https://github.com/DanielFerreira-hub/website.git Footer going below the menu that I have, instead of being at the bottom of the page like the other pages that I already have. Also do you guys know how to make like when I select the options of each menu (pizza, salads, and starter) it has a drop down animation instead everyting popping up? in the link is everything about the website im making but what i need help is in the menu.html, css file is in the css folder, and the js script on the javascript folder. the base.html is basiccly as the name suggests the base of each page of the website.

Sionia
Chapter 14
Map First Previous
“Lord Wyatt, you are needed” Called Lars that shook me out of my fascinating reading about dragon neuts.
“Yes.” I said as I pulled back the curtain.
“The city guard requests to speak with you. They are restricting entrance to Avalon given the latest attack by Mardor at Black Gate of Rowan.” Lars explained with a salute and chest bump
With a sigh, I handed my book to Gus and exited the carriage and was very impressed with the massive three story gatehouse and huge stone block readouts connected on each side. I was met by a forty something looking man of average build with black hair and dark eyes flanked by six fully fitted out soldiers.
“I am Rhys Redith captain of the guard here in Avalon. You must be Count Ryan Wyatt.” Rhys introduced himself with the question.
“Yes, I am Ryan Wyatt.” I responded with a frown and knotted brow.
“We have been expecting your arrival. The king has ordered us to assist you and provide hospitality. I am to escort you to the fortress and the rest of your party to Duggan's inn.” Said Rhys with a salute and formal bow.
“That will not do! I have several wards under my care which several are nobility.” I objected to the plan given.
“I was not aware. I will of course take you to the fortress where Lady Ludmilla will address your concerns.” Replied Rhys with a salute and bow then motioned for me to follow.
“Follow him, Jace .” I said to my new driver and climbed into the carriage.
The bridge over the north side of the Paradise River to the island of Avalon was very long at around a quarter mile or so. The readouts of the gatehouse extended a good ways into the river which had several firing positions. I suspected that the river rose and fell with a possible rainy and dry season which was why the readouts could prevent an army from getting behind the gatehouse or access to the bridge from land. The gatehouse was flush with the city walls and protruded into the river was equally as impressive with a descent sized recessed portico as draw bridge porch extension.
Thinking back to my travels through Europe, I decided Avalon looked like the city of East Looe, Cornwall in England but not as topographically elevated and with more renaissance style architecture than back on earth. The Roman style arched bridge was very much what we just rode across. The fortress of Avalon itself was at the highest point which was of to the left on the far east side of the island and most up stream point on the islands..
The Fortress keep was decent but still half the size of Duke Boasag's Buanna. I realized that the reason for putting my servants at an inn was because of the lack of space. However, I was determined to stay with my wards no matter the violation of etiquette it might cause. As my carriage pulled up to the entrance with the fortress that had both iron gates and metal reinforced wooden doors that were a good six feet wide and twelve feet tall each. These doors were set into no less than a three foot thick wall,
Passing through the gate was a small bricked paved courtyard that about about forty to fifty feet wide in a more or less oval shape. I saw a host of servants and two well dressed ladies waiting at the main doors to the fortress's central keep.
“Lord Wyatt, welcome to Avalon. I am Viscountess Ludmilla Skafhoggr and this is my mother Baroness Grogda Wode.” Stated a quiet plump pretty faced brown haired woman in a gaudy yellow with purple accented dress with unicorns all over it and a matching unicorn hat whose horn protruded a good foot from her forehead
“Yes, it is a very deep pleasure to meet you as well” Stated Lady Grogda a good looking woman who seemed to be in her mid to late thirties with black hair and unusual olive colored eyes. Her lite brown dress was quiet plain compared to her daughter's which was kind of comical in their contrast.
“The pleasure is mine for sure in meeting you ladies.” I said pouring it on a bit thick with a formal bow and sweep of my arm.
“I do not understand. Why are all your people with you?” Lady Ludmilla asked looking toward Captain Rhys but speaking to me.
“I have many wards under my protection. Thus, it is impossible to leave them alone without my presence as there are many who would try and take advantage of helpless young girls.” I stated but that failed miserably when Frey and the other three Asgardians approached fully armed with their swords.
“I would hardly call them helpless!” Spat Lady Grogda with a bit of contempt as the Asgardians were better looking than her.
“Despite appearances, they need my protection. After all, I am their guardian as I freed them from captivity.” I responded with a bit of admonishment in my voice.
“Yes, we have heard the tale. You are quiet the knight in shinning armor.” Lady Ludmilla said with obvious sarcasm.
“It is what it is. The wards will be with me wherever I am. If that is at an inn or camping on the side of the road, so bit it.” I stated with irritation.
“Do not be silly. We can host your wards and personal attendant. However, we must insist that the rest stay in the inn over there.” Lady Ludmilla said pointing to a three story building that was about fifty yards away.
“That is closer than expected. However, I accept. My people can stay at the inn while you host me and my wards.” I stated with another formal bow.
“Good, now come and we will see to your comfort.” Lady Ludmilla said with a bit of a laugh with Lady Grogda giving a small laugh and a wicked grin.
I immediately turned to Lars, Razor and Meowth and ordered that they maintain a watch on the carts and carriage around the clock as I did not want any lapse where someone would try to take advantage. I called to the wolf kin brothers to continue to protect the girls inside the fortress. Pointing to Lars, I told him to take our prisoner Andros to the adventure's guild office and turn him over that he was caught trying to steal from me. Let them know I will see them on morrow to see if Andros was telling the truth or just lying. Turning with a smile and motioned to Freya and the girls to follow me with Gus right behind me.
The inside of the fortress was decently furnished though it had more of the appearance of a military outpost than a holding of wealth as it looked quiet spartan. I was led to an upper chamber where Lady Grogda had already ordered a bath filled by the time we had arrived.
“I will see to you personally” Lady Grogda stated with that same wicked grin again.
I suddenly felt as though I was a piece of meat put on display before a hungry wolf. I steeled myself to not recoil as I just felt off with this lady.
“See to your master's baggage.” Lady Grogda ordered Gus who was surprised by the command.
Gus gave me a slight shaking of his head and left the chamber. Lady Grogda then proceeded to strip me with efficiency. Once I was naked, she suddenly took her time looking at my nakedness. She even traced my scars on my back with a click of her tongue. Walking over to the tub, I climbed in and sat down.
“Spoil sport” Said Lady Grogda as she grabbed a wash cloth.
“Do not get my wounds wet.” I said warning Lady Groda of what the doctor had told me.
“Why? Your wound is almost well healed. The stitches can be pulled out except here” Stated Grogda and tapped me on my left shoulder blade.
“I have been using a special salve from the high elves. I did not realize it was healing that fast. However, I was warned that getting my wound wet would effect my healing.” I repeated what Doctor Zalzwarth told me.
“Very well.” Groda conceded.
Lady Grogda began washing me where she was absolutely taking her time. It was obvious that she was deliberately feeling me up for her own pleasure. When she grasped my manhood. I stood up and said, “The water is cold and I am tired and hungry!”
“Humph” Pouted Lady Grogda her displeasure but began to rinse me.
Just as I was stepping out of the tub, Gus entered slightly out of breath as he had run to get my clothes with Lukas my footman helping. I sighed with relief as Gus helped me don my dressing gown.
“Old Maude will be here momentarily to apply your salve.” Gus said with a salute.
“Very good.” I replied to Gus then turned to Lady Grogda and said, “I was told you are a Dowager Baroness. Is that not so?” I blatantly asked appearing as innocent as I could.
“I will see you at the dinner bell hour.” Lady Groda said with a sort of half wave salute and stormed out of the chamber in a huff.
“Thank you, Gus. I actually thought I would have to literally fight to save my personal honor.” I remarked with a laugh.
“It was my pleasure, Lord Wyatt.” Gus responded and joined me in laughing.
Old Maude came about twenty minutes later and applied my salve and chatted about how excited she was to be in Avalon and wanting to visit one of the apothecary shops. I gave her permission but have one of the guards accompany her.
About an hour later and I was fully shaven and dressed, I heard a large bell ringing from a bell tower not far away from my chamber. With that, I headed down to the great hall that was just off the main entrance way. I was met by Lady Ludmilla who escorted me to Viscount Skafhoggr chair where she seated herself to my left. Lady Grogda appeared wearing a new pink dress and seated herself to my right. The one missing was the Viscount.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr?” I asked Lady Ludmilla with a raised eyebrow.
“He is meeting with one of the military commanders. I believe they are deciding on how large a levy they must raise to battle the bastards of Mardor.” Replied Lady Ludmilla as she clapped her hands for servants to begin serving the evening meal.
Four exhausting hours later, I was back in my chamber with my nerves completely shot. The constant fawning and mindless chatter from Lady Ludmilla as well as the constant groping from Lady Grogda under the table had stained me to the max. I was ready for bed and was glad to sink into the lavender scented sheets. Gus grabbed a thin pallet and two blankets. Blowing out the candles he stepped into the hallway closing the door behind him. He would outside my door as custom demands while traveling.
A little over a half an hour later after Gus left, the door opened and closed quickly. I could not see in the darkness but relaxed when Freya spoke softly and slipped into bed with me. Freya did her magic on me as she mounted me taking me to new heights of pleasure. I quickly forgot all about the overly eager pursuit of the Dowager Baroness as I shared the pleasures of being with Freya. After we had sated ourselves completely, we slept peacefully in a loving embrace.
The morning came with a knock on my door that woke both Freya and I. I moaned but Freya nudged me on the chin.
“Time to wake you lazy bones.” Freya said with a laugh.
“I am not a morning person.” I said with a groan.
“Don't I know it! You were quiet the beast were you not?” Freya teased then laughed at me.
The knock on the door was more instant as I rose and put on my dressing gown. Opening the door slightly was Gus and the Dowager Baroness.
“It is early, what is it?” I asked.
“We have prepared a very special meal for you this morning.” Said Lady Grogda with a frown while she tried to look around me into the chamber.
“I see. Well, give me some time to properly dress and I will be down shortly.” I stated and continued to Gus “Have Lukas bring my shaving kit.”
“Right away, Lord Wyatt.” Gus said as he motioned down the hall where I assumed Lukas was.
About forty five minutes later and having snuck Freya out of my chamber, I was fully shaved and dressed in my dark red outfit and black beret hat that actually looked really good on me. Upon entering the great hall, I saw Lady Ludmilla seated. Lady Grogda taking me by the arm led me again to the Viscount's chair where she seated herself next to me.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr, Lady Ludmilla?” I asked her directly.
Lady Ludmilla was quiet for a moment then said, “I guess he is sleeping. The meetings with the military commanders drag on for hours and hours. I hardly ever see him these days.” Lady Ludmilla said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Is that so. Very well as it can not be helped. Please send my regards to Lord Skafhoggr for his hospitality. I was informed that the king would have a messages for me that Lord Skafhoggr was to give me. Could you ask Lord Skafhoggr for them?” I asked as I suspected something was just not right.
“Oh. Ah. I will of course ask my Lord Vincent for the king's message once morning meal is finished.” Lady Ludmilla said and looked discombobulated.
“I see. Please do so. The king ordered me to arrive in Camelot immediately. I can not dally and spend extra time as I normally would do. I hope you understand.” I said making extra emphasis on the king's order part.
“Yes. What the king commands we all must obey.” Lady Ludmillas said sourly but not looking at me.
Lady Ludmilla then clapped her hands and the servants brought in the morning meal. What surprised me was my meal was different from everyone else. Looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda something in the back on my head screamed warning warning.
The silver plate before me was a type of stew with a strong overpowering spice scent. I frowned and began to think hard and fast.
“This is a specialty from the High Valley region. I hope you like it.” Lady Grogda said with no expression at all.
My alarm bells went off even stronger this time. A footman came over to fill my cup which I deliberately knocked over and profusely apologized for my clumsiness.
“You know, I am from the High Valley region too. I have never been a fan of overly spiced foods. Lets see how spicy it is.” I stated and took a scoop with a spoon and handed it to the footman to taste.
The footman was surprised but more than happy to taste the food as it was obvious that food for the staff was very plain and simple.
“You should not do that! It is not right!” Lady Grogda said as she stood up showing more alarm than outrage.
The footman had already consumed the sample where he at first looked like he liked it. However, he suddenly started to choke as his face turned bright red and falling to his knees. Lady Ludmilla stood up in horror as the footman was gagging begging for water. I handed him my silver chalice with what I assumed was apple cider where he chugged it down then begged for more.
Finally, after three more cups of water given by another footman, first footman just lay on his back almost in a stupor. It was as if his mind was blank.
“What is this?” I asked as I pointed to my meal looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda.
“I do not know!” Said Lady Ludmilla looking at her mother with a strange look.
“Do not give me that! What did you do?” I demanded with a my voiced raised and now pointing my finger at them.
“It was a love potion. It was to make you like me.” Said Lady Grogda meekly and looking sheepishly at the ground.
“Seriously! That was more than a simple love potion!” I yelled my outrage.
“I swear that is all it was. I had to hide its not so pleasant taste with spice.” Lady Grogda stated her defense but still not able to look me in the eye.
“Lady Ludmilla, I must now ask that you bring me the king's message as I am now leaving Avalon.” I commanded with rage in my countenance.
Lady Ludmilla fled the great hall without replying. Lady Grogda just sat down with her head down looking at the floor saying nothing.
With exasperation, I called out to my people. “House of Wyatt, Ladies and girls we are leaving! Quickly gather your things and be out front within a little span!”
With that, I stormed out of the great hall to the shock of all present. Up in the guest chamber, I changed clothes into my bluejeans, a blue shirt and a tan leather vest. Pulling on my boots and strapping on my weapons belt, I looked over seeing Gus and Lukas already packed up my discarded clothing and was ready to leave as they were staying clear of my angry outbursts.
Down at the carts, I ordered my guards to ready themselves to leave. I sent Lukas to call all the servants in the inn to be ready to leave immediately. Razor and Meowth jumped down from their perch on the first two carriages with questioning looks.
“They tried to poison me! Can you believe it?” I said angrily as I swept my arm to point at the fortress.
“Meow Lord Wyatt, that is clawful. Do you want meow to use them like a scratching post?” Asked Meowth as her tail went straight in what I assumed was either surprise or anger.
Razor just gave a low grumbling growl with teeth bared as he looked at the fortress.
Forty minutes later as my people were loading up, Lady Ludmilla approached with her head down.
“I am sorry Lord Wyatt. It seems you do not have any messages from the king.” Lady Ludmilla said never once looking me in the eye.
“I see. Send a message to the king that I left Avalon today and as commanded traveling as quickly as I can. The king is expecting my update so make sure it is properly sent!” I said with a warning.
I ordered a florse saddled for I needed fresh air as I was still furious. I actually led our people out and toward the main north south road which Nick panicked a bit and settled with riding next to me. As we approached the main crossroads of the city, I saw a large dinning hall and ordered a halt for all of our people to have breakfast. The meal consisted of roasted mutton, eggs, apple pancakes and apple jam. They also had fresh chilled milk and apple cider which really went well with the sweet dishes. Our group apparently cleaned them out and they had to turn away a few customers until mid day.
After breakfast, I went to the adventurer's guild that was a few buildings to the south. It was a four story building of decent size. I allowed Old Maude with a one of the house guards to go to the apothecary shop across the road along with the two Alphardian servants Aura and Sylvia. Inside the adventurer's guild, I asked for Marine as instructed. It was then I learned that Marine was Zack Talley's girl where they were to marry soon as she proudly let me know her good news.
“Zack said to tell you this is a level one escort. Whatever that means.” I repeated what Zack had told me to say.
“Thank you. It simply means Zack thinks there would be no problems and just being present is enough to discourage any potential thieves. The total is two hundred fifty denari for basic escort with an A ranked adventurer.” Marine said with a smile
After paying the fee for the job request, I asked Marine to speak to someone about Andros that was brought in by man guard Lars.
“I am Supervisor Etan Borg and assistant to Guild Master Henry Stewart. It is a pleasure to be at your service Count Wyatt..” Stated Etan with a salute and bow.
“Pleasure is mine.” I replied with a salute and nod of my head.
“We have investigated Andros. His party the Finders of Avalon specialize in retrieving lost items or stolen goods from thieves. It appears his party was specifically requested to recover a lost ventu volpis. We do not have any more details for the job other than this.” Etan stated as he read from a page in his hand.
“Who hired them to steal from me? Make no mistake, they were hired to steal from me!” I said as I was showing my anger and frustration.
“Normally, we would not disclose who posted job requests to those not apart of the contract. However, given the circumstances, I was instructed to tell you it was Viscountess Lady Ludmilla. It seems she contracted and paid a merchant from Xanadu for a ventu volpis. It is our understanding that merchant was placed on a Quenya trade ship where he will go on trial for his many crimes in Svarta. The Finders of Avalon should not have tried to take your ventu volpis. Nor should they have taken on the job given the crimes of the merchant without more information.” Etan explained what the guild knew.
“What will happen to Andros?” I asked frankly.
“The Guild Master will hold a hearing with S and an A ranked members who will advise on the issues. I expect he will be found guilty but will escape the ten year punishment. More like one to two years of labor for the guild doing low ranked jobs that no one wants while being supervised by myself or a C ranked or higher adventurer. His pay will be one third of normal with the rest going to repay the guild or costs associated with his lapse in judgment.” Etan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I see. The thing that irks me is they attacked my people and wounded one of my guards with a slinger's stone.” I explained my outrage.
“I was not aware of this fact. Master Stewart will compensate you as the law requires. Unfortunately, Master Stewart left for Camelot for meeting with the war counsel on Astria's response to the Empire's latest invasion. I will send a filoxis to let Master Stewart know that there was injury, offense and honor requirements. I understand you will be traveling to Camelot and am certain Master Stewart will seek you out to give you a formal apology and see you are properly compensated.” Etan stated with a salute and bow.
“Good enough. Let me know the outcome of the hearing for Andros. I do not like loose ends and a potential enemy looking for revenge.” I said mater of factually.
“Understood. I will relay your concerns to Master Stewart. Etan replied with another salute and bow.
Leaving the adventure's guild, I decided to visit the tradesman's guild and merchant's storefront while Old Maude was still busy across the street. The girls came with me as they had been requesting things like combs, brushes and scented oils plus a few other special feminine items they needed.
Once all the girls got what they were needing and getting those items stowed with their baggage, Old Maude came back with a small crate filled with items to make medicines. While the baggage was being loaded and sorted, I went to see the information broker's desk and inquired about Chamberlain Robert Duffy. I paid the requested fee of one erythro given his status in the city. I was shown a file which listed the qualities, character and known habits of Robert. There was a section about vices and food preferences. The only vice was seeing a woman who was a widow listed as a paid mistress. Basically, Robert was a straight as an arrow honorable man. I smiled as the report made me feel better about who I was helping.
Finally, with everyone loaded up, we headed out of the city of Avalon over the southern main bridge and gate that was just like the north one but slightly longer with a guard tower protected draw bridge section to let ships pass. After about two hours, I had calmed down enough that I rode in the carriage as was expected of a person of rank. I just looked out seeing nothing but the vast wheat fields of the Capital Region realizing how lucky I had been to escape the evils of the ladies of Fortress Avalon.

Long post! Sorry IA
A little background:
I [21F] have had an unfortunate life so far. Without deep elucidation, I come from a broken home yet was somehow blessed enough to attend a college far away from my hometown. Part of my childhood included having a neglectful father who fully abandoned me when I was 10. This obviously set a dangerous precedent for my relationships with men. I’ve spent the past few years healing and discovering myself, as every young adult does.
I had a relationship with a man [M29] when I was 19; he was 27. I didn’t have a high school sweetheart, so he was my first love and relationship. The age gap didn’t disturb me, because I “dated” older men throughout high school and naturally got along with older people because I’m an only child. Things went well overall but we dated for only 3 months because of the fact that he was an expat who had to leave the country at a set time. If he fully immigrated to the US, I have a feeling we’d still be together. Despite the age gap, we clicked very well and shared similar interests/beliefs.
We’ve sort of been on and off throughout the past couple of years through texting. I studied abroad in the country he lives in last fall but he expressed little to no interest in seeing me on account of his “new relationship”. I have suspicion that he had a girlfriend throughout his time abroad and was cheating on her with me, and they got back together when he returned (I really hope I’m wrong). Despite him being in a relationship with someone else, he continuously attempted to sext with me. Nearly every conversation we’ve had since he left has turned sexual by his doing. It just seems like he doesn’t want to know me as a person; the opposite of what he showed me when we were together physically. He says he broke up with the girl (who’s his age) a little bit ago.
Here are a few things he’s done that have been red flags (in hindsight):

• Continues to try to get me to lose weight by encouraging me to work out in very subtle ways (even though he knows I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia and eating issues)
• Liked when I got a Brazilian wax because he “prefers it that way”
• Doesn’t communicate openly and shuts down when confronted (he ignores my calls/texts when he knows there’s potential for me to talk to him about the state of our relationship and who he is)
• Kept our relationship a secret from everyone in his family and circle of friends. He’s hid his life from me other than basic facts (his siblings, schooling, etc).
• There are probably other things I’m missing, but he has this weird vibe overall. I had two housemates (who were also 19) when we dated and he confessed that he had crushes on them after we broke up. He tried giving wine to one of them one night when I wasn’t looking. Wtf?

He’s planning on coming to the city where I live in September, mainly to catch up with old friends. He said he wants to see me then, but does he just want sex? He’s alluded to the possibility of rekindling things but his mannerisms continue to confuse me. I’m not sure where to go from here. I can’t lose him because it’ll be my worst heartbreak and I’ll feel like a failure because most of the girls I grew up with are married now. He’s broken my heart many times already and I know the final blow will be devastating. He refuses to be honest with me and isn’t the same guy I met almost 2 years ago. People tell me he’s not good for me but at the risk of sounding piteous, I don’t believe I can do any better.
TDLR: Dated a man almost a decade older than me during my sophomore year of college and I don’t know how to get out of it or if I should break things off. I feel trapped and am starting to feel anxious around him.

Welcome back once more, for our final discussion of Armadale. I apologize again for the discussion being late. Last week, my excuse was that I had to spend time with my sister's family, including a labradoodle. This week, I am dog-sitting my mother's beagle, who has separation anxiety and gas. I am horribly sleep-deprived because this dog insists on sleeping next to my bed every night, snoring loudly and farting. Speaking of people breathing in poison in their sleep, let's get to the recap:
Allan has just set off for the Adriatic, with his cash converted to gold, obviously the result of Manuel's suggestions. Lydia and Ozias have been transferred to Turin by Ozias's employer, and Lydia pretends to have gotten a letter from her mother, asking her to come home, so she has an excuse to go back to London. Once there, she checks the newspaper for any articles or obituaries indicating that Allan has died. She also finds Mother Oldershaw's new address, but decides not to visit her.
After a few days, she finally gets the news she's been hoping for. Allan's yacht sunk off the southern coast of Italy, and everyone on board perished. Her next step is to write to Bashwood:
My dearest Bashwood,
I desire you... I mean, I desire to *meet with you... to apologize for my previous behavior towards you. I have foolishly made the mistake of marrying an immature child. If only I had married a real man (realness not necessarily extending to his teeth and hair)!*
Please, do not show this letter to anyone. Let us meet clandestinely.
Sincerely,
Lydia Armadale (note the last name)
Lydia then considers the marriage certificate, and realizes a glaring flaw in her plan: Ozias's handwriting looks nothing like Allan's. In a panic, she decides that her only option is to get advice from Mother Oldershaw. Unfortunately, Mother Oldershaw appears to have found God, and no longer wants anything to do with Lydia's plans. (Of course, she refuses to give Lydia the signed paper that she was going to use to extort money from Lydia if her plans succeeded.)
While leaving Oldershaw's, Lydia runs into Dr. Downward... excuse me, Dr. Le Doux, totally legitimate sanitarium owner. She realizes that he may be able to advise her, and asks to meet him later at the sanitarium. The sanitarium is basically what you'd expect a 19th-century sanitarium to be: creepy old house with shelves containing jars of preserved "creatures," a "galvanic apparatus" for providing electric shocks, etc. No patients yet, though.
Lydia tells the doctor her story, leaving out the worst details (he doesn't know that she's the reason the yacht sunk, or that her husband goes by the fake name "Ozias Midwinter"). Downward agrees to assist her by claiming to be a witness to the marriage... for a fee of six hundred pounds. Lydia agrees, and he assists her in sending a letter to Thorpe Ambrose, claiming to be Allan's widow.
The next day, Lydia gets a visit from Bashwood, who delivers the news that Neelie is beside herself with grief, and Mr. Darch is handling the matter of the inheritance, which was going to go to Allan's cousin, before Lydia announced her claim.
Bashwood returns a few days later with a shocking letter from Yugoslavia: Allan is alive! This is where I'd normally try to write a funny version of the letter, but nothing I could possibly write would be funnier than the actual letter's opening line: "I have been the victim of a rascally attempt at robbery and murder." Yes, "rascally." Oh, Allan, never change. One of the would-be murderers took pity on Allan and didn't securely board up his cabin, so he was able to escape instead of sinking with the yacht.
Lydia turns to Downward for help.
Downward: What if we trap Allan in the sanitarium?
Lydia: And murder him?
Downward: WTF, no. We get him to agree to not press legal charges against us.
Lydia: And then we murder him?
Downward: I have so many regrets about teaming up with you
Lydia: How do we catch him?
Downward: You could get Bashwood to lurk around the train station and intercept him before anyone else sees him. Have him tell Allan that Miss Milroy was sent here because she was driven insane by her grief for him.
Lydia: Can we murder Allan and Miss Milroy?
Downward: I am running an unlicensed sanitarium under a false name, and even I think you're unhinged.
Lydia: Gwilty as charged
Downward: But wait, what if he doesn't agree immediately, and we have to keep him here for months? What if I have actual patients at the time, and they report us?
Lydia: What if...
Downward: ...please don't say "murder"
Lydia: ...what if he had an accident?
Downward: Oh. Well, if it was an "accident," that would be okay. I don't know how an accident could happen, though, if you aren't an inmate here.
Lydia: I'll think about it
Meanwhile, Bashwood keeps vigil at the train station, until one day he sees... Ozias, who is searching for Lydia because she's stopped writing to him. While they talk to each other, Bashwood can't contain his shock at hearing that Lydia is Ozias's wife, and accidentally calls her "Mrs. Armadale," which understandably makes Ozias suspicious, so he follows Bashwood to see where he goes, which of course leads him straight to Lydia. Lydia pretends she was never married to Ozias, and Ozias faints from the shock.
Lydia heads straight to the sanitarium, tells Downward she's going to be an inmate, and asks for a sleeping draught. Downward prepares the draught, but first places yellow liquid in a purple flask. He then informs Lydia of what he thinks they should say at the inquest after Allan dies: The two of them knew he hadn't drowned, but when he arrived in England, they decided to trap him in the sanitarium because, shortly after his marriage to Lydia, Allan had starting having a delusion that he was engaged to Neelie. Once in the sanitarium, Downward diagnosed Allan with an incurable and fatal brain ailment, and that's what killed him.
Downward has scheduled a "Visitors' Day" so that people will witness Lydia as an inmate in the asylum. The visitors are mostly women, because life as a woman in Victorian England was so boring, they had nothing better to do than go to sanitariums to gawk at the mentally ill people and see where they will eventually live when the hysteria finally drives them mad. (I am only barely paraphrasing. The actual quote is "In the miserable monotony of the lives led by a large section of the middle classes of England, anything is welcome to the women which offers them any sort of harmless refuge from the established tyranny of the principle that all human happiness begins and ends at home.")
Downward shows them around the sanitarium and explains how it will be run, including only allowing novels that make people feel comfortable. (I assumed this was an intentional satire of Wilkie's critics, and the notes in the Oxford World's Classics edition confirmed this.)
But then Downward gave a sales pitch that damn near sold me on his sanitarium. "I throw up impregnable moral intrenchments between Worry and You. ... Will ten minutes’ irritation from a barking dog or a screeching child undo every atom of good done to a nervous sufferer by a month’s medical treatment? There isn’t a competent doctor in England who will venture to deny it!" Considering I almost couldn't post last week's discussion because of a few hours' exposure to two loud children and a labradoodle, I'm about ready to self-diagnose with hysteria and deranged lunacy.
He also explains that while the bedrooms lack fireplaces, they're heated with hot water. This impressed me because I've read about Victorian insane asylums not having fireplaces in the bedrooms (since the inmates might burn themselves), but I always assumed this meant that the inmates were cold in the winter. But wait... the bedroom also has secret controls that let him open, close, and lock the window and door from the outside, and a vent that lets him pump gas into the room. Whaaat? I rescind my diagnosis of hysteria and deranged lunacy. I want nothing to do with this.
After the tour is finished, Downward demonstrates to Lydia how to prepare the poison, and then breaks the bottle so that his assistant (who doesn't know about the purple flask) will think there's no more of that chemical in the house.
Meanwhile, Ozias is stalking Bashwood at the train station. He thinks Lydia is cheating on him, and Bashwood is waiting for Lydia's lover. But then he sees Bashwood with Allan. After confronting the two of them, he learns Bashwood's story about having to take Allan to Neelie in the sanitarium. Realizing that Lydia is probably still behind Bashwood's actions, Ozias insists on going with the two of them. On arriving at the sanitarium, Allan is informed that Neelie cannot see him until the morning, but he and Ozias are welcome to spend the night: Allan in Room Four, and Ozias in Room Three.
Lydia sets Bashwood up to spy on Allan's door from a room with a grate in its door. She tells him to make sure Allan stays in his room all night. Later, watching from the grate, Bashwood observes Ozias leave his room and examine the fumigating apparatus connected to Allan's room. Then Ozias stuffs his handkerchief in the grate, blocking Bashwood's view, before going into Allan's room and convincing Allan to switch rooms with him.
Later that night, Lydia returns and asks Bashwood if anything happened. Too afraid to tell her about the handkerchief, he tells her nothing happened, and she dismisses him to bed. After almost convincing herself to not go through with it, she then starts the process of pouring the poison at five minute intervals. While waiting for one of the intervals to pass, she notices Ozias's handkerchief and realizes that Bashwood lied to her. She checks in Room Three, and finds Allan asleep where Ozias should be.
In a panic, Lydia rushes into Room Four and drags the unconscious Ozias out. She then continues to pour the poison, writes a last letter to Ozias, and locks herself in the room.
We end with an epilogue that rapidly ties up all the random loose ends. Lydia has been buried in a nearly unmarked grave. The doctor is apparently still running his sanitarium. Allan and Neelie will be married in the spring. Mrs. Milroy doesn't have much longer to live, but she's undergone a personality change for some reason and she and the Major are happy for once. Ozias is recovering and living with Allan. Mother Oldershaw is a religious speaker, apparently. Bashwood has gone insane. Manuel drowned.
But wait, one last thing: Wilkie has something to say to us. He wants us to know that he intended the dream to be left up to interpretation. Thanks for handing me a discussion question like that, Wilkie. He also shares a weird-ass story about how, after he'd finished the rough draft and while the story was in the middle of serialization, several people were poisoned in their sleep on a boat called The Armadale. Okay, Wilkie. Thank you for that incredibly weird anecdote.

How's it going little goblins? I hope your stashes are full and that you're seeing a lot of rubles on a daily basis.
I recently returned to SPT, but this time I didn't feel much like it because I knew that with the mods I wanted, my performance wouldn't be very good, but the desire is immense, so the challenge became to get SPT performing as well as possible.
I'd like to say straight away that if you have a bottleneck CPU, like me, one of the things that improved my FPS the most was using all the available cores, I configured it according to this post.

gfx-enable-gfx-jobs=1 gfx-enable-native-gfx-jobs=1 gfx-disable-mt-rendering=1 wait-for-native-debugger=0 vr-enabled=0 hdr-display-enabled=0 gc-max-time-slice=10 job-worker-count=7 single-instance= 

After this change, I had +25FPS on the Ground Zero map, and +35/40fps on woods (maps used for testing since they are both the opposite of each other).
The most recent change, and I recommend this to anyone who has an old machine in a corner, to run the SPT-AKI server on a different machine within the same LAN , this is also possible by adding a VPN (something like hamachi) which allows you to play with friends by creating a VPN.

Install BSG launcher + EFT on both machines. 1.Download SPT-AKI installer on both machines. 2.Install SPT-AKI and its dependancies on both machines. 3.On SRV-TARKOV, add 4 new rules in your Windows Defender Firewall : -> Authorize all trafic ingoing on TCP port 6969 -> Authorize all trafic ingoing on UDP port 6969 -> Authorize all trafic outgoing on TCP port 6969 -> Authorize all trafic outgoing on UDP port 6969 **The 2 last rules may not be needed on Windows 10/11 (not Server), but to be sure, add them.** 4.On SRV-TARKOV, edit those 2 files : -> Aki_Data\Server\database\server.json : replace 127.0.0.1 by your local network IP (192.168.1.10 for instance) -> Aki_Data\Server\configs\http.json : replace 127.0.0.1 by your local network IP (192.168.1.10 for instance) 5.On SRV-TARKOV, launch the server app 6.On GAMING-PC launch the launcher APP, clic Settings and change 127.0.0.1 to 192.168.1.10 (or whatever your "SRV-TARKOV" IP is) 

For me, these two changes were enough and I can play the game on Ultra, with an average of 80-100fps in a raid. Of course, heavier maps will affect performance, but I've never been lower than 60fps.
Bear in mind that as the server is on another machine, the initial load may change, but so far, nothing significant.
My Desktop Settings:
Intel Core i5-9400F
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8Gb
Kingston 1x16Gb

I 24F and my boyfriend 25M have been together since 2020 and he’s a good man but I’m not sure if something is wrong with me or if there’s something more going on. My boyfriend and I have very busy lives. For him it’s going to school full time, works part time, an intership with the university football team as a photographer, and his own photography business on the side for extra money. I also have a busy life with getting my masters degree, working full time, and now leaving for a paid two month long internship on the other side of the country. Because of our busy schedules, we have very little time to be together and I only come over to his house once a month. During that time I’ll sit in his room and watch tv and he’ll spend time with me on and off but he’s mostly in his office doing work or playing apex with his friends. When I’ve expressed this to him and my friends I’m told he should be spending more time with me but he’s working so hard to pay his bills and get his bachelors degree and need to give him grace. But now my friends have become concerned since I opened up about our sex life.
I’m not someone who is comfortable talking about sec in public, it makes me uncomfortable and feel ashamed. That’s something I need to work on and am in therapy for. The topic of our sex life came up over FaceTime with my friends. Everyone was joking about how they can’t get a moments peace without their boyfriends being all over them and noticed I hadn’t said anything about it. It’s not unusual for me not to engage in the conversation and I guess my friends could tell something was wrong. When they asked me how often we had sex, for the first time I was honest that it was between once a month or once every two months we’d do it. The call got dead silent and everyone was warning me that something was wrong and asked if I suspected him cheating on me I have the password to my boyfriends laptop, phone, social media, and email. I don’t often look through his stuff because I want to trust him and give him a little privacy but I unfortunately have looked through his stuff and never found anything. I’ve asked him countless time if there’s something wrong with me or if he’s no longer interested in me but he always says no and that he’s just not always in the mood. When I expressed this to my friends they urged me to suggest for us to go to counseling, but at this point I’m not sure that will fix anything because I just feel so unwanted. I don’t know what to say to him anymore because I do still love him and I understand he is trying to make ends meet but I don’t want to feel like I’m not attractive to him. What do I do? Any kind advice would be helpful.

5/20/2024 I am going crazy right now. My life is so unstable with no future that I don’t know what to do. My friends lives seems so set and I am currently full of anxiety. I cannot leave country to anywhere I want to go because of my current situation of being convicted of a petty crime that means so little in other places, but means so big in Japan which is insane to me. I just cannot handle this stress right now. The girl I’m talking to might be cheating on me because she seems to be avoiding me here and there whenever she’s busy. I am feeling this way because I am so insecure about myself… I have no job no life…only friends… and I literally don’t see light anymore. Why do I feel this way…? I have no access to good therapists and I currently have no idea what kind of therapists I should see…. Its insane how I’m feeling this way. Its too much honestly… I just wanna quit life and live like a nomad without anything to feel, no responsibilities and just live life right there… Why am I feeling this way? I should be so appreciative of my situation, but I literally don’t feel like I’m lucky in any way…? Why? I just hope that I’m not alone in this that I can’t seem to bother to feel anything remotely closely to good. I just wanna feel thankful for things I have and I just cannot… WTF? I should be grateful, but I am just simply an asshole….why? I sound really crazy… I’ve never let any of these thoughts to others…Do all people feel this way…? Life around me feels unstable for many reasons, but I just cannot seem to open up to anybody… I can’t show this side to anyone… I just can’t… Life is so hard sometimes and I gotta stop being a lil wuss and just get on with it, but for some reason that seems to be an issue and I just can’t deal with it.

Hello all! Ever since the hot-fix on Wednesday (May 15th) playing this game has been a nightmare; a whiplash of emotions. The bugs have probably made this game unplayable for a bunch of us, some of us more so than others. Not all of the issues mentioned here may apply to everyone…but this is my personal experience.
I’ve had my game crash at least 20 times or more since Wednesday, and my local save has been corrupted at least half as many times. (Honestly, I’ve lost count…). To deal with this corruption, it’s vital to have a backup of your local save file (from your system). The PlayStation Plus subscription offers cloud saving through the system’s option menu (hover over the DDV application, press the options button on the controller, and select “upload/download save data”). You can save your game data to cloud storage. After a crash, going to “upload/download save data” can show you if your local save is corrupted. If it is, download the backup from the cloud, and it will overwrite the corrupted save. Opening the game will show you a pop up stating there’s a conflict between the local save and the Game Server’s cloud save, (if you have also been cloud saving from in the game’s settings when you play). If your game server cloud save is up to date compared to your back up local save, select the cloud save, and you will have your game restored to its most recent save.
If you don’t have PS+, you can use a USB drive storage device to back up your save file. Go to you system settings and select “Manage Save data” (I forgot if this is the correct name); you can then select where to save your backup, and upload your DDV file to your device. This same menu will let you download to your system as well.
Now that I have the the back up process out of the way, here’s the main part of my post!
The main valley seems to contain most of the actions that cause crashes: 1. Using furniture mode for too long and exiting out of it (outside). 2. Entering the main menu and exiting it while OUTSIDE. 3. Interacting with Goofy and Christof’s stalls. 4. Cooking outside… (the developers gave a message in the mailbox with a list of all the food items that will make the game crash. it seems safe to use the DLC Ancient Cooker outside, however, I have experienced some crashes when using it sometimes.) Not being able to access the menu means: we can’t SAVE our game! 😭 no access to the map, Dreamlight Duties, event tab, quest tab, or the starpath tasks.
HOWEVER I discovered that you CAN safely open up the menu when inside your house (or other villager houses). Essentially, any location that requires you to “step out” of the valley and has its own loading screen, will be a safe place to access the menu. Cooking and using the furniture menu indoors is safe as well. I even stepped into the Dream Castle, and it’s safe there too. Also, I can still use Scrooge’s store and Remy’s Restaurant.
Sadly, my game still crashes randomly sometimes; running through the valley, entering Remy’s, entering Scrooge’s, and using the Furniture menu outside.
Not being able to use goofy’s stall is a Major issue: I can’t sell anything or buy seeds I need. (Sugarcane is required to make cupcakes, and Star coins are needed to buy milk and butter, as well as furniture.) The only work-around for this specific issue requires the DLC. Playing the game in Eternity Isle is entirely safe from crashes (supposedly because it’s a separate server from Dreamlight Valley.) I can sell any extra items I’ve gathered or buy seeds to grow fruit and make money…but I don’t think I have access to sugarcane. The only thing that’s saved me in this case is that I had a stash of sugarcane seeds stored in my vegetable storage room.
I’m trying decorate in short bursts, and going indoors to save my progress whenever I can. All I can do is hope my save doesn’t get corrupted every single time it crashes, and restore my save file when it does.
Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps some of you who are suffering from crashes the same as me. All we can do is contact support and hope they provide us with an update on the situation next week.
Good luck everyone! And wish me luck in completing my amusement park for my Dreamsnaps. It’s incredibly challenging at the moment, but I haven’t given up!

My situation: I'm a 27M virgin, never even kissed. My self-esteem and confidence are practically non-existent. I've been on two dates with two women. The first situation was ended by me because she was a major slob. The second was ended by her via ghosting even though she had agreed to a second date and said she had a good time. I had liked her for a long time and that hurt a fair bit. It happened a week after valentine's day.
About a month later I met a cool woman while at a bar with some friends. She approached me in the bar after I had shared my pizza with her and her friends in the parking lot. We both listen to metal, so we chatted for a while about that. Unfortunately, she had broken up with her boyfriend of 9yrs two months prior. He cheated on her. Despite it being fast, I assumed that her approach and seeing her on Tinder a month before meant was ready to move on. She had to work the next day and had to get going, so I asked her out to lunch for the following weekend. She said yes, and I got her instagram. I went to bed the happiest I've felt in years. Reality check incoming.
I followed up during the week, but she canceled, saying she had to drive her friend to Toronto. No biggie. I followed up the following week and she said she was booked for several upcoming weekends. I said she seemed busy and not especially interested, but if that wasn't the case, she could let me know whenever she had time. She then said it was a bit soon and that she's not ready for a relationship just yet. I said it was okay and that I understood.
Over a month has passed since then with our only interactions being exchanged likes on instagram posts.
She's the only person in the area that I've been romantically interested in since I moved up here almost 3 years ago, and I don't want to move on. I want to try again and maybe even be friends if that's all she wants. The second woman I mentioned left me with a fair bit of trauma, a lot happened before the date, too much to include in this post. Basically she played a lot of games and according to her friend, only liked having me chase her for an ego boost. For that reason, I'm constantly thinking that any mistep could push this new woman away forever.
What should I do? Should I hold off and wait to see if she'll make a move when she's feeling better? Should I try to be friends with her and leave it at that? Should I make another move? Check in? Invite her to things with other friends and just feel things out?
Before you say it, yes, I need therapy. I've been doing it on/off for a year. Last set of sessions just ended and I'm going to find someone to help me tackle the self-esteem and anxiety stuff.

Don't sell your account. Don't trade or loan you account to someone who "will give you a 60% cut you don't have to lift a finger." Your account will be banned, guaranteed. Do not entertain posts on here, other subs (WFHJobs, beermoney, etc.), or DMs you get asking about this. It is 100% a scam.
There's a reason why these people are trying to buy your account; they obviously cannot have one themselves. This can be due to a ton of reasons. The main one being they're in a country that is not allowed. Others could be because they were removed for quality (i.e. terrible English).
This makes the community as a whole suck. You see these posts on here with people complaining about how there's no work, this is why. The customer, whoever hires out Outlier for this service, stops projects to review what's being submitted when there's tons of bad work coming through. By selling or trading your account, you're making this happen more often. Pay cuts are also because of this too. If the content continues to be bad, why would a large company spend money on something like that.
Every day, the onboarding channel is full of messages from people with a like 9 hour time zone difference with things like "Great morning, I have not been received tasks on the dashboard. Kindly look at this EQ and inform me of what is wrong," and "I cannot begin the mission as it does not appear. Please inform of what is wrong."
If this all stops, maybe pay will be better. Maybe there will be more work. Maybe people who are actually qualified for the work can finally get onboarded and start making money. We will never find out until this is stopped.
For those of you who are still going to do it regardless of what is said, you won't receive anything in return. Like I said, there is not a single doubt that it is a scam. You will not see a single cent. You have to actually do work to make money in life. There's no free money cheat, just accept that. This is literally the easiest thing in the world to do and if you can't do that then something else is wrong with you.
**EDIT**
Just thought about this as well. You are literally fucking with the IRS if you do this. This is a legitimate 1099 company. Outlier will report your earnings regardless, so if you don't report what "they" make on your account, you're getting audited. Good luck dealing with an IRS audit.

I am going to do my best to describe this.
We were st the APA championship today and there was a disagreement. Give me your opinion. I'll do my best to write this as impartiality as possible.
One of the players was on the 8-ball. The cue ball was probably 18 inches from the head rail, and the eight ball was about the same distance away, 18 inches from the foot rail. This is on an 8 foot table.
The player shooting the 8 cuts it so thin, that the player and his team claim he made contact with the ball.
So after the cue "supposedly" grazes the 8, to the point that it "barely moved," the cue ball then continued forward to the foot rail and came back to contact the 8-ball square and push it to about the same place the cue ball originally started, 18 inches from the head rail.
Ok, forget being unbiased, we were the team that got cheated. I would like to know if anybody else thinks it's possible to shave the cue ball THAT thin from THAT distance away and have it "possibly" move so little that it was unnoticeable?
Also, how would a shot that grazed an 8 ball so little, come back off the rail and hit the 8 ball flush.
Common sense and physics tells me this is not possible.
Thoughts? Because this clown on the other team had half of the APA 3 and 4's in our league convinced this is possible.

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place for this or not, but I was hoping to get advice on possible careers I could go into given my skills/interests. If this is not the right place, I would appreciate guidance on where to possibly ask this question.
I am a 22 year old male who recently graduated college with an English major and a minor in psychology. I am signed on for a 10 month contract as an English teacher starting this coming August. I don't anticipate disliking the job, I enjoyed student teaching (best part of college in fact), but I am starting to do research on salaries and prices and realizing that a teacher's pay (44k a year in my area, which is actually not awful for my location) is not going to cut it for my life goals. For reference I am also getting married at the end of this month, and one of my goals is for my wife to be able to be a stay at home mother (which will require getting a job that pays atleast ~75k+ within the next 3-5 years).
I am currently looking at finance, specifically becoming a CFP, as a possible career change and have already started pursuing the education and certifications necessary, but I thought I would ask online to see if anybody could think of a job more suitable for my abilities. I just chose CFP because I know it pays well, and have recently went into a deep dive on how to optimize personal finance, as well as investment portfolio optimization and retirement planning. It also stood out to me because it would let me help other people, which is the reason I initially chose being an English teacher.
Skills/Abilities:
Although I have no formal education in math unless you count AP calculus, I really enjoy making spreadsheets. I have made one for calculating the amount owed to the IRS (and FICA) for a given income (including different filing statuses), as well as the tax savings one would get from taking deductions or tax credits. I have also made a calculator that compares the cost of different cars over a 20 year time horizon given initial cost and mpg, factoring in gas inflation. The car calculator also doubles as a loan cost calculator given price, interest rate, and down payment (also works for houses). I enjoy making these calculators on spreadsheets, especially if I find them useful.
I also really enjoy optimization. Which can probably be gleaned from my enjoyment from making spreadsheets. I buy my own T-bills because 5% in a high yield savings account is suboptimal to holding the bills myself. When I play games I am the guy who makes calculators and does math and build optimization for hours just to get a 10% damage increase.
Another thing is that while I am an introvert, I have a good amount of public speaking experience, and am alright with addressing crowds or individuals.
Besides that I am a quick learner, have a good sense of humor, and put my all into everything I do. I think it also probably goes without saying that I have a good knowledge of literature, know how to communicate myself, and am good at writing and interpreting writing.
Things I wouldn't want to do: Jobs with heavy amounts of physical labor or working outside, Jobs with excessive work off the clock working hours (Haha, kinda funny considering I'm gonna be a teacher. I don't mind working some off the clock, just not enough that I have no free time whatsoever), and jobs that would require constant relocation.

So my dad had an affair around 2000 and my mom forgave him back then. The past 24 years have been tumultuous and he's likely had other affairs/visited prostitutes but we've never had 100% concrete evidence - he's always been in denial. Recently I've confirmed that he's been in touch with someone who he's had an affair with in the past 5-10 years and is wishfully planning to go to another country to visit her. He is convincing my mom to go there with him, my guess is because she's in control of the money in the house. He does NOT know that I know this yet.
I would confront him about this right now if it weren't for the fact that I am worried about my mom's financial future. My dad has been unemployed for the past decade or so and our family is fully reliant on my mom's income. I read that in Ontario, upon divorcing, all assets including property, pension, and retirement savings are split regardless of cheating/etc. My mom is retired and I want to make sure her financial future is safe. While unlikely, there's always a chance that my dad commits a huge betrayal and transfers money from their accounts to his mother's (which he controls) or spends it on fleeing to the other country where his mistress resides.
My question is - are there any legal actions or otherwise that I should be aware of to protect my mom financially? Should we consider using some of her savings to buy property under my name so that, if the house gets split or he betrays her, she has somewhere to stay for her retired years?
I'd like to note that I'm not keen on getting revenge. I don't care for making my dad homeless or whatever. I just want to make sure my mom retains enough savings etc. so that she can retire independently if she desires, and so that she can appropriately decide for herself whether she wants to cut him out of the picture.

EDIT: The topics I touch on in this post are relevant to many other top football leagues, but as this is the Prem sub I decided to stick to and only focus on Prem.
With City winning an unprecedented 4th title in a row, it seems now more than ever people are bringing up the alleged corruption, especially as it relates to the quality of the Premier League. While I can understand why people are upset at the 115 charges, to me it's a symptom of attacking the effect rather than the cause. Let's dial the clock back a bit here.
The traditional "big six" in the Prem (remember, used to be big 4 which is somewhat relevant here when examining how it became big 6) became such because of what most people would argue is essentially "well run business." The problem here is that even though the clubs are technically independent operations, they still have to play within a league system. They don't sell their own product, they sell competition, or more specifically, winning a competition, which requires other clubs. However, once these teams got themselves in a position to be perennial winners they (and their fans) were more than happy to shut the door behind them (remember, there have only been 7 premier league winners in 32 seasons, and only 24 english football champions EVER despite it being an open league). The so-called "well run business" essentially now (and arguably has always) boils down to using disparate wealth to strongarm your way into getting the best players and managers from any other "lower tier" club to maintain dominance.
Well, at a certain point, the smaller "fodder" clubs are going to realize that the gap has widened too far. It is nigh impossible in the year of our lord 2024 for a small club to ever even begin the process of getting to the same competitive level as a Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, etc. So what's the next best thing? Well you know what they say: if you can't win, cheat! These clubs have realized they have two options: (1) Continue to remain a small-time club forever (barring any absolutely catastrophic financial meltdown of the biggest clubs), or (2) sell yourself to the highest bidder for massive cash injection, regardless of whether you break some rules (Man City) or not (Chelsea, Newcastle) in the process.
In short, the anti-competition rules of the Premier League have created this scenario, and it should have been caught way sooner. Like, decades sooner. Maybe it was, but the money talked too loud for anyone to listen.
All I know is, the fans of English football need to come together to voice a collective opinion in order to get this to change. There's such a crab-in-a-bucket mentality when it comes to issues in the Prem from FFP to VAR to everything else— when it happens to benefit your club it's crickets, but when it doesn't, then you're up in arms saying this isn't fair because your beloved Arsenal or Chelsea or Liverpool or whoever got the short end of the stick. We need to come together for a better league overall. For a league that will actually be healthy in the long term. If we don't, we'll just end up with 10 City titles in a row until the next sheik sportswashing project knocks them off.

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS!
A Temporary Restraining Order has been granted to VCDL and GOA in our lawsuit against BATFE’s new “engaged in the business” rule!!! That rule is going into effect on Monday!
A Texas Court has granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the BATFE from enforcing its “engaged in the business” rule against Virginia Citizens Defense League members, Gun Owners of America members, and Tennessee Firearms Association members, as well as residents of the state of Texas, and a Mr. Jeffery Tormey.
We were told that VCDL, GOA, and TFA were the only gun groups to file suit. There are two other suits that involve some states, gun stores, and individuals.
If you live in Virginia and you are NOT a member of VCDL or GOA, you are NOT covered by this temporary restraining order, unfortunately.
Here is the order:
https://cdn.ymaws.com/vcdl.org/resource/resmgpdf/restraining_order_eib.pdf
Spread this alert far and wide!

AITA for not going out of my way to wish my mother a happy Mother’s Day?
Back story: I 34 and her oldest child live in Charleston sc. she lives up north. Up until my divorce from my ex husband, she was some what active in my life. But after he filed for divorce shit changed. I have not seen my mother since 2018. Mind you she has made time on numerous occasions to visit my sister in Savannah GA and my grandmother in Beaufort sc. she has visited other parts of my family who are in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. She has gone to Disney world and Myrtle beach, but never came to visit me. She has not messaged me or called me unless I initiate it. She doesn’t call my oldest, my oldest has to initiate it. She compares me to my other 3 sisters, mind you I’m the successful child (even with my dark past). She didn’t come to my wedding with my husband now.
I made a post about happy Mother’s Day to all the bad ass mom’s out there and my step dad had to comment back starting shit and making a comment about how I didn’t go out of my way to wish her a happy mother’s day. But why should I? What do I do and how do I respond? Am I in the wrong? Am I the a hole?

[ First / Previous ]
Memory Transcription Subject: Hileen, Krakotl Fugitive Recovery Agent
Date [standardized human time]: November 28th, 2136
It'd been a while since I sat in Marlig's office for a talk face-to-face. Given the agency's secluded location at the edge of the downtown region, it was a chore to drop by when it wasn't for business, but I'd deemed the matter at hand to be worth my time.
I passed by Nampi at her desk on my way to the door and she gave me a coy glare as I carried on. Trying to ignore her risible ear waggle, I turned the corner to the door with my boss’s name painted on the glass panel where I could hear the frantic crumpling of paper.
Quietly, I entered Marlig's office without prompt as I knew he hated to be spooked by knocking. My mentor was surprisingly spry for a bird at his age, sorting through papers with one wing and an eye while using his talons with the other to set away the papers he had splayed out.
“Hileen!” he chirped. “Glad you could make it in today. I was just finishing up my paperwork. Take a seat.”
It was always nice to hear him drop the professional motif for a more grandfatherly attitude when speaking in person. I did as he suggested and took a seat while he grumbled to himself over the sorting. My eye caught a few of the old contracts he was rifling through and saw that some dated back to his days as an agent.
Eventually, he left some sitting out as he sequestered the rest back into their files, sorted by a dichotomy that only he and Nampi could comprehend fully. He motioned with a wing for me to peruse and I turned the first one to face me to find it was my first contract, signed by me in a sloppy fashion. “This takes me back a couple of years.”
“Slick bastard thought he could get away on a forklift but you showed him! Certainly more exciting than my first day!”
“Mm-hmm. And it was when I nearly got impaled that you had the idea to commission all of us utility vests.”
He chuckled, “I really should’ve done so sooner. Cuts and scratches were already a risk, but a forklift was a new one!”
I flipped through the pages of each report, finding that Marlig's notes were filled with praises of my work. There were highs and lows, but I was flattered to find that the grizzled krakotl held my performance in such high regard.
“Flawless interception!” read one footnote about me catching a runner. “Couldn't have done it better myself!”
Marlig waited patiently as I browsed quickly through each page, realizing more and more how the notes also marked improvements in my work. How I found it easier to talk down a rowdy client, or apprehend them in the case that they were beyond helping on my part. Flowery language plastered most pages with him fawning over my work as a doting father would to his prodigal child.
The trend took a sharp turn as the notes became fewer and more critical the closer the dates reached to the present. I brushed the others aside with a wing to peruse the final paper. “And this…”
“Is Tac. Your latest contract. The most recent in a line of declining performance since the interview. This has become a pattern, Hileen, and its consequences are beginning to reach beyond yourself. Paji and Vesek resigned recently for personal reasons, which leaves us even less hands on deck than before. That's four people to cover the entire municipal region, and maybe even beyond, should needs arise. Three, if we include this little probation I have you on.”
“What was I supposed to do? Marlig, these ‘jobs’ you've got us working on overstep the contracts we were signed on with. Our job is to make sure people obey their court-mandated duties, not drag them off to the facilities ourselves!”
“... So the trip we took to the facilities did bother you.”
A sigh clicked in my throat as he reminded me. “Is that what happens to the people we take in, Marlig? Is that what would've happened to your wife?”
His feathers ruffled.
“That's what happens to those who are too dangerous to the general public to be left roaming free. Not everyone we deal with winds up there, but everyone can be subject to it. Miskela sued for her exoneration and proved in court that she was not diseased. I brought you there to show you how it helps the people, but I see now that it was a mistake. I understand why you were so perturbed, really, but it's how things have been for centuries. It's how we've protected ourselves from the dangers out there.”
“You were willing to let Barsul be interned there, too.”
Marlig flinched and sighed as he swept the papers towards himself once I'd signaled I was done. He turned one eye to me while he sorted them.
“There's no room for favoritism, girl. I negotiated for him to be allowed to walk free, and look where that got me. That boy - your neighbor - suffered the consequences of my nepotism. So too would the girl, had nobody intervened.”
“Like Richard.”
“The human, yes. Or you. Or the police. Where does this sudden obsession with humans come from, anyway? I get notifications of you talking about the acceptance of them all the time on forums.”
“Does it even need explaining?”
“Well, I guess not, no, but it's certainly an about-face from the way you used to talk about them with me beforehand.”
“People can change, for better or worse. Which one I fall under remains to be seen.”
Marlig stroked at the plumage on his neck as he finished his sorting. “I hope it's the former, for your sake. Was there any reason you came to talk, or were you just checking that I hadn't gone senile?”
“Well, I was hoping to borrow your secretary for the evening.”
He perked up while his eyes narrowed and he laced his fingers together with curiosity. “You… want to spend an evening with Nampi?”
“It's not what you're insinuating, but yes.”
“I was insinuating nothing,” he warbled coyly. “Go ahead and take her, and make sure to split the bill at dinner.”
“Pain-in-the-ass geezer. I'll keep in touch if your friend causes any more trouble.”
“Keep in touch regardless. Miskela and I get lonely in our old age,” he called back. “Take care.”
I stepped out into the hallway and turned toward the desk where I could hear the secretary's claws tapping furtively at her keyboard. Nampi sat silently with her ears and tail in a relaxed position that implied a bored demeanor. There was barely any response as I stood before her, waiting politely for her acknowledgment that never came.
Hesitantly, I cleared my throat.
An ear raised in acknowledgement, but her focus remained on the screen of her computer. “Mhm?”
“Do you…?”
Her ear rotated toward me, though she still maintained a passive attitude as she continued to glare mindlessly at the monitor.
“Are you free this evening?”
“Well, I'm quite booked, I believe. Why do you ask?”
I was surprised at her curt, dry tone. She hadn't spoken with me like this since we first got to know one another.
“Well,” I started. “I realized something. Every time we went out, whether it was clubbing, or dinner, or even walking around the parks, you always footed the bill. And so…”
Slowly, her other ear perked up and I saw her keystrokes slow down as she listened in.
“I wanted to return the favor?”
Her lips smacked as she opened her mouth, though paused before she spoke. “How could you possibly do that?”
“With a little gesture of friendship.”
Nampi's horizontal pupil turned up toward me and her tail twitched.
I continued, “So that belt you're wearing? It's the same belt you've worn since we first met. And I know you're the pragmatic type who'd never spend a credit more than she needs to, except for all the times you do"- her ears twitched in indignance -"I wanted to see about getting you a little something… extra?”
Her paws raised from the keyboard and she leaned in, resting her snout on her palms. “Go on.”
The bubbly venlil's tail sold out her collected facade as it twitched with anticipation. She was cornered and she didn't even know it yet.
“Well, I found just the place on the other side of town where we can start. It's a place almost as rich and indulgent as yourself.”
“The Platinum Paw? I mean3”
Her ears folded back in embarrassment as she cracked. She wasn't cut out for acting anyway.
“So that's what it's called! Jeez, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was called. Now what do you say? We go over there and find you something nice—”
I hadn’t even finished my thought before Nampi had grabbed her bag and was out the door, giving me a playful tail flick that said come and get me.

The place I suggested was in a shopping center on the opposite side of town, though easily accessible because of its proximity to the transport rails. Nampi had insisted on grabbing something to eat beforehand and so now gleefully bit into a bundle of stalks that had been “grilled” as explained from the food truck we'd stopped at.
Her tail flicked back and forth with her usual enthusiasm as we entered the massive complex of stores. The roofless plan allowed the natural, orange sun to flood the upper levels while artificial lighting illuminated the ground level wherever the light couldn't reach.
The place was built in the last decade by the previous City Magister in a bid for popularity, though ultimately for naught as he would lose the vote following a scandal involving an iftali priestess and a carved bar of soap. I had to say that despite being sick in the head, he sure had a great sense of decor.
Nampi snacked away, joining me in admiring the scenery as we continued to the place I’d planned out for us. Aimless chatter all melded together into a single, thrumming murmur as pedestrians navigated the many levels and stores offered in the place.
A troupe of children passed by us, held in a chain of tails and arms as they were escorted by a pair of venlil who I assumed were students and teachers on a school trip. I caught a whiff of a sweet, aromatic breeze and found it to come from a perfume shop on the same level as us; naturally, venlil were not to be found inside.
We passed a fountain where a couple sat on the edge, their tails twined together as they giggled and flirted. I turned and caught Nampi watching them as well, though she awkwardly returned to sucking the remains of her meal from her claws when we made eye contact. Her ears lifted when I raised a wing to signal to the store we were going to stop at first.
“Platinum Paw, The Greatest Fashion Emporium For Everyone!”
The title alone was painfully cliche, taken to the tenth power by the brightly lit store taking up three department slots. Despite the flashy exterior, though, it was the best place to shop for belts, brooches, and bracelets alike. Customers who looked like they earned my yearly salary in a week browsed the higher end brands while I brought my friend to the section I wanted to show her.
Her ears were held up as we stood together next to a shelf chock full of fashionable bags and bandoliers of every variety.
“Pick one,” I told her.
Nampi's ears shot to a straight pose in surprise, “Any?”
“Within reason. I've got a few extra credits to blow and I know nobody better to spend it on.”
With an inviting headtilt, I let Nampi peruse the shelves at her leisure. Her lips pursed together and her tail flicked with glee as she fingered at every piece that caught her eye. I chuckled at her outburst of enthusiasm while turning to find my own items to gloss over.
A breeze from outside nipped at my beak while I considered what I’d like to purchase. The place dripped with an atmosphere of faux hospitality, from the bright blue-stained floorboards to the radio prattling off advertisements in a sickeningly sweet tone to the faint, fruity aroma of scented cleaner. It was oppressive as only a fissan-owned company could be to the senses.
What I wouldn’t pay to see how a human would fare in such an environment.
I knew they were social creatures at least, but I had no doubt that the predatory senses of a human, so honed to hunting, would get overstimulated in this center of gaudy indulgence. Knowing I was something of a predator myself made me sympathize provided that even I had to squint to keep the pale lights inside from searing my eyes. I could only imagine how the arboreal eyes of a Terran would fare. I was so lost in thought imagining how lost the Terrans would be that I could almost ignore the obnoxious giggling and metallic rattling coming from behind me.
Risking a peek at the source, into my sight came a pair of venlil, one a male carrying a pair of bags as well as a couple more strapped to his belt. The bored expression in his eyes was not one of a man who was in high spirits. The other venlil was a woman who was the source of the noise.
Her mottled gray pelt was accented by a tasteful belt design, free of almost any practical functions but not flashy or excessive in garnishment either. At least, that’s what I would say, were it not for the braid of beads that dangled on the belt, jingling with each bounce of the lively woman’s stride. It was clear that such a gaudy accessory was intended to draw attention to her, though why was a mystery. Certainly, the shiny braids seemed designed as decoration first and practical second.
She turned about and I faced back to my browsing before she could catch me staring. Nampi was nowhere in sight, though I figured she was somewhere behind the shelf, sifting through every accessory on the section I'd suggested.
Clink.
Something pelted to my immediate right. I tilted my head to spot a tree nut shell clattering to the floor. Without being able to guess where it came from, I had to wonder what could've launched it over this way. Even with my keen eyesight, nobody in the crowd seemed to be a suspect.
Clink.
Another shell pelted my vicinity, ricocheting off of the floor and hitting the shelf I was standing next to. I ruffled my feathers in frustration - clearly, someone was trying to get my attention, though I couldn't make out who it was. Out of the corner of my vision, the woman from before eyed me curiously as I looked about, though I wasn't interested in engaging with her.
Thwack.
One more shell came flying and, unfortunately, the aim on this one was true, nailing me on the beak. Irritated, I stormed out of the store to find the source of the instigator. I scanned over the bodies to find anyone who could've been responsible for this indignity, eventually concluding that it came from the dining area across the walkway.
Whoever was responsible was in for an earful and I was already structuring which of the offender's family members would be acceptable as fodder for stray words. As I approached, I found the tables were mostly empty save for one, which made my heart begin to drop as I met eyes with the only occupant. Suddenly, I was much less inclined to hurl insults.
“Oh, hi there!” Qitel called out in a sickly sweet tone. “Come, take a seat! We have much to discuss!”
The Exterminator clutched a bag of tree nuts in his claws, a pile of discarded shells already gathered on the table next to him. He grabbed another as I approached, effortlessly prying the shell in half between two claws and tossed the contents into his mouth. “Good protein, these,” he commented as I sat down.
“Must be for that good arm you've got there,” I mumbled. I caught sight of a couple of bags beneath his chair, seemingly from one of the tech stores contained within the center.
“Bah, it's guesswork. So how are you? I haven't heard from you since we worked together!”
“I was just spending time with a friend, shopping and enjoying my time off.”
“Your time off? Oh, am I interrupting something?”
His snide tone irked me, though now wasn’t the time for interjections. “You are, Qitel,” I replied with no shortage of vitriol in my tone. “But I see no harm in chatting for a bit.”
“Good, because I have some merchandise”- he reached into his belt pocket and deposited a couple of items onto the table -“and you’re just the person to look into it, human sympathizer.”
I drew a terse breath in shock, but my worries were quelled when I considered that if Qitel had the power to do anything about it, he would’ve done so instead of approaching me so discreetly. A glance down at the item on the table showed that he was presenting what looked to be a tracker as well as a personal drive. “Found in the garbage,” he told me.
“The guild resorts to dumpster diving when they already have such a bloated budget now?”
“No, featherbrain, I have decided to keep this for myself. These items were found together, sealed in a plastic pouch, and placed in a garbage bin. The city has bans against electronics being placed into public bins, and so I was curious why this wound up in there. Managed to get my coworker, a techie, to crack it open and…”
Qitel reached into his belt again, glowering at me with the same condescending gaze he’d given me when I first saw his face. He seemed to revel in digging for the item as slowly as possible to waste my time. Finally, he found whatever he was looking for and revealed it as a printed piece of paper, folded into eighths. The snobby yotul threw the unfurled paper on the table and rolled it toward me.
I craned my neck to look at the parchment, though I was immediately perplexed by the text on it; it appeared to be some sort of form, going by the boxes with words on the inside, followed by blank lines. “Found on the drive, here,” Qitel told me, jabbing a claw to the storage. “Translator shows it as Terran writing.”
Drawing my holopad from my satchel, I held it over the paper with the translator to get an understanding. Surely enough, the language on it came up positive as a variant of Terran writing and I was affirmed in it being a form of some sort based on the wording of the text. The boxes seemed like an odd sort of job application, asking for the typical name, contacts, and prior work experiences, but quickly took a strange turn as it began asking for where their home on Earth was prior to arrival, what family they had on Venlil Prime if any, and where they worked, implying that they were seeking individuals who were already employed.
I knew little about human employment methods, but I didn’t imagine that sourcing individuals from other jobs was the most efficient way to gain a workforce. Terran service industries already dotted the planet while many humans also found work in local environments. So what was the angle that the creator of this application was going for?
Most concerningly was that the paper had no insignia, identifying marks, or noted address to return the form to. “And where did you find it again?”
“In the garbage, alongside this intact tracker that was activated at the time of recovery. Y’know, when I was dumpster diving. Text on the document showed it was addressed to one ‘Choctaw Nexus’.”
“A pseudonym of some sort?”
“Clearly. Short sorting through the archives shows the first name traces back to the group out east - perhaps you've heard about them. How the name and the items we have here are connected is beyond my understanding, but-”
“Well, this has been an absolutely riveting discussion about your collection of trash, Qitel,” I told him as I stood up to leave. “But this really sounds like an issue to be resolved by your fellow guildsmen.”
The sound of another shell splitting rang out as I turned away.
“I'm not through talking with you, predator.”
The sting as a piece nailed me in the back of the head prompted me to whirl back around, sticking my beak in the insolent yotul's snout. “Perhaps you've forgotten, little man,” I cooed in an equally bittersweet tone to the one he gave me before. “The krakotl never had a problem with settling issues the old-fashioned way before the interview. Try me and find out why I'm in the line of work I am.”
“Oh, we wouldn't want that in such a"- he waved his paw to a group of passersby who had stopped to gawk at my display -”public forum. Please, contain yourself.”
I had to force the feathers on my back to settle and I raised my head away from him. “What else is it you wanted, then?”
“Well, I'd appreciate if you took this merchandise off my paws,” he told me as he brushed the electronics and printout toward me.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you're closer to the humans than I'd ever care to be, and may be able to find out who this Choctaw Nexus is. Something about the package just feels… off. And I know when to trust my feelings. Besides, we both know that you know where Tac is, don't we?”
“I don't-”
“We have videographic evidence that you conspired with a human - of the aforementioned squatters, no less - and let the kid escape. You're not as sneaky as you think, and if we find this ‘Choctaw Nexus’ turns out to be a bad actor that can be traced back to them - and by extension, you - well, there’d be no talking down my boss from having you dealt with. By helping me find out who this is, you may yet be able to clear your name of any wrongdoing.”
I clenched my beak tightly to maintain a straight face. Qitel stood up with a flourish and discarded the bag he was carrying in a bin.
“See, the krakotl were never special for using threats and bullying to get results. It's because you were good at killing predators,” he jeered. “Now, if you don't mind, this primitive has appointments to attend to… old lady who got trampled courtesy of the humans and all. You stay out of trouble, Hileen, and stay in touch.”
The self-assured marsupial melded into the crowd in a matter of seconds, leaving me with a table containing dumpster trophies and a pile of shells. Reluctantly, I swept the shells into my wing and dumped them into the bin before gathering the other two items he'd left me and stuffing them into my bag. I'd been gone from Nampi long enough and she would notice my absence before long.
Crossing the walkway again, I could spot from where I stood that Nampi was indeed still in the Platinum Paw. I approached, and soon I found that while she didn't seem to have noticed me stepping away, she was definitely in a soured mood based on the sagging of her ears and tail. With my talons clacking on the floorboards, I hustled to her side and her mood chippered up ever so slightly as she heard me approach.
I chimed in, “Find anything?”
“Everything. I want everything, Red, and I can't decide on what I want. They all just look so great!”
From behind, a voice called out, “Nampi!”
We both jumped at the exclamation and turned about to spot the venlil lady I'd seen before spring from behind the shelf. The man poked his head from behind the shelf too, though less enthusiastically and with yet another bag in his clutches. My friend's eyes widened in surprise with her tail and ears perking up in kind. With a light in her eyes, she exclaimed, “Nalek!”
The two embraced with shrill squeals and laughter as Nalek's accompaniment and I traded awkward glances.
“It's been too long!”
“You never stayed in contact!”
The women exchanged giddy greetings and the pompous stranger turned to me, leering over me as though she was sizing me up.
“Who's your friend here?”
“Oh she's actually my-...”
Nampi paused for a moment, looking back to me.
“Yeah, she's a friend.”
“A friend,” Nalek repeated while her eyes flicked between Nampi and I. “Right.”
Somehow, I get the impression that that was judgemental.
“I'm Hileen, by the way,” I chirped, “if names are to be exchanged.”
“Hileen, that's a lovely name! And such plumage to match, it's a wonder you aren't swarmed by suitors!”
Internally, I groaned at the notion. The idea of being approached by someone to state their interest in me made me queasy, to say the least. Thankfully, I never had that issue growing up as most of the other drakes in school were too busy chasing girls who didn't have a lousy pigmentation mutation such as myself.
“I'm flattered,” I told Nalek before turning to the man whose name had yet to be introduced. “May we get your name?”
“Sask.”
His response was succinct and tonally flat, though there was a brief silence as I expected him to elaborate. Nalek's beads jingled as she lashed him on the calf with her tail.
“I'm Sask, Nalek's fiancée,” he added, throwing her a look to see if she was satisfied.
Nampi gasped with her paws over her snout. “Fiancée! Nalek, you're getting married and you never even told me!”
“Well, I felt a little guilty since it technically broke our pact we made when we were pups. You remember that?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I? ‘Let she who bonds through betrothal first be cast out unto the world for all to admonish her!’”
Sask and I both gave inquisitive expressions. “You two spoke like that as pups?” Sask asked.
“Well, I'm paraphrasing,” Nampi admitted with a playful ear waggle. “But you get the gist.”
“Indeed, they do, sweet Nampi. Now, may I ask what you're doing bringing your avian friend here into this store on this fine claw?”
“Oh, no no, she's the one treating me! Isn't that right, Red?”
I saw her tail twitch and was sure it took restraint not to tickle my neck with it as we stood before her old friend.
“She's been a good friend,” I explained. “So I wanted to reverse the roles for once and treat her to something myself.”
Nampi skipped over to me and wrapped her arm around me, glancing back to her old friend. “See? We'd all be so lucky to have a… friend like her.”
“So I've witnessed. But perhaps you're a bit stuck, as I've seen you prancing up and down these aisles for a while, no? Maybe you don't know what you want?”
“Nalek, you know I've never been good about making my mind up.”
“Some things never change, you ditz. Tell you what: you and Sask go find us a seat and we can catch up all we'd like when we're not taking up aisle space, yes? So shoo! I'll help Hileen here pick one out for you!”
With a bored grunt, Sask made off with the goods he had strapped to himself, followed by Nampi who gave me one more playful tail flick before dashing off into the crowd. I looked back to the mottled snout of Nalek who watched her friend wander off with a wistful glance.
“She was my first, you know.”
“Your what now.”
“Love. Way back when we were growing from pups into young adults back in private education, we explored much together. We saw each other through a lot, including the less savory parts of finding a mate. When Nampi realized it wasn't the boys she was into, she turned to me, and I offered my hand as her stalwart companion… to a point.”
“You weren't interested in her the same way?”
“I'd grown up seeing her as a sister of sorts, so ultimately, when we split it off, we stayed close as friends and she never seemed to be bothered by it. She struggled to find others in school who had the same interests as herself, but she never fussed about it.”
Nalek's claws browsed over a set of pouched bandoliers made with intricate embroidering. “Have you two… spent the night together? Alone?”
Spiritually, I reeled from the inquiry. The whiplash from that question was equitable to being smacked by a human. “Wha- why? How's that pertinent to the subject at hand?”
“That sounds like a ‘yes’ to me,” she purred with a smug glance my way.
I didn't need to begin to list the different ways such a question was violating to our privacy, and yet this woman was treating it like a game.
“Not really your concern, ma'am.”
Nalek chuckled as she picked out one of the bandoliers and inspected it with her claws. “I'd like to think that she and I still have that old connection, despite everything. And to that end, I know that she's no slag and doesn't trust easy. To see her be so vulnerable around you and to talk so highly of someone who's clearly below her income level as a predator…”
She stretched the bandolier out to appreciate the design in its entirety.
“Well, that's something special. Here"- she foisted the accessory into my wings as I stood gobsmacked -"this just screams her name.”
“This is, like, double my budget.”
“Love don't come cheap, darling. You wanna see good things happen, sometimes you've gotta step out of your comfort zone and grasp for it!”
“I'm being lectured by a rich woman on finances.”
“It's a philosophy that goes beyond money, ‘Red.’ The humans have a saying, in their horrendously predatory nomenclature, that contains a kernel of truth: ‘you miss every shot you don't take’.”
Yep, that's definitely a human phrase.
Nalek's steely braid rattled with every flick of the tail as we proceeded through the checkout.
“You want things to change between you and her?” she continued. “Don't just wait for it to happen.”
She let the conversation rest there as we finished the purchase, possibly to let me recuperate mentally from the damage done to my account. Outside, we found our respective partners sitting at a table with Sask looking up in boredom as Nampi chatted away, though she immediately shut up and turned to me with excited flicks of her tail as she saw what I was carrying.
I held it toward her and she happily shot to her feet, effortlessly removing the tags with her claws and clipping it to her belt. Nalek clapped and waggled her tail as the giddy lady did a whirl about to let us admire the accessory. While I'd have preferred one with pockets to give it a more practical use, I decided to let Nalek have the victory as our mutual friend clearly enjoyed it.
The rest of the paw was a blur as the two friends chatted without end until Sask eventually reminded his betrothed that they had a schedule to attend to. Though Nalek offered to call us a taxi home as a gesture of kindness, I saw through her ruse to determine that she was trying to pull a fast one on me - the clever ear flick she gave as we boarded the automated vehicle sold it for me.
We sat in the seats as the vehicle took the express ride home.
Nampi cleared her throat before she spoke, “Thank you for taking some time to spend with me, I know you've had a lot less free time as of late.”
“It's a prison of my own design, if I must be honest. A feedback loop of working a job that doesn't guarantee a paycheck to pay for rent that keeps going up, and thus needing to work more.”
The venlil giggled and chided me, “You really should've stayed in university.”
“There's a lotta 'should haves’ that've led me to this point. No use wondering what could have been.”
“There's always a use for wondering what could have been, Hileen.”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
“Every decision I make, I always wonder what I could've done differently that it'd have turned out better,” she explained as she waved her free paw to the sky. “It's how you grow as a person, Red.”
Her silky pelt felt heavenly in contrast to the chilly air from outside, making it hard to let her words sink in.
“You rich types seem chock full of philosophy. I wonder if I'll become a brooding orator when I get some cash to my name.”
The cab filled with laughter as we veered around the final corner to my neighborhood, as it was the closest stop. The door popped open accompanied by a chime from the drone, signaling for me to depart.
But before my talons could even hit the pavement, I felt Nampi's scrawny arms wrap around my waist and she let out a pitiful mewl again.
“You don't need to get off here,” she told me with a pouty expression. “We can spend the rest of the paw at my place.”
“I'd love it, but I need to water my plants and get the month's bills sorted before they're due. Again.”
One claw at a time, I plucked her paws from around my waist and the childish venlil conceded, giving me another ear waggle as I departed. “I'll see you tomorrow?” I asked her.
“If you still have eyes by then, then you can bet your ass!”
“I still don't gamble.”
“You'll come around to it eventually.”
I shut the door to the taxi and watched as it carted away the one venlil who I ever truly felt on the same wavelength as. Fiddling with the lock felt like more of a chore than usual at this time as I felt a little voice tugging at the back of my head.
“You miss every shot you don't take.”
The lock felt jammed as I began to jiggle it more vigorously with the electric key. Either the RFID or NFC readers were messed up, as the lock refused to accept my key. I looked up and down the street, though Nampi was now long gone for me to rescind my earlier rejection.
“Every decision I make, I wonder what I could've done differently.”
The door rattled as I grew more and more infuriated with the lock. Qitel's smug expression as he threatened me so boldly in public played back in my head, and I wondered what would've happened had I decided to go through with insulting his mother. Better yet, I wondered what could've been had I not backed down in the face of his unflinching confidence.
Bzzt. The lock rejected my key again.
“Raagh! You fucking useless hunk of junk!”
I squawked in anger and kicked against the door, careless of the consequences of having Markol back down here to admonish another of his tenants for causing a ruckus. The walls were surprisingly sturdy for how ineffective the venlil architecture looked on the surface and I reeled back in pain as my leg throbbed.
Click.
I looked to my left to see that it wasn't my door that came open, but that of the twins. The door cracked open ever so slightly, no doubt nudged by the force of my tirade and I sighed. Nobody was expected to be home at this time, with Vili being away and Luka leaving early to get a head start.
Luka had been given a stern talking-to by the landlord for allowing one of those cats into his apartment through neglect, and I was disappointed that he seemed to have not learned his lesson this time. In fact, it seemed he hadn't even thought to lock the door this time.
I took it upon myself to shut the door for him before turning back to my own apartment door. Grasping the key with one talon, I turned it ever so gently, though the lock still refused to give in.
With a bit more force, the torsion applied to the key felt as though it should've snapped it by now. Markol sure didn't waste any expense for the security for this place, doubtlessly as a result of his history in electronic security, but I wished now that he had provided a way in that didn't rely on privately sourced locks.
Considering my options as I stood trapped outside, I realized that I had never gotten around to paying for a new lock for Tadi. I'd considered contacting her to inform her that Tac had made it out of town safely, but that'd involve also telling her that her son was now in the care of humans, as if that was a better outcome to her.
Stepping out front, I realized that there was one more option I hadn't considered: my window. I usually forgot to lock it after I was through letting air circulate and I was silently grateful to myself for this absentmindedness now more than ever. Sticking a foot on the threshold, I lifted myself in a way that'd allow me to have leverage to force the window open.
The window made me fight for every inch, but I felt a strange satisfaction as it slowly opened up into an entrance that I could squeeze my way through. I let out a sigh as my talons clicked against the cool floor and slid the window shut.
I laid my satchel on the couch and turned back to the door, ready to unleash my fury on the disobedient object. But as I reached for the lock to manually open the door, I noted that the lights on the RFID interface both flashed at once, blinking erratically. Red and green flickered without rhyme or reason, indicating that it was both active and inactive.
As pretty as the colors were, I now knew that Markol's locks were not as reliable as he had touted them about: typically, such would not occur unless the device was damaged deliberately, and yet nothing indicated that I'd had uninvited guests. One could pray that those cats didn't secretly know how to cobble together an ECM jammer, but my personal wager was on faulty equipment.
Settling in, I browsed my favorite soaps on the television. For what was intended to be a day of relaxation and show of affection for a friend, I found myself rather wound up over all the things that added up. Couples threw around flowery words and swooned over one another on screen as I felt the tension diffuse. My holopad rang and I turned it over to spot that Nampi was informing me that she'd arrived home safely.
>>> Feels empty here, all alone.
She made sure to drive the point home with a sticker of a venlil making a pouty expression.
Next time, I thought to myself, I'll get it right for you, Nampi.
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WIBTA If I tell my cousins Bf that he cheated (Please help, I need advice!)
Hey Reddit or tiktok I honestly don’t care if this spreads I need advice and validation.
No keep things anonymous I will be using fake names,
Noah my cousin has been dating Anthony for the past year, and Anthony is in the Air force and is stationed in Germany and is planning to come back and marry my cousin next year. But here’s the thing I’ve been sick of Noah’s dumb ass, stupid ass, fuckery that I’ve witnessed because he says that Anthony and him have worked it out but now it’s gotten to far!
My other cousin Violet had a graduation party and it was fun, until Noah invited this guy called Ethan. Now Noah and Ethan were upstairs the house alone for a while during the party for 30 mins. I checked up on them and they were alone a lot. My cousin’s Noah excuse was “ I invited Ethan because he knows how to do drag and I am surprising Violet with a drag show.”
And to be quite fucking honest, the makeup wasn’t even that god damn good, and it took them 2 HOURS! TWO FUCKING HOURS! Other girls were going up and down the levels to help with the makeup after the 1st hour. But whenever I even went upstairs to check. Ethan would hold onto Noah’s waist and would blow on his neck for makeup to dry. This dude was so close to my cousins neck like it was Edward was to Bella! Like WTF
My cousin Violet, girl of the party was concerned why Noah was alone with Ethan for so long and pulled me aside to get something off her chest, we get to the bathroom and she confessed that earlier when setting up the party, Noah and Ethan were in the house. Noah confessed to Violet that he and Ethan were on the bed and things happened and they made out!
I was fucking livid, thankfully my boyfriend was there to calm me down, I didn’t want to ruin Violets day of her collage Graduation in front of her friends. So I didn’t say much. But the drag show went on and it was fun, but still, seriously, 2 hours for makeup that looked like it would take 30mins!
And mind you other guest were actually suspecting how they were close. Also since people were drinking people were staying over the house. So NOAH AND ETHAN SLEEP IN THE BASEMENT ALONE!!!!
Yes alone! Also Noah met Ethan on Grinder so that makes things worse. I face time the girl cousins confessing how I’m sick of Noah’s shit and I don’t care if it ruins my relationship with him and if I do something it’s not against h them, and they agreed. But I told them how Noah during the first few months of dating Anthony, Noah would go to his ex’s work and ask in person if they could play overwatch, while in the side lines his actual bf would ask to play games! Noah gas also go to his ex’s job to just “hang out” and eat while his own bf was overseas in the Air Force. This guy, his ex then bought my cousin a 400, yes 400 tv just because . Months later his ex has the confidence to ask my cousin to leave his bf for him…. I told time he should block him and never should’ve done this in the first place, because what his ex did was disrespectful and honestly noah was cheating to, but noah said that he still wanted to be friends and a clear boundary to not hate on who he decides to be friends with even if they are exes…
But here’s what happens if I become the asshole. Violet doesn’t want to be involved but she’s the only person that Noah told that he made out with Ethan. She doesn’t want me to use her name, but obviously it would all lead back to Violet. My Boyfriend said if I say something I technically throw violet under the bus and ruin all of these relationships and friendships.
But Anthony needs to know what my cousin has done. He has done more. And I wish I could type more but I will in comments.
So WIBTA if I tell my cousins bf that my cousin cheated on him
TLDR: my stupid ass cousin admitted to my other cousin that he made out with a guy he invited to a party and I want to tell his bf he cheated. There’s more my cousin has done and I’m fine ruining this relationship. I actually want them to breakup .
Edit to add: noah used 2000, yes two thousand! Not two hundred but 2000 dollars of Anthony’s credit card money on the party and personal uses… soooooo yea.

i’m a diehard hip hop fan, more specifically Kendrick, so most of this stuff I know by heart so why not make a post pointing out EVERY SINGLE wrong thing i can catch Pyro say. Im mostly making this since it pisses me off when people who have zero clue about something come in and try to sound confident as hell about it while getting countless things wrong. I will try to link proper sources for everything he got wrong as well. Enjoy! By the way when I say Dot it is Kendrick I’m talking about. And I will also put the time stamps of what i’m talking about
Also if i got something wrong please correct me so I can edit it. Most everything here should be correct however
First off and it isn’t Pyro, it’s Critikal, but talking about how youtubers in 2016 ruined diss tracks and Dot vs Drake is the first beef since then to make real diss tracks is so funny because Pusha T vs Drake happened in 2018 I believe so just goes to show how in touch they are
Okay once again something petty , it’s small but it kinda shows how much research was done from the get go, because Kendrick’s real name isn’t Kendrick Lamar, It is Kendrick Duckworth, Lamar is just his middle name. So it kinda shows the research level when you can’t get the dudes name right when you’re supposed to be saying the full name of both dudes.
4:50
Claim - Drake came from nothing thus Drake flexes money
Okay so this is the first major one I think. Drake did not come from nothing, he grew up in rich neighborhoods, more specifically Forest Hill in Toronto. Not to mention his father’s side of the family had many successful musicians. He grew up rich. This is why people dislike Drake as he tends to go on his records rapping about the hard hoods and shit like this when he grew up infinitely more wealthy than most other rappers.
5:05
Claim - Kendrick does not like Drake as he flexes too much
Not even close. The actual origin of their beef is said to come from Kendrick’s legendary verse on Control. It is said that after Kendrick made his verse Drake felt very disrespected and thus attempted to blacklist kendrick from various radio stations which didn’t work. Kendrick felt that Drake took the verse too personally when Kendrick was just being competitive(it is vital to note that every other artist Kendrick mentioned ignore it or praised him for it). And eventually the animosity just kept ramping up as many people began to perceive drake as a culture vulture due to the fact he’d rap about stuff such as hard life in the streets or gangs despite never growing up around that only because it was trendy at that time. Which funnily enough is what pyro is doing right now, he’s culture vulturing off the beef since it’ll give him money but doesn’t really care
6:00-8:00
I don’t see why bring up Pusha T vs Drake as this isn’t that relevant to the Dot beef. Not to mention he just skips over 90% of things said in the beef. But yea it’s not Adoeniss lmao.
8:15
Okay so that wasn’t a diss track. That’s a sneak diss, something very big to distinguish as in the hip hop community sneak disses are seen as a pussies way to start beef while trying not to. this is especially relevant to drake as one of the biggest criticism of drake is how often he sneak disses rappers. to the point dot himself mentioned it in one of the diss tracks. Also tory le ness. also again i don’t see why bring this up as it is not relevant to the Dot beef. It wasn’t even a beef in the first place megan never fired back nor did drake even say her name. just feels like padding runtime
9:15- 9:30
Why is bigfoot being brought up at all it is not relevant, i’ve said it like three time but it really isn’t you can skip over all this and not have missed a single thing
10:05
Claim - Megan’s law line is about drake
It isn’t, this is the line that kickstarted the nicki beef. Nicki’s husband and i think brother are both sex offenders, Megan’s line about Megan’s law references a law in america where it is required for the police to make a sex offenders information public. Maybe it can be about drake but it almost unanimously agreed it’s about nicki. Okay so i listened to everything he said, basically the same I said. So yea it’s probably not about drake only reason people think it is is because kendrick called him a predator
14:03
Metros booming track? For all the scary dogs? what? Everything else he said seems accurate however. He didn’t mention the prince and jackson line though which was specifically at drake
16:30
No, GKMC was the classic he was talking about. The actual line would be the classic is GKMC, the overhyped is TPAB and the prime was DAMN. This is the only one that makes sense as not many people see section 80 as a classic whereas GKMC is seen as the first of the four run classics by Kendrick. Also good kid and Maad City
21:14
They weren’t directly involved but essentially Drake was saying that all the dudes I collab with clear you because of me. And that you’re not even the biggest in your own label, cus I think him and SZA were both top dawg. Pyro also doesn’t mention the push up and give me 50 line despite being the fucking chorus
21:48
That’s not it? At all? What Rick ross was trying to say is that Drake is so insecure about his own music that he had to “leak” the song in order to see if the public liked it enough for him to officially release it
22:20
That’s not what he claimed at all either. The nose job thing is not about not giving credit to his mentors, it’s about how Drake is seen as confused about his race and how he never felt black enough and that he isn’t black enough. Pusha and Dot tackled the same thing head on. Hell Dot literally ended Euphoria by saying Drake shouldn’t say the n word no more. It’s nothing abt giving credit rather adding on to the fake narrative that’s chased Drake his whole career
23:35
Thats part but not the only reason. He used the voice of the most iconic west side rapper ever to diss and make fun of tue current best west side rapper. This is why that became so controversial among the hip hop community, which he doesn’t mention. Because it’s corny to use the voice of a dead man to diss a dude who’s seen as the protege of Tupac and the current rep of the west coast.
25:48
It’s small but hearing Pyro act like DMX is just “some random rapper that passed away that said the same thing” is so annoying. Like bro isn’t a legendary rapper himself. It’s the equivalent of saying “oh yea and this interview of this one boxer, Mike Tyson idk if yk him, said the same shit”
26:13
No he isn’t saying that because Drake isn’t an activist he’s saying that because of the fact that Drake grew up super wealthy, but likes to act and pretend like he had a hard up bringing. The black enough just comes form the way Drake is perceived as a culture vulture who likes to pretend to live a life he didn’t.
29:33
Most people don’t care about writers. Kanye is a legendary rapper and he was well known for having writers in his track. The problem comes from when you attempt to portray yourself as an incredible writer when in reality you have 20 dudes doing it and you ignore that part. What makes it funnier is that Kendrick actually mentioned this in Euphoria I believe with the “It’s 1v20 with all the writers”. Essentially it’s the same as an athlete taking steroids but pushing himself as clean. Just makes you feel fake, which again is the main narrative around drake
31:00
Thing is that it wasn’t just his son, he literally addresses each family member, including his father. Also the predator line is referencing his father, and also Baka who’s an actual sex offender, so idk why mention that but not mention who it is he’s talking abt
Okay, so I think that’s it. Pyro weirdly left out vital parts of the beef such as how Drake was constantly alluding to Dots wife cheating with the bodyguard. Or other stuff like that. Or just not explaining certain bars and what they mean when it’s like 20 seconds at most. Or why some backlash occurred or like leaving certain things that can paint a picture of why Drake lost which is what he’s attempting to do. Such as him leaving out the fact that the Tupac part got backlash because of the west coast connection. Or how Drake isn’t critiqued for flexing but rather pretending to live a life he never did just because it’s trendy
In other words it just sounds like a white dude who’s never even listened to one song by either artist trying to make money off of it. Stick to Sunnyv2 and inflated furry porn pyro.

My ex is a deadbeat who puts on the typical show every time he sees our son. Waterworks, says his entire world revolves around his kid and how sad he is to be separated from him etc etc. Lmao but the SECOND I told his lazy ass I wanted a divorce so that we could ACTUALLY split parenting 50/50, he packed up his bags and moved 2 hours away and then complains that he never gets to see his son even though he's never fought for more time with him and does his best to get our son off his hands as early as possible on his days. There was 0 reason for him to move so far away. He has no friends or family in that town. He likes to claim it was "for a better job opportunity" but he's literally just a line cook. Exactly the same as he was in the town we lived in together. Him moving away has extended this divorce process so much too. He put absolutely no effort into getting the paperwork in order. He didn't pay a dime to file it either.
Normally, we meet every Friday at about 6pm halfway between towns so I can drop of our son for one single day and then pick him up again at like 4 pm on Sunday. I get about a day and a half off from parenting lol. This weekend, he wanted to come all the way over because we had more paperwork to fill out, and he was feeling sad that his grandpa was going in for surgery. I always make the mistake of giving in to his emotional moments. He comes over here, barely parents at all and eats all my food. If we are ever together, he allows all parenting to default to me. If I want any break at all, I have to tell him what to do otherwise they'll both just sit in front of the TV all day. Then he wants me to pay for anything we do and provide him with food the entire time because he's perpetually broke. While he's here, he starts telling me all these grand plans about moving to Washington to start a restaurant with one of his best friends and I'm like??? I talked about moving to California a few months back and he threw a MASSIVE fit about it. He just gets to live his life however he wants and I get to sit around and raise his child. He tells me about all the women he's pursuing too. He's the last person on the planet that should ever be dating, let alone multiple women.
Then he left at 4 pm. We still needed to get one of the divorce documents notarized. Gotta wait until next Friday to do that, I guess. I was FLAMING mad at him, but he didnt give a fuck. He still left. My sister had a piano recital I needed to go to and when I got home, he immediately left. I found out he didn't even make our son lunch. Lmao ugh. I just wanted to complain for a second. I'm so exhausted and REALLY needed a break this weekend. Instead I let my dumbass be tricked yet again into caring for two toddlers. It's my fault for being a pushover. I always feel like I'm too hard on him and feel badly. But the SECOND I give him any slack, he takes full advantage of my kindness. No more letting him come over. I thought it would be nice for us all to play family for one weekend, but I see that he's learned nothing during our separation. He's exactly the same as he was when we were together. I'm done being nice. I don't care about being amicable and friendly with each other any more. I thought remaining friends would be best for our son, but I realize that I need to limit my interactions with him to just what's necessary.

Okay, so long story short marriage wasn’t ideal with wife, we made a child together and I love him tremendously, but a few years in she got paranoid about me cheating (and I didn’t) there were just rumors from folks wanting a good story to tell. So she asked to move to apartment and hour or so away from our town, but when she didn’t have to work she’d be back home with the family. To keep peace and to do as she needed, I complied. I wanted my marriage to work regardless, we’ve known each other since we were kids.
So the bright side of this was we get to date each other again which is kinda fun. One weekend she’s working and staying in her apartment, she asked me to drive up and have a date after work. I’m so excited, I shower get all ready plan out how our kid can stay with a grandparent and I go. It’s a really good night, really, so I hope this isn’t too graphic but we had been arguing about adding another child to the family, and I was so happy to be with her well, not to be too graphic but I tried to do it twice and did. I didn’t care if she got the kid she wanted even though I wasn’t excited about it , I was excited that maybe this weird and awful part of my marriage was done .
Cue to a few weeks later, she seems really off, worse than usual and she doesn’t want to be in the apartment at all she’d work 14hr shifts and still drive an hour back home. But I get some exciting news, I get promoted to a new job, I’d be traveling and teaching stuff with my company. And she’s home with us most of the time which is good. The day I was to drive 4 hours to start my new work. She tells me that she’s pregnant.
After our date this didn’t sound odd at all, I wasn’t happy about the second kid but new job and training folks. I left for work.
But things get more and more odd, her first pregnancy she was so happy, just delighted to be carrying my child. So 2 months passed by but she felt like I was right our family could not sustain another kid, she mentioned abortion multiple times which was odd. But I was okay with it. But she’d go to the clinics for appointments then tell me that she couldn’t do it and she’d leave the clinic, I told her it was her choice. Anyway, things felt so wrong, I had an intrusive thought. What if it’s not mine? By this point it was 6 months.
So I probe, I dig, I naw at it, I couldn’t stop. Finally after a while she told me it may not be. I felt like death, I wanted her to go. I wanted her gone. But then she said it, she was SA one night and didn’t knows what to do. She just said the lock on her apartment broke and there was a party downstairs, she was tired from work, and one of them cat called her on the way up. I’ll spare any more gory details.
This entire event broke me as a person. Up was down, right was left. I cried balling for a whole day over what happened to my wife. But I still needed to know. I paid almost 2 grand to find out who’s kid it was all the while doing my best for her although this broke me. We got the results, it’s not mine. I spend another day weeping. But I had to explain this as I could to my parents. Because the kid woulda been mixed and we are both white.
And we live in a small town, news would spread, and is vehement that she doesn’t want folks to know she was SA’d, and before anyone chimes in with “lol naw brah” go fuck yourself, you didn’t see the fear in her eyes when she told me. She had a more successive career she coulda just left with someone else.
Anyway kid is born, and my dad told me it doesn’t matter, you love her that’s your baby, so I do that. As far as he knows I’m his only father. He’s still pretty young. But this whole ordeal broke me. I started to drink a lot. Eventually and yeah this is too long. She asked for another full separation. But still wants sex but I can date and fuck other girls I do.
But I stopped having sex with her six months ago and am ready to move on , when I’ve tried to do this before it gets ugly af, threatens to take away the kids etc, but I met someone I really like and am ready to move along. How can I do that without her going ballistic on me?