Letter template introducing my self and company

The bright yellow terror

‘’Every now and then I would stare at the murky brown water below and see several small glimpses of bright yellow popping up from and then retreating down below the surface in rhythmic fashion. Like a dance routine. Bright deadly yellow. The rotting sweet stench of death still lodged in my nostrils.’’
I had happened upon these diary pages by mistake when I was digging through old boxes in my basement. My wife had insisted, finally, that I sort out and get rid of everything I didn’t need. Now here I was, confronted with a part of my past I had tried to suppress unsuccessfully for so many years. 24 years to be exact. 24 odd years of trying to understand what exactly happened in those days when I was trapped on a rooftop in Phuket during a deadly and disastrous natural catastrophe.
24 odd years of having to dodge around questions of my abject and unwavering fear of the ocean. Well, in truth, I guess being caught in a large tsunami and witnessing immense destructive forces of nature coming directly from the great wide ocean would be a fair excuse, but it was only half the truth. It wasn’t just the waves themselves that had terrified me.
Until now, I thought the water damaged remains of the diary I kept back then was lost. I even hoped it was. I never shared this story with anyone. Partly because the horror was too fresh in my memory back then and I wanted to focus on moving on with my life and by the time I felt my mind was stabilized I had no real interest in returning to that dark part of my past. Partly because the right words always escaped me.
Mostly because I was afraid people would think I was insane. I can no longer contain this, however. I need an outlet. I spend years running from it. But I guess I can’t lie to myself anymore. Someone once told me that writing can be therapeutic. Simply putting your thoughts down on paper, or in our times, more likely in word document, can help you compartmentalize trauma. So, I’m giving it a try. I can’t pretend the events of those days in Phuket didn’t cast a shadow over everything in my life that came after.
I often think of the beach days I missed with my son when he was a boy. Days where I should’ve done dad stuff. Thrown him into the ocean. Watched him laugh his little face of as he braved the waves. Helped him build sandcastles. Gone exploring along the sandy shores in search of beached treasure in the form little rocks and the odd piece of amber. I just couldn’t. Initially I had objected to the idea of him going at all. Naturally, my wife would hear none of that and I realized reluctantly, that my fear and trauma should not rule my son’s life. Instead, my wife would go, and I would always stay home. She understood, to some degree, what I had gone through and where my fear came from.
Only to some degree. My son did not, and I fear he resented my absence on those perfect sunny days, despite my efforts to make up for it with other activities. Both he and my wife certainly noticed how closed off I was about certain parts of my past. Secrets untold, especially those who are grounded in trauma, almost inevitably turns to toxic in our systems. I’m finally ready. I just hope it isn’t too late.
I won’t lie. I’ve always had a vivid imagination although I have never had trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is not. At least until my sense of reality was forever challenged. I know these things happened to me. I know what I saw and what I experienced was real. I just don’t have a truly rational explanation for it. Yet, I swear, there was something in the water that came with that tsunami. Something deeply, deeply unnatural. Something brightly and oddly yellow. I had no other word for it than the bright yellow terror.
I had travelled to Thailand, more precisely Bangkok late December 2000. 19 years old about to turn 20. I was on one of those infamous and increasingly popular self-discovery trips. I had caught the fever. Like so many other young hopeful adventurers at the time I had seen The Beach. I had read into the wild by Jon Krakauer.
I watched Dicaprio walk the sandy shores of paradise and read on in excitement and awe as Christopher McCandles set out to become one with nature and discover himself. Kill the false being within and all that. In simple terms, I thought I’d try and find my own slice of heaven on earth. Expand my horizon. Get to know some new people. Learn something about myself in the process perhaps. I wasn’t exactly fleeing from anything, that wasn’t it. I had a loving although cuddling and overprotective family. Especially my mom would worry about me constantly (and still does).
Yes, I admit it. My parents had paved the way for me at almost every step. Made sure I got into the right schools. Made sure I never needed for money. I guess I got tired of feeling dependent on them. I stopped taking their money and saved up for the trip myself. It was time I stepped up. It was time I threw myself into the world to see what would happen. Hell of a time and place I picked for that.
The following story is based on the surviving pages of the diary I kept during the time and my own memory.
Bangkok 23rd December 2000. 4 days before the tsunami.
‘’My first day in Bangkok. Quite overwhelming but in a nice way. No one here to save me. No one here to tell me what to do. Thailand is hot and humid and there’s something in the air. I think it’s adventure. I think it’s limitless opportunity. I met a monkey in a diaper and got thoroughly beaten and lost 100 bath in a game of connect four by some 10-year-old kid. Got scammed as well though, I will have to wise up and learn the ropes. Avoid the yellow taxis. Go for the Tuk Tuks. Well, lesson learned. I met a guy who told me all kinds of terrifying things about Australia. Robert. I’m meeting him in Phuket a couple of days from now.’’
You could probably imagine the excitement bubbling within me. For the first time on my own. 19 years old. Prime of my life. In a strangely new and exotic city. Possibilities seemed endless. I still remember vividly driving off with the wind in my hair in a tuk-tuk as Bangkok unfolded before me with all its oriental mysticism and surrounding cityscapes. To be fair, I had never even seen an honest to god palm tree before as they simply couldn’t grow in the northern climate I was from.
I got myself stationed in a decent guesthouse around Khaosan Road. Everywhere I looked it seems others had gotten the same idea as me. Backpackers littered the streets and in a strange way, I felt at home amidst this quiet chaos, amidst the crowds of hopefully likeminded explorers, far, far away from home. The humidity was hitting me though, it was something I would have to get used to. It felt like a wet hot invisible blanket. Khaosan Road was perfect for me. A meeting place for young backpackers, with tons of opportunities to plan further travels. I did after all, not plan on staying in Bangkok for too long. It was just a stepping point to other adventures.
It was still early, and the humidity was clammy as hell. I was in the mood to socialize and with no real plans I simply ventured out into the streets of Bangkok, circling around the area where my guesthouse was located. It wasn’t long before the first opportunity presented itself in the form of a taxi driver calling me over. He offered to take me on a tour of the city. Foolish and naïve as I was, I indulged him. I remember how the cab driver lit up a doobie, joint, spliff, devil’s lettuce whatever you want to call it.
You know it as soon as you breathe in the air. Don’t get me wrong, I smoked myself, but letting a clearly high person drive me around the busy Bangkok traffic did not seem like a good idea. I should probably have asked to be let out that very moment, but as the kind of timid, shy type of person I was plus the desire to just go along with whatever happened come what may made me stay. Unsurprisingly I was eventually led to a store, fitted for a suit a didn’t want, and then subsequently charged an obscene amount for the cab ride. I didn’t have the courage to refuse his unreasonable demand. Noteworthy mention. That same night I heard from a fellow traveler that just recently someone had been stabbed in an argument with a cab driver. I didn’t let it get me down or drive me off course, because as you’ve probably gathered by now, I didn’t have a course.
As day turned to night and when the sun’s rays slowly disappeared behind the rooftops of Bangkok, the city itself began to transform. As if a part of it which had laid dormant, hidden away from the light, started to emerge.
Neon lights advertising different bars, people making all kinds of promises of untold pleasures and sensations. Tourists ready to party. All now filled the streets. Some seemed all too aware of what they were looking for, others simply drifted around aimlessly, in search of something unknown, something to spice up their existence. I found a small seemingly cool place called The Hangover. I swear to god, I wish to this day I hadn’t. Maybe then I wouldn’t have set my course for Phuket. In any case, I went in and pushed myself through the crowds of rowdy and loud tourists and up the bar where I ordered a Pina Colada. Please don’t judge me. I just really like coconuts and the song is pretty good as well. Standing at the crowded bar and looking around, hoping something interesting would catch my eye. But most of all, I was hoping someone would just take the first step and come talk to me.
Someone did. His name was Robert, and he was from Australia. A tall skinny and no-nonsense older guy who seemed quite experienced with all things Thailand. He eventually invited me down to his group of friends at the far back end of the bar. Robert spared no time telling me about himself. He had worked all kinds of jobs, in all kinds of places. Most recently he had worked as a guide in Phuket. Among other things he had arranged rock climbing expeditions. I probably forgot to mention, I was big into rock climbing and generally all kinds of outdoor activities back then.
I already had quite the climbing experience despite my young age. As Robert talked about all the places he’d been, he made me feel like the novice I was. That was never his intention though, as I quickly learned. He wasn’t a bragger. He just knew what he was talking about and when he laughed, he did it with his entire face and in a way that made you laugh with him and feel comfortable.
Eventually the conversation naturally gravitated towards Australia. A place I had always wanted to visit. He looked at me for a second, as if to contemplate something. Then told me to watch out for locals trying to play pranks on me. I was naturally interested in hearing more and that’s when he told me about drop bears. Supposedly drop bears are carnivorous versions of Koalas residing in trees to then drop down on unsuspecting victims and viciously attack them. We laughed quite a lot, and I admitted I would probably have believed the stories as I was a fairly naive person and the idea of hostile subspecies of koalas didn’t seem that farfetched to me. It would be typical of past me to get punked around like that. Our conversation then shifted towards Australian wildlife and fauna and the horrors residing within its diverse and complicated eco system. He told me about a plant not uncommonly referred to as the suicide plant. Dendrocnide moroides or more commonly known as stinging tree, stinging bush or gympie gympie apparently has such a nasty and painful sting it made a man commit suicide simply to escape the pain. Another dangerous inhabitant was the box jellyfish he explained.
Their sting was about as deadly as it gets. A single sting to a human will cause necrosis of the skin, excruciating pain and, if the dose of venom is large enough, cardiac arrest and death within minutes. I have always found jellyfish equal parts fascinating and equal parts frightening. Beautiful but deadly creatures. In fact, the ocean, in all its grand wide-reaching glory had always horrified me to some extent. So much unexplored space. Who truly knows what could be lurking down there? Robert quickly assured me, that as long as you take your precaution the likelihood of getting stung by a box jellyfish was rather small. They had signs up warning people against them. Generally, do not ignore these signs. They are there for a good reason.
It was getting late and before we said our goodbyes Robert suggested I meet him in Phuket, more precisely in the Khao Lak area on the 28^th as that was the first day he would be able to. I thought why not? He seemed genuinely nice and knowledgeable. Just good company all around and he promised to show me the greatest climbing spots a bit away from the crowded tours. It was a start.
I would never meet Robert again. I don’t know what happened to him. Thinking back on those days leading up to the point the waves came crashing down always gives me an uneasy, sad, and melancholic feeling. The people I met in Bangkok talking about going south. Those I met in Phuket before it happened. I have no idea if they ended up as corpses floating through the murky brown waters or god forbid, victims of that unholy terror from the deep. I hope Robert wasn’t among those unfortunate souls who died or went… ‘’Missing’’. Although if I must pick one or the other. I would hope he died quickly.
Bangkok 24^th of December 2000. 3 days before the tsunami.
I woke up with a slight hangover. Christmas is commonly celebrated on this date in my country, so I was expecting some calls to go through on my brick sized Nokia at some point once all the good folks back home woke up. They were about 5 hours behind me and at 9 AM Bangkok time they would still be sleeping. I used the time to do some shopping before my trip to Phuket. I got plenty of rope, a couple of snap hooks and a harness. I knew they’d have all of this on the guided tours, but I liked to find my own spots to climb, and I had good sense and knowledge enough to not attempt anything too daring. By the way. For those uninitiated, snap hooks are used to make a quick, reversible connection on a system of ropes, or to connect a rope or cord to another component, like a lanyard medallion or barrier post. Essential if you want to go climbing. If you’ve ever gone ziplining it’s the thing that connects you safely to the zipline and lets you slight across.
After having done my shopping, I bought a bus ticket to Phuket intending on leaving that same night and went back to my hotel room. As exciting as Bangkok was, I felt it was more for people intend on partying and in all honesty, a bit too crowded for me. I was excited to move on and I could always come back if I wanted to. On my way into the reception area, I was stopped by a young hip looking dude looking for a cigarette. Now I don’t necessarily consider myself a perfect judge of character, but he had an easy-going way about him that immediately drew me in. Sometimes, you can just tell.
He had sort of a rugged look about him. Dirty blond half-long hair. His face I would best describe as boyish but something in his eyes betrayed him and revealed his age to be older than you would assume. His style was… Boheme I guess I would describe it as. Like something taken out of the 70s LA scene. I’m not a smoker. Never was. So, I couldn’t help him on that front. It didn’t matter he would find someone else he said. For a while we just casually talked. Apparently, he had come to Bangkok just a few days prior and seemed about as lost and without direction as I had been before deciding on taking my chances in Phuket. Alex was his name, and he would later save my life and help me understand what it means to forge a quick and unbreakable connection through shared trauma, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
He asked me if I wanted to go somewhere and get a beer. I thought why not? He was about my age and on his own as well. I told him I had to go make some calls and I’d be out in about an hour. Back the hotel room I quickly gathered all my stuff and packed it up, so it was ready to go. My climbing gear took up the most space. I figured if things went well with Alex, I might be able to persuade him in joining me at some point in Phuket. Even though I had set out for this trip to be about discovering myself and being on my own, I longed for some kind of company. Don’t we all? I called my parents up and we wished each other a happy Christmas. It was odd to think they were somewhere nearly half-way across the world celebrating Christmas while snow draped the landscapes there. Here I was, In hot and humid paradise. No, I did not miss the cold or the snow, but I did miss not being there to celebrate the holidays with my family. But it had been my choice to go during the holiday season and I did not regret it. I had saved up enough money and there was no point in waiting anymore. There would be many other holidays to celebrate in the future.
My 5-year-old nephew somehow got a hold of the phone. Not quite the conversationalist yet, it still felt good to hear his voice. Hearing his excitement over the prospect of celebrating Christmas brought me back to my own childhood. Decorating the Christmas tree, watching holiday cartoons and of course, opening presents. I finished my calls and went out to see if Alex was ready. He was already waiting for me and had apparently managed to score some cigarettes in the meantime. He had changed his outfit as well. Now wearing a faded black doors t-shirt. We talked a bit about Jim Morrison and the doors as we headed off down streets. We passed a myriad of small stands selling everything from electronics to colorful t-shirts and small bracelets with campy misspelled English catchphrases. We dodged the many intrusive offers and eventually found a small comfy looking bar with seats outside shaded by palm trees. We ordered a couple of beers and the conversation started flowing along quite nicely. Alex was 25 and from London It turned out. We also had a common interest in music. For a while he had busked as a street musician while working odd jobs here and there and had eventually decided to travel the world.
His first stop had been India where for a while he had lived on the rooftop of some abandoned building while attempting to learn the art of playing the sitar. I thought about that for a second. Living it rough on some rooftop in India. I don’t know why that idea intrigued me so much. Seemed like freedom to me, I guess. Sleeping under the wide-open skies. Looking down on the streets and watching people go about their lives. I guess I just liked the idea of doing something that seemed different from what I had ever done before. Living on a rooftop, if even just for a while, was definitely not something I had done before. There was the view as well, Alex reminded me. And it was free of course. We drifted off into long conversations about music I won’t bore you too much with, only to let you know we shared a passion for old school music like the doors and Jimi Hendrix as well as 90s shoegaze music like My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive. I had Slowdive’s Shine playing in my mind that day. All felt so dreamy at the time.
I eventually told Alex of my plans to go to Phuket and he was onboard almost immediately. I loved how easy it was here on the road. There was no ‘’well maybe’’, or ‘’let’s think about it.’’ In fact, Alex had been to Phuket before and knew of a place we could stay for free. Another rooftop of course, but he had already sold me on the idea. From there, we could plan our next step he said. ‘’our next step’’ I don’t remember vibing with someone that quickly before or since, but then I guess making friends is always easier when you’re young and easy going. I always seemed to attract good company without much effort back then. I chalk it down to my friendly and slightly shy demeanor. Seems it only becomes harder to make friends as the years pass though. At least for me it did.
We got a bus ticket for Alex and shopped a bit more. I got some first aid supplies. Bandages, plasters, that kind of stuff. Rock climbing is safe, mind you, but you can end up scraping yourself and I felt in general, being prepared for whatever might be a good idea if I was to live it rough on some rooftop. The bus-ride to Phuket took about 12 hours give or take. By going at night, we could sleep most of the way and be in Phuket early morning on the 25^th. The trip down was uneventful. We would take turns listening to music on Alex’s Walkman or talk about things we saw along the way. Like roadside bars and restaurants who were little more than a tin roof covering a few plastic chairs and brightly colored menu cards. Everything seemed simpler here, in the best ways possible.
No big flash, no fanfares or luxury. Nothing pretentious. Just a calm, laid back atmosphere and friendly smiles from the locals as we passed by. Alex told me he wanted to start a band blending elements of Shoegaze with classic rock and insisted I learn to play the drums as he had tried but found no luck. String instruments were more him he told me. I told him jokingly if he could come up with a good name, I might be down. He just nodded and looked out the window and started talking about how beef was a rare and more expensive ingredient in Thai cuisine, and I wondered about the sudden random change of subject. Although we had talked a lot during the short time we had known each other, Alex was still a mystery to me in many ways. Judging from all the things he told me he seemed like a person who dreamed big, but never really followed through
An unfinished education. Scribbles on pieces of paper that ended up gathering dust in his drawer instead of turning into a book. A band that never really took off because he lost interest or didn’t deem that it was good enough to get successful. He talked at length about leaving a legacy. It seemed to be something that concerned him. I guess he wanted to put his mark on the world. To be remembered. To live on in some small way. I had never really thought about it myself although I did have a fascination with historical people and the lives they lived. In fact, when I do read I mostly read biographies. I just never had any ambition like that myself. I don’t need the world to know my name, or sing my praises, or remember me. Good friends, family and a sense of freedom and adventure was enough. I had tried to ask Alex about his family and friends back home, but he seemed avoidant and always found a way to change the subject without really providing any meaningful information. At certain points, I sensed a carefully hidden sadness behind his otherwise optimistically youthful and bright blue gaze.
Phuket 25^th of December 2000. 2 days before the tsunami.
Alex woke me up. It was 9 AM and we had arrived at the Phuket bus terminal 1 near Phang Nga Road. We were here. Alex explained to me that the there were several derelict and abandoned buildings perfect for establishing a free of charge rooftop domicile in an area not too far from the resorts of Khao Lak. Phuket back then wasn’t exactly the overcrowded tourist spot it is today, but it was well on the way. I understood why. The scenery was beautiful. Long sandy beaches with small island dots in the horizon, begging to be explored. Giant limestone cliffs covered in green shrubs. It did seem like paradise to me, without being too far away from civilization. I guess despite my adventurous nature, I wasn’t quite ready at that point, to walk into the wild, which is why Khao Lak seemed perfect as a start for me.
We found the area Alex had talked about. Several derelict buildings were concentrated in a small area divided by a main street that if followed long enough, led to an area with shops and places to dine. We set our eyes on what looked like an abandoned apartment complex. It was derelict, rugged looking and it seemed clear at first that no one lived there. Its ghostly façade begged us inside to explore and we accepted the invitation. As we made our way in, through a busted window in the back, we quickly became aware that the place might not be as abandoned as we had initially thought. Several signs of squatters such as cooking utensils and sleeping mats lay scattered here and there. Alex quickly rationalized that it could just be other backpackers, or it could be the people had moved on. I shrugged and we decided to make our way to the roof. We made our way to the top floor and accessed a broken-down door that led directly out onto the roof. I must admit, besides excitement, I was somewhat hesitant. Any doubt I had disappeared when we first stepped onto the rooftop terrace. It was perfect. It seemed it had functioned as a balcony or space of sorts the inhabitants could make use of for gatherings.
The entire space was surrounded by a fence. Several palm trees shaded the northwest corner which was perfect for when things got too hot. In the middle a small shed or janitorial sort of building stood. We found some cleaning materials, brooms, some parasols in there as well as an old rusty grill. The view was great. We could see the large beachfront in the far distance surrounded by limestones. After inspecting the area and finding it to our liking we sat down, and Alex broke out a bottle of whiskey. Unaware of the horror that would later unfold here, we celebrated in the shade of the palm trees. We had found our place for a while. Our place.
After a while we decided to put some money in the local economy and shop for supplies.
Essentials: Water. Cigarettes. Booze. The devil’s lettuce. Cooking utensils. Although none of us was admittedly any much of a cook. But what the hell. Can’t be seen dining out every night when we were trying to live off the fat of the land so to speak. I know, ridiculous. We were squatters. Nothing more. But heck, we would move on if we became a problem for any one here. We weren’t trying to be a bother.
Optional but greatly wanted: A blow-up animal mascot. Maybe a dolphin if possible. Some new music for Alex’s walk-man. A guitar. Decorating artifacts of any kind to make our domicile more personal.
We more or less got everything we needed and started setting up base. Getting our hands on something funny to smoke proved the biggest challenge but Alex finally succeeded at a beachfront bar. Some friendly Norwegian dude who had connections apparently. He warned us against being too open about doing drugs, even if was ‘’just’’ marijuana. Thailand had a strict approach to drugs. We thanked him and he told us to just come back here at the bar if we needed more, he was usually around.
Afternoon was rolling around and there we were. Sitting atop Phuket. On our very own rooftop presidential suite. We decorated the place with a few things we found. Among them ‘’Arthur’’ our blow-up shark (they had no dolphins). Alex had come up with the name, I asked him why ‘’Arthur’’ but in what I had quickly come to know as typical Alex fashion he just shrugged it off. We just smoked a bit and drank some booze as the evening progressed and I told Alex about Robert and Australia and all the nasty things that could kill you there. I’m not sure why, but it had made an impression on me. Insects, rare poisonous creatures, stuff like that was nightmare fuel for me. Don’t even get me started on spiders. Alex was a bit more laid back on that front. He seemed most amused and interested in the suicide plant and wondered if some poor soul had ever mistakenly used it as toilet paper and we had a good hard chuckle over that idea. Poor soul indeed.
As night rolled on stars started popping up on a clear night the sky and I learned that Alex had a fascination with the universe. Particularly the idea of multiverses and infinite universes. What if somewhere out there we were looking back at ourselves. Slightly different but still us. Sometimes it seemed to me he longed to be anywhere else but where he was. Maybe trapped in the past he was so reluctant to share with me. Then we started talking about time. I don’t exactly remember why. I think he brought it up.
Anyway, Alex had a lot to say about time. Like how he believed our perception of time is tied to our experiences. For example, someone who spends their life not stepping up, not really taking risks or chances, just following along the stream, just following the routine, in essence, just killing time, might experience time as having moved fast when they look back, because there are simply less variety, less volume, less memories to look back on. We don’t remember routines, we remember breaking them, we remember doing new things, meeting new people, being in new places. It creates the illusion that gives time volume, that makes it seem fuller, longer. I liked that idea a lot. It made sense to me. Make sure you live life to the fullest and waste as little time as possible.
I told him about my 10^th grade math teacher and how he said something about time I will never forget. Our perception of time can be measured mathematically. For example, to a 4-year-old turning 5 the transition of a year will seem much longer than it will to a 24-year-old turning 25. Because 1 in 5 is a larger fraction than 1 in 25. It blew my mind. The longer you live, the faster time seem to pass. But I agreed with him, maybe the quality and variety of the life you live and the memories you make has an affect too. Alex made a ‘’boom’’ motion with his hands around his head and laughed. We were quite stoned at that point and well, some of you might know how being stoned sometimes throws you into these philosophical conversations. It was nice. I enjoyed the ease with which I could talk to Alex about all kinds of things.
At one point I asked him a hypothetical. If he could go back in time and change just one thing, what would he do. He fell silent. I once again sensed the sadness creeping behind his eyes. It was if he was about to answer, like he was sizing me up but then shot the idea down. Time travel is impossible, so why bother was his only response and I accepted that whatever troubled him in the past, was not for me to know even if my interest only grew stronger and stronger.
I told him about my family. My overprotective mother. My father and his desperate attempts to get me interested in cars. About my older sister and my nephew. Alex nodded and asked the usual polite questions. When the subject came to my little brother his interest seemed to spark significantly. How old was he? Was I good older brother? Did I look out for him? I didn’t think much about it at the time other than finding it curious how interested he seemed to be. When we finally settled in the for night, under the starry sky, I slipped into a nightmare. It was the same I had had years earlier when I was 16. Back then I was having a hard time adjusting to the new school I had started at and maybe because of that stress I was having nightmares coupled with sleep paralysis.
I would lie in my bed, paralyzed. On my side, facing the door to my room. I often had the light on outside of the room and it would shine in through the open door. This one time , I saw dark figure approaching. Optimistically I assumed it was my mom, coming to wake me up. Although as the dark figure approached, I quickly realized this wasn’t so. No words were uttered. The eerie figure just slowly came closer, until it was right by my bed side. It sat down and I realized it was an old woman or man. It was hard to tell, because its face was literally just a mish mash of wrinkled flesh. No eyes and no mouth either. But it mumbled through its mouthless face. Speaking in tongues.
I spent some considerable time afterwards wondering what it could have been trying to communicate to me. I know of course, this was all just my mind playing tricks on me. Yet, that experience was, I suppose, my first nudge towards believing there’s more between heaven and earth than we might know. It seemed aggressive in any case. My insides were screaming as I desperately tried to wiggle myself awake as I had sometimes successfully done during paralysis. I eventually woke up. Drenched in sweat. Back then though, I had actually been in my room, and in the dream the room had stood clearly for me as it actually looked in reality which only made it seem more real. This time, I woke up next to Alex, still drenched in sweat. Alex had woken up. I had screamed in my sleep apparently. He comforted me in an almost brotherly show of affection. It took me by surprise a bit. I appreciated it, though it only made me wonder about him even more. I would have to solve the mystery behind Alex I decided. I would have to truly gain his trust. Figure him out. And I did.
Phuket 26^th of December 2000. 1 day before the tsunami.
‘’Alex played the guitar a bit and I drummed up some beats. It needed some work, but not half bad. We came up with a name for our band to be as well. Subway sleepers. Based on Alex’s time sleeping in the subway of London. It was another hot perfect day on the rooftop. We talked about going climbing the next day and I can’t wait to show Alex the joys of rock climbing. Everything is peaceful here. No stress. Just living life. Smoking it up. Meeting new people. We talked some more with that Norwegian weed dude and invited him and a couple of his friends up to ‘’our’’ place for a party. Another near perfect day.’’
Looking at these diary scribbles is making me feel it all over again. The serenity of those calm worriless summer days (well it was winter back home but it felt like summer here. Strange that) leading up to disaster. Always calmest before the storm they say. This was our last day before everything changed. Before I got a lesson in humanity. In stress under crisis. Before everything I thought I knew changed forever in the meeting with something that surely shouldn’t exist in this world.

Essentially as woman, I always had imagined what I wanted in a guy, I don’t know if I ever expected to meet one that follows the checklist but I always wanted: a good job, kind, works for a good company, hard working, handsome, and lastly is outgoing. This was mine bc I wanted the guy to compliment me being shy, I worked hard on myself as well, I am in a good shape, I have an engineering degree and I’m working toward getting a good job, and I’m kinda attractive and I’m trying to elevate that. Last time I was working, I met up with the dream guy, the way I met him was like in some kind of movies or fiction, here how it went down:
My coworker and I were waking at this work event, and a guy passes by us as we were talking about good looks, and dating men, as he passed by my coworker said “I can’t ever imagine dating a guy this good looking” I looked at him, acknowledged he was handsome but I kinda wanted to push her to talk to him rather than it being for me. As the day went by, I was talking to my friends about this funny incident and while he was busy grabbing himself coffee, he then joined the conversation when he realised we both have a mutual friend and we became friends after that.
It started from him following me on Instagram, and then texting me from there and now we are friends. My dread came in when I realised how I’m not nowhere where I need to be to get someone like him, because even if now I can pull him with my current habits and ethics I wouldn’t be able to make him like me still. Anytime he talks about habits or his work I feel the hatred of how I should’ve been better because if I mess this up, the perfect guy will be gone forever, although this guy might not be my soulmate he made me realise that if I do meet a guy who is my soulmate with my current self I will push them away bc this current guy who I am as a person is making him disinterested and that’s what hurts.

I’ve been loving myself all my life, cause you know, no one else would. I learned how to be alone as a toddler, because I had no choice. I know really well how to be alone. But we are social creatures, meant for social interaction, meant to be part of a group. This shit isn’t life, just survival.
The strength that helped me endure loneliness as a child, teenager and young adult is gone. I’ve been surviving for way too long, and my self-love is drained. And I call it self-love, but it’s actually just inflated ego to cope. What the fuck does it even mean to love oneself? Honestly. We are not meant to love ourselves, we are meant to love EACH OTHER inside of a GROUP, that’s what we evolved for. We get a sense of worth, happiness and safety from OTHERS.
Loving oneself is like a kid raising itself. Can you do it? I guess. Is it good/healthy/desirable? Of course not. How can it be healthy to give yourself what you are naturally meant to get from others? And how are you meant to give yourself what you are meant to GIVE to others? Because it’s not just about being loved, it’s also about having people to love back. I’m so tired of this shit, and no amount of “self care” or “self love” can do the trick anymore.
All this "just love yourself" narrative sounds to me like a desperate cope in desperate times, when one of the most basic human needs is rarely met for many. I need company and kindness, I need to be a part in other people’s lives instead of a ghost that nobody notices. Cause I’m a human being, a social creature that evolved to live in a tribe, not a freaking bear meant to spend the winter alone in a cave.

Hello
After several years of not using WhatsApp, society has made me go back on it. I’ve never had a personal photo of mine as a profile picture, although I’ve shared a couple of them with some close contacts through old chats, years ago.
Back to the present day, physically I’ve changed (for the better) and I feel like using one single photo of my self, one that I really like, monochrome (just black & white or sepia), with big sunglasses that cover my eyes, as a profile picture. Vanity, they say, is the favorite sin of the devil.
So, I know that picture will be in Meta’s servers for ever. And I’m not sure if I’m okay with that. I had a Facebook account back in the day, with a few photos of 10-15 years ago, but I deleted the photos and my FB account several years ago. Not sure if Meta will be able to link those old pictures from my deleted account with my current profile picture… maybe I’m being too paranoid but we all know how this big companies work.
 
However, that’s not my only worry regarding using a personal photo as a profile picture.
Since the days when WhatsApp was bought by Facebook (now Meta), I decided to not share my contacts with the app. Anymore. And that’s how I’ve been using it since then.
But then, you only have two options regarding the profile picture: let everyone see it, or no one. Because the “only contacts” option only works when you share your contacts with WhatsApp.
So, considering everyone looking for that phone number would be able to see my profile picture, would you put a photo of your face as a profile picture? Mind you, as I said, it’s a monochrome picture where I wear big sunglasses.
 
Please let me know your thoughts on the matter, the privacy and potential risks this could arise, and any solution to be able to use a picture of myself as a profile picture on WhatsApp.
Thank you.

You have to believe that if you are to take anything away from this. I am not crazy. Never have been. Every great genius, I believe, says it at some point before others come to realize it for themselves. I am not crazy. All this happened, more or less.
I first saw the woman. Her eyes melted into tar, turned to smoke, and, as soot, fell on the ground as a shadow. Then came the after-effect woosh of a blade through air. Then the echo of fine steel turned tuning-fork. Somewhere along there I realized I’d forgotten to run. So I did.
A step, another step. Step and then step. After a few of those, I looked up to get a sense of what was going around. The town was burning. There came the bone-tremor of a church bell crashing down from far too high. A grain silo exploded. The seeds burst out in a cloud of smoke and then came the ignition. I pictured the grandest 4th of July I’d ever seen and imagined the fireworks, not a kilometer, but 50 yards from my face. I then realized I wasn’t imagining jack shit.
I ducked into a building as an autumn-leaf-wind of fire rushed down the street in a tidal wave. There appeared a door behind me where there had been none and then a dozen hands where there’d been maybe seven. I was dragged under the floorboards by the digging of nails then claws then teeth.
‘Say it tickles’, came a whisper by my right ear. Some old hag shouted from my left: “Lying bitch! “. “Don’t listen to her, sweetie”, replied the woman-floorboard-voice, “Say it tickles. Just trust me, they’ll let you go. I’m not her, never like her. I won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t hurt a fly” . The hag bellowed a laugh: “Lying bitch bitch bitch bitch… “.
I’d like to say I found it surprising that two shrill voices arguing was more irritating than being eaten by a house but I don’t think anyone who’s ever witnessed a proper cat-fight would believe me. Before I could take a splinter from the boards and end myself came the tickle of a feather upon my feet. It turned into rope, rope into spider web and before long I was being dragged away in the darkness.
There was this beam of light and I found myself settled down on a bed of straw. I had a moment or two to catch my breath too. I thanked the spider like so many citizens of New York before me and it gave a quick nod as it disappeared between the brick side of the house-turned barn. I almost had another moment then. But the bricks parted once again and came crashing out the boot I’d left behind. The spider web turned into a nose and then into a mouth that shouted: “Disgusting!”.
Shut the fuck up Jim. Jimbo. Whatever you call yourself. Sorry. People are loud around here before pill time and I got me a temper. I can’t just shout at some old dude so I gotta type it out. Hope you don’t mind. Back on the trakata track.
Feeling pretty ashamed, I got back on the way. Way? I know less than you do. No way. I just kept walking. The embers of the town soon started thinning around and I found myself shivering in my summer clothes. I don’t know why but I got to walking in the shade and, soon enough, I didn’t feel so cold any more.
I paused with a finger in the air and set my back against a tree. I tried my best to just take a deep breath and relax despite its bark that kept trying to give me a back-rub. I thought for a moment about, not it all, but pretty much nothing at all. And God knows those are the only times you think anything. I realized the sun was cold.
I played my fingers through the beams of light passing through the canopy and held them out over the path. A numbness settled on them in less than a minute so I pulled them back
I looked back at the town then. I saw the strange reflections the non-metal-metal roof-tiles cast back at that sun. I saw how all the buildings were sunken into the ground. I saw that I didn’t see a single window anywhere.
Finally, I saw something hanging from the cathedral’s spire, some half-kilometer high. It was frozen and a cross and on it, as with some crosses, was a man. I raised an arm and saluted myself. Then I realized I’d saluted myself. And then so did I and then I realized that I had that I had and then I realized.
At some point along those lines, I noticed that my mind had come unbound and was bouncing between my two selves. Cloudy, cloudy and cold cold cold memories were in my Jesus-self’s mind. Black holes, revelations, origins of symmetry I don’t fucking know. And somewhere, distant and distant as stars, the memory of the very moment we were living.
I saw then a man like me. He looked like you and he looked like me but somehow he did not feel the same. Always over my shoulder, looking over what I did. Always lurking at the edge, a hunger-unending. One thought, just one in its head. To be me. To be me. To be me. To come out into the light. That was the first time I met my shadow.
I didn’t cause I couldn’t but I saw it smile. Him? I don’t know if he would be mad if he heard me speaking of him like this. Him him him him. Him to the weekend. Cold fucking play man. Bio-digital jazz, man. I don’t know. I don’t know. Honestly, don’t really care. Haven’t seen him in a while. The lights in my room come from everywhere and the walls are all white so I don’t sleep which is when he finds me. I don’t care. Back to the memory.
Then I blinked and the cathedral was gone some miles away and then I blinked and it was gone all the way. I blinked. The forest had given way to jagged hills. I blinked. Still jagged hills. I blinked. Mountains to the West. I blinked. Mountains to the West. I blinked x11. Mountains to the East. Teleportation was lamer than I’d expected.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahikHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Sorry sorry. Don’t you also ever get the urge to just tweak the fuck out sometimes? Youre in class and you realize: “Dude, I could literally molest Ms Robinson rn before anyone had any chance to stop me”. Those thoughts are invariably dangerous but your mind thinks them anyway. Assuming that your mind likes itself, what reason can there be for their existence other than that they are good then? Anyway, excuse the digression.
So I kept doing this for a while. I don’t know if my body experienced time. No, scratch that. I know it did but I don’t know how. I had a beard grow for a few dozen eye-blinks but then it was gone. I felt a finger-nail, finger-long, scrape against my leg but a few blinks later I was missing that arm from the elbow down.
I was pretty determined to keep on doing this. I think everyone knows the feeling. When you’re a little kid and you close your eyes and you pretend to be blind for a few hours, for a little bit of fun? But then I saw the village again. I’d been going for so long that I didn’t really notice it at first but then I saw it again. And then again. I think it was my 7th time around this world that I finally got a hold of myself.
Honestly, I’d thought about this ever since I saw that scp thing. I slowly closed one eye and then another and then another. Voila! Blinking was no more. Tis but a fool’s imitation of blindness anyway. (I’ve realized similar things about sleep too).
I stepped onto the town square of cobblestone of hexagons. Inside the hexagons were triangles and between those stardust. I stared deep into those cracks and realized I was looking through. I moved back and forth and noticed the parallax of the night sky but awry. Before I knew, the floor became a wall and I was falling.
I was lucky that I had been lying down close to the ground. My chin began scraping against the stones as I fell. Then I started to spin back. I grabbed a stone but it came loose and laughed at me a toothless laugh of rock. As I spun, the sky that was a wall became a wall sky and the sky-through-floor just a floor. The gravity changed at points.
The eastern horizon blurred to a disk of sundown glow and the West a twilight lantern. I was spinning so fast I began to hear the woosh of my body cutting through air. Woosh-Woosh-Woosh-Woosh.
I felt myself pass through something. It was a neck. In my wake, I saw a woman melt into night-stuff. I tapped against my chest so my woosh became a metal clang. That finally got myself to start running. I was in a slower type of time than I was right then so I didn’t hear myself say: “Go beyond the church” but I knew I must have because I told myself and then I did, had?
Up turns to down, down to up. Life to dust and metal to rust. I understood, some time in the future that gravity in this land was a matter of taste. I must have sent back that information but time doesn’t really exist when your existence is independent from it, does it now? As I was destined, as I came to know, I had always known and just not known that I’d known. That distinction doesn’t seem legitime to me either but hey, go take it up with the authorities. God knows I tried. I calmed myself and before too long touched down ground back at the hexagon-triangle-square.
I plucked one stone and then another. At first I could only see a few stars but my eyesight grew keener and keener as the wind from across the cobblestone filled my mind. Soon enough, I could see in every stone I unplugged, a million, million stars waiting for me. High up above, I could clearly see, my soul looking back down at me. He smiled reassuringly. He took me by the hand and took me to the beginning of all time.
I saw God then. What do you do when you know everything, when you are everything? I saw then the loneliest man there ever was. All he could do, all he knew he would do would be lesser than him. No one would keep him company. I saw a good that had no reason to be. And so, he became the reason for everything. And then there was light.
I saw then the part of my soul that ran away from the brilliance of that good. That would not, could not, believe itself to be worthy of such love. A part of my soul ran away and, cast in its own shadow, became the root of all shadow-things. I watched myself become satan.
I was back at the clearing. I saw then the summer sun shining down, burning my skin. It was cold. I passed my hand in front of my eyes and saw my shadow brush its fingers against my face. I saw myself then, again. I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand.
Bout all I can for the day. Ever since Ethan tried to kill himself with the keyboard they’ve been little bitches about us using the computers. Of course I could tell them it was really the keyboard who started it but Ethan’s depressed so anything he does has to be about his mental condition so they won’t believe me.
But don’t worry. As I said, I am a genius. I know things no one else knows and I can prove it. Feel free to ask about your future and I’ll tell you what I’ll feel like the next time the doctors let me out of their sight. Go long on copper futures.

Need Advice on: Should I keep waiting for him to work things out on his end? He is afraid of commitment initially but he said he's willing to try for me, and he is slowly breaking down the walls to his heart, as he had never met someone like me who loves him for who he is. I want to keep waiting, I truly do. But it feels like he's dragging this on because only because he enjoys my companionship, and the relationship stuff.
Context: I have been seeing this guy, let's call him S, exclusively for 6 months now, and we started back in December 2023, but we knew each other for more than a year before that and have been good friends. We both got out of a toxic LTR at the same time, 2 years ago, so our wounds are fresh but I already got over mine when we became friends. So we've been hanging out for half a year, when he wanted to date me. I admit I rejected him a month before I expressed my feelings to him (because back when we were just starting out as friends he didn't like how I told him I am not looking to date, but then I would change my mind about him and now be ready to--even though back then i just wanted to tell him I enjoy his company---so i kept these feelings to myself). I got scared when he expressed his feelings to me first and claims he'd catch me if I fall, but because of what he said prior, I got conflicted, and rejected him. But then I finally decided to come clean about my feelings a few weeks later but that is when he started to process removing his feelings for me. So he was upset, understandably so, but I offered some kind of a trial for us to exclusively date, like a month trial to see if it will work between us, and he agreed to it. The 1 month trial turned to 2 months, and eventually to 6 months.
I won't bore you guys with the details in those months, but he has been developing feelings for me throughout those months, and we were growing fonder and fonder of each other with each passing month. Now the problem that I am having is that I realized we are still just "seeing" each other, exclusively. Not officially. So I talked to him yesterday on the phone, and the previous day in person, about my concerns about where this relationship of ours is going. I understand of his mid-life crisis issues, his fears of getting heartbroken again, and other mental health issues he's going through right now, so I never wanted to bother him with this. But one thing that bothers me is that he introduces me as a "friend" to his friends. Like "Oh yeah this is my friend Ragingmonke (lol obviously it would be my name)" and it just sounds wrong to me. I also understand his wanting to not label the relationship, yet he is committed to me without the label?
I communicated my concerns and he said he sees me as more than a friend for sure, yet I have a tag of "Friend" like everyone else is. I'm thinking of breaking it off by June, so i gave him almost 2 weeks worth of days to think it through. I told him, "It's now or never, because there is no point in continuing this if we're not taking it to the next level." I know that it only matters what we both think about labels in our relationship, but, it feels like he doesn't want to let people know he is dating me.
I don't know... I do see him progressing but, I also see we want different things right now, so I don't want to force him to be with me when he doesn't want to. He cried in person when he knew I'm ending things if he doesn't tell me what he wants. Does he want this to take it on the next level? or Stay as we are? And I am not having it that I'm deciding for us.
I understand I'm the one at fault here too, for selfishly letting this play out.
For more context: He would tell me I'm an angel, an amazing woman he has ever met, also told me that I have the patience of a saint, and how he feels guilty because he feels he's not good enough for me, and can't provide the things I want in a relationship. He feels like he can, but he is unsure. But also proposed to stay as friends when things dont work out between us.
Help ;-;

Where to Start
Ignorance is bliss until it isn’t! I’m in my early 40’s. No retirement. We have a cleaning company so self employed. 50,000 in debt between auto loan and credit cards and I don’t see an end in sight. We have scraped by with the sweat of our brow and have not saved nor lived a lavish lifestyle. I would like to know the best retirement options to start now. How much to start with?

Hi all,
I need some perspective here because my husband and I are at odds about this. We recently adopted a 5 month old puppy (Millie) from the shelter to keep our 8 year old dog company. We adopted Millie 10 days ago. This weekend (6 days from now) I will leave for nine days to visit family. This trip has been planned for a month now. I will board Millie at a doggie daycare that also boards. I have taken Millie here twice now for daycare and will two more times before I leave. She was shy and scared at first, but now she plays with the dogs. I feel like this was really important for socialization, and that is always at the forefront of my mind because my 8yr old was not properly introduced to dogs at a young age.
My husband thinks it’s a bad idea for me to leave when we only recently got Millie. He thinks she will lose trust in us since we will “ditch her” for a week. I’m upset that he didn’t express this concern when we were adopting her, because I had no issue with the idea of boarding her. Ideally, I wanted him to take care of Millie for the weekend I leave and then board her during the weekdays when he works to lessen her time there, but he doesn’t think he can handle it without me (note that it’s only been me taking care of the dogs and doing training). So essentially my hands are tied. I do not want to cancel this trip.
Is it okay that she is going to boarding? She is comfortable at the location now and being with dogs and I am adding special enrichment for her to get 1-on-1 time while she is there.
Thanks everyone

Hello, I currently work in the skilled trades (13 years exp.29 y/o male). I have recently applied for a bunch of jobs but one posted to Indeed is truly enticing to me and I know for a fact that I have a ton of very relevant skills to what the job is looking for. I placed an application through Indeed and also sent a copy of my resume in through the company website with a cover letter on both. In my younger years I worked as a recruiter with Aerotek and learned that there is an etiquette to the application process. However my dilemma is that although I really want this job and I know I am 100% qualified and motivated I do not want to put a bad taste in the hiring departments mouth by being overbearing with follow up. Should I lay off or is it worth it to keep periodically reaching out? THANKS!

Hi, I'm purchasing a local pizzeria, partially with seller financing (40%) and partially with an SBA loan (60%). The SBA loan also includes an amount equal to the seller financing, intended to cover operaing costs for startup.
And, because I anticipate many readers asking the obvious question: Yes, I will be working with a business lawyer ASAP, before we create the purchase agreement. Right now I'm working on the letter of intent because that is one of the requirements for the SBA review process, and I hope to submit it tomorrow morning.
I have an SBA template for letters of intent, and it covers alot of my needs, but I'm uncertain of how to include language to define the offered seller financing.
The SBA LOI section on the "seller note" seems like the obvious solution, but I would love some advice on how to adjust the wording to match my needs. The base text is:
"(c) Seller Note. Seller agrees to carry a promissory note in the amount of $ ____________. Accrual of interest would be permitted on the Seller Carry Note, but no payment of principal nor interest would be permitted for the first twenty-four (24) months after loan closing. The balance at that time could then be amortized up to seven (7) years or more and/or paid off by the Buyer. Repayment of Seller Carry Note is subject to permission, in writing, from the SBA lender and SBA."
I intend to adjust the timeframe dictating repayment, because the goal is to repay a chunk using the SBA loan, and then amortizing the rest for repayment within 2 years.
But, is that blank intended to be filled in with the entire sale price amount, or should it reflect only the 40% they have offered to finance?
Or does the seller financing need a completely different section to the document, or just a further definition of how the promisory note is intended to be repaid.
The Seller is also willing to finance the entire aquisition, but we both prefer not to go that route.
Any advice on how to modify this document to meet my needs is appreciated!

(Apologies for bad english, it's not my first Language)
I have been watching Pyro's content since 2016 and even though I liked the way he managed his channel back then, it has become a shell of it's former self. I think most of his community knows about this situation and I just wanted to add my small grain of sand into the heaping pile of rubbish that Pyro Live and Le Slop have formed.
Firstly, Pyro Live channel isn't "slop", it's fucking garbage. This term Pyro and his fans used to refer to the content the Second Channel produced carried the implication that it wasn't what Pyro wanted to do, rather what he had to do to pay bills and produce the larger and higher quality videos. This has now proven to be the contrary, since Pyro is producing around 5-7 Pyro Live videos a week that are of the poorest quality and talk about "This internet drama is insane" or "Insane Youtuber situation". These videos, coupled with the insane amount of donos pyro earns from his streams (1000 bucks to show his feet) are providing him with a steady flow of income, income Pyro is using to improve the Slop Live channel instead of the Main Channel,
An argument many will use to justify the "Slop Live" situation is the following: "Oh but Pyro NEEDS the money from the second channel to create 4 hour long videos like the Cruelty Squad one." Even if it is arguable that Pyro could actually afford to live from the main channel alone since he has his own merch, live events and is streaming on top of it (those 100$ donos might be a huge chunk of his income), I do believe that 95% of Pyro's fanbase would be happier if he posted shorter and higher quality videos in the Main Channel (Like the Iron Lung or Petscop ones) since this would actually free up Pyro's schedule in order to be able to release more videos. But no, Pyro has to do the 5 hour video on Cruelty Squad and fill it with unnecessary jokes and filler. He HAS to make a Lethal Company video instead of the Darkwood one because he needs to capitalize on that sweet sweet money that comes from talking about viral games. He needs the money that comes from monetizing every single video with worthless products.
I think this is kind of the point of this post. Pyro has been prioritizing money over everything else and it is becoming annoying. His live videos are up to the brim with unnecessary tangents and conversations that Pyro artificially generates out of thin air in order to reach the 8 minute mark. His reactions to donos are extremely unfunny since he ALWAYS screams and starts flailing his arms around like a monkey at a 5 dollar dono that told him his hair is actual garbage. No Pyro, asking mods to pull someone's home address for the 25th time in a row when someone in chat says "Oldest Pyro Fan" at a barely developed fetus is NOT funny.
I am not trying to downplay the effect we as his audience have had on him. We constantly bully and mess with Pyro, making unfunny jokes about his hair and his chin, something that has made Pyro think that he needs to scream like a react Andy at every donation that "attacks" any part of his personality. It is a cashgrab of the worst kind (the kind of cashgrab we as his audience are a part of) and it has hindered his video's quality greatly.
Also, him reusing topics for the second channel and straight up reacting to SunnyV2 on the Third Channel (Le Ultimate Slop Live) just shows that he does not fucking care wether his content is interesting or not. He is becoming a C-tier British Moistcritikal imitation without all the ironic humor that makes Charlie enjoyable to watch. The absolute lack of self awareness when confronted with the lack of research in the Fallout video and the absolute dogshit points he makes in said video is revolting. Him making a 40 minute video about the Kendrick and Drake beef whilst admitting he knows dogshit about any of the singers involved in said beef (and making wonderful comments like "Metro's Booming") is one of many examples of Pyro milking the content cow dry. I honestly believe Pyro has said Neon and Adin Ross's names in the past months more than his own parent's name's during his entire life.
In conclusion, what used to be a great channel dedicated to passionate videos has now devolved into a 3 way channel content beast, creating video after video of baseless critique and commentary. There is still hope that Pyro might change for the good, prioritizing the main channel videos instead of the slop of the Second Channel, but seeing at the direction his channel is moving it doesn't seem likely.
Ironically, we might be seeing MoistCritikal or Ludwig reacting to a SunnyV2 video on "The Fall of Pyrocinical" in just a few years.

Its been 3 months, around 20 failed interviews, 2 offers and alot of time spent catching up with the FE game, just thought its time to share my experience and help some out.
Screening round: Be clear of what you did before, your past employers/projects/teams size, team structure. Show your value (system design, tech stack decision, best features you implemented, planning, coaching, etc...) Prepare the Challenge/Most difficult problem kind of questions. HR might not understand how good you are at Typescript juggling but they want to at least understand you can communicate well with the people waiting for you on your next round. They dont want to introduce someone who cant speak clearly or apprehensive. It annoys their manager and is bad for their year end review.
Technical questions: Ok I will try to go into most FE related stuff now
JS: events loop, async, DOM manipulation are must learn!
React: Some old timer did come up so at least read about them: pure component, HOC. Then the usual stuff: hooks, memo, best practices (props passing instead of local state, components over props, explicit state over variants). Know your side effect, DOM tree, when does React rerender, why state shouldnt be overused. State management: Redux, zustand, react query, contextAPI. What to choose, when to choose.
Vue, NextJS: Similar to React questions, but expect to give comparision between these and React. Especially if you are asked about Next, then be prepared to talk about folder structure, file based routing, and of course SSR and server actions, why data fetching with server is faster than client side fetch. Hydration, invalidation, error boundary.
Testing/Reporting/Web Vitals: Unit test with Jest is NOT enough. You are expected to explain through the entire testing stack: Catching bugs, unit test, integration test, CSS test. Some toolings like Sentry/GCP/Sonarqube are expected too. Know your Chrome dev tool well too especially the network tab (!) waterfall, fetch, response, header etc... Have an opinion about when to unit test vs e2e
Webpack/Optimization Not usual to hear about Webpack anymore but still you should know what it does with your JS files, bundling, treeshaking, dependencies map, code splitting, polyfill...
Deploy Even if its the job of the dev ops guy in your team, you should still at least understand the build/deploy process, dockerizing an app, the content inside .yml files. They will ask questions like when do you perform test in your pipeline, release process, dev/prod environments, how API keys are stored on cloud... Dont get caught off guard!
Micro-frontend/Cloud: These started slowly leaking into the job of a FE dev about 3-4 years ago but now they are asked almost everytime. If you never worked with micro-front end before, use shadcn/ui for example or at least know that its very common for company to have multiple React projects (UI kit v1, UI kit v2, Form kit, client app, legacy app, etc...) and they want you to be comfortable with develop them in parallel. Also learn the basic of deploying on Vercel or AWS to not raise any red flag of a knowledge void.
If you sign up for senior position, prepare to talk about coaching, short term long term planning, change request management, stake holder expectation.
NOT once I was tested about Tyepscript eventho this is one of the toughest shit to deal with in real projects.
Live coding: Leetcode is inevitable. If your lucky, they will ask one or two questions such: how to filter duplicates in an array. You need to practice this and if you dont know where to start, udemy, youtube has some pretty good courses. At the end you should learn by heart to solve the most common problems: Anagram, String Frequency, Two Sum, Remove Duplicate... And at the very least you can tell the interviewer the approach into problem solving (2 pointers, sliding window, divide conquer..) and explain big O. Most of the time, interviewer dont require you to solve problems with good efficiency. So nested for loops or built in JS functions are totally ok.
Take home assigment: One thing that isnt asked or mention in the earlier rounds but always come up in take homes is working with API API API API!!! I have to really stretch this because it might or might not burn you. The commons tasks will be: Connect to the company or some third party API, fetch data, do some data transformation, build some decent UI for the data. If you get the generic stuff like MockJSON, TMDB then you are lucky. There could be trickier stuff like Notion, Stripe, Spotify that requires auth and quite some data transform then it might take you alot of time. Depending how familiar you are with it. My advice: Have your own node server boilerplate ready. Better yet just use NextJS for both server and client. Use at least one state management package (zustand or react-query is fine) Practice setting these up by building smaller Next app (auth, fetch, folder[slug], routing) so when the time comes you can execute it fast. Never ever overlook UI and responsive design. I fucked one up when I built all features perfectly but didnt make the UI to spec like their requirement. One more tip: Once you submit your assignment to github and time is up, as long as you dont hear any feedback from the company, keep improving the app and merge the changes. Make it perfect if you can!
For the rest: Know your taxes and rate. Prompt ChatGPT to prepare you for anything you are unsure about. Its especially good at solving, giving direction in leetcode questions once you already understand the basic. Good luck!

Hi, I'm purchasing a local pizzeria, partially with seller financing (40%) and partially with an SBA loan (60%). The SBA loan also includes an amount equal to the seller financing, intended to cover operaing costs for startup.
And, because I anticipate many readers asking the obvious question: Yes, I will be working with a business lawyer ASAP, before we create the purchase agreement. Right now I'm working on the letter of intent because that is one of the requirements for the SBA review process, and I hope to submit it tomorrow morning.
I have an SBA template for letters of intent, and it covers alot of my needs, but I'm uncertain of how to include language to define the offered seller financing.
The SBA LOI section on the "seller note" seems like the obvious solution, but I would love some advice on how to adjust the wording to match my needs. The base text is:
"(c) Seller Note. Seller agrees to carry a promissory note in the amount of $ ____________. Accrual of interest would be permitted on the Seller Carry Note, but no payment of principal nor interest would be permitted for the first twenty-four (24) months after loan closing. The balance at that time could then be amortized up to seven (7) years or more and/or paid off by the Buyer. Repayment of Seller Carry Note is subject to permission, in writing, from the SBA lender and SBA."
I intend to adjust the timeframe dictating repayment, because the goal is to repay a chunk using the SBA loan, and then amortizing the rest for repayment within 2 years.
My questions are: is that blank intended to be filled in with the entire sale price amount, or should it reflect only the 40% they have offered to finance? (Note: The Seller is also willing to finance the entire aquisition, but we both prefer not to go that route.)
Or does the seller financing need a completely different section to the document, or just a further definition of how the promisory note is intended to be repaid?
How should I modify this document to best fit my needs?
ps: I am cross-posting this on other subreddits that are more focused on legal questions.
Text modified to clarify my questions to make this post more in line with the intended format of this subreddit

Need some feedback
Yesterday, I woke up, got a cup of coffee and my manifestation journal. I went outside on my front porch and just took in the beauty of nature and the birds chirping. I wrote a letter to my future self about all the things I’m going to have and obstacles I’m going to overcome. When I went to meditate, I was concentrating on the love aspect of my life. When my eyes were closed, it was just a bright white light with the normal energy I always see. Then, when I started thinking about love, there was this incredible rush of energy throughout my body, and what I was looking at with my eyes closed, came a bright reddish, pinkish color that overtook the entire space. Could anyone help explain what this might mean?

Hi. I have not written anything in a while so if this is choppy, bear with me.
I’m nonbinary (AFAB) and use any pronouns. Your age or gender or country doesn’t matter to me. I love speaking to people very different than me.
I have suffered from a lot of anxiety and avoidant behaviors most of my life, which led to me being a shut-in internet addict for years pre-COVID. In my adult life now, I find it very difficult to connect with others. But I love people, I love observing their little quirks. I love getting to know their stories, I often wonder about their inner dialogue and dreams and all the experiences they’ve had that led them to the same place and time as me.
But anyway, I’m very much a late bloomer and I’ve only been integrating back into society for about 3 years now. I’ve made lots of progress, and friends of some sort. But I feel very lonely. I mistook this for a different loneliness and threw myself into romantic relationships. I’ve realized that, the entire time I just needed friends. I just craved connection. To be seen. To see. Real connections, that are intentional.
Everyone in my social circle seems to be fixated on Twitter and the idea of “mutuals”, preoccupied with dating apps and the latest situationship. I adapted to this, but I find myself always feeling empty, and lately that doesn’t feel like enough to me.
I crave something different. I crave something sweeter, something intentional, something wholesome. I want to feel like apart of it all. I know the life I could live, I know the capacity for connection I could have, I know it’s out there.
I use to read my grandmas letters and postcards often, and I’ve always wanted to do the same. I find it so sweet that two humans in different places take the time and effort to tell each other about their lives and what they’ve seen, and send little photos. It’s beautiful.
With that being said, I’ll tell you a bit about me so maybe we can have common interests to build off of.

• I’m a self taught musician. I never performed beyond for friends and family, it’s more of a therapeutic thing for me. I have been asked to play for my best friend’s wedding though, which is very scary. I’ve played guitar for over a decade, I love trying to pick up other instruments too.
• I enjoy music a lot. I use to collect records, and would one day like to get back into it. Some of my favorite artists currently are Adrianne Lenker, Faye Webster, Indigo De Souza, Boygenius, Julia Jacklin. I love finding new music, and making playlists. I’d love to eventually burn CDs and make physical playlists for people I’m close to.
• I don’t watch a whole lot of film, but some of my favorites are After Hours, A portrait of a Lady on Fire, and I really enjoyed Love Lies Bleeding. I’m currently watching the series Normal People.
• I don’t read and haven’t in a long time, however I want to change this. I have a list of books I’d like to read.
• I work nightshift, a very repetitive and menial postal job.
• I love nature but stay inside way too often because my avoidance with being perceived by others and living in a city. When I lived in a rural town, I loved being outside. I’d really like to push myself to go to parks, hiking, lakes.
• I enjoy learning about “practical” and handy things. I use to go to welding school and enjoyed it very much. I did a construction pre-apprenticeship too. There’s a lot that I don’t know but it’s an interest of mine. I love learning about the trades and how we sustain our shelters. I love architecture and landscaping and spaces that feel beautiful to be in. I also have a special interest in learning about the construction of cob houses, and would LOVE to do a workshop one day.
• I love learning overall, about anything. But I’d really like to learn how to garden and cook. I also bake from time to time, but haven’t in a while due to housing insecurity.

Anyway, I can’t think of much else and I feel this is already a bit lengthy for an introductory post. If you feel the same, and like we may have some common interests, please reach out. Thank you :)

TW for sexual, physical, medical, emotional, and religious abuse, childhood sa, suicidal ideation, and self harm
This past week has been incredibly difficult due to that holiday so I decided it would be good for me to write a letter to my nmom to keep for myself during my healing process to get everything out and it's been very cathartic. Part of my healing journey has been sharing my (extremely personal) experience with others who understand, hence why I'm sharing this here, and maybe it'll give someone some strength knowing that I made it out after all of this. I hope everyone was kind to themselves this week and was able to treat this holiday as a holiday for themselves for surviving their nmoms!
Dear mom, Happy belated Mother’s Day. My Mother’s Day was spent being upset and anxious so I decided to write this letter. This letter is so incredibly difficult to write and even more difficult to read back to myself. Moving away from university and back home during COVID was genuinely one of the most difficult things I have done in my life simply because of all of the repressed memories that flooded back into my brain every single day I was in that house. I used to resent the pandemic for forcing me to live in an environment that made me want to harm myself every single day and die every other day, but I am now thankful for the clarity that it brought me as I don’t think I’d have the foresight that I have now.
There is a lot that I want to say. I am angry, bitter, resentful, and traumatized from things that you have done to me as a child and also as an adult. I thought for a very long time that thing were normal but thank God I now know just how truly fucked up so many of my childhood experiences were. Not a single day goes by where I don’t think about the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that I went through. I am haunted every single day by things that you did (and some things that you didn’t do) and hope that one day I will be able to heal from what I experienced.
I grew up being close to my cousin Chloe (a year younger than me) who was obviously very bitchy, mean, and abusive. This fact isn’t something you weren’t aware of as I know a fully grown adult would be able to see how she treated and talked to me when around you and come to the obvious conclusion that I should not have been allowed to be around her. She bullied me, called me names, physically assaulted me by pushing me, pulling my hair, and sitting on me with my hands held behind my back until I couldn’t breathe, forced me to bathe in scolding hot bath water that would burn my skin, making me undress and make fun of parts of my body, and forced me to watch things that she knew would scare me. This is the same time that I started having insomnia and struggled in school due to anxiety. It’s also the same time I remember my sound sensitivity starting. Do you remember my childhood friend’s mom Amelia and how protective she was over my friend, Diana? Diana met Chloe at my 9th birthday party and Diana went over to her house for a playdate and Chloe did something to her. She physically reached over and groped Diana on the privates. I knew Amelia IMMEDIATELY prevented her daughter from ever being around Chloe again. I also knew that it's possible she mentioned this to my aunt, but I'm not positive. I know that Amelia is the type of mom to prevent Diana from reading Harry Potter because she thought it was a bad influence on her due to being “demonic”, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she made you aware of what Chloe did to Diana as she knew that I spent a lot of time around her. I doubt that what Chloe did to Diana was ever kept a secret from you. Chloe also forced me to do sexual things I didn’t want to do from roughly the ages of 8-11. One time, we were in her kitchen and she pulled out a knife and said that she was going to stab me. By then, I knew she just wanted to scare me so when I had no reaction, she put the knife away. I was terrified of what would happen if I said no to her so I went along with whatever she wanted. She would go into the bathroom and tell me to follow, would lock the door, and make me take off my clothes and let her do things to me and forced me to do the same things to her. I used to think that you had NO IDEA about this until I remember you saying the words- “you were an amazing kid and never had any problems until you got a little older. I always wondered if something happened.” Who the fuck says that to their kid???? Yeah, something DID happen and it wouldn’t have happened if you protected me!!!! You fucking idiot!!!! I remember being in our new house and taking a shower with you when I was about 8 (which was VERY inappropriate and should NEVER have happened at all) and saying something that clearly made you uncomfortable. It CLEARLY indicated something was going on. I remember the exact face you made and know that any normal, healthy adult would have done something about it and made sure nothing was happening. They would have made sure I was SAFE, and talked to me about safety, but nothing was said or done. You have failed me many times, but this one is the most painful. Not only will you need to live with the fact that you knew about my abuse and did nothing, but I will have to live with the fact that my mom knew "something happened” and didn’t care about me enough to protect me. I look at my beautiful niece Hallie, and imagine not protecting her like that and want to vomit. I cannot fathom how a mother would have the thought “I wonder if something happened to my daughter to case a massive behavioral change” and NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! You didn’t talk to me, never asked me if Chloe was doing anything, or anything at all. If I even had a minor suspicion that something was happening to Hallie, I would IMMEDIATELY do something about it because THAT IS MY JOB as an adult in her life. You failed me and deserve to know that this traumatized me and gave me PTSD. I am NOT autistic, no matter how much you WANT me to be so you can go around and gain sympathy for “having an autistic daughter” rather than owning up to the fact that you caused what “went wrong” with me.
Not only did you not help prevent me from being molested by my cousin, you also added to my sexual trauma by forcing me to use the giant egg monistat insert to treat a yeast infection when I was 11. I was ELEVEN and you had a bright idea to force a HUGE foreign object into my prepubescent body even though you were fully aware I could have easily gotten a prescription for a pill to swallow from a doctor. I was scared. I had so much pain and itching and needed a mother to hug me, tell me it’s going to be okay, or at the very least, EXPLAIN what I had and how we were going to fix it. You didn’t do any of that. You told me to lay down and proceeded to try and administer medication that is NOT meant for children 12 and under due to the physical damage it could cause. I was clearly in pain and scared, but you kept trying anyways. At any point, you could have stopped and taken me to the fucking doctor, but nope. You then got frustrated that “you couldn’t get it in” and told your 11 year old daughter to shove it inside herself. Then you left the room. I hadn’t even had a period yet, let alone know where my vagina was but you sure felt the need to yet again abandon your parental responsibilities and place them onto your kid! Miraculously, I put it in and wobbled out to lay on the couch because I was in physical pain from BOTH the infection and YOU, but because a child’s body isn’t able to properly fully insert the medication used (which once again I’ll remind you is meant for girls 13 and up), it came out and got on the couch because you didn’t give me a pad. And rather than prioritize your own daughter’s health, safety, wellbeing, and comfort, you were more upset about the stain on the couch and yelled at me. I will never forget in all of the years that I am alive how ashamed and disgusted I felt standing behind you watching you furiously scrub at the stain that I caused (actually, that YOU caused since this never should have happened in the first place!) and feeling a huge flood of guilt every time I saw that couch stain. One of the best days of my life was when we got a new couch and I never had to see that stain again.
All of this caused me to develop anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and ideation, self harming behaviors, having out of body experiences where I dissociate, and panic attacks amongst other things. YOU caused ALL of this and you fought tooth and nail to convince me that it was MY fault for being broken. “There’s something going on with you,” and you made it your mission to never take any responsibility for any of the trauma that you caused. Not only did you ignore all signs of abuse and sexually assault me yourself, you bullied and helped a family friend Sharon bully me when I was “being mean” to (her daughter) Faith. I was treated like I was a mentally ill monster who couldn’t be trusted and always got in trouble whenever Faith shed a single tear because I was “mean to her”. Faith cried at LEAST 15x a day, and I was blamed every time she decided to say I was the reason. You allowed a monster (Sharon) to ABUSE me and had the incredibly wise idea to start passing along what shit talking you two would say about me TO ME, a 13 year old girl. I was THIRTEEN. I was A CHILD. And yet, you came crying and complaining to me about how tired you were of hearing Sharon say I was being mean to her daughter when you could have TOLD THE OTHER ADULT IN THE SITUATION TO STOP. It never was my responsibility as a child to try and make another adult stop abusing me by “behaving better.” There was nothing wrong with how I was behaving. You never once tried to help me, you always blamed anybody and everybody else for your failures. I would come and ask you for help when I was struggling and if you didn’t care, you would pawn it off to somebody else- “go talk to your older sister” “talk to your therapist about that” “I don’t know what to say except to tell you to pray about it” and when I came back saying praying didn’t magically fix my depression, you told me to pray harder. I guess you really thought it was a skill issue rather than a diagnosable health condition! No wonder I wanted to die! Hahaha! I’ll never forget the look of disgust on your face when I was sobbing hysterically and struggling to get out the words when I told you just how badly I was affected by Sharon and said how you played a role in helping her harm and abuse me. “WELL. I’m SORRY if you think I didn’t protect you enough. I know what that feels like because my parent’s took my sister’s side a few weeks ago when we were having an argument” (as FULLY GROWN 50+ YEAR OLDS arguing and bitching LIKE CHILDREN!) No, mom, it’s not the same. I was a child and not only did you not stop an abuser from harming me, you joined in. You allowed her access to me and you passed along what horrible things she said was wrong with me. “SHARON said she thinks YOU’RE BIPOLAR. Do you think you are?” “Sharon told me that you’re having AN EPISODE and are being mean to Faith! Show me your phone!” Erm? I’m thirteen? What do you expect me to do? “Well, I just don’t understand why you keep bringing this up when it happened so long ago. I just hope you can forgive her and move on.” You’re fucking disgusting. Should I go into detail about how many times I asked you to not interact with Sharon more than you needed to and you proceeded to try and force her into my life more? You KNEW how uncomfortable I was with you attending Faith’s wedding and yet, you cared more about how you looked and not only attended, but hosted both her wedding and wedding shower. I have always wondered why you never cared how I feel until I realized that you prioritize yourself and how you look to other people above anything and everyone. There is a clear pattern of behavior- - When I was 17 and you were berating me at your work for wanting to visit my friend up in Boston to see a concert together because “you just didn’t understand why I’d want to do that” and I started crying. You rolled your eyes and said “you better leave now if you don’t want my next client to see you crying because her appointment is in a few minutes.” You cared more about having your random client seeing me cry and potentially thinking you’re a bad mom than comforting me. - When I was 13 and we were saying our nightly prayer the night that I had my “therapy appointment” (aka, you and my “therapist” chastising me for writing in my diary that I was having suicidal thoughts), when you were praying you said “Dear God, please help (my name)… and… pLEASE HELP ME!!!!” Clearly, YOU were affected more than I was even though I was the one wanting to die because of you. Wow. Your life is so hard! - Telling everyone around you that I “have problems” and am “really struggling” so you can gain an ounce of sympathy. The way that your friends come up and talk to me is baffling. - Laughing about me with my friends in high school when I was out of the room- “hahaha my daughter is sooooo weird hahaha” - When I was 18 and you called my “therapist” (who did NOT get my consent before doing this and violated her ethical guidelines) after I moved out and stopped talking to you, you got her to help you write a list of “rules” to force me to stay in contact with you. They consisted of requiring me to “talk to you, dad, or my sister at least 1x/day” so you “knew that I was safe” aka, you wanted to control me even though I was an adult and not living in your house. I was perfectly safe, and yet you made me sound like I was doing drug deals in the morning, prostituting myself after lunch, and had plans to commit felonies later that night. I went to school, ate, and went back to my apartment. You had no right manipulating me into talking to you by using my therapist, dad, and sister against me. Pathetic. - Telling me to go do my runs on a strange man’s property instead of the road because it’s “safer.” Dad said that this man who I’VE NEVER MET told him that “there are bad people out there who will kidnap her and do horrible things to her, SO INSTEAD she should run on MY property!” Not sketchy or rapey at all, right? And completely dismissing me when I said that made me uncomfortable by saying “my dad knows him”? Lady, do you know any rape statistics? Clearly not, because you’d then know that only 7% of assaults are strangers while 93% are family members or acquaintances. NINETY THREE PERCENT. The amount of times that I’ve mentioned someone made me uncomfortable or had a massive affect on me as a child and you’ve replied with “Oh, well did they touch you?” People don’t have to touch me to traumatize me. You’re pathetic for thinking that.
I’m not mad at Chloe. I don’t feel any anger or ill will towards her at all. She was a child just like I was a child. She was failed more than I was failed. No child acts that way and assaults other children without learning that from somewhere. I blame her parents for what happened to her. I blame YOU for what happened to me. I vividly remember things that my aunt would say the same time this was happening about little girls and their bodies and I want to smash my head against the wall. Children are to be protected above anything and everything else, by you didn’t. Do I hate Faith and think that she’s a bad person because of what happened when we were 13? No. I fully blame you and Sharon. The amount of adults that have failed me in my life keep me up at night. I think about how different my life would be had dad been more involved and seen what was going on and taken me away from you. I am angry with him for that. I dream one day I will be able to sit down with him and tell him everything I have written about and he will hug me, support me, cry with me, and apologize for not being there more to protect me. But who knows, he might defend his child abusing, mentally ill wife and say I’m making up everything. Who knows.
Do you want to know what my sister said when I told her all of this? She apologized to me for not being 15 years older than I am so she could have raised me instead. I want you to sit here and think about how fucked up that is. My own sister wishes she could have taken me away from you so you couldn’t have abused me. I imagine the pressure she must have felt having to grow up while also raising her mother and sister and I sob for her. I’ve sobbed for me for the mental anguish and torture I experienced at your hands. I’ve even sobbed for you because I can’t imagine being even a fraction of how fucked up you are to resort to abusing and neglecting your child- a child you begged to have. A child you had trouble having and prayed for. Embarrassing.
I’m never going to have a relationship with you again. If God is willing, I will never have to interact with you ever again. Saying that phrase “if God is willing” is ironic because you forcing me to pray my problems away rather than helping me led me to not believe in him. How can I believe in something that also neglected me? I’d sit in my dark bedroom night after night praying and sobbing for him to help me. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I felt broken and alone. I now know that I was a child praying for God to take away my PTSD, and that is not possible. My heart breaks for that child.
You’re a pathetic excuse for a mother and human being. I’m truly shocked that I survived you and your abuse. I’m surprised that I didn’t ever try to kill myself to try and get away from you because you’re a vulture that prays on innocent people. The only important people in your life are people you think will give you something or will make you look good. That’s why you refused to ever cut ties with Sharon, you knew she was sexually abused as a child and you couldn’t POSSIBLY NOT be her friend because you need her to be your “friend,” or rather, your token sexually abused as a child friend. I genuinely hope that you get better and become a normal healthy person but I won’t ever be around to see it. I hope you feel even a fraction of the pain and abandonment that I have felt my entire life. Happy Mother’s Day, but today isn’t Mother’s Day for me, it’s Daughter’s Day. Moving far away from you one month ago has truly saved my life. Instead of trying to survive, I am enjoying my life. I would have died in that house. I get to finally celebrate being away from you and celebrate myself for staying strong and fighting when I could have easily given up. You once told me “you feel like I HATE you!” to guilt me into fawning over you and telling you how much I loved you, but now you get the opposite. I DO hate you and hate how you have permanently changed me and I wish to never see you again. Instead of praying for the “God forsaken, atheist, lost, evil, liar, miserable, spiteful, hateful, disgusting, mentally ill, “autistic” daughter, pray for yourself. Pray for God’s forgiveness for emotionally, medically, physically, sexually, and religiously abusing and neglecting me. You deserve to remain in your "clueless" state of "having NO IDEA what you did wrong to make her stop talking to me!" for the rest of your life.Happy Daughter’s Day.

Telling my story here to get it off my chest. And maybe there are other couples out there facing the same issue who can relate.
I'm Chinese Non-Muslim and my Partner is Malay Muslim. We met in uni and we've known each other as friends for 2 years. After some trust building and heartfelt confessions, we decided to start dating casually, to see if we'd actually last together, knowing the challenges we'll face as a multiracial couple in Malaysia. I was upfront and clear about never wanting to convert my religion, so a long term relationship may not possible. He is open minded and he accepted my boundaries. We didn't change who we are for each other. We accepted each other.
1 week became 1 month, then became 6 months, then 1 year, and now it's been over 2 years. Ever since we started dating, he became less pessimistic about life, and I became more self confident. We both became better people, but we are still who we are. I've never been so sure of a man and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And he has told me the same, which still makes me blush like crazy.
Throughout our relationship, I have thought about marriage several times. The first few times I thought about it, I ended up crying. Because I know we could never be legally married in Malaysia without me converting my religion. And no marriage means we would also never be able to have children in Malaysia. I have expressed to him my sadness and he reaffirmed what he said to me during the early days of our relationship, that he doesn't want to force me to change myself and he loves me because I'm me.
We talked about eloping overseas and building a life there, but that means we'll have to leave behind our life, our friends, and our families in Malaysia. We'll also need a lot of money to do this. Another option we have is to just continue dating forever, but in our hearts and souls, we'll be committed and intertwined with each other forever. Going down this road, I'll never have the big day of my dreams, and we'll never have children, but at least we'll save a lot of money and we can spoil each other haha. We can still have a big "Company" dinner just for the hell of it. And we'll have pets together.
We both know that's going to be a decision to make very far into the future. We've decided we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, we are going to relax and just enjoy ourselves as best we can. It's not always easy because I get worried about the authorities tearing us apart. We have to lay low and be careful who we trust. Fortunately, we are currently surrounded by close friends and loved ones, and are surviving just fine. I hope that the future of Malaysia is more progressive, but that's probably just wishful thinking.
PS: I'm not looking for solutions, just want a listening ear to share this with.

Hello everyone
I wonder if anyone has any insight into this as I'm a bit confused.
I had a house with a mortgage of about 180,000. I found myself unable to afford to pay even the interest on the mortgage after I lost my job due to illness (I was receiving only state benefits). I was ultimately forced to hand back the keys to the mortgage company last year. They sold it for about 100,000 relatively recently and I was expecting them to come after me for the shortfall. I would then have no option other than to become bankrupt.
I received a letter yesterday which has confused me. It says 'I've enclosed your closing statement showing that your mortgage with us has been fully redeemed'. Then there is a statement attached which I have linked to below. It states that the final balance is £0.00.
https://imgur.com/a/Tyvh1FH
Can anyone help with what this all means for me? I'd be grateful for any advice.
Thanks

For this roleplay, I am thinking of two distinct but connected options - depending on which specific theme you are looking for. Read below for details on each!
RESTRICTED GAMMA // NOT APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE BY THE DIRECTORATE
ASSET: AN - 4789
DATE: 2.18.2107
CURRENT DIVISION: OPERATIONS
CURRENT TEAM: DEEP COVER TEAM
You are hereby reassigned to the DEEP COVER (DCT) team within the OPERATIONS BRANCH (OPs).
You are to report to your new handler, AN - 2364, immediately for tasking.
Details of your reassignment will be provided after current assignment debriefing with AN - 2364.
RESTRICTED GAMMA // NOT APPROVED FOR RELEASE BY THE DIRECTORATE
For this roleplay, you are a member of an interstellar clandestine organization called The Directorate.
You may have already had an illustrious career within the organization, or perhaps you are about to be given your first real assignment. You get to decide!
The plot of this roleplay focuses on the investigation into a criminal organization called the Kidari Syndicate.
Your character will need to operate as they see fit, working to infiltrate, sabotage, misdirect, or even play double-agent with the Kidari Syndicate.
If you are interested in intrigue, thrillers or mystery roleplays - this is a great option!
Make no mistake though, this roleplay will be grand in scope - with your character potentially influencing way more than just the Syndicate itself through their actions.

Seeking entrepreneurial minds, brave souls, or affluent investors!
Kidari Enterprises is seeking to expand its roster of exceptional employees and benefactors.
For those interested, interviews will be conducted at the Higari Corporate Megatower - Floor 89, Suite 103.
Looking forward to introducing the best to our organization.
For this roleplay, you are an aspiring member of an interstellar enterprise called “Kidari Enterprises” - though the company itself is really just a front for the Kidari Syndicate.
You may be a visionary, someone who joins the organization hoping to do great things in their career only to be led down a much more sinister path. Or, you are a well networked mercenary who knows exactly what the organization stands for - and you just want in on the profit. The possibilities are pretty open!
The plot of this roleplay focuses on the character’s entrance, either knowingly or unknowingly, into a large criminal organization.
Your character will need to climb the “corporate ladder”, to impress the criminal bosses who run the day to day operations of the Syndicate. One day, they may even become a boss themselves, or they could turn tail and try to run with all their newly acquired dangerous knowledge.
If you are interested in dark, gritty, sometimes evil roleplays - this is a great option!
Make no mistake though, this roleplay will be grand in scope - with your character potentially influencing way more than just the Syndicate itself through their actions.

Hi there! My name is Sean and I have been roleplaying for probably close to 15 years now. I am 26 by the way! I got started with text-based roleplay while playing Runescape when I was (probably) way too young... Since then, I've had many different partners over the years. I've even created and ran a Discord group RP server that had around 30 members at its peak - but that just got to be way too much for me to deal with... Having a full time job made it extremely difficult, even with staff members!
Even though I had to leave that server behind, I still love diving into in depth roleplays with enthusiastic people. My ideal partner would enjoy collaborative worldbuilding, slow burn, intrigue and epic tales. As a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master in real life, I have no problem creating various NPCs as the story unfolds, but I also love when my partner is comfortable doing the same - after all, I find most amazing roleplays have truly grand scope and scale and will more than likely involve more than just our main characters.
If you are interested in the options above, and made it this far - first off, congratulations! Feel free to send me a message in whatever way you feel comfortable. If you’d like to introduce yourself personally, that works. If you want to come up with a starting scene for the roleplay - go for it! I look forward to hearing from you!

Two days ago, I brought my girlfriend to my house to introduce her to my parents. My parents enjoyed her company, but my aunt, who lives with us, didn't like my girlfriend because of how she dressed. She wore a plain T-shirt and tracksuit pants.
My aunt made fun of my girlfriend's outfit, saying that cheap clothes won't impress anyone and that she looked like a village girl. She also said it was a waste for me to date someone like her. My girlfriend didn't say anything, and my dad tried to stop my aunt, but I shouted at her first.
I told my aunt that it's my life and I can choose whoever I want as a partner. I also told her that she's just a freeloader in the house who doesn't even pay the bills or work, so she has no right to comment on someone's status.
After that everytime my aunt saw me, she keep avoiding making an eye contact with me. She seem rather afraid of me. (Maybe because of the way I shouted at her - Slamming the desk and pointed my finger at her)