I am not the Original Poster. That is u/Melodic_Swordfish_27. They posted in AmItheAsshole.
Trigger Warning: transphobia, misgendering
Original Post: May 17, 2023
I [27NB] have a best friend [33M] who's getting married. He asked me to be a groomsperson, I told him I didn't feel comfortable taking a spot from his brothers (he has six brothers, all adopted, all of which he's pretty close to and I felt like he should ask them first) and he agreed. So he proposed to his fiancée [29F] that I be a bridesmaid. She asked if I would be interested and I asked if I had to wear a dress or not. She got kinda snippy with me saying "I'm doing this because he wants you in the wedding" and "just be a normal girl for a single night" so I told her I was uninterested in being a bridesmaid. I was actually pretty hurt and considered not even going to the wedding.
Best friend texts me asking why I said no to being a bridesmaid and I told him exactly why. He said she's been stressed with planning and to just give her a chance. So I decide to suck it up and work with her to find an outfit that I can at least wear. We find a few nice dresses and I'm going to just grin and bear it until fiancée asks if we can shorten the dress. I tell her I'm not comfortable going any shorter (it was already above my knees) and she made a comment about me needing to show off "my girlish ways" more to which I respond "I'm not a girl, I don't want to look hyper feminine."
We get into an argument to which she eventually just says "this is the issue with lesbians" (I'm not a lesbian). So I leave and text my best friend "sorry but I'm not going to be attending your wedding. Your fiancée is making really uncomfortable at this point and I think it best I just not be there."
He thinks I'm being an asshole and that I should just put up with her for a single night but this isn't a one night thing. I'm likely losing a friend if he marries her because I don't ever want to be around her.
Relevant Comments:
Can the bridal parties just be uneven on one side?
"Because she "needs" it to be a "lucky" number or something like that. Idk she's wiccan or something so I guess it's a religious thing but 🤷‍♂️
Also we met in high school and I was very much so not the embodiment of traditional femininity. I was actually much more masc in my teen years (ah yes, going to extremes to rebel against societal expectations haha)"
Can't you just suck it up and wear the dress?
"I was fine with sucking it up and wearing the dress. I'm not fine with wearing a minidress.
Let's also add I still get confused for a high schooler and get carded at bars because of how young I look (drinking age is 19 here) because of puberty blockers."
OOP is voted NTA
Update (Same Post): May 20, 2023 (3 days later)
So I took your guys' advice and text my best friend earlier the other day saying "ik I've been weird lately, can we just talk? Just us."
He agreed and we went out for lunch. I told him why I couldn't attend his wedding and that, as much as I love him, I can't be around his fiancée and that he had a decision to make. He told me he wasn't aware she was being so toxic and that he'd talk to her because it "didn't sound like her." I told him to do what he needed to.
About three hours later I get a text from fiancée telling me I'm a homewrecker and that I need to stay out of their relationship. I block her number so idk if she continued after.
Eventually, best friend asks if we can all get dinner. I agree and we get dinner at a local chain. He tries to sort out what happened, she doesn't deny it at all. Eventually he asks his fiancée why she never brought up her views on LGBTQ people knowing I was in the picture and she says something like "other women shouldn't be in your life" to which he corrects her that I'm not a woman and she says "she is though!"
I try to excuse myself and she makes a comment about me having an emotional affair with her fiancée to which I respond "no, I just don't want to be around you anymore."
Best friend offers to drive me home and I tell him to sort things out with his fiancée and I'll have my bf pick me up and that he clearly needs to have a conversation with the woman he's about to marry. He walks me to the curb and waits with me until my bf gets there (it was pretty late and not a great area of town) and asks what I'd do. I tell him "if our positions were reversed I would've left her without needing to drag this out like this." To which he tells me I'm being a bit unfair and I apologise and tell him to lmk if I still have a best friend.
Bf asks if he wants me to have him go over to their place the next day and pick up my belongings and I tell him no.
Got a text this morning from best friend telling me he needs time to consider things but that he appreciates me coming to him. I apologise again. We haven't talked since. I'm honestly just emotionally numb at this point.
Update Post 2: May 23, 2023 (6 days from OG post)
So final update. Doing it here to avoid creating more of a wall of text on my original post.
Best friend text me earlier today asking me if I'd let him stay with me and my bf. I ran it past my bf, he agreed so we moved him into the guest room. He called out of work, used up his sick leave and is not with fiancée anymore.
He's pretty broken up about the whole thing and honestly I briefly questioned whether or not I should've just let him live in ignorance but I'm glad I told him. If he ever has kids or his siblings come out or anything I'd hate for them to need to be around fiancée.
He's agreed to watch my kids (2F, 2M, and 5F) and help out around the house so we're not gonna make him pay rent, especially after breaking up with his fiancée. Babysitting twin toddlers is rent enough.
So overall a happy ending but I'm not sure really where we stand. I think it'll take some time but I'm not gonna drop my best friend of over a decade if he's not gonna marry a transphobe. So hopefully no major issues with our relationship going forward.

I am not the Original Poster. That is u/throwawaymom_12. She posted in AmItheAsshole.
Mood Spoiler: hopeful
Original Post: May 19, 2023
I (33F) am married to John (35M). Together we have a daughter (3F) and are currently expecting our second child together. We both also have a child from previous relationships: I have Liam (8M) from my previous marriage, and my husband has Ava (10F).
I make Sunday lunch for my family every week. On Friday, Liam asked if I could make stuffing without onions this week. Liam doesn't normally eat stuffing. He tried it a few times, decided he wasn't a fan, and that was it. He tried it with his dad the weekend before (we have 50/50 custody, so our weekends vary) and liked it. I agreed, and on Sunday made my son his own stuffing without onions. It's no big deal, after all, and I'm happy to make separate portions of anything if it means my children eat more.
This is where the problem starts. We sit at the dining table and John points out that Liam has stuffing on his plate. Liam tells him that I made him stuffing without onions, because he likes it without the onions. Immediately, I noticed Ava's mood sour, and when I pressed her, she asked why I didn't make her stuffing without onions when she'd asked about it months ago. Now, I'd understand where she was coming from if she'd actually asked but I had no clue what she was talking about. I said as much, and she told me that she'd brought it up with John, who said he'd talk to me. John never spoke to me about it, and told Ava that it was 'too much work' for me to take out the onions just for her.
John said he didn't tell me because he thought it'd be too hard on me, wanted to make things easier, thought I'd only say no anyway. He even said that it didn't make sense to make a separate portion for just one person. He said it was stupid that I'd even done it for Liam. He said the kids should learn to either make do with onions or not have stuffing at all, because not everything in life is going to go their way. I called him an idiot. I then went to the kitchen and got the rest of the onion-less stuffing for Ava to try.
Later that evening, Ava went back to her mother's and told her what happened, which caused an argument between her and John (and they're not on good terms anyway). John has been angry with me since. He says it's my fault Ava (and her mother) is mad at him. He says I should've just left the 'd*mn stuffing' alone, that I'm just spoiling my son by giving into him like that. There's been some name-calling, but I'd rather not repeat what he said.
Liam must have told Mike what happened, too, because he's told me that he thinks John is overreacting. John's mother and older sister think I'm an a-hole, but his brother has told me to just ignore him. My parents are also on my side, because they used to make separate portions for me when I was a child if I didn't like a specific ingredient. My sister told me to post on here to see if the majority think I'm in the wrong or not. So, I dread to ask, am I the a-hole for making a separate portion of stuffing to suit my son's taste?
Relevant Comments:
Has your husband been saying things to the children about food behind your back? Is it a behavior he exhibited with his ex?
"I hadn't thought about that. Liam hasn't mentioned anything, but I'll have to have a talk with him just in case. I'll ask his father if he's said anything about John, too. Thank you!"
"I definitely will. I'm in charge of pick up this week, so it'll definitely be addressed before I head home. I'll be stopping at Mike's place to talk with him and Liam about John, and then I'll talk with Ava and her mom when I pick her up. There have been a lot of helpful comments and I've realised I need to talk to John's ex, too, to see if this is behaviour that he exhibited when they were married"
Is this anger a pattern of behavior for John?
"He has always had a habit of calling names when he's angry, but he never used to get angry all that often"
"John hasn't always been this bull-headed. He's kind and funny, and he loves the kids. But I'll admit there's been a change in him over the last few months."
"Thank you, I really appreciate it. He is normally very good to us, but he has been quicker to anger these past few months after I found out I was pregnant with our second child together. Hopefully it'll get better after our talk. Thank you again!"
Did you call him an idiot in front of the kids?
"I'll admit calling him an idiot wasn't my best moment. I didn't say it aggressively by any means, but looking back it was wrong to do so. Definitely a slip of the tongue and not something I practice often (especially in front of the kids). I was just blown away, honestly"
OOP decides what else to do:
"Thank you. As bizarre as this argument has been, it's definitely been an eye-opener. I'm planning on showing him these comments tonight when our daughter is in bed. I also plan to have a long talk and air everything out before Liam and Ava come home tomorrow"
Can you teach the kids to make their own food too?
"That's another thing! Liam and Ava do sometimes help out when I'm making the dinner on Sundays. If they're not otherwise engaged (because holding a child's attention can sometimes be a battle), they'll help me with peeling the potatoes or stirring the gravy, etc. John has always been hands-off on Sunday dinners!"
OOP is voted NTA
Update Post: May 23, 2023 (4 days later)
Hi everyone. Before I begin, I just wanted to thank everyone for the overwhelming number of comments and messages I received as a response to my original post. Because of the support and advice that a lot of you gave me, I wanted to come back and give you all an update on how things have progressed since then.
On Friday night, aka a few hours after I posted, I sat down with my husband after he put our 3yo to bed to talk about what had transpired and why he reacted the way that he did. We spent fifteen minutes just reading through comments and messages you guys left, and John was ashamed. He was also very hurt that his reaction (i.e. the name calling) was, in the eyes of the majority, bordering on abuse. He was disgusted with himself.
Now onto the onion debacle. I'm not going to quote everything he said word for word, but it boils down to this: John's dad was very strict when it came to meals. You ate what you were given, and that was that. If John or his siblings ever expressed their dislike for something on their plate, even if it was just one thing, then the meal would be thrown out and they'd go to bed hungry. His dad drilled into him the same "not everything goes your way" mentality that John expressed last week. No one ever told John any different growing up. His mom followed the same rules even after his parents divorced. His dad remarried and John's step-mom was just as bad. If John wanted something, it was an automatic 'no' from her. John didn't tell me about Ava's request because he didn't want me to shut her down as coldly as he was. I guess it was two traumas with one stone.
Then it comes to the anger. Again, I'm summarising here, but John attributes it to stress. He feels overwhelmed with the kids and the pregnancy, and his work has been particularly busy over the last few months. He feels constantly frustrated and doesn't know how to bring that down. But then he asked a question that really blew my mind. He asked if I was having an affair with my ex-husband/Liam's father. Apparently his mom (lovely lady) made a comment about how close we were, how it was 'unnatural', and it's been playing on his mind since. I'll admit that Mike (my ex-husband) and I are close. We're friends. We have a child together. But we don't love each other anymore. All of this I told my husband. I asked if I did something to make him not trust me on that.
Well, after four years of marriage, I found out why John and his ex-wife hate each other. She had an affair. He didn't want to tell me because he was embarrassed and he wanted to put it behind him. He also didn't want me to hate her and maybe have that ruin my relationship with Ava, because it was his pain (his 'burden') to carry. He's bitter because she never apologised and blamed him for the affair. He's apologised profusely for the pain he has caused me and our children. I apologised for calling him an idiot. We both agreed no onions on Sunday.
Despite this exhausting and enlightening conversation with John, I still sat down and spoke with Liam the next day when I went to pick him up from Mike's. Liam said John has never said anything 'weird' to him, nor has he gotten angry/yelled at him, he's never raised a hand. Mike said that Liam has never mentioned anything to him about John. He also said that Liam still brings up the time that John took him and Ava to the zoo when I was pregnant with our youngest.
I also decided to go ahead and talk with John's ex-wife, Izzy. I asked her if John was ever 'hotheaded' when they were together, and she said that he'd get angrier with stress. I then asked about the affair, because while I wanted to believe my husband unconditionally, I needed to hear it from her side. She admitted it. She said that she 'connected' with a guy from her job. She said she doesn't feel guilty about it, because it felt like John was waiting for an excuse to leave, because that's exactly what he did. They argued, and he left, and that was it. Neither of them fought for their marriage, and Izzy's bitterness is mostly due to the fact that, when they were in the process of divorcing, John ordered a DNA test on Ava because the affair made him question if he was really Ava's father.
There were no onions on Sunday. John has agreed not only to couple's counselling but to solo counselling as well. We're also considering family therapy, but before we commit to it, I want to get Mike and Izzy's opinions since they're the other parent of our respective children. John has also apologised to both Ava and Liam separately for the incident. He made the stuffing this weekend with Ava, no onions. It was nice. John even apologised to my parents for being a no-show last week. It's been very stressful, but I love my husband. I believe that he can grow from this. I know him to be kind, and funny, and just a good man overall. I hope from the bottom of my heart that things will be looking up by the time we welcome our son into this world.
Thank you to everyone who has left comments and messages again. I genuinely believe that your advice may have helped save our marriage. Or, at the very least, given me the strength I needed to save it myself.

In the summer of 2018, Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green were traded to the Toronto Raptors, ending San Antonio’s title contention window. Each year afterwards, at least one former Spur has played in the finals. Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. Danny Green. Bryn Forbes. Derrick White.
And this year, nobody. But the Spurs did land the number 1 pick in the draft and are rumored to draft a potentially generational talent named Victor Wembanyama. Has the Spurs title window reopened?

Today marks a very special age milestone for me as Ive turned 16. For it being such a special milestone in life, I don't feel very special. I feel like people around me treated it so normally and casually. Most interactions felt like it mattered less than previous birthdays with less special numbers attached. All I've done today was babysit and eat a bowl of week old chilli (which has already come back to haunt me.) My family didn't even wish me happy birthday. Only 2 of my friends wished me a happy birthday. Now that the final minutes are ticking until the day is over, it makes me wonder, is today really even that special? So far, it hasnt really felt special. It felt normal, like any other day. I'm sitting in bed just contemplating the why's.

Hello, I've been working on revising an old magic system to fit with a new story, and I wanted to get some feedback on if my system works well or not. It's a long one, but feel free to hit me with any questions/comments/criticisms about it! Please excuse the inconstent capitalization though, I'm working on it.
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An Occultists’ Guide to Boundaries
All of reality is built on boundaries. A boundary is a metaphysical container for both the physical matter and the concepts defining an object. For example, imagine for a moment a ball sitting on a table. Now imagine an invisible skin, wrapped tightly around the entire surface area of the ball, encapsulating all the information and properties of the ball. Now imagine that invisible skin suddenly disappeared, leading the concepts that once filled it to just drift away. They might be infused into the table, making it ‘bright red’, or ‘round’. They could get into the air making it ‘bouncy’ or ‘safe for children ages 2+’. The stuff that makes the ball would still be around, but the ball itself wouldn't. For an object to exist, it must be distinct from the things around it. Without boundaries separating ‘thing’ from ‘thing’, the whole universe would be just one big ‘thing’.
This is the basis of Occult practices. Being an occultist starts with the manipulation of boundaries, as the space within them is where magic is performed. That is why, when an occultist begins their studies, the first power they gain is usually simple telekinesis, as manipulating the position of a boundary is good practice. We tend to call those who never move past that stage ‘espers’ or ‘psychics’ or something of the same effect, and even though they are just scratching the surface of what the occult can do, they can get to be fairly powerful.
A basic, widespread (but not universally applicable) law of boundaries is that they have a natural resistance to being manipulated, which is in most cases tied to the surface area of the object. An interesting application of this is that there is functionally no difference in trying to telekinetically move a cardboard box and a solid steel cube of the same size. However, when it comes to destroying a boundary, the difficulty of doing so is all in the ‘complexity’ (this is hard to define, but it will make more sense later) of the object. Stronger occultists will be able to destroy or create more complex phenomena at larger scales.
Since the creation, destruction, and manipulation of boundaries is a fundamental skill for occultists, many different exercises have been devised to help expand a beginning practitioner's skill in doing so. One popular one is trying to destroy the boundaries of small objects, such as playing cards or snack foods, and quickly capturing all the escaped concepts by creating a spherical boundary around them. This can lead to some delightfully non-euclidean objects, especially when you destroy and re-capture the concepts of two different objects into one boundary, but it is a very dangerous way to practice. One could end up not capturing the concepts in time and end up turning themselves ‘easily tearable’ or ‘appetizing to ants’ without the knowledge of how to reverse that.
The analogy of a weightlifter in training may be the most appropriate since an occultist’s ability will grow like a muscle over time, only one that doesn’t plateau in strength. But like any muscle, they will get tired if they go on too long, which will greatly increase their chances of causing an accident.
​
Reality and You
Reality is everything that is real. Every object, entity, or phenomenon that exists and is not fictional is a part of reality. If you can measure it, it's real. There aren’t very many other ways to describe this, but humans generally have a solid grasp of what is real and what is not due to being real themselves. However, not all parts of reality are equal.
All magic happens inside a boundary wherein reality is measurably degraded. There is a special, magical, and incredibly complex machine that can measure the ‘level’ of reality within a boundary. The baseline level, the level wherein everything that isn't the occult takes place, was set to be 10 on the Non-Reality Scale (the NRS for short), and anything below that is magic.
But why would one want to degrade reality? Hypothetically, when someone is pouring themselves a cup of water, they would prefer a fresh, clean glass, to one that hasn’t been washed in years. This is because they want to avoid contamination. Spellwork has the same idea, where to pour what they want into a boundary, the occultist first has to ‘wash’ everything they don’t want out.
That is not to say that less reality is always better. A reality that is too low level can mess with spellwork, or cause a dangerous accident if the boundary is flawed. This is because to complete the final step of the casting, one must reintegrate their degraded reality back to the baseline (that is, if they want anything more than an intangible illusion). The extent to which one would want to degrade reality fully depends on what they want to do with the boundary they are creating. For example, one did not want to use it for drinking, but it would be perfectly fine to use it to water a houseplant. And most people would not be bleaching out a clean cup before drinking from it, even if it has a bit of dust in it. In the same way, in most cases, an occultist does not need to purge absolutely everything from their boundary, and will instead want to selectively degrade reality to a certain level.
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Mana, the Soul, and Concepts
A Concept is the abstract idea of the matter within a boundary. For example, the boundary of the ball I described earlier contains the physical matter of the ball, but it also contains the Concept of the ball. The Concept can be imagined as an index of every piece of information about the ball, with each piece being called an Attribute. Attributes of the ball’s Concept could include its weight, size, bounciness, flammability, or any other property that one could measure from the ball. Being a Concept and being an Attribute are not mutually exclusive, and it is relative to what the caster is referring to at the moment. Technically, all Concepts are Attributes of the Universe, which contains everything, so it's best to think of each Concept as a part of a greater whole, which is in turn made of smaller parts. With this comes the idea that a concept cannot be created or destroyed (of course, there are those annoying exceptions), only constructed and deconstructed.
The basis of spellwork is simple. Create a boundary, degrade its reality, fill it with a bunch of Attributes to form the Concept of the phenomena you want to create, reintegrate reality, and presto, you have a spell. This process is fundamentally the same for most spellcraft, making a well-practiced occultist very versatile. However, it is the complexity within each of these steps that requires research to understand, skill to navigate, and training to pull off.
Every living thing has a boundary, and every living thing has a Concept. Except for living things, we tend to call the Concept a ‘soul’. There is no real difference, and there is a constant debate over what has a soul. Bacteria are generally deemed soulless, robots and magically animated constructs have been rhetorically argued to have souls, and there is debate around what stage of birth or death does the soul of a corpse become just a Concept. But it is generally agreed that living humans have a soul, and within the soul, there is an Attribute called mana. Mana is the fuel that is required to perform anything to do with the occult. Manipulating boundaries, degrading and reintegrating reality, and working with concepts all require mana.
Almost everyone starts with a very low amount of mana. Most humans only have enough to perform small miracles in moments of great stress, such as a parent being able to lift a car to save their child or a firefighter obtaining enhanced perception in a burning building. Mana, however, can be grown over time like a muscle. After continuous depletion of one's mana reserves, the maximum amount that can be ‘refilled’ during rest increases.
There is a widespread standard for measuring how much mana one has. It requires a half-inch diameter, clear glass marble enchanted with a Concept that causes it to output light in a manner directly proportional to the amount of mana poured into it. An occultist can push as much mana as they can into it and measure the irradiance of the light produced by the marble with a photometer to find their maximum output.
Besides mana, the soul also contains Attributes for one's familiarity with other Concepts. Concept familiarity determines how well an occultist can summon, read, or build a concept. Familiarity is gained in several different ways. For example, an occultist skilled in the art of pyromancy may be a grad student who’s spent many sleepless nights studying thermodynamics and exothermic reactions, a person from an icy village who spent a lot of time near the fireplace as a child, or a serial arsonist who thinks fire is incredibly beautiful. All of these people would be familiar with the Concept of fire. In other words, research, experience, and passion are all equally valid ways to gain familiarity with a concept.
There are three ways to get a concept into a boundary. The first way is to summon it, using one's will to draw in a concept and use it directly during spellwork. This is generally considered the best method for any occult performance for various reasons, as its only real downside is that it requires a very high level of familiarity with the Concept one is trying to summon. However, it requires no material components to pull off and does not produce any backlash (an important idea that will be explained later). This is why most mages choose to spend their life within one field of similar Concepts, increasing their familiarity with a small group of Concepts, trading some versatility to be able to pull off Concept summoning efficiently.
On a side note, there is the popular idea of the ‘four elements’ system of magic. While the idea of earth, air, fire, and water being base elements of the universe has no real truth to it, the fact that they are things one commonly interacts with and are fairly visual makes them perfect for summoning.
The next way to obtain a Concept is through reading. This method takes an object that has a desired Concept or Attributes, destroys its boundary, and adds said Concept or Attributes into the spell. Reading allows an occultist to work with a Concept that they aren’t familiar with, although they should have some level of familiarity if they want to work with it safely. Unfortunately, reading requires you to destroy a material component and leads to backlash. The result is that spellwork done with Concept reading needs more preparation than summoning, and may require rare or expensive materials. The amount of material destroyed, however, does not matter when trying to read a Concept, so long as it is enough that the occultist can reasonably focus on it. For example, if one was trying to read the Concept of gold, the casting will be the same with a few specks of the stuff as with an entire bar.
The final method, Concept building, is the least. Building requires a mage to take several different Concepts and use them as Attributes to construct an entirely new Concept. For example, the Concept of ‘the superpower of human flight’, which doesn’t exist naturally, could be built using the Concepts of ‘weightlessness’ and ‘propulsion’ and ‘human will’. Building has all the drawbacks of reading compounded, so it is very rarely used and requires great skill. But the power to make fiction reality, even more so than any other type of magic, is incredibly appealing, and many occultists spend their entire life trying to bring a permanent concept into the world.
Concepts are not completely objective. For example, a modern person likely associates the color black with things like death, darkness, or despair. In ancient Egypt, however, the color had a more positive connotation, being associated with fertility and festival, since black soil, not white, is where one could grow the crops. Concepts work similarly, and different ones can have different meanings to different people from different cultures and backgrounds. It is completely unknown how modern magic continues to work with so many different ways of looking at the same Concept.
​
And Now for the Bad: Backlash
Once again, imagine a ball sitting on a table. Remember how I said destroying its boundary could lead to the table and air around it lead to the table and air around it obtaining some of its properties, or as we now know to call them, Attributes? This is also how I described some of the side effects of improperly doing the ill-advised boundary exercise from the boundary section.
Both of those are simplified examples of backlash.
When an occultist performs a Concept reading, they are picking out the Attributes they want and exposing the rest to outside reality. If left uncontained, the rest of the Attributes will diffuse into other nearby boundaries, giving the caster’s surroundings (and likely the caster themself) properties that they likely do not want. This is a backlash. Worse, as the free Attributes look for a new boundary, they randomly and chaotically deconstruct themselves into simpler Attributes (for example, the attribute ‘fire’ may deconstruct into ‘heat’ and ‘light’), multiplying the number of Concepts diffusing over time, increasing the scale and chaos of the event.
The resistance of an object's boundary to being destroyed scales somewhat on the complexity of the Concept it contains, and therefore, more complex objects that would cause bigger backlashes are naturally harder (as in they require more mana) to destroy. This acts as a sort of natural safeguard for the occult, stopping just any aspiring wizard from accidentally rending cities uninhabitable or wiping large swaths of land off the map.
Be they geometric shapes or runes in an unknown language, the main purpose of a magic circle (or any shape for that matter) is to contain and safely dispose of backlash. Over time, occultists have found ways to take common aspects and successfully break them down into their most harmless components, allowing them to be dissipated safely, and history has provided a good base for the backlash of just about any spell to be properly contained, with a bit of research. A very skilled occultist will be able to properly command backlash to harness it and enhance their spells, controlling the decay of Concepts to find simpler Attributes needed for the main spell or to set off smaller secondary spells to support the original.
Another way of dissipating backlash is with somatic action, or using one’s body in the same fashion as a magic circle. The danger of this should be clear, but it allows the caster to dissipate backlash without having to prepare a magic circle.
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Reintegration and Types
The last part of any occult spellwork is normally the easiest. You just have to stop trying. For sorceries and rituals, firing off a spell is just like firing a bow. If creating a spell boundary is notching the arrow, and gathering Concepts is pulling back and aiming, then the final casting is simply letting the arrow fly as it will. There is some skill involved with the speed and grace of an occultist's mental disengagement, but for the most part, reality itself will do most of the job as it brings one's Concepts back to a level 10 NRS and makes the phenomenon ‘real’. This means that after one creates their fireball, all they have to do is bring it into existence and define its parameters, and throwing it costs no extra mana on your part. That also means that a fireball, once thrown, cannot be altered or taken back unless one creates a completely new boundary to counter it.
I mentioned sorceries and rituals. Those are two of the three ‘types’ (not to be confused with ‘schools’) of the occult.
The first is sorcery, the stereotypical form of magic. Sorceries use summoned Concepts and don't require materials or magic circles or somatic actions. If you see a wizard concentrate for a moment, and something weird happens afterward, you saw a sorcery.
Next are rituals. Magic circles, material components, somatic gestures, and multiple casters are all hallmarks of this type, and it includes anything that creates a new boundary but isn't sorcery.
Lastly, there is enchantment. Enchantment either creates an instant phenomenon on another material, or a permanent artifact meant to be used repeatedly. The idea is, that the spellwork one does is not within a completely new boundary, but is done by adding or removing Concepts from a pre-existing boundary. For example, an occultist could permanently add an ‘unbearably cold’ concept to the blade of a sword, or instantly change the enemy's skeletal system to be ‘highly combustible when submerged in blood’.
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Schools and Applications
There are quite a few ‘schools’ of the occult, general categories occultists put spellwork into. Schools can include things like ‘divination’, ‘necromancy’, or ‘war artifice’.
An example of a specific school of magic is called ‘name sympathy’. Almost all human souls have a ‘name’ Attribute, as it is standard practice to name your children in modern times. One’s name generally is one of their most prominent Attributes, so it is not a difficult task to target a person by using just their name. This is where the school of name sympathy shines, using traces of one’s person to find out their name and affect their soul directly. Sometimes this is used for good and is especially effective when used in conjunction with the ‘healing’ school of magic. Most times, though, it's used for magical murder.
Immortality is not a school of magic per se, since it is just one Concept, but that concept is so hard to build that it takes as much research and effort as any real school. The thing about immortality is that it is very hard to balance. The human body is made up of millions of small parts, all of them living and reproducing and dying constantly. Sure, one could just enchant themselves with the Concept of ‘life’ and apply their mana, but that would immediately give them cancer in every organ. And since there are no real immortal creatures to read the Concept from, in practice, an occultist seeking immortality has to build the Concept from the ground up, and doing so has taken so long and has been failed by so many that most believe that it's completely impossible.
An occultist may completely copy a concept into another boundary. That is called conjuration, one of the other greatly researched struggles of the occult. In most spells, the physical material attached to the Concept within the boundary is left out. When an occultist tries to completely recreate an object with mass or energy, (for example, if you were trying to use gold to make more gold), they are trying to add more matter to the universe than there originally was. And they will accomplish this, thoroughly breaking the law of conservation of mass. However, reality hates when its laws are broken, and it will attack the conjured object, destroying it completely within moments. The whole problem with conjuration is trying to make it work long enough to be applicable for anything more than its primary use for split seconds of attack or defense in the middle of battle, especially given how mana intensive it is. A promising line of study has involved trying to create an equal amount of ‘dark matter’ at the same time as the actual conjuration, balancing out reality.
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All About Artifice
Artificing is another application of the occult, but it is an expansive field that warrants a section of its own. It is generally defined as using enchantment to permanently imbue an item with a Concept.
Artifacts are the most accessible way to use magic. Unlike sorceries and rituals, which require magical knowledge and practice to use, the only real requirement for activating an artifact is to push mana into it yourself. And since everyone with a soul has at least a small amount of mana, anyone can pick up an artifact and use it with minimal training. A good example of this was the ancient Greek phalanx, which was not only the name of the military formation, but also what they called the combined magical gear used by the people in it, comprised of animated spears that automatically targeted vital points, shields that inflicted magical fear, and helmets that stopped arrows in their tracks.
Potions are another example of artifice, though technically they belong to its subschool, alchemy. A potion is any ingestible, magical liquid that gives a beneficial effect to the drinker when they apply mana to the unmetabolized quantity of it within their bloodstream. Solids versions of this concept are called boluses, and gasses are generally deemed too hard to work with. Potions can only be activated by the drinker, meaning there are not many ways to create alchemical poison without convincing one's victim to course mana through their own bloodstream.

Well this was suggested for me to do considering the desperate circumstances I find myself in. I'm looking for Paypal or CashApp or Zelle donations to use for a $5,000 retainer to hire legal counsel! And here's why...
I will be brutally honest even though the truth may turn people from wanting to help due to the stigma and stereotypical mind sets people seem to carry towards those that suffer from drug addiction and mental health issues. I suffer from a mental health diagnosis called shizo-effective depressive type. I also had a heroin addiction for many many years. In 2017 I had been on methodone for several years at a 50mg daily dose at your local friendly methodone clinic. I also drank daily, Id buy a fifth of Captain Morgan on my way home from work everyday. Id drink about 3/4 of this fifth daily after work. For years this went on all the while I worked doing basement waterproofing 6 days a week, running a jack hammer daily or digging huge deep holes around the outside perimeter of homes. I rented a small apartment a mile away from the beach, had a live in girlfriend, paid all my bills with simply one paycheck out of the monthly 4 pay cycles. Life was seemingly perfect! Compared to my earlier years of homelessness and heroin addiction. Slept in abandoned houses on the east side of Detroit, drug houses, homeless shelters and warming centers in the winter months. I committed retail frauds daily to support my drug habit, to eat, to support every financial need I had. Inevitably I did alot of time in county jails. Visited over 12 county jails and was a repeat customer at several of the jails. I spent approximately 5-6 years incarcerated in county jails. Then despite my crimes being non-violent, petty in nature, low class misdemeanors and felonies... The judges grew tired of my revolving door antics seemingly serving 90 days in jail out for 90 back in for 90 for over 5 years this went on. With quite a few 6 month sentences and a couple 1 year sentences. After being viewed as a career criminal with no regard for the law I was sent to prison, twice actually! I served almost 6 years total with the M.D.O.C. AKA Michigan prisons. For a grand tally of almost 11 years of incarceration on the installment plan, in pieces not straight 11 years. Moving forward I got out in 2012 and turned over a new leaf after serving 3 years for stealing 10 cans of baby formula from the local Kroger market. I went on what they call M.A.T. (medicated assisted treatment) methodone. This is viewed as a "harm reduction" module, basically for the severely addicted that have a very difficult time accumulating any clean time what so ever! Methodone gave me what I imagine people would refer to as a normal life. I worked, I rented a place, I paid bills, I was a productive member of society for the first time in my life at age 30. I landed a job with the local 687 carpenters union out of Detroit worked as an apprentice on commercial cooling towers. I attended apprenticeship school, or trade school once a week for 8 hrs and collected $19 an hr to sit in class. I had a pension, an annuity, top class health insurance with an Express Scripts debit card that collected $120 a month to use toward prescriptions, doctor appts, copays etc. Life was grand I was finally proving myself to be more than the stereotyped street addict career criminal. Moving forward the carpenters union didn't pan out and unfortunately wasn't vested enough to collect any of my pension I paid into, my employer paid into for over a year. I then got into Basement Waterproofing and stuck with this trade from there on out. Well in the year 2017, 5 years out of prison now and heroin free I became ... What's the perfect adjective to use here... Complacent I suppose. Life was good had all I wanted, never went w/o. Even had the live in girlfriend situation going. Learning to step outside of my own selfish self-centered geared mentality. Into a loving compassionate individual that did my best to provide, support, love another human being. This was foreign territory for me absolutely! As before the world evolved around me me me. Safe to say I was growing and learning to live "normal" (despise that reference but seemingly fits here). I in fact was doing so well I decided I no longer needed to be on methodone and if I'm gonna stop that I may as well not drink either! I cold turkey approached a 50mg daily 5 year dose of methodone and quit drinking almost the daily fifth of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum. Now here in lies the confliction and perhaps even someone could view as controversial because I claimed to be growing and living my best life yet I was taking a strong narcotic medication and drinking daily on it! However I view this in a relative standpoint, in comparison to the way I lived prior ... Street junky retail fraud extradenair in and out of incarceration, not to mention around 20 inpatient substance abuse rehabilitation centers. So in comparison to that lifestyle I did view myself as experiencing "my best years." In fact I would still argue that logic, despite my own mother not seeing it in that perspective. Which brings me into mental health and my schizo-effective major depressive and substance abuse severe diagnosis. The classic coined term Dual Diagnosis, suffering from drug addiction and mental health issues. So to back it up briefly and quickly move forward with this because I'm honestly not wanting this to be long in the sense of people dont even contemplate reading it. But yes my decision to quit drinking and abruptly quit methodone against doctors advice to gradually wean down to a near 0mg dosage . I had made up my mind and couldn't of been more ready to see this thing thru! Well I'd say it was 10 days into my detox (methodone is a long drawn out detox due to a "half-life" term that basically means the medication builds up in your system and takes forever to not only complete a detox, but to simply feel like your self again) it gets in your bone marrow and does NOT see itself out as normally as say other drugs would! In fact I would argue that after being on methodone long term that you never fully recover from that. Simply put you never quite feel the same again, that the daily "norm feeling" is far from normal anymore. It is common knowledge that fatigue, depression, and for me, being in a never-ending state of not ever again experiencing pleasure in mundane things that (here we go again) normal people find joy in. There is no drive to do anything, to go anywhere, or simply go out and enjoy the company of socializing and interacting with other people, even loved ones. Simply put it is very difficult to find pleasure in anything, with no high or low emotions rather like being stuck at a constant medium. Combine that with chronic fatigue and a general baseline of feeling depressed. That is what it is like to come off a synthetic opiate that you took daily for 5 years or better! But I haven't even started on the mental health aspects of my experience. Back to the point of being about 10 days into my detox... I experienced what they call a drug induced psychosis. Which was basically like being schizophrenic but times 10. I was in such a state that when I watched T. V. I was being sent subliminal messages from corporate America trying to indirectly turn me on to something that was extremely important but yet no matter how hard I tried I couldn't understand "what the TV was truly trying to tell me." When I put music on I was convinced that the artists I was listening to had a direct feed into my personal life and were rapping about me, again sending me messages. When I walked down the street the traffic in the road was deliberately trying to lead me somewhere that I needed to follow or sometimes avoid. I mean it is very difficult for me to put in words what I experienced because it's like trying to write something that makes absolutely no sense, but then try to make the reader understand what I was experiencing and trying to explain. Another thing I recall was people around me in stores or wherever they would be on there cell phones talking but they weren't actually talking to anyone on their phones they were indirectly talking to me. Ill stop there with the attempted explanation of what a psychosis was like, I'm sure the reader can see it's basically going from never having any psychological issues to becoming absolutely crazy! It's like the most intense self-centered experience one could ever go thru. As everything, the traffic, people, music, television literally everything surrounding you is directed at you! As if the entire world is circulating around you because everything that happens has to do with someone or something directing a message or a signal to you. Basically I lost my fuckin mind ok. I went from never having any mental health issues perhaps a little situational depression due to my life choices, my addiction, being incarcerated etc. But nothing worthy of note nothing pre-existing here that got triggered in my detox. It wasn't like that, I wasn't previously even slightly off my rocker then thru detox it enhanced it. No it was more like being completely normal experiencing what I was considering my best life to being completely utterly insane! So naturally 3 weeks into this I had lost my job, my car broke down, and I wasn't leaving my apartment at all. It progressed and got worse for a period of, no exaggeration here, almost 3 years. I moved back in with my mother and step father in 2017. Having lost everything I worked for and accumulated, even my pets! My family thought I was gone beyond repair that I would never be myself again. I went to the psychiatric hospital a few times and they couldnt even explain what had happened or the why I ended up in such a long state of insanity. Id say it was about 2020 at which point community mental health workers had been coming to my mom's place 3 times a week to check in on me. I had been taking a medication called Abilify for quite some time at this point. And I don't know hard to elaborate on but I just kinda started to snap out of it. Then eventually I did completely snap out of it and I was wonderfully sane and capable of sitting down and having a rational conversation again. The catch was severe depression lingered, a depression that was more intense than the horrible adjustment phase of not having methodone to jump start brain synapses, and working with a completely deleted amount of dopamine and serotonin levels. It became my personality a general baseline of depressed. Sane again yes but depressed to the extreme of finding little to no pleasure in doing things. Sleeping 12 hours a day, chronic fatigue... Basically discontented at all times. At this point of my life I had been out of prison for 11 years, had 0 police contact, no problems with drug abuse at least not on the level of being anything remotely close to a street junky.
So this turned out to be way longer and more detailed then I had originally intended this to go. I'm writing this for a purpose because I am currently in trouble and I honestly do need financial assistance to acquire legal representation. A situation I never ever thought I would be in again. As I had over 10 + years outside of living in such a miserable existence of constantly worrying about being incarcerated or worrying about my next fix. So anyway I'm sharing my story here to first of all present an honest persective into my life. Yes I struggled for many years but I never once went into the how i got into heroin at age 17. I didn't play the point my finger at the adult game that turned me and my best friend onto the drug telling us it was only ketamine that is essentially non addictive. That I used heroin for the duration of a year before I new it was heroin. Finding out too late because I was already in a state of being chemically dependent. That it was in fact my best friend thru middle and high school, his older brother that turned us onto becoming junkies and mislead the whole way into thinking we were doing a drug that doesn't have serious addictive properties. I mean there are so many blame games I coulda orchestrated in this writing, perhaps sharing my own father being a crack addict that routinely embarrassed me in high school by going on crack binges then coming over to like my girlfriends house and trying to manipulate money outta them. Or having me in the car with him as a kid while he smoked crack telling me to turn my head while he blasted away 50 dollar rocks filling the entire car with crack smoke. My point is yes there was learned behaviors I picked up at an early age that perhaps made me more susceptible to turning out the way I did. Or the trauma I experienced as a child that had me running to drugs to get high at 13 years old. There were so many contributing factors but the simple truth is despite all that stuff, the trauma and learned behaviors all the things the licensed therapists will play on and then tell u it's not your fault. Well I kinda disagree with all that because no one forced me to do the things I did, I made a conscious decision every day in doing the things I did until it completely spiraled outta control and my life became completely unmanageable. Textbook powerlessness over the ability to simply say no and to just stop using. I couldn't do that, I still can't do that I have to be on medication to balance myself out if I'm not using. Because I dont feel normal or happy when I'm not on my medicine in fact I'm out right miserable. Which brings me to the current perdictment I'm in, with the legal issues. To get to the point of summing this up after 12 years of no legal trouble I did end up being charged with a felony. I had given an old friend a ride and he stashed a meth pipe in my truck, that had been there for over 6 months without my knowledge until the day came where I was pulled over. And with my history when I get pulled over they search my vehicle every time! And yes this happened and they find this meth pipe and apparently meth is like the worse drug in the world to be charged with. Over having a meth pipe in my truck I was charged with felony possession of methinphetamines. I go to court and because of my past the charges from over 12 years ago, it enhanced my sentencing guidelines. I was told I was going to do anywhere from 5 months to 41 months, for this pipe found that wasn't even mine. And it mattered not that all this time had went by where I didn't get in trouble and did well for myself. So with looking at prison again, and having mental health problems now being a bit older and settled down... I completely panicked over the ideal of long term incarceration again. So I signed up for the mental health court program which is basically the same thing as drug court for those that are familiar. And I did 18 months on this program of seeing the judge every single week to check in with status reports. Going to take drug tests 3 times a week. Doing mandatory counseling 5 days a week at community mental health on top of seeing my recovery coach once a week and my therapist once a week. To top it off with 5 NA/AA meetings a week. I did all this for 18 months only had 6 months of this intense probation left to go. Then my uncle died of lung cancer and the man was like a father figure to me. I relapsed and I can't really explain the why, it was like I was in a state of just not caring being so lost with grief is a overbearing thing idk but yes I relapsed. I immediately told on myself, told my therapist told the judge told everyone on the mental health team. And the judge was not happy I told her I had a rehab set up and I could get in that very next day. I went on to tell her that there was a 90 day program they offered at this facility and I was aiming to get into that. She then completely cut me off said I was to go there I was to do not a day less than 90 and if I deveaated in any way she would take me off this jail diversion mental health program that I would be resentenced on original charge and basically it wouldn't be good! And I do know from experience in my dealings with the judicial system and being around other inmates hearing there stories, that when put into one of these jail diversion/ sentence diversion programs like mental health court or drug court.. that if you sign up for it then end up messing it up not completing for whatever reason that they go to the very high end of your sentencing guidelines and give you every bit of time they are permitted to according to your scoring sheet.
Coming to conclusion here I went to this program and IMMEDIATELY found out that the 90 day program they offered was merely for a select few individuals that there was never bed space to get into it and unfortunately you had to of been from that same county receiving funding from that particular county in order to get accepted into it! So I was a far ways off from even being remotely close to being eligible for this 90 day program that my judge demanded me to do. Then I find out my program is only a 2 week program which is a far ways off from 90. And I knew my judge wasn't gonna wanna hear any kinda excuses or reasons. So what I did was I did 2 weeks then I applied for 2 week extensions at the end of my 2 week funding period. Long story short here I got 7 weeks in and then my funding source decided that was sufficient and I wasn't getting anymore funding for additional time there in the program. So I panicked and I ended up calling medicaid switching my address to a local address then I called the local funding source for inpatient rehabs and I gave them this new local address. Well they issued me more funding to stay and I thought I was good, no worries. Few days later I'm being told that I have to zoom in for mental health court that day which was not routine at all as I had been there 8 weeks almost at that point and never had to zoom in because the judge new I was in rehab. So I zoom in to court the judge tells me that I'm to leave the rehab and report immediately the following Tuesday to court for resentencing that I was being kicked of the program because I was no longer a resident of Lapeer county. I tried to explain and I was shunned wasnt allowed to explain then I got hung up on whole on the zoom app. I immediately call my therapist because she's part of the mental health court team. She tells me that in changing my address and using it to fasely acquire funding for medical services in a fraudant way was in fact a felony. Then she said that she was sorry but there was nothing she could do for me that the judge was gonna resentence me. So my life flipped upside down immediately here I am in rehab going on almost 8 weeks doing great participating the best I could attempting to get the most I could outta the experience so I could get out stay clean and move forward with my life and be off the court probation thing it under 6 months. To my reality becoming I'm not going to do 41 months in prison over a meth pipe which is technically a paraphernalia ticket but they trumped it up to a felony and now I have to go back after 12 years of being out. I stressed and stressed and stressed then I ran. I didn't go to court because honestly I'm scared to death over the idea of going back to prison. I struggle with mental health problem now, I'm older and simply just not the young healthy person l was when I had to go in last time! I convinced myself that I wouldn't mentally be capable of enduring that again in the current state of my well-being. And I left the trailer I own because staying there woulda been me being arrested with in a week. So now here I am staying with a friend no money no job no where to go family mad at me and im looking at 41 months :( .
I need help I'm trying to raise 5 grand to retain this lawyer that already knows the ins and outs of my whole case. And believe he can get me a deal to no prison time! Which is a miracle because as of now I'm looking at 41 months! So we're talking roughly 30 months being shaved off for an expense of 5 grand! That is worth the money it's worth me doing something like this that I would under normal circumstances not even think about writing my personal life to be painted on the internet for the world to see. And maybe just maybe a few individuals out there that have the means to help people financially will read this and decide I've suffered enough in my life time already and won't wanna see me go do 41 months in prison!
That's all I got, if your in a position where u can donate to my freedom clause GREAT, it's more than appreciated! If ya can't help well I hope you enjoyed the short version of my life story.
ASKING FOR CASH APP DONATIONS AT $shortchange214 IS MY CASH APP TAG NAME... MIKE W
OR ZELLE DONATIIONS USING THE EMAIL [email protected]. (lowercase letters in email)
FINALLY PAYPAL DONATIONS USING EMAIL [email protected] ( use lowercase letters)
God bless and thank you for your time and consideration if nothing else!

For a number of reasons, my best friend deserves a lot better than me, and frankly they’d be better off without me in their life. Knowing that, I should logically end our friendship. But I can’t: partly out of hope that what I said is wrong, but also cause I can’t imagine a life without them in it. Is that selfish?

I am trying to see where the scam is but I can't quite figure it out.
A girl liked my profile and I messaged her and said hi. She sent a hi back then gave that lame phrase that all the scammers usually do by saying I usually don't go on here maybe we could talk on telegram or Whatsapp.
I have a burner number so I was interested to see what kind of scam this would be. Usually it's the investment scam.
We start messaging on Whatsapp and I tell her I'm going for a run and she said remember to message me when you get back. A few hours later she messaged me asking if I was done. After I said yes she asked me if I wanted to do a video chat.
I told her to give me 10 minutes so I can jump into the shower. I then come back and ask her if I can video call her now and she says of course. I call her and she doesn't pick up. I text her saying I just called you. She said she was in the bathroom.
After 10 minutes I text her back just writing let me know when you're ready. She said sorry I'm a bit busy I'll call you after work lol.
Later in the day we start messaging each other just typical getting to know each other stuff like where have you traveled what do you like.
Anyways I'm heading home from getting a coffee and she text me asking me if we can video chat because she's out of work now.
I call her and she doesn't pick up again. She then actually calls me and we have a video chat only for a couple minutes though. She said she just wanted to say hi but she's going to get dinner with her friends lol.
I noticed she has an accent so I make a comment about it and she tells me she's from Estonia. She told me she lives in a city in my state but she is working in New York for a month. I figured this was said so that I wouldn't try to ask to meet her.
Her phone number has an area code of Toronto I live in the US.
I'm just wondering where the scam is. That's the most interesting part to me. I work in cybersecurity so that's probably why I'm trying to figure out how she's going to get money out of me.
I wonder if she's going to play the long game but then why actually do a video chat with me. Maybe to further convince me she's real.

I just walked out. No warning. No plan to. We were supposed to go on a trip to her family’s but I was overwhelmed with work. Told her I was so sorry but I couldn’t go. She was so angry with me. How I was inconveniencing her and now she’d have to get gas after work. I sent the texts to my brother and he was appalled and said I deserved better.
That was the moment I broke down sobbing. I knew I had to get out. I couldn’t handle the passive aggressiveness anymore. The subtle manipulation. The lack of affection. If my spouse won’t even hug or kiss me, are they even a spouse? And the real final straw was when she hit my dog in front of friends just 5 days before.
I contacted a friend nearby and arranged to come over for the evening at least. By the time my wife got home she gave me the silent treatment, loaded up the car, and then accused me of cheating before she left. (I’m asexual, which is a whole other story).
It’s like my brother gave me permission and I ran with it. I didn’t even realize I was in an abusive relationship till I landed in my friend’s house and broke down crying again. I haven’t gone back other than my friends loading up my stuff out of fear of her smashing it out of anger.
The days that followed entailed me calling a few people, letting them know what was going on, and my shock and surprise when they said “we saw how poorly she treated you.” Or “we saw how much you loved her and tried to make her happy, but she was never happy.” I found out she’d confided in several people she wasn’t in love with me, and had feelings for someone else at one point in time. All the while she spent the span of our relationship off and on accusing me of cheating. It was like daggers in my chest.
I left her a letter, but ended up sending her an email because she seemed to know something was wrong. I didn’t want to end this in person because of fear of the manipulation and gaslighting. I split finances right down the middle and left all the furniture and a lot of my personal stuff there and told her she could keep it. I left some big items like my TV I’ve had since before the relationship. I told her she can pay half the rent and stay there while I reside with friends, or if she moves I will finish out the lease on my own.
It’s still been a hard two weeks. I gave her an inch and she took things a mile. Going from angry and accusatory, seemingly understanding, to when I didn’t respond to one last begging email, saying I needed to pay for her to move and cover a $1000 medication she’s on. She ended it by saying I was the most narcissistic person she’s ever met, ironically. It was a textbook case of projection and manipulation throughout her last few email chains.
I’ve contacted legal and they’re taking it from here. I’m just so incredibly sad and heartbroken and trying to figure out how to heal from this.

I was one the bus and a girl asked for my number. I was completely taken off guard so I just gave it to her and we talked for a bit and she's wants to be with me but I said no caues I'm not ready for a relationship and we agreed to be friends and are going to a bar tomorrow but she still seems a little flirty calling me cute,funny adorable am I over reacting or should I do something

This evening an old friend from high school and I were having a benign conversation when they made a comment about never getting into Friends because of the "stupid humor" which they find "cringe" and "moronic." I said that was "sort of insulting", and "maybe they could find a way to say something doesn't hit for you without calling it stupid twice."
They replied "stupid humor is a genre of comedy" (which I googled, it's not) and that "it's literally what it's called cause slapstick implied violence" which I don't really understand, but anyway...
Then they accused me of being the rude one for calling them out when they'd already said all of this would make sense if I "could just see their face."
They kept sending voice messages, which I couldn't check at the time, and said that. Eventually had 5.30 minutes of voice messages, all filled with crying. Ending with the final message, "I don't have the emotional energy to type out a response. I am beyond hurt and when you can listen to those maybe you'll understand. Let's just say that what you did was not 'telling me I hurt your feelings.' What you did was lash out and use every major symptom of neurodivergency as a weapon."
I am like, gobsmacked. I do not want this person in my home for four days. But flights have been purchased and a car rented. Further info: - The trip is to scout the area with the intention of moving, not just a visit to see each other. - I sorta feel bad for adding the expense of a hotel, because I know their financial circumstances have changed recently

TL;DR I crushed on a beautiful girl for about a year. I did everything I could to get close to her and it didn't work. She ended up telling me that she didn't feel any attraction to me, and also she's been hanging out with another guy. Trying to figure out what I did wrong.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to get in a lot of details so I can get some answers on why I got rejected.
I (m19) met the most perfect girl this past year in one of my classes. She's sweet, kind, smart, and absolutely STUNNINGLY beautiful! She (20f) and I met when she sat next to me the first day off class. It was a big lecture hall class (about 200 people) and we did some get to know you games with the people around us. She was really smiley and friendly with me. Then on Fridays, we had our breakout classes, which were about 20-25 people. This girl, whom I'll call "Annie" was in my breakout class, and we got assigned to work together on a group project. I got to know her better and found out that she had just about everything I was looking for. Not only was she nice and gorgeous, but she was also not really a party girl, and I was pretty sure she was a virgin. That was important for me because I'm a virgin and I want to share my first time with a special girl who's also sharing her first time with me. I just can't imagine a girl I love giving herself to another guy; I'd be worried that I wouldn't be able to pleasure her as well as him being a virgin, and I would worry that she still has feelings for the guy who took her V-card, or if she had multiple guys before me that sex wouldn't be as special and intimate for her as it will be for me.
I started thinking about her all the time. The best time of my weeks were in that class because I got to talk to Annie. I tried to look her up on IG and Facebook and stuff, but none of the profiles with her name were her, and I was afraid to ask her at first because I didn't want to seem like a creep. But I also wanted to move things forward with her, so I didn't to limit my time to just talking to her in class, and I wanted to get to know her and hang out with her casually before I asked her on a date. I started becoming friends with one of her friends, and I started to hang out a bit more with them. I never really got the chance to talk to Annie one on one very much in the group, and sometimes we never really got to talk at all. When we did, sometimes she'd be really nice and laugh at my jokes and stuff and show interest in me, but then if I responded to her, she'd just give me short answers. To try and talk to her alone, sometimes I would make an excuse that I was going up to the bookstore on campus, which was near her dorm, so that I could walk with her. Sometimes she was really friendly with me, and other times she would just give me one word answers and if I asked if she was okay, she'd always say yeah, she was just thinking about work she had to do. I had her number since we needed it to communicate for our group project, and then we had another class together the next semester. I was always nervous about texting her, so usually I'd make up an excuse to ask something about class, and then go into a conversation. Sometimes she'd say a lot of stuff to me, and other times I would text her a lot and she'd just say "yeah," "no" "idk" and stuff like that. So overall, I was getting a bunch of mixed signals from her.
This went on for most of the year. Then I started getting bad news. First, I finally asked her if she had anything online and she said Facebook and Instagram, but she didn't use it. I asked anyway how to look her up and she told me and sure enough, both her FB and IG pages looked like they hadn't been updated in about five years. But then, on another friend's IG profile, I saw her tagged under another name, and it turned out she used that profile. So I requested to follow her, and she didn't respond, and then I asked her about it and she said she just rarely checks it. But then I saw her commenting on a lot of friends pictures, so I suppose I should have seen that as a bad sign, but I didn't.
Then, there's this other guy, "Mike" who started hanging around with us and spending a lot of time with Annie. I asked her about him, and she said he was just a friend, but they were a little flirty, but Annie could be like that, but she's not a hookup girl, so I wasn't too worried. Then right before the semester ended , I asked her what she was doing for the weekend and she said she and Mike were going to New York to see a comedy show and see the city for the weekend to celebrate the end of the year, which made me nervous. But it was a comedian I had gotten into lately as Annie liked them, so I said maybe I'd come. She said it was really just for them to hang out. I then went for it and said I really liked her and asked if she would like to meet me for dinner either the night before she left or when she came back, and she just said she knew I had a crush on her, but she was sorry, she didn't feel the same way. I said what was wrong with me, and she said it wasn't anything she hated about me, she just didn't like me romantically. I asked her if she would please just give me a chance and at least have a date with me, and she got annoyed and said I needed to accept that she didn't like her, and that frankly, I was getting a little "stalker-ish" with her lately, and that she needed me to give her some space. I don't know why she said that, because I was just hanging out with her like I had been from the beginning of the year, but I agreed even though it killed me.
I could barely eat all weekend, as I knew she was in the city with Mike. I don't know if they were hooking up, but I don't think they were because I don't think she's into FWBs and stuff. She seems like a relationship girl, but my mind went to worse case scenarios. They didn't act like a couple when I saw them again during finals week, so that's a good sign.
It's been a few weeks. I gave Annie some space, but I have texted her from time to time to see how she's doing. Usually she just leaves me on read. The thing is, I still can't stop thinking about her. She's so perfect for me, and I can't bare the thought of her being with somebody else. What went wrong here?? Also, is there anything I can do that might fix this? I'd like to try and have another chance with her.

I know this has been talked about before, but I felt like most theories I've read about Daenerys' prophecies don't make sense to me. Especially the 333 prophecy.
Three fires must you light… one for life and one for death and one to love…
I believe these fires she lights refer to magical fires. The popular theory for the fire to light is the pyre that created the dragons. I agree with this.
The fire for death I believe will occur like in the show, in which Daenerys lights the khals and crones that do not submit to her afire to untie the hordes under her rule. It makes sense. It shows her dominance, which the Dothraki respect.
The fire for love I believe to be a fire sacrifice she will make to have a baby with Jon Snow. This could be any number of fires she sets when she invades Westeros. The reason for this is due to the other prophecy made in the first book:

When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return and not before

So far this all seems pretty standard consensus in the fandom, and it that make sense to me. But now here's where I feel most people give confusing theories:
Three mounts must you ride… one to bed and one to dread and one to love…
The popular theory is that this refers to lovers, but that makes no sense for a variety of reasons. Daenerys has already had numerous lovers, and it all seems inconsequential for a prophecy to be like, here's some people you'll fuck or marry or whatever. She already fucks more than 3 people, and she didn't just marry Drogo to bed. The mount to bed is Silver, but she's not fucking the horse. She mounts Silver and jumps over a fire in order to move on through the ceremony and bed Drogo. It's treated as a big moment in the books. It’s the first moment in the story in which Dany overcomes fear and begins to take control over her destiny. Silver becomes her spirit animal in many ways, and its death in book 2 is heartbreaking for her. This is her first mount, representing her first leap into adulthood.
The mount to dread is Drogon. She learns to ride Drogon at the end of Dance, and it's incredibly taxing, violent, and bloody. She abandons peace and compromise and has chosen Fire and Blood. Daenerys will ride Drogon to unite the Dothraki. Drogon is the Stallion Who Mounts the World. This is the scariest leap into adulthood, and it leads to pain, suffering, and filth. It relates to losing her innocence and desire for peace.
The mount to love is the most unclear, but she will have to mount another animal in order to love. This must have to do with Jon Snow. My guess is that she rides Ghost while Jon rides one of her dragons. But this will lead to her conceiving a living child with him no doubt.
Three treasons will you know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love…
The popular belief is Daenerys will be betrayed, due to Daenerys herself thinking this in the books, but it really doesn't make sense.

“The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?” – (Daenerys I, ADWD)

The previous parts of the prophecy are about things Daenerys must do, so there's no reason for the third part to be any different. Plus, she's already been betrayed more than three times by multiple people. It seems clear that Daenerys will be the one doing the betraying. The clearest hint that its Daenerys being the betrayer is clearly spelled out in Daenerys X of DWD when she talks to a vision of Viserys.

"Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you."
“You sold me. You betrayed me.”
"No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me..."

This is a fitting conclusion to Daenerys' arc in DWD. The whole book she is paranoid and thinking about how to achieve peace and avoid conflict, but in this chapter she realizes she must embrace her true nature of Fire and Blood, and that it really is herself that is the betrayer. Her whole arc is about starting as an indecisive innocent girl and becoming an assertive conqueror.
The treason she will know for blood was Viserys. What's interesting is that Viserys says that she turned against her own blood, meaning the treason was not to get blood, but the one betrayed was her blood.
The treason she will know for gold seems to have not happened yet. Daenerys will commit treason against someone that represents gold or where gold plays a significant role. She will need gold to go to Westeros. Gold wins wars. I suspect it could be Tyrion or whoever ends up being her Master of Coin. It could also be someone in Qarth such as Quaithe or Xaro.
The treason she will know for love means Daenerys will betray someone she loves or she will betray someone else for her love. It definitely relates to Jon. Many say what happened in the show could occur, in which Daenerys burns King's Landing. Maybe she promises Jon she won't, but she does anyways. Another possibility is Daenerys may willingly sacrifice herself to stop the whitewalkers. Maybe she knows she is Nissa Nissa and bares her chest for Jon. Maybe she promises Jon that she will not sacrifice herself, but she does anyways to save him and the realm.

Howdy, you may know me from Volcano Coast my Hawaii map concept, and you may know this is my second time typing this! I had this half typed out and was tired, so I decided to finish it the next day, and I guess my laptop died overnight, which when close it goes into sleep mode, but it didn't for some reason. Away I am not going to type out the main story and side missions like I had planned so I'm going to just summarize them, sorry.
Introduction: G'day and welcome to the Northen territory! out here in the bush it's a hunter dream where you can hunt the same land that ancient aboriginals did 10,000 years ago. Stalk along the river or set up at one of the billabongs for thirsty feral donkeys, goats, and mean Ol' scrub bulls. Trek through the forests for warry bangteng and dangerous water buffalo, and if big game isn't your cup of tea, head up to the wetland to hunt some of Australia's beautiful waterfowl, but be careful around the water, for your not only apex predator in Billabong Junction!
Characters: William Bailey is the warden of the reserve. He's 43 years old and has been warden for 21 years. he's a jokester but is serious about the wellbeing of the reserve.
Ava Bailey is a ecologist studding the effects that invasive species have on native wildlife. She's 38 years old and is William's sister.
Robert Stevenson is a student studding under Ava, but his main research is on the crocodiles of the reserve. He's 24 and is Ava's assistant.
Bobby "Kaiya" Harris is a aboriginal man who lives on the reserve and is a big-time waterfowl hunter. He's 30 and is good friends with William.
Jack\Jacky Graham is the owner of an outfit that takes people hunting what he calls the big three bangtengs, scrub bulls, and water buffalo. he's 50 years old.
map layout: A river flows from the northeast, going south then winding west. The northeastern part of the map is a wetland with green vegetation. North of the river and west of the wetland is lust forest and fields. Five dried tributaries branch out from the river going south through dry scrub forests and prairies and in these tributaries are a total sixteen billabongs, the largest being in the southeast. Going south of the river the vegetation becomes less green and drier as it fades into a dry scrub like environment. In the dry rocky hills to the southwest discover the ancient signs of the aboriginals.
Main story: In the beginning of a drought, you have come to help William with the reserve. After you get settled William has you help his sister and then as you tear down a croc trap set up by poachers and as the story continues you find a torn shirt in the river near a busted croc trap, and a few people go missing, then after helping Jack Graham locate a missing target buffalo, after finding in dead you learn the culprit is a croc and after following the tracks you find blood and torn clothes that match a missing person, realizing you have a man-eating croc on the loose and you need to stop it. (The maneater will be a guaranteed diamond)
Side missions: Ava's missions will have you set up and collect trail cams, harvest certain species, and put hunting pressure in specific areas.
Roberts missions will have you find crocodile zones, photograph crocs, spot crocs, and harvest crocs.
Bobby's missions will have you hunt waterfowl in certain ways, with certain weapons, and harvest pacific ratings.
Jacky's missions will have you hunt the big three, photograph them, track them, spot them, and harvest pacific ratings.
animals and weapon:
pink-eared duck: class 1, level 1-3. These ducks are commonly found in the wetland parts of the river.
maned duck: class 1, level 1-3. These ducks are rarer and found only in the wetland.
magpie geese: class 1, level 1-5. These geese are found in the wetland and along the hole river.
feral goat: class 3, level 1-5. feral goats are found in herds in the regions south of the river.
feral pig: class 4, level 1-5. pigs can be found everywhere expect the southwestern region and most commonly in the northern regions.
feral donkey: class 6, level 1-5. feral donkey travel in small herds in the dryer regions of the reserve. they are very vocal and will warning can when attentive and alert. The highest population is in the central and southeast areas of the map.
saltwater crocodile: class 7, level 1-9. crocodiles are more aggressive and are most active at dusk and night, basking during the morning and evening. crocs are found in the river and the highest population is in the wetland.
bangteng; class 9, level 1-5. The bangteng are warry and quiet, staying in the denser forests along the river, venturing out during dawn and dusk. Bangteng do not go aggressive.
scrub bull: class 9, level 1-9. scrub bulls are found in the dryer regions south of the river, they travel in herds and are very vocal, bulls are rather aggressive and will charge if you get to close.
water buffalo: class 9, level 1-9. water buffalo can be found along the river and a little bit south of it, but the highest population is in the lush forest and wetland north of the river.
My weapon of choice is the Mauser M12 max 9.3x62 rifle. Irl this a common African game cartridge so I think it would be a great 5-9 gun.
​
Sorry if this seems rushed it kind of is sense emerald coast was announced and I wanted to hurry up and get this out there. so please tell me what you think, and I hope you all enjoyed Billabong Junction.

Preface

I want to begin that this post is to not name players or groups present in MVM Mann-up abusing grief methods. We all know the different players & cliques who are routinely abusing them. Even if you know them, this is not a call for harassment. Do not engage with them, and avoid these situation. I'm avoiding posting an images or videos, so people cannot trace players.
The reason for this post is to raise awareness, following the release of Weezy's MVM Cheaters Part 2. These methods are done to degrade the experience, especially towards new players who don't recognize it from happening in Mann-up. Some may even point out me posting about it will encourage the continuation of these issues. This is not the case.
Players who are doing it, are already doing it, and doesn't need me to exist to continue doing it!
There is a lot of nuance that suffocates the discussion, especially by those who advocate the continued existence of these methods to, "Punish Cheaters & Cheater Supporters." And then, there is the whole notion that these players are an extreme minority, or the players should have, "left the server."
It doesn't matter why it happens, because it can happen for any reason a griefer decides for, against innocent players!
These are problems that exist, and needs to be remedied. While I'm one person, it is clear that many people are wising up to this problem. With the Summer Seasonal around the corner, we need to make noise to even get a chance for these issues to be fixed. Making people feel powerless is what bad-actors want, and Valve has opened the door for fixes towards it.
Despite the niche nature of MVM, the gamemode is not immune from being fixed when it needs to!

Grief Methods

Requing after Kick [1 Player]

Problem & Solution : Soft-bans needs to be restored. Kicked players can easily que back in, especially by abusing vpns to match server location. When a majority doesn't want you there for any reason, it should be obvious that coming back won't change their minds.
It may be harsh, and it will be done for the rude reasons; there are still plenty of other servers to finish your tour. Sadly, griefers don't care and want to grief after being kicked. Any attempt to kick-evade should automatically pass, just like in causal.
Soft-bans should last for 30 minutes, enough time for a player to take their place without them coming back soon.
Likewise, if these kinds of players had the majority in their lobby that facilitates the gameplay they are looking for; they have every right to police their experience, bitter as it may be. The less player conflict, the better.

Mid-Wave Knockback Grief [1 - 2 Players]

Problem : By themselves, they decide to go Pyro with max-airblast, max-ammo, and ammo refill canteens to consistently Airblast robots back into their spawn. A single griefer can waste time, but is doomed to fail alone. Unfortunately, this takes it to the worse when paired up with an Engineer with exploitable spawns. Build a dispenser and now the Pyro has a source of infinite ammo to grief as long as they want.
Solution : Off the bat, robots within spawn needs an blanket immunity from knockback sources. Because Robots already under Stock Uber, Quick-Fix's Anti-Knockback effects should easily apply in their spawns. This will negate the need for kicks during waves, and robots should funnel out. 4 people against 2 griefers should be easily dealt by 2 kicks.
Body blocks might be still possible, yet will require absolute coordination.
1-Way-Robot Spawn Doors can also be a possibility. I'm led to believe it may be hard for a way to discriminate robots in-spawn vs out-of-spawn, but hammer-gurus out there might know how.
For now, a 1-size-fits-all solution should be appealing to the TF-Team.

Force-Loss Grief [1 - 2 Players]

Problem : Sources of knockback is used to play golf with giant boss robots, and to intentionally lead it to the hatch. Well-versed in MVM lore, boss robots has an inherit knockback resistance, yet got broken since Jungle Inferno.
This method is done when spawns are not exploitable, and the griefers know doing this alone can be countered. Although, they use strength in numbers to their benefit, as two airblasting pyros hellbent on force-loses can make this tug-of-war worse.
Solution : Restoring soft-bans would solve removing the griefer, yet why not cover all bases to prevent this problem that happens in general. It is to say an restoration to robot knockback resistance outside of spawn might sacerfice fail-saves. Some people find it fun, some people don't find it fun; there needs to be a compromise along the lines.
Perhaps max airblast-flamethrower should do a power-shove, not a whole golf-club swing, to at least bring an element of choice Valve intended.

Idle Bots & Upgrade Block Attacks [1 Player, Botted Accounts]

Funny how some has decided to employ the use of bots...
Idle Bots : This was seen when going Spectator can make you immune from being kicked, and not contributing. Players themselves done this, but it quickly got automated to fill up servers. Soft-bans is our friend here, outside of Valve banning hosters & bots.
Upgrade Block Attacks : Bad-actors sending automated pre-mym invites to attack specific players, which causes the upgrade station to close. Happens to high-profile streamers, but it can happen to you! Upgrading becomes an unnecessary hassle, and the attacker doesn't have to be in your game. The solution here is a under-the-hood fix by the TF-Team, and I won't pretend to know how to directly solve this.
Obscure & small, but it can be the next weapon used if left out of the question. It is also possible they can do it to players on Community Servers too, so you are not exactly safe there!

In the end, I see that this will bring some sort of response of,

"What's the point? You can send Emails, these issues are on the contractor's github, and I play Community MVM."

To that, I have sent emails to proper communication channels. Perhaps the TF-Team is well aware of these problems by now. Maybe the contractor has these issues docked on a to-do list. And I do not disagree that many people don't have to worry about these issues in Community Servers, where mechanisms are introduced to negate negative elements, with no reward structures that likely enabled this toxicity.
Whatever happens by the Summer Seasonal is up in the air, but I will conclude it cannot happen any longer than it has gone on for. Doing nothing won't make this issue better, and to fear that it will continue is letting them win. It will be cathartic for all the innocent players in Mann-up to win against bad-actors who done nothing but make players miserable for years.

BACKSTORY: tldr
Sootsprinkle (now known as Inkle), a bird with mottled black and grey feathers, embarks on a journey beyond his home forest. Armed with a map from his father, he quickly becomes lost due to the forest's uniformity. As night falls, he encounters strange luminescent blobs that captivate him. Following one of them, he discovers another blob trailing behind him. Intrigued, he observes multiple processions of these blobs converging towards a distant point.
Reaching a clearing, Sootsprinkle finds himself surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. When he attempts to land, he realizes there is no ground beneath him and starts falling into a seemingly endless void. As he plummets, he contemplates his father, the sign he made, and the creatures he encountered. Eventually, he loses consciousness due to his ever increasing velocity.
Upon waking, Sootsprinkle is greeted by an elf and an old man who rescued him from their well. Confused but relieved, he introduces himself as "Sootpinkie Sprinkle." They inquire about his origins, and he tells them about his forest, his father, and the peculiar journey that led him to their location. The elf lady, named Zindi, decides to help him and invites him inside their dwelling.
They tell Sootsprinkle they are in The Vastlands, main continent of Arcavios and that they can help him become acquainted with their ways, history and educational requirements.
Long months of studying ensue, but Sootsprinkle proves his worth with an excellent memory despite subpar recitations. He learns how to write in common and begins to learn elvish under Zindi's tutelage.
During his studies, he takes an interest in the magic Zindi and the old man perform on a daily basis, seemingly effortlessly. He asks questions tirelessly and without the usual stuttering.
They mention that the University of Strixhaven, the most elite school of mages in the multiverse, is only a few days journey from their home and encourage him to apply. He wonders desperately about his father and the forest village he left behind, but decides his dad is too busy being rich and applies to Strixhaven in the end. Still, he vows to return not only literate but as a wizard and a scholar.
He is accepted swiftly by the college of Lorehold, despite being just around their average standards, once he mentions the odd void that brought him to their lands. This college of scholars set their motto "Leave no stone unturned" deep into young Sootsprinkle. He adventured often, despite his small size. On one expedition he found a shiny green pebble and took it back to his professors who laughed and told him it was just a regular rock that was shiny and green. Sootsprinkle kept it anyway.
Later, he found a feather trapped in fossilized resin and excavated it with great care. It was in near pristine condition, blacker than his own and twice as big. When he made his way back, he decided to do independent research in the library to avoid being laughed at again. A blackish ink sprang forth from the tip, staining countless books before he stuck it in his mouth swallowing nearly a bucket full of the rancid liquid. Sootsprinkle was swiftly brought to the infirmary where he made a full recovery and gained a new nickname "Inkwell". He liked it, but decided to pay homage to his old name and family by changing the ending to "le".
Worried about getting kicked out, he explained the entire situation, without stuttering and was granted leniency. This was partially due to his discovery of the unique feather, which was confiscated until head scholars had learned everything they could about it and deemed it safe for him to retain. It was his pride and joy, he wrote many flawless papers with it and about it.
He spent nearly zero time eating, sleeping or making friends. He loved listening to his peers speak and learning from them and always tried his best to reply when they talked to him first, but never went out on his own to seek them out.
In his 3rd year there, he decided to start researching the black void more closely. No one had heard of such a thing although many theories were thrown about here and there. The old man's well was studied day and night one year, under almost permanent surveillance. Nothing but water ever came out again. There was nothing odd about the well.
Inkle decided to take his research to the Biblioplex, supposedly the most massive collection of knowledge in all of the known multiverse. He had been before but the sheer size of the place left him a little upset, knowing he could never possibly read everything in there. He returned sparingly over the previous 2 years.
The librarian and codex proved invaluable to his research although the anomaly had never been seen in the form it took that fateful day, the effects resembled those of the creature known as Vormox, an enormous, worm-shaped anomaly with iridescent scales and a serpentine body.
It possesses the ability to teleport matter by consuming it. When it devours something, it absorbs its energy and essence. The consumed matter is transformed into energy, and "defected", intact, at another location (Usually somewhere random in the vacuum of space or mashed inside another object. In this case, it seems it was the old man's well.
The futility of his situation hit him then, there was absolutely no way to locate this creature in all the infinite locations it could be in and no way to manipulate it to take him back to the right home in the right timeline in the right reality.
Inkle was not worried that he would never see his father again, that was a near certainty. Distraught, he sought comfort in both learning and psychedelic substances, many of which he modified at random. His 108th trial was on an unremarkable evening with an unremarkable substance that he already knew through and through. An odd fungus boiled down, mixed with any alcohol, and magically flavored with a new taste he came up with called "pitch". It was a heavy flavor, it tasted like the top of your mouth, only more. Or like nothing, only less.
Too lazy to grab a cup tonight, he conjured a health potion and dumped in the pitch flavored liquid, filling it to the brim before downing the whole concoction at once. He went to lay down in his bed but substance kicked in nearly immediately.
Vibrant colors danced before his eyes, swirling and merging in an ethereal symphony of hues. Reality twisted and contorted, shifting like a mirage in the desert. His bed seemed miles away, but he made a lunge for it and felt something soft before closing his eyes. And yet, something was wrong.
In this altered state, he felt a profound disconnection with the universe, as if he could touch the very essence of creation but never be a part of it. He floated through cascading patterns of geometric shapes, each one unfolding with intricate precision. Fear led him into a small pocket of a reality in a corner of his mind left untouched since childhood. The air here calmed him and the room faded. Time and space became malleable, merging and folding in on themselves. The sharp points of the fractals were gone.
The journey reached its crescendo. He emerged from the undulating abyss into a realm not unlike his own. He saw grass so green it almost looked real. In fact it felt pretty real too, although the substance has never given him tactile hallucinations before. Unconcerned, he took a bite of probably the most grass flavored grass he'd even encountered.
The air crackled with energy, and the atmosphere hummed with an otherworldly resonance, promising endless adventures and profound revelations. No sooner than one flap of his wings and Inkle smashed into the ground, and blacked out, head throbbing all the while.
Unbeknownst to him, Inkle had crossed a threshold in his own mind entering a reality in some space and time entirely different than his own. He had in fact, not landed on his bed and instead fell through one of those tiny cracks in reality that are only visible when you close your eyes.
He dreamed of the nothingness, discovering his entire self in the absence of a mind. The pain of losing his home dimension felt so insignificant compared to the nothingness. He wondered about love and companionship but realized he wouldn't care to experience it again, but rather would like to know and catalogue it along with as many other things as possible. He looked around and saw his quill and then his body and willed himself towards them.
When he woke up to the sound of birds, he was on a patch of grass on a beach staring at a vast and dark ocean.

This setup will not be at a house. I know somebody who owns some land and let's me use it for camping, hiking, and other outdoor activities.
There is this nice camping spot up there, I have often thought about bringing a friend or two to chill up there, make a fire, and watch a movie.
What would be the best setup for this. Portability would be really nice because I don't really want to leave the equipment there. Looking for at least a 1080p HD projector that has Bluetooth on it. Would love a 4K one but I doubt there is any in my price range. I'm not sure about everything else.
My total budget for the whole setup would probably be around $600. Sorry if this is a dumb question I know nothing about projectors lol. Also would rather get cheaper equipment so I can spend more to get a nicer projector.

I just wanted to mention how handy Lookout Landing is for new and experienced players! There's a loading screen tip about it, but make sure to visit often! It is a location meant to be returned to, similarly to the camp in other games such as Red Dead Redemption 2. ☺️ It changes as you progress, it is stocked with plenty of useful materials, armor, and ammo, and there are a few secrets and quests to be found here.
When you finish the tutorial you are directed to visit this location, but I had zero clue this was where I was supposed to go and went off on my own for hours (very under-equipped and under-prepared). However, this location offers assistance no matter what level you are at in the game, and more: there's a secret!
There is a tunnel you can find below that provides challenge, a "tradeoff" mechanic 😉, and very important lore. Keeping this spoiler-free, if you can find enough explosives or an explosive friend this tunnel is much more easy to navigate.

When I think about it, I could've achieved much more in life if I spent less time thinkin about it. All the time I spent self-pitying and comparing myself to others made it difficult to maintain any motivation. Be that as it may, I'm still in a much better position now than a few years ago. I need to clear my head of all these pointless, harmful thoughts. There are plenty of people better off, just as there are people doing worse and more-or-less in my position. I gotta just focus on myself.
When I was 20, I was penniless and depressed, with a bone-dry resume and a dwindling will to live. At 25 turning 26, I'm still depressed but with some income, good credit and mostly useless IT experience. It sucks that I'm losing my health insurance soon, especially since that means I'll have to pay for therapy outta pocket, but that's on me. I've had years to find a stable job and got a chance last summer, just to get myself fired early this year. A couple days ago I found a gray strand of hair on my head. Well, we can't be young forever. I'll try makin the most outta my last few free therapy sessions; I'd probably have wound up on the streets without that guy.
I did finally get back into learning coding. I'm probably not gonna land a job anywhere with it (at least not anytime soon), but the course material is free and it's a good skill to have. If I push myself hard and luck out, I might be able to move out within a year. Being realistic, probably my late 20s to 30. Man, I'm deathly afraid of waking up one day 5 years from now, wondering what I've been doing with my life.
My social life, like my life overall, is better than before but still not ideal. Over the past year or so, I've grown closer to my older sisters and was accepted into the circle of one of my childhood friends. I've actually been making an effort to put myself out there. Being around people is still pretty nerve-racking for me though, since I'd get reminders of just how abnormal I am. When it comes to finding the "right" thing to say, it can feel like trying to form a sentence with a spoon and a bowl of alphabet soup.
I've had the interest of some women, but I wind up pushing them away unintentionally. To be honest, even after all my progress, I ain't even confident that I'd be a good boyfriend. I'm moody and financially unstable, with a future about as clear as astigmatism. Honestly, in the dating scene, I'm a handful of years away from a game over, so if I weren't afraid of dying alone, I probably woulda hit Alt+F4 by now. Well, keeping up with my self-care routines bought me some time, so I won't quit just yet.
Sometimes, I feel like my behavior sets off something like the uncanny valley effect in my peers. I usually don't do or say anything that sticks out tremendously (At least not to my knowledge), but there are just enough idiosyncrasies to let neurotypical people know something's not quite right. The subtleties, the little things that you'd probably overlook in the moment, can be the difference between average and oddball.
I'll try being more positive and worrying less about what others have that I don't. I have to focus, because my decisions from now on will impact my life more. I ain't got too many mistakes left to make.