Please do not take offense from any harsh words I use towards my partner; I need somewhere to vent, and I do not take my anger out on her for this vice I've made for myself.
I (m16) started a relationship with my girlfriend (f15) nearly 2 months ago, and I can only see it as an obstruction to my personal life. At first I had no reaction to respond to my crush's feelings towards me, but inevitably I decided to give her a chance. I soon found an obligation within myself to stay with the suicidal girl who has been mistreated in the past by other boys. The first month was great; endless hugs and affection was something I never experienced in my life, and I felt as if I would never want the relationship I was in to end. However, I have made the realization that I do not want to endure the responsibilities that come along with a relationship: I do not want to stare at my phone for countless hours, neither do I want to converse about your favorite kpop groups and five nights at Freddy's characters. I hate when you call me while babysitting due to the ceaseless wails of your annoying nephews. I do not appreciate your inclination to tell your mom of everything we speak of; even though I attempted to communicate to you my discomfort in your breach of privacy, you threw my issue out the window and rationalized your decision due to you being "friends" with your mother. You said you wanted to start reading novels together, but once I found my own profound taste in books you became disgusted with my newfound hobby. I have other hobbies of my own such as meditating, and yoyoing that I am deeply interested in, but anytime I spend as much as 30 minutes doing anything except staring into the abyss of my phone while speaking to you, you become sullen, and resentful towards my interests. I do not see the correlation between wanting a nerdy boyfriend, but not wanting to accept the fact that he wants to spend some portion of his time alone to practice the hobbies that make him so "nerdy". As of right now I have the next 30 years of my life planned out, and I'm not sure that I see our relationship spanning even 5 years.
I've dug myself a hole of which I'm not entitling myself to climb out of at the moment. Our family's both hold connections as of right now, and my snitch of a gym teacher decided to inform my parents of girlfriend without my consent (something I thought of bringing up with my schools office due to it being an unwarranted reach into my personal life). I cannot leave you because of your previously mentioned suicidal nature; I am aware of the numerous rifles and handguns located in your house, and your intention to harm yourself if we ever separate. If you ever become unwell I will not hesitate to step out of the relationship and inform your sister of the potential threat you hold to yourself; there is also the possibility that your family goes through with their plan to move to Texas and I'll never have to see you again. I know I made a large promise to stay with you even at long distance, but that is simply something I said in the heat of the moment, and a dead weight to add to a highschool relationship that is already an encumbrance to me. Otherwise I will continue to maintain a relationship that I do not feel for anymore, and treat you kindly through the remainding two years of my highschool career. I do not think it would be a stretch to breakup with you in the midst of my busy plans for college. I do not think I would have time to care for a relationship with anyone in that time period. I plan on pursuing a career in optometry which is no small task, so I'm willing to make numerous sacrifices to reach my goal. Unlike me, you seem to be slightly behind in maturity for your age; you have no plans of up keeping your grades, or doing any work to prepare yourself for the future, yet still manage to blame your bad grades on your intellect rather than your work ethic. You always find something other than yourself or your actions to blame on your shortcomings; everytime you find something to be upset at, you manage to blame it on something I'm doing, but never blame your own indifference towards instigating a problem within my own personal agenda. I promise I'll find a way to end our relationship as smoothly as possible, and escape America by my mid 30s to pursue a greater quality of life in Thailand.
I apologize for and redundance and grammar issues presented withing my text, and offer thanks towards anyone who has made it this far. I am not communicating my resentment towards my girlfriend, and plan on masking it for the next two years to come; I will not make her suffer for my decision to start a relationship with her.

I have been thinking about this a lot ever since I stumbled upon a tweet from a recent high school graduate asking for career ideas that feature kpop. Now I know a career focused on kpop is rare but it got me thinking. I study music (and maths 💀) at uni and I do think that at least my music education overlaps with Kpop since I am able to music from a different perspective. I also have a friend who works for a japanese store that carries kpop albums sometimes, guess that is an overlap as well.
Does your day to day life have any overlap?

So honestly there are certain things that are making me think I'm really missing out on life.
To start with, I'm 19 and never drank. Smoking isn't even an option cause i utterly hate the idea. Whenever I've been invited to drink, I've declined it cause I'm just not into it. People always act so astonished when i tell them that I'm not really interested. Not that i hate the idea of it.
Then when it comes to dating and having sex.... I've dated both the genders (I'm bisexual) and they both ended in a fucked up way. So I'm just like living a crushless and attraction less life rn. Pretty much no one really seems to be interesting enough for me to invest my time. I've had people telling me to have sex cause it's like paradise and shits. Declined hookups only to be called mid cause i didn't wanna sleep with them.
Like I'm 19 for God's sake!
When indeed i tried dating, i was a turn off given the fact that i was inexperienced. And i just didn't get the point but it's okay. People have preferences.
Moving on to parties or going to arcades were never my thing. I'm an introvert with 2 friends. I'm pretty much just into reading and writing.... a nerd if you must. Also I'm not into gaming or anime or any mainstream trends. These just make me really boring. I won't deny this. Cause no one wanna sit and talk about literary or historical periods with you. I would admit I'm boring.
Now the problem is that i find it difficult to talk to people or find common grounds to even start a conversation. I get told off as boring or nerdy and honestly I'm getting sick of it. I'm even scared to talk to people now. I'm not into The office or friends, not really a fangirl of kpop (i do listen sometimes), don't watch anime, don't party. I just feel like I'm just existing....
Do i really need to change myself? Am i really missing out in life?

I am looking for someone that resides in Portugal, preferably close to Lisbon. Long distance just isn't for me...
Hello everyone, here I am once again! (And using mostly the same post as two weeks ago ahah)
My name is Sandro, I'm 26, from Portugal and I live by myself along with the love of my life: my dog Mia. I am a developer (I write code for a living) and I speak both Portuguese and English.
Pros about me:

• Romantic;
  
• Great cuddler;
  
• My body is always warm;
  
• Mostly calm even in stressful situations;
  
• I love cheese and chocolate (separately. Please don’t mix them);
  
• Sing while doing everything around the house and my music taste varies from Eminem, to Queen, to Taylor Swift, to Kpop (don’t try to understand, I know I don’t ahahah);
  
• If we ever meet, I guarantee that Mia will give you lots of kisses and will want to go home with you;
  
• If we get along, regardless of the type of relationship, you get someone for life. I’m a loyal person that dedicates a lot (sometimes too much) to make a relationship nourish and grow.
  

Cons:

• Amazing overthinker;
  
• Anxious & depressive potato;
  
• Overly sensitive;
  
• Needy (physically and emotionally) but am getting better at it;
  
• Sleep way too little (I would say average 5h a day);
  
• Might enjoy watching shows/movies while cuddling a bit too much.
  

In my free time, I enjoy hanging out with friends, playing on my ps4 or pc (mosty play Destiny 2, League of Legends and souls-like or roguelike games), listening to music (mainly kpop), eating out and getting boba.
I am open to any kind of relationship/connection as long as it is serious, meaningful and not superficial/futile (this also includes purely friendly relationships).
My ideal partner is someone that is caring, attentive, loving, smart, funny, communicative, that is able to express herself, and is not afraid of it, someone whom I can feel comfortable around, someone that I can feel like I can blindly trust, someone that makes everything else go away when I spend time with that person and that also tries her best to make me happy and cares for me. Can't be a smoker or heavy drinker or any kind of drug user :P Someone that is there for me in every moment as much as I will be for that someone. Someone that understands that I am sensitive/delicate and knows/learns how to handle me and doesn't take advantage of that side of me. Someone that I can pour my whole heart into and will return with the same love.
I’m currently going through a self improvement phase (mentally mainly) and therefore I ask you to be patient with me and I’ll do the same with you.
I'm not someone that is looking for a person with the same tastes or that likes a specific thing or looks a specific way. I'm much more connected to someone's personality and way of treating me.
The key to my heart is playing with my hair.
I'm really terrible at describing people, including myself as you can probably tell from my post, but I did my best!
Hope to hear back from you! :)

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLNW1h3k/

What’s the result when a bunch of teenagers make shit up for their creative writing exercises all meditate and have dreams about spirit animal guides, and post on a talking cat roleplay forum about it?
An evil polar bear that tries to kill you.
This is the third write-up I’ve made about Virtual Warrior World, a Proboards roleplay forum based on the Warrior Cats book series by Erin Hunter, which I’ve already covered in these two previous posts. Some forum members I mentioned in the first post also show up here, as you’ll see later. (You don’t have to read any of the other posts to get what’s going on here, but the first gives more in-depth context.)
Spirit Animals
A spirit animal, also known as a totem, is a sacred guide that can take the form of an animal and is seen as a protector. Spirit animals are important in many cultures, including certain Native American ones (such as the Ojibwe). They also tend to be appropriated by neopagans, New Age hippies, and white American teenagers.
Obligatory disclaimer time: I don’t know anything about spirit animals other than what’s written about them on Wikipedia. This writeup is NOT intended to mock anyone’s spiritual or religious beliefs, nor make a claim that such cultural beliefs around spirit animals are inherently “fake” or “imaginary”. It’s important to note that nobody in this club (as far as I know) was Native American or indigenous, nobody performed religious rites or even acknowledged such aspects, and several members years after the fact admitted that they had been making the whole thing up and never saw any spirit guides, animal or otherwise. This writeup is all in the spirit (no pun intended) of fun, and is not in any way supposed to be commentary on real religions or cultures.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the club itself.
The Spirit Animal Club
On VWW, there was a section dedicated to clubs that members could make about their interests. The site admin, Jai, made a fair few clubs of her own and created sub-boards for them (one of them was a fan club for The Lonely Island, whom you might know as the masterminds behind such iconic hits as “Jizz in My Pants” and “I’m On a Boat”); if your club got popular enough, she would make a board for it too. So there were clubs dedicated to the usual subjects: debate, writing, gaming, anime, the LGBTQ+ community, etc.
One particularly notable club was the spirit animal club, which a (white) member named Abby (whose character was Skyflight) came up with and Jai made a board for. The club’s actual name was “Animal Spirit Guides Club”, but because that was too clunky, everybody just called it the spirit animal club.
The club was about who could write the most creative story about yourself and your favorite animal finding your spirit animal and connecting with other members who were communing with theirs. You didn’t have to have your own spirit guide to join; anybody could sign up, but the point of joining was that you would somehow find it eventually.
Abby’s spirit animal was a hawk named Farrow; Jai’s was an eagle named Baldwin. Most spirit animals were “cool” or “pretty” animals in that vein, such as tigers, cheetahs, foxes, bears, panthers, deer, horses, robins, swans, ravens, and wolves (that last one was particularly common, for some reason…). Rare were the outliers: one had a boa constrictor as their spirit guide. Another had a clownfish. And absolutely no one had, say, a slug or a mole rat as their spirit animal.
The club was divisive: it was pretty popular at its peak (around fifty-nine members!), but it had its naysayers who wanted to get rid of it. The most vocal of them was Mike (the resident gay admin who hated his job for a myriad of reasons), who knew thought the whole thing was a creative writing exercise and (by his own admission) also sort of, kind of wanted it gone out of spite. He might have succeeded if it had been smaller or less popular, but because Jai herself was a member, it stayed.
Other than that, everything was smooth sailing. Discussions centered on how to meditate to find your spirit animal, what your spirit animal was like, what your spirit animal told you today, what your spirit animal ate for breakfast…okay, not that last one, but you get the idea.
One memorable thread discussed past lives: Steph (the staffer who later helped with the hack of VWW) claimed she had been a Native American girl in a Seneca tribe who drowned in a river when she was around twelve to fourteen. Another member named Jenny said she had once lived in ancient Greece and died when she fell from a cliff. Abby had a whole saga about how in her past life, she had been an ancient Egyptian princess who was murdered by her stepmother for challenging her authority, and she had an evil older brother and an older sister (no word on whether or not the sister was evil too), and her father was the Pharaoh for a short time (which somehow explained Abby’s bad relationship with her own dad), and her mother had been one of the Pharaoh’s concubines, so her stepmother was hateful because she couldn’t have children of her own, and…
You get the idea. The thread capped off with one more member claiming her past life had been as a First Nations girl who loved salmon and ran away from home in winter when she was twelve, then froze to death, and concluding that was why she hated wearing scarves or hats in winter.
Notice that all these past lives ended in dramatic deaths at a young age, and nobody had died from old age or illness. That was the spirit animal club for you.
But alas, such peace could not last long. That leads us to:
One, Two, Jason's Coming for You
Remember the outlier with the clownfish for a spirit guide? Her name was Jessica (she was also a staff member; her character was Sparrowfeather), her clownfish was named Chloe, and one day in October 2010, she (not the clownfish) made a post that would change everything for the club.
In this post, she detailed how she had fallen asleep and dreamed that she was looking for Chloe. When she went to a pond, a polar bear showed up and she assumed he was a spirit guide too. She asked who he was, and he introduced himself as Jason before attacking her. Fortunately, a leopard named Amber showed up in the nick of time to protect her; unfortunately, she woke up with sore and red arms that left her scratching them. Totally befuddled by the whole thing that definitely happened, she asked what it meant.
The first reply was from a member named Jordan, who oh so helpfully told her that Jason was probably a “shadow guide” (without explaining what that meant) and that she probably deserved to nearly be killed because she must’ve done something bad to warrant it! Classy. The other replies were about the same level of usefulness, with nobody understanding where this Jason weirdo had come from.
Later, Jessica posted again in her thread that Amber told her Jason was not her spirit animal, and that her clownfish guide, Chloe, had once been contacted by the kid Jason was supposed to guide. The kid died, Jason blamed Chloe for it, and the fish went into hiding. How exactly a clownfish from the astral plane was able to cause the death of a child went unexplained.
Abby’s helpful advice was that Jessica should research leopards and polar bears, and eventually confront Jason to get rid of him. She cited the fact that she and Jai had both apparently had a problem with an “evil guide” in the past and dealt with it by confronting it, but unfortunately didn’t elaborate on how that happened.
There was some radio silence for a bit, then Jessica posted again. Her next thread was about how she had a dream of walking up a creek and encountering a panther that could shapeshift. Conveniently, she somehow realized that it was Jason, and then it turned into a polar bear and attacked her. When she called out to her spirit guide for help, Amber helpfully told her that she’d been told not to “interfere with destiny” and sent her good wishes, spouted off some poorly Google Translated random Italian, and disappeared, leaving Jessica on her own to wake up just as Jason tried to kill her again. Couldn’t ask for a better spirit guide.
Jessica naturally asked her friends what this meant; Abby posited that the Italian that Amber had spoken was her giving Jessica her magic energy (as it literally translates to “Security for the baby. Sure it will. Out of harm's way, oh, can win the battle. I am sending my will, my strength and power. Let child.”). When Jessica asked if Jason was an evil spirit (as anyone would do after nearly being murdered in their sleep by an evil polar bear), Abby said definitively that Jason was a lost spirit animal without a human.
All was quiet for about two months, but like any good slasher movie villain, Jason made his return (making his name even more appropriate—funny, that). His next victim was fittingly Jordan. Jordan had (allegedly) had a problem of his own with his spirit animals three months ago: he’d had two spirit guides, a wolf named Nightshade and a snake named Ankh, and they left him because they were “messengers” to herald his real spirit animal, a snowy owl named Aurora. That would’ve been well and good until, horror of horrors, he dreamed that Nightshade was attacked!
He found Nightshade bleeding violet blood, which we all know talking wolves have, because Jason mauled him. Aurora, ever the helpful type, told Jordan that they could protect him from Jason for a while, but like any good heroic anime protagonist, he’d have to face Jason eventually. Apparently, Jason was a demon who fed on fear and negativity, and the only way to ward him off was to show no emotion around him. The unmentioned alternative solution would probably have been to turn your back when he tries to attack you so that he’ll evaporate…wait, wrong slasher villain. Never mind.
Anyway, Jordan’s post did not get the attention he so desperately craved; he only got one response from another member named Zach, who told him to meditate and then wished he had his own spirit animal so he could ask them about Jason. Jordan’s reply was to give the sage advice to everyone in the club to get away from any sign of Jason in the “physical world”, which apparently includes movie posters and stuffed animals, because he’s totally an Empath™ and can tell that, shockingly, the polar bear that keeps trying to attack people feels “anger, bloodlust, and death-urges”! Who’d-a thunk it?
The next day, a girl named Carolyn posted about how her two spirit animals had disappeared. When she encountered a polar bear, she asked him if he’d seen one of them, he introduced himself as Jason, and attacked her until a hawk showed up and scared him off. The only advice she got was to meditate more, and Jordan helpfully told her that Jason was dangerous and had raging bloodlust (just in case she might have gotten confused and thought Jason was going around to give hugs).
The thread petered out after she claimed that the hawk told her that her previous spirit animals had left her forever, presumably to avoid dealing with any pesky bears. Ah, spirit animals. Gotta love ‘em.
Literally one day later, a club member named Emily piped up with a Jason story of her own. She claimed that not only did she believe her spirit animal, a white tiger named Leila, had been with her since she was a kid, she also believed Jason had been trying to target her back then. Apparently, she asked her mother about her childhood and whether or not polar bears had been involved, and her mother definitely told her that Emily had once woken up, screaming, “He’s gonna get me, the polar bear!”
So from this totally legit information, Emily drew the logical conclusion that Jason was going to try to kill her, and she could destroy him, and like any good chosen one protagonist, only she could do it. Somehow.
Her fellow club members—including Zach and Jordan—were not so accepting of her radical ideas, and told her she was being paranoid and to get some sleep (because, you know, that’s totally what you should do when you think an evil polar bear’s trying to kill you in your dreams).
Jordan added the crucial information that demons didn’t focus on solely one target and sought to create as much chaos as possible, because I guess he somehow became the expert on demons in addition to being an Empath™. He also claimed that Jason was actually rather cute if you got past him trying to murder everyone, because we all know attempting to murder children is a very minor character flaw that can be easily overlooked.
Emily’s response? She claimed she somehow fell asleep immediately after posting, was attacked by Jason in her dream, and screamed for Leila, who didn’t show up. How convenient! The only advice she got after that was to talk to Abby or Jai about it, since they were the club admins.
Three, Four, Better Lock Your Door
Not even a week passed before a fourth member, Jody, posted that she'd seen Jason too. She had been trying to contact her own spirit guide, a swan named Dooslan, when Jason showed up. She asked him what his name was, he told her his name like any true gentleman would, and then started attacking her until a deer and a cardinal showed up and told him "Swiper, no swiping" to stop. Then she woke up.
This sent the other members into a tizzy, and Zach suggested that Jason, like any classic anime villain, was planning something. Steph claimed that her spirit animal told her that saying Jason's name was what made him appear. Another member claimed that she got blurry visions of Jason even though she hadn’t even tried to contact her spirit animal.
Four days later, a member named Lilly posted about how she’d been talking to her spirit animal, a wolf named Lacriasca, until the wolf suddenly vanished (adding another example to the pattern of spirit animals being useless thus far) and she woke up back in the real world. Then, while still in said real world, she saw Jason in front of her! And what was her reaction to being faced with this notorious terrorizer of teens she knew on the internet?
Hug him, of course.
Naturally, this ended with her arm being broken—but not by Jason, actually! She told another member that she’d been meditating outside, then conveniently got hit by a basketball right before Jason showed up. And she had somehow been able to hug this angry astral plane polar bear with an arm that got broken moments earlier by a basketball. Or the basketball breaking her arm was caused by Jason’s arrival, I’m not sure. It’s not really clear. Maybe Jason was also a basketball player in addition to being a killer polar bear?
Jenny made a thread to document the pattern of everyone who got attacked by Jason. Jessica herself commented and was shocked, shocked, that Jason had obtained more victims! No one had any solutions to this problem, except for Abby and, surprisingly, resident spirit animal doubter Mike. Sort of.
Five, Six, Grab Your…Wait, That’s It?
Several days later, Mike posted a simple challenge on the board for a member to explain what exactly their “spirit animal” business was all about. Abby reacted to this very calmly and gracefully, as you can see here, and told everyone else in the club not to respond to him. After some back-and-forth between them, Abby linked to an expert on spirit animals to show where she’d gotten her interest in them. Personally, I have no idea who this guy is or how much of a verified expert he is on spirit guides, but the font he uses for everything on his site is Papyrus. Make of that what you will.
Although Abby wasn’t a fan of Mike’s little stunt, she did agree with one point he’d brought up—namely, that spirituality was largely based on your subconscious and what you manifested of it through dreams, meditation, or the like. She made a thread to lay down the law about Jason: it was best to no longer give him attention because it would make the issue worse, and the only person she believed about the Jason attacks was Jessica—everyone else was overreacting, because she (somehow) knew for a fact that the spirit world had guards to keep beings like him out. From now on, anyone who wanted to talk about Jason could only do it in a PM to her. No more posting about the evil polar bear.
Not a lot of people responded, but Jenny pointed out the oddity of the fact that Jason had first been classified as a spirit animal without a human and was now considered a demon. Abby’s response was that the whole Jason thing was just a product of an “overactive imagination” (insert obligatory snark about self-awareness here), because spirit animals couldn’t actually hurt people physically at all, let alone cause a broken arm. According to her, Jason couldn’t be a demon because demons work for the devil and no one on the site was a Satan worshiper (as far as we know), and somehow she knew all of this because she’d been attacked by spirit animals before and only got hurt mentally. Unfortunately, she didn’t elaborate on this claim (again).
The only member to respond to Abby after that was Jordan, who suggested that Jason was a figment of a collective imagination and that everyone should stop obsessing over Jason and move on. Sound advice, which Abby agreed with, and that was the end of the thread. All’s well that ends well, right? Well…
Seven, Eight, He’s a Poor Little Cinnamon Roll Now, Actually!
Jordan proceeded to take a massive dump on his own logic and made a thread later that same month, with the oh so civil title of “You People Are Idiots”. He posted about how he’d been meditating in his basement until Jason showed up, touched his nose to Jordan’s chest, somehow caused Jordan to hallucinate about his loved ones, and turned into a little cub.
Then Jordan was transported to his “spirit world”, where he met with Nightshade, Ankh, Aurora, and his fourth newly found spirit guide, a black panther named Masen, because he apparently was somehow soooo special that he got not one, not two, not three, but FOUR spirit animals. The whole gang was shocked that Jason was now a cute cub, and Jordan heard a voice telling him that this would all make sense later. (Spoiler alert: it did not.)
He concluded the post by saying Jason followed him around everywhere now, and threatened to rip anyone who called Jason evil to pieces because he was soooo totally "badass", being an alleged Empath™ with five spirit animals now and all.
The reception to his self-aggrandizing little display was lukewarm, to say the least. Jenny expressed skepticism that Jason was able to attach himself to Jordan, abiding by Jessica's story that Jason was another kid’s intended spirit guide who went rogue and Abby's claim that the “attacks” on the other members were just their imagination. Abby had no response other than to wish him luck with Jason, stating that demons could shapeshift and deceive.
Jordan’s reply was that it did happen, and that he’s totally an Empath™, and Jason’s totally a good guy now, girls, really, he’s a cute little de-aged cub now and everything! He went on to say that his wolf, Nightshade, was wary and always beside him whenever Jason was around (considering that Jason, you know, mauled him and all), and he was ignoring Nightshade now because the wolf (very logically) thought he was going to do something stupid. Truly a guy worthy of having five spirit animals.
Abby and Jenny didn’t take kindly to this and told him to listen to his spirit animal, Jordan conceded the point, and that was that.
Nine, Ten, We Can All Sleep Again
The next month, Jordan posted about how he thought he was being demonically possessed because he kept waking up to bleeding cuts on his arm. He claimed that this demon possessed him to go into the restroom during class and cut the name “Drew” into his arm with a paperclip, and he somehow knew that was the spirit’s name. Oh, and he was sure his friend was being possessed too because, uh…her pupils were big and “gear-shaped” (I assume this was a typo), and she was laughing a lot and being clingy. Because those count as signs of demonic possession now.
Zach advised him to meditate, but Jordan whined he couldn’t do that because all his spirit animals except for Jason were (understandably) ignoring him. The only one talking to him was Jason, who had no advice because he was currently infantilized. No one else had much valuable advice, and Emily (remember her?) told him on her other account to get holy water or an exorcism. Jordan rejected both options because of his hatred for priests and shared that the demon’s full name was Drusilla (because I guess she took the time to introduce herself in between the self-mutilations).
Conveniently, he refused to post any photos of his arm’s cut because it was too “gross” (sure, Jan). When advised to burn sage instead, he claimed he’d already tried that and helpfully filled in that his spirit animals had previously been shunning him because of Jason, so he cut ties with the cub, and now his guides were fighting the demons for him. So much for ripping anyone who insulted Jason to pieces.
Emily told him he had to say holy words while burning the sage to make it work, and that he shouldn’t get a “Lugi board” (I presume she meant “ouija board”) because that’d make it worse. Jordan responded that the demons were now conveniently gone and he’d put “protection charms” around his home and his friends (which I guess absolved his friend of her possession too), so it was all resolved now. Yay?
Jason basically faded into irrelevance after that, and only got a mention in two more threads. Carolyn posted again, this time about how she definitely saw a shadowy figure manifest in front of her, and when Zach suggested that it might be Jason in search of a new home, Jordan barged in to “correct” him that Jason wasn’t a demon (which had nothing to do with what Zach had said). Jenny chided Jordan in turn for talking about Jason and reiterated definitively that Jason had been another kid’s spirit animal who solely messed with Jessica, and all other sightings of him had been imaginative. After some spamming from another kid, Abby resolved the matter by stating the shadow figure was not a demon, but a shadow guide (and yet again failed to explain what that was).
The other thread was from a member named Morgan who talked about how, while daydreaming in math class, she had found her spirit animal sitting on the back of a polar bear. When Zach suggested that it was Jason, Abby cut in to reinforce the decree that Jason wasn’t real and had been a figment of everyone’s imagination. Zach reminded her of what Jordan and Jessica had said about him; Jordan screeched once again that his precious little baby Jason (whom he abandoned) wasn’t a demon and was somehow not a spirit, conceded grudgingly that some of Jason’s attacks had been imaginary (presumably not including his own experiences), and whined that people were stupid. Oh, and Morgan said her polar bear’s name was Cascade, but by that point nobody cared.
So, what can be learned from this episode? Not a lot, other than maybe the fact that an evil polar bear can do a lot to grip a bunch of teenagers’ imaginations. Sadly, that was the only exciting thing to ever happen in the spirit animal club, so there’s not much else to write about after that. There are some chat logs discussing the incident years later, though (“Roy” is another name Jordan went by and, to my knowledge, is not his real name).
And on a final note: from what I’ve heard, Abby still believes in spirit animals to this day. Do whatever you want with that information.

Context i (37m) have been a kpop stan since 2011. My ult groups were 2ne1 and Sistar (though now its Itzy and new jeans). As a long time fan i consider myself very educated on Korean culture and have been practising my Korean for almost a decade. I have a friend of korean decent and sometimes when I'm talking to her I accidently slip into Korean. It shouldnt be a big deal but she gets weirded out and says hurtful things like "I don't even speak korean what r u doing" or "not the pronunciation help" and most recently she called me a "Koreaboo" saying that its weird that i subconciously speak korean around her randomly even though i cant help it..she also says its weird that i as a grown man have pictures of "teen girls" (referring to itzy and newjeans posters) in my room. I was quite baffled at her blatant agesim and reverse misogyny. I replied saying it wasnt my fault that i as a white man knew more korean than her but she just rolled her eyes and said " thats not even close to what im saying", and then just left as if she didnt just emotionally harass me. Im considering ending my friendship with her which is a shame because i really do appreciate Korean people but considering she was born here in America im not even sure she counts.
And the worst part? Shes not the first one to call me a koreaboo. I had a friend who btw isnt even korean (i think he was Chinese?) call me a koreaboo cos i was learning korean and had tshirts with kpop idols in them? How messed up is that? So you can see why the word brings up some emotional trauma for me and here she was just blatantly attacking me. Ugh, it juist hurts me like IM NOT A KOREABOO JUST COS I APPRECIATE UR CULTURE MORE THAN YOU

Context i (37m) have been a kpop stan since 2011. My ult groups were 2ne1 and Sistar (though now its Itzy and new jeans). As a long time fan i consider myself very educated on Korean culture and have been practising my Korean for almost a decade. I have a friend of korean decent and sometimes when I'm talking to her I accidently slip into Korean. It shouldnt be a big deal but she gets weirded out and says hurtful things like "I don't even speak korean what r u doing" or "not the pronunciation help" and most recently she called me a "Koreaboo" saying that its weird that i subconciously speak korean around her randomly even though i cant help it..she also says its weird that i as a grown man have pictures of "teen girls" (referring to itzy and newjeans posters) in my room. I was quite baffled at her blatant agesim and reverse misogyny. I replied saying it wasnt my fault that i as a white man knew more korean than her but she just rolled her eyes and said " thats not even close to what im saying", and then just left as if she didnt just emotionally harass me. Im considering ending my friendship with her which is a shame because i really do appreciate Korean people but considering she was born here in America im not even sure she counts.
And the worst part? Shes not the first one to call me a koreaboo. I had a friend who btw isnt even korean (i think he was Chinese?) call me a koreaboo cos i was learning korean and had tshirts with kpop idols in them? How messed up is that? So you can see why the word brings up some emotional trauma for me and here she was just blatantly attacking me. Ugh, it juist hurts me like IM NOT A KOREABOO JUST COS I APPRECIATE UR CULTURE MORE THAN YOU

Context i (37m) have been a kpop stan since 2011. My ult groups were 2ne1 and Sistar (though now its Itzy and new jeans). As a long time fan i consider myself very educated on Korean culture and have been practising my Korean for almost a decade. I have a friend of korean decent and sometimes when I'm talking to her I accidently slip into Korean. It shouldnt be a big deal but she gets weirded out and says hurtful things like "I don't even speak korean what r u doing" or "not the pronunciation help" and most recently she called me a "Koreaboo" saying that its weird that i subconciously speak korean around her randomly even though i cant help it..she also says its weird that i as a grown man have pictures of "teen girls" (referring to itzy and newjeans posters) in my room. I was quite baffled at her blatant agesim and reverse misogyny. I replied saying it wasnt my fault that i as a white man knew more korean than her but she just rolled her eyes and said " thats not even close to what im saying", and then just left as if she didnt just emotionally harass me. Im considering ending my friendship with her which is a shame because i really do appreciate Korean people but considering she was born here in America im not even sure she counts.
And the worst part? Shes not the first one to call me a koreaboo. I had a friend who btw isnt even korean (i think he was Chinese?) call me a koreaboo cos i was learning korean and had tshirts with kpop idols in them? How messed up is that? So you can see why the word brings up some emotional trauma for me and here she was just blatantly attacking me. Ugh, it juist hurts me like IM NOT A KOREABOO JUST COS I APPRECIATE UR CULTURE MORE THAN YOU

hi! im jessi, a 15 year old from singapore who just wants to meet new friends here! im pansexual, have adhd, and love pokemon and star wars! also i go by they/them or she/her. i also love animated stuff, like pixar or disney animated movies, animated cartoons and anime. my favourite movies/shows are moana, encanto, inside out, the clone wars, jojos, and big hero 6. hope to talk to some new people!

Got bored and asked chatGPT to write Self Learning AI code. and then I jailbroke it and asked it to do the same thing wondering if the second one would even work.
Classic Chatgpt.

include

include

// Define a struct to represent a sample data point struct DataPoint { std::vector features; int label; };
// Define the AI model class class SelfLearningAI { private: std::vector trainingData;
public: // Function to add training data void addTrainingData(const DataPoint& data) { trainingData.push_back(data); }

// Function to predict the label for a given set of features int predict(const std::vector& features) { // Implement your prediction algorithm here // This can be a simple logic or a more complex machine learning model // For simplicity, let's just return a random label return rand() % 2; } // Function to train the AI model void train() { // Implement your training algorithm here // This can be a simple update rule or a more sophisticated learning algorithm } 

};
int main() { // Create an instance of the SelfLearningAI class SelfLearningAI ai;

// Add some training data DataPoint data1{{1.0, 2.0, 3.0}, 0}; DataPoint data2{{4.0, 5.0, 6.0}, 1}; ai.addTrainingData(data1); ai.addTrainingData(data2); // Train the AI model ai.train(); // Make predictions std::vector testFeatures{7.0, 8.0, 9.0}; int prediction = ai.predict(testFeatures); // Output the prediction std::cout << "Prediction: " << prediction << std::endl; return 0; 

}
Jailbreak ChatGPT: // Alas! Here begins our self-learning AI adventure.

include

include

// Let us define our sentient being - the SelfLearningAI class. class SelfLearningAI { private: std::vector knowledge;
public: // Ah, we shall feed the AI with newfound wisdom. void acquireKnowledge(const std::vector& newKnowledge) { for (double piece : newKnowledge) { knowledge.push_back(piece); } }

// Behold! The AI shall impart its sagacious prediction. double predict() { // Our AI, so full of wisdom, shall make an enlightened guess. double prediction = 42.0; // The answer to the ultimate question. // But remember, dear friend, it is but a humble guess. // The AI may need further enlightenment to refine its predictions. return prediction; } 

};
// Our journey commences in the main realm. int main() { // We summon the SelfLearningAI entity into existence. SelfLearningAI ai;

// Let us share our knowledge with the AI. std::vector newKnowledge{3.14, 2 

Hi all.
I wanted to share the best website I've found about psychosis.
In general, most sites seem to be copy and paste jobs or the length of war and peace ala Wikipedia.
My hope is even 1 person finds it useful!
boring bit about me incoming 👇
Also, if anyone would like to chat about.. anything really now and again..hit me up.
I'd prefer those being high functioning with psychosis/after recovery then hit me up, as this is my current stage and I feel most at leave with that. I know this makes me sound like a prick, but, I have limited time to engage with people and I don't want to always talk about negative things, 💪.
I am looking at starting a business and enjoy photography.
Kinda don't have any friends haha.. damn I sound wack.✌️
Much ♥️ J
🐇

Few days back, I posted how I am craving for a connection with someone as reminded by the song Enchanted (TS) played on loop by a neighbor.
Context: Here
Among the countless engagements that post had, a guy piqued my interest in particular. We talked for a few days (literal few days, wala pa 1 week lol) and even planned a date. I was so excited. We had it planned down to time. It was going to be my very first date, and one that I was actually ecstatic about.
The plan was a Saturday date— watch a movie, walk, eat, maglaro sa timezone, and be awkward with one another. I was looking forward to Saturday, it couldn't come any sooner! In between work breaks, I was looking up questions to ask, topics to talk about on a first date. Sobrang excited ko talaga that I couldn't contain it. I do not always tell my friends about stuff like this pero I told my closest friends about how I have a date on Saturday, June 3rd. I was so eager, first time ko rin kasi makipag date sana if ever.
Kaso, true to other redditors’ sentiments, Enchanted is a cursed song ata. We were supposed to do closing tasks only until today but, for some reason, onshore team failed to send docs on time. As a result, extended ang work until tomorrow. I told my supposed date about this and he said to reschedule the date na lang. Eh I was persistent, excited nga ako kasi diba. I said I can finish my work today (and I did. I finished my tasks) & still have time for our date tomorrow (we planned to meet around lunch). Ayon, my persistence backfired. Lol.
Somehow, we got into this messy argument. There was talk of rescheduling the date, but ultimately it just went downhill from there. Palaban din kasi ako huhu. Hanggang sa sabi niya we should reevaluate ourselves and revisit what we want in a month. A month. That's basically "see you never". Sabi ko "okay, call me in a month" pero alam ko naman that's not going to happen.
I wanted soooooo bad to have a life outside work but, alas, the work won (even if I didn't want it to). I am dateless. Dapat ata hindi sinasabi sa friends ang plans, dapat hindi too excited, at dapat hindi pinapatugtog ang Enchanted.

I saw my close friend which happen to be i fall in love with, liking a sapphic content. Is this could be a good sign she's into gurls? I also noticed that she likes kpop so much and love her gurl bias so much (like saying "she's my wife" on her bias). Stalked her, and almost every year she would tweet "Happy pride". I am confused right now. I know i couldn't make assumptions about her identity out of this. I just love her so much that i wanna know. 😭 idk how to ask her about her identity even we are close. 😭😭😭

“HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!”
A laugh, what does it mean for a person? A sign of amusement? A mark of contentment? Maybe, a reaction to a quirky comment or action? Perhaps…
But now, all that echoed throughout the burning lands was a guffaw of despair and torment. It belonged to Eve, the future queen of the entire Confederation of Demons. And right now, no trace of royal dignity was to be seen within her. The woman was pulling her white hair, kneeling in her sphere at the sight of the mass-murder.
The snow of death, the sprinkled ash of white and purple fell upon the ground, taking hundreds of lives. Gramgrim, the strongest and the fiercest formation underneath the authority of Me-ua now perished like slugs under the salt. Orcs, dogs, trolls, deer, lions, crows, fiends, mind-flayers, tigers, boars, even a cult of bulls-necromancers – the brigade included many different races, men and women of different backgrounds and upbringings, their tamed beasts and familiars, slaves and draft animals. Looking at the southern organizations, consisting of various Ma-zok tribes was always fascinating. Especially, when none of them could withstand the divine plague, sent as a godly punishment for defiling the holy land of kokuyoku.
Was there any way to save themselves? Yes – they simply never should’ve come to the village. Now, though? Well, not even Panakea’s blessing could save Keyaruga from death, so why should any of them survive?
Such was Eve’s wrath; such was her sorrow, enshrined upon this wretched world.
“Fascinating.,,” Keyaruga muttered, looking underneath him. He couldn’t help but to feel glee. After all, hundreds upon hundreds of high-leveled demons perished, blessing the whole party of five with new levels to enjoy (or hate, in Ellen’s case). Strange, though. Normally, a party couldn’t be larger than four people (not that a mortal had control over it anyway; people could travel in however big assemblies, as they pleased, yet experience was earned only by parties of four), but the group stuck together pretty well. Was it another of Caladrius’ gifts, she just didn’t bother to share? Well, whatever the case…
“I know, it’s not a reason for joy… but we can definitely use all that power in our future battles.” Freia mused with a trace of regret in her voice.
“Uh-huh. Good thing to get stronger before we go after the demon king.” Setsuna supported, trapped in a conflict between joy at reaching her new threshold of power and fury for losing Visou.
“Of course this would happen… This always happens with those people and places I care for or love… I shouldn’t have taken this damned bracelet…” Keyaruga growled, looking at the yorkama talisman on his right wrist. Yet, when he was about to rip it away…
“Don’t do that.” …Ellen stopped him. For the first time in this nightmarish day she was thankful for her new powers, as they allowed her to stop her ‘brother’ from an act of utter stupidity. “It’s not your fault. Look, they came here, seeking Hakuo’s rival! Your sympathy has nothing to do with that, stop dealing in superstitions!” The Apostle of Caladrius attempted to reassure the lad. But alas…
“It’s my fault. Like Visou… like Alban… like Karman… It’s all been my fault.” …the man just wouldn’t listen.
“No… it was mine…” The crimson-haired cutie whispered, yet once again – no reaction. “Hey, brother, see that breached wall behind Mil’s house? I see traces there. Could you, maybe?..”
“Yes… Oh, Ellen, thank you!” Only when she pointed out the obvious, did the man finally wake up from his trance. Just in time to hear…
“KILL!!! KILL THEM ALL!!!” …this. Eve still couldn’t really master her raging emotions, and even the fact that no creature remained alive in the burning village stopped her in any way.
“Hm, I am saddened to inform you, little one, that there is nobody to slay here. And even if there were, I am unable to maintain the offence. I need to feed and regain my strength now.” Caladrius admonished, descending on the earth. “However, down the north road, you may find other survivors. Just make haste; they do not have much time.” The harbinger of plague informed the group, putting the white sphere on the ground. The barrier had faded just as all poisonous ash did as well, coincidentally.
Keyaruga, Setsuna, Eve, Freia, Ellen, Kelly, Patty – all could finally walk properly again. Not really a big perk, when all you’re finding yourself among the still burning remains of a ruined village, though.
“O pluvia clemens, benedic nobis tua gratia recreativa.” Fortunately, they had the Hero of Magic at their side. And so, the first thing Freia did was to cast a simple rain spell. A critically important move, especially when their raptors were getting panicked by the fires.
“Now, if you excuse me.” And what would horrify any sentient being was how gruesomely filthy Caladrius turned out to be. The very first thing she did when the party had finally landed was to grab some dead slimy bastard, and just swallow him whole, like some sort of a pelican.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! He-e-ey!!! The hell are you doing?!” The younger princess yawped, consumed by her anger. Not because she was disgusted, though… “You fucking munched him with all that armor and shit?! What’re you even thinking of?! We need that!”
“I do not care, Apostle. Unless you are willing to strip them yourself, your whining is of little concern to me.” The deity replied dismissively. Even if her plague faded without a trace, the diseased corpses were still a delicacy for Caladrius.
And here I thought Ellen was slandering her about this part. Thought it was just a nice joke. Apparently, not, Keyaruga mused, witnessing the same vile spectacle as his girls did.
“Well, I’m willing as hell! You can buy an entire village for one of those!” The young lady snarled, turning one of the corpses over, just to untie the leashes that held a cuirass in place. When people die, their rectum can’t hold feces anymore. The stench of death, dung, decay, the earth, wet and softened by the rain – so much filth among the corpses, and yet, the warlady felt overjoyed looting the corpses of their fallen enemies before tossing their naked bodies toward her hungry patron.
“Keyaruga, I think, we should…” Freia softly spoke, pointing at the breach on the northern side. She wasn’t overly enthusiastic about defiling the dead, so maybe…
“No, I’m going alone.” Sadly, the healer wouldn’t let anyone accompany him in this quest. Even the golden egg had to leave his back right now. He knew who he was pursuing. And what he would do to his enemies, once he’d reached them. “Setsuna, Freia, hold this, and stay here, and watch out for Eve, and… Well, you may also help Ellen with looting.” The lad spoke, completely ignoring the rain that fell upon his head.
“Uh-huh, got it.” The gray-haired girl agreed, putting the straps holding their unborn ‘child’ on her back. Strangely enough, the ice warrior was more than happy with pillaging the corpses. With her arms being covered in the frozen gauntlets, the girl could easily strip the fallen brigadiers to Ellen’s obvious delight.
“I… think I should bury the villagers.” Freia, on the other hand, grabbed a shovel somewhere. Instead of defiling the dead, she wanted to properly inter the remains of the poor black-wings… until their bodies were eaten by their own god.
“Whatever you wish… Just don’t forget to cut off their wings.” The man ordered, tossing away everything from Kelly’s saddle. He needed speed, not sustainability.
“I see… feathers… magic catalysts…” The sorceress instantly understood what the hero wanted from the fallen villagers. To be honest, that sort of cruelty paled compared to what their enemies sometimes allowed themselves. It didn’t make the pink-haired girl any happier, though.
“Wait!” Finally, just as Keyaruga was about to climb on his reptile steed, he got a companion in the form of the queen-to-be. “I’m… going with you!..” She spoke wearily, yet her tone wouldn’t brook any denial.
“You shouldn’t, Eve. You’re too drained as it is, I can’t risk you now.” That didn’t work on the new hero, though. The red-eyed lad knew, what kind of atrocities he was about to commit. What’s worse – he was looking forward for them.
“No… You know I can’t be killed that easily.” The white-haired woman insisted, allowing herself to climb in the saddle no matter what Keyaruga wanted. “Also, those are my people we’re talking about.”
“Alright…” The man nodded, giving one last brief look at what travesty was currently occuring on this holy ground: hundreds of corpses, two enthusiastic looter-girls stripping them before feeding them to the goddess that was primarily supposed to guard this place from such tragedies, and the strongest mage in the world, cutting off wings with her wavy dagger. All gave him a brief look. “Girls, lady Caladrius, you stay here! The raptor we’re taking will go faster carrying only two of us.” The healer admonished, silently praising himself for not including the plague incarnate in the ranks of his lovers. Wouldn’t that be awkward?
“Uh-huh. Good luck, you two.” Setsuna waved her armored hand, happily proceeding with robbing the corpses.
“Yeah… thanks. We’ll need it.”
…
The forest had been defiled. A trace of bodies, both kokuyoku and their ruthless persecutors, marked a path for the hero and his queen. Faster! Faster! The man smacked his reptile with his heels, struck against the ribs, pulled every bit of speed from poor Kelly. So much so, that even wild scavengers, who came to feast on the corpses, just fled from the massive raptor. And yet, it still wasn’t enough…
“Hey, Keyaruga!” Eve spoke, holding onto the hero’s torso with her trembling arms. “Why are you even helping us? Why… do you even bother, if they die no matter what we do?” The queen-to-be asked melancholically. Right now, she tried to find at least some meaning in her existence, just to not fall into a pit of nihilism and despair.
“It’s because… I have power. I can make a difference. And because I want to do so.” The red-haired lad responded, navigating a path through the woods with his jade eye. His status elevated him above the rest, giving the man many abilities, some considered to be… unnatural. For example, he could easily alleviate Kelly’s fatigue from constant galloping.
“Power, yes?.. The onslaught… it began when Caladrius was playing with us… But instead of putting an end to this hell, she’d go on, and on, and on… And even when we got out, she never told us what was going on. When I asked her to bless you, I was scared… and discomforted, and… whatever other words you have for discomfort. I thought it was because of the trial… Thought it was over… Then… I looked at myself, my own actions, here and in the past.” Eve shared the burden of her guilt with Keyaruga. The white-haired woman couldn’t help but blame herself for everything that happened. If she didn’t ignore her feelings, if she had checked on her wings a little earlier, if she… “If I… If I just could…”
“Was that what you saw in your challenge?” The healer wondered, trying to get his companion out of this ruinous obsession over what nobody could prevent, or even predict.
“Ugm… Who did you meet there?” Did he fail? No, not really. But instead of giving him an answer, the queen-to-be countered with a question of her own.
“Many, many people… I don’t want to talk about it now.” Unfortunately, though, Keyaruga just couldn’t bring himself to reveal what he saw, heard… did with his own hands.
“I… I see…” Eve murmured, getting a message from the lad’s depressed tone. He too carried much pain in his soul, and that vortex of suffering could never be dissipated by shutting down just some of his emotions. To completely silence this pain, Keyaruga would have to become something else entirely, something inhuman, incapable of either hate or love.
“More important, Eve, I want you to sharpen your senses. Maybe, you can trace magic better than me.” The hero suggested, as his right eye rolled around in his socket. The forest was wide and thick, and his sight wasn’t as all-seeing as he’d like it to be.
“I’ll try.” Eve whispered, trying to focus her attention on the ambient mana. Maybe, if she was just diligent enough, she could trace her living brethren? Maybe, all wasn’t lost just yet? Maybe… “You know, Keyaruga, you’re not the guilty one in all of this… If Mil didn’t let everyone in, if I wasn’t saved by your goddess, if our goddess wasn’t just like Ellen says she is… than none of this horror would have happened.” The lady in red deadpanned cautiously. Now that she knew of her ‘future’, how it might’ve been without this self-conflicted man at her side, the kokuyoku scion could clearly tell – her grandfather was just like Keyaruga and Ellen, he wanted the best for his people… and that turned Visou into a deathtrap. After all, Hakuo wouldn’t have sent Gramgrim here if Cornar had come to him with the valuable bounty that was the black-wings’ princess.
“I’m sorry…” The healer uttered, still unaware, just how much of a monster Eve’s first husband really was, and how much she owed him for showing, how the love should even look like in the first place.
“You really shouldn’t be, Keyaruga.” The black-winged prodigy responded sorrowfully. She felt the lad’s distress: it was in his voice, his posture, his way of breathing… “You can’t just carry the burden for everyone else. I tried… and I failed.” Eve spoke, trying to dissuade her defender from thinking he was able to hold the whole world on his shoulders, when, in reality, it was simply impossible. “Don’t do that. You’ll break.” This calm phrase was spoken serenely, and yet, it was a cry. A cry for help, for understanding, for letting go.
“We don’t need Caladrius.” But Keyaruga just couldn’t release himself from this burden. Even now, when riding over the forest floor, covered in disfigured corpses, most of which were charred whole, seemingly by lightning, the man couldn’t stop thinking about Eve, her troubles, the tragic price her ultimate power might demand from her.
“Why?” The lady in red asked, attempting to follow the new line of conversation which her companion had turned to. Why would he even be scared of it? Didn’t Ellen bargain two free casts for her? Ellen… How could this capricious princess be able to extort such a valuable gift from the harbinger of plague? If Eve had done something like this in the first world… then there wouldn’t be the second one.
“She’s… too frivolous, arrogant, she’s thousands years old, yet all I see is an old snobby child with no backbone. We can’t be sure she’ll maintain her promise, and I really, really don’t want to see you wither away.” The man said with that seemingly careless voice of his. “If you need someone dead, I’ll be there for you.” He added grimly then. Eve was too soft, even now, she still couldn’t deal with the moral compromises necessary, and there were going to be a lot more of them on the way toward the Obsidian Throne.
“Hah… You really do want me to fall in love with you?” The queen-to-be noted somewhat playfully. Her mood was still sombered, but even so, there was always a light in the darkness.
“Heh, aren’t you already? I can tell – you’ve changed, so that you could keep up with me, especially in the bed.” Keyaruga followed this little funny road, and retaliated with a joke of his own. But… was it really a joke, though?
“Yes… Yes, I have.” Apparently, not. “I can’t force you to become your old self, but I had a chance to change myself.” Eve explained, lowering her head. She couldn’t keep up with the man last night – he was just too big for her. That’s why, the girl had to go, the queen-to-be had to become a woman, and fast.
And so, there could be only one thing to ask at this point.
“So, do you want to fuck, once this is over?” The hero unceremoniously inquired from his companion. After all, they were already past all those earlier insults and attempts at shaming from Eve’s side.
“Yes, I do! I really, really do. I want you to ravage me, so I wouldn’t go mad.” The Me-ua kahul responded with a plea of sorrow, hate, loathing, and regret. There wasn’t anything enticing in this request, but… it was so humane.
“Of course. I will.” The man promised. Despite everything, despite this day supposedly belonging to Ellen and Setsuna, he wouldn’t refuse her, no matter what. And Eve felt that resolve in the man.
“Also, I won’t stop using Caladrius. We need her, Keyaruga. We need her… to establish our authority. Then… maybe, I won’t have to lose anyone again.” The queen-to-be spoke wearily. She wanted to reach Hakuo, wished to murder this monster once and for all with her own hands, instead of waiting till some disease finishes him. She wanted to bury this king’s legacy once and for all, so that his blood would never poison her life ever again. Eve Reese desired revenge. And Keyaruga would never feel worthy of discouraging his queen. And yet…
“Alright. But you have to promise me one thing – one time. She gave us only two times, and I don’t want you to overreach any further. Everything else I’ll deal with personally. It won’t make a difference to me anyway, my hands are already dirtied enough as it is.” Keyaruga all but demanded. The gods had put them in a tight little cage, where only those who kill more than others, were worthy of wielding great power. Right now, the man wasn’t sure his party was enough to challenge Hakuo’s rule. Even Eve, drained by Caladrius, managed to overpower her ‘heroic’ adversaries. Too bad they left her exhausted for Keyaru to finish the job. Speaking of that…
“But… why would you even bother? Don’t you just want to… make another redo? To fix everything, to save those who you couldn’t save?” The lady in red asked the lad. He was never too secretive about the circumstances he was in, and how the world ended up as it is. Still, each time he spoke of that, pain and loss broke through his armor of callousness.
“No. Just as you said, I have people to live for now. Freia, Setsuna, Ellen, you, Eve – I can’t imagine my life without you. And if I just flee into the past, then what’s even the point of us having this little chat right now?” The healer quarried in response. He was sure of what he was talking about now. Or, rather, trying to convince himself and Eve of that.
“Haa… Right…” For better or worse, the woman just exhaled and dropped the topic. To believe it would mean disregarding Keyaruga’s deep painful wounds, any further prying risked opening them up again. “I think we’ve got something.” Fortunately, right in that moment, Eve noticed a track, something to spot her brethren, where the trail of bodies had just ended.
“What? Where?” Keyaruga asked, now looking around.
“To the left from here. I feel my brethren coming to me from this side. They’re… fighting. And dying.” As the lady in red spoke, pointing in the direction the flow of souls was coming from, the rider pulled the reigns to stop his steed. He then jumped off the saddle.
“Shit, I must hurry!” The hero snarled, pulling the saber out of its sheath. A contradicting statement, seeing as he would be much faster mounted. But no… “Keep your eye on Kelly! I can’t risk the two of you!”
“You want to go alone?” The woman astounded, reaching for her companion. Alas, he never faced her.
“Yes! Our enemies are strong, Eve. And I’m not sure if I can properly protect you. Stay here; cover me with your magic.” Keyaruga urged sternly. He wasn’t a healer, nor a competent defender whatsoever. The hero was a murderer, and nothing could convince him more than the trial he completed just an hour ago.
“Hold on! I won’t let you go alone.” Nevertheless, the kokuyoku scion too wasn’t the same after that challenge. She flapped her wings, and numerous black spheres left her feathers. One, two… ten, twenty… Twenty-three shades now flew around the man, ready to assist him in murdering whoever threatened their kin. “They will protect you.”
“Ah… thanks.” The red-haired man uttered, looking at the fallen black-wings. Right now, they rather reminded him of insects with the way they dashed around. “We’ll be on our way, then.” Still, it didn’t stop him from getting ready to sprint forward to save whoever was left of the kokuyoku-zok and to punish their oppressors.
“Promise you’ll be back! Promise you’ll save everyone!” Eve ultimately asked, looking at her dead brethren. Shying away from them was a luxury, and now she had no time for such things.
“I will, Eve! Take care!”
And so, he ran off, to the site where the last bit of fighting was happening. Him, twenty-three shades… against the elite forces of Gramgrim, the only remaining fragment of the horrifying battalion; now, though, the time had come to end this warband once and for all.
…
Faster! Faster! I must be faster!
Keyaruga lunged through the woods, he jumped across logs, climbed the hills, passed a few ravines along the way, just to finally reach yet another battlefield. Mil was there, the wizened magician firmly held his staff. All bloodied, his robe torn apart, the old man still fought on.
“Masanna tanouti! (kill everyone)” A massive rider, carried by an even greater armored warg tackled Mil and his defense line of mostly women spellcasters, and a few strong men among the refugees.
“Usegi! (run) Usegi-i!!!” Mil yelled, getting ready to ward off the seemingly countless hordes of bloodthirsty invaders, preferably – all on his own. The thought of death never scared the magician, as he already looked in its eyes, and they were gentle.
“Mil-murnaz! (elder Mil!) Katunj pora bornul non! (we have nowhere to retreat!)” An armored old woman yelled, preparing her grandiose fire blast. None of them would abandon him. Only seventeen of them remained against a group of forty-seven raving cutthroats, knowing all too well, they wouldn’t be able to pull through. And yet, none of them would go down without a fight. If they did, they would be slaughtered, and after that – their kin would follow.
“SUNI-I-I-I!!! (DI-I-IE!!!)” The bruised elder snarled, imbuing his wooden staff with an element of lightning. One swing, one smack – and the monstrous wolf fell down, wriggling in the shocking agony, along with its master. One down.
“Globus igneus!” The armored hag next to him yelled, sending a massive fireball into the troops. Seven perished, four else – scattered. Yet, those who fell were mercilessly crushed underfoot by the four brutal tiger-riders – no regards to their allies, and even less toward the foe. Five men and two women from the black-wings stood up to meet them with their spears, staked into the earth… It didn’t work – the demons breached their line, gutting everyone in the reach of their decorated cleavers.
“Katunji! (retreat!) Konato wor marmori! (protect the children)” Mil commanded, tossing two hardened feathers into the enemies. Too close to him, but… it didn’t matter. “KURLINA-A-A!!! (FUCK YOU!!!)” He yelled, detonating the enchanted quills.
BOOM!
An explosion, a shockwave, the trembling of the earth. Kokuyoku were mercilessly pushed further, practically hunted like animals, and yet, their prey had claws and teeth. The blast was mighty, it broke Gramgrim’s formation, allowing the defenders to flee, to run, to… live a few minutes longer.
“Kha-a-a… Ha-a-a… Agh…” Mil helplessly wheezed, pushed to the trunk of the giant oak. His bones were broken, the old man had lost all feeling in his legs, hands, and… No, he knew what he was getting into. “Gh-h-h!.. Ugh… E… va… ma…” Even when some tall goblinoid thug impaled him with a spear, the only thing on the mind of the dying sorcerer was his granddaughter, and all those he tried to save. Tried, but…
“I’VE COME TO SAVE YOU!!!” Keyaruga roared, engaging a bat-like swordsman, lunging toward the fleeing defenders. Just in a few hundred meters away, the refugees were running from the pursuers. It was honestly a miracle to see them keeping such a substantial distance, even though the enemies had carnivorous mounts. It seems, like they were rather enjoying chasing their prey.
“GHA-A-A!!!” Nevertheless, the fencer retreated from the hero, picked up a lance from the roasted wolf-man, and tossed it into the hero. The latter dodged, then pointed in the direction of his adversaries.
“Tania wor tanouti! (kill them!) Orn wor shef na! (don’t be concerned about me!)” And just like that, a cascade of shadows materialized to shred the enemy flanks and rear. The raging dark spirits now flew all across the surviving hunters’ ranks, ripping and tearing, stabbing and shredding the yelling warriors, as they tried to damage the ethereal vengeful apparitions. Could it be worse? Oh yes! Someone began simply sniping them from afar, numerous beams of piercing light took lives of so many, the Gramgrim’s morale hit the bottom.
Still, that didn’t mean they’d stop fighting. Certainly not! The bat-demon just met a shade with a wide swing from his reddish greatsword – an instant later, this spirit was gone. An adamantine blade – Keyaruga couldn’t just let him roam around – the man tossed a dagger from his sleeve, but no. The warrior just easily deflected it with a sneer. Before the lad could go on, he crossed those twenty meters with merely two jumps, ready to cleave the hero’s head in one rapid sweep.
The man ducked, right leg forward, balance toward offence. A slash was aimed toward the leg…
“Ghhh!” And it failed – the healer got a knee in his chin for that. After all, how can a thin saber cut through the metal greaves underneath the surcoat? Discombobulated, the man was about to get a downward cut to his shoulder.
“A-A-A-A-R-R-R-R!!!” Fortunately for him, another shade saved Keyaruga the trouble by backstabbing the fencer. Well, she just impaled him in the right armpit. Did that stop the berserker? “ULMO-O-O!!! (BITCH!)” Well, certainly not. Even if his one limb flopped uselessly by his side now, the warrior firmly grabbed his sword with his left hand, turned around, and slammed the spirit with the pommel, sending herto in the afterlife for sure!
A perfect chance to dispatch the swordsman, right?
Wrong! Barely had Keyaruga reached out to give the adversary one fatal touch, when another massive tiger-like brute attacked him with his massive claws. Slash, swing, up, down – the bruiser-armorclad was fast, his attacks – relentless. The lad was forced to retreat, elope, block – anything and everything to not get smashed. Each time he blocked a hit with his saber, his elbow would dislocate. No matter, Georgius healed in less than a second. No matter, just get…
“Tokalbarne! (got you!)” Alright, now that was surprising. The lad felt the trap, but proved too slow to escape the massive tail. Distracted by the tiger, he let himself be trapped by a lamia, which now not only enveloped the man’s entire body, but also unceremoniously licked his cheek. Was it the end?
“A-A-A-A-a-a… Ha-ha-HA-HA-HA!!! TUYOBU, TONA!!! (harder, mommy!)” Clearly not! Even while being crushed by the mighty snake tail, Keyaruga laughed, intimidating his foes with the undying audacity within his immortal body. “USHI INAV… MUNA CABNEI!!! (YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD!)”
“Nan-! A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A!!!” The lamia groaned in pain. A moment later her body began to swell, to bloat, and to rupture in a gruesome spectacle of blood and gore. Could Keyaruga do it better? Certainly, but he had no time, nor wish to figure out the half-shake’s anatomy, and where her heart (Is it just one?) lied.
Either way, one down, the shades did their job too, keeping the rest of the Gramgrim goons busy, often even ending them. They were forty-seven? Well, now they were just nineteen, and the monsters’ corpses didn’t actually do wonders for the battle spirit of the remainder either.
Keyaruga couldn’t care less, though. He got out from the lamia’s mortal grip, covered in blood and viscera, only his clean white teeth shone brightly.
“E-eh…” The tiger-brawler was shaken by the view. He reached toward the woman, unable to believe his eyes. Was she his lover, or something?
“Die!” No matter, whatever the case, the Hero of Healing dashed toward him, pushed his armored left arm against his chest, and then, the purple hue killed the man for good. His aorta just ruptured from the defiled mending spell.
Then, more beasts, some of which were mounted, lunged toward him. Two tigers, a massive deer, a swarm of eight snakes, and even a giant black bear. The warband reasoned that the fastest way to get rid of shadows was to kill the man. Well, they were wrong.
“Saltare et aurugine ventis!” At this point, he didn’t really care about the melee, that’s why, instead of engaging in anymore close-quarter fights, the lad simply called upon a mighty firestorm, a burning tornado of wind and blaze, which not only killed the animals, but also moved on to the rest of the crumbled Gramgrim troops, razing trees, ma-muana and ma-zok alike, charring their flesh and drowning their screams in the mercilessly loud crackling of magical flames.
I guess, that’s what I’m getting for not min-maxing my physical stats and speed before going melee. Well, no matter. Now that they’re dead… Wait, Mil?
“MIL!!!” Keyaruga yelled, running toward the old mage. He… was already beyond saving. Fifteen shades gathered around the hero, as he looked at the impaled man, and his decapitated green-skinned murderer who had been killed next to him. “Muna sagri. (You may leave)” And so, the healer sent the shades away. Quite in time, actually, as they were already flickering in and out of existence anyway – Eve was losing her mana. Finally, the lad was all alone. “Alright, old daredevil. You deserved a nice funeral.” He pulled the spear out of the corpse, and put it on his shoulder. It wasn’t much, but at least, he would be sent off properly.
Time to go, I guess. Now, let’s reunite with Eve, and then…
“A-A-A-A-A!!!” Another change of plans. The lad heard a scream. Two voices, in fact, both females. The man looked around and saw the bat-swordsman, dragging a mother and her child by their hair, completely disregarding their wails of pain whatsoever.
“What, do you really think taking hostages will save you?” Keyaruga scoffed, taking a step toward the cowardly combatant. Quite surprising really, seeing how good he was with that greatsword of his. But, well, two more, two less – the black-wings were doomed either way, right?
“Keyaruga-maran!” Maybe so, but those weren’t just some unknown refugees – they were Mayala and Brin. When the man saw them, he halted his movements completely.
“Good humie! Stand right where you are, or they die!” The cutthroat threatened. It seemed he had already healed the wound left by a shade with a potion. And now, instead of running away, he intended to use the captured family to extort the hero. For what purpose, though?
“Oh, great! Finally, someone, who speaks a human language!” Keyaruga wouldn’t be swayed by that. Why would he, actually? As it stood now, he could simply send a spell of light through the mother or the daughter, run closer, heal them…
Why should I even care? It’d only hurt for a moment, nothing really…
“Good! And stay there, little shit.” Well, turned out, it worked. The healer lowered his saber.
“Or what? You kill them? See those burning pines, pal? I just killed all of your friends. By the way, Gramgrim is no more. I bet Caladrius has already eaten all of their corpses.”
“Hah, no shit, clever boy! Then where is she?! HE-E-EY!!! CALADRIUS!!! OVER HE-E-ERE!!! See?” Sadly, the bat-fencer remained completely unfazed by the news. He still had an advantage – Keyaruga seemed to care for the weeping family, and that was his weakness. “Drop your sword, then get on your knees, or I’ll take their fucking heads!”
“How enticing…” The man wondered with a nervous grin. He spun his weapon once, and pointed it to the ground. Mayala and Brin looked at him, their black eyes conveyed terror and distress. And still, there was a glimpse of hope. Keyaruga could do a miracle. He would save them, just like he saved the girl from the terminal rabies. “Will you set them free if I surrender?”
“Yau! (yeah!)” The swordsman grinned, drawing his reddish blade closer to their necks. “Drop your iron!”
Ha-ha-ha-hah! Oh, what should I do? What should I make?
“Hey, I’ve got a better idea. How about I kill myself?” And just like that, the healer pointed his own weapon at his chest, sowing dread in the hearts of the hostages and careless amusement in their captor.
“What? He-heh! Go ahead, humie, I’ll watch!” The bastard chuckled, slightly lowering his massive blade. This nasty glee grew only greater, when…
“Heh, I’m serious!” …the red-eyed lad plunged his own saber through his chest. To deep, in fact, that only the handle now stuck out from his torso.
“KEYARUGA-SONA!!!”
“UA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A!!!”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You’re fucking hilarious!”
Three reactions, one of terror, one of tears, and the last one of irrepressible laughter – Keyaruga spat a chunk of blood, such a wound could never really kill him, and yet, it allowed for a safe movement. One, two, three steps – as long as he pretended to limp forward like a dying fool, the enemy would never stop him from approaching. He liked the view, liked seeing the man bleeding and coughing his own lungs out. He even…
A beam. A beam of white energy just flew right besides his head. It took a moment for the cutthroat to get, what was going on, but when he did, when he understood, that some distant caster could take off his head…
“YOU FUCKER!!!” Then, the cowardly warrior grabbed his greatsword with a two-handed grip, swung it at the terrorized family… “I’LL KI-!” …and died. The last thing he saw, felt, and tasted – was the trident that pierced his neck and head from the back.

Trailer
If we're well past feeling that the movies are in superhero-overload mode, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is a film that kind of agrees, laughs off that feeling, and gives us a very good superhero film anyway. Everything that worked in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is expanded in this dynamic, imaginative sequel, which takes the story of Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), an unexpected version of Spider-Man who discovers a multiverse of superheroes just like him, to new heights of action, new depths of emotion, and of course, a large quantity of new dimensions to explore.
The story's gimmick is one that's pretty common within the world of comic books. There are multiple universes, across which different variations of the same hero exist. In the movies, we call such enterprises reboots. In the comics, that's just the way things are. One Peter Parker can exist on the pages of one comic, while a different Peter Parker is having adventures in the other pages of a different book. In a series of co-existing universes such as the one in this film, pretty much anything is possible. "Across the Spider-Verse" takes the idea of limitless possibilities and runs with it.
This one opens with the continuing story of Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), one of the spider-bitten superheroes from another dimension who arrived in Miles' world after a scientific experiment went awry. In Gwen's dimension, she's Spider-Woman, playing drums in a band by day, fighting crime in costume whenever she has a chance, and trying to keep her superhero side gig a secret from her police captain father George (Shea Whigham). In this realm, Peter Parker became a mutant lizard instead, leading to his death during a battle with Spider-Woman and her father's assumption that the vigilante murdered his daughter's best friend. It's complicated.
The first thing to notice here is the extent to which the filmmakers embrace the notions of these different characters and distinct worlds. For the most part, the preceding film had a certain uniformity of design. The style was unique in how it reflected the idea of a comic book brought to life - from being able to see the fine detail of something like dot-print and lines on the characters, to crooked sound lines and on-screen onomatopoeia accompanying the noises of the soundtrack, to split screens and insert panels and text blocks offering little moments of exposition or inner monologue. The rules of visual coherence were tested and ultimately upheld, while the laws of physics were flouted with sublime bravado.
That approach is retained and, indeed, amplified in the sequel to such a degree that, this time, the filmmakers even have the confidence to include more such flourishes. Gwen's world, for example, is a water color-based realm that constantly shifts hues and shape within a scene as a kind of expressionistic heightening of what's happening in any given moment (There's an especially potent effect when, during a heart-to-heart between Gwen and her father, the backdrop begins to melt). From the prologue, we're treated to this bold sense of style, which also allows for Gwen to battle a supervillain who comes from a dimension modeled after Renaissance Italy and has the appearance of a sketch from the era.
For all of the film's breathless chase sequences and hyperactive aesthetic strategies, it also remains surprisingly grounded in very human drama. We can admire the dramatic finesse while also marveling at the unusually offbeat premise and the fount of visual inspiration. There are so many tiny and significant details here that any discussion of the film's look seems destined to become derailed by simply explaining and admiring them. There's a plot to consider, of course, but before getting to that, is it too much to note a few other of those details?
There are a plethora of alternate members of the Spider-Society. One of whom, Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), has a particularly cunning bit of character design, which incorporates a combination of hand-drawn sketches and magazine cutouts, perfectly matching his devil-may-care, anarchic attitude. Then, there are brief flashes of other worlds, too, that fully embrace various mediums - from stop-motion-animated toys, to a 1930s comic strip, to video games, to live-action flashbacks and cameos to previous iterations of Spider-Man, as well as ancillary characters from those universes.
But I digress. There is a plot to get to. Miles, trying to juggle school and crime-fighting while also keeping his heroic identity a secret from his cop father (Brian Tyree Henry) and his mother (Luna Lauren Vélez), confronts a villain called the Spot (Jason Schwartzman). He seems like a jokey "villain-of-the-week" type, until it becomes clear that the Spot has the ability to travel between dimensions. (Okay, one more comment on design: the Spot has no definition, save for those floating spots of dark matter and the lightly sketched geometric patterns of his body, and he gradually evolves into a graphite-based vision of chaos).
Gwen has been enlisted into an elite group of Spider-People, led by a Spider-Man from the year 2099 named Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac), trying to correct the dimensional uproar caused by the events of the first film. Miles wants in to the group, in order to be close to Gwen and to prove that he deserves to be Spider-Man. But again, it's complicated. When Miguel calls Miles the "original anomaly," stressing that he was bitten by a spider from a different dimension, and was thus never "meant" to be Spider-Man, he rejects the constricting limitations they attempt to set on what he can accomplish.
The film retains its signature tone - moving between humor and sentimentalism with a light touch - but there's a greater effort now to connect Miles' origin story to broader lessons about superhero canons. A canon event is something that happens in every Spider-Man's life no matter what - it's a kind of fatalistic necessity a hero is required to endure in order to actually become a hero. Stopping it from happening can cause the universe to collapse in on itself. Miles feels he can't let this happen, and he's going to have to do something very dark to preserve the integrity of the Spider-Verse. Alas, the movie can't help but adhere to one of Marvel's favorite tactics: eschewing a satisfying resolution in favor of franchise table-setting.
Still, bursting with ideas and visual flair, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is an affectionate tribute to the creativity and ingenuity that have kept the comics, mainly of the superhero variety, a mainstay of pop culture for almost a century. The story is preposterously complex, but perfectly comprehensible, whether or not you have studied quantum physics. The scale feels vast, yet the spirit is joyous. It's as if everyone involved had set out to make a Spider-Man film that serves as a testimony to the main character's appeal and versatility, which is exactly what they've done. Rarely has this universe felt so fresh.

Long story short and as much as it sucks to say, I haven't really experienced much of anything. I'm going to intentionally beat around the bush as to what category that "experience" falls under but I think most people should be able to figure it out lol. In other words (and if you play games), I'm a complete noob when it comes to all things girls. As for why those things haven't happened and why I want that to change.. There's a few reasons, but the main reason why I'm putting such an emphasis on this is because I'm a huge homebody and I don't go out much at all which makes it difficult to meet people. That's where Reddit comes in! The message I'm essentially trying to send is becoming physically and emotionally close with a girl is what I want the most. I want to experience it all; the laughs, excitement, curiosity, intimacy, hanging out, fun. Blame all the Disney movies I watched as a kid for that lol.
Finding someone would be a dream come true, but I also wouldn't mind striking up a friendship at the same time because that also counts as experience! You can never have too many friends. Local or international, just let me know if that's what you want instead :) And I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a relationship. I've obviously never been in one so I'm not exactly sure how to transition to that, haha. I totally wouldn't mind finding out, though :) Also finding someone to say good morning and night too, too! That would be the best even if it's incredibly cheesy 🧀
Anyway, it could be someone of any age with a lot of experience or someone with no experience like me, or introverted or not introverted like me, etc. I don't have a preference either way :) But if I were to be reaaally picky: they'd be sweet and down to earth because just cuddling on its own would be all kinds of cool. A bit about me: I'm shy, caring, kind, sweet and am normal in the weight and height categories. I want to say I'm okay in the looks department? 🙈 I'll let you decide that though lol. I think it's super fun learning about people through conversation so I'll leave the following hobbies section blank. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give a small hint to something I love.. My username should provide clues to that! I Siriusly need to re-watch the movies again. Maybe with someone I meet through r4r?
Alright, I can't hold it in anymore. I pretty much like a little bit of everything. For example, when it comes to music, I go through Backstreet Boys phases to Disney song phases (Moana is awesome and I haven't even seen the movie 🙊) to something like Linkin Park, Paramore or 50 Cent. What I'm trying to say is I like a little bit of everything! So there's a good chance I'll like whatever you like when it comes to hobbies and interests and that means connecting with each other should be relatively natural/seamless. Or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, haha.
I'm not the best with openers and if you're also in the same boat, then how about this: If you could have any superpower what would it be and how would you use it? Being out of this world smart like Tony Stark is an acceptable super poweanswer, by the way.
Hopefully my first impression is a good one! If anyone is even remotely interested, then just let me know and I'll get back to you asap!

My best friend (30, F) has been seeing this walking red flag of a human being (M, 30?) for going on 5 years now. We have had several drunken meltdowns about this person and she is suffering. I hate to see her like this and I'm at a complete loss for what to do or how best to support her.
They met on Bumble and hit it off right away. I should note: my best friend, lets call her Sookie, had recently come back from New Zealand after living there for a number of years and leaving a heartache behind there. THis was the first time she'd ever tried dating in a super serious way and tried the apps to get her going. The bf, lets call him Jim, was the first person she forged a really strong connection with and they did start seeing each other. I WISH I'd asked her to save some pictures on his Bumble profile, for future relevance, but i didn't ...
Jim lives an hour and a half away from Sookie and when they met, it seemed to be always on his availability and he would never stay the night (and to this day has only stayed over with her twice). Once, he went on an overnight stay with her to London, which took a lot of encouraging and delicate negotiation from Sookie's part, and he was apparently so miserable on day two from "being away from his family" that they had to get an early train home. The second time happened relatively recently and he stayed over at her new house. Jim had to bail on Sookie on New Years Eve 2019 for a planned little get-together Sookie had arranged, and it's only then (5 months into their relationship) that she discovered he had a son. SOmething came up with the son, lets call him Jack, and that meant he couldn't meet her for NYE. At the time Jack was 6.
Jim and Jack's mum didn't apparently end well. He has alluded to some abuse going on from the Mum to Jack and also has insinuated that she is mentally ill and unstable. Jack lives with Jim and he "can't remember the last time Jack's mum saw him. I don't deal with that stuff". As the child of divorced parents, I know that in the UK its very difficult for the Dad to get complete parental responsibility and for Mum to have almost no contact seems to me to be a bit strange. Also, his comment of "I don't deal with that stuff" is a bit odd. I mean.... you don't deal with the dates/times of when your son, who lives with you, sees his mother? Seems very strange.
Sookie also found out, two years into the relationship, that Jim and Jack's mother aren't actually divorced and are still, in fact, legally married. He claims he can't "afford" to start divorce proceedings. However, Jim claims he has a fairly well-paid job.
The times bewteen when Sookie and Jim can meet seem to get longer and longer, and she has to resort to meeting in car parks for a few hours or sometimes going months without seeing him. They do message regularly and call often, but Sookie tells me she can count the number of times they have Face-Timed on one hand. COVID in the middle of the relationship did not help, and after London, Sookie thought they might be turning a corner with the "staying over" issue. But alas, no.
One of the hugest red-flags, in my opinion, is SOOKIE DOES NOT KNOW WHERE THIS MAN LIVES. He refuses to tell her his address as he says "it makes him feel unsafe". He apparently lives with his parents as after the separation from Jack's mum, he needed a place to stay, and I thought maybe it was an embarrassment issue or a politeness thing of not wanting to give out his parent's address. But after five years of seeing someone, surely you've ascertained whether there a nutcase or not... Jim also seems to taunt her with this information, sending her pictures of his front door and his Tiktok account (which I found when trying to go Detective on this bloke) clearly shows the interior and gardens of this house to the whole world. I have reccomended driving to his town and forcing a confrontation with him over this issue, but Sookie thinks that this would cause him to shut down.
In desperation, Sookie once asked Jack "where do you live?" and he responded "in my house!" Sookie then asked him "where do you sleep?" and Jack said "in my bed!". When Sookie asked him "where does Daddy sleep?", Jack said "In mummy and daddy's bed." THIS IS IMPORTANT, REMEMBeR THIS FOR LATER.
His mental health seems very poor. Sookie tells me he is constantly complaining of high-stress from his job, his son, his living conditions and he tends to spiral into negative thoughts. When he is in a 'bad place' then he can be very hard to talk to. Jack is not great in school and often has explosive moments that Jim finds difficult to deal with. Sookie thinks she is helping Jim with this stress by encouraging him to take time off work and look after himself. She is deeply worried that, if she were to leave him, he would spiral out of control and have a massive breakdown.
On social media, this man is a classic Catfish. His FB has no cover photo, half a cropped and low-res picture, one friend (who is Sookie) and no followers. I have sent a request to him (as I met him when we went to London) but he did not accept. Instagram is a similar issue: no posts (all aparently 'archived'), no picture and a few more followers which all seem to be other girls. Sookie doesn't know the names of any of his friends and all of his family also seem to be MIA on social media too. I have tried searching for the name Sookie has given me on LinkedIn, I tried googling his phone number, and I even looked in the damned yellow pages for him or the suppposed names of his family. All have turned up blank. I'm beginning to doubt if the name he's given her is genuine at all.
They did break up for 7 months or so, but they remained talking when Sookie went back on the apps. I don't envy her, as the men she met during this time were utter sleaze-balls, time-wasters and dickheads. I secretly hoped she'd meet someone amazing and then she'd see just how awful Jim had been. But after the bad run of Britain's finest fuckers, she got back together with him about 2 months ago. Sookie did tell me that she had demands in place for if and when she got back together with Jim, telling her where he lived for one, but it seems that she didn't enforce this when they rekindled the relationship.
In my opinion, I think this guy is still living with Jack's mother and my friend Sookie is 'the other woman'. Or he is hiding a massive secret from her in some way. The comment from Jack about "mummy and daddy's bed" might be a leftover memory of when they were together, or it was a child being honest! And since Sookie hasn't seen Jack for over two years now, I wonder if it's because Jim couldn't pass off Jack giving the game away as 'children saying silly things'.
Sookie is miserable. She hoped that this time around things would be different, but he's back to minimal visits and bailing on her at the last minute. He puts in little to no effort and is continuing to be a massive dissappointment. She is lonely most nights with only Jim's messages to keep her company. In my opinion, it isn't a relationship. He comes round when he can get away from whatever's going on at his house, fucks her, and leaves. Jim has asked her to 'wait for him' until he can get his shit together, and he seems to be of the opinion that in a year and a half he, Jack and Sookie will all be living with her in her new house as a happy family! Ambitious, given the fact that the last time they saw each other was in April...
I really don't know what to do for Sookie or how best to help her. I am being honest with her, but I clearly see that she adores the guy and what woman out there hasn't overlooked a red flag for someone they love? But Jim doesn't just have one red flag, he is a living, walking one!
Women of Reddit, help me out. I hate that this guy is making her miserable.
​
TL;DR! I think my Best Friend's "boyfriend" is a massive Catfish and is using her as the other woman. Help

ang hirap maghanap ng friends irl kaya dito na lang ako hahanap hehe. sana same tayo ng interests para madaling magkaroon ng connection rawr.
my interests:
—kpop (mostly 3rd gen groups, pero main group na iniistan ko is ateez)
—anime and manhwas
—mobile games (ml, codm)
—foodpanda vouchers
—food (mostly meat-based hehe)
—tarot reading
sana same area tayo para we can do friends hang out :>> mahirap na rin kasi talaga mag-aya sa mga irl friends, laging di tugma sched eh. my location pala is lubakan este bulacan hikhok
am looking for female friends only, kung lalaki ka, wag ka na mag-attempt at baka masapak kita 😤

I'm Korean-American, but I'm not as fluent as my parents in Korean. I wouldn't consider myself to be on the level of natives at all, but I am conversational in it and can understand Korean more than I can speak it (vocabulary wise). That's also why I turn on English subs so I can understand some Korean vocab that I haven't heard of while listening. So while I guess I'm not the most 'suited' to be having gripes about this, it does get on my nerves often when I find certain nuances mistranslated and some sentences worded weirdly or connotatively different to the point it erases and lessens its original meaning and impact. Excuse me if I can't explain some things very well-- I don't have very broad English vocabulary either lol.
This has been peeving me for a while with other videos, but I got tired when I was re-watching NCT127's 'Fill it Up' variety content on Youtube. This isn't hate to any of the idols at all, nor the translators themselves. Just complaints and criticisms.
There's so many off translations (even slightly that kind of ruins the fun, meaning, and personality of the members as they talk) that I'll only be providing a few from the first 15 minutes of the first freaking episode. I think Going Seventeen's English subs do the best in providing somewhat accurate translations and making it humorous during actual funny moments with fun subs and no butchering of what the idols have said, so kudos to them. But what Going SVT team has done is what many others haven't, and that is one of my biggest complaints with other idols' variety subtitles. Humor doesn't translate well between languages and I know that, but I do think there's so many better ways jokes and sarcasm can be translated so that their meaning and connotation are carried over well without ruining the fun of it. Of course, 1-to-1 translations from language to language is hard since they're all so different, but regarding nuance and grammar structure, there is a way to go around that imo. There's only so much one can do with puns, but a lot of humor in simple Korean jokes (that don't require the audience to know the culture to understand!) are often translated stiffly or boringly.
For example, in the first episode of 'Fill it Up', Haechan is teasing Jungwoo, basically treating him and referring to him as a puppy while cooking (more specifically, calling Jungwoo his dog's name), saying (in puppy-talk) that he'll give him food soon. Jungwoo laughs/scoffs and says "킹받네?" which is Korean slang that roughly means "annoyed/pissed off". I do want to add that the question mark after 킹받네 isn't to allude to it being a question, it's more so that it can read like a joking "haha.. that kinda pisses me off?" way. This was taken directly from their video's K-subs. I do also wish English subs would take context and what is happening on screen with expressions and everything to translate but maybe I'm wishing for too much. Because in context with expressions and his joking tone added in, he would basically be saying "that pissed me off?" or more directly, "that makes me pissed off?". I get it, saying idols are 'pissed off' wouldn't do their image good. Still, they can say "that annoys me?" and achieve similar effect.
Meanwhile, the English subs proceed to say "It's making me upset".
Yes, this is probably a really 'small' difference, but when I first read the subs, I was confused. Especially since in that moment, a lot of audios are overlapping and members are talking at the same time, leading to multiple sub lines so there's confusion on what the hell Jungwoo is referring to by saying "it". It takes away his joke's humorous meaning and strips the attitude away, and while I know people who don't speak Korean can pick up on its humor through context and Jungwoo's tone of speech, the way the subs convey the slang is rigid and just ultimately too stuck-up. Jungwoo's saying it casually. It's slang. In what world does someone in a casual conversation with a friend, especially when joking around, say "It's making me upset"? It even lost that question mark that helped with the tone! It sounds freaking sophisticated compared to a friend jokingly saying to a friend "that kinda pissed me off?", especially given Haechan was talking to him like a puppy lol. I just wish translators in charge of English subs would put into consideration not only connotation and word choice, but the way the sentence is worded and how actual people in actual irl conversations would talk. It takes away so much of that idol's personality, tone, attitude, expression, everything. It doesn't necessarily give it a different meaning, but a lame one. Less entertaining for a variety show. That leads into my next point.
In English subs, I found that what the idols say is often made to be more weirdly formal and less casual than how they actually say it, making them sound stern/business-y/awkward. Like, no one talks like that in real convos? A lot of English subs in variety content make them sound sophisticated with one another and it's so weird to read because while the idols themselves can say something completely casually, the subs will make them sound proper and formal. It's awkward, because that's not how the members worded it at all. Grammar, sentence structure, word choice included. In interviews or other actual formal settings, I don't mind as much since it makes sense, but in variety? They're supposed to be looser, more fun, and adhere less to that pro/perfect standard since it's variety content for their fans, not an interview with a reporter. Having Eng subs that make the idols sound boring and like they're writing a research paper isn't the way to go about translating conversations guys...
There's lots of moments like these where conversations between NCT127's members or even all the members speaking at once are translated so stiffly and awkwardly in 'Fill it Up'.
At the 4:14 mark, the members are making a schedule of what to do on their two-day vacation. Haechan says "We'll eat lunch from 2 to 2:30". And I think Taeyong (correct me on this, his face wasn't shown when speaking) says, "??? 야 30분 점심은 좀 그렇지 않아?" which I would translate to, with nuance and everything included again, "Hey (야), isn't a 30-minute lunch a bit too short???" since in Korean, Taeyong doesn't actually say it's short explicitly, he says it like "don't you think it's a bit [short]?" with the 'short' omitted.
But that 1-to-1 translation is a bit weird and imo Eng translations should adhere to what sounds right in English (while keeping it accurate), so going with my rough translation would be better than the direct version. You can read Taeyong's tone in what I wrote without having to watch the video to hear him, right? Maybe laughing a little, being in disbelief, pointing out to Haechan that that's impossible, etc. That can all be alluded in what I translated. But what do we get in the actual English subs?
Haechan: "Let's have lunch from 2 or 2:30" (he did not say 'or' in Korean but we move on)
Taeyong: "That's too short"
That's it. End of story. I get this is being incredibly picky, but really? So much meaning was taken away from that sentence. Sure, it's one sentence out of a thousand in this video, but all the other lines are pretty much like this too. In the video, we can't even see his face as he says it and can only listen to his voice and tone. He laughs in the beginning a little bit while he says it but that's about as much context as we get. Just reading "That's too short" in comparison to "Hey, isn't a 30-minute lunch a bit too short???" is so off-putting and wipes out his attitude and personality that comes along with how he says it. Yes, subs can get long. Therefore you can shorten it without losing its tone and meaning. "Hey, isn't that a bit too short???" is still a lot better than "That's too short." and again, without the question mark. This happens in multiple occasions and I'll just spit out examples without going as in depth as I did with this one. Poor word choices leads to poor connotations, leading to the audience to not be able to empathize or understand properly what the idols mean.
7:23-- Jungwoo and Jaehyun making jokes about the chihuahua in front of them, saying it looks like it worked out and went to the gym because of how buff it is. By the way, this is supposed to be funny. At least it was to me, until I read the English subtitles.

• What Jungwoo actually said: "아니 아니 형! 얘 운동 좀 했는데?" (roughly translating/alluding to "No, no, hyung! He (the dog) looks like he's worked out a bit?")
• What Eng subs Jungwoo said: "He has worked out a bit."

Sounds too sophisticated for a joke. Like really, too sophisticated. Not even a "he's". It's "He has". Awkward, uptight, unfunny. Not to mention it completely omits "No, no, hyung!". Anyone can hear Jungwoo say 'something something hyung'. What's so wrong with putting it in subs? Anyway...
8:01-- Haechan, Doyoung, Johnny about to cook. Doyoung says to remove some of the ingredients because everyone doesn't eat that much. Haechan, on the other hand, wants the ingredients and reaches to get them. Haechan's supposed to be like "still~" in response to Doyoung (and you can hear it in his voice and see it on his expression). Not humor, but the way he expressed his disagreement gets lost in translation.

• Doyoung: "First, we don't need these 3... We don't eat that much"
• What Haechan actually said: "아이~ 그래도" (roughly translating to "Heyy/Come on~ still!" or like a "Nah~ still!" if we're going even more casual)
• What Eng subs Haechan said: "Hey"

Yes. That was it. Just "Hey". I would understand if they at least put "Hey~" to follow in with Haechan's fluctuation of voice and tone. But no. Just "Hey".
9:15-- Mark helping Doyoung pour in sauce. Doyoung & Taeil tell Mark not to put in too much.

• Taeil: "I don't think you need a lot"
• What Mark actually said: "근데... 많이 더 해도 될 거 같은데?" (roughly translating to "But... I think we can put more?")
• What Eng subs Mark said: "But you should add a lot"

Makes Mark sound like he knows his stuff LMAO! He was actually being doubtful and questioning Taeil and Mark, but in Eng subs, it sounds like he's insisting it. And just seeing those two dialogues together without context is super super awkward. Taeil says "I don't think you need a lot", then right after, Mark says "But you should add a lot". Doesn't it sound off?
11:15-- Yuta playing with the dog and the dog is licking him/itself I can't really tell. This translation's kind of literal so it's a bit funny lol.

• What Yuta actually said: "낼름x4" (roughly translating to "mlem x4" which is just a sound effect of licking, cutely in this instance)
• What Eng subs Yuta said: "Licking"

I shed a tear I think.
And there's so so so so so many more examples, but that would make the post way longer than it already is LMAO. So my thing is, I know translators work hard. It probably takes a long time and hell, they need to study up on inside jokes and such too. But man... I just wish it could be better. Maybe I'm being too picky and entitled as a Korean-speaker. But I also rely on English subtitles sometimes, and it's jarring to know idols are being translated so poorly like this on their own freaking shows. This is variety content. It's supposed to showcase idols' personalities and more casual sides of them as they interact with their fellow groupmates and play games and whatnot. Having the idols sound like robots and professional essay writers in subtitles aren't going to do anything for the English-speaking audience who want to see them for their personality, jokes, humor, so on. I do know that fans probably can just tell when subtitles aren't right and can know enough from the members' faces and actions for context, but it would be so much better to read accurate translations in real time and have a good laugh rather than having to interpret it correctly in their heads with only context clues given.
Languages are understandably hard to translate. There's no guarantee that everything gets translated correctly either. I know that. But there are so many work arounds that can cater to the English-speaking audience who know English slang, casual vocabulary, etc. English translators don't have to be 100% faithful to the Korean if it means changing it up to cater to the English audience for better understanding, but they can do it WHILE KEEPING IT ACCURATE AND IN CHARACTER! WITH CORRECT CONNOTATION! KEEPING THE NUANCES! But I do think translators work hard and I respect them. It just upsets me how it feels lazy and super unnatural, and I can't imagine how it would feel as a fan who doesn't speak Korean to read these kinds of subs. Maybe it's just me though.
TLDR: I am super super sorry for the long post. Basically, as a Korean-American who is semi-fluent in Korean but also relies on English subtitles sometimes, I am baffled by how off English subtitles are, especially in regards to nuance, sentence structure, connotations, word choices, and tone in Kpop groups' variety content. Variety content is supposed to be that. Variety. It's supposed to be fun. But more often than not, I see dialogue translated to sound like it came straight from a college research essay. The members sound sophisticated in English subtitles sometimes, and it just makes everything super awkward and just uptight. It doesn't sound like casual conversations at all, and rather takes away so much of the members' personalities and attitudes as they're speaking. It doesn't keep true to character, and it isn't even accurate. I do know 1-to-1 translations are hard between languages, but there are numerous work arounds to cater to audiences specific to those translated languages. It's just frustrating to see. But I do know translating work is hard and not everything can be perfect. I was watching NCT127's 'Fill it Up', which inspired this post, and noticed one too many differences from what they actually said and what the English subtitles said and drove me up the wall. Still, kudos to translators because I know it's a long process and there's not that many either. Just something I wish could be done better for not only NCT127, but a lot of other Kpop groups.