I can’t keep having these conversations because she says really personal attacks about me and honestly the way I’m perceiving her reactions are making it hard for me to take her seriously at all, in any context. I’m thinking if I send her a third party source she might feel less attacked and it will take the emotional labor off me because she can’t argue. Has anyone dealt with anything similar? Can anyone give me any advice?
Thanks.
Tl;dr my very close friend who is my main/only support system said something transphobic, doubled down, and had continued to disrespect me and lodge personal attacks against me when I try to bring it up. Any resources for that?

My girlfriend (F19) and I (M18) have been together for almost a year and a half, and she has made continuous mistakes that have crossed boundaries and make me question if our relationship is even real.
I don't know if this has any relevance, but my girlfriend has BPD, and has been screwed over in her past relationships. And the first two or three months throughout our relationship, she was extremely cold towards me. Like it seemed like she hated my guts, but around 5-6 months in, she got obsessed with me, needed to know my every move, always talking about how handsome I am, and saying how she'd probably kill herself if we broke up. The issues in our relationship start here:
It started around the first month or two in our relationship, when she pulls up her phone to text her mum, I see in her recent messages her ex is there. She loved this ex so much, and when she found out he cheated on her (which led to their breakup), she was placed under heavy medication, and sent to a psych ward. I confronted her over the situation a few hours later over iMessages, telling her that I found how she didn't tell me that her ex and her were talking, and how it was disrespectful to our relationship. She tells me that she thought I wouldn't want to know, and that it would've ruined the mood. She began to tell me what the messages said, NOT SHOW ME, tell me. She said that the ex had her on a sort of blackmail leash, threatening to leak her private pictures (she never told me what the terms of the blackmail was), and also that the ex was going through a lot, as he and his current girlfriend are taking heavy drugs, and he needed someone to spit out his problems to. She never showed me the actual messages, only telling me what the messages supposedly said.
I don't know if she was lying to me or not, but she deleted the messages, blocked him, and from what I know never talked to him again. But this was the beginning of this distrust, the only way I could believe her, was by taking her word. There were no messages for me to read and verify with my own eyes, I just had to take her word that nothing was happening. I was immature and unable to stand up for myself, so I let the conversation just go her way, and it was shut down within 15 text messages.
Around two months into our relationship, she is moving schools as she has more friends at the other school in her local area, and to finish year 12 in a more professional environment. She goes to one more party that her old school is throwing, to say goodbye to everyone. I wasn't able to attend this party, but I told her to just go on her own. She meets a guy there, and they hit it off. She's texting me and calling me throughout this whole party, and gets me to say hi to this person. I don't mind it, because I just figured she made a new friend. This guy likes all the same things as her, and likes the same music she does. (She's huge into metal / numetal bands.) Suddenly, she stops responding to my messages, calls etc, for around two hours.
When she gets home from the party, she tells me that her phone died, and I ask her how the party went. She tells me that a different girl really liked the guy she was hitting it off with, and how the guy was trying to make the girl jealous, by talking to my girlfriend. My girlfriend tells the guy that she's gonna go on a walk, and the guy follows her. They apparently go to a secluded cliffside, and just talk. She tells me that she had to clear up the air to some people that they did not do the deed, and they were just talking. I tell her how wrong that was of her, and how he most likely had other intentions, especially if hes trying to make another girl jealous. I tell her that boundaries were crossed, and she just tells me to do whatever I want (breakup or stay together). I stay, and she tells me the boundary was set, and if I don't believe her, I can ask the guy himself, or I can ask her girl bestfriend.
I thought the girl bestfriend thing was bizarre, as she said it was just my girlfriend and the guy at the cliffside. There is no way that her girl bestfriend wouldve known, unless my girlfriend specifically told her what happened. Could be a stretch, I dunno.
Once again, another thing that I just have to take her word for. There's nothing I can do to get her to prove to me that nothing happened at that cliffside,
This is where things get a bit murky. Around 9 months into our relationship, my girlfriend meets a guy at her new school, lets call him Fred. Her and Fred become good close friends. This was about the stage in me and my girlfriends relationship where she becomes obsessive with me. She asks me if her and Fred can go over to Fred's house, to smoke some weed. I didn't really mind, so I said sure. This became a daily thing. Her and Fred would go to Freds house almost every day, or at least 4 times a week to smoke weed. Fred would start sending her reels, but she wouldn't send any back. The reels started becoming a bit more weird, or lovey dovey, stuff like "You're either frolicking in this field with or without me".
She'd start sending me voice messages of them having a good time, sending photos of them hanging out, and then when she'd come home from school, she'd tell me all about how Fred said the funniest thing today, how funny he is, how they have inside jokes etc. Fred begins to start asking her to play Minecraft with her. At this point, I talk to her about this. I tell her that I understand that I said it was okay for her to go over to Fred's house, but I'm asking that her and Fred stop hanging out together alone. She tells me that I should've told her sooner, and we both apologised to one another.
I apologised for my miscommunication or lack of communication, and she apologised for crossing another boundary. Things were good between us, she'd stopped hanging out with Fred completely, and our relationship was more intimate then ever. A few weeks after Fred's silence, he asks my girlfriend to go to his party, and my girlfriend is wanting to go. I tell her that I'm uncomfortable with it, and I'd rather she not went, and then she got furious with me, and everyone around her. She was at work during this conversation, but then she locked herself in the staff bathroom, and cried in there for the remainder of her shift. Her friend, who also works at the same place she does, told me about the whole situation with her locking herself in the bathroom, and just checking up on if shes okay, and if anything happened between us. It was clear to me my girlfriend was growing attached to Fred.
She gives in, and tells Fred that she can't go to his party, in which Fred says: "OK, I'll change the party to next week so you can come." This bothered me so much, it's clear to me that Fred's only intentions of this party was to have some more time my girlfriend, and if anyone else was to of cancelled, no way would he of changed the day of the party for them.
I told my girlfriend there was no way she's going to that party, and it turns into a yelling match. She begins to cry, saying how she's sorry that she made me anxious about Fred, and then she goes into her room to self harm, either as a form of manipulation, or because of her BPD. This self harm leads to me having to apologise to her, and comforting her, instantly ending the conversation we were having because I had to go check on her, and sympathise with her.
A few months pass, and Fred and her are talking again. They're not talking outside of texts, so it's whatever, I'm fine with it, and the texts are always one sided, meaning my girlfriend leaving Fred on seen.
Fred asks my girlfriend if she wants to come over to his, in which she explains the situation, and how shes respecting our boundaries.
I go through her and Fred's messages, and find countless somewhat intimate messages between them, as well as Fred disrespecting me and my girlfriends boundaries. My girlfriend and Fred talk to eachother about what they dreamt about, and my girlfriend knows every little detail about Fred. She offers to find him some clothes that Fred was looking for. Then I see the text of my girlfriend asking Fred for some weed, in which Fred tells her to just come over to his, and they can smoke weed. My girlfriend comes up with some shitty excuse explaining why she can't go, and the conversation ends there. I believe that Fred was disrespecting our relationship immensely there, especially after being told that I was uncomfortable with them two hanging out, he proceeds to ask her to go over to his.
I tell her about this, and how it isn't okay, and how he was so clearly disrespecting our boundaries. She tells me that she understands now, and she didn't see it that way throughout their text messages.
I genuinely don't know what to do. I want to marry this girl, but I just can't trust her enough. Are these reasons to break up with her? I'm trying so hard to get them out of my mind, but I just can't. Too many major things have happened, in which she is constantly telling me to just trust her, and that nothing bad happened. I don't know that for sure, and that's whats making me so anxious. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with a girl who I can't trust, but I also love her so much. I want to marry her, but I know for my own peace of mind it's probably not the best thing to do, considering I can't trust her.
Please give any advice.
TLDR; I'm worried my girlfriend has cheated on me a few times, but I have no proof, as she is constantly deleting it, or being in situations where I can't get any proof. I love her and want to marry her, but I'm worried our marriage will fail if I can't trust her enough.

Hey y’all!
I know this is really long and I’m honestly not sure if anyone will read through it. I feel the need to tell this whole thing, to get it off my chest but also to provide context. I (24tm) have a very close friend (32f) who is cisgender. I’ll call her A.
I was at a bar with A and someone came up to me and immediately tried to debate me and was saying really transphobic stuff and using the T slur. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to explain to him that he was wrong but he kept talking over me. A didn’t say much during this conversation. I told him I was going to leave because he wasn’t listening, turned to walk out and A was a little behind me. He told her, “you know you guys can’t have babies, right?”
Yeah. Gross. So when talking about this after the fact, every time it was mentioned A belabored on how she wasn’t involved and she just can’t believe he said that to her. I just kind of thought this was annoying and let it go, until one night, when we were talking to her dad about this I said something about how that’s just what happens when you’re friends with trans people, you get caught in the crossfire. Later that night she explained to me that she wasn’t actually centering herself and it just made him more of an asshole that he said it to her, and I’m realizing now as I type this that the implication of that is that it would have been less bad if he had said it to me. I told her it’s annoying because she should have said something to him and defended me, and gotten involved to begin with. Her response was, verbatim, “I’m a cancer mars.” (For context, I believe in astrology and so does she. But. Really?) She then told me that he was being homophobic because I had said something to him about how I was gay and he thought I was a woman and that we were a couple, which is why he said that. I was like, nope, he was pretty explicitly being transphobic. And she then explained again how it wasn’t transphobia it was homophobia and doubled down that he thinks I’m a woman.
I got home to a text further explaining how she wasn’t centering herself by talking about that stuff, and I responded that I was actually bothered by her trying to tell me it was homophobic and not transphobic (she has never dated a woman and is married to a cis man). I also said something about how I didn’t have the emotional capacity for the argument because I was having some other issues with transphobia right before that (which she was aware of) that didn’t involve her. I think the words I said were about being surrounded by cis people. I also think I said something about how she always thinks she’s right. I know that’s not a great thing to say in conflict. But I did say that.
She started getting incredibly defensive around my language of saying cis people, and saying “oh what? I’m just like (insert other person I was in conflict with) now?” And telling me that her saying it was homophobia was just “her perception” and seemed to not understand why that was wrong. She also said I was “fucking on one recently” in regards to marginalization. I backed down and apologized for the cis thing. Honestly I don’t remember too much else of the conflict other than we were arguing for quite a while, and it ended with her and I both apologizing. The next day I re read everything and texted her that I wasn’t happy with the argument. She said “yeah I’m not happy either.” I sent a paragraph about how I don’t know how to proceed and this could change how safe I feel around her, and how I don’t know what to do because she proved by getting defensive and doubling down that I can’t express things like this to her or expect her to defend me in any real capacity. a couple hours later sent me a long text, basically saying that I was (verbatim) “just trying to get my pound of flesh” because she had already apologized. Also some stuff about how I apparently had pointed out her privilege too many times recently (that’s probably true, I thought I was being funny though and didn’t realize I was being annoying) and essentially said that she “crossed a boundary (she) didn’t know existed” by trying to tell me it was homophobia and that some random stranger thought I was a woman. Honestly? I kind of just lost faith that she was going to be rational so I backed down.
That really bothered me for a while. I was going to email the bar to tell them about the transphobic guy, because he had a music show scheduled for the following week and I wanted them to drop him. She asked me at one point if I had sent the email, I said no and explained it was because the whole thing was too much for me, and she offered to send it. She wrote something, I added a couple things, she sent it, the bar dropped him. She sent this in her family group message that I’m in and everyone was congratulating her and saying they were proud of her. That was super triggering because after she was so explicitly transphobic to me I felt really annoyed at watching everyone eat her ass over sending an email. During this conversation, her kid (10nb) sent a voice memo “explaining the situation” and basically just recapped that someone was transphobic to me, and said that I was going to send the email but didn’t because I was “lazy” so their mom sent it. I texted A to say, hey, I probably want to have a conversation with your kid at some point about why they shouldn’t call marginalized people lazy when they don’t stick up for themselves. She explained that she didn’t know where they got that verbiage from. I told her that it wasn’t a big deal, reiterated multiple times (in very explicit wording) that they did nothing wrong, but I was frustrated because I had conflict with A which made me unable to deal with the transphobia and then her kid calls me lazy because of, essentially, what A did.
A texted me an hour or so later telling me that I was “putting my emotions on her to handle” and I “should pick my battles with more discernment” because I was “triggered from our conflict” that happened the previous week. She said I need to “process my emotions longer” before I come to her. She also listed off some things she was dealing with and said she was pissed off that she even had to be frustrated with me. It was a long conversation where I asked if she was okay because her extreme emotional reactions are out of character and she said she was okay. I ended up disingenuously backing down and apologizing and said I knew I was triggered and I explained exactly that, she basically said that I’m “not the only one the conflict was hard for” the implication I gathered is that I shouldn’t bring it up to her, I guess.
Tonight I was with her and someone got aggressive with me in the men’s room and I had to leave the bar twice to drive down the street to pee somewhere else. It wasn’t really about the way she handled that specifically but I don’t feel safe talking to her about any transphobia at all anymore, and there’s no way for me to express this and explain why she’s messing up basic allyship because I tried twice now already.
She’s my main support system, we’ve been tight for the last three years and I’ve known her my whole life. Her biological family is also a huge support system for me and I don’t want to cut any one of them off.
So here’s the question: what the actual fuck do I do? Does anyone have any books, or resources, or like good nuanced explanations of allyship stuff that I can send her? I can’t keep having these conversations because she says really personal attacks about me and honestly the way I’m perceiving her reactions are making it hard for me to take her seriously at all, in any context. I’m thinking if I send her a third party source she might feel less attacked and it will take the emotional labor off me because she can’t argue. Has anyone dealt with anything similar? Can anyone give me any advice?
Thanks.
Tl;dr my very close friend who is my main/only support system said something transphobic, doubled down, and had continued to disrespect me and lodge personal attacks against me when I try to bring it up. Any resources for that?

As stupid as it sounds. A random man, in the local corner shop gave me 1 more reason to keep going.
I'm 16. And I've dealt with mental health issues for as long as I can remember. I was around 9 when I began harming myself and I was 10 when I first started properly wishing I could die. I remember being 12 and begging a god I didn't even believe in to take my away in my sleep. It was sad. I was just a kid and I didn't need that. But I'm used to it now.
A year ago I was properly diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I am currently going though a diagnosis for BPD. Which is already likely.
A couple weeks ago I had a rough time at school, revising for current exams and struggling with the changes. I found myself having daily panic attacks and feeling an urge to relapse in hurting myself and alcohol usage. I layed off through and managed to ignore it.
I'd had a significantly bad day at school and on the way home I had decided to take my time walking down to the corner shop, which was only 10 mins walk from school. I go there often and it's pretty cheap for energy drinks and sweets and gum. Which is what every teenager in the UK really gets.
I'd walked in and I was aware my face was sullen and I looked dull. My eyes were red from the tears throughout the day and I was still shaking from the stress and constant panic attacks id had.
I remember I had picked up a small tub of Pringles, a 45p energy drink, and a pack of gum. A man was in front of me paying, he had a massive basket which was quite funny for a convenience shop. He also had a young daughter with him, looking around 2 or 3. I gave her a warm smile as she looked at me and her face lit up. As did mine. He asked if I wanted to go in front of him because I only had a few things, to which I quickly denied and said it was fine. I continued waiting and after a minute or so he turned around and asked what I had. Before I could reply he took the things out my hands and payed for them. I stood there dumbfounded. I managed to mutter out a meek "thank you mate I appreciate it". He gave me a Pat on the back and told me to go. I smiled at him daughter again and left, walking home.
Unknown to him...but I had planned on stealing a few cans of alcohol and running off into the local woods that night. I also planned on taking something to harm myself with. I didn't. He had made me so unbelievably happy and content that I went home, ate my food, and sat there.
I messaged all my friends about it as I walked back home. I could've cried again.
It just shows it’s the little things. He has no idea how important that was to me. So I ask you. Be kind. For no reason.
It was the most selfless expression anyone has ever done for me and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

My girlfriend (20f) and I (21m) have been together for a year and a half. Over the last month, I've noticed her becoming distant. She texts less, and everything is colder and shorter. She doesn't say nice things as often, and when we hang out, she's kind of 'off.' She studies medicine and has a lot of anxiety about exams. When I confronted her about this, she was in finals and told me she wasn’t sure how she felt about me, that lately she hasn’t felt the same as she did at the beginning. But she thought it was probably all the stress from the exams.
She finished her exams the other day, but everything remained the same. Yesterday, we hung out and while we were talking and sharing some anecdotes, I talked about our first date. I had just finished changing the strings on my guitar, and I sang her a song under the stars. It was beautiful. At that exact moment, she started to cry, saying she didn’t want to feel this way, that she didn’t understand why she felt this way, and that she thought it was the exams. She told me "I love you" several times, and it sounded real.
We both ended up crying because we knew what was coming next. I had been expecting it for the last month and a half. But nothing prepares you. Yesterday was the worst day of my life. It's like something was ripped out of my chest, and now I have a void that I can't heal. It physically hurts.
We ended up breaking up, both of us crying. I kissed her for the last time. The saddest kiss in history. I said to her that maybe is just a "see you later" rather than a final goodbye. She said she hopes it turns out that way.
I'm broken. I wish ending it was as easy as starting it was.
I'm going to study abroad for a whole year starting in September. It was going to be difficult, but I wanted to make it work. I start my exam session on Monday, and I can’t study. She was probably waiting for me to finish. But it couldn’t be.
It’s also hard because I was very integrated into her family, and I feel like I’ve lost them too.
I feel like it's wrong. That it shouldn’t end this way. I have the urge to write to her. To tell her that we still have time before it’s too late. It doesn’t feel right. I'm devastated. I don’t know what to do. I need help.
—- Thinking of sending her this:
Hello. I know I said I wouldn't write to you again, but I had the worst night of my life and if I don't do this, I will regret it forever.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened yesterday. I don't feel like what we've done is right. I don't feel like we've talked enough. We haven't had the chance to really sit down and discuss it. I don't want to believe that everything we've built has vanished overnight. I didn't feel that way yesterday. Everything has happened so fast.
With this message, I just want to say that if you're having doubts about whether you did the right thing yesterday, tell me. Before it's too late. Whatever it takes. Even if we need to sit down in therapy, I'll pay for the sessions, I don't care.
You don't have to respond immediately. You can take some time and reflect on it. If the answer is no, I'll accept it. But at least I want to have a clear conscience knowing that I tried until the end.

I just left this relationship and am reflecting please help me because I feel bad for leaving him even though I was miserable and depressed from his behavior.
It started off well we were long distance and got along and then the red flags started…

1. Two months into dating he was upset at me for telling him about a bachelorette party I was attending the day before saying he needs to know any big plans I have ahead of time. I thought that was reasonable?
   
2. He became upset with me when I jokingly said I invited my friends husband to the girls hang out bc my friend was busy. This sparked a conversation panning the whole relationship restricting male friends.
   
3. He found out I went on a group trip with friends that included males right before I went on a girls trip and he exploded on me super angry, yelling, demeaning, making it so I wanted to cancel this girls trip but after he finished exploding said it was fine for me to go. While I was on the trip he was super cold and mean to me then broke up with me via text I was miserable and unhappy the whole trip. I begged for forgiveness and he said I should have been calling him on the trip even though I was sending text updates of everything I was doing.
   
4. While on a getaway together we fell asleep on the couch. I woke up in the middle of the night uncomfortable and groggy and needed to change and get my charger. I tried to wake him up but gave up. I got up from the couch and went to the other room to take off my earrings charge my phone and lay on the bed to wait for him to wake up. He woke up and yelled for me and I told him come up to the bed. He didn’t so I went down and he was LIVID that I “left him” on the couch and was doing “god knows what”???? I was so confused and explaining myself and he stonewalled me pacing around the house going outside etc. making me feel AWFUL. He said he overreacted but that what I did was still unacceptable and I should have woken him up and I had no reason to leave???
   
5. He demanded to know every SINGLE DETAIL about my past. My exes how I met them what happened and exactly what happened physically. The thing is he made me go through this I shit you not about a dozen times over a few weeks so he can catch tiny discrepancies and then chastise me for it and flip out in a rage.
   
6. He made me unfollow all my exes friends even the ones I was friends with
   
7. He would get very upset and yell at me for not caring enough or trying enough if we FaceTime and I went on another app for a bit even tho he would call me and just play video games while on FT.
   
8. My ex texted me out of the blue saying how are you and he saw and he just got up packed his stuff and left. When he came back we fought for 8 hours and he threatened to message my ex and made me block him. Over the next entire year he brought this up every other week and we would fight about it for hours and I’d explain and explain and it was never good enough
   
9. He hated when I cussed but in arguments he would cuss at me and name call and honestly no one has ever spoken to me like that in my life it broke me. I could barely do it back to him it felt so wrong even tho I wanted to bc I was so hurt and upset
   

There are so many smaller things like got mad at me for getting covid when we were supposed to hang out and also when I needed to go home early bc of family and over time I became emotionally checked out bc nothing I did was good enough and ofc he would cry in my face about how I treat him like shit and that’s why he’s so insecure. He always accused me of caring about my friends way more than him etc it was EXHAUSTING.
I feel bad because he was very caring and nice in the good moments, he bought me many nice things and gifts, and always made the effort (maybe too much), and told me he loved me even though it didn’t feel like love. I was always crying and sad so why do I feel bad for him?

My girlfriend (20f) and I (21m) have been together for a year and a half. Over the last month, I've noticed her becoming distant. She texts less, and everything is colder and shorter. She doesn't say nice things as often, and when we hang out, she's kind of 'off.' She studies medicine and has a lot of anxiety about exams. When I confronted her about this, she was in finals and told me she wasn’t sure how she felt about me, that lately she hasn’t felt the same as she did at the beginning. But she thought it was probably all the stress from the exams.
She finished her exams the other day, but everything remained the same. Yesterday, we hung out and while we were talking and sharing some anecdotes, I talked about our first date. I had just finished changing the strings on my guitar, and I sang her a song under the stars. It was beautiful. At that exact moment, she started to cry, saying she didn’t want to feel this way, that she didn’t understand why she felt this way, and that she thought it was the exams. She told me "I love you" several times, and it sounded real.
We both ended up crying because we knew what was coming next. I had been expecting it for the last month and a half. But nothing prepares you. Yesterday was the worst day of my life. It's like something was ripped out of my chest, and now I have a void that I can't heal. It physically hurts.
We ended up breaking up, both of us crying. I kissed her for the last time. The saddest kiss in history. I said to her that maybe is just a "see you later" rather than a final goodbye. She said she hopes it turns out that way.
I'm broken. I wish ending it was as easy as starting it was.
I'm going to study abroad for a whole year starting in September. It was going to be difficult, but I wanted to make it work. I start my exam session on Monday, and I can’t study. She was probably waiting for me to finish. But it couldn’t be.
It’s also hard because I was very integrated into her family, and I feel like I’ve lost them too.
I feel like it's wrong. That it shouldn’t end this way. I have the urge to write to her. To tell her that we still have time before it’s too late. It doesn’t feel right. I'm devastated. I don’t know what to do. I need help.
—- Thinking of sending her this:
Hello. I know I said I wouldn't write to you again, but I had the worst night of my life and if I don't do this, I will regret it forever.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened yesterday. I don't feel like what we've done is right. I don't feel like we've talked enough. We haven't had the chance to really sit down and discuss it. I don't want to believe that everything we've built has vanished overnight. I didn't feel that way yesterday. Everything has happened so fast.
With this message, I just want to say that if you're having doubts about whether you did the right thing yesterday, tell me. Before it's too late. Whatever it takes. Even if we need to sit down in therapy, I'll pay for the sessions, I don't care.
You don't have to respond immediately. You can take some time and reflect on it. If the answer is no, I'll accept it. But at least I want to have a clear conscience knowing that I tried until the end.

My girlfriend (20f) and I (21m) have been together for a year and a half. Over the last month, I've noticed her becoming distant. She texts less, and everything is colder and shorter. She doesn't say nice things as often, and when we hang out, she's kind of 'off.' She studies medicine and has a lot of anxiety about exams. When I confronted her about this, she was in finals and told me she wasn’t sure how she felt about me, that lately she hasn’t felt the same as she did at the beginning. But she thought it was probably all the stress from the exams.
She finished her exams the other day, but everything remained the same. Yesterday, we hung out and while we were talking and sharing some anecdotes, I talked about our first date. I had just finished changing the strings on my guitar, and I sang her a song under the stars. It was beautiful. At that exact moment, she started to cry, saying she didn’t want to feel this way, that she didn’t understand why she felt this way, and that she thought it was the exams. She told me "I love you" several times, and it sounded real.
We both ended up crying because we knew what was coming next. I had been expecting it for the last month and a half. But nothing prepares you. Yesterday was the worst day of my life. It's like something was ripped out of my chest, and now I have a void that I can't heal. It physically hurts.
We ended up breaking up, both of us crying. I kissed her for the last time. The saddest kiss in history. I said to her that maybe is just a "see you later" rather than a final goodbye. She said she hopes it turns out that way.
I'm broken. I wish ending it was as easy as starting it was.
I'm going to study abroad for a whole year starting in September. It was going to be difficult, but I wanted to make it work. I start my exam session on Monday, and I can’t study. She was probably waiting for me to finish. But it couldn’t be.
It’s also hard because I was very integrated into her family, and I feel like I’ve lost them too.
I feel like it's wrong. That it shouldn’t end this way. I have the urge to write to her. To tell her that we still have time before it’s too late. It doesn’t feel right. I'm devastated. I don’t know what to do. I need help.
—-
Thinking of sending her this:
Hello. I know I said I wouldn't write to you again, but I had the worst night of my life and if I don't do this, I will regret it forever.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened yesterday. I don't feel like what we've done is right. I don't feel like we've talked enough. We haven't had the chance to really sit down and discuss it. I don't want to believe that everything we've built has vanished overnight. I didn't feel that way yesterday. Everything has happened so fast.
With this message, I just want to say that if you're having doubts about whether you did the right thing yesterday, tell me. Before it's too late. Whatever it takes. Even if we need to sit down in therapy, I'll pay for the sessions, I don't care.
You don't have to respond immediately. You can take some time and reflect on it. If the answer is no, I'll accept it. But at least I want to have a clear conscience knowing that I tried until the end.

Myself(m32) and my girlfriend(f31) have been together for 4 months, still early I know. Back story we work in the same job but in different areas of the country and over the past few years have had many close encounters but nothing ever happened even though we have both admitted since that we both liked eachother for a very long time.
So eventually we did connect and we went on our first date and it was amazing, it was only a walk around a park but after that first date I just knew this girl was the one! It was something I couldnt explain. From that day we couldnt get enough of eachother, we were speaking all the time and seeing eachother whenever we could. Life was amazing, we were only together for 2 months before we both confessed that we loved eachother.
Ive had several really bad relationships in the past and been screwed over so many times in my life that I had these defensive walls up but she got those walls down and I let her in quicker than I ever thought I would have. She told me all the things I needed to hear and it really just made me love her even more, for the first time she made me feel like I was good enough.
My girlfriend also has a young son who is 6 years old and whenever she first asked me how I would feel about meeting him I told her Im more than happy to meet him but it has to be when shes ready and she is comfortable with that happening. So a few weeks later she decided it was time, we went a day out to a kids inflatable park place and I got on great with him right from the start. I feel like her son really took to me well and we could clearly tell that! She said she had only ever introduced him to 2 other guys she dated and he never really had an interest in them nor did they with him. Whereas I make an effort to bond with him, I build his lego with him, draw with him, play in the garden with him.. hes asked a few times that I read him his bed time story, if we watch a movie he wants to sit next to me on the couch.. and probably the biggest thing on 2 seperate occassions he introduced me to one of his friends as his step dad(we have never mentioned anything like this so its entirely came from himself) which we both found funny and my girlfriend even said well clearly he does like me. Ive grown really fond of him and hes an added bonus to my life, I feel like im in a lucky position that I get an amazing girlfriend and along with that comes an amazing new wee pal.
Now in regards to her son, I asked her if she had told his dad about me yet because I think its respectful to do so.. if it was me Id like to know if there was a new man around my child. She said she hadnt yet but she was going to soon. I was happy at that. With things going as well as they were, we started talking and planning alot of future stuff together. So we have a city break booked at the end of June, a load of tickets for shows etc that are all for both of us and her son, we have a log cabin stay booked for just the 2 of us and later in the year we decided to fully commit to an actual week holiday away and again we are taking her son with us. Booking this holiday made me ask the question again if she had told his dad about me yet because now its not just a new guy around the house, hes literally coming away on holiday with us.. well she still hadnt told him because he was being civil and communicating well with her and she knew when she told him he would change.
This leads us pretty much to where we are now.. the big turn in all of this. Out of the blue from absolutely nowhere she tells me she thinks this has all moved too fast and alot of it seems to be revolving around her saying she shouldnt have let me meet her son as soon as she did and that it was a poor parenting decision on her part. Now I’ll agree it moved fast but it wasnt forced it just happened! And part of me thinks that actually speaks volumes about the connection we have, she speaks to me all the time about us getting married and having kids of our own and this life we want together.
And now nothing! She says she needs space from me, she barely replies to my texts but when I asked her she said she still wants to be with me but it feels like shes just saying that. This girl has went from making me feel things ive not felt in a very long time and feeling things ive never felt before to practically overnight being completely different.
Im thinking its involving her sons dad, I think he has maybe heard perhaps from her son.. hes maybe mentioned the holiday and hes asked whos going and hes said his mum and me.. and thats how hes found out! God forbid if hes asked who I am and the son has said im his step dad because I know I wouldnt be happy if that happened to me! Maybe the dad has kicked off at her and told her shes a terrible parent like he had in the past and shes thought maybe she has done the wrong thing.. who knows.
All I know is right now im stuck in this limbo not knowing whats happening.. we have all these trips planned booked and paid for and Ive no idea if we are going or not! My head is all over the place and I can seem to get a straight answer from her but I also dont want to push her.
Apologies for the long post Ive probably missed out loads of other small details. I really just needed to rant but any outsiders views on this would be appreciated!

You ever met a rich crackhead chick who’s parents bought her and her heroin addicted boyfriend a whole house, a new car, monthly allowance and seen it all come crashing down? This sounds like a fantasy, but it’s actually reality in the streets of Montgomery County, MD. This is the life of a rich crackhead named Amy.
Before I tell you about Amy, we gotta get the background first and go all the way back to 2021(if you want to skip and get right to Amy, just go to paragraph 11/12, but you’ll miss out on a lot). It’s the year 2021, I had just came back a couple months ago from pulling off EDD fraud. One day I was driving drop top mustangs in Malibu, the next I’m seeing my accounts get frozen and my money slowly begin to dwindle down. Before I knew it I was back in DC, broke and back to square one. Now from the time I was in Cali to the time I returned a lot of shit happened. I fell off with a lot of people, so I found myself hanging around an unusual crowd of people, the Bethesda kids.
You see before I dropped out of Towson University, I had met this nigga named LP, he was from Bowie and he went to school out Bethesda, but me and him got along because we had two things in common: we both liked DMV music, and we both liked to party our asses tf off. But that’s a story for another day.
You see LP put me on to a lot of people from Bathesda, I had never really hung around white folks before, and with the connections he gave me i made friends with a couple of crackas and even met my now deceased ex girlfriend. I was going to the craziest white functions and constantly turning up. But I saw more than a chance to have fun, saw this as a money making opportunity🤑 cha ching! And it was through LP that I met some friends who introduced me to a nigga named Swervy.
You see them white folks love to drink beer and smoke weed at parks, so one day I’m meeting up wit one of my good men, Ju. Ju is the typical school shooter typa fella, so it’s no surprise what I saw when I linked up with him at the spot. With him was this long haired European foreign exchange motherfucker whose name I forgot, and this bearded Eastern European nigga named Swervy, and he was wildin the fuck out. Mind you I’m from the projects, and all these bathesda niggas I’m meeting are rich ass motherfuckers who live in multi million dollar mansions. Keep in mind these cats may be rich, but everybody out bathesda is rich so these are basically the rejects. Pretty much the closest thing to a street nigga you can find out there.
As I’m getting introduced to some of these cats, Swervy pulls out a syringe. So I ask “Man wtf is this man doing,” “He’s shooting up fent” casually says Ju. That was the first time I ever witnessed someone shooting up a drug, and it wouldn’t be the last. Swervy would eventually become Amy’s boyfriend. And he was quite the yapper, he’s one of those motherfuckers who peaked in high school, and now he’s just watching his life come spiraling down, at least that is until he meets Amy…
In this meet up I learn a lot about Swervy. He was basically a kingpin at the age of 16-17. He would get shipments of 10’s of thousands of Xanax bars and sell them like hotdogs at a baseball game. These weren’t your regular junkies, these are the children of senators, buisness owners and lawyers. So you didn’t have to worry about a junkie saying he’ll pay you back, money was nothing to these crazy ass white folks. In the midst of all this yapping, I hear something that caught my attention.
“Yea so basically my cousins got like seven pounds of weed and 500gs of thc wax that they’ll give me if I can pick it up, it’s all the way in Arizona” Says Swervy.
🤑🤑🤑Cha mothafucking ching! This was the money I was talking about. Now driving cross country with pounds of weed and concentrate was risky, but shit I’d give my left nutsack for that kind of opportunity. And I might as well have, because a week later I was on my way to Tucson, with this Russian speaking drug addict I had just met the other day. Mind you I’m driving around in a red Lancer, with paper Vermont tags that I had printed online. I might as well Have went up to the police station and asked any of them if they wanted to buy drugs. My young naive dumbass didn’t realize the risk, all I was thinking about was 🤑🤑🤑 cha Ching!
I can sit here all day and tell you about that drive to Arizona, but imma keep it short and simple so we can get to this Amy chick. It was a fucking disaster, but we end up somehow making it back. We got the pounds and the concentrate, but it was all fucking shake! I’d be lucky to sell that shit for $100 a zip. Anyways, the trip opened my eyes to something, this nigga Swervy was a crashout crackhead dummy, and if I continue hanging out with him I was gonna end up dead or in jail. So I begin distancing myself, as I watched this man throw his life away from a far.
Now months go by, and at this point I’m like the street life ain’t for me and I’m working a job, I got a girlfriend and I’m staying low and just cooling it, with these pounds of weed that was so garbage, I was giving it away like charity donations. I had that goodwill pack! Just as things settle down that’s when Swervy comes back in contact with me. You see last time I had linked him, this man was overdosing off fent and we had to drive him to the hospital and save his life. But to my surprise, he was a changed man, or at least that’s what I thought...
He now has this girlfriend and he lives with her in germantown. You see me I’m baffled and curious, what crazy bitch would date this crazy motherfucker who’d probably sell his soul for one shot of heroin? I just had to find out. And when I met Amy I just didn’t know what to say. She was in her 30s and Swervy and me were in our early twenties. Amy was this slim, blonde hair, blue eyed Czechoslovakian chick who stood at about 5’7”. She wasn’t attractive by no means, you can tell the drugs did it’s toll on her, but if you’re drunk enough she can probably look fuckable. She had her degree in psychology from UMBC, but don’t be fooled her brain seemed like it was long fried. A conversation with her felt like a trip to the mental asylum. You will have better luck deciphering ancient Egyptian hyrogriphics before you can make sense of a word she says. Regardless I genuinely tried to get to know her. My guess was at some point in life she must’ve took a full sheet of acid and never recovered since. But she had her own two bedroom condo with a view of Sugarloaf mountain, a Pomeranian dog(which Swervy fucking hated), and a new jeep. So regardless I was impressed this crackhead motherfucker managed to bag her. So I asked him “Where did you find this shawty?” “At a hookah lounge in Rockville” he told me. That’s right folks, a fucking hookah lounge. Boi when I tell you after that, I was hitting up hookah spots like I had season tickets!
So I’m hanging out with them a lot now basically third wheeling, but Germantown was a long ass motherfucking drive, and I lived at the borderline to DC so I would even spend some nights in their guest bedroom. This Amy chick had parents that paid for her gas money and food, they had a fireplace and a balcony. And I can enjoy the comfort of all this as long as I occasionally bring some weed to smoke. And me I’m not one of those leeching ass bums, so the only time I’m hanging out with them is when I’m invited. And I got invited a lot, probably because Amy’s a bit cuukoo and Swervy had either robbed or scared off all his friends from Bathesda. He wanted someone to give him a break from her, a bro he can drink a beer with. So I would often times accompany them. One time we were at Buffalo Wild Wings, and as I sit across from both of them Amy begins playing footsies with me under the table. Of course I play it cool. I had no interest in her, mainly because Swervy hits raw and takes hepatitis medication, also having witnessed this man hold a bunch of homeless niggas at gunpoint in broad day light after I lost my phone at this gas station in Arizona. I can only imagine how he would react if he found out I smashed his girl.
A lot of the times I hung out with them, me and Swervy would talk about Amy. You see he’s not the type to hold back certain information, and as he’s telling me about his life and relationship that’s when it hit me. A nigga like me grew up all my life, with the world constantly kicking my ass and in a whole different realm of this life shit, you got these two rich kids who fucked up their life so much with so little consequences it became a culture shock to me. Me I caught a case and felt like my life was over, these two white people are disfunctional jobless drug addicts and they’re living the life I could only dream of having with years of hard work. I began to question the world, how many are there like this? Was my life a joke? I didn’t know where I was going hanging out with them, but if I couldn’t live the good life, I could at least witness it from the front row. I learned one thing about their relationship, Amy was basically getting old and low on options, and her parents supported her. Why? Because she’s not running around getting dicked down by a bunch of drug dealing black men anymore. Here they see this young white man, who’s also Eastern European who makes their highly mentally damaged daughter feel secure. And Swervy could win an Oscar, I mean what a fucking performance! One second he goes from Angus Cloud on Euphoria, the next a good suburban white kid the second he meets her parents. In fact he had convinced them that he was such a good man, even went to family gatherings and all, that they decided, let’s just buy them a full blown house.
That’s right, a FULL FUCKING HOUSE. I’m talking about a three story townhouse in Germantown, with a fully furnished basement, a patio, a balcony, a grill, 4 bedrooms, a 70 inch television, a paid off brand new fully insured jeep, they’re talking about trips to Italy. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Fool, are we living in a simulation? I couldn’t fucking believe my eyes, Swervy had pulled off the ultimate finesse. He convinced this rich family that he was the one for their daughter. And the most hilarious thing about it is that he was no better than a crackhead heroin junkie you can find panhandling for money on the street. I couldn’t even be envious, no instead I had felt something inside of me, this sort of toxic motivation. I learned that you didn’t have to work hard in this life, you didn’t have to earn your living, no instead one day God can just drop this lonely damaged woman who’s family is fucking loaded right on your fucking lap. He was even talking about marrying her and having her kids. In fact he tried, but see he had a problem. His sailors couldn’t fucking swim. Maybe it was all the crack, cocaine and heroine. He was having trouble producing fertile sperm, and Amy was running out of time! And that was the peak of their relationship. He was this close to closing the deal, but when it was game time he fell short. All it is now is one of those memories in your head that’ll have you like “damn, what if…” almost like when you reminisce on a football game thinking about how things could’ve been different if that one play went right.
Look I’ll be honest, I sugarcoated a lot of things. They may have lived in a world of handouts, but that relationship was more toxic than a nuclear wasteland. There’s a lot of fucked up details that I’m choosing to leave out, the psychical and mental abuse from both sides, the drug use. He was a psychopath and she was controlling and halfway demented. There’s a saying “opposites attract” and these two motherfuckers were far from it. They were two trains headed on a full on collision, so it was only a matter of time before disaster struck, and boy did it strike. Within a year I had witnessed a once fun relationship, become episodes of Shameless. At one point we fell off, I don’t remember exactly why, probably because I was tired of constantly being involved in their nasty games, and once again I distanced myself from Swervy.
The last I heard of Amy, she had kicked Swervy out the house and he caught her giving the sloppy toppy at a local park to 3 guys. Some hoodlum niggas, and a skater dude with a face tatt. The last time I seen Swervy he was arms dealing and one day pulled out an AR-15 on me and threatened to shoot me. I heard he’s now locked up currently awaiting trial because he broke into her home. I have a feeling one day I’ll see him on the news with a crazy headline.
Anyways if you’re a real mothafucka, you made it all the way here. If you read the whole thing I hope you enjoyed the story, if you have any questions ask away. If you didn’t feel like reading all that shit then fuck you bitch!

I (29F) and my best friend (30F) have been best friends for around 20yrs, we met in school and have always been close, she was MOH at my wedding, been on holidays together, she's also friends with my husband as we all went to school together.
We both have PCOS (Polycystic ovarian syndrome) and both have been struggling with fertility issues. It's something that we've supported each other with over the years. We've also both struggled with being overweight due to this diagnosis, however I was extremely overweight and I was always bigger than her. My doctor has been super supportive which is rare when it comes to women's health and about a year ago they gave me a stern warning to either lose weight or continue to struggle with the PCOS symptoms and potentially never conceive. This was a huge wake up call for me so I started my weight loss journey and I've successfully lost over 5st. I feel so much better in myself, more confidence, my symptoms have greatly reduced and my menstrual cycle is completely normal now. I've also joined the gym which is something I've been so insecure about for a long time, but I'm actually enjoying it and continuing to lose weight. My friend on the other hand is not doing so great, she's been given the same information from her doctor on weight loss but she's really struggling with it.
Over the past 6 months she's been slowly reducing contact with me. I'm always the one to message first and each time I message, the time it takes for her to reply gets significantly longer each time, to the point where she isn't replying to me for 3-4 days. Don't get me wrong I completely understand people can't reply immediately but she's always on her phone and has turned off her read receipts, which I find so strange. I've tried to meet up with her and also trying to encourage going for walks, swimming or for her to come to the gym with me as I know she struggles with motivation. However, she's started to make up excuses to not meet with me. I've asked her multiple times if everythings okay and she always says everything is fine. When I have been able to see her, the time in between gets longer so the weight loss is much more noticable, and she never says anything positive to me, it's always stuff like "don't lose too much weight, you won't look right" "you need to make sure you keep a healthy weight" "can't believe you're going to the gym" and just generally other negative comments.
I can't help but think she's jealous of the progress I've made. I don't want to think like that but that's the only thing I can think of, we've not had any arguments or cross words for the friendship to be dwindling like this. We've always supported each other through everything, almost like sisters. So I really wanted to speak to her face to face and find out why she's being so cold with me. I messaged her to ask if she'd like to meet up and she agreed, so I messaged her the day before asking time, place etc. but she didn't reply to me until late on the day we were meant to be meeting, with this bullshit excuse of how she was busy and read the message but forgot to reply. At this point I was so pissed off and was completely done. I sent a short message back saying it's fine and left it at that. She's made no attempt to contact me to rearrange and I haven't either.
My husband said I should just cut my losses and go no contact with her. But I really want to talk to her about this, I feel like I owe it to the friendship after so long and a big believer in constructive communication, but she also clearly doesn't care enough. So I'm at a point where I'm just going to cut her off and be done with it. AITA for stopping contact or should I try once more to sort this out?

The Mediatore’s are the perfect definition of the term “Long Island Trash”.

In 2003, when I was just 13 years old, I was molested by my uncle Ronald Mediatore (now 58), who was and still is a 6th grade teacher in Denver, CO. No one filed a police report. No one took me to a child psychologist to get the story out of me. 21 years later (about a month ago) I found out that not only did the pedo confess everything to his sister (my Aunt Kathy Stover (now 60)- a nationally recognized librarian and published author, who deemed these actions “textbook molestation") just months later but Kathy told my mother (54), who then told her mother (my grandmother (82)- retired nurse/paralegal) and her other sister (my Aunt Stacy Heinz (57)- a 3rd grade teacher).

So here I am, 21 years later, knowing 4 adults who knew exactly where this man’s hands went on me just months after the incident and did nothing about it. And now that I’ve started asking questions about what happened to me, they’ve all closed ranks and cut me off. The victim deserves answers, and these cowards don’t have the backbone to talk to me face to face w/o a therapist present (probably to keep the conversation confidential). Every adult in my life at the time let me down and didn’t give me justice. Instead, they all covered up the family pedo to keep the peace and so he could go back to teaching 6th graders.

I, and my 2 younger brothers, were reintroduced to this man via my mom asking, "Are you ok with Uncle Ronny being there?" 6 years later and the family reunions went on as if nothing happened. And since I wasn't told how wrong this was and everyone else showed nothing but love and smiles, I was lead to believe everything was fine- textbook manipulation. That is a very powerful tool to use on a person, especially when you start at the age of 13; it can carry on through adulthood. And it did.

The statute of limitations in NY prevents me from taking any legal action, for sexual misconduct or pain and suffering, so I’ve been turned away be every attorney. Only way to hold these sick fucks accountable for their actions is to blast them on social media, since they refuse to talk to me about it.

Share the story and don’t forget the name Ronald Mediatore. I have text messages and voice recordings via zoom sessions with my mother that confirm every detail of this story, and a lot more. The family betrayal hit me hard as I went through the grieving process and if there’s a lawyer out there that will take my case, please reach out.

I'm doing the hard thing that no one else had the courage to do when I needed help: filing a police report (so that's it's documented, even if it's too late) and talking about it openly.

I don't even know where to start so I'll start at the beginning of the latest episode. This probably won't be short so buckle up for the ride. I don't know what else to do at this point aside from cry myself to sleep all the while slowly dying a financial death. My life is in ruins and no matter what I do I can't seem to fix it.
In this latest event my home was flooded by my neighbors upstairs. For context I live in a condo unit with people above me and below me. The unit above me shower and washer dryer water ended up going in-between my walls and flooding my flooring in my home. The remediation company tallied an estimate of about 45k in damages. They did the initial work of gutting my home, then told me they needed to be paid before they continue. Ok fine no big deal that's why I have insurance right?
Well I reach out to my insurance and then I can't get ahold of anyone, then I get a message that they will send an inspector, the inspector comes out, i explain what was impacted, and then he leaves. Weeks go by and I'm not getting anywhere, no answers from my insurance.
I'm living in a hotel at this time and spending money like I apparently have money to blow, never spent money like that before, nor do I have it, and to top it off I don't live in a cheap US state. So hotel fees, pet fees, food from eating out everyday etc, In 10 weeks I'm out close to 40k.
The hotel is something out of my nightmares, it's the cheapest one I could find that wouldn't limit my 3 pets. So to paint a picture, the paint is peeling off the walls, the bathroom has a moisture and likely a mold problem, the door to the world has a 2 inch gap, and the reviews state that it's where criminals go to hide from the police.
So all the holidays go by including my birthday, during this time I tried to get some kind of movement on getting my home repaired. But it's just not happening. Insurance is giving me the run around telling me to talk to my HOA, I do that and my HOA tells me it's not their problem. All the while it's not my fault either. So I tried to go and have the unit above me fix it but they say my insurance needs to go after them. I'm stuck in this endless loop.
Ultimately on my birthday the HOA denies my claim, I tell my insurance and they turn around cut me a check for 14.5k minus my deductible of course. That's it, they wash their hands of me and I'm balling my eyes out in an IHOP because that doesn't cover anything. That won't cover repairs, it won't cover what I'm out for loss of use, I'm just f*cked. I rejected the check and told them that's not adequate, but instead of listening to me they just turned around closed my case and sent me a survey.
So I pivot I can't live in this hotel anymore I'm going to be homeless if I don't do something quick. So I do the repairs on my own, I know how to do the repairs, I did them already 3 years prior when I did some renovations on my home. I'll just do them again, I took vacation from work for 2 weeks and busted my butt, to make the place kinda liveable.
At the end of the two weeks the walls were up, I had a working toilet, kitchen sink, and bathtub. Can't use the shower since the walls aren't totally sealed but if I'm careful I can at least bird bath it.
Since then I've installed the flooring started painting and get the stuff in the house organized to a point that it's starting to look like home again.
I ended up taking more time off work to get it done in time for a home inspection, my lender wanted to see my progress, my goal was 85% and it paid off! I'm there at the 85% mark, but it's all been out of my own pocket, my own energy, and life blood.
I've tried hiring 4 Attorneys at this point and have been turned down because they want more money that I don't have to fight a case they tell me it's not worth their time.
So I've got the remediation company that the neighbors hired to mitigate the damage coming after me for payment. I've taken as much as I can out of my 401k to cover all these new expenses that I shouldn't be having to pay and my insurance just not caring.
I'm drowning in what feels like a river of despair, I'm happy my home is almost done but the majority of the work left is tiling my bathroom putting up the door that was there etc. So still bird bathing it until I have more time off to do the tile.
I just want to give up and surrender, I'm so tired mentally, physically, and emotionally that I'm depressed to the point that I can barely function. I am talking to a therapist because my mind started to get too dark, since I can't seem to get help for something i didn't create. I pay my bills on time, I have insurance but none of it matters, I'm not rich enough to sue which means I'm just going to have to eat this, but I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have my life ruined because of a busted pipe that doesn't even belong to me......
What do I do? Do I try and keep finding an attorney ? Do I keep trying to work with my insurance company?any advice is appreciated, I'm sorry for the sob story I'm just at my wits end and needed to tell someone before I lose my mind completely.