Hey everyone, I appreciate you taking your time to read this. I am in desperate help. First off, my boyfriend and I met last October, about 6 months ago. He graduated last semester and I’m finishing up my last semester here. We live about 20 mins away from each other. We met at a cultural club at school and we instantly had a crush on each other. Over the first few months after we met, we would constantly hang out, play video games, watch movies, etc together. We really liked each other to point where we started kissing each other, holding hands, and calling each other pet names. We were basically love bombing each other. We just have a lot of things in common. We felt so happy. He didn’t ask me out until Feb (reason why he took months to ask me out was because apparently asking me out was not his “priority” and he wanted to focus on finding a full-time job first).
So our 1-month anniversary just passed, but over the past few weeks, I started to notice some changes. He stopped texting me good morning and complimenting me. I felt as if he didn't make an effort to really call me or check on me or to even ask me about my day. I’m starting to feel like I’m initiating our plans more, to ask him if he wanted to hang out and play games and facetime me. All we’ve been doing together now is texting each other that’s it. In the first few months we met, we would play games together for long hours. He would constantly ask me to play with him or facetime him. Now it feels like he’s not putting in the effort anymore. Now he would play games with me for only an hour and hop off because he “rages” and he’s “tired.” I had never seen him rage before. Every time he rages now, he would stay silent throughout the game and I constantly have to ask him “What’s wrong?” And he would say “Nothing, I’m tired, I wanna get off.” The next day I asked him how he was feeling and he told me “Why do you worry about everything?” “Go find other people to play with if you don’t want rage then”
I feel like recently we’ve been doing things together less than we used to. He’s not even a busy person either, he only has a part-time job. Last Thursday, I facetimed him and brought up how I felt like we should spend more time together and how I felt like I’m initiating everything now and how quality time means a lot to me. He stayed silent throughout the call and said nothing. I asked him if he wanted to hang out today (Sunday) since I didn’t see him for a week, but all he said was “We’ll see.” I asked him if he’s busy and he said “No I don’t have anything to do.” I said “You don’t want to hang out with me?” And he said “I don’t know”
I also go out to raves a lot, while he doesn’t which I respect. The next he brought up he doesn’t want to hang out since I’m going to a rave and he doesn’t want me to get sick and get him and his family sick and it’s better off to stay safe. I completely understand him but I don’t understand why he didn’t bring that up during our call in the first place.
So before I headed off to a rave few days ago on Friday, however, I tried on the blue outfit. I realized it’s pretty hard to wear and the strings keep falling off. I decided to wear a different outfit. I sent him a snap of me wearing the outfit and all he said was “That’s not blue.” He then sent me a snap back of him giving me a thumbs down. I told him I wanted to switch outfits because the blue outfit ends up pretty hard for me to wear. He then said “My name: “I’m wearing onesie or blue outfit” “ and “Caught lying on camera 🤔” I asked him if he still liked my new outfit tho and instead of hyping me up or complimenting me, he said “Sure cool I guess” Later that night while I was at the rave, I texted him that I wish he was there with me and he said “Nope. Much better here and warmer in my room” and I was like “So meann” and he said “Go cry to your little rave friends then” I don’t know..I feel like he’s starting to become rude to me now.
Last week, I was talking to him about how I was planning to go to that last rave and it would be my last and take mdma again. Now I’m not a drug person, I’ve only done alcohol, edibles, and mdma in my whole life. I’ve only done mdma for 2 times, with 3 month break in between. I was being very cautious of it by testing it and taking low doses, playing it safe and smart. He seemed to be surprised and a little upset that I am taking it again, he said “I didn’t know you’re gonna take it again ;-;” I promised him I would stay safe and responsible. He seemed okay about it then.
But something still feels off. So I confronted him the next day asking if he actually supports my decisions on going to raves. He told me: “Also going to raves is fine but doing drugs for it to be funner is dumb. Idk I’ve had close people betray my trust in the last couple years so it’s hard. What’s gonna happen to the molly anyways cuz I’m sure you had to buy it” I understand his perspective. He is uncomfortable with me using drugs, which is valid. Expressing his concerns to me is also valid, but I don’t get why he didn’t talk about this in the first place when I first brought up about using mdma again. And yes, I decided I didn’t want to use mdma again, not only for him but for myself too. It was my last rave (won’t be attending any more raves) so I just wanted to try mdma one more time, but I realized I’m smarter than that so I don’t want to risk it. I also brought up to him how I felt pretty down when he was making a big fuss about me switching outfits and accusing me, but he didn’t reply to that, never apologized.
Over the first month of dating, we had been arguing too, mainly to miscommunication issues. One of the arguments would be about how he thought I ignored his texts when I was super busy at a club event. Called him later that day to talk about it, but he just gave me silent treatment. Other arguments were more dumb.
He’s usually a very sweet, caring, and understanding guy. We both usually apologize and communicate it out. However, he seems a little irritated and rude in his texts recently. If I try to communicate out with again, I’m afraid he would give me silent treatment again and say I worry about everything again. During one of our previous arguments, I mentioned how I was just trying to communicate and not argue with him and he said “you keep saying we need to communicate better, but it’s you that’s screwing it up.” Which hurt me.
What should I do? I really love him and I don’t want to leave him. But it seems he’s not putting a lot of effort.
TL;DR My boyfriend (23M) and I (21F) have communication issues and it’s affecting our relationship. We’ve been dating for one month.

It's not that big, and it doesn't even look "bad" per se,
it's kind of like if you take a dark wooden stick and whittle a little piece of it off so there's a pale spot in the middle.
It's definitely noticeable when I'm erect,, so should I disclose it before sex?

I want to talk to you about the boy next door.
I first noticed him when we arrived here. Mom was moving in all of our boxes and furniture, and I was sitting on one of mom’s boxes labelled “fragile” downing ice-cold lemonade.
It wasn’t exactly the weather for cold drinks, but I was pooped after spending my morning and half of my afternoon going back and forth with all of our stuff. It was just a glimpse.
One of the movers asked me to help him with a box of kitchen equipment. I was struggling to get a proper grip of it, twisting around to shout that I needed help—when I saw him.
Not much of a person, more of a shadow poking from behind the fence. What I could make out was a tallish figure and mousey hair.
I lifted my hand in a greeting, but the guy walked away. I didn’t think much of it.
Maybe he was shy.
Though I was curious about my neighbors. I was expecting them to join the parade of families on our doorstep harbouring every food you can imagine, but they stayed away. I did know a family existed next door, however. There was a large wooden fence separating us. So, if I really wanted to talk to them I’d either have to grow several feet taller or invest in stilts. I’m not sure why I was so obsessed with meeting them.
I knew they had kids my age. I could hear them.
Whether they were arguing over video games, or laughing at something trivial, I could always hear them when I was sitting on our wooden porch or helping mom clean our yard.
According to mom, who heard it from the nice lady across the street, our neighbors were called the Wilders.
There was a single mom, and her four teenage kids.
Huh, I thought. So the mystery shadow guy must have been a Wilder kid.
I was told to not get too excited, though. Apparently, Mrs Wilder was very protective over her children and home-schooled them.
So, there was no chance of me making friends or even getting to know them. On our second day in our new home, mom told me over breakfast that Mrs Wilder had sent out a polite notice to the neighbourhood that her children were not to be disturbed or talked to. Which was crazy. I thought that was weird. But mom understood it—and to my annoyance, accepted the woman’s notice. I was warned not to talk to the Wilder children.
And if I did, that was an automatic week grounding. Which meant no diner, no seeing friends after school, and my phone privileges taken away. According to her, she figured they were just a private family and wanted to accept that. She theorised the kids had been bullied at public school and had to be home-schooled. But I was sceptical. “All of them?” I’d asked her through a mouthful of cereal.
“Phoebe.” Mom sent me a warning look, sipping her coffee. “What we’re going to do is respect Mrs Wilder’s wishes.”
“It’s child abuse.” I muttered into my frosted flakes. Only for mom to reach across the table and poke me with the prongs of her fork.
“Ow!”
“Don’t play with your food.”
“I’m not playing with my food.” I held up a spoonful of soggy cereal. “You just never get the chocolate brand. These taste like sandpaper.”
“We are going to be respectable neighbors,” mom said, ignoring me. “So, you are not going to speak to those kids. Do you understand?”
I knew mom only wanted to abide by the weird rules because she was obsessed with joining the mom’s club, or whatever they were called, but it didn’t make sense to me that his woman wasn’t letting her own kids have a social life.
At a younger age, maybe eleven or twelve, I could understand. But seventeen? That was almost college age. What, was she expecting to coddle them forever?
Did she really think these kids were going to stay with her? Seventeen was the age of finding first loves and making mistakes. Not staying at home with mommy dearest. “Okay, but would you do this to me?” I asked her. “Would you really lock me up and stop me from going outside and living my life?”
Mom had been spreading butter on bread. I didn’t realise her mood had drastically changed until she was almost slicing her finger with the knife. “You don’t know this yet because you are far too young,” she lifted her head, her lips curving into a smile. “But there is something called a mother’s instinct. When our children are born, we are overcome with an almost… feral need to protect them from danger. If you look it up, it is present is every creature. Every mother. Our children are worth more than ourselves. We give our own lives to keep them alive. You can roll your eyes and say it’s stupid, but I’m sure as soon as you have your own child, you will feel the exact same with them.”
She nodded at me. “I had that with you. I… I still have it with you, Phoebe. No matter how old you are. When you were a baby, I wanted to hold you in my arms every second of every day. I hated it when people wanted to hold you, and you were such a clingy baby. Always cradled to my chest. As you grew up, I started to understand that you were seeing the world for the first time and you needed your own time and space. I let you take your first steps on your own. I cried when you said your first word—and when I grabbed your hand and raced down the kindergarten steps for the first time. Letting you go was painful. And if I had a choice in the matter? Yes, I would keep you in here. I would stop you from going outside and seeing this world.” She dropped the knife with a startling, metallic clang, before picking it back up.
“Because this planet is a scary place, Phoebe. And as mother’s, it is our job to keep our kids safe. Even if that means going to the slightest of extremes.”
“Slightest of extremes?” I scoffed, despite knowing I was being pedantic. “They have to fly the nest! That’s called growing up!”
Ignoring her glare, I continued.
“Yes, I believe in mother’s instinct. But at what point do you have to look at yourself and realise you’re being ridiculous? Seventeen year olds aren’t infants. They won’t just blindly walk into traffic. They have self-awareness of what is wrong and right.”
I pointed at myself. “You let me drive, right? I got my license. Where was your ‘mother instinct’ when I got myself a big-girl vehicle I could easily have an accident in?”
Mom curled her lip. “Don’t push it.”
Leaning across the table, I fixed her with a smile. “See? You trust me, mom. You let me grow up. That’s the difference between you and Mrs Wilder. Kids have to grow up. No matter what the circumstances are. It’s just part of being human. We all grow up and leave our parents.”
I sent her a look, stirring the soggy soup of my cereal. “Well. Unless you’re Mrs Wilder.”
Mom finished her coffee and stood up. “You don’t even know these children. They could be in any stage of development which makes them very different to you. All kids mentally age at different points.”
She took her plate to the faucet and dumped it in the bowl. Mom washed the dishes when she was angry or stressed, and she was really going to town on our brand new pattern plates. I saw that as a mark of finality. “I’m done talking about this, okay? You’re not eighteen yet which means you abide by my rules, and really, Phoebe, I’m not exactly holding you prisoner. I’m just asking you to be polite and follow a simple rule which is not hard. We are a new family, and we need to make a good impression. Which means no talking to Mrs Wilder’s children.” She cleared her throat.
“Respect our neighbour’s wishes or lose your phone.”
Ducking my head, I continued to stir my cereal into a mushy soup which had quickly become unappetising. It looked like barf. I pushed it away. “You only want me to follow the rules so you can get into Mrs Becker’s book club and go on Pilate dates with middle aged Karen’s.”
Mom dropped a plate in the sink, and the sound of the splash made me flinch slightly.
“Is that understood?”
“Yes.” I said, rolling my eyes. “Obviously, I will abide by this street’s draconian rules so I can continue scrolling through Tik-Tok.”
It was sarcasm, but I wasn’t sure my mother could detect it. She was so blinded by becoming one with our neighbors.
Why was she so obsessed with meeting all the other mom’s anyway?
Was she planning on setting me up on a playdate with 3 year old Evie? I wouldn’t put it past her doing that for the brownie points.
“Good. End of conversation.” Mom said, hurrying to get her jacket and bag. “I’m late for work, and you have an induction to get to.”
I wanted to argue further because this sounded unfair. The kids were teenagers, right? How were they not arguing against this? It seemed insane that they were going along with what their mother said. But I was aware of significant punishment if I broke this rule. So, I begrudgingly agreed. After my induction, I asked around new friends and classmates if anybody knew of the Wilder kids, and they did.
But they didn’t want to elaborate on what they knew. I heard a lot of rumours with dead ends. Most of them involved a father who had walked out on them, and their mother going into ultra-protective mode in response. It sounded like these kids were bearing the brunt of a messy divorce. They were complete enigma’s.
I didn’t know anything about them except from their insanely overprotective mother’s wicked grip on them. I gave up being curious. Mom was serious about me not speaking not them. She gave me a lecture on respecting the woman’s privacy, and blah, blah, blah. I tuned out after five minutes, my attention flicking to an episode of Breaking Bad playing on the lounge TV.
The next few weeks were boring. Mom was invited to join Mrs Beck’s book club, so on Monday’s at 5PM, I made myself scarce. I did exactly what mom said. I ignored the kids next door. My bedroom happened to be facing the room of one of the kids, but their dark blue curtains were always shut. Sometimes it was hard. When I was sitting in the yard, reading a book, I could hear them on the other side of the fence.
The boys were the most vocal, laughing and teasing each other. There was a point when I risked it. I jumped to my feet and got halfway across the expanse of grass, standing on the tips of my toes and trying to catch a peek. But mom was calling me inside. I swore she had eyes in the back of my head. Mom always knew when I was outside. When I was near the fence.
It wasn’t until a month had gone by when I finally got a glimpse of a Wilder kid. I had just gotten back from school. I’d dumped my backpack on my bed and grabbed my phone, slumping onto my bed to text my friends and mindlessly scroll through social media. I noticed movement at the corner of my eye, and when I’d lifted my head, blinking rapidly—those same blue curtains which had shut me out for what felt so long—they were open. Not just that.
I could see a bedroom smothered in personality. I glimpsed a hardwood desk strewn with paper and an expensive laptop, a blue bedspread, a beaten up guitar leaning against light green walls covered in old-school movie posters.
There were screwed up pieces of paper everywhere. I had to guess he was some kind of artist. The room was illuminated in the evening dim, a soft warm light bringing the room to life. A knock startled me, and my gaze flicked to the window.
There he was. The Wilder boy next door.
He was my age, maybe even older. This guy looked almost college aged. Which made it increasingly weirder that his mother would insist on babying him at the age of seventeen.
He was cute. The dorky kind of cute. He wore bulky glasses but was the type to instantly suit pretty much anything. If I could compare him to anyone, it would be the mental image in my head that my younger self had imagined Percy Jackson when I reads the books.
The guy looked comfortable in a sweater and jeans, mousey brown hair hanging in warm eyes. There was an inquisitive smile on his lips. I jumped up to open my window to speak to him, but he shook his head—and I quickly remembered his mother’s stupid rule which forbid us from talking. So, I got creative.
Give me a moment! I mouthed.
I expected him to ignore me and go back to what he was doing, but the guy straightened up and nodded, arching a brow.
He was intrigued.
I grabbed an old notebook and a pen and sat on my bed, scribbling a message. I wrote: “Hello! So, you’re the kid under house arrest lmao.”
When I held it up, his smile pricked. He laughed. But I couldn’t hear it. I could tell he had a dorky kind of laugh, a nasally one. The guy held up a hand for me to wait and rummaged on his desk. He quickly wrote out a message and held it up with a grin. He looked almost proud of his own message, and I couldn’t resist my own smile. I expected him to curse his mother, maybe apologise for the lack of communication.
But instead, he simply wrote: “Hello! What’s your name?” Followed by a slightly smudged smiley.
After a moment of consideration, mom’s words echoing in my mind, I thought fuck it. “Phoebe.” I said. “Yours?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Phoebe.” He responded. Which spanned multiple conversations which took up several of my notepads.
We talked about everything from school to his life at home. He had three siblings. Matilda, Freddie, and Issac. He liked to play the guitar and draw, but also apparently sucked at both. When I asked what his favourite TV show was, he looked confused for a moment before answering “All of them”. Following that odd answer, I asked if he liked Marvel, and again, he had that look again. A look of confusion.
But I knew he was trying to make a good impression. “What is Marvel?” He wrote back, this time his handwriting in a bubbly font. I could almost call his writing calligraphy. It practically danced off of the page. The Wilder boy’s strange answers made wonder if this kid had been home-schooled his whole life. He seemed way too polite. Kids were polite, sure.
There was a certain amount of respect you had to pay to your elders and parents.
But looking at this kid, I wasn’t even sure he knew what a meme was—or even the concept of a joke. He had no idea about one of the biggest movie franchise in the world, and his favourite celebrity was apparently “All of them”. In fact, he had answered “All of them” to several of my questions. His messages reminded me of my grandma’s. Still though, he was good company. Though I made it my mission to convert him into a normal teenager.
I had to guess due to constantly being home and around the same people, this kid had zero social skills. I asked him what his favourite movie was, out of the posters on the wall. He had Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, and Fight Club.
Again, he looked confused. His head cocked to the side, and I had to physically point to them behind him.
“All of them.” He wrote back with a smiley face.
Damn, this kid needed to see a movie which wasn’t some educational shit. I bet his mother had turned him into perfect member of society.
“What have you seen?” I couldn’t help asking him. “Like, movies, TV shows. Do you play video games?”
He shook his head before scribbling back. “What is that?”
Holy shit, this kid was completely cut off from the outside world.
I was already mentally thinking up plans to get him out of the house and to a party, or something like that. From the look of this kids face—a slightly blank if not completely innocent smile—he needed time away from home. Away from his overprotective mother’s wicked grasp.
After a while, I realised he never told me his name. I didn’t notice time go by. Almost three hours, and I’d spent most of it lecturing him on movies and TV shows he really should have known. I guessed Mrs Wilder didn’t let him watch the TV. My gaze flicked to his laptop. And I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had blocked out all social media. My notepad was full of scribbles and doodles, an attempt at copying his handwriting style. The sky was blooming into twilight outside, thick orange and cotton candy pink streaking the horizon. I have always loved a pre-twilight sky.
“What’s your name?” I wrote in marker pen, before holding up my notepad. I was running out of paper. I could hear mom downstairs preparing dinner, and I could tell from his diminishing smile Mrs Wilder was probably shouting for him to go downstairs.
He didn’t reply for a while. I watched him put the pad down, before heading over to his desk and cleaning up the paper—every trace we had been talking and dumping each response he’d given in the trash. Before he slumped onto his bed, wrote something down in several strokes, before holding it up for me to see. “Casper.” He’d written. “My name is Casper Wilder.”
For a moment, his expression changed completely. He glanced at the door, before frowning at the pad of paper in his lap.
It looked like he wanted to write more, before twisting around, his eyes widening. Someone was coming. I could tell by the look on his face.
The knot between his brows.
Casper gathered everything he’d been using to write to me, pens and pencils, scraps of paper and the backs of movie posters, and shoving them under his bed. Then he grabbed the curtains and pulled them closed, blocking me out once again. I thought he’d come back, but after standing like an idiot with an odd feeling in my gut, frowning at his curtains, I realised he was finished talking to me for the night. What I expected was that to be it. I didn’t think he’d come back. The next morning, however, he was back at his window, smiling at me through a mouthful of toothpaste. He was still in his pyjamas, unbrushed curls falling in sleepy eyes.
He looked strange without his glasses. Like his face was too bare. The more I took him in, though. Something was… different. Though I couldn’t make it out. It hit me then.
Casper wasn’t moving, staying in the same position. The night before, he had gone to and from his bed, hurrying around to grab equipment to write with. But now he was stood, looking more shadow than human. I was quick to dive for my notepad, but Casper was already holding up his own greeting with a grin. “Good morning, Phoebe! How are you feeling today?”
“Tired.” I wrote back, my writing barely comprehensible. “Do you have school?”
“YES.” He responded with an excited smile. “I’m so excited to learn! Do you have a favourite class?”
I laughed at that. And after looking confused, he copied my laugh. Which made me laugh harder.
“None of them!” I scribbled back. “School is boring!”
Casper shrugged. “I like it. I have a great tutor.”
“Really?” This time, I drew an attempt at the rolling eyes emoji. “You shouldn’t be excited for school. Weirdo.”
He curled his lip. “You’re the weirdo.” He wrote back. Casper paused, chewing on the lid of the pen, before writing, “What’s a weirdo?”
“You’re kidding!” This time, with too much vigour, I pointed to him with a laugh. “You! You’re the weirdo!”
We talked as I got ready for school, gathering all my books and homework. I was stuffing my gym clothes in my bag, when I noticed something was on the ground behind Casper. Looking closer, it looked like a chord. Like a long cable sort of thing. I thought it was for a games console, but then I remembered he had no idea what a video game was. I didn’t question what it was for a while. We talked every night, about everything and nothing.
I told Casper about school and friends, filling up every piece of paper we had in the house, and he told me about his siblings. They were all the same age, and all enjoyed school. His brother was a piano prodigy, while his sister’s strongest subjects were math. Casper told me he felt like the odd one out being the artist of the family, and I quickly told him that creativity was the best part of a person.
He showed me his drawings. And to my confusion, and slight disgust, they were all of his mother. They were good—sure. His skills were Ivy League worthy. Perfect shading. Everything about the drawings were perfect.
But the fact that his muse was his mother—it put a weird taste in my mouth. He showed me each drawing, his smile widening with excitement. While I nodded and pretended to be impressed. Well, I was.
Though it became startlingly obvious that Casper didn’t have a choice who he drew. He didn’t draw fruit or landscapes, or even the sky. We live in a picturesque town, the perfect canvas for an artist. However, Mrs Wilder was at the centre of every single fucking drawing and painting, ink blot. Even with different styles and angles, she was always there. And Casper Wilder saw no wrong in it. He saw absolutely no fucking wrong in this woman taking control of every aspect of his life. His social life, his friends, education and hobbies.
I half expected him to grab his guitar and start singing about her through the glass. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was driving me crazy. We continued to talk through writing to each other, but soon enough the only subject was his mother. Casper asked me if I could rate a drawing he was working on. It was her. Of course it was. I ignored him, getting to my feet and holding up the sign I had written weeks before. But I was too scared to show him.
I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but I had to know. I had to know several things which had been keeping me up all night
“Why are you okay with your mother controlling your life?” I asked in bold letters.
And below that: “Also… I’ve been wondering this for a while. But what is that thing behind you?”
The thing behind him was at the centre of my thoughts. I’d worked out it wasn’t a chord for a TV or a games console. Not even a laptop, or for his guitar. Not to mention it was always there. Morning and evening, even at night when I spied him getting ready for bed. This thing was always on the floor, snaked across his bed. Sometimes it was even wrapped up on his desk. I couldn’t understand the length of it. I asked friends at school, and even the internet. But my descriptions didn’t do it justice. A long, silver chord like thing which didn’t have an end.
Casper blinked at my message. Before he ducked his head and started writing before holding up his response.
“I love my mom.” He said, doodling a little heart. “She doesn’t control my life. I like that she’s in it.”
Below that, a follow up message which twisted my gut. “What do you mean? I don’t see anything, Phoebe.”
Tapping my pad with my pen, I struggled to think of a response. There was no way he couldn’t see this thing. It was pretty hard to miss. Instead of writing, I pointed behind him.
“That!” I mouthed, using my lips for the first time. It felt good to actually talk to him. Even if a window of glass separated us.
“What?” His handwriting was slipping slightly. And I noticed his hands were visibly shaking. “What can you see, Phoebe?”
This time, he stood up. I noticed something change in him, the notepad slipping off his knee. Casper turned around, scanning the room.
Before his eyes finally found the cord-thing. His smile seemed to dampen, eyes going wide, fists clenching.
“Casper?” I hurriedly wrote when he didn’t move for a while. His gaze was glued to the chord. I watched his eye follow it around the room, before his hand slowly raised, trembling fingers moving to his neck, and then the back of his head. Was there an insect? That’s what I thought. It must have been a spider, or some kind of bug which had startled him. I could only describe his expression as close to catatonic. He stood up, but then quickly slumped back down. But not like it was his choice. As if he was being dragged back down by an unseen force. Like one minute I was looking at Casper Wilder, and then I was seeing a stranger. A completely different person take over a rapidly paling face. Something snapped inside my gut when he moved forwards suddenly, his arms lunging out to close the curtains.
But that wasn’t the end of what I saw. The boy had unknowingly left a splinter, a tiny gap allowing me to glimpse. I expected him to react to whatever had freaked him out. But instead, he simply flopped back onto his bed. This time, I noticed the silver chord jolt with his movement. He was already asleep, his eyes closed. I watched him, my heart diving into my throat. There was no way he just fell asleep like that. It was too fast.
Mrs Wilder came into his room soon after. But I only got a glimpse of her because she was already striding over to the window. I ducked behind my bed, panic creeping up my spine. I expected the woman to start yelling at me through the window, but instead she simply pulled the curtains properly shut. Mrs Wilder definitely saw me. And even if she didn’t, Casper’s messages to me were still piled on his bedsheets. I was left completely in the dark, then. I stood and pressed my face against the window, fully aware that I was addicted to the mystery surrounding my neighbour.
My mind began to wonder to uncertain and scary places.
What exactly was Casper’s mother doing to him behind the curtain? I wanted to believe she was simply tucking him in and saying goodnight, but the strange chord-like thing on the ground, and how he’d reacted to noticing it—for what seemed like the first time. His change in expression, like a different person had taken over him, and that person was… scared.
Catatonic. I refused to believe Mrs Wilder was innocent. I waited for him to draw his curtains again—but he didn’t. Casper’s window stayed completely blocked for days. I stopped hearing his siblings in the yard, and after days of nothing, mom reiterated her warning to me over dinner. “No communication with the Wilder children,” she told me. “Which includes notes and letters.”
Busted.
So, Mrs Wilder knew we were talking.
I wondered if she was punishing her son for breaking the rules—and that was why he had been MIA for the last few days.
“There’s something wrong with Casper.” I worked up the courage to tell mom “The boy next door. I think Mrs Wilder is hurting him.”
“Hurting him?”
“Yeah, like…” I frowned. “I think she can make him go to sleep when she wants.” I pulled a face. “Like, hypnotism—or maybe even drugs.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Drugs, mom.” I said. “Mrs Wilder is drugging her seventeen year old son!”
“That’s nice, honey.”
“Are you even listening to me?” I leaned across the table, stabbing the page of her book. “Mom! Casper Wilder is a total blank slate!”
“I’ve told you a thousand times. She’s protecting them,” she hummed. “You have just seen far too many crime dramas—and your generation have been poisoned by the likes of crime entrainment. Finding what you think is your own mystery must be fun, but you are reaching, baby.”
“Reaching?” I prodded my own temple. “I’m sorry, were you not listening when I told you he doesn’t even know what video games are?”
Mom was acting weird. Usually, she talked about school with me, and at least tried to engage in conversation, but she was too busy reading the book Mrs Becker has recommended her. It was like talking to a brick.
“You’re being ridiculous, Phoebe,” she turned over a page with a sigh. “I’ve spoken to his mother. She’s a lovely woman. We’re having lunch next week. I met her in the grocery store."
“What a coincidence,” I shot her a look over my phone. I was looking up child abuse helplines. “You’re suddenly best friends with the neighborhood witch when I’m caught talking to her son.” Dropping my phone for emphasis, I stood up. “If you would just listen to me—"
“That’s enough.” Mom cut me off. She finished her coffee, grabbing her jacket from where it was slung over a chair. “Stay out of trouble, okay? I’m heading back to work. I’ve left cash if you want to order pizza. You have other interests, alright? Please. Leave Mrs Wilder alone. This obsession you have with her kids is unhealthy. Why don't you stick to fiction, hm?"
Yeah, no.
As soon as she was gone, I sprinted to my room to see if Casper’s curtains were open. To my dismay, though. They weren’t.
Frustrated, I yanked mine shut too.
Slumping onto my bed, I continued looking up helplines. I got bored soon after and started googling chords and wires which fit the description of what I’d seen.
There was a match, though it was on a weird medical website which looked like it had been made in 2005. The interface was outdated, and according to the description, it was some kind of clamping device. There were a lot of words I didn’t know, and after further googling, I was getting increasingly more confused. Until my gaze flicked to a section at the bottom of the page. According to whoever wrote it, the chord in question was experimental. There weren’t many in circulation, but it was mainly used in medical centres such as specialist surgeries and hospitals. When I scrolled down, there was a diagram which showed a long chord-like thing labelled as “The body” and a sharp looking needle. Something warm crept up my throat and I sat up, frowning at the screen. Was that it? Was that thing the end?
And what did this thing even connect to?
A sudden THUD made me almost jump out of my skin. I slid off my bed.
THUD.
It was coming from my window. My curtains were still shut, blowing in the slight breeze. Slowly, I made my way over, my spine tingling.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
The first thing I saw was red. Bright, intense scarlet spattering the Wilder boy's window. Then I glimpsed Casper. He was slamming his face into the glass, over and over again, his already bleeding nose exploding with more red. But it wasn't the boy I knew. The kid I had gotten to know over the last few months. No. This kid was a mess of torn up clothes, bruises yellowing his eyes and scratches sliced into his flesh. My first thought was his mom. She must have done this to him. But then my gaze was finding his bloodied nails, and claw marks on his arms and cheeks. There was something white wrapped around his head, a bandage.
I could glimpse red leaking through, smudging clinical white and pooling down his temples in sharp rivulets. Casper's eyes were an enigma in themselves, a mixture of fear and confusion, and almost feral look of anger and frustration. But the twitch in his lip and between his brow, was evident that something was fighting that.
Emotions and feelings he wasn't feeling himself.
It was like looking at two different guys. One was Casper, the artist who lived next door, who ended every message with a smiley. While this twisted other self, a self which was broken out and was feral in his expression, was a whole other person. I started to realise the more I looked at him, at the mess of flesh and blood caught between his nails, and his trembling hands every so often creeping to the back of his skull before jolting and coming back to curl into fists, battering the window--- he had clawed into his own head.
Immediately, I reached for my phone. But he already knew what I was going to do.
“No!” He mouthed, shaking his head—so I grabbed my notepad. I could barely write.
“What’s going on?” I held up my pad. “Are you okay? You’re fucking bleeding!”
Instead of using a pen and paper, Casper squinted, blinking rapidly. His handwriting was different, a manic scrawl, as he wrote in the explosion of blood on the window.
When he twisted around, his gaze going to the door, the breath caught in my throat. Someone was yelling his name. I could tell by his reaction. His bloodied fingers clawed at his face and hair, at bald patches and rugged stitches lining his scalp and the back of his skull. They kept going, a narrow line of stitches all the way down his neck, and presumably his spine.
My thoughts flashed back to the equipment I’d been looking up. This kind of thing was designed to bury into the brain and spinal cord. I looked for it, but the thing was nowhere to be seen on him. It was no longer on the floor. Casper struggled to write coherently. I notice he kept swearing, his finger smudging the words he was trying to write. This was more like it, I thought. This was the kind of boy I had expected to be the kid next door. “Fuck.” He shook his head, his movements erratic as one hand went to the back of his head and came back slick with glistening red.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
He slammed his fists into the window in frustration, but I was already seeing his message start to blossom and make sense.
“WHO.”
Casper was crying. I could see that he could barely breathe, struggling to inhale, swiping at his eyes with smudged fists.
“AM.”
“I?”
I started to back away, but he continued. When he’d finished, he wrote it again and again, growing more and more fraught.
I jumped when he slammed his head into the glass of the window again. At first a part of me thought he was using his blood for paint.
So he was intentionally hurting himself to draw more.
But his words spelled it out for me in black and white.
Who am I? He wrote. WHO AM I? WHO AM I WHO AM I? WHO AM I?
This time I could barely even read my own handwriting. I held up a scrap of paper.
“DID YOUR MOM HURT YOU?”
I gestured to the bandage on his head, and he stumbled back, wild eyes searching for something to write with.
“THAT WOMAN.” He scribbled in block capitals.
“THAT WOMAN IS NOT MY FUCKING MOM.” He wrote, before he dropped to his knees. He was still writing but failing to show me.
I don’t know who I am.
He wrote the same thing 12 times, before tearing up the paper and burying his head in his lap.
I gave up writing messages.
“Casper!” I shouted.
Then I threw a rock at his window, and he lifted his head, blinking rapidly.
Gesturing for him to open up his window, he struggled with the latch for a moment before pulling it open.
I stuck my head out of my own window, cold air hitting me in the face. “I’m going to help you.” I managed to choke out. “Hold on, okay?”
Casper clawed at his face. "Help me." His voice was a sharp hiss. "Please help me. I don't know who I..." His fingernails ripped into the flesh of his cheeks, but he barely seemed to feel it, to be fazed. They kept going, digging into layer after layer. "I don't know who I am." He jumped up suddenly trashing his desk and throwing his laptop against the wall. He reminded me of a child having a tantrum. In this case though, it was more than acting out. I was sure that Casper Wilder didn’t exist. "I don't know who I am. I don't know... fuck... I don't know who I am!”
His eyes found mine, and I could have sworn I saw something there, buried deep, deep inside his pupil.
He blinked, and it was gone.
“You need to tell me what she’s done to you.” I said stiffly. “Tell me what she’s done to your head.”
Casper was only growing progressively more frenzied. Animalistic. He came back to the window, slamming his fists into it. Then his head. Again and again. Like he was trying to knock himself out. "Help me. I can't remember... I can't remember who I am. I just know.. I know her.”
His lips suddenly twisted into a startling grin.
“Mom.” He whispered, his expression softening. “My mom.” His gaze flicked to the desk. “She won’t like that I’ve… I’ve made a mess.”
“Your mom did this.” I gritted out. “I’m calling the cops.”
His expression was scaring me. Whatever was in his eye was scaring me. But this boy needed help. He needed to be taken out of that house.
"No." Casper sobered up. "No, my mom... my mommy said... she said no police." His eyes widened suddenly, seemingly noticing the mess of the window for the first time. “Oh, no.” Casper stumbled back. “I should… I should clean this. Before my mom sees what a mess I made.”
His door opened, and another head poked through.
Another guy. I figured it was one of his brothers. Freddie, or Issac. He too had a bandage wrapped around his head.
His brother’s eyes found the blood spatters, and then me. Like his mother, he strode over to the window, shutting the curtains.
But I could still hear it.
A mechanical whirring noise, followed by Casper’s sharp breath and the sickly crunch of metal protruding through blood and bone.
That was it.
“Mom!” I yelled. I’d heard her come back earlier. She must have finished work early.
I stumbled downstairs to tell her to call the cops, but a shadow was already looming behind the corner. Before I knew what was happening, a wet rag stinking of pool cleaner was being pressed over my mouth and nose.
I don’t remember passing out. When I woke up, I was lying on my mom’s couch. It was dark outside, but the curtains were open. My foggy thoughts drunk in slithers of moon poking from between the clouds before registering I wasn’t alone. Sitting up, my stomach galloped. There was no sign of mom. But I recognised each of the faces surrounding me. Mrs Becker was sitting with her legs crossed, delicately sipping from a cup. And next to her, wearing a smug smile, was Mrs Wilder. She wasn’t looking at me. Instead, her eyes were lovingly glued to something which had been built over mom’s coffee table. It was made completely out of paper. The scraps of paper I had been using to talk to her son. Though there weren’t just my messages. I glimpsed Casper’s writing too. It was a house. I was staring at a perfect paper rendition of the Wilder house. And next to it stood four little paper dolls.
There were no faces. No expressions. Just four dolls. Two boys, and two girls.
Though in her lap were more. Mrs Wilder’s nimble fingers were working to make more of them. They filled her lap differing in sizes.
“Phoebe, is it?”
Her voice was smooth like chocolate. I could almost mistake it for kindness.
I nodded, my heart in my throat. I was watching her create another doll. She folded a piece of paper in half, cut it in two, and started to fold sections, bringing the doll-form to life. This one, unlike the other, did have attention put into it. She had even added the birth mark on my right temple, following that, colouring in my dark blonde hair, and finishing with my jean jacket. Mrs Wilder didn’t have to spell it out for me. When she got to the doll’s head, she shocked me, by tearing it off. Then she ripped off its arms and legs and tearing its torso in half.
Mrs Wilder straightened up. “Phoebe, are you aware of a mother’s instinct?”
I couldn’t reply. Instead, I was staring at the paper-doll she had set alight. I watched smouldering orange rip into it, before she put the fire out, dropping the blackened paper doll on the carpet. For just a brief second, I could have sworn the hem of my jacket had also caught alight. Just a single flash of orange. But maybe I was seeing things. “I was pregnant with four beautiful children,” she said softly. “As soon as I found out, I had already named them.” Her smile was dreamy. Melancholic. “Freddie. My little Freddie. He kicked quite a lot. Oh, and Matilda. She and her twin were quite the pair, I must say. Swiftly draining me of my energy so I had to take medication.” Mrs Wilder chuckled.
“And finally, Casper. Named after my favourite movie. I loved him with all of my heart. He was my little fighter.” She quickly lost her smile, her gaze flicking to me. “I hope you understand that if you talk to, or even the breathe the same air as my children again, I will rip you apart too.”
Mrs Wilder never raised her voice. She didn’t need to. I was terrified of her.
She held up my doll for emphasis, before throwing it in the paper dollhouse. “Or… perhaps you could become another daughter of mine, hmm?” I couldn’t move, my body paralysed when she leaned over me, cruel eyes drinking me in. “Maybe not.” She hummed. “I only take the dead or dying.” Straightening up, she sighed. “It’s not a hard task, Phoebe. Keep away from my children and I will keep away from you.”
The two of them left after that, leaving me unable to move. To breathe. They took the dollhouse. All of the paper. Even my own doll.
Casper has been unreachable since. Mom has hardly been at home—and I’m starting to lose my mind.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who or what Mrs Wilder is, but I’m afraid she’s going to keep adding to her collection.
Whoever those kids are, they’re not hers. I think she’s taken them. She’s using them as canvases. Dolls. For what she’s lost.
Am I next?

Part 2
Red bloody kitchen. Mrs Robinson sauntered towards me, her crazed smile back on her face. Toilet brush in hand, I braced myself for her vicious attack. She lunged at me, knife first, her shining white eyes filled with the glistening hope of lodging the blade into my lower belly. I dodged just in time and hit her with the brush by simple reflex.
"Ouch!" She said in a mocking tone, as we both knew I could not hurt her with that.
At that moment, a clever thought crossed my mind. Red bloody kitchen? Yes, kitchen! Mrs Robinson enjoyed the cat and mouse game, taking her sweet time to attack as she fed on my fear. That in return, allowed me to take quick looks around, allowing me to spot something I definitely needed. I threw the toilet brush at her face and she did not even bother to dodge, then, I ran towards the kitchen counter and grabbed a bottle of salt.
"Outlander." She called after she gasped, placing a few fingers on her lips. "So you know about the salt?" She asked, her worries covering her face.
My sole response was to open the bottle and throw the entire content at her. Once again, she did not move by an inch, and received the most salt right on her face, while I rejoiced in my heart, hoping to see her hurt. However, she just looked annoyed and brushed the salt off her.
"What a waste." She complained after sighing. "Sorry baby, I'm not the one who needs seasoning here. You're the meal." She said before charging towards me, her vicious smile back again on her face.
She pursued me to the living room. I stood behind a table while she was back sauntering, overconfident about me being at her mercy. She passed next to a door and her dog inside barked, hitting the door so violently that it seemed it wanted to tear it down. She probably locked it there earlier before attacking me. Mrs Robinson looked at the door, her distraction creating an opportunity for me. I threw the empty bottle of salt I still had in my hand, aiming for her head. She ducked, and I froze when I saw someone standing behind her, and catching the bottle with one hand.
"You missed!" She said gleefully before standing back up, completely oblivious to the presence behind her. "My turn. Time to end this." Mrs Robinson said, preparing herself to throw the knife at me, her eyes filled with anger, hatred and the intent to kill.
Before she could say or do anything further, the person behind Mrs Robinson punched her so hard that the old lady seemed to dive forward and she fell unconscious. The person then approached me. I took the vase on the table and threw it at her, but the woman just diverted it with a little tap. I recognized her. She was the one that spotted me looking at Carla and her group by the window. She had come back for me.
The woman was also well known in the village. It was Adelaide, a mute and discreet woman that also lived alone and was the village florist.
Each step she made towards me intensified her fierce look and the brightness of her white eyes. My heartbeat increased in pace, the dog was still barking and once more, I truly believed that my time was up. The lady then stopped a few meters away from me and shook her head in disappointment.
"Really? You the outlander? Just some freaked out— kid?" She spoke. She then passed her hands through her hair and walked back as if completely desperate, talking to herself. "After all these years, all the decades, the outlander ends up being a fucking kid. Like for real?" She added before chuckling.
"Adelaide? Adelaide, you can— speak?" I quietly asked, prompting the lady to turn toward me.
"Adelaide? ADELAIDE? Sorry but your dear Adelaide is not available at the moment, please call back later. Would you mind?" She responded, angrier and more agitated.
"What? What's going on? Why you all say the same thing?" I questioned.
"You people have been living here for all these years but you still don't know what the hell is going on here, right?" She asked back, then looked at the empty bottle of salt still in her hand. "No wonder you tried to use table salt. Dude, table salt? Sea salt boy, that's what works on us." She added, before chuckling again.
Carla. I remembered our parents giving us random salt containers with the content of mine looking and tasting slightly different from what I would call usual or normal salt. If I used sea salt back in our home, and Carla used table salt, that could explain how she could get out of her room but not come into mine.
"Sea salt? I think I have left some upstairs." I told the lady.
"Then go get it genius! Be fast, we gotta move before grandma here wakes up." She replied.
"Wait, she's not dead? And— don't you want to— kill me like all the others?" I asked.
"It should be obvious by now. I'm not a murderer. So no, I don't wanna kill you. But I really can change my mind if you keep asking such dumb questions. Like for real." She replied, crossing her arms.
"Okay then, there's something else that I found here. It's also upstairs with— the salt."
"Great, mind showing me?" She said, leading the way.
"If you're not Adelaide then who are you? Who are all of you?" I questioned again as we walked up the stairs.
"We don't have much time so let me be brief. We're wandering souls from some place which is maybe the afterlife. I don't really know how to call it. It's the place before heaven or hell, depending on which one you qualify for. Numerous souls like me are trapped or stuck there because of unfinished business. Each blackout allows us to possess your bodies. Just random bodies, so that we get to be alive again in this world for 24 hours. My name is Edlynn by the way, I died in 2013. And the psycho you saw inside grandma, that's Nadia, a mental asylum escapee wasted by the police back in 2004, after she slaughtered 9 people.
"What?"
"We don't share your memories, we don't even know who you are. We just fully use your bodies for a day, usually regardless of your physical conditions but not always. And the next day, you all come back. Sad thing is, there's no filter about which soul shows up during the blackout. So any good fellow can pop up for one more slice of life, one more chance to right a wrong, along with psychos and serial killers who would do anything for one more kill, just like Nadia there. Hope it makes sense to you, cause I'm not repeating myself."
"What? How is that possible?"
"Anything is possible in this world. People are just oblivious to it. It's like being blinded by a spell, and people of this village surely are. When I think about how ignorant I was... All that is a result of a very evil act, and it has to be stopped— by you."
"Me?"
"You're the outlander, Terrence. Do you think it's random? It's not. You're the success obtained after many failed attempts, and the first outlander." She replied. "Here? She asked when we reached the open bathroom door, and I responded with a nod.
We entered the room and she immediately saw the items in the basin. "That's more like it. Take it and keep it far away from me." She said about the salt.
"I found those things hidden here." I revealed, pointing at the diary and the watch.
"You found them." Edlynn spoke, opening the diary. "You're truly the outlander. Everything, all the answers are right there."
"Answers to what? All these random drawings, maps, it doesn't really make sense to me." I said.
"Oh yeah that's right. You know, we can talk and communicate and all that but, we can't read or write in that state. That's the only way my fellow rebels found to leave clues about what happens."
"Fellow rebels?"
Sounds of drums suddenly arose from afar, plunging Edlynn in absolute terror as she began looking all around her.
"Already?" She spoke.
She then quickly put the diary and the watch in her backpack and handed it to me.
"What's going on? What's that?" I asked.
"He's here. He has arrived." She replied.
"Who?"
"Redeye. The one behind it all. Our enemy. Your nemesis."
"My— nemesis?"
"Listen to me Terrence, go to that Adelaide's house and wait for me there. Don't come out until I come back. We're about to go to the square to meet him. None of us can resist him, but you can. Please, don't follow me, don't go to the square even if nobody can notice you. Go to her house and wait for—" Edlynn stopped, her eyes suddenly going from a shining white to a red glow as an empty expression seized her face.
"Edlynn?" I called, not sure of what was going on and what she was about to do.
"Long live Redeye, master of the craft, shepherd of souls. Long live Redeye, master of the craft, shepherd of souls..." She repeated.
Edlynn then turned to the door, hypnotized by an unknown power and walked out of the bathroom, still repeating the same words. I followed her closely, even though she no longer paid any attention to me. Downstairs, I found Nadia or Mrs Robinson if you want walking towards the house entrance door with red glowing eyes too, and also saying the same words over and over again. She broke the door with only one punch and they both exited the house.
When I followed them outside, I found many others in the same condition, ignoring me and walking towards the square from which the sounds of drums came from. Their slow and little steps drew them closer to Redeye, the one behind it all, my nemesis.

I'm (20) f and the artist/manager is (32) m
I'm going to keep it as short as possible. My friend and I have been working on a game for a couple of months. The game has been going well. We wanted to add something special by having our own backgrounds for it. While looking around for a background artist I found out back in december that a manager at the place I worked was an artist. So after looking him up on Instagram and checking that we both liked his arts we decided to pay him to make some for us. He gave me a discount and in total we paid 700 $ for 7 backgrounds (which I thought was a great deal) This is a big deal especially since we're both students. Anyways everything is fine. A couple months goes by and he sends us the background. They're great. I just asked him to fix a couple things that I didn't like.
An hour ago I was scrolling on Reddit when I came across a background I know a bit too well. Turns out it was mine… I was speechless. I decided to reverse search the image on Pinterest and guess what… All seven backgrounds already exist. All he did was make them a little darker and add some lines here and there. I have no idea what to do or even say. There was no contract or anything signed. (We just shook hands) He already quit but sometimes comes back to say hello to the team.
My question is what should I do ? I don't even know how to tell my friend. Do you think there's even a possibility to get the money back ?

I started my year cleaning out my backup drives and realized I have just under a terabyte of Super Sentai that I collected back when I was actively watching the show. Most of which I never got around to watching before I lost interest in the show (Ninninger left me limping along and KyuuRanger finished me off) So I decided to try to work my way though all 40 seasons of Sentai I have stored.
When I started Goranger I had some vague notion that it wasn't going to be very good but honestly, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not top 10 but Top 15 easy. Sure, the effects weren't great, but I grew up on classic Doctor Who reruns on public television so janky practical effects are an old friend. It was weird to see a sentai without a morpher (if you'll excuse me using PR terms). The lack of giant robot was actually kind of refreshing from my perspective.
Let's talk about the heroes.
Akarenger was the stoic, leader type, which is my favorite type of Red Ranger.
Aorenger didn't really leave much of an impression on me besides the fact that he loves Variblune/ Varidorin. Don't know why he's dressed like a cowboy, was he supposed to be American?
The first Kirenger (Daita) was a little grating at times, mostly due to them having him play the idiot (Nobody deserves to be mocked repeatedly by a bird). His replacement was just kind of there, I want to say more but, I honestly can't remember anything he did except his death. My biggest complaint with the season revolves around these two. Daita just leaves off-screen, gets replaced and then his replacement just dies and there's zero buildup to either event.
Momorenger was great. I was glad to see sentai’s first Pink was a badass. I feel like out of the main heroes she embodied the show spy drama subtheme the best.
Midorenger was the kid of the team to me. I don’t really have much to say about him
I liked the Commander, though I wish they had kept the whole man-behind-the-curtain thing they were doing with him going for a few more episodes.
007 was also a good character even if I think they didn’t need to repeat the “007 betrays the team because the Black Cross Army is threatening her little brother” plot. Does anyone know why first to fellow agents and then she herself just kind of disappear as the series progresses?
The Black Cross Army generally had good plans and were ruthless enough that I never stopped considering them a threat. Even if the Black Cross Führer looked ridiculous for most of the series.
(TL;DR) I was expecting the show to be Mid but was pleasantly surprised.
Now, onto J.A.K.Q. The only things I know about it are that they transform inside little pods, and they have the proto-sixth ranger BIG ONE!!!

Looking for a bunch of games to fill my collection, send your lists over regardless because there might be something I'm interested in.
All games are CIB unless specified, will send pictures on request.
Willing to bundle items
[HAVE]
Gameboy Advance
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance (loose, new battery)
Final Round Golf 2002 (loose)
Medabots AX Rokusho (loose, has two letters written on label)
WWF Road to WrestleMania (loose, has two letters written on label)
Yu-Gi-Oh The Eternal Duelist Soul (loose)
Nintendo 3DS
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Nintendo Selects)
Gameboy
Tetris (Manual only)
Gameboy Color
Donald Duck Going Quackers (loose)
NHL Blades of Steel 2000 (loose)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (loose)
PlayStation 3
COD: MW2 (Loose w/ replacement case)
COD: World at War
DMC: Devil May Cry (No Manual)
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 (No Manual)
Far Cry 3 (loose)
FIFA Soccer 11
Gran Turismo 5
GTA V (No game, includes map)
Haze (loose)
Homefront
LittleBigPlanet [GOTY Edition]
LittleBigPlanet 2
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition (loose w/ replacement case)
Narnia: Prince Caspian
NBA 2K11
NBA 2K14
NBA Live 09
Saints Row: The Third
SOCOM US Navy Seals Confrontation
SOCOM 4 US Navy Seals
Street Fighter IV [Greatest Hits]
The Bigs
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Unreal Tournament III
PSP (PlayStation Portable)
PSP 2000 Piano Black Box Only (JPN import)
Cabela's Legendary Adventures
Madden NFL 09
Madden NFL 10
Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (loose)
Sampler Disc Vol. 1 (loose)
SOCOM US Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo 2 (loose)
Thrillville
Transformers: The Game
Xbox 360
Camouflage Wireless Controller (untested, rechargeable battery)
Chrome Black Wireless Controller (swappable batteries, new battery cover)
3x Black Wireless Controllers (swappable batteries, new battery covers)
Aliens vs Predator (loose)
Battlefield 3 Limited Edition (loose, both discs)
Bioshock 2 (loose)
Bioshock Infinite (loose)
Borderlands 2 (loose)
Dark Souls (loose)
Darksiders (loose)
Dead Rising 2 (loose)
Dead Space 2 (loose, both discs)
Dead Space 3 (loose, both discs)
Dragon Age II (loose)
Fable II Limited Collectors Edition (loose, both discs)
Halo 3 (loose)
Halo 3 Complete MP Experience (loose)
Halo 3 Essentials (loose)
Halo 3 Game Disc (loose)
Halo 4 (loose)
Halo: Reach (loose)
Hitman: Absolution (loose)
Hitman: Blood Money (loose)
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes [Platinum Hits]
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (torn artwork on case)
Lego Star Wars II OT (loose)
Perfect Dark Zero (loose)
Rage (loose, all 3 discs included)
Red Dead Redemption (loose)
Red Faction Armageddon (loose)
Star Wars Force Unleashed II (loose)
Timeshift (loose)
XCOM Enemy Unknown (loose)
Wii
Cabela's Big Game Hunter
Mario Kart
Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (case only)
Gamecube
NBA Live 2003 (box has damage on back)
[Wants]
Hades Switch
No Man's Sky Switch/PS4
Metroid Prime Remastered Switch CIB or NIB
Pokemon Diamond DS Cart only
Animal Crossing: New Leaf 3DS CIB or NIB
Super Metroid SNES Cart only
Link To The Past SNES Cart only
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest SNES Cart only
The Last of Us Remastered PS4 CIB
The Last of Us PS3 CIB
Your list (there are many more games I want not listed)

Superman Retuns was a misfire. Coming at a time when comic book movie audiences were wanting to look forward and reinvent rather than look back and reminiscence, the return to the Donnerverse was not needed nor apparently greatly desired. The film has been referred to as bland and boring, to which I agree but my solution isn't simply "more action." I feel the overall issue is much larger and I'll break it down here.

Casting

Have Parker Posey and Kate Bosworth switch roles. There's your homage to Donner: the Routh/Posey age difference matches up with the Reeve/Kidder one, not to much Posey is more Lois-esque while Bosworth being a young, pretty face matches up with Lex having a ditzy henchwoman he can manipulate as Kitty.

The Journey Back (From) Home

Oddly enough, the Superman Returns video game had a more interesting story than the film by simply adding extra narrative parts and layers. So, we'll start with the beginning where Superman literally returns from his 5-year pilgrimage to the remains of Krypton. The film shows Clark crashing landing back on Earth in Smallville right outside the Kent home. I'd love to stretch out this return by focusing more on what Superman did while in space. Not necessarily what he sees of Krypton but a detour he's forced to take on his way back to..................WAR WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!
In the game, Mongul finds Superman's ship in space, takes him captive and forces him to fight on War World. Of course, Supes makes it through with ease and gains freedom by defeating Mongul. So, we'll carry that over for the sake of action but also narratively to show a consequence of Kal-El leaving Earth as there are other beings in the galaxy that want the Kryptonian but could potentially also find their way to Earth for trouble. Movie starts with a bang and some intrigue before settling down for the Clark/Martha reunion. All this can be spliced with what Lex was up to during the 5 years.

A Not So Welcome Back

To me, Superman's return to civilization was a little too easy and clean. He got his job back at the Daily Planet and citizens are happy. Yeah, Lois isn't happy to see him but there's not much struggle outside of that. I love the airplane rescue scene and the only thing I'd change is that the baseball game audience is more annoyed with Superman interrupting the competition. Not so much a hatred or even resentment for leaving but definitely a "we're cool with leaving because we don't need you anymore but you're ruining our entertainment, get lost." Almost as if the people of Earth take Kal-El for granted since he's defeated all the evil available. To them, Superman's return is an unnecessary distraction to the time of peace. And here lies Clark's main obstacle: he no longer fits in. Earth doesn't need him and there's nowhere for him in space to feel at home. Cue the montage of sad Clark walking around Metropolis, realizing it has changed in his absence and everyone's moved on without him. Which leads me to......

Jason

Fans found the inclusion of Superman having a son to be overkill but I do not. I just feel a little too much focus was paid to it and that the subplot was more complicated than it needed to be. Let's just be straight up: Lois should not be with Richard White. She has a 5-year old son, we the audience knows that only Superman could be the father and people in the movie don't bother poking around because Lois is a single mother who happens to be the world's greatest reporter. Case closed. I'm not saying completely remove Richard from the movie but just have him be someone who is romantically pursuing Lois, playing off of the conundrum with Superman's return. To further separate this film from the Donnerverse, let's throw in Lois already knowing that Clark is Superman and that fact being clear between them. Overall, it just helps add to the tension between Clark and Lois while giving additional layers to the relationship with a sense of pre-established history.

Lex's Plan and More Action Physical Threats

The blackout Lex creates keeps it's original purpose of distracting Superman so he can steal some Kryptonite but, to lift from the game, it causes the unexpected consequence of Bizarro being released from whatever prison he was held in. Again, pre-established history and world building plus more action. It's at this point that Supes is at a low point. He's confused at the situation he's in and a bit angry. Bizarro is his chance to let that anger out but also realize it's not a good place to be in. The clone is defeated, civilians are saved from damage made and Kal-El recognizes a flaw (which is insecurity) he has before making strides to correct it when he realizes Bizarro doesn't have to mental capacity to know he's doing wrong. And, thus, Superman spares him and sends him back to prison in a wholesome way.
Fast forward to the third act where Lois (let's leave Jason out to limit the focus and to save the revelation of him having powers for another time) is kidnapped by Lex on his yacht and then the Superman/Lex confrontation on the floating Kryptonite landmass. What I'd add is something to wrap the entire story together. While the remnants of Krypton were real, the possibility of life on side remnants are to be a hoax created by Luthor five years prior. Superman's time away was basically a machination created by Lex to get out of jail, reclaim some wealth and regain power in case Kal-El ever return. Luthor explains all this and then proceeds to kick the ever loving shit out of Superman. As in the movie, Superman survives with the help of both Lois and Richard. And then he saves the day with Lex failing to get away due to Kitty's attack of conscience.

But Wait, There's More!

While in the hospital for his injuries, Superman receives confirmation of his (and our) suspicions that Jason is his son when Lois whispers into his ear. She goes to leave and officially rejects Richard's advances, amicably agreeing to remain friends. Which is a cool thematic thing to do because while Richard is Superman-esque, Lois does not pick to be with him because he doesn't have the duality balance like Clark/Superman has. Anyways, Superman sneaks out of the hospital to visit Jason. But, before he can do that, Mongul arrives on Earth for a rematch. Knowing he has both a son and an entire planet to protect from this invader, Superman shakes off being less than 100%. Yay, more action that is also story driven! Supes wins, Mongul admits defeat and departs with his tail tucked between his legs as Metropolis cheers their hero on. Finally reaching Jason, Kal-El recites Jor-El's speech to him as he sleeps as we end the film on a hopeful note. Superman rediscovers his place on Earth and has someone to share his lineage with while also getting back with the woman he loves as his city finds appreciation for him again. Thus, proving that the world needs Superman, who gets to enjoy feeling needed in both sides of his life.

The Revised Plot

Superman has been missing for five years, since traveling to the location where astronomers believed they had discovered the remains of Krypton. Superman flies to the distant galaxy in the space rocket that his father sent him to Earth in to investigate the ruins of his homeworld and to see if there is anything left. He finds only gigantic, asteroid-sized chunks of kryptonite, pieces of the planet that were irradiated by the supernova that destroyed the great civilization. Superman turns his ship around and heads back to Earth, but along the way he is intercepted by Mongul and forced to compete in gladiatorial combat in Warworld. Mongul first puts him against an elite team of warriors known as the Plahtune, but the Man of Steel easily beats them. Next, Mongul himself steps into the arena to battle Superman. Though he is powerful and possesses great strength, Mongul is still no match for the Last Son of Krypton. At the conclusion of their fight, Superman picks up Mongul and prepares to deliver what would most certainly be a killing strike. Mongul taunts him, "Go on, Superman. You know you want to." Superman then throws Mongul to the floor and states that the fight is over. Superman then finds his ship and sets off for Earth, but Mongul vows that he will find him.
During his absence, Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor was released from prison, married a rich widow to obtain her fortune upon her death, broke into the Fortress of Solitude and stole data crystals. Superman, having failed in his quest to find surviving Kryptonians, returns to Earth and, as Clark Kent, resumes his job at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. He subsequently learns that Lois Lane is being courted by Perry White's nephew Richard, has a five year old son named Jason and won the Pulitzer Prize for her article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." Meanwhile, Luthor uses the Kryptonian crystals for an experiment that causes an electromagnetic pulse that leads to power outage on the East Coast releases the genetic creature, Bizarro. The power loss interferes with the flight test of a Space Shuttle to be launched into space from its piggy-back mounting on an airliner, occupied by Lois Lane, who is covering the shuttle story. Clark flies into action as Superman and stops the plane from crashing onto a baseball stadium.
Superman's has difficulty coping with the fact he feels that the world has moved on from him. With Superman distracted by an out-of-control vehicle (a diversion involving Luthor's henchwoman, Kitty Kowalski) and Bizarro’s rampage throughout Metropolis, destroying buildings and attacking citizens, Luthor steals Kryptonite from the Metropolis Museum of Natural History. Though Bizarro is of equal might, Superman is a much more experienced fighter. In the end, Superman defeats Bizarro, but does not kill him because he knows that the poor creature is incapable of understanding his actions.
Perry then assigns Lois to interview Superman while Clark investigates the blackout. Lois sneaks aboard Luthor's yacht and is captured after she decides to hold interest in the blackout story, which she connects to Luthor's experiment. He reveals to her his grand scheme of being behind the hoax of there being signs of life on Krypton and using one of the stolen Kryptonian crystals, which he has combined with the Kryptonite, to grow a new continental landmass in the Northern Atlantic Ocean that will supplant the continental United States and kill millions of innocent people. The crystal begins to create Luthor's new landmass, while Lois attempts to escape but is attacked by a henchman. Meanwhile, Superman is attempting to minimize the destruction in Metropolis caused by the new landmass' growth using his full array of powers, including his strength, freeze breath, and heat vision when Richard arrives in a sea plane to rescue Lois. Superman soon arrives to help and then flies off to find Luthor.
Meeting Luthor, Superman discovers the landmass is filled with Kryptonite, which weakens him to the point that Luthor and his henchmen are able to brutalize and torture him. Superman is stabbed by Luthor with a shard of Kryptonite before he falls into the ocean and is left to drown. Lois makes Richard turn back to rescue Superman, whereupon she removes the Kryptonite from his back. Superman, after regaining his strength from the sun, lifts the landmass after putting layers of earth between him and the Kryptonite. Luthor and Kitty escape in their helicopter; Kitty, unwilling to let millions of people die, tosses away the crystals that Lex stole from the Fortress of Solitude. She and Luthor are stranded on a desert island when their helicopter runs out of fuel. Superman pushes the landmass into space with the crystals trapped on the landmass, but is weakened by the Kryptonite and crashes back to Earth. Doctors remove more Kryptonite from Superman's wound, but after it is removed they cannot penetrate his skin with their surgical tools. While Superman remains in a coma, Lois and Jason visit him at the hospital where Lois whispers a secret into Superman's ear and then kisses him. Superman later awakens and flies to visit Jason then an old enemy returns for a rematch. Mongul has followed Superman to Earth. Superman recites his father Jor-El's last speech to Jason as he sleeps and confronts Mongul after once again. The fight is fierce, but as before the Man of Steel emerges victorious. Mongul admits that he is defeated and flees Earth. Lois starts writing another article, titled "Why the World Needs Superman." Superman reassures her that he is now back to stay, resuming their relationship, and flies off to low orbit, where he gazes down at the world once again.

I really enjoyed the campaign. I like strand. The gameplay is fun (I don't have an opinion on the writing as I don't care) and the big Calus door was very cool.
I like the new enemy faction and type (shadow legion and tormentors) being the raid enemies. But I wish the raid were on Neomuna proper as I miss opening a big door.
I really love opening big doors in raids. If I had to rank my top 5 big doors

1. Crota's big light door after the dark Thrall bit
2. The big portal to Kings Fall that you open in Court of Oryx
3. Leviathan Castelum big door (there are actually many big doors here, and though they aren't all that interesting to open you did get to do it several times)
4. Skolas prison of elders door (the entire PoE experience was going through big doors and I loved every second of it)
5. The Vault in Last Wish. (Cool door but I don't like how little of the raid is left by the time we get to it)

I sorely missed opening a big door (portals count too) and being amazed by what was inside. I always loved that with the raid and it seems like you haven't done it recently. there is/was none in Spire of Stars. Tragically there are no doors at all in Root of Nightmares. I did like the big door opening in VOTD and GOS. I also enjoyed it in the Destiny 1 raids. I thought it was lacking in EoW but there was at least a big door so I still like that one.
To be honest it's the only moment that I play the game for (opening the big door) and I would like it to return.
This post is in earnest. I am not joking. This is literally what I pay 40+ dollars for every year. It is my favorite thing and has been since I opened the big Black Garden door at the end of Destiny 1's campaign. I have always felt satisfied as long as the raid has a big door. I have hated every expansion without one as soon as I realized they weren't just building hype for a big door.
Please tell me your favorite big door in the comments! I always like new perspectives.
Bungie, please go back to big doors. If there is a way for a raid to have a big door before every encounter again like in Leviathan, I would be very happy.

We rescued our female min pin in September of last year. She is two, and we don't know a lot about her prior home, but from what we do know- she came from a hoarder house and had never really been outside. Apparently she was locked in a laundry room with another dog 24/7. She was extremely nervous/timid at the beginning, but she's warmed up a lot and she's an amazing pup.
She had a few potty training issues at first, but at this point she has it figured out. She will let us know she needs to go to the bathroom and when we let her outside she will go potty with no problems. She has no problem peeing and pooping on the concrete though which is a little weird, but we clean it up and ultimately it's not a big deal.
The weird thing is though that she will not go to the bathroom on walks. Given her past, I don't think she had a lot of experience with walks. We have a backyard though luckily and she will happily run out back to go potty after a walk. The issue is though, we would like to start traveling with her and taking her to hotels/unfamiliar environments where she will need to go to the bathroom at some point while on a leash. How on earth do we train her to do this? I always assumed all doggies just knew how to do this!

At first I liked the idea of Codie, but my playgroup doesn't play pure combo storm stuff, and Codie with big spells is a little restrictive.
I do enjoy playing combo decks in general, but I'd also like to not run full combo in my playgroup (some combo elements are ok)
Here are some things I am looking for in a my ideal EDH deck:

• Cool art, flavor (weird, but I like SLD art, and other funky stuff).
• I like unique mechanics, nothing too basic like mana gain, drawing etc.
• I'd like the commander to be a big part of the game plan, not just a supporting piece.
• Again just unique interactions/mechanics with my card choices would be cool.
• I also like cute art like fblthp.
• Color doesn't really matter but I like temur in constructed.

I was looking at these as examples of commanders that look appealing for a variety of reasons:

• [[Fblthp]]
• [[The Mimeoplasm]]
• [[Grolnok, the ominvore]]
• [[the gitrog monster]]
• pitoothy
• [[Zedruu the Greathearted]]

​
Here are examples of some decks in my playgroup if that helps people judge the power level.
https://archidekt.com/decks/4133275
https://archidekt.com/decks/4122223
Any unique commander suggestions, or decks are welcomed!

Top of the Day for 27/03/2023

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^{Times shown are in UTC and dates are formatted as Day/Month/Year.
On mobile you can scroll and slide the tables to reveal more info.}

Most Upvoted Posts of the Day

Place	Title	Author	Subreddit	Score	Posted
1st	Being a dad mean sometimes making a fool of yourself for their enjoyment.	u/mindyour	MadeMeSmile	127,638 Upvotes	26/03/2023 06:51 UTC
2nd	I teamed up with a fellow redditor to try and capture the most ridiculously detailed image of the entire sun we could. The result was a whopping 140 megapixels, and features a solar "tornado" over 14 Earths tall. This is a crop from the full image, make sure you zoom in!	u/ajamesmccarthy	space	123,931 Upvotes	26/03/2023 00:02 UTC
3rd	A protester at a busy intersection in Texas.	u/SuperCub	pics	120,329 Upvotes	26/03/2023 16:38 UTC
4th	Meirl	u/OreoSnorty69	meirl	86,403 Upvotes	26/03/2023 10:43 UTC
5th	British steam locomotive enthusiasts build a fully functional miniature version of the GWR King Class weighing around 200 kg (440 lb). Here's a demonstration of its power:	u/SinjiOnO	nextfuckinglevel	75,117 Upvotes	26/03/2023 10:47 UTC

Most Upvoted Comments of the Day

^{Note: These may not be entirely accurate. Currently these are out of the comments taken from the top 5 submissions.}

Place	Body	Author	Subreddit	Score	Posted
1st	Ooh, that made me cry because it reminded me of when my oldest son was little.(...)	u/Lelio-Santero579	MadeMeSmile	10,761 Upvotes	26/03/2023 08:52 UTC
2nd	They did an impressive job balancing all those cups! You know dad was proud to take the fall for their enjoyment.	u/professorstrunk	MadeMeSmile	8,567 Upvotes	26/03/2023 06:55 UTC
3rd	He committed to that. He made sure to look back as he opened the door to make the performance more believable. The fall was brilliant 🤣. (...)	u/mindyour	MadeMeSmile	6,688 Upvotes	26/03/2023 07:34 UTC
4th	My old scoutmaster is currently in prison. Guess what for.	u/mycatisgrumpy	pics	6,041 Upvotes	26/03/2023 17:12 UTC
5th	They don't spend money on food	u/Saurlifi	meirl	5,708 Upvotes	26/03/2023 11:53 UTC

It's an amazing game and every character has a role and play it great, amazing story, amazing open world I was never bored. I do have one complaint tho, a big glitch that still isn't fixed near the end of the game in a cave (not going to spoil why we are there) but the enemies glitch and don't show up or attack and at the cave entrance there is a void of death you can fall in and you have to restart your system and replay the whole mission again. But other then that and maybe last bit feeling a little long with fetch quest and it being slightly difficult to deal with hordes even in easy mode but I'd give the game a 8.5/10 and it's a game any fan of these kinds of games should play and i think we should get a sequel showing the world in a different part of the USA to see how survivers in places like New York or San Francisco are handling everything cause the world building in Days Gone is amazing and i love to see a big city with people trying to make it better for themselves in a horrible world

Image with the Title Covers
For this occasion I'm only using titles that started airing this ending season. Some notes about each or the titles I picked, from the last to the first:

1. I'm not picking any of the romcoms or the iseakis of the season over this sport show.
   
2. The best way to go through nearly inexistent content is with short episodes. Also I found interesting the fleshing out of Retsuko's boyfriend.
   

For places 8 and 7, the main thing for me is that they feel inconclusive. One of them is getting a movie that's going to complete the story if anything, but the other thing is that the characters barely have any substance of their own, which could also be said about the titles next to them. The other things one can think of derive mostly from how little amount of episodes they had.

1. Because of its family friendly approach, it limits itself in what it can do, but at the very least you gravitate more towards the characters than in the previous two places.
   
2. Simple, repetitive and effective structure, with action that can be enjoyed.
   
3. The only two things that need to be done to instantly improve this one: Make the main characters' backstories less 1d, and remove the big promise for the future feat that justs gets in the way of their build up.
   
4. I lean more towards war stories than pretty much any other type. With that said, in this one the plot gets pretty messy towards the end.
   
5. I prefer the 90s version, but this one its pretty solid on its own. And the CGI is not eye-bleeding.
   
6. While it definitely sets a big contrast in atmosphere with its previous season, and its slice of life approach highlights even more how in the character department it was the one that died at the end of the previous season, and everyone else, its production values are the best of the season, it makes a smooth follow-up of the MC's evolution, and I like how it has a bit more of focus on the character's psyche.
   

Hey everyone, I appreciate you taking your time to read this. I feel pretty lonely and I am in desperate help. First off, my boyfriend and I met last October, about 6 ish months ago. He graduated last semester and I’m finishing up my last semester here. We live about 20 mins away from each other. We met at a cultural club at school and we instantly had a crush on each other. Over the first few months after we met, we would constantly hang out, play video games, watch movies, etc together. We really liked each other to point where we started kissing each other, holding hands, and calling each other pet names. We were basically love bombing each other. We just have a lot of things in common. We felt so happy. He didn’t ask me out until Feb (reason why he took months to ask me out was because apparently asking me out was not his “priority” and he wanted to focus on finding a full-time job first).
So our 1-month anniversary just passed, but over the past few weeks, I started to notice some changes. He stopped texting me good morning and complimenting me. I felt as if he didn't make an effort to really call me or check on me or to even ask me about my day. I’m starting to feel like I’m initiating our plans more, to ask him if he wanted to hang out and play games and facetime me. All we’ve been doing together now is texting each other that’s it. In the first few months we met, we would play games together for long hours. He would constantly ask me to play with him or facetime him. Now it feels like he’s not putting in the effort anymore. Now he would play games with me for only an hour and hop off because he “rages” and he’s “tired.” I had never seen him rage before. Every time he rages now, he would stay silent throughout the game and I constantly have to ask him “What’s wrong?” And he would say “Nothing, I’m tired, I wanna get off.” The next day I asked him how he was feeling and he told me “Why do you worry about everything?” “Go find other people to play with if you don’t want rage then”
I feel like recently we’ve been doing things together less than we used to. He’s not even a busy person either, he only has a part-time job. Last Thursday, I facetimed him and brought up how I felt like we should spend more time together and how I felt like I’m initiating everything now and how quality time means a lot to me. He stayed silent throughout the call and said nothing. I asked him if he wanted to hang out today (Sunday) since I didn’t see him for a week, but all he said was “We’ll see.” I asked him if he’s busy and he said “No I don’t have anything to do.” I said “You don’t want to hang out with me?” And he said “I don’t know”
I also go out to raves a lot, while he doesn’t which I respect. The next he brought up he doesn’t want to hang out since I’m going to a rave and he doesn’t want me to get sick and get him and his family sick and it’s better off to stay safe. I completely understand him but I don’t understand why he didn’t bring that up during our call in the first place.
So before I headed off to a rave few days ago on Friday, however, I tried on the blue outfit. I realized it’s pretty hard to wear and the strings keep falling off. I decided to wear a different outfit. I sent him a snap of me wearing the outfit and all he said was “That’s not blue.” He then sent me a snap back of him giving me a thumbs down. I told him I wanted to switch outfits because the blue outfit ends up pretty hard for me to wear. He then said “My name: “I’m wearing onesie or blue outfit” “ and “Caught lying on camera 🤔” I asked him if he still liked my new outfit tho and instead of hyping me up or complimenting me, he said “Sure cool I guess” Later that night while I was at the rave, I texted him that I wish he was there with me and he said “Nope. Much better here and warmer in my room” and I was like “So meann” and he said “Go cry to your little rave friends then” I don’t know..I feel like he’s starting to become rude to me now.
Last week, I was talking to him about how I was planning to go to that last rave and it would be my last and take mdma again. Now I’m not a drug person, I’ve only done alcohol, edibles, and mdma in my whole life. I’ve only done mdma for 2 times, with 3 month break in between. I was being very cautious of it by testing it and taking low doses, playing it safe and smart. He seemed to be surprised and a little upset that I am taking it again, he said “I didn’t know you’re gonna take it again ;-;” I promised him I would stay safe and responsible. He seemed okay about it then.
But something still feels off. So I confronted him the next day asking if he actually supports my decisions on going to raves. He told me: “Also going to raves is fine but doing drugs for it to be funner is dumb. Idk I’ve had close people betray my trust in the last couple years so it’s hard. What’s gonna happen to the molly anyways cuz I’m sure you had to buy it” I understand his perspective. He is uncomfortable with me using drugs, which is valid. Expressing his concerns to me is also valid, but I don’t get why he didn’t talk about this in the first place when I first brought up about using mdma again. And yes, I decided I didn’t want to use mdma again, not only for him but for myself too. It was my last rave (won’t be attending any more raves) so I just wanted to try mdma one more time, but I realized I’m smarter than that so I don’t want to risk it. I also brought up to him how I felt pretty down when he was making a big fuss about me switching outfits and accusing me, but he didn’t reply to that, never apologized.
Over the first month of dating, we had been arguing too, mainly to miscommunication issues. One of the arguments would be about how he thought I ignored his texts when I was super busy at a club event. Called him later that day to talk about it, but he just gave me silent treatment. Other arguments were more dumb.
He’s usually a very sweet, caring, and understanding guy. We both usually apologize and communicate it out. However, he seems a little irritated and rude in his texts recently. If I try to communicate out with again, I’m afraid he would give me silent treatment again and say I worry about everything again. During one of our previous arguments, I mentioned how I was just trying to communicate and not argue with him and he said “you keep saying we need to communicate better, but it’s you that’s screwing it up.” Which hurt me.
What should I do? I really love him and I don’t want to leave him. But it seems he’s not putting a lot of effort.
TDLR: My boyfriend (23M) and I (21F) have communication issues and it’s affecting our relationship. We’ve been dating for one month.

I'm 37, she's 65. She is happily retired, just bought a house in Hawaii last year where she lives with my stepdad, who she married years after I moved out of the house.
She wasn't the worst mom or anything. It's just that every time we speak it really brings me down. She split up with my dad when I was pretty young so for a lot of my childhood she was a single mom, working 6-7 days a week and late in the evenings. I spent most of my time in daycare. I endured the teasing poor kids get wearing the cheapest clothes, watching the other kids eat nice meals and whatnot. I never resented her for that, in fact I grew to resent myself for being such a burden and causing her to work all the time. It seemed like I could never make her happy, I couldn't do the chores 100% of the time and I struggled in school.
She didn't want my dad in the picture at all and fought tooth and nail over it, even though I was close with my dad. He wasn't a drug addict or anything, just maybe a bit of a slacker. The reason I think she made such a big deal out of keeping him away from us is that the man she was seeing used to be friends with my dad and once he was with my mom he hated my dad's guts and made no reservations about telling me so. By extension he was pretty harsh to me as well, constantly criticizing me and yelling at me almost on a daily basis. Whether it was deserved or not it's hard to say. I struggled in school as I said, and struggled with depression and missing the parent who actually acted happy that I existed.
Anyway this all seemed more or less normal to me as these things do to kids who grow up in rough situations. I grew up and struggled, dropped out of college, was a vagabond for a few years, eventually got into working construction. It wasn't until some of my friends and peers began to have kids that I questioned how she acted towards me. How she scrimped and saved so she could buy a house (which she did when I was 14) not so much that she couldn't afford any time or support for me, it was her choice. She is very budget oriented and frugal and I was just a factor to account for in her bookkeeping.
In our adult life our relationship seemed to improve somewhat and she did offer some support here and there. The guy she had been with died unexpectedly when I was 18 and she found a new partner about a year after that who has always kind of resented me whenever I am around but in a more quiet and passive aggressive way rather than the yelling from before. I am very crafty and arty and was making handmade gifts for every Christmas/birthday/mothers day for a while but they were never really reciprocated so after a while I stopped putting in much effort. There are a few things the two of them did over the last ten years that were so disrespectful to my partner and I that my partner eventually decided he wanted nothing at all to do with them and would be angry at me for seeing them at all.
I'm in a rough patch right now. Partner and I split up last summer and so far I've been struggling to find a new direction in life. I could really use some kind of advice or guidance or support. I'm getting by ok, renting a room, have a small support network in terms of friends. I don't really need my mom's help but I do wish I had some sort of family. I talk to dad fairly often, he's barely scraping by on social security now, a little crazy and hard to talk to but he does check in and we have a good relationship considering everything that has gone on.
Anyway my mom sold the house she bought in 99, sale just closed the other day. She sent a text saying it had gone to a couple who were buying it for their child to attend the local university, I kind of lost it. Not that she should be buying me a house or anything, I was brought up to expect nothing, and appreciate any little thing I could get. I just don't want to think about the past anymore. I don't want to think about the nasty sexual notes that her ex (deceased) partner had written to me that I found in the house earlier this year and burned - the man who she begged me to just accept as part of the family when I was a teen, when she was in court fighting to not allow any contact between me and my dad. Imagine a couple who supported their kid and tried to help the kid have a bright future instead of treating them as an obstacle. I don't know if I would think of my mom as a narcissist, that doesn't quite fit. Just emotionally very cold.
I just broke down and called, (feeling guilty for ignoring the text), talked to her for an hour on the phone, trying to find some way to relate, talking about all the beautiful plants she is planting at her place in Hawaii and how I'm not sure where to go in life and how most successful people have some kind of support. Conversation went nowhere but she did mention we should talk more often. But I think maybe I'm done. She's the only mom I will ever have and she is getting older, I dunno. This is more of a rant than anything but I would appreciate anyone's input.

Not boasting. Not saying I'm better than anyone else. I don't usually pat myself on the back for this kind of thing but for some reason rn I want to.
It's so satisfying to see where my life is going considering where i came from. I never had great plans in fact those would be kinda difficult growing up in a tiny rural town around people of a tiny rural town mindset. I never really wanted to grind or be successful just see where the flow takes me and be satisfied with my life although I never fitted in around people who didn't dream big as was the case in my hometown which I still love to bits.
The beginning of Covid swept the momentum from under me and I thought I was going to stay in my little rural hometown forever but a little bit of perseverance and vision has lead to working for the government in an 8million+ inhabitant metropolis around incredible people meeting delegations and health ministers and all sorts of cool people. I don't know if it'll keep up this way but I feel like i have serious options all of a sudden and I've also witnessed just how drastically things can turn around so I'll never let myself get drawn downwards in the same way again.
Anyone out there struggling just never let that spark die you don't know what's just around the corner if you keep going.

Hey everyone, I appreciate you taking your time to read this. I feel pretty lonely and I am in desperate help. First off, my boyfriend and I met last October, about 6 ish months ago. He graduated last semester and I’m finishing up my last semester here. We live about 20 mins away from each other. We met at a cultural club at school and we instantly had a crush on each other. Over the first few months after we met, we would constantly hang out, play video games, watch movies, etc together. We really liked each other to point where we started kissing each other, holding hands, and calling each other pet names. We were basically love bombing each other. We just have a lot of things in common. We felt so happy. He didn’t ask me out until Feb (reason why he took months to ask me out was because apparently asking me out was not his “priority” and he wanted to focus on finding a full-time job first).
So our 1-month anniversary just passed, but over the past few weeks, I started to notice some changes. He stopped texting me good morning and complimenting me. I felt as if he didn't make an effort to really call me or check on me or to even ask me about my day. I’m starting to feel like I’m initiating our plans more, to ask him if he wanted to hang out and play games and facetime me. All we’ve been doing together now is texting each other that’s it. In the first few months we met, we would play games together for long hours. He would constantly ask me to play with him or facetime him. Now it feels like he’s not putting in the effort anymore. Now he would play games with me for only an hour and hop off because he “rages” and he’s “tired.” I had never seen him rage before. Every time he rages now, he would stay silent throughout the game and I constantly have to ask him “What’s wrong?” And he would say “Nothing, I’m tired, I wanna get off.” The next day I asked him how he was feeling and he told me “Why do you worry about everything?” “Go find other people to play with if you don’t want rage then”
I feel like recently we’ve been doing things together less than we used to. He’s not even a busy person either, he only has a part-time job. Last Thursday, I facetimed him and brought up how I felt like we should spend more time together and how I felt like I’m initiating everything now and how quality time means a lot to me. He stayed silent throughout the call and said nothing. I asked him if he wanted to hang out today (Sunday) since I didn’t see him for a week, but all he said was “We’ll see.” I asked him if he’s busy and he said “No I don’t have anything to do.” I said “You don’t want to hang out with me?” And he said “I don’t know”
I also go out to raves a lot, while he doesn’t which I respect. The next he brought up he doesn’t want to hang out since I’m going to a rave and he doesn’t want me to get sick and get him and his family sick and it’s better off to stay safe. I completely understand him but I don’t understand why he didn’t bring that up during our call in the first place.
So before I headed off to a rave few days ago on Friday, however, I tried on the blue outfit. I realized it’s pretty hard to wear and the strings keep falling off. I decided to wear a different outfit. I sent him a snap of me wearing the outfit and all he said was “That’s not blue.” He then sent me a snap back of him giving me a thumbs down. I told him I wanted to switch outfits because the blue outfit ends up pretty hard for me to wear. He then said “My name: “I’m wearing onesie or blue outfit” “ and “Caught lying on camera 🤔” I asked him if he still liked my new outfit tho and instead of hyping me up or complimenting me, he said “Sure cool I guess” Later that night while I was at the rave, I texted him that I wish he was there with me and he said “Nope. Much better here and warmer in my room” and I was like “So meann” and he said “Go cry to your little rave friends then” I don’t know..I feel like he’s starting to become rude to me now.
Last week, I was talking to him about how I was planning to go to that last rave and it would be my last and take mdma again. Now I’m not a drug person, I’ve only done alcohol, edibles, and mdma in my whole life. I’ve only done mdma for 2 times, with 3 month break in between. I was being very cautious of it by testing it and taking low doses, playing it safe and smart. He seemed to be surprised and a little upset that I am taking it again, he said “I didn’t know you’re gonna take it again ;-;” I promised him I would stay safe and responsible. He seemed okay about it then.
But something still feels off. So I confronted him the next day asking if he actually supports my decisions on going to raves. He told me: “Also going to raves is fine but doing drugs for it to be funner is dumb. Idk I’ve had close people betray my trust in the last couple years so it’s hard. What’s gonna happen to the molly anyways cuz I’m sure you had to buy it” I understand his perspective. He is uncomfortable with me using drugs, which is valid. Expressing his concerns to me is also valid, but I don’t get why he didn’t talk about this in the first place when I first brought up about using mdma again. And yes, I decided I didn’t want to use mdma again, not only for him but for myself too. It was my last rave (won’t be attending any more raves) so I just wanted to try mdma one more time, but I realized I’m smarter than that so I don’t want to risk it. I also brought up to him how I felt pretty down when he was making a big fuss about me switching outfits and accusing me, but he didn’t reply to that, never apologized.
Over the first month of dating, we had been arguing too, mainly to miscommunication issues. One of the arguments would be about how he thought I ignored his texts when I was super busy at a club event. Called him later that day to talk about it, but he just gave me silent treatment. Other arguments were more dumb.
He’s usually a very sweet, caring, and understanding guy. We both usually apologize and communicate it out. However, he seems a little irritated and rude in his texts recently. If I try to communicate out with again, I’m afraid he would give me silent treatment again and say I worry about everything again. During one of our previous arguments, I mentioned how I was just trying to communicate and not argue with him and he said “you keep saying we need to communicate better, but it’s you that’s screwing it up.” Which hurt me.
What should I do? I really love him and I don’t want to leave him. But it seems he’s not putting a lot of effort.
TDLR: My boyfriend (23M) and I (21F) have communication issues and it’s affecting our relationship. We’ve been dating for one month.

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I (F22) feel like I’ve hit a little bit of rock bottom. Within this year, so the last 3 months. I have had two really big deaths in my family, bought a new car that someone immediately backed into. I’m also in the last semester (and one summer class) of my masters program in actuarial science and I feel like I’m struggling so hard and I’m getting help from tutors, but I still feel as though I’m super behind even though I’ve turned in and completed all assignments. My boyfriend of a little over a year who has become my best friend and biggest blessing recently deployed, so I went and visited my family 5 hours away for the weekend for comfort. I left around noon today so I can make it back for my full time (demanding) job tomorrow. While I was home nothing seemed wrong and actually seemed normal, the problem is my mom called me about an hour after I got back and told me she asked my dad for a divorce. I know this is something a lot of people go through me and my brother are super worried about my dad because even my mom said he did not know and was caught off guard. I guess a lot of things I’m still trying to wrap my head around. My mom said my dad never did anything wrong she just fell out of love, which I don’t fault her it’s life and I know it happens I’m just heart broken a little bit because they’ve been married for 25+ years and I’m so worried for my dad because of how blind sided he was. I still love my mom but we’ve had a rough rough past and can have trouble getting along.. I’m sorry I rambled but all of it together I just feel lost kind of and I’m not sure how to not feel lost and depressed anymore. I’m on my phone so I’m sorry for any bad grammar.