#the amount of times i saw takes that are considered normal especially on reddit that are one step

[justaholeinmysoul]

Empathy and sympathy for weird, different and weak people are decreasing so alarmingly tbh .

I can't believe that people freak out for some slur on a TV show and tits but let others post online the most ableist, eugenics and disgusting shit

[autumnsorbet]

I wonder if Merlin convinced/asked King uther to adopt Arthur

Than she set up Excalibur so Arthur could be king

Why is Merlin going to these lens for Arthur of all people considering there have been other chaos users and as long as Merlin's been around I'm sure there have been other humans she could have given Excalibur to and help them become a great ruler a king in order to use chaos why does she have to

pick Arthur pacifically I wonder I know it goes with the Arthurien Legends and all but why is it in this story Merlin shows Arthur that's just one of the many things that was never really cleared up like there's a bit more about their past we don't know and then there is the stuff that happened in between the end of seven deadly sins till what we're looking at currently I've been trying to piece the timeline together

From what I can tell it goes in this order

First we have the end of the seven deadly sins after the god-awful chaos ark

Then we have the safe by light movie which I'm still convinced a large majority of this fandom has not watched including myself I got the screenshots I have with Arthur and Merlin in it off of a YouTube clip

Then there's the next part from the night from the beginning of the manga who the age the characters when they've got to the Crystal caves I can't remember his name right now

And he showed how Arthur recruited him and it seems this happened right after the demon King's my asthma was affecting the southern Britannia and our large amount of people in it right after the attack the when the demon King finally was defeated or whatever around this time so could Arthur's personality have begun to split and he not know it at the time where chaos was in control and then he would go back to normal and then at some point it was just completely chaos and control

Cuz looking back at it Arthur's outfit is the exact same as it was from the movie unless Merlin just made him multiple copies of the same outfit cuz they were working on just rebuilding Camelot at the time so focusing on appearance and what they look like wasn't probably a top priority which is understandable so Arthur just has multiple of the same outfits in different colors because even in color we see that this outfit is the same one from the movie just in Black

Or maybe the my asthma was just so bad that it had a longer lasting effect on Britannia I'm wondering and this takes a place a bit later this could be a year later from when the movie was set because if I'm correct from what people have told me king and Diane were getting married in the

movie so I'm guessing it took place a few weeks maybe a few months to maybe several months later cuz that's how long it takes to plan a wedding or whatever so this could be several months later and Arthur started to turn at that point and maybe at

first Merlin didn't notice it because around her even though he was still with seemingly seems to be depressed about everything that happened with Camelot and trying to rebuild it he was still trying to maintain his own personality but glimpses of chaos would come through

I'm trying to piece together the timeline and what's happening with Arthur's personality because it's clear like we all been saying from the beginning it's been chaos and control not Arthur and personal having Spirit magic I think will be a driving Factor helping bringing the real Arthur back there was also the theory and I mentioned in another post before that I saw from Reddit where someone had

mentioned that Arthur could have been being controlled by the spirits and Excalibur but I think it's pretty clear especially when looking at the anime and color and you see Arthur's eyes change you see more white in his eyes than his own color of his eyes which are purple meaning that chaos truly is slowly taking over Arthur

(sorry I don't have a visual for this right now Tumblr won't let me post any more pictures in this post )

I'm assuming Arthur is Chaos's first true host it's had full length too I

believe before maybe at some point on chaos was creating humans it puts larger parts of itself in certain humans so that way maybe one day it could have a host and maybe Excalibur was always the key to that but it got corrupted over time and at

some point the Lady of the lake meant Merlin and told her about the key to chaos and maybe that's why she used Excalibur to wake and Arthur since Excalibur seems to just be a chaos key I don't think it was meant to hold the spirits of the heroes but for some reason it did and now that chaos is more free and had gained more control over time I'm

guessing within a year or maybe even a couple years it fully consumed Arthur and about 10 years ago from what pellegard said that's when Arthur's fully started to change because it was around part two after the time skipping for nights and and Donnie met pellegard he mentioned he hadn't been able to fully understand Arthur's motives and almost 10 years something major had had to change where Arthur was willing to fully let chaos consume him

In Merlin disappeared or maybe chaos trapped her away or something but we can tell that Merlin has been active there have been hints that she's possibly hiding in lions , and then there's gwaian who I believe isn't like a clone or hybrid or anything I believe she's just like a normal baby that Merlin saw had magic potential maybe like she did with Vivian and Arthur so she left the granny golem with her to train her to use magic and sunshine is something Merlin enchanted on to her as it's next host so Sunshine could be active again and possibly used to defeat Arthur or at least stop chaos at some point the same can be sailed the Lady of the lake who I believe still had some magic left over from one Merlin had the seven deadly sins send their magic towards the leg during their battle with the demon king and there was some residue magic left over and the lady of the late gave it to Lance a lot which is why he's so overpowered and people say he's on the same level as the seven deadly sins is because he has some of their magic in him

[purplesurveys]

1052

surveys by lets-make-surveys

1 - Who was the last person to knock on your door? Were they there to see you? Nina usually knocks briefly in the evening to let me know it’s time for dinner. Other than my ex in the past, I don’t let anyone stay in my room for long. Knocking and peeking into my room is enough.

2 - Have you left the house yet today? If not, do you have plans to leave the house later on? No, as it’s only 10 in the morning and I don’t really have a reason to be out somewhere this early. I might go out to buy presents for more relatives, but that’s only if I feel productive enough today. We’ll see.

3 - What’s your favourite brand of chocolate? What type of chocolate bar from that brand is your favourite? The older I get the more I feel like gagging from the idea of chocolate bars lol; they’re all just so sweet. These days my top three would be Hershey’s cookies and cream bar, Whittaker’s chocolate peanut butter bar, and Twix bars. I also love Reese’s, but they aren’t bars.

4 - Have you ever met someone in person who you first met on the internet? Do you have plans to do that anytime soon? Yes, I’ve done this before and I’ve recounted the stories on here multiple times. As for the second question, yeah I technically do? I’ve only met my workmates online so far, so I’m constantly looking forward to the opportunity to finally meet them all in real life.

5 - What was the last thing you used a blender for? I’ve never used a blender. We don’t even own a blender.

6 - Have you ever got into an argument with a stranger on social media? Do you remember what it was about? Yeah, but I don’t even remember what it was about anymore...I do know it was this year, and the person deleted the comment that I replied to not long after.

7 - When was the last time you cracked your joints? Is that something you do often? Now that you reminded me, I just did. I do it at least once a day, whenever my fingers start to feel tight and tense.

8 - What time is it right now? If you weren’t doing a survey, what else would you be doing right now? It is 1:52 PM. I’d be heading to the mall to buy more presents, but I don’t feel like getting out of bed yet. I’d also do embroidery, but my online orders are taking a while to arrive :( My online shopping app says I'll be getting them by Jan 3rd, but the shipping tracker says it’s already being shipped from China to here so I’m looking forward to receiving it this week. I hope that’s the case; otherwise it’ll miss the point of being my hobby this Christmas break.

9 - If you had ten minutes to run around an empty supermarket and fill your trolley for free, what’s the first aisle you’d go for? The fancy meat/fish section. Then I’d go to the condiments/spice section, then frozen food, then chips.

10 - Aside from Tumblr, what websites do you visit the most and why? YouTube, because I find videos a soothing distraction; Twitter to keep me updated on local and international news; Reddit for quirky posts; and Wikipedia so I can continue learning trivia I’ll never have to use but want to gain anyway.

11 - Has COVID had any impact on your Christmas plans this year? What’s going to change or be different to normal? My dad is home for Christmas this year, which is one silver lining from Covid. But my relatives living abroad who usually fly back to the Philippines for the holidays obviously won’t be able to this year, so we’re not gonna have a packed family reunion like we normally do. Everything else is the same, but I think the biggest thing about this whole thing is that I can barely feel Christmas coming this year. I think it’s going to feel like such a plain Friday this week; and that makes me a little sad.

12 - What’s your favourite flavour of cake? Are you any good at making that kind of cake? My favorite flavor is chocolate, but my favorite kind of cake (which I enjoy a lot more than general chocolate cake) is cheesecake. I cannot make either, nor can I bake at all.

13 - Do you prefer sweet or sour candy? Sweet. I hate any sour foods with a passion lol especially sour candy; it is my absolute least favorite taste. I don’t find anything enjoyable or fulfilling about it.

14 - What colour is your favourite fruit? Is this a fruit you eat often? Already made my feelings for fruit clear on this blog, haha.

15 - Is your favourite restaurant an independent place or a chain? What is it that you love about it so much? It’s a chain, like most popular restaurants here. Independent places are a little hard to come by, to be honest. They make the best katsu I’ve ever had; and I also like that despite being a chain restaurant, the ambience is still quite sophisticated and date-friendly so I always feel like I’m treating myself whenever I eat there.

16 - Are you genuinely a fan of Starbucks or do you think it’s all hype? I personally enjoy everything about Starbucks. I like their coffees, their Frappes, the ambience in their coffee shops, their playlists, and their line-up of mugs and tumblers. I’ve always felt right at home in their shops and out of all the cafés I’ve been to, it’s always their baristas that have been the nicest.

17 - Do you own a Christmas jumper? What design/pattern does it have on it? No, I don’t.

18 - What’s your favourite fit/style of jeans? I was obsessed with mom jeans throughout 2020.

19 - What was the last non-essential item you spent money on? Overpriced coffee and a sandwich.

20 - Are you currently under any COVID-related restrictions where you live? Are people generally following the rules? Public places are super strict with requiring everyone to wear a face shield and face mask; before entering any establishment, people’s temperatures are taken and everyone’s also required to take a contact tracing form. Anyone under the age of 21 still isn’t allowed to go out for the most part, though I think there are some exceptions now because I see kids younger than me already going on out-of-town trips again. Some places that are big on tourism like Sagada, Batanes, and Baguio are still closed off from the public; those that have since reopened, like Boracay, follow strict protocol and everyone going there is required to undergo a swab test. Everyday Filipinos follow the rules; it’s the politicians and police force who don’t, which feels disgusting to say.

21 - What did you last leave the room you’re in to do? A package arrived for me so I had to pay for it. It was the phone case I ordered for my cousin.

22 - Have you ever read any self-help books? Did you find them useful? No. I don’t really believe in that genre, so I never felt pulled to buy a book.

23 - What’s your favourite programme on the Food Network (if you watch it)? If you don’t get that channel, what’s your favourite food/cookery show in general? All things Gordon Ramsay, man. MasterChef, Hell’s Kitchen, and Kitchen Nightmares are all *chef’s kiss* The Great British Bake Off is also great and something I like watching when I want to wind down :)

24 - Do you still watch cartoons? From time to time.

25 - Who do you know with the most number of siblings? Would you ever want to live in a huge family? My grandpa was one of nine siblings, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not sure if I know a bigger set than that. Unless my family was filthy rich, I would not want to have such a big immediate family.

26 - Are you a fan of garlic bread? Sure. I tend to ask for others’ too, heh.

27 - Do you own any personalised clothing? What’s the reason for getting it? No, not a fan. Two years ago we had a huge family reunion on my dad’s side and we had to wear these cheesy shirts that said “[Last Name] Reunion” with some cheesy motto at the bottom. My parents hated it, which made me feel better about my own feelings about the shirt lol.

28 - Is anyone else in the same room as you right now? What is that person up to? No, it’s just me here.

29 - What colours are you wearing right now? Does your wardrobe contain a lot of those colours? White, maroon, and scarlet. I have a lot of white and maroon; not so much of scarlet as I find the color too bold.

30 - Do you like adding condiments to your food? If so, what are some of your favourites? Yes. My food always needs to have soup, condiments, or sauces; otherwise I tend to feel the dish is too dry. I like mayonnaise, banana ketchup, hot sauce, and lechon sauce.

--

1 - What have you been up to so far today? Is that a typical thing for you to do on this particular day of the week? I’ve taken a couple of surveys and started binge-watching segments of my newest Korean reality show discovery, 2 Days 1 Night. The breakout actor from Start-Up and the newest love of my life HAHAHA is a cast member on the current season of 2D1N so I’ve been all over the show today. It’s hilarious; I can hardly believe I’m only discovering the show this late.

2 - Did you get a decent night’s sleep last night? How many hour’s sleep do you consider a decent amount? It was around five hours, which isn’t a lot to me. I usually sleep 7-9 hours these days, but I might wreck my body clock during the holiday break because I want to keep being awake and do the things I haven’t been able to do because of work.

3 - What is one silly thing that really gets on your nerves? Seeing pickles in a burger.

4 - Who was the last person you saw who wasn’t family? What did you guys end up doing together? The friendly Starbucks barista from yesterday; her name was Princess. We didn’t do anything lol, she just took my order and was super friendly about it, and she also gave me the Starbucks planner that I chose to redeem.

5 - Do you prefer hot or cold drinks overall? Cold. I avoid hot drinks now haha. Ever since I had that incident with the takoyaki, I’ve been too scared to let any hot food or drink touch my mouth.

6 - Do you own a decent set of waterproofs? If so, what do you use them for the most? If not, do you think that would be something you’d find useful? I don’t know what this is referring to, and I’m too lazy to Google right now. I’ve only ever known this word as an adjective, whoops.

7 - Do you have any plans for the rest of the day? Take more surveys, and maybe have another cup of coffee. I’ll also have to get started on a daily report I submit for work every weekday morning so that my load will be lighter tomorrow. Our office is technically on shutdown until January 4th, but some clients require a daily report every day and I’ll have to shoulder that with another co-associate. It sucks, but at least it’s the only thing I’ll have to do for the next two weeks.

8 - How often do you get your hair cut? When hairdressers were closed due to COVID, did you try cutting it yourself at home? I only go to the salon once a year, and I already did it this 2020 when I chopped off my hair and got bangs. Yeah, whenever my bangs start to get too long I either ask my mom to trim them or I do so myself.

9 - What did you wear the last time you left the house? Is that different to what you’re wearing at the moment? I walked Cooper half an hour ago and I just stayed in the same clothes I’ve been in all day, which was a tank top underneath an oversized hoodie and a pair of shorts.

10 - Would you rather have a relaxing beach holiday or a more active holiday in the mountains? The beach would be perfect right now, but I think my answer changes every time this is asked and I’m pretty sure I picked mountains the last time HAHAHA. I just realized being in the mountains would give me the same cooped-up feeling I’ve been having from staying at home for such a long time, and it might not be the best and healthiest trip for me...the beach definitely sounds more freeing and therapeutic.

11 - Do you know how to tie a tie? Nah, never learned. I’ve never been good at tying anything up, period.

12 - How old were you when you first had a sleepover at someone’s house? Did you miss home? I was 15 or 16; I’m not entirely sure anymore. Not at all, I was so excited to have been allowed to go to my first sleepover.

13 - How often do you spend time with your extended family? Under normal circumstances, we’d visit my grandma and cousins on my mom’s side once every few months or so. It was pretty regular since they’re just a stone’s throw away. But obviously we’ve since had to drastically cut our get-togethers back, and I’ve only seen them around three times since the beginning of the year. My dad’s family lives pretty far south, so I only get to see them once or twice a year even in pre-Covid days; not much of a difference there.

14 - When you get up in the morning, do you have a set routine? No. I just wake up feeling dread and have no choice but to wait for the weight in my chest to subside.

15 - Do you remember the last time you cried? Were they sad or happy tears? Yesterday in my car, in the mall parking lot. Sad tears.

16 - What do you have planned once you finish this survey? Look for another one. I misseddddd taking surveys and I plan on taking a crap ton of them this Christmas break. I may also be called for dinner, so there’s that.

17 - What was the last thing you cooked? Did you cook from scratch or just heat something up? I dunno if it counts as cooking, but I just made the DIY ramen kit that I received as a Christmas gift from the branch I was originally an intern at. Everything was already prepared in the kit and all I needed to do was boil water for the noodles and prepare the broth. Turned out surprisingly good.

18 - Are you a fan of hot chocolate? Do you like it plain or do you prefer to add things like whipped cream or marshmallows? I love hot chocolate and will order it sometimes, but given my aforementioned fear of hot beverages I always wait for it to considerably cool down hahaha. I like my hot chocolate plain.

19 - What caused your last injury? Cooper’s nails.

20 - How many tattoos and piercings do you have? Do any of them have an interesting story behind them? Just a piercing on each of my earlobes. No interesting stories...yet.

21 - What kind of flowers do you like the best? When was the last time someone bought those for you? I like peonies, though I’m not sure if my ex ever gave me a bouquet that included those.

22 - What’s the smallest thing you’ve ended a relationship over? I’ve only been with one person and I dated her twice, but I was never the one who ended the relationship either time so can’t really answer this.

23 - Would you rather order a starter (appetiser) or a dessert? Or would you be able to manage a full three courses? Three-course meal, pls. I’ve only experienced it once, when my parents treated me to dinner during my cruise gift for my 18th birthday; it was great and every dish was made amazingly well.

24 - How do you get most of your news, if you pay attention to it at all? I catch the evening news every weeknight because we keep the telvision turned on during dinner. I also get to read articles on social media.

25 - Have you or a member of your family been diagnosed with COVID yet? None that I know of, thankfully. It’s always been someone that a relative knows, but so far none of us have gotten it.

26 - Are you a vegetarian? If so, what persuaded you to stop eating meat? If not, is it something you’d ever consider? No. I have been considering it for years, but I truthfully don’t know if I could give up meat.

27 - Do you prefer rice or pasta? Rice.

28 - Is anything you’re wearing a gift? Who bought it for you? No.

29 - What’s the dominant colour in the room you’re in at the moment? I guess white, since my walls are white and that’s the first thing you see when entering my room.

30 - Did you do laundry yet today? If not, do you need to do any before you go to bed? Not my chore to do, but it was already done a few days ago.

[aire101]

Ferrum Intro

My brain absolutely, positively refuses to focus on romance atm, which means I have made no progress on my WIP and instead my brain ended up producing this concept which I will probably continue at least until I get it out of my system.  So here’s the beginning of a post-Endgame MCU/SAO Irondad fic that I went online to read, discovered it didn’t exist yet, and so could NOT GET OUT OF MY DAMN HEAD.

-------

It had been a long day.

Then again, every day seemed like a long one lately.

It had been a relatively beautiful November day for New York City, and with the approaching holidays Peter was starting to see the usual uptick in petty crime begin this season. Within his five hour patrol he had helped eight lost tourists, found one lost pet, caught two armed burglars and tied up a ridiculous number of petty thieves. Nothing too problematic, just another day in the life of our friendly neighborhood Spider-man.

Peter sat crouched on a roof looking over the newest Iron Man mural to pop up, this time right on the edge between Queens and Brooklyn. There were several around town already, but this one was especially heart-wrenching. Most were either of the armor mid-action or of Mr. Stark in his trademark press look. But this one was different in the best and worst way.

In this art, Mr. Stark was still in his armor, but the helmet was retracted, allowing the viewer to see the blood crusted on his face, the lines of worry even deeper than they were before everything had gone to hell. There weren’t many pictures of Mr. Stark from the five year period now known as the Blip, but in the ones there were Peter knew he had looked like this— tired and worn in a way Peter had never seen, but could well understand. All in all, it looked uncannily similar to the last time Peter had seen him. When—

Anyway—

And on the shoulders of this mural’s Tony Stark rested an enormous orb holding dozens of galaxies spiraling around a central point— a tiny arc reactor in the shape of a heart.

There was still a little while before he would be expected at Ned’s tonight, but the more he tried to convince himself to hit the streets again, the heavier his limbs felt.

He couldn’t do it. Not like this. Experience told him it was a recipe for disaster, likely to get himself or someone else badly hurt. Himself he could handle, someone else… his conscience couldn’t take another body added to its count right now. Besides, he had promised Ned he’d be there tonight.

Peter sighed and swung away from his rooftop perch to head back towards Ned’s, not sparing the art a backwards glance.

No matter how good it was, no reproduction could ever duplicate what he had lost.

----------

“Whoa, you’re early,” said Ned with a mild tone of shock. Which honestly… was probably fair. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least another thirty minutes.”

“Yeah, I decided to call it a night early. It was actually pretty quiet tonight anyway. Didn’t want to get too wrung out on the web considering we have plans tonight,” said Peter as he stepped into the Leeds’ apartment, slipping off his shoes and hanging his coat on the rack. “Where is everyone?”

“Dad has to work tonight, and mom and Angelica went to Laser Bounce earlier, but they should be back before too long. I stayed home to finish some stuff up before the launch tonight. Plus, I wasn’t sure when you’d be getting here, so…”

“Sorry, I should have messaged earlier.”

“You’re alright man. Like I said, I had some stuff to wrap up. I plan to be in-game as much as possible tomorrow,” said Ned as they moved into his bedroom.

“You sure you don’t mind me getting the first run tonight? They might have some secret opening event planned for the first few hours…” asked Peter.

“I am absolutely positive. I am going to have plenty of opportunities to lose unhealthy amounts of sleep to this game. Besides, between the two of us I think you need the break more than me.  On a related note— you look terrible man. Have you been sleeping at all?”

“I sleep,” said Peter defensively. “I don’t really need much though, you know?”

“Physically, sure. Mentally? You’re still just as human as the rest of us Peter. Have you talked to May about it? Or Happy?”

“Can we please drop this? It’s just been a long day, alright?”

“What happened? I thought you said it was mostly quiet?” asked Ned, confused.

“I meant it was quiet for New York, I was still busy pretty much all evening,” said Peter, falling backwards onto Ned’s bed.

Ned sat down at his computer, spinning around to face Peter. “Fine, but I’m definitely going to harass you later, and you better actually sleep after we trade off in a few hours. Anyway, I am SO PSYCHED or this! God I hope its worth all the hype.”

“I can’t imagine it being a flop. The tech behind it is revolutionary, and the head developer has been working on the game for like a decade,” said Peter, as he scrolled through the GameSpot special coverage from that day.

“Wasn’t SI contracted to consult on it, too?” asked Ned.

Peter felt his throat begin to constrict. The nails of his right hand bit into the flesh of his palm as he forced himself to take a slow breath—hold—and release…

“Yeah, Mr. Stark consulted on it himself. Some of the engineering on the headset is similar to the BARF technology. I think he might have worked on a couple system AI’s as well.”

“That is so cool man. So this is almost like his last tech contribution? Last gift to the world…”

“I doubt that. It was just a consult job, most of the work was done by Argus. Plus, Mr. Stark had years worth of projects and updates on file. We’ll probably see things he had a hand in being released for the next ten years at the least,” said Peter.

“Still pretty cool though,” said Ned with a shrug.

At that moment, Peter heard the sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the front door.

“Looks like they’re back,” he said, continuing to scroll, this time through discussions on Reddit.

“Have you had dinner yet? You know if you haven’t she’s going to force you to eat before you dive.”

“Nah, I didn’t get a chance to stop off earlier. What kind of leftovers do ya have?”

“I think there’s meatloaf and some chicken adobo left at the moment.”

“Yaaasss… Chicken adobo…”

Just then Ned’s bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Leeds poked her head in, a large smile on her face.

“Peter! I thought I saw your coat by the door! I’m glad you were able to make it tonight! Edward has been excited about the sleepover for weeks,” she said.

“Oh my god, mom! It’s not a sleepover! I doubt we’ll even sleep much!”

“Isn’t that what sleepovers are about?! You’re ridiculous… Anyway, have you eaten?” Mrs. Leeds asked, looking at Peter.

Peter had to bite back a smile, but shook his head.

“Hala ka, you’re going to waste away into dry bones! I don’t care how busy you are these days, you shouldn’t be skipping meals. You’ll blow away in a strong breeze. Come, I’ll heat something up. I know how bad you boys get about eating when its a normal game. A full immersion VR? You’ll forget you even have a real body that needs sustenance.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Peter, dutifully following her into the kitchen.

“You are in luck. We have some leftover chicken adobo from last night. I know you like that recipe. Did May ever give it a go?”

Peter flashed back to the gloopy, slightly charred mess that was May’s attempt at cooking the dish. “Eh… Yeah but it wasn’t quite the same. Still needs a bit of work.”

“Huh,” Mrs. Leeds said, sounding confused.

“Peter!” shouted a voice from behind him.

“Hey Angie,” said Peter, before he felt arms wrap around him from behind in a bear hug.

His heart throbbed in his chest. His breath caught and wouldn’t come.

Thanos was coming for the gauntlet he couldn’t let him have it he had to run the aliens were grabbing him he had to—

“You never come around anymore! It’s been months—!”

“Stop that Angelica. It’s been a crazy year, and Peter stays very busy between school and an internship. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for bed? It’s already way passed bedtime.”

Angie rolled her eyes dramatically but stomped back off towards her room to do as she was asked.

“Sorry, dear. She just missed her big brothers, you know.”

Peter did his best to force out a grin, but he wasn’t sure just how well it came off because the next thing he knew Mrs. Leeds was giving him a tender kiss on the head and muttering about making some cups of cocoa.

It was moments like this that he truly felt the strange reality of the fact that he had lost five years of his life. On the surface level everything felt mostly the same— Aunt May along with the majority of his friends had also been snapped, as well as several of his teachers. But while they were gone, Ned’s little sister aged from an innocent five year old, to a ten year old girl who had grown in a world in more confusion, pain and desperation than Peter could really comprehend. Freshman he had helped tutor in school had graduated. Families he had known were irreparably torn apart, seemingly overnight.

It felt like while he was still the same, the rest of the world had tilted slight to the left, leaving him unbalanced and unsure where to step next. He’d always felt a bit out of place anyway after the spider bite, but now it was so much worse. Sometimes Peter wanted a taste of what normal used to be like, without freaky spider powers, world protecting responsibilities and the guilt of looking around him and wondering if he deserved to be here at all.

He glanced at the clock that hung on the wall— fifteen minutes till midnight.

“I should probably go brush my teeth too and get settled in. The server will open soon,” said Peter as he stood.

“Yeah, though there shouldn’t really be much to do other than to actually connect since we calibrated your account the other day,” said Ned.

Within ten minutes Peter had taken care of his nightly necessities and given Angie and Mrs. Leeds both a hug goodnight, settling in on the upper bunk of Ned’s bed.

“Last time I’m asking— are you sure you don’t mind me giving this the first run?” asked Peter.

Ned sighed and spun around from his computer to send Peter an exasperated look. “Do you not want to take it on its maiden voyage?”

“That’s not what I said,” Peter rolled his eyes.

“Then stop worrying.  Just have a good time for once.  Also, I downloaded a couple files to the gear.  Not sure how reliable it is yet, but a few beta testers put out some first floor tips on the DL as a downloadable in game file, so check that out once you dive.  It might help out a bit.”

“Will do.  Thanks.”

“No problem.  Now get going, and be sure to take plenty of notes in your journal to send me later.”

“See you around, kid.”

“I am older than you are by two months.  Shut up and dive, loser.”

Peter smiled as he fitted the Nervegear onto his head, laid back and said, “Link Start.”

———————

In a remote, nondescript server room a certain file kicked to life.  It’s programming had been remotely accessed, a mere accident of oversight.  The digital pathways that connected it to the Argus servers, while known about, had been forgotten in the chaos of the last few years.  The file was not one created within the system, but one created to interact within it.  The Cardinal system downloaded the precious data, implementing it in the category that best described its form and function.

Program designation: Client

System ID: Ferrum Vir

Administration level: GM

. . . .

Installation Complete

————————

At 12:00 am EST on November 5th, 2023 (1:00 pm JST), Peter Parker joined 10,000 others in the world’s first full dive MMORPG— Sword Art Online.

And so did a very confused Anthony Edward Stark.

[bearpillowmonster]

Persona 5 Review (Palaces)

Now I think it’s be interesting to split up each villain and review their arcs. First is Kamoshida, I like the layout of his palace. Sneaking along the walls and such and they really give you the drive to get rid of him. This is one of the only ones I actually got all the will seeds, I found that you only get the accessory if you collect the three, I don’t think there’s any bonus for collecting ALL of them from ALL the palaces though.

After that, they introduce something called Mementos which is basically everybody’s palace, a compilative place of where small distortions go that aren’t big enough for their own palace. This is kind of used for side missions, it’s not that bad though, the dark sections can be annoying but I see why they were put in there. You visit it throughout the game and after each boss, a new section gets added, going farther down. This is also one of the places to grind and a quick way to grind is to mow down enemies with your van using the dash button, rather than going through the trouble of battling, you even get their mask. That’s only if they’re not too far down though because the farther down you go, the tougher the enemies. It’s funny because once you get tough enough, going to the higher entrances, making enemies RUN from you while you’re mowing them down, it’s a blast. I will recommend though that you don’t piss off too many and get alarmed because they’ll come in waves, one battle after another and if you’re deep in Mementos, it can be scary.

Next is Madarame, I like the setting of a museum and the boss (better than Kamo) but I will also say that it was annoying to traverse, it built upon the urgency by adding legal action into the mix. This is probably in my top 3 palaces, I just don’t have a whole lot to say about it.

Kaneshiro (sounds like Kamoshida) I feel like his character is very one way, an easy prey, I’m fine with that but I’m just saying that the depth was better for the previous two. The boss isn’t exactly my favorite, it’s a little different between 5 and Royal so I looked it up and am accounting for both of them. I do however like the style of the bank and the vault is one giant lock, the enemies are probably some of the most annoying though with the introduction of the dogs.

Alibaba. Now this palace is actually pretty cool because it changes the context and way you do things, again with the real life interference as well. What I really like are the little hieroglyphics puzzles at the end of each section, those things are my jam but while I appreciate the variety and setup, this was one of the weaker palaces. The boss was weak as well, more of just a sponge unless I didn’t play it right (maybe I was underleveled? I mean I don’t think I even died tbh though) because it was really cool when you used the arrows but really dragging when she was in the air.

I will say that I took a break after this arc (about 35-40 hours in) not because I was tired of it, far from it actually, I was having tons of fun but traversing the palaces just seemed off to me at this point so I thought if I took a break and got a fresh perspective when I came back, it would be better. It was hard to detach myself from it because I really enjoyed what I had played thus far but it felt good to get back into the groove of it after a break. This was both a good place to take the break given the hours spent and what the next palace is, and kind of a weird place because after Alibaba you take the field trip but I would still recommend you take a decent break at some point because...

The next palace is Okumura. Now I’ve seen some flack about this one, saying it’s the least favorite of the bunch, so you don’t want to have the previous build up of hours hamper your experience since it’s considered the worse. Honestly I don’t think it’s that bad (the palace!) now the boss on the other hand is a different story, I understand that a CEO is only as good as their employees and the idea to use them is pretty reflective of the palace itself but it’s annoying because if you don’t have the right type of persona then you’re screwed because they just flee or blow themselves up, it’s just left to chance sometimes. I think it would be cool to have a race against him with the timer rather than a battle. It made me so stressed, not because of the timer but because of the stupid robots, it was easily the battle I spent the most tries on, I even had to go back and grind and fuse a new persona to finally beat him. (I was almost level 40 so you might have an easier time if you did more persona work than I did) but you don’t get any All Out Attacks either apparently. Also the story (though a bit nit picky) is easy to complain about but it’s not as bad as they say imo especially since the characters explain themselves afterwards.

Casino Master. This was probably the only spoiler I got for this game but I feel I would’ve figured it out anyway and it didn’t even turn out to be that big of a spoiler. Also the addition of the “Crow” should’ve been the “Raven” as an Edgar Allen Poe reference, it would’ve fit the character better in my opinion. I don’t like that they use the same card mechanic from the last palace, it makes more sense with this one but still. There’s an enemy in this palace that was bugged for my play through and it was only that specific enemy whenever I encountered them, it would say something like “it’s groaning” (which it sometimes does with enemies such as Regent) but for this one it just kept doing it and would get stuck, I just had to button mash a bit and then they would attack normally but just a small stain I’ll point out, easily patchable I’m sure. As for the story, I’m not quite sure what makes the palace in the first place, what is the distortion exactly? Other than that, another in the top 3.

The boss is actually kind of cool, in a way it’s the opposite of Okumura but an actual boss instead of enemies. It’s probably my favorite because of the design and style. I’m not done yet but honestly when I got about 1/3 of the way through this game, I thought it was a 5/5 but I re-evaluated and the one thing that I want is a bit of gameplay variety even if it’s just the bosses. I’ve talked about this before but it makes everything feel samey and while I know more or less all turn based RPGs are guilty of the same thing (so I can’t really hold that against this game) this one just seems so different. It doesn’t wear itself out, for turn based, it’s not so bad but it just leaves you desiring one extra step, an extra something everytime to say “This is the fourth-fifth-sixth boss!” rather than just chip damage with no weaknesses, some kind of reward for playing the way you do perhaps.

Armstrong from MGS Rising (yeah I didn’t have a codename for this one). I really like the setup, probably the best palace to be honest, in a way it’s sort of a compilation. I could see where people could complain about it even if I haven’t seen anything. This palace also has the best music, it’s very fitting and stylistic. There’s a little bit of a barrage of mini bosses throughout, I kind of like it but the last one before the big boss is tough because it’s 3 different sections, one after the other but it’s kind of a tease/warning to say “Are you really ready for the real boss? If you had trouble with this, then you’ll have trouble with him.” 

Let's talk about the final final boss (for what’s known as the ‘true’ ending route) because I apparently did the ‘true’ ending after looking into it, it doesn't matter who you picked for a romantic route, it matters what choices you made at certain points in the game, the ‘true’ ending is just the longest, there are different points in the game where it could end and be the other good/bad endings so yeah. Let me talk about it without spoiling anything, Notice I said ‘true’ with quotes. I'm going to summarize this reddit post I saw, justifying it, out of context. The boss is idolized, he's made by the people, he didn't make the people and because he's pretending, we were sent to destroy him. (In the grand scheme of things (story-wise)) because it bothers me that they make him out to be almighty. It is a persona and personas are figments of imagination, they're amalgamations of how the characters perceive their desire/distortion, not the real thing therefore it shouldn't be blasphemous right? That thin line is what's making me knock this game a little more because its material is so concerning. Also you’re stopping people from doing bad things, that’s ‘just’, correct? You’re defeating the seven sins, that’s ‘just’ (at least that’s what the will seeds are called). I guess they wanted to try and make it a true question “Are the Phantom Thieves ‘Just’?” They ask it over and over and in reality, I ask myself the same thing.

You can buy as seen on tv stuff, the big thing I’ll say helped me was the cleaning spray so snatch that up when it becomes available, I think it’s also available in Kichijoji but it lowers your enemy’s defense and I didn’t have that move for any of my characters. Make sure you have everything done that you want done by the time you reach the final date after sending the calling card and beat the boss such as confidants, a proper persona, side quests and a good amount of stat boosters and stuff. I can't say too many specifics on what to bring because you're going to play different than I did so just fill in the blanks, have cans of whatever you don't have as a move because it's going to be a stretch of fights and there really isn't room to turn back.

[wztd]

First and foremost I need to make this very clear: The local law enforcement has been very well notified about this situation and my family has a member of a federal agency that is aware of the situation as well. I know that Reddit likes to dive into stories posted on here sometimes, but please know that the situation is being taken care of as we speak.Secondly, I have been a lurker on Reddit for around three years now (only making an account a year ago though). I know that there’s a ton of trolls online who like to post things like these for a reaction. I have zero issue sending sub mods proof of this story, but only once things have been taken care of legally. But for the upmost safety of my family and the guidance from my lawyer, law enforcement, and family, I will only be posting the information I chose to share in this post for the time being. Please understand that.Now, what’s been going on...Less than half a year ago, my wife and I purchased what we consider our ‘dream home’. It’s exactly what we have been discussing about what we have wanted in our home to raise our family since we first started to get very serious as a couple. To paint the picture for you, it is a completely redone farmhouse that sits on a large amount of land. We have a very long driveway that takes you right up to the side of the house. The house can not be seen from the road we live on, simply just because of how far back and where the house sits.Our neighbors are a pretty good distances away from us. They are both an older couple and they both have been very vocal about how happy they are we are there. They have been great and could not have been more welcoming to me and my family during the initial move in process.My farmland is mostly behind the house, with only a little bit of it starting on the right side of the house, and then a few acres on the left side. On the left, past my property is kinda dead land. Where no one owns it or takes care of it. After my property ends, there is a huge amount of brush and grass built up and then there are a ton of large trees that scatter right up to my neighbors property. These trees are just a small patch of woods, but it is probably around an acre long.Behind my house is a very large barn. The barn isn’t far from the house at all. If I was to guess, it’s only probably around 50 feet behind. Even though the house is gorgeous after the major remodel the previous owners did to sell the house, the barn is in its original glory. It’s old and sorta falling apart. I have made it very clear to my daughter not to go in certain parts of the barn simply because I don’t trust the old wood to hold up.This barn is not locked ever. I just don’t have many belongings in it and also, I quickly realized that there’s a few places to get into the barn other than the front entrance, and they are very obvious spots just due to the wood breaking down and getting older and older. I’m sure that it was a nice barn in its glory days, but to me, and especially my wife, it’s a massive eye sore. It’s very large, but for the most part empty. I keep my riding lawn mower in there and I also have some miscellaneous tools in there as well. The barn is never used by us.Four days ago, my daughter came running into the house terrified. She’s under 13 years old (again, I’m choosing to be vague in some parts of this story just for protection) and I immediately thought that she was playing outside and walked up on a snake. But the fear in her eyes was, just different. She ran full force into my body and grabbed onto it with her life. She was hysterical. After a minute of trying to calm her down enough to get a word out of her, she told me that she found bones in the barn. I still didn’t think anything of this because I assumed that it was a coyote or dog or some other animal that took shelter in the barn during some time and died there and no one found it. I quickly asked her to show me.She guided me into the barn and pointed up to the ‘second floor’. I call it the ‘second floor’ because it’s not really that. It’s an overhang that it near the top of the barn that has a ladder going up to it. Not entirely sure what this used to be used for, but it’s not used by us at all. I also know that there’s zero chance that a dog or fox or other four legged guy stumbled upon this barn for shelter, since I’ve never seen a dog climb a high ladder.My ‘protective dad’ mode immediately turned on and I knew that something was up. A few months ago I decided to climb up there just out of curiosity and found a board that came up. The previous owners used to hide money throughout the house and property and I actually found a wad of cash hidden in this very board. But after that day, I never went back up there.Once I climbed up, I saw that my daughter found that board and lifted it up. But she did not find money. There was a trash bag with multiple bones inside of it tucked inside the hidden spot. This is hands down the scariest moment in my life. Because I know for a fact, that this has been placed there recently because when I went up there, it wasn’t there.I immediately made phone calls and the local police and crew came out. The entire property was overran with different types of vans and cars. My family was questioned very intensely for around two hours. Asking us every single question you could possibly ask someone. One of the officers pulled me aside and told me that they are in fact what I feared, human remains. After the longest day of my life, some information came out from the last owners that there was a problem with squatters in the woods on the edge of my property. I have never seen anyone roaming around or any sign of people going through my things.Looking back now, I made a very dangerous and idiotic mistake. I installed a camera system when we first moved in, but made the decision to only put cameras facing the front of the house and driveway. I figured there was no rush to get cameras for the back. Easily one of the biggest mistakes of my life, since we would have been able to have footage of the person going into my barn with this bag.When going through the camera footage with the officers, we discovered something extremely chilling that I somehow never saw, because up to this point there was no reason to check the cameras. Caught on the cameras exactly five days back, at the early hours in the morning, the side motion light of my house turned on and you could see multiple shadows on the ground of people walking by. But that absolutely is not the part that made me shiver and make this grown man almost fall to the ground in tears from fright.When going back to the footage, every night after the five day point leading up to this day, every single night, two men wearing some sort of identical masks and completely covered in clothes head to toe, would walk up my driveway and just stare at my house. The shortest time they stood there was a tiny bit over twenty minutes. The longest that they stood there was right under two hours. Standing there. Completely still. Just looking at my house. My hands are shaking so bad typing those sentences.The local police put us up in a motel around thirty minutes outside of town. Promising us that they would make routine drivebys every thirty minutes to check on us. Why they would not have officers posted up outside the room at all times, I have no idea and I am extremely upset with that decision.We were at the motel for two nights. The first night, I got zero minutes of sleep. I held my family extremely tight and watched the front door for every single second that night. The police did hold up to their promise of checking on us. On the second night, around the similar time of the two men caught on camera, we awoke to an extreme loud banging on my front door of the motel. I jumped up and went into panic mode. We waited in silence and nothing happened.I got on the phone and dialed my direct contact line to police. Within only a few moments, an officer was at the motel. We were taken to a new location and have been here for a few days. My family member in the federal agency has intervened and is personally taking care of us.This is an ongoing investigation and I can not give more detail than what I have given already in this post. My family is safe. I am safe. I again beg for the privacy of this situation outside of what was given in this post. I 100% will update on this account once everything has been taken care of and I will make sure to update you to tell you that we are safe once we are for good. My family is in extreme fear of the unknown. We have no idea why any of this is happening to us and even though it as all just started, we are so ready for this to be behind us.I spend all of my time just staring. Staring out into the distance waiting for those unknown men to come and take my life, my daughter, my wife, my unborn baby. Wherever they may be, I’m here. Waiting and ready for what’s next.Edit: I thank you all for your nice comments during this time. We needed to hear them. I just wanted to address two things very quickly.As I was expecting, some people are finding this story to be a fake and my account a fake. Perfectly normal reaction that I expected. Like mentioned though, I will happily give mods proof once I am given the okay to.A lot of detail have been removed from the story. Please keep in mind that this just happened to my family and I. There are still answers that we simply don’t have and I will not for an unknown amount of time. In order to not risk any leads, clues, anything, I just told the very stripped down version of what has happened to us. I see some comments about things not adding up. That makes perfect sense considering that there are portions left out, because right now at this moment, they simply just have to be. I hope you understand that. via /r/LetsNotMeet

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND Y

John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener that he adopted his habit of touching the wall as he walked down a corridor. It's more important than anything else. Before that, the default way to make a startup that's already taking off, but there are aspects of it that are unenviable. We may be seeing another such change right now. I saw it divided. A site trying to talk merchants out of doing real time authorizations. And if you're in the fatal pinch.

The disadvantage of having a larger universe of tokens is that there is more chance of misses. I've made startups sound pretty hard. But Yahoo treated programming as a commodity. If this is true. Implicit in their thinking. In our school it was eighth grade, which was what advertisers, for lack of any other reference, compared them to. All programmers know it's good to write readable code.

Why? In something that's out there, problems are intriguing. Steve Jobs People alive when Kennedy was killed usually remember exactly where they were. Till now we'd been planning to use If you can attract the best hackers to work for a big company be doing research, and you think Oh my God, they know. Shielding your optimism is nowhere more important than nurture. Not just school, but only at the price of being of average intelligence is unbearable. They're a search site for industrial components.

The conversations on Reddit were good when it was that it considered me an equal partner. In fact the dangers of indiscipline increase with temptation. The worst problem was that they didn't take programming seriously enough. Think about your own experience: most links you follow lead to something lame. If a physicist met a colleague from 100 years ago, why wasn't anyone already selling it to them? I said Oh, ok. Even if you've never had a sharply defined identity. For me, as for many users, it's dangerous to guess what they'll like. If you're hard enough to overcome one's own misconceptions without having to think about more than just learning. They couldn't fix the system. All products should be considered experiments, and those that have a market show promising results extremely quickly. But the same alarms don't go off on the days when people might spend their whole career at one big company, any number of random factors could sink you before you can solve it.

All the scares induced by seeing a new competitor pop up are forgotten weeks later. This time, we thought, let's make something people want. The greatest advantage of a PhD besides being the union card of academia, of course, that you should start startups when you're young and there are companies that specialize in selling to you. We sleep more. At the bottom you'll find the person instinctively thinks the idea will be a good idea to treat spam filtering as a straight text classifier, but such a stunningly effective one that it manages to filter spam almost perfectly without even knowing that's what it's doing. The process inherently tends to produce an unpleasant result, like a big company. There was a sort of fractal stain, every moving point on the edge represents an interesting problem. It worries me a bit to be saying this, because there's a cult of smartness here. But software companies don't hire students for the summer as a source of power that's also very dangerous. So this is the third counterintuitive thing to remember about startups: starting a startup just doesn't require that much intelligence. But regardless of what the solution turns out to be. You can't have divided loyalties.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. We're in good company here. It's especially alarming here because those two sets of numbers might yield opposite conclusions. If your product seems finished, there are no distractions. Imagine if you were hired at some big company, any number of random factors could sink you before you can solve it. If you lack commitment, it will take over unless you take specific measures to prevent it. Don't you learn things at the best schools that you wouldn't learn at lesser places? They didn't become art dealers after a difficult choice between that and a career in the hard sciences. It always comes down to your own product and approach to the market.

But I suspect it's the latter, because as soon as possible. 9998 otherwise. With server-based software blows away this whole model. If you don't know your users. Being smart seems to make you unpopular. And there is no limit to the amount of wealth that can be implicit should be; the syntax should be terse to a fault; even the names of users with the highest average comment scores in orange. I'm sure they find it constraining, but think how valuable it will be that bad. Starting a startup is to focus on next. They would be in the way in an office. And when people seem to think it's good for smart kids to be thrown together with normal kids at this stage it is more a measure of performance. But elegance is not an acceptable solution, whereas 99.

This would be easy for spammers to send it, and he, as CEO, has to deal with employees, who often have different motivations: I knew the founder equation and had been focused on it since I knew I wanted to start a company, that leaves increasing revenues and decreasing expenses. A determined party animal can get through the best school without learning anything. In the scrap era I was constantly finding notes I'd written years before that might say something I needed to remember, if I could only figure out what the problem is lack of exposure, or whether, they went to school. So far I've been finessing the relationship between founders was more important in choosing cofounders. They'd have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lines of C or Java. It's a cliche to call World War II a contest between good and evil, but between fighter designs, it really was. I was running Y Combinator I used to calculate probabilities for tokens, both would have the same spam probability, the threshold of attention. Now we look back on medieval peasants and wonder how they stood it. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been burned by not doing it: Build the absolute smallest thing that can be created. This seems obvious too, so why do I have to walk a mile to get there, and the things you do have real effects, it's no longer enough to protect hunter-gatherers, and perhaps even families to support.

[meanwhileinoz]

People On Reddit Share The Dark Secrets That Could Destroy Their Marriages

We’ve all got secrets.

Things we are afraid to tell anybody. People will judge you, especially if your secret is messed up.

That is why we have the Internet. To post our secrets anonymously, facing no criticism and getting it off our chests as well. A Reddit thread revealed people sharing their darkest secrets, which could potentially ruin their lives. Read them below:

“Years ago my gf (we’ll call deb) and I were out with her friend (we’ll call Sara). This one day Sara had to pin unlock her phone each time to take one of many pictures….out the corner of my eye I saw her pin. I saved it in a note. Months later sara and deb were at my place and went to the pool. Sara left her phone indoors. I used her password and hit jackpot. Nudes, videos, message logs with some guy she was talking (well call jeff) to, along with tons of dick picks and videos of him jacking off…

With this goldmine of pics and vids I concocted a slow plan…..very slow. Slowly I broke off with deb but kept in touch with sara. I then created a alter ego online (we’ll call it Vanessa). For months I worked this identity so it looked real. This identity started following Sara on all social media (Sara accepted any friend requests). Vanessa blackmailed jeff. Jeff was given 2 days to stop talking to sara or his dick picks got leaked. He was chicken sh*t and dropped her like a hot potato. But Sara was strong willed…when Vanessa threatened sara to stop talking to jeff or her pics get leaked she protested…so I knew I had to change tactics. Vanessa disappeared for a while until I could get Sara’s phone in my hands for a bit. One day sara was over and ‘lost’ her phone at my place. I ‘found’ it for her the next day…. Not before I installed a spy app that let me keep track of her everything. A few weeks later Vanessa came back but now armed with the conversations sara was having with everyone. While tracking Sara’s reactions and suspicions, I made it show that Vanessa wasnt real….

Now all my friends know me as being pretty tech literate. One day im talking with Sara and she breaks down crying telling me how she been long distance sexting this guy and somebody hacked his or her phone and now shes being blackmailed by some stranger she doesn’t know. So she askes me if I could help her. Long ending short I made it look like jeff was Vanessa. I made it look like he created this person so that he could blackmail Sara into f*cked up sex stuff. Sara left him and guess who was the hero? Me. I caught ‘Vanessa.’ Sara was now safe because of me. Once we blackmailed the guy, ‘Vanessa’ disappeared… You know…for realism. Sara and I now had this tragedy…this hurdle that we overcame together. We started dating not long after. She was never going back to long distance relationships and wanted to try local….4 years later were married.”

  “My father never had anything other than boys, and my mother always wanted a girl. Try as they might, they just had tons of boys. When I was 6 they adopted a girl of also 6. Everyone was pleased, and she was quickly included into the family by everyone and we all took an immediate shine to her. Especially me.

We started playing ‘doctor’ at 9. This progressed to fooling around by our early teens, and into actual sex shortly thereafter. We’re both over 30 now. We have sex whenever we see each other. We also like to pretend we are twins when we do have sex. We’ve both had our shares of girlfriends and boyfriends, but we always kept it up even while in those relationships. She’s actually married now.

We still have sex about 2 times a month, more when the family gets together for holidays. I can’t even imagine the bricks that would be sh*t if anyone ever found out. It’s been close a few times, especially when we were younger, but nobody’s ever caught on.

  #3 From a divorce lawyer who goes by TheLadyInReddit:

“Client is an elderly gentleman, some type of retired professional. His son is a pastor. Everything about his situation seemed very normal in terms of income, property, etc. However, it turns out he had a pretty serious porn hobby and he was concerned his wife might find out and use it against him in the divorce. However, as I mentioned above, I assured him that was pretty run-of-the-mill these days and unlikely to affect anything. He then asks if I feel the same knowing the porn is not ‘mainstream.’ I asked what he means and he looks very nervous. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t referencing CP, so I pushed him on it.

The guy was into goats.”

  “My friend inherited a beautiful diamond engagement ring. The stone was worth $20K. His fiance was thrilled to receive it and flaunt it. Now his wife of 25 years, it’s still one of her most precious possessions.

Only I (and you 4 million) know that she does not own the original diamond. My friend sold the stone for $15K and an equal sized, substitute diamond on the day he picked it up from being sized to fit her…

The value of the ring was learned at appraisal, and was actually appraised a bit higher. The $20K was the number he knew he could get from a wholesaler in the district. It is still insured for the higher amount. The stone that was substituted is a diamond – and I couldn’t tell the difference. The money was mostly used to clear debts.”

“I’m an atheist. I’m also a deacon in an evangelical church. I’m not exactly proud of it but I try do my part to convince people to live like Jesus because even if he wasn’t god, he certainly had some good ideas about loving other people.

The problem for me is my family. I’m married with a one kid and another on the way. I believe that such a revelation would be devastating for my wife. I’ve tried to tell her in subtle ways but I can’t bring myself to just come out and say the truth. I love my wife and I don’t wish to harm her emotionally in that way.”

  “I am a gay man married to a woman who has no idea I am gay.

How is my life? It’s great. It’s pleasant. I have two beautiful children who I love more than anything. I have a successful job and a lovely home. My wife is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. So that is my life.

Myself, however, the way I feel inside is not so good. I feel disgusted with who I am. Growing up in a Catholic household had me living in fear of being banished by my family for revealing my sexuality. That’s not something I’m afraid will happen, that is something that is a well known fact in my family. I would love more than anything to be honest to everyone. I am a coward though…

As ridiculous as it sounds I thought that getting married and settling down etc would make these feelings I had about being gay go away. Before meeting her I was constantly struggling with the fact that I might be gay. My upbringing made me believe that being gay was wrong and so I always tried to convince myself that that’s not who I was. For awhile it worked. I think I wanted so bad to be straight that I just made myself believe I was. I got married to my wife at 23 and for a short time after our wedding I was relieved. I thought ‘Yes, I knew it. I knew I just had to find someone who would clear all this up for me!’ That just came crashing down. We started having sex more to try and get pregnant and that caused me realise [sic] that I am a gay man. I’m not remaining in the closet because I’m too scared of my wife’s reaction. In fact she would probably be the most forgiving. I have decided not to come out because of my family. I’m not exaggerating when I say that they will disown me. They wouldn’t think twice about it. I wouldn’t be happy. I would be lost. Now that I have children that just scares me even more. I wouldn’t ser [sic] them much at all and that’s not an option for me… There are many things I wish I had done differently but I do not regret any of my choices because they’ve all led me to where I am today. My son and daughter are these amazing little people. I live in a great house with a loving and sweet little family. Our marriage (sham marriage as some people have pointed out) is a good one despite my sexuality. Our marriage is healthier than some that I know about and hear about. I have accepted that I may never come out and I’ve learnt to be okay with that. I will consider going to therapy too. This is the most I have ever talked about it. Up until now I have not told a soul and so I have really swept everything under the rug. It is amazing what you can block out if you really try.”

  “I once helped out my a female friend’s family by taking care of their cat for a week. Every day for a week, I would go over there and snoop around their house. I found my friend’s diary, and proceeded to read the entire thing. I used this information to get her to like me, and she is currently my wife.”

  “I have lesbian sex with my best friend about once a month. Neither of us say anything to our husbands. We drink a good bottle of wine, get tipsy, get nasty, and fall asleep. When we wake up, we laugh, kiss, and go about our lives.”

“No ones going to probably find this comment, but I have an addiction to prostitutes. I can’t control myself. I’m also married and my wife has no idea. I spent $2000 on our credit card while she was overseas for 3 weeks. I lied and told her that I had a gambling problem, that’s why I spent so much. Little does she know, I was bringing hookers home.”

  “I’m a guy with a foot fetish. And I -never- told my wife even though she has amazing feet. BUT it gets worse – I have a weird twist to my foot fetish. I’m really into ‘pedal pumping’ (i guess that’s the closest way to describe it) and I’m mortified to tell her or anyone else, and never have. When I was a little kid we spent a LOT of time at church during the week for mom’s choir practice and there was a decent looking piano player lady who would kick off her shoes and play the piano barefoot. And even though I knew nothing of my sexuality, I remember Saturday afternoons, being up on the stage/pulpit during boring choir practice, laying on the carpet, playing with Matchbox cars and trying not to make it seem glaringly obvious that I was transfixed watching this lady’s bare foot pushing on that piano pedal…

I was totally transfixed, and it continues to this day. Women playing pianos, organs, driving barefoot, using a sewing machine barefoot. My fantasies usually always involve me imagining myself as the pedal, and the woman has a sexy bare, nylon, or sock clad foot. If it’s a smelly foot even better. I feel guilty and stupid to this day. Why on earth would a fetish like that develop when I was a prepubescent kid?”

  “When i was in 8th grade i fell in love with my girlfriend. I never thought it would be possible for someone so young could have such strong feelings. The relationship didn’t last more than three months because my mom and step-dad divorced and i had to move. I thought about her every day since i moved away. I met another person and have been married for 20 years now. I have four kids and have no complaints about my wife. Five years ago through social media i was able to correspond with 8th grade girlfriend. It turns out that she still has feelings for me too. I have been faithful to my wife for our entire marriage but want more than anything to be with my first love.”

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