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2024.06.02 16:36 UselesTaste Tool head upgrade suggestion for voron v0
 | Soooo I did it again and bought my self another used voron. submitted by UselesTaste to VORONDesign [link] [comments] TLDR is : Is there easy to maintain tool head like stealthburner for v0? The short story is I bought my first voron as used my first voron! for around 600usd and I love this machine first It was almost every parts needed to be replaced and also a lot of you guys suggested to rebuilding it. so I did but I was not getting good abs result and also heating the whole 350mm was difficult due to heat and electricity bill(and also I pretty much live in the same room) so I wanted small abs machine and decided to self source v0.2 and bought frame and some electronics and hardware. In the middle of building v0.2 used v0.1 popped up for 120usd! (Almost ender price) I couldn't resist and went for it, So far I did some maintenances but the fans, man 3007 fans are so hard to get in south korea and also lack of cooling on mosquito hot end is causing clogging. I want to find some toolhead that uses more easy to find fans like 4010 for hotend and 5015 for parts cooling. also It would be good to have easy to maintain tool head Thank you! Just realized while posting that my nozzle has been clogged again lol |
2024.06.02 16:31 StrainFew7283 My(23F) ex(22M) keeps checking my Instagram after 4months of breakup and now when I have blocked him, he uses a fake account. He said he wanted to be friends but I still blocked him and now he uses a fake account....what do I do now?
I 23/F started dating my boyfriend 22/M in 2021. For context, the relationship started when he was about the start college and I was about to graduate but we are from the same church so that's where I got to know him. Initial one year everything was great but my boyfriend was going through heavy financial issues at home and from time to time whatever help I could do, I would do. We had started working in the same company and it was a WFH job so we also got lots of time to spend with each other especially due to lockdowns. Fast forward to 2022, I got a promotion at work and the role required me to work from office and things got very rocky as my boyfriend had also gotten a promotion but the role needed him to work from office which he couldn't as he was attending a regular college. He ultimately had to resign and that took a toll on his mental health. The day he lost his job he told me he wanted to breakup, he believes in being the provider in the relationship although I never really asked for anything from him. I believe in making the relationship absolutely 50-50 from planning dates to paying bills and all the sorts. The entire year went very rocky with my boyfriend asking for a breakup multiple times but I tried reasoning things out. Meanwhile even I wasn't doing great in my finances, I made small budget cuts for myself which idk how but made my boyfriend feel incapable (we did not live together, we lived with our own families). Starts 2023, I was in a lot of pressure at work and at home but I tried making ends meet for myself without asking for help from my boyfriend but just keeping him updated on everything. May 2023 we finally broke up when he told me that he's under huge mental pressure and he cannot continue a relationship. I am a hot headed person by nature so in the heat of the moment I broke up. But after the breakup we were in touch, few weeks later he wanted to patchup but I said no and this continued for 3months, even on the day we were supposed to celebrate our anniversary (8th June) we were a broken couple. But at the end of July, I finally accepted his apology as I thought maybe he genuinely wants to come back and will not breakup again but then I saw how casual he was with me as if nothing ever happened and he expected me to also go back to normal as if the breakup just never happened, I didn't spend countless sleepless night, as if I wasn't hurt. Additionally he made me feel like a burden on him. Suppose I told him I wish I could do so and so for my birthday but since I have budget cuts I can't but that's okay... He took it like I was a burden on him, started calling himself useless and he feels pathetic that he is not able to take care of my finances. These things pissed me off and I broke up. I'm not going into details but this time both our situations were bad really... And he tried to mend things so that happened after 3months.while we were broken up, his dad had a heart attack and at the time I helped him with the financial part, his EMIs were due for which I again stepped in, paid that and cleared it off. Fast forward 2024, I am insecure being so I kinda started a teasing fight with my boyfriend and he again got back to breakup, so this time we finally did breakup. Two days later I went back to mend things and have been trying to mend things for the last 3months, but his answer is a no, sometimes he says he has financial issues, sometimes he says that he just doesn't want a relationship anymore. In between all of this, his college fees was due so I took a bank loan and helped him pay that. Even after all of this he says that I have never loved him, I'm delusional. So finally I took the step of blocking him everywhere, he made it clear that he wants to remain good friends, he wants to talk to me but he doesn't want a relationship but I can't handle things that way. I loved the guy for love's sake. It was unconditional so now it's not possible for me that I talk to him casually and know it clearly in my mind that he probably hates me and doesn't want me as a girlfriend or a partner. He's a very sweet and supportive guy. I really do miss him. When things were good they were really good but idk what happened, what clicked and what changed that since 2023 we just couldn't get back on track. I'm sorry for making this read long, there are many details I may have missed as I am still not in a good mental situation. I've got only 3friends in my life and I live all by myself now. I've lost 8kgs weight since my breakup and it's taken a huge toll on my mental health. So guys, am I wrong to block him because I honestly do feel guilty at times, he wanted to be a friend, probably he needed the support but I denied him that and have closed all sorts of possible communication mediums.
In case you want any details, please let me know, I will be updating this. This is not at all well placed, but I hope I could explain the entire issue but yes for updates in order to comes to a decision, do comment and I will post the details.
Update:
I noticed my ex is now checking up my Instagram stories from a fake account( I realised it's his account when I saw the followers list was filled with his school time friends and none on the following list). It was 2days before I realised this and the following was happening for over a month now. I kept quiet about it but today I saw him at church, he came mid mass and when he saw me in the choir he turned away and sat along with the congregation (we're both a part of choir). So I sent him a text on his fake account confronting him that I know it's him and to not make things weird like this. Did I do the right thing? I don't know anything anymore. I am just way too confused, I know he's not gonna come back but then why all these actions from his end. Reddit please help me out here. I wanted to unsend the text but I didn't get an option to do that.
submitted by StrainFew7283 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
In case you want any details, please let me know, I will be updating this. This is not at all well placed, but I hope I could explain the entire issue but yes for updates in order to comes to a decision, do comment and I will post the details.
Update:
I noticed my ex is now checking up my Instagram stories from a fake account( I realised it's his account when I saw the followers list was filled with his school time friends and none on the following list). It was 2days before I realised this and the following was happening for over a month now. I kept quiet about it but today I saw him at church, he came mid mass and when he saw me in the choir he turned away and sat along with the congregation (we're both a part of choir). So I sent him a text on his fake account confronting him that I know it's him and to not make things weird like this. Did I do the right thing? I don't know anything anymore. I am just way too confused, I know he's not gonna come back but then why all these actions from his end. Reddit please help me out here. I wanted to unsend the text but I didn't get an option to do that.
2024.06.02 16:21 Radiant_Yam9732 GERD and PPI's. Finally on to something.
I've been on/off a PPI for 30 years. Started with Aciphex around 14 yrs old and most recently on Pantoprazole. For years I've had this feeling like my head/face was in a vice, and in fact when I was in my late teens I went to many doctors to figure it out. Nothing. For about 20 of the last 30 years, I've had that pressure feeling, but sometimes it just went away. Never ever had any palpitations, heart problems, etc. I even played semi-professional sports for several years, followed up with rec teams into my late 30's.
About 6 years ago (during one of the feeling-good periods), I was laying on the ground playing with my kids and I felt like I got hit with a lightning bolt. This was immediately followed by months of very intense anxiety symptoms (never had that feeling either), stomach pain, hot flushes, lightheadedness, chest pain, and the f'ing constant palpitations. In and out of the ER multiple times, always to be told I was fine. Basically lived in my bed for months.
Like many of you, I also had all the follow up tests to include full heart and abdomen/organ workups. Thankfully, all of that checked out just fine. The pressure feeling and the palpitations are the two symptoms that have remained since this started, but the palpitations did change their pattern to more of a random thing, instead of the kind you get just from just moving, so it's been tolerable. [I'll also throw in there that I finally agreed to admit this was all anxiety based, and went on Lexapro for about 1.5 years. It definitely helped me respond better to the palpitations, but in no way did it improve the actual palps. I've been off of Lexapro for probably 6 months now and don't miss it. I still feel like the anxiety is a result of the palpitations, and not the other way around.] I've tried diets, vitamins, exercises, fasting, sleep changes, borrowed a cpap machine, stopped using my phone, yoga, etc etc
So like 2 weeks ago, I finally noticed a pattern with how I felt vs if I was taking my PPI's every day. Keep in mind that every single DR, no matter what specialty, told me that PPI's were totally safe and unrelated, so I never thought twice about them. I decided to stop the PPI's. No freaking kidding, 48 hours later, I felt like I did during the "good times" with regards to the head pressure (none at all) which was totally unexpected. However, the palpitations returned to the debilitating original pattern where they hit constantly anytime I'm not laying still. I also had raging heartburn, which was really the only thing I knew for sure would happen during this experiment. I put up with this for several days, and then last night I decided to take a Pepcid tablet (not PPI). Low and behold, I wake up this morning and feel like I have a rock sitting on my face, but the palpitations have calmed down to a more random sequence.
For the first time in 6 years, I have something that I can directly tie to the way I've been feeling, instead of guessing at all the random things it might be. I'm not saying this is the answer, but I certainly have purpose now with regards to healthcare and where we head with this. My plan is to use Pepcid for a few weeks and see if I can get the PPI rebound to calm down to the point that I don't need either, and then I'll try this experiment again. In the meanwhile, I've got DR appointments scheduled for the next few weeks.
I'll update this as I make progress, which I am certain I will.
Thanks to everyone that has shared their stories. It's been very helpful to me over the last 6 years.
submitted by Radiant_Yam9732 to PVCs [link] [comments]
About 6 years ago (during one of the feeling-good periods), I was laying on the ground playing with my kids and I felt like I got hit with a lightning bolt. This was immediately followed by months of very intense anxiety symptoms (never had that feeling either), stomach pain, hot flushes, lightheadedness, chest pain, and the f'ing constant palpitations. In and out of the ER multiple times, always to be told I was fine. Basically lived in my bed for months.
Like many of you, I also had all the follow up tests to include full heart and abdomen/organ workups. Thankfully, all of that checked out just fine. The pressure feeling and the palpitations are the two symptoms that have remained since this started, but the palpitations did change their pattern to more of a random thing, instead of the kind you get just from just moving, so it's been tolerable. [I'll also throw in there that I finally agreed to admit this was all anxiety based, and went on Lexapro for about 1.5 years. It definitely helped me respond better to the palpitations, but in no way did it improve the actual palps. I've been off of Lexapro for probably 6 months now and don't miss it. I still feel like the anxiety is a result of the palpitations, and not the other way around.] I've tried diets, vitamins, exercises, fasting, sleep changes, borrowed a cpap machine, stopped using my phone, yoga, etc etc
So like 2 weeks ago, I finally noticed a pattern with how I felt vs if I was taking my PPI's every day. Keep in mind that every single DR, no matter what specialty, told me that PPI's were totally safe and unrelated, so I never thought twice about them. I decided to stop the PPI's. No freaking kidding, 48 hours later, I felt like I did during the "good times" with regards to the head pressure (none at all) which was totally unexpected. However, the palpitations returned to the debilitating original pattern where they hit constantly anytime I'm not laying still. I also had raging heartburn, which was really the only thing I knew for sure would happen during this experiment. I put up with this for several days, and then last night I decided to take a Pepcid tablet (not PPI). Low and behold, I wake up this morning and feel like I have a rock sitting on my face, but the palpitations have calmed down to a more random sequence.
For the first time in 6 years, I have something that I can directly tie to the way I've been feeling, instead of guessing at all the random things it might be. I'm not saying this is the answer, but I certainly have purpose now with regards to healthcare and where we head with this. My plan is to use Pepcid for a few weeks and see if I can get the PPI rebound to calm down to the point that I don't need either, and then I'll try this experiment again. In the meanwhile, I've got DR appointments scheduled for the next few weeks.
I'll update this as I make progress, which I am certain I will.
Thanks to everyone that has shared their stories. It's been very helpful to me over the last 6 years.
2024.06.02 16:17 pshyduc What chip need to be replaced here?
 | Long story short. I'm doing some Klipper tuning and accidentally set the hot end to 240 degrees (which is much higher than expected for PLA and then the hotbed and hot end don't turn on anymore. I opened the MCU to check for shortage and found this. It seems like only one chip toasted. Is there any way I can replace it? I can't read what it is. Can you guys suggest? submitted by pshyduc to BIGTREETECH [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/qt8jlgh2364d1.jpg?width=762&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b802cea61d2bfec2edbc9c53f89a731df838b89a |
2024.06.02 15:41 ocranky Weird Encounter which left me second guessing
Not terrifying but just weird, I was in 10th standard, for context, used to live in a colony which was 25+ km away from the city, used to go to school in the city by company provided buses,there were many schools/colleges so students were clubbed and buses were assigned based on the route. Unfortunately the driver we had, lets just say there were very few people who liked him.he used to change the route whenever he liked never stopped for students who weren't standing exactly on the designated stop, no consideration for emergency situation whatsoever.He used to get scolding for this behaviour but was always hired back for some or the other reason. Anyway it was summer time,June, and this driver decided that he wouldn't drop us near our houses as there were only 15 People, instead dropped us at the entrance of our colony for us to walk to our houses.I used to live on the opposite end as officer's Quarter were made there which was little more than 2 km from the colony gate, I looked at the helpless people walking as none were from officer side I started walking in the scorching sun, cursing the driver and thinking how I was gonna complaint about him. Suddenly I had an idea to minimise the distance to my house, The only problem was I had to choose a desired path/ fisherman trail of an area where I had to cross two big fields(one thoroughly covered with 3-6 feet shrubs and other the plain field with helipad at the centre used for colony gatherings for events like independence day, etc.)diagonally with only 2 houses(mostly unoccupied throughout the year due to its location) in between, It wasn't some scary path just felt deserted even at day hours but for a kid who grew up listening all shorts of storying of grown up people getting scared there for no reason and parents warning us to not to use the path from the shrubs field as there had been some sightings of 'coyotes' in there, it was,let's just say for small kids looking for adventure it was a place with potential.
Anyway, I took the path as it was 3 pm already and It felt like fire was raining from the sky and hot winds 'loo' were blowing and I wanted to reach home as fast as I could. While passing the shrub field all the stories, about that field and how I was going to defend myself, kept coming to my mind.it was an ok journey till I heard some rustling in the bushes more than once,it felt it was following me i stopped to hear it clearly suddenly a man with face totally covered with big white cloth( not uncommon due to heat) passed by me on a cycle and I was little startled but at least I knew the source of the sound. I called that man twice to take a lift,but the guy totally ignored my calling and cycled away.but when he rustling sound came again i started walking faster and crossed the 1st field and was soon on a 200m long road where the empty houses were situated,at the end of the road was the second field with the helipad which I had to cross diagonally.
It was getting hotter and wind blowing faster, little on the path field I heard the sound of a heavy anklet just beside me, I turned and this lady more that 5' 10" as I was 5' 8" and she was taller in bright red(simple maybe new) saree maybe in her 30s, probably married guessing from the sound of the ornaments coming from her, with a huge veil walked past me. I didn't realise how I missed her walking behind me as it would have been impossible to ignore all the jewellery noise coming from her. Anyway, my mind was dwelling on where she came from and also there was something about her as she was walking past i felt goosebumps throughout my body(or maybe it was just the sun)which made me start walking a little faster to match her pace as couldn't get over this urge of wanting to see her from front. Nolo matter how fast I walked the distance between us neither increased nor decreased and all i could hear was the constant rhythm of her heavy anklets, at one point i remember i forgot everything and was so focused on seeing her from front for only once, that l was literally walking so fast that any faster one would start running but still the distance was maintained and the constant rhythm of heavy anklets was the only sound one could hear.At this point we both were on the small elevation leading the the helipad in the middle of the field.
Suddenly, upon reaching the middle of the field it was like i snapped out of some dream or a hypnosis session or a sleep and as I stood in on the helipad in the center of that field and there was no one around me, no lady in red saree, not a bird,nothing only a very weird feeling as if every pores on my skin was awake. There was no way one could suddenly disappear or can run and vanish from sight as we were in the centre of a huge field with a capacity of 20,000 people.i started second guessing myself if what happened actually happened or if there was any lady to begin with.
Anyway my house wasn't too far so feeling weird I started walking toward my home, as I reached home was approaching my gate I heard a loud ahem from my neighbour uncle who asked in a roaring sound 'where do you think you are going??', little background he has some knowledge of things like evil eye etc as he had a shaman back in his village who gave him some mantras, this wasn't a common knowledge about him there but since we were neighbours from time to time he looked into some stuff like when kids had fever or won't stop crying etc., which I will admit always helped. Anyway after his question I looked at him and he was directly looking at me and usually he teases me for some or the other stuff by being all tough and loud but this time he was just looking at me or it felt like he was looking at me and I was still feeling weird hence gave him a salute without speaking and entered my house with him still looking at the gate behind me. By evening I had a 102 degree temperature and out of nowhere his wife brought some cloves as he asked her to give it for me and asked my mother to tie it in my hands. Next morning I was alright and ready to get scolding from my mother for going here and there besides school as the aunty told her something previous night.
I have few more but wanted to share this one,please share if you had similar encounter.
Also, if you want me to share more,response to this will motivate me to write more as this indeed was a lot of typing.Take care.
submitted by ocranky to ParanormalEncounters [link] [comments]
Anyway, I took the path as it was 3 pm already and It felt like fire was raining from the sky and hot winds 'loo' were blowing and I wanted to reach home as fast as I could. While passing the shrub field all the stories, about that field and how I was going to defend myself, kept coming to my mind.it was an ok journey till I heard some rustling in the bushes more than once,it felt it was following me i stopped to hear it clearly suddenly a man with face totally covered with big white cloth( not uncommon due to heat) passed by me on a cycle and I was little startled but at least I knew the source of the sound. I called that man twice to take a lift,but the guy totally ignored my calling and cycled away.but when he rustling sound came again i started walking faster and crossed the 1st field and was soon on a 200m long road where the empty houses were situated,at the end of the road was the second field with the helipad which I had to cross diagonally.
It was getting hotter and wind blowing faster, little on the path field I heard the sound of a heavy anklet just beside me, I turned and this lady more that 5' 10" as I was 5' 8" and she was taller in bright red(simple maybe new) saree maybe in her 30s, probably married guessing from the sound of the ornaments coming from her, with a huge veil walked past me. I didn't realise how I missed her walking behind me as it would have been impossible to ignore all the jewellery noise coming from her. Anyway, my mind was dwelling on where she came from and also there was something about her as she was walking past i felt goosebumps throughout my body(or maybe it was just the sun)which made me start walking a little faster to match her pace as couldn't get over this urge of wanting to see her from front. Nolo matter how fast I walked the distance between us neither increased nor decreased and all i could hear was the constant rhythm of her heavy anklets, at one point i remember i forgot everything and was so focused on seeing her from front for only once, that l was literally walking so fast that any faster one would start running but still the distance was maintained and the constant rhythm of heavy anklets was the only sound one could hear.At this point we both were on the small elevation leading the the helipad in the middle of the field.
Suddenly, upon reaching the middle of the field it was like i snapped out of some dream or a hypnosis session or a sleep and as I stood in on the helipad in the center of that field and there was no one around me, no lady in red saree, not a bird,nothing only a very weird feeling as if every pores on my skin was awake. There was no way one could suddenly disappear or can run and vanish from sight as we were in the centre of a huge field with a capacity of 20,000 people.i started second guessing myself if what happened actually happened or if there was any lady to begin with.
Anyway my house wasn't too far so feeling weird I started walking toward my home, as I reached home was approaching my gate I heard a loud ahem from my neighbour uncle who asked in a roaring sound 'where do you think you are going??', little background he has some knowledge of things like evil eye etc as he had a shaman back in his village who gave him some mantras, this wasn't a common knowledge about him there but since we were neighbours from time to time he looked into some stuff like when kids had fever or won't stop crying etc., which I will admit always helped. Anyway after his question I looked at him and he was directly looking at me and usually he teases me for some or the other stuff by being all tough and loud but this time he was just looking at me or it felt like he was looking at me and I was still feeling weird hence gave him a salute without speaking and entered my house with him still looking at the gate behind me. By evening I had a 102 degree temperature and out of nowhere his wife brought some cloves as he asked her to give it for me and asked my mother to tie it in my hands. Next morning I was alright and ready to get scolding from my mother for going here and there besides school as the aunty told her something previous night.
I have few more but wanted to share this one,please share if you had similar encounter.
Also, if you want me to share more,response to this will motivate me to write more as this indeed was a lot of typing.Take care.
2024.06.02 15:36 starstruck131 Unpopular OPINION: DFs, it's more loving not to send the text/cards/calls etc
Please note "opinion" is in all caps because it is simply that: an opinion. But bear with me because I think a lot of us DF needs some sage advice on this... including and especially myself. 🥴 I know it's long but hang with me for a min.
So I have noticed a theme here. Not all inclusive, but definitely a large majority: Many DF's whether male or female have anxious attachment styles. Anxious attachment says that when we find something or someone really great we must cling, cling, cling lest it will go away and we will be abandoned. And when/if it goes away, the very first thing we ask ourselves is "why was I not good enough? What did I do wrong? How can I get it back? What is wrong with me?" Because we have tethered our self-worth to another human being and now they are gone. The validation they were providing of our worthiness and lovability has vanished and left us with a gaping hole in our very core. I remember being so desperate to have this man back in ANY capacity, I probably would've given up limbs and internal organs to make it happen. Certainly would've paid every cent in my bank account.
And DMs, well, they've been shown time and time again that when something seems too good be true, it usually is. From a young age, they have been shown that having needs and emotions isn't well-received from caregivers. So when sh*t gets real, or they start feeling those overwhelming surges of love, they panic. They discard it because those feelings equal danger in their inner climate. If they are "out of control" of their emotions it forces them to be vulnerable. Vulnerability means they are bound to be hurt. So they throw love away on their terms..where it's safe. This is an avoidant attachment behavior. So rather than address themselves, or be accountable for their flaky behavior they will stonewall when pressed on their hot and cold mannerisms. Shut down. Dive into work, substances, karmic relationships... whatever takes the heat off of themselves and their own inner issues with receiving love. Because in their mind, if they were to relinquish control and the upper hand, the only outcome is abandonment/betrayal and pain.
Both of these situations are truly heartbreaking I have compassion for both sides of the coin. We are all healing some major major lifestyles when confronted writh this journey. The DF the ability to harness unconditional love for self, and the DM confronting the inability to receieve love from others...amongst about a million other things for the both of us. Iykyk.
I just I want you to know, fellow anxious attachers: we survived !! We made it through the other side of one of our very worst fears... being vulnerable and fully immersed in love and then abandoned and betrayed in the midst of it. Not only did we survive, but we are learning how to THRIVE AND show compassion and love to the very people who perpetrated that pain in our lives.This showed us the radiance of our own inner being. How capable, wonderful, loving, and STRONG we are. Do you see how incredible this is?! What other journey would have asked us to love so fully the very cause of our deepest pain? But here we are--following Jesus' path by the thousands. Deep compassion and unconditional love for they truly "know not what they do."
(l am not heavily religious, but I do believe Jesus came here to teach us life is eternal and love is truly the glue that binds us all together)
This is the unpopular bit here: Just like you had to heal this alllll on your own, with no help from your DM...your DM has to confront their shadows all on their own too. You can't force healing, you can't do it for them, you can't make them "see the light."
They have to do this themselves. On their timeline. In their way. On their terms. Just like the universe had your back the whole time, just like it constantly reminded you of this person over and over and over again with signs and syncs. Can you trust it is doing the same with your DM? You don't have to worry about a thing! ✨️ Trust that as equally as you were guided (even despite your great resistance at times) to liberation and LOVE, so is your DM. Release it all! Stay in your lane sweet soul.
Ever had a close loved one suffer with drug addiction or alcoholism? You love them immensely and you see them in this horrible cycle of self-destruction. We want to save them from themselves. You've tried the hands-on approach and somehow it only enabled them to sink further into their own misery?
This is not very different from that scenario. Sending the text, hanging out on the back burner pining away for your twin, writing letters emails cards, watching the stories, posting the thirsty @ss quotes and songs on social media...is enabling your twin to stay in their shadows. Why would they come out from where it's "safe" when what they are doing is working in their eyes? Here they are running like an Olympian, and here you are pining away for them still. Despite their horrible treatment and behavior at times. Stop it! Stop enabling harmful behaviors. Both our ways of acting are unhealthy. We are here to bring a new paradigm of relationships. We've done our part, let them do theirs. You are unforgettable. What you had together is unforgettable. It is designed this way. Trust it! You will not be forgotten in the dust.
Does this sound cold and unloving? If your answer is yes, DIG DEEPER. Love yourself even more. Because there you will find exactly how you deserve and long to be loved and treated by a life partner and you will never settle for less again. You will also see that just as an addict has to hit rock bottom, so does your twin. Just how we had to face our rock bottom and claw our way out of the pits of h€ll back home to ourselves...all by ourselves, with no help from those we love most: so do our twins. In this trial we learned of our strength and fortitude..so will they.
It is THE MOST radical act of unconditional love to let those we care about learn their own lessons. It doesn't seem like that at first but it is. And, too, unconditional love for yourself means you don't simp over the bare minimum..no matter how much you love and long for them. Love them completely and wholly, but love yourself too and liberate yourself from the waiting and pining game. All is in divine order. When you let go of the need to control anything other than yourself and your own healing, life really does get lighter and more magical as a result. The muddy waters clear and it's just you in your most radiant expression.
submitted by starstruck131 to twinflames [link] [comments]
So I have noticed a theme here. Not all inclusive, but definitely a large majority: Many DF's whether male or female have anxious attachment styles. Anxious attachment says that when we find something or someone really great we must cling, cling, cling lest it will go away and we will be abandoned. And when/if it goes away, the very first thing we ask ourselves is "why was I not good enough? What did I do wrong? How can I get it back? What is wrong with me?" Because we have tethered our self-worth to another human being and now they are gone. The validation they were providing of our worthiness and lovability has vanished and left us with a gaping hole in our very core. I remember being so desperate to have this man back in ANY capacity, I probably would've given up limbs and internal organs to make it happen. Certainly would've paid every cent in my bank account.
And DMs, well, they've been shown time and time again that when something seems too good be true, it usually is. From a young age, they have been shown that having needs and emotions isn't well-received from caregivers. So when sh*t gets real, or they start feeling those overwhelming surges of love, they panic. They discard it because those feelings equal danger in their inner climate. If they are "out of control" of their emotions it forces them to be vulnerable. Vulnerability means they are bound to be hurt. So they throw love away on their terms..where it's safe. This is an avoidant attachment behavior. So rather than address themselves, or be accountable for their flaky behavior they will stonewall when pressed on their hot and cold mannerisms. Shut down. Dive into work, substances, karmic relationships... whatever takes the heat off of themselves and their own inner issues with receiving love. Because in their mind, if they were to relinquish control and the upper hand, the only outcome is abandonment/betrayal and pain.
Both of these situations are truly heartbreaking I have compassion for both sides of the coin. We are all healing some major major lifestyles when confronted writh this journey. The DF the ability to harness unconditional love for self, and the DM confronting the inability to receieve love from others...amongst about a million other things for the both of us. Iykyk.
I just I want you to know, fellow anxious attachers: we survived !! We made it through the other side of one of our very worst fears... being vulnerable and fully immersed in love and then abandoned and betrayed in the midst of it. Not only did we survive, but we are learning how to THRIVE AND show compassion and love to the very people who perpetrated that pain in our lives.This showed us the radiance of our own inner being. How capable, wonderful, loving, and STRONG we are. Do you see how incredible this is?! What other journey would have asked us to love so fully the very cause of our deepest pain? But here we are--following Jesus' path by the thousands. Deep compassion and unconditional love for they truly "know not what they do."
(l am not heavily religious, but I do believe Jesus came here to teach us life is eternal and love is truly the glue that binds us all together)
This is the unpopular bit here: Just like you had to heal this alllll on your own, with no help from your DM...your DM has to confront their shadows all on their own too. You can't force healing, you can't do it for them, you can't make them "see the light."
They have to do this themselves. On their timeline. In their way. On their terms. Just like the universe had your back the whole time, just like it constantly reminded you of this person over and over and over again with signs and syncs. Can you trust it is doing the same with your DM? You don't have to worry about a thing! ✨️ Trust that as equally as you were guided (even despite your great resistance at times) to liberation and LOVE, so is your DM. Release it all! Stay in your lane sweet soul.
Ever had a close loved one suffer with drug addiction or alcoholism? You love them immensely and you see them in this horrible cycle of self-destruction. We want to save them from themselves. You've tried the hands-on approach and somehow it only enabled them to sink further into their own misery?
This is not very different from that scenario. Sending the text, hanging out on the back burner pining away for your twin, writing letters emails cards, watching the stories, posting the thirsty @ss quotes and songs on social media...is enabling your twin to stay in their shadows. Why would they come out from where it's "safe" when what they are doing is working in their eyes? Here they are running like an Olympian, and here you are pining away for them still. Despite their horrible treatment and behavior at times. Stop it! Stop enabling harmful behaviors. Both our ways of acting are unhealthy. We are here to bring a new paradigm of relationships. We've done our part, let them do theirs. You are unforgettable. What you had together is unforgettable. It is designed this way. Trust it! You will not be forgotten in the dust.
Does this sound cold and unloving? If your answer is yes, DIG DEEPER. Love yourself even more. Because there you will find exactly how you deserve and long to be loved and treated by a life partner and you will never settle for less again. You will also see that just as an addict has to hit rock bottom, so does your twin. Just how we had to face our rock bottom and claw our way out of the pits of h€ll back home to ourselves...all by ourselves, with no help from those we love most: so do our twins. In this trial we learned of our strength and fortitude..so will they.
It is THE MOST radical act of unconditional love to let those we care about learn their own lessons. It doesn't seem like that at first but it is. And, too, unconditional love for yourself means you don't simp over the bare minimum..no matter how much you love and long for them. Love them completely and wholly, but love yourself too and liberate yourself from the waiting and pining game. All is in divine order. When you let go of the need to control anything other than yourself and your own healing, life really does get lighter and more magical as a result. The muddy waters clear and it's just you in your most radiant expression.
2024.06.02 15:27 TheDreadPirateRobots [Have Gun - Will Travel] - 1.9
[INDEX]
After bidding goodbye to Woodhouse and exiting my subconscious, I entered my Inner Sanctum and noticed that the grandfather clock had just a couple of minutes remaining until midnight. As I was debating if I should exit the Dreamland or not, the clock struck midnight. The computer dinged a little melody and began installing the updates while I amused myself by watching Happy Memories on my inner television. My 7th birthday was especially happy, with the entire family gathering to celebrate.
The lights in the sanctum flickered, drawing my attention to the computer.
[Installation Complete. Reboot? Y/N]
I selected [Y] and lost consciousness.
HumanOS Version: 3.0 Model: Vincent J. Carter Serial: 987-65-4329 Battery: 1440 @ 100% Memory: 494/1024 Provider: (PSY) Credits: 1630 Expansion: small white mana stone (unprimed) Apps: Labourer 1.1, Bounty Hunter 3.3, Psychic Skills 1.9 Utilities: Quickdraw 2.1, Aimed Shot 2.1, Haymaker 1.0, Bounty Sense 1.0, Quick Draw1.0, Aimed Shot1.0, Traps and Gadgets 1.0, Intimidation 1.0, Tracking 1.0, Survival 1.0, Marksmanship 1.0, Close Combat 1.0, Stealth 1.0, Negotiation 1.0, Second Wind 1.0, Aura Manipulation 1.2, Auric Sight 1.3, Dreamworld 1.2, Mind Over Matter 1.0, Regeneration 1.0, Disassembly 2.1, Items: S&H Mongoose
I woke to the smell of Delilah cooking over the campfire and peered at the screen blocking my vision making note of the changes and resolving to dig into them further when time permitted. For now, most things seemed to be instinctive instead of needing a mental trigger to function.
That’s a good thing, because I’m horrible at stuff like that.
Dismissing the screen, I rolled over and inhaled deeply. It smells like breakfast will be wolf-skewers and coffee, once I get up and make the coffee. Crawling out of my tarps, I grunted a good morning to the Elf and set about making a pot of coffee.
“You drink coffee?” I asked, wondering how much to make.
Delilah shook her head. “Too bitter,” she replied.
After setting the tin coffeepot next to the campfire to boil, I began packing my things away, stowing them in the inventory space contained in my saddlebags. My Auric sight spotted a silvery thread leading from Delilah into the trees where I spotted Beatale after a few moments of searching. His golden eyes met mine and blinked slowly before returning his attention to scanning the area.
Ten minutes later I was sipping a cup of hot Joe and my morning grogginess had mostly passed.
[Ding! Mana-infused meal consumed. Credits +5]
Nice. Looks like I earn experience just by eating the things that try to eat me.
“How did you become a Summoner?” I asked Delilah when I was half finished my coffee.
“My tribe sacrificed mana cores to Llewellen, goddess of the Tengaoi,” She said, looking puzzled. “Much like Humans sacrifice to their gods, pay gold to those who build the wizard towers, or improve themselves with meditation.”
I sipped my coffee and thought about that. Seems it’s not unusual for someone to spend money to buy Apps and Utilities.
“What about upgrading?” I said, being vague on purpose. She obviously got my meaning, because she answered without hesitation.
“Using your Skills and Abilities increases their limits and accumulates Toh, which can be sacrificed to the Goddess for advancements.”
“What about mana cores?”
“That is only for those without Toh,” she replied. It seemed that you had to buy your way into the club, then you paid for the membership with credits.
Looks like anyone wealthy enough can game the system to start with, but they still have to level up the hard way.
As we talked it became apparent that people earned one experience per day from the day they were born and could sacrifice it at a temple to choose a class when they came of age at 15 years. Calculator told me that 5850 credits were available to spend at age 15 and a quick check of the maths showed that I received credits equal to my age, if the years were 390 days long. Which they were.
“I’ll be heading to Wendleton,” I said, changing the subject. “What are your plans?”
“I am returning to my tribe now that my quest is complete,” She hesitated then stood and removed a leather necklace that featured a large tooth as its centrepiece. “Please accept this. It will guarantee hospitality with the Tangaoi tribes, and some measure of respect with other Elves.”
Accepting the necklace from her hands, I placed it around my neck. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s always nice to have friends.”
She nodded and summoned her mount with a bone totem, saddled it, and mounted a few minutes later. “Safe travels, Vinnie.” She said. “Perhaps we will meet again.”
“Safe travels Delilah,” I echoed. “I hope we do meet again.”
A faint smile crossed her lips before turning her horse and cantering down the trail.
“Well, Horse,” I said after she had disappeared into the distance. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”
Horsey thoughts filled my head, with distinct overtones of fresh oats. Laughing, I promised him some once we made town. Extinguishing the campfire, I stowed away the remainder of my gear, swung into the saddle, and trotted down the overgrown road.
An hour later the arid scrubland had given way to a rugged grassland filled with clumps of evergreen and other hardy species of deciduous trees. It was nothing like the Colorado I knew, a completely different environment than I was familiar with. The miles passed slowly and after another hour I could make out a caravan of wagons ahead of me. I quickly caught up with them and gave them a jaunty wave as I passed. They were quickly left behind as Horse trotted tirelessly down the road.
Mostly tirelessly. It was 10/hour of battery for standby or a walk, 15/hr for a trot, and 25/hr for a gallop. I wasn’t about to ruin my arse galloping to town, so I settled for cutting the time in half. I’d arrive around noon.
The closer I got to Wendleton, the denser the trees became, shifting from hardy evergreen to those more suitable to a temperate clime. The grass and underbrush also became thicker and greener, filled with vitality and suggesting that this area received more rain than the previous. Looking back, I could see that my altitude had been dropping as I rode. It wasn’t perceptible while I was riding, but from a distance I could tell that I had descended several hundred feet in elevation.
I pulled up [MAP] and began to construct a backstory for myself. Memorising a few cities between the city-state of Wendleton and the Colonial port city of New Frankfort, I wove a tale of a restless traveller from Colonia seeking his fortune in the Midlands. It was flimsy as discount toilet tissue, but hopefully it’d endure a few proper wipes until I got some sort of identification.
After covering miles of dusty road filled with deciduous trees, I began seeing verdant farmland and quaint hamlets close to the road, and reached Wendleton around noon.
The imposing walls encompassing the city greeted us from afar, their sheer magnitude commanding attention even at a distance. Wondering why they were built got me thinking; those walls weren’t just for show. They stood about fifty feet tall and were some thirty feet thick, solid enough to make you wonder what they were really keeping out. And they weren't just bare walls; they were decked out with towers and old-school battlements, giving off serious medieval vibes.
Yet, what truly captured my attention were the scars that marred the surface of those walls. These scars, bearing witness to bygone conflicts, whispered tales of valour and triumph. Each mark seemed to echo the city's rich history, as if its very narrative had been etched into the stone. The sight was nothing short of mesmerising, offering a glimpse into the storied past of Wendleton.
Traffic was flowing in and out of the gate without any obvious security or tax checks in place. Two guards dressed in chainmail armour stood by the gate, with a short sword at their waist and a shotgun slung over their shoulder. They eyeballed me as I slowed Horse to a canter and stopped in front of them. “I’m looking for a quiet place to stay a few days,” I said.
They looked at one another. “The Green Pig,” one said. “Tell them Martin sent you and you may get a discount.”
“Or they may charge you double,” the other guard laughed, slapping his comrade on the shoulder. “But yeah, you should be alright.”
“I’ve taken the scenic route from New Frankfort to get here,” I said, planting the seeds of my new background. “Do I need to register anywhere?”
“Not unless you want citizenship,” Martin said, scratching under his leather cap and examining his fingernails. “You can talk to someone at the Governor’s office about that.”
After getting directions to both places, I thanked the duo and made my way to the suggested inn.
The city inside the walls was a strange mixture of Spanish and European medieval, the buildings built mostly from brick and wood, with lots of wrought iron and balconies. The cobblestone streets rang under the hooves of wagons carrying goods from one place to another while pedestrians crowded the wide sidewalks. Horse navigated the streets and dodged the occasional street sweeper removing dung and other debris from the cobblestones.
Hats were everywhere, as were big bushy beards and thick moustaches. Women wore dresses that hung to just above their ankle while most of the men were dressed similar to myself with linen pants and shirts, with vests and jackets being worn more often than not. All in all, my impression was more of an old western city than some medieval European city.
The scream of a whistle startled me and I quickly located the source of the sound, a genuine steam locomotive pulling out of the local station. As Horse moved down the road under his own guidance I watched the train pull away, hauling passengers and freight to some distant destination.
A few streets later we were in front of a cozy looking tavern with a freshly painted sign bearing the trademark of the inn — a prancing Green Pig.
A few horses were tied to the hitching post outside so I did the same for Horse, wrapping his reins loosely around the rough wood while he dipped his nose into the water trough and drank deeply.
“Don’t wander off,” I said, patting his flank as I headed towards familiar saloon doors that were a staple of every western movie ever made. Pausing, I waited for someone to be tossed through them, then entered with only a slight disappointment that no one had been hurled into the streets. The interior was an eclectic mix of Old West and Medieval, wooden walls decorated with the skulls of strange animals, booths that lined the walls and smaller tables set in front of a large fireplace that featured an oversized mantle. A wide bar took up the rear of the room and the wall behind it was covered in shelves of liquor, with a large mirror featured prominently in the centre. Narrow stairs next to the bar led up to a balcony above where I could see several more tables and a hallway that led into the recesses of the building.
Everyone looked my way as I stood in the door before rejoining conversation with their companions or turning their attention back to the food in front of them. The smell of some meaty stew filled my nostrils, causing my stomach to growl and remind me it had been many hours since my last meal.
Making my way across the hardwood floor to the bar, I plastered a smile on my face and spoke to the skinny bartender pouring a pint from the taps. His hair was greying, as was his moustache, but only a few crowsfeet gathered around his eyes when he returned my smile. “Martin said this would be a good place to stay a few days while I’m in town,” I said.
Light from the door flashed across his glasses as he looked me over. “That it would,” He replied. “Clean bed, two meals, two bits. Or three silver a fortnight.”
I pulled three silver from my inventory and placed them on the smooth surface of the bar, their sudden appearance causing his eyebrow to arch.
“A fortnight then,” He nodded, pushing the pint at me before drawing another. “Something to cut the dust, mister…”
“Vinnie,” I said after draining half the pint. “Vinnie Carter.”
“Lucas Steele,” the barman nodded. “Don’t mess with the girls, breakfast at dawn, dinner at dusk, lunch is two brass. Brass for a beer or whiskey.”
I materialised four brass coins and pushed them across the bar. “Lunch and another pint.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll get everything sorted,” He said with a smile, scooping the coins up.
Nodding, I turned my attention to the patrons in the inn, watching them eat lunch and converse with their companions. Some appeared to be haggling over business matters and I pegged them as merchants or some other related class. My eye caught a man standing near the door, staring at posters on the wall. Wanted posters. Finishing off my pint, I walked over and had a look at them myself.
The man was dressed similar to myself, with a light jacket instead of a vest. Red embroidery accented his black jacket, thorns crawling up the lapels and circling around the collar. He was older than me, maybe in his 40s, face tanned from a lifetime spent in the sun and weather.
“Vinnie,” I said, touching my hat. “Anything good?”
He looked me over and turned his attention back to the posters. “Silas,” He responded. “I’m thinking about going after Blackheart Bill.”
I looked at the wanted poster in question, offering 280 silver for Bill and 20 silver for each of his gang, dead or alive.
“I’m new to the profession myself,” I said. “Any pointers you’d care to share?”
Silas looked at me and smiled. “Shoot first,” he said. “Everything will sort itself after that.”
I laughed, a cheerless sound as I was reminded that I had chosen the profession of psychotics for some reason. Did I really have it in me to be a Bounty Hunter? Was it too late to pick Cowboy? I stared at the posters on the wall, imagining my new life, hunting men and killing them.
For some reason, the thought didn’t bother me much. Maybe it was the difference between imagining it and the reality of a dead body in front of me?
“How green are you?” Silas asked.
“Green as grass,” I admitted.
Silas snorted. “Can you handle that hogleg?” He said, indicating the Mongoose at my hip.
“Still learning,” I said. No sense in talking myself up when I had no clue as to what was average around here. “Any suggestions for my first bounty?”
Silas looked me over with an appraising eye. “Ride with me and we’ll collect Blackheart Bill.”
[INDEX]
submitted by TheDreadPirateRobots to redditserials [link] [comments]
After bidding goodbye to Woodhouse and exiting my subconscious, I entered my Inner Sanctum and noticed that the grandfather clock had just a couple of minutes remaining until midnight. As I was debating if I should exit the Dreamland or not, the clock struck midnight. The computer dinged a little melody and began installing the updates while I amused myself by watching Happy Memories on my inner television. My 7th birthday was especially happy, with the entire family gathering to celebrate.
The lights in the sanctum flickered, drawing my attention to the computer.
[Installation Complete. Reboot? Y/N]
I selected [Y] and lost consciousness.
HumanOS Version: 3.0 Model: Vincent J. Carter Serial: 987-65-4329 Battery: 1440 @ 100% Memory: 494/1024 Provider: (PSY) Credits: 1630 Expansion: small white mana stone (unprimed) Apps: Labourer 1.1, Bounty Hunter 3.3, Psychic Skills 1.9 Utilities: Quickdraw 2.1, Aimed Shot 2.1, Haymaker 1.0, Bounty Sense 1.0, Quick Draw1.0, Aimed Shot1.0, Traps and Gadgets 1.0, Intimidation 1.0, Tracking 1.0, Survival 1.0, Marksmanship 1.0, Close Combat 1.0, Stealth 1.0, Negotiation 1.0, Second Wind 1.0, Aura Manipulation 1.2, Auric Sight 1.3, Dreamworld 1.2, Mind Over Matter 1.0, Regeneration 1.0, Disassembly 2.1, Items: S&H Mongoose
I woke to the smell of Delilah cooking over the campfire and peered at the screen blocking my vision making note of the changes and resolving to dig into them further when time permitted. For now, most things seemed to be instinctive instead of needing a mental trigger to function.
That’s a good thing, because I’m horrible at stuff like that.
Dismissing the screen, I rolled over and inhaled deeply. It smells like breakfast will be wolf-skewers and coffee, once I get up and make the coffee. Crawling out of my tarps, I grunted a good morning to the Elf and set about making a pot of coffee.
“You drink coffee?” I asked, wondering how much to make.
Delilah shook her head. “Too bitter,” she replied.
After setting the tin coffeepot next to the campfire to boil, I began packing my things away, stowing them in the inventory space contained in my saddlebags. My Auric sight spotted a silvery thread leading from Delilah into the trees where I spotted Beatale after a few moments of searching. His golden eyes met mine and blinked slowly before returning his attention to scanning the area.
Ten minutes later I was sipping a cup of hot Joe and my morning grogginess had mostly passed.
[Ding! Mana-infused meal consumed. Credits +5]
Nice. Looks like I earn experience just by eating the things that try to eat me.
“How did you become a Summoner?” I asked Delilah when I was half finished my coffee.
“My tribe sacrificed mana cores to Llewellen, goddess of the Tengaoi,” She said, looking puzzled. “Much like Humans sacrifice to their gods, pay gold to those who build the wizard towers, or improve themselves with meditation.”
I sipped my coffee and thought about that. Seems it’s not unusual for someone to spend money to buy Apps and Utilities.
“What about upgrading?” I said, being vague on purpose. She obviously got my meaning, because she answered without hesitation.
“Using your Skills and Abilities increases their limits and accumulates Toh, which can be sacrificed to the Goddess for advancements.”
“What about mana cores?”
“That is only for those without Toh,” she replied. It seemed that you had to buy your way into the club, then you paid for the membership with credits.
Looks like anyone wealthy enough can game the system to start with, but they still have to level up the hard way.
As we talked it became apparent that people earned one experience per day from the day they were born and could sacrifice it at a temple to choose a class when they came of age at 15 years. Calculator told me that 5850 credits were available to spend at age 15 and a quick check of the maths showed that I received credits equal to my age, if the years were 390 days long. Which they were.
“I’ll be heading to Wendleton,” I said, changing the subject. “What are your plans?”
“I am returning to my tribe now that my quest is complete,” She hesitated then stood and removed a leather necklace that featured a large tooth as its centrepiece. “Please accept this. It will guarantee hospitality with the Tangaoi tribes, and some measure of respect with other Elves.”
Accepting the necklace from her hands, I placed it around my neck. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s always nice to have friends.”
She nodded and summoned her mount with a bone totem, saddled it, and mounted a few minutes later. “Safe travels, Vinnie.” She said. “Perhaps we will meet again.”
“Safe travels Delilah,” I echoed. “I hope we do meet again.”
A faint smile crossed her lips before turning her horse and cantering down the trail.
“Well, Horse,” I said after she had disappeared into the distance. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”
Horsey thoughts filled my head, with distinct overtones of fresh oats. Laughing, I promised him some once we made town. Extinguishing the campfire, I stowed away the remainder of my gear, swung into the saddle, and trotted down the overgrown road.
An hour later the arid scrubland had given way to a rugged grassland filled with clumps of evergreen and other hardy species of deciduous trees. It was nothing like the Colorado I knew, a completely different environment than I was familiar with. The miles passed slowly and after another hour I could make out a caravan of wagons ahead of me. I quickly caught up with them and gave them a jaunty wave as I passed. They were quickly left behind as Horse trotted tirelessly down the road.
Mostly tirelessly. It was 10/hour of battery for standby or a walk, 15/hr for a trot, and 25/hr for a gallop. I wasn’t about to ruin my arse galloping to town, so I settled for cutting the time in half. I’d arrive around noon.
The closer I got to Wendleton, the denser the trees became, shifting from hardy evergreen to those more suitable to a temperate clime. The grass and underbrush also became thicker and greener, filled with vitality and suggesting that this area received more rain than the previous. Looking back, I could see that my altitude had been dropping as I rode. It wasn’t perceptible while I was riding, but from a distance I could tell that I had descended several hundred feet in elevation.
I pulled up [MAP] and began to construct a backstory for myself. Memorising a few cities between the city-state of Wendleton and the Colonial port city of New Frankfort, I wove a tale of a restless traveller from Colonia seeking his fortune in the Midlands. It was flimsy as discount toilet tissue, but hopefully it’d endure a few proper wipes until I got some sort of identification.
After covering miles of dusty road filled with deciduous trees, I began seeing verdant farmland and quaint hamlets close to the road, and reached Wendleton around noon.
The imposing walls encompassing the city greeted us from afar, their sheer magnitude commanding attention even at a distance. Wondering why they were built got me thinking; those walls weren’t just for show. They stood about fifty feet tall and were some thirty feet thick, solid enough to make you wonder what they were really keeping out. And they weren't just bare walls; they were decked out with towers and old-school battlements, giving off serious medieval vibes.
Yet, what truly captured my attention were the scars that marred the surface of those walls. These scars, bearing witness to bygone conflicts, whispered tales of valour and triumph. Each mark seemed to echo the city's rich history, as if its very narrative had been etched into the stone. The sight was nothing short of mesmerising, offering a glimpse into the storied past of Wendleton.
Traffic was flowing in and out of the gate without any obvious security or tax checks in place. Two guards dressed in chainmail armour stood by the gate, with a short sword at their waist and a shotgun slung over their shoulder. They eyeballed me as I slowed Horse to a canter and stopped in front of them. “I’m looking for a quiet place to stay a few days,” I said.
They looked at one another. “The Green Pig,” one said. “Tell them Martin sent you and you may get a discount.”
“Or they may charge you double,” the other guard laughed, slapping his comrade on the shoulder. “But yeah, you should be alright.”
“I’ve taken the scenic route from New Frankfort to get here,” I said, planting the seeds of my new background. “Do I need to register anywhere?”
“Not unless you want citizenship,” Martin said, scratching under his leather cap and examining his fingernails. “You can talk to someone at the Governor’s office about that.”
After getting directions to both places, I thanked the duo and made my way to the suggested inn.
The city inside the walls was a strange mixture of Spanish and European medieval, the buildings built mostly from brick and wood, with lots of wrought iron and balconies. The cobblestone streets rang under the hooves of wagons carrying goods from one place to another while pedestrians crowded the wide sidewalks. Horse navigated the streets and dodged the occasional street sweeper removing dung and other debris from the cobblestones.
Hats were everywhere, as were big bushy beards and thick moustaches. Women wore dresses that hung to just above their ankle while most of the men were dressed similar to myself with linen pants and shirts, with vests and jackets being worn more often than not. All in all, my impression was more of an old western city than some medieval European city.
The scream of a whistle startled me and I quickly located the source of the sound, a genuine steam locomotive pulling out of the local station. As Horse moved down the road under his own guidance I watched the train pull away, hauling passengers and freight to some distant destination.
A few streets later we were in front of a cozy looking tavern with a freshly painted sign bearing the trademark of the inn — a prancing Green Pig.
A few horses were tied to the hitching post outside so I did the same for Horse, wrapping his reins loosely around the rough wood while he dipped his nose into the water trough and drank deeply.
“Don’t wander off,” I said, patting his flank as I headed towards familiar saloon doors that were a staple of every western movie ever made. Pausing, I waited for someone to be tossed through them, then entered with only a slight disappointment that no one had been hurled into the streets. The interior was an eclectic mix of Old West and Medieval, wooden walls decorated with the skulls of strange animals, booths that lined the walls and smaller tables set in front of a large fireplace that featured an oversized mantle. A wide bar took up the rear of the room and the wall behind it was covered in shelves of liquor, with a large mirror featured prominently in the centre. Narrow stairs next to the bar led up to a balcony above where I could see several more tables and a hallway that led into the recesses of the building.
Everyone looked my way as I stood in the door before rejoining conversation with their companions or turning their attention back to the food in front of them. The smell of some meaty stew filled my nostrils, causing my stomach to growl and remind me it had been many hours since my last meal.
Making my way across the hardwood floor to the bar, I plastered a smile on my face and spoke to the skinny bartender pouring a pint from the taps. His hair was greying, as was his moustache, but only a few crowsfeet gathered around his eyes when he returned my smile. “Martin said this would be a good place to stay a few days while I’m in town,” I said.
Light from the door flashed across his glasses as he looked me over. “That it would,” He replied. “Clean bed, two meals, two bits. Or three silver a fortnight.”
I pulled three silver from my inventory and placed them on the smooth surface of the bar, their sudden appearance causing his eyebrow to arch.
“A fortnight then,” He nodded, pushing the pint at me before drawing another. “Something to cut the dust, mister…”
“Vinnie,” I said after draining half the pint. “Vinnie Carter.”
“Lucas Steele,” the barman nodded. “Don’t mess with the girls, breakfast at dawn, dinner at dusk, lunch is two brass. Brass for a beer or whiskey.”
I materialised four brass coins and pushed them across the bar. “Lunch and another pint.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll get everything sorted,” He said with a smile, scooping the coins up.
Nodding, I turned my attention to the patrons in the inn, watching them eat lunch and converse with their companions. Some appeared to be haggling over business matters and I pegged them as merchants or some other related class. My eye caught a man standing near the door, staring at posters on the wall. Wanted posters. Finishing off my pint, I walked over and had a look at them myself.
The man was dressed similar to myself, with a light jacket instead of a vest. Red embroidery accented his black jacket, thorns crawling up the lapels and circling around the collar. He was older than me, maybe in his 40s, face tanned from a lifetime spent in the sun and weather.
“Vinnie,” I said, touching my hat. “Anything good?”
He looked me over and turned his attention back to the posters. “Silas,” He responded. “I’m thinking about going after Blackheart Bill.”
I looked at the wanted poster in question, offering 280 silver for Bill and 20 silver for each of his gang, dead or alive.
“I’m new to the profession myself,” I said. “Any pointers you’d care to share?”
Silas looked at me and smiled. “Shoot first,” he said. “Everything will sort itself after that.”
I laughed, a cheerless sound as I was reminded that I had chosen the profession of psychotics for some reason. Did I really have it in me to be a Bounty Hunter? Was it too late to pick Cowboy? I stared at the posters on the wall, imagining my new life, hunting men and killing them.
For some reason, the thought didn’t bother me much. Maybe it was the difference between imagining it and the reality of a dead body in front of me?
“How green are you?” Silas asked.
“Green as grass,” I admitted.
Silas snorted. “Can you handle that hogleg?” He said, indicating the Mongoose at my hip.
“Still learning,” I said. No sense in talking myself up when I had no clue as to what was average around here. “Any suggestions for my first bounty?”
Silas looked me over with an appraising eye. “Ride with me and we’ll collect Blackheart Bill.”
[INDEX]
2024.06.02 14:51 Thick-Grab-8821 25 [M4F] #Germany - Can I interest you on a romantic date? A date filled with laughter, joy and princess treatment? an escape from our daily lives?
I’m sort of caught in the gears of academic life, university is no joke, I tell you (sigh). Alongside my studies, I’m on personal quest too… trying to piece myself together, to heal and grow. It’s a little like wandering through a maze, gets quite lonely at times but hey, it’s all part of the journey (or so they tell me).
About me:
I’m a man of contrasts. I have a romantic soul, with a twist.
You might be curious about what exactly I mean. Imagine I'm returning home from a tough day at work, and you're there to let me unload all of that tension, whether by simply getting on your knees and giving a passionate... (readacted but ask if you're curious) ;) I’m interested in taking c*ntrol, but I also enjoy the idea of cooking you your favorite meal and taking you up as my passenger princess or simply cuddling as we binge our favorite tv show. This represents the fusion between the heartfelt romantic and the masculine side (with a playful streak) that is me.
Interests? I’ve got 'em:
If you’re down for a bond where we can cheer each other on through life’s weirdness.. with the occasional detour into cuddle town, then hit me up. Let’s keep it light, but let’s also make it matter, you know?
We might not have all the answers to life’s big questions, but maybe we’ll figure out a few together.
submitted by Thick-Grab-8821 to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
About me:
I’m a man of contrasts. I have a romantic soul, with a twist.
You might be curious about what exactly I mean. Imagine I'm returning home from a tough day at work, and you're there to let me unload all of that tension, whether by simply getting on your knees and giving a passionate... (readacted but ask if you're curious) ;) I’m interested in taking c*ntrol, but I also enjoy the idea of cooking you your favorite meal and taking you up as my passenger princess or simply cuddling as we binge our favorite tv show. This represents the fusion between the heartfelt romantic and the masculine side (with a playful streak) that is me.
Interests? I’ve got 'em:
- Philosophical debates over a Hot Beverage
- Deep dives into books (Fiction to Nietzsche, I don’t discriminate)
- Stargazing with a side of existential musings
- Finding the best local eats or snacking at nights (Foodie is an understatement)
- Movies, Music, Sports, Videogames, Writing, Reading, Poetry and what not.
- Exploring unspoken languages — like the art of touch
- A listener, talker, thinker, dreamer—all rolled into one slightly-overanalyzing package.
- No pressure, no rush—just two souls figuring out how much fun we can have along this wild ride.
- Respect, coziness, and a willingness to share the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of our stories.
If you’re down for a bond where we can cheer each other on through life’s weirdness.. with the occasional detour into cuddle town, then hit me up. Let’s keep it light, but let’s also make it matter, you know?
We might not have all the answers to life’s big questions, but maybe we’ll figure out a few together.
2024.06.02 14:49 glik11 It's time to play real game mr.fors
 | submitted by glik11 to forsen [link] [comments] |
2024.06.02 14:44 euroguy A funny story I totally wrote
 | submitted by euroguy to notinteresting [link] [comments] |
2024.06.02 14:44 EndNecessary2511 28M in a situationship with 22M and need help!
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to askgaybros [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:36 EndNecessary2511 28M in a situationship with 22M and need help!
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to DatingHelp [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:35 EndNecessary2511 28M in a situationship with 22M and need help!
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to DatingAfterTwenty [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:33 EndNecessary2511 28M in a situationship with 22M and need help!
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to DatingHell [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:31 OrneryWind3736 Great Gains with a Geothermal Greenhouse Project: My Investment Story in Turkey
Hello Reddit community,
I'd like to share my personal experience with sustainable and innovative farming methods. Last year, I decided to invest in a geothermal greenhouse project in Turkey through a company called **Geothermal Farm Projects**, and I couldn't be happier with the results.
Turkey is rich in geothermal energy resources, and the idea of utilizing these resources in agriculture really excited me. My investment was directed towards establishing a geothermal greenhouse in the Aegean region. This greenhouse uses hot water from underground to maintain its temperature, allowing for year-round vegetable and fruit production. Thanks to geothermal energy, heating costs for the greenhouse significantly decreased, and plants grew faster and healthier.
By the end of the first year, the results were truly impressive. With lower costs and higher efficiency compared to traditional greenhouse farming, the return on my investment was much quicker than I anticipated. The produce I grew was highly sought after in both local and export markets, which significantly boosted my income.
This experience demonstrated the tremendous potential of geothermal energy in the agricultural sector. It proved to be valuable not only economically but also in terms of environmental sustainability.
If you are interested in sustainable farming methods and innovative energy solutions, I highly recommend exploring geothermal greenhouse projects. This investment allowed me to adopt an environmentally friendly farming method while also providing substantial financial returns.
For those who want to learn more about my success story, I'd be happy to share more details about my experiences and geothermal energy. Feel free to reach out with any questions in the comments!
I hope this post provides an interesting and informative perspective on geothermal greenhouse projects. Best of luck to you all!
submitted by OrneryWind3736 to u/OrneryWind3736 [link] [comments]
I'd like to share my personal experience with sustainable and innovative farming methods. Last year, I decided to invest in a geothermal greenhouse project in Turkey through a company called **Geothermal Farm Projects**, and I couldn't be happier with the results.
Turkey is rich in geothermal energy resources, and the idea of utilizing these resources in agriculture really excited me. My investment was directed towards establishing a geothermal greenhouse in the Aegean region. This greenhouse uses hot water from underground to maintain its temperature, allowing for year-round vegetable and fruit production. Thanks to geothermal energy, heating costs for the greenhouse significantly decreased, and plants grew faster and healthier.
By the end of the first year, the results were truly impressive. With lower costs and higher efficiency compared to traditional greenhouse farming, the return on my investment was much quicker than I anticipated. The produce I grew was highly sought after in both local and export markets, which significantly boosted my income.
This experience demonstrated the tremendous potential of geothermal energy in the agricultural sector. It proved to be valuable not only economically but also in terms of environmental sustainability.
If you are interested in sustainable farming methods and innovative energy solutions, I highly recommend exploring geothermal greenhouse projects. This investment allowed me to adopt an environmentally friendly farming method while also providing substantial financial returns.
For those who want to learn more about my success story, I'd be happy to share more details about my experiences and geothermal energy. Feel free to reach out with any questions in the comments!
I hope this post provides an interesting and informative perspective on geothermal greenhouse projects. Best of luck to you all!
GeothermalEnergy
GreenhouseFarming
SustainableAgriculture
RenewableEnergy
EcoFriendlyFarming
InvestmentSuccess
InnovativeFarming
AgricultureTechnology
CleanEnergy
SustainableInvestments
FarmingInnovation
EnvironmentalSustainability
GeothermalProjects
AgriculturalInvestment
GreenEnergy
2024.06.02 14:28 EndNecessary2511 In a situationship and need help
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to demisexuality [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:22 EndNecessary2511 I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up. Need help!?
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to dating [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:16 EndNecessary2511 I find myself in a situationship
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to tinderstories [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 14:15 EndNecessary2511 I find myself in a situationship
I’m 28 M and I find myself in a situationship with a 22 M and it’s been eating me up to be honest. I could do with some advice. It’s a long story so sorry in advance for waffling on.
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
submitted by EndNecessary2511 to HingeStories [link] [comments]
Last December I met someone on an online dating app. They’re 5 years younger than me and had spent the last 12 months travelling. They were only back for Xmas and new year and were going travelling again in the new year. They are very much in the closet and very few people know they like boys.
They were very forward at first and I think they were just looking for a bit of fun. We get talking, have a three hour phone call and then meet the next day in London. Spent the whole day together, lots of flirting and got very drunk and ended up kissing at the end of the night. They then said they wanted to see me again and asked that I sent them a text. The next day I did so and I said what a great time I had. They seemed very off so I started probing. They confessed they didn’t want a relationship and that we lead different lives. I kept probing and they later said I wasn’t their type and that we’d be better off as friends.
I agreed to be friends and we’ve become good friends to be fair. Since we’ve met up a load of times in between their travels and it’s been really nice. I’ve even travelled to two other countries to see them and we have a two week holiday coming up soon. We speak on the phone every few days also. However, they always flirt with me and there’s constant unnecessary touching. It’s quite intense actually. Touching my thigh, wanting to hold hands, kissing my hands, lots of compliments, dilated pupils etc. Basically just a lot of unnecessary contact. What I don’t understand is why would you behave like that with someone you’ve rejected and just want to be plutonic with.
Naturally I’ve now caught feelings and can’t stop thinking about them. I told them a couple of months back and they reiterated that they didn’t like me in that way but then carry on behaving in such a way that says otherwise. They’re also so hot and cold with me.
Not sure what to do!?
2024.06.02 13:35 CT_Phipps (Pride) Ten Recommended LGBTA Friendly Fantasy/Scifi series
 | https://preview.redd.it/kuq1bgapa54d1.png?width=836&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbacb74c7cd5d8271dbcbff75606817069a7832f submitted by CT_Phipps to QueerSFF [link] [comments] https://beforewegoblog.com/ten-recommended-queer-friendly-sci-fi-fantasy-reads-for-pride-month/ Queer reads are something that has always existed among fiction, especially genre fiction, but it is has only recently been the case that they've allowed to start emerge from the shadows. That doesn't lesson the role they've always had, though, as many people have a compelling argument that the driving force for Trekkiedom (the godfather of all modern fandom) was actually slash fiction. Still, it can sometimes be hard to find fiction where the characters aren't minor, killed off quickly, or allowed to express their sexuality. Plenty of other readers also assume any queer friendly work has to be focused on romance. As a queer friendly author, I know it's not THAT hard to put a prominent character in your stories but finding books containing said content can sometimes be a chore. What are the books where the characters are LGBTQA and simply allowed to be? Well, here's my picks as a CIS heterosexual man as clearly everyone is clamoring for my insight. JK. I've tried to pick a mixture of indie and traditional. 10] Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison Blurb: The first book in #1 New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison's Hollows series! All the creatures of the night gather in "the Hollows" of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party . . . and to feed. Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining—and it's Rachel Morgan's job to keep that world civilized. A bounty hunter and a witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead . . . or undead. Review: The Hollows is an extremely fun urban fantasy series following the adventures of Rachel Morgan and her best friend Ivy that just about everyone wanted to hook up among the fandom but, sadly, didn't. Still, while Rachel seems mostly straight, Ivy remains a fantastic bisexual motorcycle riding vampire detective that really could have handled her own series. She's also a rare Asian American protagonist. 9] Legacy of the Brightwash by Krystle Matar Blurb: Tashué’s faith in the law is beginning to crack. Three years ago, he stood by when the Authority condemned Jason to the brutality of the Rift for non-compliance. When Tashué’s son refused to register as tainted, the laws had to be upheld. He’d never doubted his job as a Regulation Officer before, but three years of watching your son wither away can break down even the strongest convictions. Then a dead girl washed up on the bank of the Brightwash, tattooed and mutilated. Where had she come from? Who would tattoo a child? Was it the same person who killed her? Why was he the only one who cared? Will Tashué be able to stand against everything he thought he believed in to get the answers he’s looking for? Review: Legacy of the Brightwash is a fantastic book that is up there with Kings of Paradise for being an argument that indie doesn't mean lack of literary quality. Tashue is a bisexual man and one torn by the obligations of duty in his steampunk world that treats everyone with magic with horrifying rules as well as suspicion. Unfortunately, the choices forced on him include dealing with it appearing in his own family. 8] Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 by Matthew and Mike Davenport Blurb: Miskatonic University is bathed in the blood of the students who have walked its halls. A place where the darkness is more than just shadows. As with many of the best universities, many students having a distinguished family name—but at Miskatonic this can be as much a curse as a blessing. Such an aged repository of occult histories has secrets of its own. Miskatonic University is an anchor for all reality. Held tentatively in place by spells woven into its walls over generations. Someone, somewhere, is breaking those spells and all of the universe is on the brink of tearing apart. Review: I am going to be biased toward any queer friendly HP Lovecraft material and had quite a bit to choose from (as another entry will show). In this case, I had to recommend a delightful SUPER POWERED's esque urban fantasy that is more Buffy the Vampire Slayer than cosmic horror. Still, I love the character of Ralph who wants to leave his isolated religious community to play football as well as express his sexuality. It's just that community is Innsmouth. 7] Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree Blurb: Come take a load off at Viv's cafe, the first and only coffee shop in Thune. Grand opening! Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen. However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve. Review: The archetypal example of "cozy" fantasy these days. Viv is an orc who just wants to open a coffee shop in a Medieval Dungeons and Dragons-esque setting. She's also a lesbian. This results in her having an awkward relationship with her succubus employee, who everyone has dismissed as a tart because of her species. It's actually really sweet and something that I would have loved to have a sequel to follow up on (instead we got a prequel). 6] The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison Blurb: Katherine Addison returns to the glittering world she created for her beloved novel, The Goblin Emperor, in this stand-alone sequel When the young half-goblin emperor Maia sought to learn who had set the bombs that killed his father and half-brothers, he turned to an obscure resident of his father’s Court, a Prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead. Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin. Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honesty will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead, he can, sometimes, speak to the recently dead: see the last thing they saw, know the last thought they had, experience the last thing they felt. It is his duty use that ability to resolve disputes, to ascertain the intent of the dead, to find the killers of the murdered. Celehar’s skills now lead him out of the quiet and into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice. No matter his own background with the imperial house, Celehar will stand with the commoners, and possibly find a light in the darkness. Katherine Addison has created a fantastic world for these books - wide and deep and true. Review: I love THE GOBLIN EMPEROR but, sadly, Katherine Addison wasn't interested in continuing to write for the character of Maia. However, she was interested in continuing to write for her world. Thara Celehar is a priest who has the ability to talk to the dead. He's also a gay man who has had tragedy in his backstory but may well find love again (but isn't actively looking). Through him we get to explore the steampunk fantasy setting of Addison's world and its many mysteries. Who murdered an opera singer and what was their motivation? Will anyone accept the disgraced priest who, nevertheless, now has friends in high places? 5] Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice Blurb: Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write. Review: It's interesting to note the subtext was never particularly subtextual but a lot of people insisted it was until the movie and television show made it impossible to deny. Yes, Louis and Lestat are lovers with their adopted vampire daughter Claudia. There's also a bunch of musings about immortality, God, killing to survive, and the ennui of living in general. The series goes off the rails after the fourth book and was already pretty strange by the third. Still, the first two books are classics for a reason. 4] Villains don't date Heroes by Mia Archer Blurb: Night Terror. The greatest villain Starlight City has ever known. The greatest supervillain the world has ever seen. She rules her city with an iron fist, and there are no new worlds to conquer. Needless to say life is pretty damn boring. All that changes when she decides to shake things up by robbing a bank the old fashioned way and runs into the city's newest hero: Fialux. Flying Fialux. Invulnerable Fialux. Super strong Fialux. Beautiful Fialux? Night Terror has a new archenemy who might just be able to defeat her, but even more terrifying are the confusing feelings this upstart heroine has ignited. She doesn't like heroes like that. She definitely doesn't like girls like that. Right? Only she can't deny the flutter she feels whenever she thinks of Starlight City's newest heroine! The line between hate and love is a razor's edge that the world's greatest villainess will have to walk if she wants to hold onto that title! Villains Don't Date Heroes! is a lesbian scifi romance novel that explores the world of villains, antiheroes, and heroes in a whole new way! Review: I admit this book is probably not going to be anyone's idea of a classic but it's also nice just to have something that's just plain fun. This is basically Megamind if the protagonist was a lesbian and in love with Supergirl. It's not remotely serious and yet has a lot of fun with our mad inventor heroine dealing with her very unwelcome crush that is interfering with her plans to take over the world. I didn't really gel with the series as a whole but the first book is just plain fun. 3] Dreadnought by April Daniels Blurb: A trans teen is transformed into a superhero in this action-packed series-starter perfect for fans of The Heroine Complex and Not Your Sidekick. Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world’s greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she’s transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl. It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny’s first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father’s dangerous obsession with “curing” her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she’s in over her head. She doesn’t have time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer—a cyborg named Utopia—still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction. Review: Probably one of the best superhero novels I've ever read that just so happens to also be a trans lesbian coming of age story. Danny is a girl who lives under a homophobic father when she gains the idealized form she's always dreamed of (which was being a beautiful superpowereful woman). Unfortunately, not everyone in the world is ready to accept that the heir to the Superman equivalent is a trans girl. This includes a TERF-esque druidess and what is basically Elon Musk (surprise-surprise). I want the third book in the trilogy now. 2] Of Honey and Wildfires by Sarah Chorn Blurb: From the moment the first settler dug a well and struck a lode of shine, the world changed. Now, everything revolves around that magical oil. What began as a simple scouting expedition becomes a life-changing ordeal for Arlen Esco. The son of a powerful mogul, Arlen is kidnapped and forced to confront uncomfortable truths his father has kept hidden. In his hands lies a decision that will determine the fate of everyone he loves—and impact the lives of every person in Shine Territory. The daughter of an infamous saboteur and outlaw, Cassandra has her own dangerous secrets to protect. When the lives of those she loves are threatened, she realizes that she is uniquely placed to change the balance of power in Shine Territory once and for all. Secrets breed more secrets. Somehow, Arlen and Cassandra must find their own truths in the middle of a garden of lies. Review: Sarah Chorn is an incredibly underrated indie author and a fantastic reviewer as well. Her Song of the Sefate books are the ones that everyone should read, though. Basically, Wild West stories set in an alternate world where they harvest a magical substance called shine. The protagonists are a lesbian and a transman who are primarily dealing with the plot of resistance to corporate control. It can get dark but it is fantastically written and written from a place of heart. 1] Winter's Tide by Ruthanna Emrys Blurb: After attacking Devil’s Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, and they emerged without a past or a future. The government that stole Aphra's life now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race. Aphra must return to the ruins of her home, gather scraps of her stolen history, and assemble a new family to face the darkness of human nature. Winter Tide is the debut novel from Ruthanna Emrys, author of the Aphra Marsh story, "The Litany of Earth"--included here as a bonus. Review: Ruthanna Emrys is a Jewish lesbian woman as well as a massive HP Lovecraft fan. You can understand why she has a different perspective than Howard Phillips on a few things. Her Innsmouth Legacy series (which needs a third book dammit) follows the adventures of Aphra Marsh as she investigates the supernatural with a closeted Jewish FBI agent, a lesbian professor of mathematics, and her bisexual debutante associate. Aphra herself is ace and someone who just doesn't think about human men or women that way. Honorable MentionVelveteen Versus the Junior Super Patriots by Seanan MaguireBlurb: "How dare you? I never asked for you to hunt me down!" No, Velma Martinez hadn't. But when you had once been Velveteen, child super-heroine and one of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, you were never going to be free, even if your only power was to bring toys to life. The Marketing Department would be sure of that. So it all came down to this. One young woman and an army of misfit toys vs. the assembled might of the nine members of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division who had come to take her down. They never had a chance. Velveteen lives in a world of superheroes and magic, where men can fly and where young girls can be abducted to the Autumn Land to save Halloween. Velma lives from paycheck to paycheck and copes with her broken-down car as she tries to escape from her old life. It's all the same world. It's all real. And figuring out how to be both Velveteen and Velma is the biggest challenge of her life, because being super-human means you're still human in the end. Join us as award-winning author Seanan McGuire takes us through the first volume of Velveteen's - and Velma's - adventure. Review: I'm a big fan of this series and am sad that it's not available on Kindle or paperback. The story follows Velvet Martinez who is a girl who can animate toys. Which is a deceptively powerful ability. One of the most interesting plotlines in the book, though, is her relationship with Sparkle Bright. Velvet assumed she had been going for her crush going up but she was actually a closeted lesbian girl (because of the Marketing DepartmentTM). Sparkle Bright gradually achieves self-actualization and starts a relationship with steampunk heroine, Victory Anna. Plus, there's the Princess who is a trans girl representing all princess tropes. |
2024.06.02 13:26 Squid_Empire Ever wondered why Melissa Lewis has an NZ accent? Here's my fan lore
 | In game Melissa Lewis she has a really noticeable NZ accent due to a mistake when recording voice lines. But what if it wasn't a mistake? Here's my speculative backstory as to how she got to the Mojave! submitted by Squid_Empire to fnv [link] [comments] Herbert Royce, October 2280 Under the patronage of my mentor Dr. Gall at the Boneyard Medical University, to the Mojave Wasteland. Field Notes. Intro. I had often looked out at the dead Pacific from the balconies of the Boneyard Medical University and pondered what human stories might be taking place across those moribund waves. The NCR borders were constantly pushing north, east, and even south, but the western ocean was an impassable veil. I had realized I could learn no more about the wider world from the collected books and dubious tales brought in by wasteland explorers. And so I set off on an expedition towards the east frontier of the republic; New Vegas. There, I discovered the first clues yet recorded about the fate of the world beyond the sea. I heard tales that taking the Long 15 east to Vegas was a terrible ordeal. Leery caravaneers in dusty Boneyard streets told me tales of a scar of asphalt broiling in the wasteland sun, vipers and raiders poised behind every rock, knives and teeth sharp. A mere historian like myself would never make it, they said. But in reality after getting over my initial apprehension I found the journey from the Boneyard to the outskirts of New Vegas completely uneventful. I traveled with a Crimson Caravan group and discovered the NCR goes to great lengths to secure the road. Given that it is the only way for NCR soldiers and supplies to reach the frontlines near New Vegas from the cities of the west I shouldn’t have been surprised. 2. I rendezvoused with the local chapter of the Followers at the old Mormon Fort in Freeside, on the outskirts of Vegas. Julie Farkas was in charge here, she was helpful in getting me introduced to some other local figures and in giving me the lay of the land. 3. There is nothing new to learn here in Vegas itself. The local Followers are entirely preoccupied with their medical services and have no time for my historical and anthropological inquiry. Mores to the point, the Followers in Vegas seem to be suffering from a moral cringe of some type, no doubt brought about by their continual reminder of Caesar’s presence and influence and their feelings of collective guilt for his existence. I suppose having another Followers anthropologist nearby was simply too much. The local NCR administration is also useless to me, entirely focused on their war with Caesar’s Legion. 4. I have resolved to meet with the Great Khans as my next move. Although the Followers have technically cut formal ties with them, I believe that the tribe will still welcome a Follower. As to why I want to meet them, I have heard they send scouts into the Idaho wilderness. Almost nothing is known about the lands north of Vegas. If I could discover something important it would make this journey worthwhile. I doubt Julie will approve of my plan. 5. I told Julie I was planning to attempt to locate some old Vault to the north of Vegas and set off before anyone could stop me. The Followers and their guards were happy to see me go, I think. Avoiding the Fiends turned out to be a problem. I was close to being chased but managed to distract my pursuers with a mirror and smoke grenade. I will have to remember to take a different route back after this. But either way, I have managed to make camp just outside Red Rock canyon and hope that before long the Great Khans will invite me in. It’s better to not simply walk in uninvited. 6. I have successfully ingratiated myself into the Great Kahn’s Red Rock Canyon camp. As I suspected, they welcomed a Follower into the camp with open arms, excited to see what medical and chemical science I can teach them. I don’t know much. Hopefully I can find out what I need before they realize this. 7. No luck so far. The Khans prefer to talk about their problems with the NCR and Bitter Springs. This doesn’t interest me. I’ve heard that one of the scouts is due back in a few days. This scout - a woman named Melissa - has apparently been north, and is my best chance to find out about the Idaho Wilderness. I will be stretching my time by then. The Khan drug-makers are already aware that I have nothing to teach them. I’ve switched to trying to hint I could provide them with inside information on the NCR for them to exploit, which is working. For now. 8. I have finally met with Melissa, and my entire plan has changed. This woman has a most extraordinary story; forget Idaho - she has information more exotic than anyone I’ve met! I can barely compose myself to write but I will do my best with trembling hands to record everything she told me as best as I possibly can: To start with basics Melissa is in her late 20s, possibly about 28. She isn’t just a scout but the “runners-leader” of the Great Khans, which is something like a head scout, and she knows everything going on around the camp, also acting as an advisor to the head Kahn (whom I never met). She is well respected and trusted. She has tanned skin and dark eyes and hair, unremarkable physically. Perhaps a little short. However I immediately knew something was special about her the second she spoke. I’m not sure if I can accurately transcribe her unique accent down phonetically, or remember all her strange word choices. I will try. https://preview.redd.it/v0yl9zjk854d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b47eb13abf109471c88881d3d3fa4cc9ea3a72b She gave her name as “Mellussa”. I asked if she had been north, and she said that yes, her runners and she would sometimes “tramp” northwards. I quickly asked what tribe she originally hailed from. I think she was bothered that I didn’t peg her for a Khan. But she said she came from a tribe called the “Keewee”, which was located somewhere “in the far south and west” (or, “wist”), at a place (I will try to transcribe as) “Awl-t’e’rra”. I believe that she had told this exact explanation many times. She was surprised when I latched on to this place and asked for a more specific location. Perhaps I was the first. There isn’t much land south and west of Vegas - did she mean her tribe was from Baja? She looked at me skeptically. “Yis, I suppose so”. I didn’t believe it. I had done some work in Baja right after the Rangers first finished pacifying the borders. I had studied the tribes of the area at that time. There were a handful left and a handful more extinct: and none called themselves anything like Keewee. I changed topic and asked about relatives. Did she have any other surviving members of her tribe? She told me her father was one “Chomps Lewis”, who was the chief of the NCR quarry at Sloan (I passed through Sloan on my way into Vegas but didn’t stop there). “But”, she said, “he was my stip father. Not of the tribe.” Her mother, who was of her tribe, had passed away many years ago. As far as she knew, she was the last survivor. The last one “here”, anyway, she said. I asked what she meant by here. She looked skeptical again and glanced around the camp, probably looking for an escape. I wasn’t going to let this go. I felt I was at the threshold of some incredible revelation. I changed the topic to the NCR, and steered the conversation towards the crimes of the state and their propensity for destroying smaller tribes. It didn’t take long before she was on side again, and happily reviling the republic. I tried again; “And so did the NCR destroy your tribe?” This time she laughed in a funny snorting way before blurting out “no way, they’d have no chance” and I pressed on “why’s that?” and she regained some of her composure and mumbled “Because they’re far away. Far, far away.” I heard my heart thumping in my chest. Far and away to the south west. Nowhere that could mean but over the sea. At this time the sun had started to set and we moved to logs near a small campfire near one of the Great Khan yurts. She had had a change of heart in the lowering light, and seemed to have decided it was time to tell her tale. “It was over fufteen years ago”, thus she began her tale, all told in that strange accent. She had lived her early life in a place far, far, away, across the pacific ocean, and at the bottom of the world. That place was - “Awl-t’e’rra” - a big island far from Communist China or from America - which nonetheless had also been destroyed in the great war, centuries ago. I had had dreams, (or delusions really), that the world beyond America might have been spared the great war. Or - that they may have rebuilt in glorious peace and harmony. But from what Melissa told me of her childhood memories, this exotic southern land had had a history all too familiar. Warlords. Tribes. Raiders. Monsters. Tyrannical governments. Famine. Disease. War. She told me of dense, water-soaked cold jungles stalked by monstrous featherless birds, of steaming and fuming land, cracked by the bombs and forever since churning and boiling with geological fury, of bizarre walking lizards with three eyes that could hypnotize anyone who gazed at them, of coastlines roaring with furious waves and stalked by gigantic crabs, of huge insects she called “wetas” - armored like scorpions - which roamed the wild foggy forests in the still mornings, and she told tales of enormous mountains, dusted with green snow which glittered at night, and from which katabatic winds rushed down to strip and irradiate the land below. She recalled tales she had heard of wasteland heroes, monstrous raider hordes, mutant hunters; of great new nations that rose and fell, of myriad factions and tribes: the Whalers, the Puiras, the Republic of Huapai, the terrifying chthonic Titiwai, the Chain Gang, the venerable Parliamentarians, the Meke Wanau, the savage Scourge, and many more I couldn’t write down fast enough. But when she talked about the settlement - which she called a “Pa” - she grew up in, called Vohall, near the ruins of a great city, she seemed to only have good things to say. She described a peaceful and green place, with comfortable and warm wooden shacks and clotheslines, orchids, and friendly neighbors. The adults of Vohall were descendants of some old government military base or facility, who had developed a religious devotion to a text with instructions on how to operate and maintain the machinery at the old facility: especially the base’s large submarine. For hundreds of years they had maintained the facility by following this book, which they called “The Book of Continuation”. Melissa said her earliest memories involved toddling into vents with an oil can to oil wheels the book had said needed to be oiled, deep inside some machine. She was obviously fond of her memories of Vohall, and I suspect that things were not as rosy as she described them. Nevertheless, I didn’t interrupt as she spoke of the various people of the town, “Mr Edwards” who was a wonderful gardener, “Kai” who was the best war dancer and who led the braves who had fought off raiders coming across a fortified spit, “Te Aroha” who repaired the fabrics and clothes of the settlement and who had the best apple tree that all the children liked to pick from when she wasn’t watching, and “Captain Tommy” who was the Admiral of the settlement. In all she painted a picture of a healthy settlement in a hostile place. She recalled things were getting harder though. The elders remembered better times, winters were colder and colder each year, and icebergs drifted into the harbor sometimes even in autumn. Frequent raider attacks by wastelandboys from the bones of the great city across the spit were mounting in scale, and the abominations that rose from the waters around the Pa seemed fiercer and more numerous every month. When Melissa was 12, her mother and father and all the other inhabitants of the settlement gathered to hear an announcement by Captain Tommy. A computer no one had remembered ever doing anything had that morning started flashing lights and spitting out reams of ticker paper. She remembers the sense of excitement in the main hall when Tommy read from the holy Book of Continuation. The book knew what to do. The instructions were clear. This was the moment all the work that had been done was for. The book announced through Captain Tommy that now was the time to board the ancient submarine so carefully maintained and set sail for the source of the signal now registered on the computer - to find those first survivors on the planet to reestablish order: those who had built a society functional enough that they had electricity and radio transmitters. They would join them in their paradise. Within days, the population of Vohall had packed their things and boarded the huge submarine, which gleamed with a brilliant new white and black paintjob. Melissa remembers the smell of rope and salt and oil, as she watched the settlement’s precious store of diesel poured into the waiting sub. The entire settlement cheered as the beast’s engines roared to life, and clapped and whistled as the final piece of cargo was loaded aboard - a mysterious shiny metal cylinder kept in the most secure secret vault and only to be moved by the Captain himself: as per the strict instructions of the Book. The people waved goodbye to their home, and with fresh hopes and joy set sail, away from their old world and into the new. I was reeling at the detail and complexity of Melissa’s reminiscence. Asking her to slow down, I got her to talk more about what she knew of Awl-t’e’rra’s history before her time. I asked her if she had known about any Vaults there, “no”, she said, “no Vaults, no Nuka-Cola, no Bottlecips. But I had seen that before”, she pointed to an old-world USA flag I had embroidered on my bag. Curious, I asked where, “you’d see them all over old buildings. Old posters, with crosses on thim. I always thought they were raider flags. Nobody seemed to like thim anyway. It seemed they used to blame everything on thim, before the war.” She continued with her story. After leaving Awl-t’e’rra, her tribe sailed for many months, on the surface mostly, always following the computer’s guidance towards the signal it was picking up, always north-east. The weather became warmer, but Melissa recalls that the other children and she spent less and less time on the top deck as it became stiflingly hot near the equator. Inside it was cramped and smelly and noisy. They passed through an enormous sea of garbage. A huge rotting mattress of tyres, wood, plastics, foams, and half-sunken wrecks, motionless under the merciless sun until the submarine plowed through, closing again in the wake. At some point it became clear that fuel would run out before they made it to the signal. Melissa remembers a lot of shouting and anger as the adults argued over what to do. There was nothing in the Book to guide them on this matter. Eventually an old man they called “Cook” plotted a new course to a small nearby island called “Bora” by hand, where they hoped to find more fuel. The submarine ran out of fuel almost at Bora. The currents were unhelpful, and the ship became locked in doldrums. Eventually the adults managed to construct enormous long oars from spare wood. It took 4 men to an oar working in shifts, but very slowly the submarine began to sail once again towards Bora. It took a huge amount of effort to row the ship. Food and medicine began to run low. By the 14th month of the voyage the first of the old and sick began to die. Te Aroha died, giving her prized apple seeds she had hoped to plant in her new home to Melissa. It took another month before Bora was sighted and landed upon. Cook died without ever seeing Bora. Something horrible happened on Bora. Melissa stayed on the submarine and watched the landing parties row out in small dinghies, her father smiling and waving as he rowed out. He never came back. Kai never came back. Only one of the four dinghies returned. Bora was dead, but the dead rose and attacked the landers. The place was crackling with radiation and the entire central island was a sunken, underwater crater. Melissa remembered seeing that flag, that old USA flag, flying from a single solitary flagpole on the island in the green haze. Nothing else really remained. Luckily the one returning dinghy had managed to find a few barrels of fuel in an old airport bunker. The remaining crew mourned the lost, poured the fuel into the tank, and set off again. Melissa became more subdued and skipped over the details of the remaining voyage. The fuel lasted only another few weeks, and from there the oars were employed again. Luckily the current picked up a bit as they got further from the equator, but the rowing was still backbreaking work. What’s more, with most of the braves and young men lost on Bora, and the older and sicker dying off, the rowing soon fell to mostly the women and children. Melissa, a small girl, rowed and rowed, hours at a time, for what she said felt like years. After a long, long stretch at sea, with new deaths every day, land was finally sighted again. Originally 300 people set out, but only 20 lived to see the shoreline of that new land, America. They had reached the deserted coast south of Dayglow. Looking at the rocky, ruined shore, they were bitterly disappointed. There was no greeting party. No orderly houses, or gardens. No farms and windmills, or skyscrapers and “aeroplanes”. America was as dead as Bora. They landed on the shore and explored the area. Dust, rust, bones. Eventually they found the source of the signal they had followed all this way. An ancient automated beacon, with a nuclear battery that would last forever. A bird had flown in through a broken window and knocked a can onto the transmit button, and it had started mindlessly pinging into the atmosphere. Melissa and her mother, and Captain Tommy, and the other 17 survivors gathered in the captain’s cabin to read the final, sealed letter; as the Book of Continuation instructed. Commander, You have so far done your duty for the State and the People of New Zealand. While the circumstances you find yourself in (i.e. the destruction of civilisation) are regrettable, you have a final task to fulfill. The only safeguard we had to prevent the total atomic annihilation you find yourself in was Mutually Assured Destruction. You have followed a signal to someone that now believes themselves absolved of this shared responsibility. In order to safeguard MAD, it now falls to you to destroy them. We have equipped you with a nuclear device for this purpose. The arming code is ABEL. Godspeed.Melissa remembers all present reacted differently. Some laughed, some cried, most were silent. The best plan the old world had was to kill whatever crawled out of the rubble. They took a vote. Melissa claimed she did not remember what they voted on, or the result. Her mother and her, and a handful of others asked to be let ashore. Captain Tommy and the rest stayed on the ship. Whether they attempted to return to Awl-t’e’rra or tried to carry out their final commandment we might never know. Melissa says they saw the submarine sink below the waves from the shore and never saw it again. The other survivors scattered, and Melissa’s mother took her north. They found Dayglow, and from there learned of the NCR. Her mother hated the NCR from the start - seeing in them the government which had destroyed Awl-t’e’rra, Bora, and her husband. She took Melissa north-east, towards independent Vegas, and met Chomps Lewis on the way. The rest of her history wasn’t as interesting to me. Melissa’s mother died of long term illness gained from the doomed voyage. Chomps cared for her to the end. Melissa herself grew up strong and angry, finding the Great Khans exactly the group she belonged to. Her step father Chomps respected her anger and independence, helping how he could, but ultimately leaving her to follow her own unique path. And she retained the accent of her mother, of her tribe Keewee from Vohall, from Awl-t’e’rra. 9. Not a day after I hastily scratched down Melissa’s story the Khans finally removed me from their camp. No matter. What I have is incredible, the first news from the other side of the planet, the first story of a world so far from ours! Now it’s just a matter of sneaking past the Fiends again back to Julie Farkas and all the Followers will finally see the value of my work.
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2024.06.02 13:21 Squid_Empire Ever wondered why a random side character in New Vegas has a New Zealand accent? Here's my speculative backstory
 | You might have met Melissa Lewis in Fallout New Vegas, a Great Khans scout near Sloan. In game she has a really noticeable NZ accent due to a mistake when recording voice lines. But what if it wasn't a mistake? Here's my speculative backstory as to how she got to the Mojave! submitted by Squid_Empire to Fallout [link] [comments] Herbert Royce, October 2280 Under the patronage of my mentor Dr. Gall at the Boneyard Medical University, to the Mojave Wasteland. Field Notes. Intro. I had often looked out at the dead Pacific from the balconies of the Boneyard Medical University and pondered what human stories might be taking place across those moribund waves. The NCR borders were constantly pushing north, east, and even south, but the western ocean was an impassable veil. I had realized I could learn no more about the wider world from the collected books and dubious tales brought in by wasteland explorers. And so I set off on an expedition towards the east frontier of the republic; New Vegas. There, I discovered the first clues yet recorded about the fate of the world beyond the sea. I heard tales that taking the Long 15 east to Vegas was a terrible ordeal. Leery caravaneers in dusty Boneyard streets told me tales of a scar of asphalt broiling in the wasteland sun, vipers and raiders poised behind every rock, knives and teeth sharp. A mere historian like myself would never make it, they said. But in reality after getting over my initial apprehension I found the journey from the Boneyard to the outskirts of New Vegas completely uneventful. I traveled with a Crimson Caravan group and discovered the NCR goes to great lengths to secure the road. Given that it is the only way for NCR soldiers and supplies to reach the frontlines near New Vegas from the cities of the west I shouldn’t have been surprised. 2. I rendezvoused with the local chapter of the Followers at the old Mormon Fort in Freeside, on the outskirts of Vegas. Julie Farkas was in charge here, she was helpful in getting me introduced to some other local figures and in giving me the lay of the land. 3. There is nothing new to learn here in Vegas itself. The local Followers are entirely preoccupied with their medical services and have no time for my historical and anthropological inquiry. Mores to the point, the Followers in Vegas seem to be suffering from a moral cringe of some type, no doubt brought about by their continual reminder of Caesar’s presence and influence and their feelings of collective guilt for his existence. I suppose having another Followers anthropologist nearby was simply too much. The local NCR administration is also useless to me, entirely focused on their war with Caesar’s Legion. 4. I have resolved to meet with the Great Khans as my next move. Although the Followers have technically cut formal ties with them, I believe that the tribe will still welcome a Follower. As to why I want to meet them, I have heard they send scouts into the Idaho wilderness. Almost nothing is known about the lands north of Vegas. If I could discover something important it would make this journey worthwhile. I doubt Julie will approve of my plan. 5. I told Julie I was planning to attempt to locate some old Vault to the north of Vegas and set off before anyone could stop me. The Followers and their guards were happy to see me go, I think. Avoiding the Fiends turned out to be a problem. I was close to being chased but managed to distract my pursuers with a mirror and smoke grenade. I will have to remember to take a different route back after this. But either way, I have managed to make camp just outside Red Rock canyon and hope that before long the Great Khans will invite me in. It’s better to not simply walk in uninvited. 6. I have successfully ingratiated myself into the Great Kahn’s Red Rock Canyon camp. As I suspected, they welcomed a Follower into the camp with open arms, excited to see what medical and chemical science I can teach them. I don’t know much. Hopefully I can find out what I need before they realize this. 7. No luck so far. The Khans prefer to talk about their problems with the NCR and Bitter Springs. This doesn’t interest me. I’ve heard that one of the scouts is due back in a few days. This scout - a woman named Melissa - has apparently been north, and is my best chance to find out about the Idaho Wilderness. I will be stretching my time by then. The Khan drug-makers are already aware that I have nothing to teach them. I’ve switched to trying to hint I could provide them with inside information on the NCR for them to exploit, which is working. For now. 8. I have finally met with Melissa, and my entire plan has changed. This woman has a most extraordinary story; forget Idaho - she has information more exotic than anyone I’ve met! I can barely compose myself to write but I will do my best with trembling hands to record everything she told me as best as I possibly can: To start with basics Melissa is in her late 20s, possibly about 28. She isn’t just a scout but the “runners-leader” of the Great Khans, which is something like a head scout, and she knows everything going on around the camp, also acting as an advisor to the head Kahn (whom I never met). She is well respected and trusted. She has tanned skin and dark eyes and hair, unremarkable physically. Perhaps a little short. However I immediately knew something was special about her the second she spoke. I’m not sure if I can accurately transcribe her unique accent down phonetically, or remember all her strange word choices. I will try. https://preview.redd.it/ile1mezl654d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee7ae2b12926b500957cedb876ec2f28daee80e9 She gave her name as “Mellussa”. I asked if she had been north, and she said that yes, her runners and she would sometimes “tramp” northwards. I quickly asked what tribe she originally hailed from. I think she was bothered that I didn’t peg her for a Khan. But she said she came from a tribe called the “Keewee”, which was located somewhere “in the far south and west” (or, “wist”), at a place (I will try to transcribe as) “Awl-t’e’rra”. I believe that she had told this exact explanation many times. She was surprised when I latched on to this place and asked for a more specific location. Perhaps I was the first. There isn’t much land south and west of Vegas - did she mean her tribe was from Baja? She looked at me skeptically. “Yis, I suppose so”. I didn’t believe it. I had done some work in Baja right after the Rangers first finished pacifying the borders. I had studied the tribes of the area at that time. There were a handful left and a handful more extinct: and none called themselves anything like Keewee. I changed topic and asked about relatives. Did she have any other surviving members of her tribe? She told me her father was one “Chomps Lewis”, who was the chief of the NCR quarry at Sloan (I passed through Sloan on my way into Vegas but didn’t stop there). “But”, she said, “he was my stip father. Not of the tribe.” Her mother, who was of her tribe, had passed away many years ago. As far as she knew, she was the last survivor. The last one “here”, anyway, she said. I asked what she meant by here. She looked skeptical again and glanced around the camp, probably looking for an escape. I wasn’t going to let this go. I felt I was at the threshold of some incredible revelation. I changed the topic to the NCR, and steered the conversation towards the crimes of the state and their propensity for destroying smaller tribes. It didn’t take long before she was on side again, and happily reviling the republic. I tried again; “And so did the NCR destroy your tribe?” This time she laughed in a funny snorting way before blurting out “no way, they’d have no chance” and I pressed on “why’s that?” and she regained some of her composure and mumbled “Because they’re far away. Far, far away.” I heard my heart thumping in my chest. Far and away to the south west. Nowhere that could mean but over the sea. At this time the sun had started to set and we moved to logs near a small campfire near one of the Great Khan yurts. She had had a change of heart in the lowering light, and seemed to have decided it was time to tell her tale. “It was over fufteen years ago”, thus she began her tale, all told in that strange accent. She had lived her early life in a place far, far, away, across the pacific ocean, and at the bottom of the world. That place was - “Awl-t’e’rra” - a big island far from Communist China or from America - which nonetheless had also been destroyed in the great war, centuries ago. I had had dreams, (or delusions really), that the world beyond America might have been spared the great war. Or - that they may have rebuilt in glorious peace and harmony. But from what Melissa told me of her childhood memories, this exotic southern land had had a history all too familiar. Warlords. Tribes. Raiders. Monsters. Tyrannical governments. Famine. Disease. War. She told me of dense, water-soaked cold jungles stalked by monstrous featherless birds, of steaming and fuming land, cracked by the bombs and forever since churning and boiling with geological fury, of bizarre walking lizards with three eyes that could hypnotize anyone who gazed at them, of coastlines roaring with furious waves and stalked by gigantic crabs, of huge insects she called “wetas” - armored like scorpions - which roamed the wild foggy forests in the still mornings, and she told tales of enormous mountains, dusted with green snow which glittered at night, and from which katabatic winds rushed down to strip and irradiate the land below. She recalled tales she had heard of wasteland heroes, monstrous raider hordes, mutant hunters; of great new nations that rose and fell, of myriad factions and tribes: the Whalers, the Puiras, the Republic of Huapai, the terrifying chthonic Titiwai, the Chain Gang, the venerable Parliamentarians, the Meke Wanau, the savage Scourge, and many more I couldn’t write down fast enough. But when she talked about the settlement - which she called a “Pa” - she grew up in, called Vohall, near the ruins of a great city, she seemed to only have good things to say. She described a peaceful and green place, with comfortable and warm wooden shacks and clotheslines, orchids, and friendly neighbors. The adults of Vohall were descendants of some old government military base or facility, who had developed a religious devotion to a text with instructions on how to operate and maintain the machinery at the old facility: especially the base’s large submarine. For hundreds of years they had maintained the facility by following this book, which they called “The Book of Continuation”. Melissa said her earliest memories involved toddling into vents with an oil can to oil wheels the book had said needed to be oiled, deep inside some machine. She was obviously fond of her memories of Vohall, and I suspect that things were not as rosy as she described them. Nevertheless, I didn’t interrupt as she spoke of the various people of the town, “Mr Edwards” who was a wonderful gardener, “Kai” who was the best war dancer and who led the braves who had fought off raiders coming across a fortified spit, “Te Aroha” who repaired the fabrics and clothes of the settlement and who had the best apple tree that all the children liked to pick from when she wasn’t watching, and “Captain Tommy” who was the Admiral of the settlement. In all she painted a picture of a healthy settlement in a hostile place. She recalled things were getting harder though. The elders remembered better times, winters were colder and colder each year, and icebergs drifted into the harbor sometimes even in autumn. Frequent raider attacks by wastelandboys from the bones of the great city across the spit were mounting in scale, and the abominations that rose from the waters around the Pa seemed fiercer and more numerous every month. When Melissa was 12, her mother and father and all the other inhabitants of the settlement gathered to hear an announcement by Captain Tommy. A computer no one had remembered ever doing anything had that morning started flashing lights and spitting out reams of ticker paper. She remembers the sense of excitement in the main hall when Tommy read from the holy Book of Continuation. The book knew what to do. The instructions were clear. This was the moment all the work that had been done was for. The book announced through Captain Tommy that now was the time to board the ancient submarine so carefully maintained and set sail for the source of the signal now registered on the computer - to find those first survivors on the planet to reestablish order: those who had built a society functional enough that they had electricity and radio transmitters. They would join them in their paradise. Within days, the population of Vohall had packed their things and boarded the huge submarine, which gleamed with a brilliant new white and black paintjob. Melissa remembers the smell of rope and salt and oil, as she watched the settlement’s precious store of diesel poured into the waiting sub. The entire settlement cheered as the beast’s engines roared to life, and clapped and whistled as the final piece of cargo was loaded aboard - a mysterious shiny metal cylinder kept in the most secure secret vault and only to be moved by the Captain himself: as per the strict instructions of the Book. The people waved goodbye to their home, and with fresh hopes and joy set sail, away from their old world and into the new. I was reeling at the detail and complexity of Melissa’s reminiscence. Asking her to slow down, I got her to talk more about what she knew of Awl-t’e’rra’s history before her time. I asked her if she had known about any Vaults there, “no”, she said, “no Vaults, no Nuka-Cola, no Bottlecips. But I had seen that before”, she pointed to an old-world USA flag I had embroidered on my bag. Curious, I asked where, “you’d see them all over old buildings. Old posters, with crosses on thim. I always thought they were raider flags. Nobody seemed to like thim anyway. It seemed they used to blame everything on thim, before the war.” She continued with her story. After leaving Awl-t’e’rra, her tribe sailed for many months, on the surface mostly, always following the computer’s guidance towards the signal it was picking up, always north-east. The weather became warmer, but Melissa recalls that the other children and she spent less and less time on the top deck as it became stiflingly hot near the equator. Inside it was cramped and smelly and noisy. They passed through an enormous sea of garbage. A huge rotting mattress of tyres, wood, plastics, foams, and half-sunken wrecks, motionless under the merciless sun until the submarine plowed through, closing again in the wake. At some point it became clear that fuel would run out before they made it to the signal. Melissa remembers a lot of shouting and anger as the adults argued over what to do. There was nothing in the Book to guide them on this matter. Eventually an old man they called “Cook” plotted a new course to a small nearby island called “Bora” by hand, where they hoped to find more fuel. The submarine ran out of fuel almost at Bora. The currents were unhelpful, and the ship became locked in doldrums. Eventually the adults managed to construct enormous long oars from spare wood. It took 4 men to an oar working in shifts, but very slowly the submarine began to sail once again towards Bora. It took a huge amount of effort to row the ship. Food and medicine began to run low. By the 14th month of the voyage the first of the old and sick began to die. Te Aroha died, giving her prized apple seeds she had hoped to plant in her new home to Melissa. It took another month before Bora was sighted and landed upon. Cook died without ever seeing Bora. Something horrible happened on Bora. Melissa stayed on the submarine and watched the landing parties row out in small dinghies, her father smiling and waving as he rowed out. He never came back. Kai never came back. Only one of the four dinghies returned. Bora was dead, but the dead rose and attacked the landers. The place was crackling with radiation and the entire central island was a sunken, underwater crater. Melissa remembered seeing that flag, that old USA flag, flying from a single solitary flagpole on the island in the green haze. Nothing else really remained. Luckily the one returning dinghy had managed to find a few barrels of fuel in an old airport bunker. The remaining crew mourned the lost, poured the fuel into the tank, and set off again. Melissa became more subdued and skipped over the details of the remaining voyage. The fuel lasted only another few weeks, and from there the oars were employed again. Luckily the current picked up a bit as they got further from the equator, but the rowing was still backbreaking work. What’s more, with most of the braves and young men lost on Bora, and the older and sicker dying off, the rowing soon fell to mostly the women and children. Melissa, a small girl, rowed and rowed, hours at a time, for what she said felt like years. After a long, long stretch at sea, with new deaths every day, land was finally sighted again. Originally 300 people set out, but only 20 lived to see the shoreline of that new land, America. They had reached the deserted coast south of Dayglow. Looking at the rocky, ruined shore, they were bitterly disappointed. There was no greeting party. No orderly houses, or gardens. No farms and windmills, or skyscrapers and “aeroplanes”. America was as dead as Bora. They landed on the shore and explored the area. Dust, rust, bones. Eventually they found the source of the signal they had followed all this way. An ancient automated beacon, with a nuclear battery that would last forever. A bird had flown in through a broken window and knocked a can onto the transmit button, and it had started mindlessly pinging into the atmosphere. Melissa and her mother, and Captain Tommy, and the other 17 survivors gathered in the captain’s cabin to read the final, sealed letter; as the Book of Continuation instructed. Commander, You have so far done your duty for the State and the People of New Zealand. While the circumstances you find yourself in (i.e. the destruction of civilisation) are regrettable, you have a final task to fulfill. The only safeguard we had to prevent the total atomic annihilation you find yourself in was Mutually Assured Destruction. You have followed a signal to someone that now believes themselves absolved of this shared responsibility. In order to safeguard MAD, it now falls to you to destroy them. We have equipped you with a nuclear device for this purpose. The arming code is ABEL. Godspeed.Melissa remembers all present reacted differently. Some laughed, some cried, most were silent. The best plan the old world had was to kill whatever crawled out of the rubble. They took a vote. Melissa claimed she did not remember what they voted on, or the result. Her mother and her, and a handful of others asked to be let ashore. Captain Tommy and the rest stayed on the ship. Whether they attempted to return to Awl-t’e’rra or tried to carry out their final commandment we might never know. Melissa says they saw the submarine sink below the waves from the shore and never saw it again. The other survivors scattered, and Melissa’s mother took her north. They found Dayglow, and from there learned of the NCR. Her mother hated the NCR from the start - seeing in them the government which had destroyed Awl-t’e’rra, Bora, and her husband. She took Melissa north-east, towards independent Vegas, and met Chomps Lewis on the way. The rest of her history wasn’t as interesting to me. Melissa’s mother died of long term illness gained from the doomed voyage. Chomps cared for her to the end. Melissa herself grew up strong and angry, finding the Great Khans exactly the group she belonged to. Her step father Chomps respected her anger and independence, helping how he could, but ultimately leaving her to follow her own unique path. And she retained the accent of her mother, of her tribe Keewee from Vohall, from Awl-t’e’rra. 9. Not a day after I hastily scratched down Melissa’s story the Khans finally removed me from their camp. No matter. What I have is incredible, the first news from the other side of the planet, the first story of a world so far from ours! Now it’s just a matter of sneaking past the Fiends again back to Julie Farkas and all the Followers will finally see the value of my work.
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