Brooks ghost 14 hurt my feet
New Balance More V4 Sizing
2023.05.28 21:20 redbeanpuffer New Balance More V4 Sizing
I haven't gotten fitted properly and there aren't many stores around me to try on these shoes, but I really want to get them.
I heard they are fairly wide shoes naturally, but I'm unsure whether I should go for the Wide size or Standard because of this?
I fit in a 6.5 Wide Brooks Ghost 15 and Adrenaline 22 shoes, tried a 6.5 in the Asics Gel Cumulus 25 but would've preferred it a bit wider, and tried a 6.5 Wide in the Hoka Clifton 8/9 which was a bit loose, but the 6 Wide was too tight around the midfoot. Sadly I wasn't able to try to 6.5 Standard, so I don't really know what my size is. I heard Hokas can run a bit narrow though and I just couldn't get the fit right.
Does anyone know if I should try and get the 6.5 Wide or Standard in the More V4s? I don't want them to be too loose like the Hokas I tried, but I also don't want them to be a bit tight like the Asics I tried (which were okay and probably would've loosened overtime, but I just would've preferred them a bit wider).
Thank you!
submitted by
redbeanpuffer to
Newbalance [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 21:15 porkyparker2007 TIFU by breaking up with my girlfriend over text
i(16F) had a girlfriend A who was the light of my life, she was my rock and i really liked her until she cheated on me after a month. i was depressed and i couldnt even look at her so when i broke up with her i said this over text:
"Dear A,
I never thought I would find myself standing here, having to give you this speech. But unfortunately, the reality is that I can no longer continue in this relationship with you.
It's not that I don't love you. I do, very much. But love is not enough to sustain a relationship, especially when there's no trust. And trust, for me, is everything.
When I found out that you had been cheating on me, it felt like a betrayal of not only our relationship, but also of the trust that we had built over time. I couldn't believe that the person I loved and trusted had done something like that to me.
I have thought long and hard about what I want for my future, and I have realized that I cannot continue in a relationship where there's no trust. I deserve to be with someone who respects me, who values me, and who will be loyal to me. And unfortunately, that person is not you.
Please don't think that I hate you or that I'm angry with you. I'm not. I'm just deeply disappointed and hurt. But I know that I will eventually heal from this, and that I will be able to move on and find someone who will love and cherish me as I deserve.
So, with a heavy heart, I'm saying goodbye to you. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, and I hope that you will learn from this experience and become a better person for it.
Take care, A."
she sent me multiple text going from "baby please" to "fine ignore me cword" and she never stopped messaging me. she would tell people i ghosted her after we had intimacy and i lost alot of friends except a few, im happy and my reputation has since been restored but i still get some dirty looks from the othr girls and her friends. what do i do?
submitted by
porkyparker2007 to
todayifuckedu [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 21:13 anxiousdaughter20 AITA for not wanting to be herded by my friends dog and asking her to leave him at home
So my (17f) friend (18f) has a border collie, for extra information she takes this dog everywhere other than college, we've known eachother since we were kids and i've spent a lot of time in her house, recently she got a new dog from the shelter, the problem is i'm disabled and back in March of this year i also had an intensive knee operation so i'm very unsteady on my feet as i've only just stopped walking without crutches.
The problem is this border collie herds everyone, now i know border collie's are a herding breed but he stands in front of people causing them to trip and he also pushes them away from what the dog deems 'dangerous' (i assume) pre operation he already caused me to trip once that landed me in a&e for 14 hours, after the operation my friend assured me that she had trained him to back off and that i would be safe to come round again, however just last week I found out that was a lie as once again the dog tried to herd me and i went flying. We then got into this huge argument about how i shouldn't expect the dog to defy it's natural instinct and that i should just stay sat down around him so it wouldn't happen again but again she brings this dog everywhere so it's not feasible.
I'm not asking her to get rid of the dog but I guess i am asking that she doesn't bring the dog everywhere so i don't get injured. Also it's a family dog and my friend lives with her parents, this isn't a case of there's nobody available to watch the dog.
submitted by
anxiousdaughter20 to
AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 21:09 Captainstever15 [USA-OR] [H] Pokemon Black, Black 2, White, Silent Hills, Metroid Fusion CIB, Pokemon Ruby CIB, lots more [W] Paypal
Hi all, I have a bunch of games I'm looking to sell. Only accepting Paypal F&F at this time. Free shipping on orders of $50+, otherwise please add $5 for shipping costs. Photos available upon request!
| System | Item | Condition | Price |
| 32X | Primal Rage | Loose | $60.00 |
| 3DS | 2DS XL turquoise / black modded | Loose | $200.00 |
| 3DS | 3DS XL NES Edition box | Box only | $80.00 |
| 3DS | Amazing Spiderman | Loose | $12.00 |
| 3DS | Amazing Spiderman 2 | Loose | $12.00 |
| 3DS | Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer | Loose | $13.00 |
| 3DS | Bravely Default | CIB | $36.00 |
| 3DS | Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past | Loose | $60.00 |
| 3DS | Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth | Loose | $48.00 |
| 3DS | Final Fantasy Explorers | CIB | $30.00 |
| 3DS | Fossil Fighters: Frontier | Loose | $32.00 |
| 3DS | Kid Icarus: Uprising | CIB | $80.00 |
| 3DS | Kid Icarus: Uprising | Loose | $60.00 |
| 3DS | Kirby: Planet Robobot | Loose | $39.00 |
| 3DS | Madagascar 3 | CIB | $9.00 |
| 3DS | Mario Golf: World Tour | CIB | $64.00 |
| 3DS | Mario Golf: World Tour | Loose | $58.00 |
| 3DS | Nintendogs + Cats Golden Retriever and New Friends | Loose | $22.00 |
| 3DS | Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity | Loose | $26.00 |
| 3DS | Senran Kagura: Deep Crimson 2 | Loose | $56.00 |
| 3DS | Sims 3 (Heavily damaged / punctured case) | Game + case | $14.00 |
| 3DS | Ultimate NES Remix | Loose | $15.00 |
| amiibo | Ness amiibo | Loose | $25.00 |
| amiibo | Splatoon amiibo 3-pack (crease along top of cardboard) | NIB | $50.00 |
| Books | Horizon: Zero Dawn Collector's Edition guide | Loose | $120.00 |
| Dreamcast | Maken X | CIB | $50.00 |
| DS | Barbie Fashion Show: An Eye for Style | Loose | $8.00 |
| DS | Bomberman | Loose | $13.00 |
| DS | Elite Beat Agents | Loose | $15.00 |
| DS | Final Fantasy IV | Loose | $18.00 |
| DS | Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift | Loose | $33.00 |
| DS | Fossil Fighters | Loose | $27.00 |
| DS | Geometry Wars Galaxies | CIB | $9.00 |
| DS | Legendary Starfy | Loose | $15.00 |
| DS | Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga | CIB | $9.00 |
| DS | My Hero Firefighter | CIB | $11.00 |
| DS | Need for Speed: Pro Street | Loose | $9.00 |
| DS | Pac-Man World 3 | Loose | $11.00 |
| DS | Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End | CIB | $7.00 |
| DS | Plants vs Zombies | CIB | $13.00 |
| DS | Plants vs Zombies | CIB | $15.00 |
| DS | Plants vs Zombies | Loose | $11.00 |
| DS | Pokemon Black | Loose | $70.00 |
| DS | Pokemon Black 2 | CIB | $165.00 |
| DS | Pokemon Diamond case only | Case only | $20.00 |
| DS | Pokemon White | CIB | $85.00 |
| DS | Power Rangers Super Legends | CIB | $12.00 |
| DS | Rhythm Heaven | Loose | $43.00 |
| DS | Rockman ZX (JP) | Loose | $26.00 |
| DS | Spongebob's Atlantis Squarepantis | CIB | $7.00 |
| DS | Yoshi Touch & Go | Loose | $12.00 |
| DS / 3DS | Lego bundle Battles, Indiana Jones, City Undercover, Friends | Loose | $12.00 |
| GB | Pokemon Red (JP) | Loose | $15.00 |
| GBA | Metroid Fusion (label fading, wear on box) | CIB | $100.00 |
| GBA | Pokemon Ruby (heavy wear on box | CIB | $240.00 |
| GBA | Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3 box only | Box only | $35.00 |
| GBA | Wolfenstein 3D | Loose | $25.00 |
| GCN | Animal Crossing Memory Card (Some fading) | Loose | $18.00 |
| GCN | Conflict: Desert Storm | Game + case | $11.00 |
| GCN | Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix | Game + case | $23.00 |
| GCN | Finding Nemo | Game + case | $5.00 |
| GCN | Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup (Blockbuster case) | Game + case | $9.00 |
| GCN | Metroid Prime 2: Echoes case w/ Nintendo Power insert | Case only | $20.00 |
| GCN | Nascar: Dirt to Daytona | CIB | $14.00 |
| GCN | NCAA Football 2005 | CIB | $14.00 |
| GCN | Resident Evil 0 | CIB | $17.00 |
| GCN | Resident Evil 4 | CIB | $30.00 |
| GCN | Resident Evil Zero | CIB | $19.00 |
| GCN | Resident Evil Zero | Game + manual | $14.00 |
| GCN | Super Smash Bros Melee (cracked inner ring) | Loose | $45.00 |
| Genesis | 6-Pak (label wear) | Loose | $10.00 |
| Genesis | Madden NFL 98 | Loose | $9.00 |
| Genesis | RBI Baseball 4 (Damaged art / case) | Game + case | $6.00 |
| Genesis | Road Rash 3 (tear in label) | Loose | |
| Genesis | Turrican (label tears) | Loose | $15.00 |
| Genesis | World of Illusion | CIB | $35.00 |
| Genesis | World Series Baseball | Game + case | $6.00 |
| Genesis | WWF Raw | Game + case | $22.00 |
| Genesis | X-Men (faded label) | Loose | $9.00 |
| N64 | Banjo Tooie (Not For Resale) | Loose | $150.00 |
| N64 | Donkey Kong 64 (JP) | Loose | $12.00 |
| N64 | ED64 Plus | NIB | $100.00 |
| N64 | Hey You, Pikachu! (JP) | Loose | $7.00 |
| N64 | Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask manual (N64) | Manual | $30.00 |
| N64 | Mario Kart 64 (Player's Choice) | CIB | $100.00 |
| N64 | Mario Party 2 (JP) | Loose | $8.00 |
| N64 | Mario Tennis (JP) | Loose | $9.00 |
| NES | Gauntlet | Game + manual | $25.00 |
| NES | T&C Surf Designs | Loose | $8.00 |
| PS1 | Bass Landing | CIB | $18.00 |
| PS1 | Brave Fencer Musashi | Loose | $55.00 |
| PS1 | Coolboarders 3 | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS1 | Crash Bandicoot Warped | Loose | $6.00 |
| PS1 | Destruction Derby Raw | Loose | $11.00 |
| PS1 | Final Fantasy IX | Game + case | $16.00 |
| PS1 | Final Fantasy Tactics (Greatest Hits) | CIB | $50.00 |
| PS1 | Incredible Hulk (No cover art / manual) | Game + case | $11.00 |
| PS1 | Loaded | Loose | $10.00 |
| PS1 | Mega Man X6 | Game + manual | $35.00 |
| PS1 | NHL Rock the Rink | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS1 | Parasite Eve (no demo disc) | CIB | $75.00 |
| PS1 | Resident Evil (longbox)(Cracked case and some art damage) | Game + case | $100.00 |
| PS1 | Revolution X (longbox) | CIB | $29.00 |
| PS1 | Rugrats: Search for Reptar | CIB | $18.00 |
| PS1 | Streak: Hoverboard Racing | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS1 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater | Game + manual | $10.00 |
| PS1 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 | Game + case | $10.00 |
| PS1 | Urban Chaos | Loose | $8.00 |
| PS1 | WWE Smackdown 2 (No cover art / manual) | Game + case | $10.00 |
| PS1 | WWF Attitude | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS1 | WWF WrestleMania The Arcade Game | Loose | $13.00 |
| PS2 | Another Century's Episode (JP) | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS2 | Art of Fighting Anthology (Water damaged art) | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS2 | Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS2 | Dragon Quest VIII | Game + case | $20.00 |
| PS2 | Fight Club | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS2 | Fight Night Round 2 | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS2 | Fight Night Round 3 | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS2 | Frogger: The Great Quest | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS2 | Guitar Hero III | CIB | $13.00 |
| PS2 | Guitar Hero: Aerosmith | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS2 | King Arthur | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS2 | King of Fighters: Maximum Impact | Loose | $10.00 |
| PS2 | Medal of Honor European Assault | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS2 | Midnight Club (Sharpie on disc) | Game + case | $6.00 |
| PS2 | Mortal Kombat: Deception Premium Pack | Game + case | $25.00 |
| PS2 | Namco Museum | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS2 | NFL Street 2 | CIB | $20.00 |
| PS2 | Onimusha 3: Demon Siege | Loose | $10.00 |
| PS2 | Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2 | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS2 | Resident Evil 4 | CIB | $15.00 |
| PS2 | Resident Evil Outbreak | Game + case | $18.00 |
| PS2 | Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2 | Loose | $40.00 |
| PS2 | Sega Classics Collection | Game + case | $11.00 |
| PS2 | Silent Hill 2 (no music CD) | CIB | $120.00 |
| PS2 | Silent Hill 2 manual (Crease on top right corner) | Manual | $30.00 |
| PS2 | Silent Hill 3 | CIB | $150.00 |
| PS2 | SSX | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS2 | Star Wars Racer: Revenge | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS2 | Tekken 4 GH | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS2 | Tekken Tag Tournament | Loose | $6.00 |
| PS2 | The Great Escape | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS2 | The Thing | Loose | $22.00 |
| PS2 | Thrillville | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS2 | Thrillville | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS2 | Thunderstrike: Operation Phoenix | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS2 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 | Game + case | $7.00 |
| PS2 | Tony Hawk's Underground 2 | CIB | $17.00 |
| PS2 | WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2006 | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS3 | Amazing Spiderman 2 | Loose | $18.00 |
| PS3 | Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel Overkill Edition | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS3 | Batman Arkham Origins | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Binary Domain | CIB | $20.00 |
| PS3 | Borderlands 2 | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS3 | Burnout Paradise | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS3 | Call of Duty Ghosts | CIB | $5.00 |
| PS3 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Game + case | $5.00 |
| PS3 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS3 | Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS3 | Dark Sector | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Darkness | CIB | $16.00 |
| PS3 | Dirt 3 | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS3 | Disney Sing It Family Hits | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS3 | Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition | Game + case | $14.00 |
| PS3 | Earth Defense Force 2025 | Loose | $14.00 |
| PS3 | Fallout 3 GOTY | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Final Fantasy X / X-2 Collector's Edition (coffee stains on book) | CIB | $20.00 |
| PS3 | Grand Slam Tennis 2 | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Hitman Absolution | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS3 | Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Lair | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS3 | Madden NFL 17 | CIB | $20.00 |
| PS3 | Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain Day One Edition | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS3 | Minecraft | Game + case | $11.00 |
| PS3 | MLB 13: The Show | CIB | $5.00 |
| PS3 | Mortal Kombat | Game + case | $9.00 |
| PS3 | Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja: Storm 2 | CIB | $7.00 |
| PS3 | NBA 2K16 | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS3 | NCAA Football 12 | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS3 | NCAA Football 12 | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS3 | NCAA Football 13 (Water damaged art and manual) | CIB | $22.00 |
| PS3 | NCAA Football 14 (wavy art, minor disc art damage) | CIB | $125.00 |
| PS3 | Persona 4 Arena (Wavy cover art) | CIB | $16.00 |
| PS3 | Persona 5 | Game + case | $14.00 |
| PS3 | PS Move navigation controller | NIB | $35.00 |
| PS3 | Remember Me | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS3 | Resident Evil 5 | Game + case | $5.00 |
| PS3 | Rocksmith 2014 | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Sega Rally Revo | CIB | $14.00 |
| PS3 | Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes | CIB | $20.00 |
| PS3 | Skate 2 | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS3 | Skate 3 | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Skyrim: Legendary Edition | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS3 | Soulcalibur IV | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS3 | Street Fighter IV (water damaged art) | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS3 | Tekken 6 | CIB | $11.00 |
| PS3 | Tekken Hybrid | CIB | $32.00 |
| PS3 | Tekken Tag Tournament 2 | CIB | $17.00 |
| PS3 | Top Spin 4 | CIB | $14.00 |
| PS3 | Two Worlds II (Water damaged art) | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS3 | UFC 2009 Undisputed | Loose | $5.00 |
| PS3 | UFC 2010 Undisputed | CIB | $8.00 |
| PS3 | Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 | CIB | $19.00 |
| PS3 | Ultra Street Fighter IV | Game + case | $25.00 |
| PS3 | Ultra Street Fighter IV | CIB | $27.00 |
| PS3 | Uncharted 3 | CIB | $6.00 |
| PS3 | Vampire Resurrection (JP) | CIB | $58.00 |
| PS3 | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine | CIB | $19.00 |
| PS3 | Watchmen: The End is Night The Complete Experience | CIB | $36.00 |
| PS3 | Wolfenstein | Game + case | $12.00 |
| PS3 | WWE 2K16 | CIB | $13.00 |
| PS4 | Abzu | Game + case | $13.00 |
| PS4 | Borderlands: The Handsome Collection | Game + case | $6.00 |
| PS4 | Dragon Ball Xenoverse | CIB | $10.00 |
| PS4 | God of War | CIB | $13.00 |
| PS4 | Horizon Forbidden West Launch Edition | CIB | $28.00 |
| PS4 | Lego Dimensions | CIB | $29.00 |
| PS4 | Minecraft | Game + case | $16.00 |
| PS4 | Paper Beast Collector's Edition | NIB | $62.00 |
| PS4 | Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS4 | Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville | CIB | $9.00 |
| PS4 | Ratchet and Clank | Game + case | $9.00 |
| PS4 | Risk of Rain 2 | CIB | $12.00 |
| PS4 | Rocket League: Collector's Edition | CIB | $13.00 |
| PS4 | West of Dead: Path of the Crow | NIB | $28.00 |
| PS5 | Life is Strange: True Colors | CIB | $15.00 |
| PSP | ATV Offroad Fury Pro | CIB | $7.00 |
| PSP | Bad Boys | Game + case | $8.00 |
| PSP | Burnout Legends | Loose | $7.00 |
| PSP | God of War: Ghost of Sparta | Loose | $41.00 |
| PSP | Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition | Loose | $20.00 |
| PSP | Midnight Club: LA Remix | Loose | $17.00 |
| PSP | Need for Speed Rivals | Loose | $11.00 |
| PSP | Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0 (clear piece set in slightly) | Loose | $12.00 |
| PSP | Need for Speed: Pro Street (water damaged art) | Game + case | $8.00 |
| PSP | Pimp My Ride | Loose | $8.00 |
| PSP | Sonic Rivals | Loose | $12.00 |
| PSP | Star Wars Battlefront II | Loose | $10.00 |
| PSP | Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max (Clear shell) | Loose | $15.00 |
| SNES | Brain Lord | Loose | $50.00 |
| SNES | Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers | Loose | $14.00 |
| SNES | Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers | Loose | $14.00 |
| SNES | Robocop vs The Terminator | Loose | $23.00 |
| SNES | TMNT IV: Turtles in Time | Loose | $45.00 |
| SNES | Top Gear | Loose | $11.00 |
| Switch | Fitness Boxing 2 | NIB | $30.00 |
| Switch | Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | CIB | $40.00 |
| Switch | Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order | CIB | $34.00 |
| Switch | Pokemon Shining Pearl | CIB | $30.00 |
| Switch | Spyro Reignitied Trilogy | NIB | $25.00 |
| Switch | Super Mario 3D All-Stars | CIB | $80.00 |
| Vita | Call of Duty Black Ops Declassified | Loose | $17.00 |
| Vita | Call of Duty Black Ops Declassified | Loose | $17.00 |
| Vita | Lego Batman 2 | Loose | $9.00 |
| Vita | Litte Big Planet | Loose | $20.00 |
| Vita | Need for Speed Most Wanted | Loose | $16.00 |
| Vita | Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale | Loose | $17.00 |
| Vita | Soul Sacrifice | Loose | $15.00 |
| Wii | 007 Quantum of Solace | CIB | $5.00 |
| Wii | Alice in Wonderland | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | Disney Princess: My Fairytale Adventure | CIB | $14.00 |
| Wii | Disney Sing It Family Hits | CIB | $12.00 |
| Wii | Dokapon Kingdom | Loose | $60.00 |
| Wii | Family Game Night 4 | CIB | $12.00 |
| Wii | Freddi Fish: Kelp Seed Mystery | CIB | $11.00 |
| Wii | Gold classic controller | Loose | $40.00 |
| Wii | Guitar Hero 5 | Game + case | $16.00 |
| Wii | Guitar Hero Aerosmith | CIB | $9.00 |
| Wii | Hot Wheels: Track Attack | CIB | $7.00 |
| Wii | Just Dance Kids | CIB | $6.00 |
| Wii | Just Dance Summer Party | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | Karaoke Revolution | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | My Ballet Studio | Game + case | $8.00 |
| Wii | My Sims Racing | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | NBA Jam | CIB | $12.00 |
| Wii | Nights Journey of Dreams (back art punctured) | Game + case | $8.00 |
| Wii | No More Heroes 2 | CIB | $23.00 |
| Wii | Resident Evil : The Umbrella Chronicles | CIB | $14.00 |
| Wii | Tony Hawk Ride | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Wii | Tony Hawk: Shred | CIB | $8.00 |
| Wii | Wii Play Motion | Game + case | $19.00 |
| Wii | You Don't Know Jack | CIB | $9.00 |
| Wii | Zelda Wii Remote (no battery cover) | Loose | $40.00 |
| Wii U | Tekken Tag Tournament 2 | Loose | $38.00 |
| Xbox | Battlestar Galactica | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Buffy The Vampire Slayer | Game + case | $17.00 |
| Xbox | Burnout 2: Point of Impact | CIB | $11.00 |
| Xbox | Crime Life | Game + case | $11.00 |
| Xbox | Destroy All Humans! | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Enclave | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | Gun | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox | Half-Life 2 | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Xbox | House of the Dead III | Loose | $13.00 |
| Xbox | Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb | CIB | $15.00 |
| Xbox | Midway Arcade Treasures | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Minority Report | CIB | $7.00 |
| Xbox | Mortal Kombat: Deception Kollector's Edition: Baraka Version | CIB | $48.00 |
| Xbox | Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks | CIB | $28.00 |
| Xbox | Namco Museum | CIB | $7.00 |
| Xbox | Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones | CIB | $6.00 |
| Xbox | Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy | CIB | $11.00 |
| Xbox | Spiderman | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Spiderman 2 | CIB | $12.00 |
| Xbox | Star Trek: Shattered Universe | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | Star Wars Jedi Starfighter | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Star Wars Jedi Starfighter | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Star Wars Starfighter Special Edition | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | Star Wars: The Clone Wars | CIB | $7.00 |
| Xbox | Terminator 3: Redemption | CIB | $19.00 |
| Xbox | Terminator: Dawn of Fate | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox | Time Splitters 2 | CIB | $15.00 |
| Xbox | Time Splitters: Future Perfect | Loose | $20.00 |
| Xbox | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Xbox | Tony Hawk's Project 8 | CIB | $12.00 |
| Xbox | Tron 2.0 Killer App | CIB | $13.00 |
| Xbox | Turok Evolution | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | Ultimate Spiderman | CIB | $27.00 |
| Xbox | Unreal Championship | Loose | $3.00 |
| Xbox | Urbz: Sims in the City Special Edition | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox | WWF Raw | Game + case | $8.00 |
| Xbox | X-Men Legends | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Alan Wake | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Avatar: The Game | CIB | $42.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Batman: Arkham City GOTY | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Blue Dragon | Loose | $13.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Borderlands 2 Add-On Content Pack | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | CSI: Hard Evidence | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two | CIB | $7.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Fable III: Limited Collector's Edition | CIB | $12.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Final Fantasy XIII | CIB | $14.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Gears of War: Limited Collector's Edition | CIB | $28.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Gears of War: Limited Collector's Edition (no plastic sleeve or art book) | CIB | $24.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Halo 3 Collector's Edition (one disc holder fell off) | CIB | $12.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Infinite Undiscovery | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Kinect Sports Ultimate Collection | CIB | $13.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Kinect Sports: Ultimate Collection | CIB | $14.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Lego The Hobbit | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Blockbuster case) | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Monster Jam: Path of Destruction | Game + case | $22.00 |
| Xbox 360 | NCAA Football 08 | CIB | $6.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Ninety-Nine Nights (sharpie on disc) | CIB | $9.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures | Game + case | $10.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Rocksmith | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Skylanders: Giants | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Snoopy's Grand Adventure | Game + case | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Spiderman 3 | Loose | $14.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Star Wars: The Force Unleashed | CIB | $6.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PAL) | CIB | $5.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan | Loose | $19.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Walking Dead GOTY | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine | Loose | $10.00 |
| Xbox 360 | Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition | Game + case | $15.00 |
| Xbox One | Grand Theft Auto V | CIB | $10.00 |
| Xbox One | Guitar Hero Live | Game + case | $35.00 |
| Xbox One | Guitar Hero Live (punctured back art) | Game + case | $30.00 |
| Xbox One | Just Dance 2020 | Game + case | $6.00 |
| Xbox One | Kinect Sports Rivals | Game + case | $12.00 |
| Xbox One | Marvel Avengers | CIB | $8.00 |
| Xbox One | Red Dead Redemption Game of the Year Edition | CIB | $14.00 |
| Xbox One | Resident Evil 2 Deluxe Edition | CIB | $26.00 |
| Xbox One | Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order Deluxe Edition | CIB | $15.00 |
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2023.05.28 21:06 YNG_SKNHDXVX Only A Fool Would Cling To This World As It Is
Look at it.
O, how it snarls and growls,
Stamping, stomping, flailing,
Leveling flat all that is
As its temper is allowed
A kind of free reign.
Its masters, who once had the
Idea of trying to, how shall we say,
Keep it on a leash, I suppose?
They gave that idea up ages ago.
Recognizing the futility in such a folly,
Unable to control the growth
Of the savage beast they placated
For so long that, they too,
Shall be doomed by it
Going horrifically insane…
...it would be seem that they opted to sit back.
And just, well, watch.
This once was a beautiful land, you know.
Miles and miles of boundless fields.
Trees as far as the eye could see,
Stretching forever, endlessly,
Until the line of sight was,
By its finitude, made to yield.
Shrubbery, springing up in both
Plains and hills alike,
Grass and flowers rooted in the soil,
A place for all to go enjoy a bit of respite.
Fauna of all kinds, occupying land, sky, and sea,
Harmonious in their relationship with…Her, yes, Her; I forget
Her name, although we all seem to refer to her as “Mother”, or sometimes…”Nature”; any who,
Yes, all kinds, many, innumerable, unique in every way, beautiful, indescribably precious.
…I wonder where they went…
Where are they…?
Back then, if you can believe it,
There was water to drink, and air to breathe.
Here, we were given
Everything we could
Ever want, ever need.
Children will look into their little books.
Read tales of wondrous lands.
See depictions of colorful sights.
Marvelous creatures, plants, animals, filling their pages.
Quite adorable, its; they wish to know more.
How they cannot stop turning the papers with their hands.
Eyes wide with wonder, they’ll eagerly look outside.
“I, too, wish to see this world, so clear and bright!”
Outside doesn’t look like the pages, does it?
Yet, when these were written, these old tales
That they so adore, inspiration came from
Out there, no? Those authors…didn’t they draw from the
Eternal source, that beauty beyond the edges of town?
Surely, that is the case, young one…
But…that was in the past.
Bother not, in some desperate plea to see what they saw.
Those parts are unhallowed ground.
All of that…
It is gone…
“O, what could’ve caused such a cruel injustice?”
I’ll merely point out of the window,
At the rampaging creature
That spews forth muck
Into the dirt
And kills off all the evergreens,
Grass, bushes, young petals,
Claws raking the crust,
Kicking up thick clouds of angry dust,
As it, that thing,
Doesn’t like challengers; doesn’t like rebels,
Nor does it favor and joy…instead, only punishment and hurt.
Starving and stampeding
Many numbers of
Shocked, frightened beings,
Causing them to tremble and quake
(Flee or fight, they’ll try both
As it succeeds in getting what it wishes to take),
It does with pride; homes annihilated,
Leaving them to wander aimlessly
Into the yards of
Those taught to hate,
Beat, eat, greet
With hostility and rage.
Unless, usefulness is proved
(Only by the decree of so many,
As is the usual decider),
At which point
They can be worthy of
“Love” and “care” again,
Relegated to long hours alone
In a cage.
“Weren’t these green and non-bipedal things here first?”
I nod, affirming their suspicions.
“And we’re tearing up their home?”
Again, another sad, despairing nod.
“Sad.” “I agree.”
Indignant, a mother storms forward, taking the child away in a huff.
“Do not let them poison you with their filthy lies.” She said in a biting, scathing tone.
“You’ll be ruined…
…just like them.”
“You don’t want the masters to come for you, no?”
“They will, you know that.”
“And what did I tell you of this world, this one in your books?
In those old pictures you look through so often?”
“Remember what they said; it was uncouth and unclean.”
“Primitive boulder dash, they said; worst of the worst things to be seen.”
“Now, here we are. Satisfied, happy, and free.”
“Please, do not dare try to flee.”
“There’s nothing for you out there.”
“Accept the love, and the care.”
“Another thing; stop trying to get a hold of the Mother.”
“You and your desire to be close to Her, how foolish;
You’ll just be distracted
From your sisters and brothers.”
I scowl for a bit, but carry on nonetheless.
A chuckle can’t help but always escape my lips at that word. Masters.
Please, they have no control over this anymore.
Did they ever? No. For you see, that drive, that lust, that…narcotic (let us
Be honest as to what it is), well, it is not containable; it even breaks out
Upon the skin, the eyes, the face, the teeth, the breath, and renders
Whoever possessed by it, a boiling sore.
Quite clear, it is, that all that merely takes place, is the bidding is done
Through flesh puppets who’s dark minds are enraptured by mad poltergeists
From two millennia ago and a country stormed some centennials that have passed
Us by, threatened by everything that wasn’t them, longing to make them all pay the price,
Engaging in audacious heists,
Souls pitch black,
Illuminated no longer
By the light of the sun.
I never saw them ever again.
Unbeknownst to me, the whole family was eaten.
Swallowed, gulped down, forced into its gullet.
Could I have known? Unlikely. I was busy trying to
Avoid the wrath.
A difficult feat, in these troubling times.
Into the stomach they went.
Hell is where they were sent.
Forcibly melded with others.
Made, by another will, their sisters and brothers.
Grey, amorphous, moldable, indistinguishable.
Just one giant mesh; differentiation? Inconceivable.
Leveled flat, mixed around until all dissolved into all.
Keeping a herd in line is hard work; it’s better
If their traits and whatnot are irreparably mauled.
Stirred by the lining and walls,
Deep inside, no one can hear
The pained, pleading calls,
Badly burned and seared,
Soon they shall be flushed down the halls.
Years and years and years ago,
Those….masters…they would sometimes,
Silver-tongued smooth talkers they are,
Go the route of playing nice.
When this didn’t work as well as they had hoped,
Away went all of the politeness and rhetoric,
Thinly-veiled smugness, a superiority complex to rival their long dead God
(Intelligent among us will know this as
The true father of this monster,
Evidence that even ghosts
Can give birth)
Set forth was this living storm; indulge, they did, in the great vice.
Has it an abode?
I think not.
Mindlessly, it just consumes and roams.
Gas of a most foul kind has overtaken the air.
I want to choke it, make it unable to inhale.
Liquids vital to life have never been so worse for wear.
Bleed it dry, dismember it; it’s my only wish, until it is empty and pale.
Loud, noisy, its innards turn as it grinds its meals
Into steaming batches of sameness, literal shit
Eaten by future meals in their lairs (to which they’re permanently confined).
What little is left here, is what little we’ve got.
Dying everyday, she’s already in the coffin.
Within Her breast, Her many children go,
A safe place to escape all that is rotten.
I’ve considered joining Her myself.
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2023.05.28 21:03 prbobo Found Wife's Journal
I'm a 38M and been married to my wife 38F for 14 years. We have two young kids. I inadvertently came across her journal and read some. It was a notebook in the center console of her car, and I was looking for some sunglasses. In the journal she writes about missing the sex she had before we were married. And I get that, our sex life is nearly non-existent. I can handle that. But more troubling is she writes about a co-worker and praises him because he listens to her and she says their personalities are very compatible. She mentions his looks and seems to imagine a way to be with him. I don't have evidence of actual cheating. I know emotional cheating is a thing too. My heart is ripped out. But it IS a journal, and I know some people write things in a journal to process, without any intention of actually doing things. So should I confront her about this? Or just take this as a wake up call to try to be a better husband. Try to listen more and be more present, and give it some time? I'm so hurt that I'm physically ill, and have no idea how to handle this. I would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks
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2023.05.28 21:00 Drakolf The First Kobold Hero:
I bear the Mark of the Hero.
Once every hundred years, a random person in the world is born with the Mark, and from the moment we walk, we are consumed by the insatiable desire to fulfill our destiny.
It is widely believed that the only people who are capable of bearing the Mark are Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and certain variants of Beastfolk.
I am the first Kobold Hero.
I'm used to people seeing me walk into town and staring in complete and utter shock because my kind are usually of the baby-stealing basic monsters that everyone and their grandmother can punt.
I always have to explain that, yes, this is truly the Mark, and I make it glow just to illustrate my point. I even choose someone to grant temporary Hero Powers to ensure there is no confusion.
And once the speculation begins, I'm always the first one to cut in and simply say, "My family is a warren of Kobolds who live in the capitol city sewers. We needed somewhere peaceful to stay where we wouldn't get mass murdered, so for around two-hundred generations we just stayed there not bothering anyone."
I'd usually choose that moment to casually take a drink of mead or eat some food, and follow up with, "Turns out, peaceful proximity to large groups of civilized people makes one eligible."
My first act as Hero was going to the surface, fighting my way through waves of giant rats, insects, and thwarting a death cult that was minutes away from releasing barrels of toxic fog throughout the city.
The adventuring party that had been tracking the cult down had already been defeated, one of them was unfortunate enough to have one of the cult's masks grafted directly to their skull.
Ironically, or maybe appropriately, he was the only one of the group who actually liked how cool it looked.
When I came in, I had crawled in through a hole in the wall, pushing a barrel over that happened to contain the only thing that counteracts the toxic fog, which the cult had been planning on using to survive.
The moment I heard, "Quick! Release the Death Fog!" my Mark had begun to burn and I knew that the beginning of my destiny was at hand.
The defeated party watched in blind terror as little old me carved my way through the cultists, had weakly stood to defend themselves, only to realize that I was the new Hero, that the lack of appearance of one wasn't some terrible omen of doom- which ironically led to the formation and eventual discovery of the death cult, who wanted to put the world out of its misery rather than live without the Hero- and that I had just saved their asses.
Being the first Hero of a race also sucks! People are almost always saying I'm just a fluke, or that maybe I'm one of the few good ones, as if there isn't an entire warren of Kobolds currently integrating into the capitol!
Well, this morning proved to be just another really bad day, because in spite of my warnings, I could hear the sounds of battle in the village.
Again.
To their credit, my party had learned the art of non-lethal violence.
The really shitty thing is, it was by necessity.
I climbed out the window of my room at the inn, hungover and barely dressed, and I walked over to the village center where a hundred villagers or so were trying valiantly to fight off the group of monsters that had walked right in.
My friends.
Muttering curses under my breath because the shouts, screams, and sounds of battle were like a hammer to my brain, I planted my feet firmly on the ground, dug my talons into the soil, took a deep breath, and roared.
I hate roaring on a hangover.
The crowd dispersed through sheer terror at the sound of a Dragon, eyes fell on me as I caught my breath. I walked past the terrified villagers over to my friends and used one of the charges of Heroic Power I had for the day just to heal them.
"You guys alright?" I asked, trying my hardest not to pass out from the migraine that now dominated my skull.
My party made their affirmations that, yes, they were alright. I then rounded on the villagers and started on my lecture about paying attention to Heroes when they say, 'Hey, this is extremely important, my party is comprised of monsters, they will be arriving tomorrow. Do not attack them'.
Most people listen, they really do. Most times, there's only palpable tension in the air as they go about their day in close proximity to creatures that could eviscerate them without a second thought.
These were members of peaceful monster tribes who just wanted to be left alone, whom I as Hero was guided to find and defend against other tribes that wanted them dead, whom I then escorted to the village I had founded specifically for peaceful monsters to congregate and be safe.
This village was- by decree, no less- known throughout the land, had signage detailing that it was a legally established village, that the residents had a right to defend themselves, and that anyone stupid enough to piss off a resident enough to get killed, they were too stupid to contribute anything of value to the nation.
My party was comprised of a Lycanthrope from a barbarian tribe on the outskirts of the nation's territory, a Lizardfolk who had managed to find and learn how to read from wizard spellbooks- which incidentally made him a passing wizard, a Half-Demon Gnoll born in a cult to some local god of evil who didn't want to be some dark savior of monsterkind and was more than happy to push that role onto me, and an entire Dragon who generally preferred to travel in the form of a Kobold.
He is also my beloved husband and I love him dearly.
There was an uncommon saying that you could tell the destiny of a Hero by the company he keeps, and if that was true, the next handful of Heroes were not going to be the 'standard', and people were going to have to live with this.
Boris, the Lycanthrope, loves to drink. His immunity to most forms of damage and poisons means he can drink an entire tavern dry without so much as a buzz, which I envied him for, but not enough to have him bite me.
Lycanthropes are the monster progenitors of Werewolves. They don't have a Human form, they're just like that. Boris can move around on all fours just as well as two legs, people think he shapeshifts, but no, he's just like that as well.
He was usually the one who dealt with any Werewolves we came across, helping them learn to coexist with the beast within and embracing it, rather than drive themselves insane resisting it.
It turns out, coming to terms with the fact that you have an incurable curse and coming to see it in a positive light makes things easier. Novel concept, that.
Seliss, the Lizard Wizard, loves to eat, but is terrible at communication. It's the lack of facial expressions, difficulty understanding euphemistic language, and tendency to lightly whip himself or chew on bones.
No, this isn't normal Lizardfolk behavior, he's just like that. Incidentally, he was the one to discover that suspected changelings are just people who think like he does, and he's more than capable of talking to them on their level, which confuses and frightens the generally ignorant public.
He is beloved by these strange variants of people, and has single-handedly slithered his way into the hearts of the masses.
Vax, the half-Demon, has it the hardest. Even when I brought him with me, the combination of hated beings that he represented made him a constant target of hatred. I recall a time when, in spite of my explicit warnings not to harm him, a group of devout religious nutcases proceeded to attack him, in full view of me.
Each time, I would simply say, "By the Divine power invested in me as the Hero of this generation, you are allowed to defend yourself by any means necessary."
This usually caused the nutcases to stare at me in absolute horror as I had basically given a Demon carte blanche to murder them.
Vax would simply ask, "Can you please stop hurting me? I don't want to hurt you if I don't have to."
It was a grand irony that the spawn of the two races considered to be the most violent and hateful was a kind-hearted pacifist. That made the few times he did snap all the more terrifying.
At that point, though, it was usually the people who didn't learn their lesson the first dozen times who made him snap, followed by him breaking down in tears because he hated killing.
Thankfully, this time, the people weren't attacking him anymore.
And Grand Duke Torivan of the Drakarchy of Glim, longstanding enemies of the kingdom, who made a lovely Kobold and had helped me sue for peace, ending in a political marriage that ensured some level of peace.
It was actually his machinations that led to my winding up there, his grand and diabolical plot being a smokescreen for just being sick and tired of dumping all of their gold into their military while their public sector suffered.
I remembered entering his lair, our weapons drawn and ready to fight to the death, him rising menacingly from his hoard and then saying. "Finally, I was beginning to think you weren't going to show up."
He explained his grand plan to us before humbly requesting that we at least play along. Officially, we were the ones who offered him a chance to repent and seek to mend his evil ways, since his actions could have led to serious damage to his side and ours if he'd been even halfway serious about it.
And because the amnesty of a Hero is considered a sacred and binding contract, he was free to go, he offered to partake in a political marriage for peace between our nations.
I accepted on the condition that if we're married, then he'll have to travel with me, a condition the Drakarchy only accepted because I was the Hero.
Now, one might think that simply because I was a destined Hero, that I was meant to fight against some evil Demon King or grand conspiracy.
No, I know how my tale ends, I know that I'll keep traveling and saving lives, preventing tragedies, and sowing peace. I've told my husband this, and while it saddens him, he understands that my fate is my own, and that I've already made peace with it.
I am destined to die defending the village I helped found from people who think I'm some kind of perversion of the natural order, who will try to destroy the peaceful home of so many who desperately want to live in comfort and peace.
I know some of them are going to die, but as I lay dying, my last words to them will be, "Pick up your weapons, you deserve to live."
I don't know if there will be peace after this, all I know is that until there is, there are going to be more monstrous Heroes like me, there are going to be more attempts at rectifying a grand mistake that was created when my soul was made.
Something that isn't well known is that the source of my powers, the strength that I wield, the wisdom that I have, it isn't divinely given, that was just something the Temples told the masses.
I come from a long line of lives, all dedicated to the peace and prosperity of the world, and we all know the only way to truly destroy evil for good, is to ensure it has no seedbed to grow.
Every time I return to my village, it fills me with dread knowing this could be the last time, yet I still smile, I still cherish my friends, my beloved husband, because even though I don't know when I will die, or what will happen after the fact, I have to believe that this will end in joy, rather than sorrow.
I have to, because nobody else is willing to take on that burden.
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2023.05.28 20:58 Lazy_Two_4908 Help needed
I am a 14 year old boy from India who has played golf for 7 year but due to COVID I couldn't play for 4 years
Today I went to a driving range after 4 years to play and man those shots were shit. By ball spinned to the right. My backswing was alright but on return and impact I loose my stance and instead of being bent over and get in attention position. Most of my balls were flight but that's not the issue I need accuracy. My grip was also hurting after 50 balls.
Could someone please help me out and tell me what I have to train. I cannot practice golf at my house as i don't have a park or anything and the public park does not allow kids to play in.
The nearest golf course is 30 min away from my place and ofcourse I cannot go alone so only once a week is possible.
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2023.05.28 20:47 L8ter_sk8t3r Went on date & I feel guilty
So I went on a really great date. Super nice guy hit it off bla bla bla. I’ve known this guy since high school always thought he was cute but I didn’t get back in touch with him till recently. A couple months ago I was in a pretty brief relationship and it was the first relationship I had since my ab*ser (that was about for years ago). Anyway I probably developed an unhealthy attachment style since my first relationship. The breakup in the most recent one wasn’t really a breakup. I saw that he was on a date with another girl and asked him about it because we had just agreed not to see other people, and we were talking about moving in with each other for the summer. So I was pretty stunned when he ghosted me completely. a couple weeks later my dog died and I figured out I wasn’t going to graduate from college this year I reached out (awful couple of weeks right? lmfao). I desperately wanted someone to talk to, I texted him a few times just hoping for an explanation before but he responded and said that we should talk to he can explain. That never happened and I never got closer which is fine I’m not mad at him. People will make their own choices despite it hurting others. Whatever. So I’ve been trying to move on. The recent date happened he slept over and when I woke up next to someone, I thought it was my recent ex. It made me feel really guilty like I’m using people when I’m not actually emotionally available. Idk. I wanna know if anyone else has felt similar. I’ve got adhd which makes dating hard. I don’t understand how most people work and it’s hard for me to make meaningful connections. I’d like to hear what others think, if you’ve got stories, and how to move passed this stuff because it’s making me very unhappy.
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2023.05.28 20:44 no_one_important09 Will working on a fracture cause more damage? Don’t understand knee MRI results below
26F 180lbs Caucasian no smoking no alcohol no drugs
Medical conditions: asthma, hypertension, sinus tach, depression
Medications: amlodipine 5mg, metoprolol 100mg, Wellbutrin 150mg
Current problem: right knee injury
I was playing pickleball Monday and went for a ball and my knee twisted and just gave out causing me to fall. I went to the ortho hours after it happened and called out of work that week. Well it’s a new work week and I’m not sure if I can work tonight. I just got my MRI results today uploaded to mychart. I’m no longer using crutches (although it still hurts terribly). I’ve already gotten in trouble for missing work last week. I work for a big hospital corporation as a tech and would be on my feet the majority of those 12 hours. Taking crutches to work is not an option. My question is, is bearing weight and walking 12 hours with my mri findings in mind (found below) be a bad idea? It says I have a fracture and possible tears or strain? How serious is this?
IMPRESSION: 1. There is an acute nondisplaced, minimally depressed fracture of the posterolateral tibial plateau.
- Intact ligaments.
- No evidence for medial meniscal tear.
- There is linear vertically oriented signal hyperintensity seen along the meniscocapsular junction of the posterior horn of lateral meniscus and raises the possibility of meniscocapsular strain injury or tearing along the meniscocapsular junction of the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus.
- No large cartilage defects.
- There is indistinctness of the popliteus tendon at the level of the lateral tibiofemoral joint compartment and suggest possible strain injury although suspected partial thickness tearing is present.
- Moderate joint effusion noted without significant popliteal cyst.
CODE ORTHO SIGNIFICANT REPORT Automated notification pathway concerning the above report was activated at the time below.
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2023.05.28 20:29 ilovegodsword Using ChatGPT to answer Bible questions about the Holy Ghost today!
Promt: "Give me the verses (as many as you know) in King James Version that speak of the Holy Ghost being for the present day today"
Certainly! Here are some verses from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible that affirm the ongoing presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the present day:
Acts 2:38-39: "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."
John 14:16-17: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."
John 14:26: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
John 16:13-14: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."
Romans 8:9: "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
Ephesians 1:13-14: "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."
Ephesians 4:30: "And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."
These verses highlight the ongoing role and presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, offering guidance, empowerment, teaching, and sealing as a guarantee of salvation.
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2023.05.28 20:21 Just_Nixon My parents trying to parent me way too late in my life.
Hi I (22m) have been dealing with family drama/personal hell for the past 5 years of my life. Some backstory of what has been happening has been my brother (19m) dealing with drug addiction since he was 14 and has ruined their home life by punching holes in the drywall, beating two cars with a golf club, ripping apart the banister, and catching the house on fire (I could go on for hours on just the property damage and not even mentioning the felonies against me.) While this has been going on I have had to pretty much raise myself as my parents had to focus on my brother and his issues. The drama became so immense and petty that my extended family cut my parents out of their lives because of the danger of my brother. All while this is going on I have had to live on my own as my own person making sure not to get dragged into the shitshow that is this "family". My go to strategy for years would be go to my room, lock the door, blast music and play some video games. I became a recluse and practically non-existent in the publics eye and any time I would go out anyone who knew me asked "Hey Jordan how is your family?" The horror stories of my family life overtook my own name.
I will admit I do resent them somewhat for pouring everything into one child while I was forgotten in the background. I completely understand their thought process in trying to help him, but it still hurts to be considered second rate even if I never was the favorite. Now he is out of the house and I am finishing up college and trying to find a good job and for some reason they now have the thought to try to make up for the past 5 years. They have the audacity to criticize me for not being a diehard christian, not being married and or dating, not wanting kids, talking to them about my problems, being shy and lying to them about what is happening in my life. I have not seen us as family for sometime and slowly have come to realize family isn't just name or blood alone. My true family have been the people who have kept me sane, the late night phone calls, the xbox live parties with some of the best people I have ever met. I just wanted to post this to expel some anger over their recent bitching about me. I don't know if I could ever truly forgive them, but time apart will only tell.
I just don't know if I should even continue to try to have a mature relationship if they will only talk down to me as if I am a teenager still trying to figure out life. Thoughts?
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2023.05.28 20:20 EzekialX Vulturebeard: Bad Roomies Part 2
Part 1:
https://www.reddit.com/ReddXReads/comments/13lfqkw/vulturebeard_the_legbeard_that_ruined_roomies_fo Hi everyone, bunny here. I’m having Ezekial post this for me because while I lurk on reddit, I’m on too many online communities and burn out quickly on all of them. I’m just here to tell this incredibly long tale. Pull up a chair, grab a snack, get comfy. This is a long ride.
The Cast List Bunny (author): 33, female, a year or so out of a divorce that turned toxic and abusive and ultimately helped me realize I was gay. Recovering lifelong doormat slowly building a spine. Neuro spicy gym rat with major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, and most recently diagnosed with ADHD. Unfortunately very familiar with surviving trauma.
Z (poster): My partner. 31, nonbinary (they/them), also neuro spicy with depression, anxiety, OCD, BPD, autism, and also familiar with lifelong trauma.
One Liner Beard (OLB): 33, male, neuro spicy with ADHD and depression. He also suspects autism but isn’t pursuing a diagnosis. His nickname here comes from the fact that in messenger, he usually has one-word replies like “oof” or “mmm” as an acknowledgement he had seen the message but has nothing further to contribute.
VultureBeard (Vulture): 30, female, neuro spicy and disabled with multiple conditions. She has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTs (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), autism, depression, anxiety, chronic migraines, but also possibly a list of things that may or may not be real – that will all be explained. The star of this unfortunate circus. Her name will be explained in this part.
Kid: 3. Female. OLB and Vulture’s child. Likely neuro spicy like we all are, but she’s also only 3 years old. Slightly speech delayed and not potty trained yet.
Minor mentions:
Shit ass ex-husband (SA): name is self-explanatory. 32, male. Divorce was amicable to keep the peace. I immediately went no contact with him after.
J2: Friend of OLBs.
You ready? Deep breath. Now let’s dive into this mess.
Chapter Two: VultureBeard, or the Walking Diagnosis With the backstory of how we wound up with a neckbeard, a legbeard, and their kid out of the way, I’ll start on VultureBeard properly now.
J2 was the one who introduced her to OLB. He ran into her at a local convention, and they talked and spent the day together. He ended up sleeping over at her house, on her couch, since she lived a few minutes away from the convention center, and he introduced her to his D&D group that OLB was a DM for. He said that at first, he wanted to smash just based on looks (before she stopped caring for herself, before the pregnancy), until she opened her mouth.
Oh boy. I met her on Halloween 2018 or 2019 (trauma made my memory absolute garbage, ain’t it fun?), when OLB wanted to run a one-shot Curse of Strahd campaign for our D&D group. J2’s group was called Party A, we were Party B. Both of our campaigns existed in the same universe that OLB created. It was a fun one shot. I liked her. We integrated her into our D&D campaign as a side character who joined our party.
With her autism, she talks a lot, and can have a conversation with anyone, but she does naturally miss a lot of social cues. She says it’s okay to be direct with her and say things like, “I can’t talk right now, I’m busy.” But in the wild, she just enjoys people. That in itself isn’t a bad thing.
When we met, she was a Mormon with long brown hair, glasses, and modest clothes with long ankle-length jean skirts. I don’t know if that was a lifelong practice or just the people she had associated with. She didn’t curse at all, and still substitutes “fudge” for my favorite and most often-used curse word. Over time, she dropped religion, but she only curses in text, and very rarely at that, like when she’s pushed to her mental limit. She still dresses in a lot of the modest clothes from before, but it’s mostly because she doesn’t go clothes shopping a lot. I have passed down some clothes I have shrunk out of to her.
Her fashion sense is a bit of Walmart-meets-Goodwill. The tired mom “this is clean, so I’ll wear it” kind of aesthetic. She’s big on thrifting, but so am I. Most of my wardrobe is thrifted or passed on from a few gym friends these days, so it’s not like I’m poking fun at secondhand clothes. It’s just that there’s a lack of style or effort on her part, like she just puts clothes on and sometimes remembers to brush her hair out. I think there’s a part of her that doesn’t recognize she’s plus sized after pregnancy because she once bought clothes that are size medium, and they didn’t fit. She fit my old 2X leggings. I traded her leggings once, my bigger size for her smaller size.
She and OLB don’t fold laundry or put it away, so she will have laundry stuffed in their hamper that they keep in our shoe closet next to the laundry room, or boxes on her desk, or on her desk chair. They kind of live out of that clothes pile. If she needs to dress in something nice, it likely is wrinkly because it was in an unfolded pile.
The first run-in with realizing that something was a little “off” with her was when she tried cooking for us. We had other friends over to play D&D and Magic with us, and she wanted to cook some kind of chicken and noodle dish. With her POTs (post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), she’s usually sodium deficient so she adds way too much salt to whatever she’s eating. Not being used to cooking for others, she served us completely inedible chicken that was too salty.
One of my former friends was there for that debacle. What she also noticed was that Kid seemed to be behind some childhood markers. At 2, Kid was still using a bottle and didn’t seem to talk much. She was worried that Kid would keep falling behind. It was a red flag that got tucked away. At the time, I was still thinking of Vulture as a burned-out first-time neuro spicy mom. That’s a lot for a disabled woman to handle. As a disabled person myself, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. I gave her too much benefit of the doubt for way too long.
Vulture as a person focuses very much on herself. Because of the body aches and pains that come with both Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and POTs, yes, I understand that her body regularly fights itself. But why is it that every time her body expressed pain, she had to do a loud, “
AH, OW” or other pain noises as loud as she could? Or she will complain about whatever is giving her trouble. Some days she will be using her computer quietly, then when I come out of my bedroom, she starts to complain about her daily aches and pains. This happens pretty much every day, for different reasons. Her sneezes are likewise as loud, to where I can hear her across the house, through a closed door and over the show Z and I are watching.
Most awkward is Vulture’s bathroom habits. In Apartment #2, I guess Vulture got used to using the bathroom with the door cracked because they lived in a house without roommates, and she needed to keep an ear on Kid. Even now in a shared space, she keeps the door cracked, sometimes with the light off so I don’t think anyone is in the bathroom because it’s more migraine friendly.
Until I hear the grunting.
THE GRUNTING. THE POOP GRUNTING. I have heard it through my closed bedroom door, because her bathroom is right next to my bedroom. Usually, it’s when my bedroom is quieter, like when Z and I are off to sleep. But I hear her grunting as she’s using the bathroom, either because the door is open, or she is just that loud. I’m terrified to know which one it is.
Her hygiene is questionable at best. I know personally that Depression™ makes hygiene and self-care extremely difficult. I myself do the best I can, especially while being constantly sweaty at the gym and a Big Sad (depression) fighter. So, I get mental illness and hygiene. With Vulture and her long hair, she would leave it in a bun for days until it matted. She asked for my help with detangling it and it took me around two hours to safely work the mats and tangles out. When she cut it in a homemade attempt to do the popular wolf cut on Tik Tok, it was much more manageable. When it’s shorter, it has tight curls. She constantly has a natural body odor smell to her. I think with her sensitive skin, she has to wear a specific unscented deodorant, but I don’t think she applies it unless she’s leaving the house. The sink in her and OLB’s bathroom is used as mostly a storage space with things piled on top of it, so I don’t think it’s used for much. The bathtub needs a deep scrubbing, and she gives Kid a bath more than she herself showers.
Having heard the poop grunting, I’m afraid to look at their toilet.
In general, Vulture isn’t active, but to say that she’s sedentary is a vast understatement. The average sedentary person looks like an Olympic athlete next to her. She occupies two spots in the house: Her bed, or the couch in the living room. For most of the day. She will just have her laptop either on the table next to her or in her lap, and that’s where she spends most of the day, gaming.
With me being a gym rat, I am incredibly proud of how I went from a couch potato to a weightlifter. When I think about what would happen if I suddenly dropped to her levels of activity, I know my body would fall apart. I often wonder if her lying in bed or on the couch contributes to more of her body pains because her muscles are deteriorating from disuse. I mean what do I know, I’m not a doctor. That body pain cycles to her being even more inactive because she hurts. It’s a big cycle of negativity.
When the weather changes drastically, she will be hit with migraines or allergy attacks, to where she has to lay down all day as well. She takes OTC pain medicine frequently, as well as allergy meds. One of her desk cabinets is a well-stocked mini pharmacy of OTC medication and some prescription medication she has collected over time that expired over a year ago. When I’m hit with a rare migraine, I know she will have something in stock for it.
Her doctor says she needs to eat more frequently because she’s always shaky. She will hold up her hand to show me how much it’s shaking, and it always looks as though she’s making it shake from the wrist, instead of it being an actual hand movement. She always tells me, “Look at this,” and holds up her shaking hand, like she’s trying to show me how bad she’s doing, but it’s for different reasons every time. She didn’t eat, she’s too tired, she has a migraine, she has sinus pain – everything gives her shaky hands, which I joked about once.
If she has a new symptom, she goes to Doctor Google to look up what’s wrong with her, and then talk in our house chat on discord that she thinks she might have “so and so” wrong with her because the symptoms match. Or she will post screenshots of whatever her symptoms are. As far as I know in the time living with her, she’s never had close medical calls or anything that needed further treatment, except for a heart study where she wore a device to monitor her heart rate. Doctor Google gave her all sorts of things she could have, though.
Within the time I started writing this saga, I had this encounter with her in the house group chat on discord that she, OLB, and I are in, about how she thinks she’s allergic to mosquito bites because the bites swelled up and got inflamed:
Vulture: Just figured out something I’m most likely allergic to: mosquito’s saliva reaction is increased inflammation around the bite site and the condition is skeeter syndrome.
Me: You should get that confirmed by a doctor. It’s mosquito season.
(it sounds like she copy/pasted that bit about mosquito’s saliva from Google) Mind you, my former in-laws thought I was allergic to mosquito bites because the same thing happened to me. My mosquito bites swelled up beyond what they should look like, and mosquitos have a good nose at finding me in particular compared to other people. I tried to empathize with her, even though it just seemed like she wanted to identify with a syndrome she found on the internet.
She said that she had the same symptoms her friend’s dad had for GERD because her acid reflux was acting up. The GERD saga is a fun one as well, which I’ll fully share later.
Funny enough, if I also have something similar to what her current issue is, she doesn’t play Oppression Olympics and say hers is worse. I’ve been dealing with vertigo on and off for the past month and I don’t have the ability to see a doctor for it at the moment. So, when she says that she’s dizzy or the room is spinning, I express empathy or at least a little “oh, same here,” because I have to carefully move my body in ways that don’t make the room spin. It might be her autism, it might be because she doesn’t care, but she never expresses empathy my way. She just moves on.
I’ve told her multiple times she needs to see a doctor to check for each new symptom she has, but somehow there’s an excuse. The latest I’ve heard is, “I will once my phone is turned back on. It hasn’t been paid in a while.” Valid yes, but then please get off Google. Because she’s on government assistance and doesn’t have a car and doesn’t know how to drive, she’s ferried to her appointments by a medical bus that stops at the house. They do need to be able to call her. Just
please get off Google in the meantime! I’ve even told her that Doctor Google and WebMD will say everything is cancer or fatal and it’s not good for you, and she just kind of brushed it off.
One of my friends calls her the Professional Victim. Z is convinced she has Factitious Disorder (formerly called Munchausen’s). She loves to hide behind her illnesses as to why she can’t get out of bed or can’t do chores. If you were to listen to her every day, you’d think she was falling apart at the seams because it was always something. Migraine, body pain, allergies, sinus problems or sinus infections, stomach problems, dizziness, shakiness. Repeat. Forever.
She will ask me if her forehead feels hot, and when I can’t tell, she checks with a thermometer. She says, “My natural body temperature is low so 99 degrees is a fever to me.”
This is also where I gave her a lot of benefit of the doubt at the beginning, because EDS and POTs will affect the entire body in different ways. One of my friends, in her casual dark humor, will have conversations with me about how she’s just not going to be able to walk properly that day, because her ankle joint slid out of place, but she still finished her work shift. I talk to my friend regularly about her struggles with her body, but somehow it doesn’t have the same self-pity that Vulture’s does. Every disability presents differently between people. As rare as EDS and POTs is, it’s pretty common in online communities because it’s where people tend to flock to. In my time in varying disabled online communities, I’ve never seen someone who complains or fishes for attention as much as Vulture does.
If she’s having a relatively good day, she will either be gaming, or maybe she will get to one of the chores that OLB tries to get her to do during the day, like doing the dishes or cleaning Kid’s room. When OLB had prescription Adderall (before the shortage made him switch to a different ADHD med), she took one of his pills and was zooming around actually being productive. She has symptoms of ADHD but doesn’t have a formal diagnosis, so OLB thought it might help her. It seemed to.
If she has a bad day, which is most of her days, she stays rooted on the couch or moves between her couch and her bed, moving her laptop with her. She spends all day building in Minecraft, completing her Pokedex, or playing other games.
Sometimes when I come out of my room to cook, she says something along the lines of, “I
planned on cleaning today,” followed by vague hand gestures of how she’s feeling. I never asked her about her daily plans, but she needed to tell me. Is it self-awareness or guilt?
If she’s doing a load of dishes, she will loudly proclaim that she’s dizzy and shaky and in pain and have to go sit down after 10 minutes of that. I don’t know if she actually has the body strength to stay upright for longer than ten minutes at a time, and I don’t know if that’s her actual chronic illnesses, or the fact that she doesn’t do anything at all.
I’ve given her the same advice I use myself for low spoon (low energy) days when I need to get things done. I’ve told her it’s okay to take ten-minute breaks and then get started again. Or an hour break, if her body is giving her trouble. I’ve told her it’s okay to clean the house while sitting on the ground or in a chair, if that’s easier on her body. In managing my broken mental health, I’ve taught myself all sorts of life hacks, or as I call them, “brain hacks,” to work around how gross depression makes me feel. And I’ve told her that if it’s a really bad day, the dishes aren’t going anywhere and can wait until tomorrow.
That’s meant to be compassionate, not taken in the “if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile” sort of way, but it must be interpreted as permission to not do The Thing. It just won’t get done if she feels she has permission to skip over it.
If she does anything, she will want metaphorical ass pats for her good work. OLB jokes that it’s a praise kink, but some days it really seems that way without anyone consenting to participate in her kink. She asks if I noticed she cleaned the kitchen or did some kind of cleaning and if I’m proud of her. I used to play along with the praise because I wanted to give her positive reinforcement, like maybe if I emphasized that it was a good thing, she’d be more encouraged to do it more. I’ve got jokes, apparently. Optimism was so strong early in the friendship.
If she cooks, usually it’s something frozen that she can heat up like pizza. Most of the time, she exists on boxed macaroni and cheese or sandwiches. Or what fast food OLB brings home. Most of her diet is processed, instant, or frozen. Or she eats odds and ends like what cereal and junk food is brought home from the food bank or when OLB goes shopping.
Since SA left the house, I took up cooking for myself and exploring what I like to cook, as SA was the main cook for the house. My gym regimen helped me meal prep and confront a lot of my bad eating habits, so I started prepping healthier foods. I am the stereotypical lifter that eats a lot of chicken, rice, and vegetables. Z also likes to cook, and it became a way for us to bond by cooking together or one of us watching the other cook and just vibe in each other’s company.
VultureBeard gets her name because, one, she is a legbeard. But two, every time I made something early on with her living with us, she always said something along the lines of, “Ooh, that smells so good! It’s making me hungry!”
Me, in my doormat stage, took the cue that she dangled and offered her some of my food. Back then, I always tried to cook enough for the whole house. It became a pattern. If I cooked something, she always popped up, hungry and unable to make actual food for herself or somehow her illnesses were acting up and preventing her from cooking for herself. If I said I was popping over to the store, sometimes she would ask if I could pick up a soda for her and occasionally, she would be able to pay me, always in loose change because her disability payments went right to the bills that she and OLB had. I always took the bait because yeah, doormats will doormat and vultures will vulture.
She does reciprocate in small ways, sharing some occasional treats with me or saying I can have some of her mac n cheese or Oreo cookies or French fries or whatever food she has some days. But for the most point, a lot of her behavior feels like fishing – fishing for attention, for food, for confirmations of her medical issues.
Her general attitude towards housework also contributes to her main other issue that makes me want to scream. She hoards. Empty salsa jars, Nesquik containers, pizza boxes, mac n cheese boxes. She holds onto things that Z and I see as garbage, because she has dozens of DIY projects in mind. She would be the person that followed 5 Minute Crafts for useful projects. To her credit, she did make a nifty sock organizer out of spare cardboard. But she has dozens of empty frozen pizza boxes and macaroni boxes piled up on her desk and ideas in her head, but no actual execution of them. I have pictures on my phone of her desk hoard, and while the desk itself is tall, the pile on the topmost part of the desk reaches the ceiling. That’s at least two feet of buildup.
It drives Z batty. With their OCD, Z can’t stand seeing the general mess in the house, but her desk makes them want to throw things. There was an empty Pizza Hut box that spent a week on the floor under the table in the living room before she finally picked it up and moved it to her desk. She scolded my cat for jumping on it.
Vulture: I want to save it for a project, I just don’t know what I want to use it for yet.
Me: Why not just throw it away? Isn’t it garbage?
She only gave a vague shrug, and the pizza box stayed on her desk for another few days until while cleaning the kitchen, Z got tired of looking at it and finally took it out to the outside garbage bin.
This is a constant pattern for her. She hoards things that she sees as something that could be useful in the future, but in the meantime it all stacks up and takes up space. She and OLB both are pack rats, which I think enables it further. OLB said that she also hoards food when she thinks there’s a food shortage in the house, but that also includes things that shouldn’t be eaten or are close to being spoiled. She freezes produce and even bread dough she made because she would start projects and then not have the energy to finish them or deal with them properly. I think if Z and I weren’t in the house, it would just be a rat’s nest of garbage.
That was why Z and I took on the majority of housework. We have a current setup to deep clean the common areas of the house monthly, and anything she doesn’t pick up that we read as trash will get thrown out. It’s barely making a change in the house, but it’s better for our mental health. It’s unfortunate that the house barely stays clean for two days after we clean it.
OLB usually has an excuse for not contributing towards the housework. His ADHD makes him forgetful, plus he hates dishes and purposefully avoids them until he knows he has to deal with it. He’s mostly just exhausted from work. With Vulture? Ten thousand excuses.
With OLB working an exhausting but consistent tech repair job, that leaves Vulture in charge of Kid during the day. If she exists entirely in her bed and the couch, how is she able to keep up with a toddler?
Oh, that’s going to be a huge tale on its own. Fuckle the buck up. We’ve got a long way to go. And yes, it will make you angry. submitted by
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2023.05.28 20:14 Federal_Mousse4625 I don't think I'm in love with my boyfriend anymore
orry for any mistakes regarding my grammar, English isn't my first language. I've been together for almost 4 years with my boyfriend, we are in our early twenties and we are each other's first serious relationship.We always have been long-distance, when we got together we weren't really experienced and even if we knew that it wasn't a optimal situation, we thought that we would eventually work it out.Years have passed and we haven't been able to shorten the distance between us, but if at 20 I thought that love would solve all of our problems, now at 24 I don't think that love is enough. We see each other for a maximum of 14 days a year, it doesn't really depend on us but on our tight university schedule and work. Over the last three months I noticed that my feelings were decreasing, but I just thought that it was simply due to stress and not seeing each other as always. I repressed everything down because I really thought that it'd be a momentary feeling. Other than that, my relationship with his parents is not good at all, even when they still haven't met me they didn't want him to speak about me, considered me just a "dumb" girl and that he would get sick of me eventually. When I met them they treated me as if I was a weight on their shoulders, even if I helped around the house, cooked and much more (not really common for a guest in our country to do so). They ridiculed my looks, told him behind my back that I'm a whore and if I expressed my opinion on any topic they would just not listen and acknowledge me and much much more. I cried for a week straight when I was there, eventually my bf confronted them and explained that they were acting insane towards a person that did nothing but treat them nicely. They never apologized to me. For this reason I told him that I would not like to have, at the moment, a relationship with them and to respect my wish; but that I would never tell him to not talk to them or oust them, I am simply hurt. The long-distance and the atrocious relationship I have with his parents made me distance myself from him and I don't know if I want to continue. I started to see him more as a brother, I help him with anything (even the smallest things) and I haven't felt some type of intimacy between us in awhile. I love him deeply, the mere thought of breaking up with him and making him feel hurt makes me cry endlessly. I tried to talk with him about this situation and that we should try to work it out because I don't know what to do anymore but he doesn't know what to do and so do I. Am I wasting a relationship because my feeling are not as strong as they were? He treats me so nicely, I never thought that I could love someone like this before. Should I try to mend what we have once more or should I let go? I tried to talk to some friends of mine and the thing they all told me is that I have to think egoistically about myself and what I want, because I always thought about others and not myself. I have to add that the we would stay long-distance for at least another 4 years and seeing each other just 14 days per year is not enough for me anymore, even if I feel strongly about him. It's not even about having another person in my life or experience sex more regularly, I just want to share life with someone and not living a vacation type of relationship. I feel so bad, he's in everything I listen to, in every part of my life. I know we would not break contact because we care deeply about each other, but I really don't know what to do. One thing that scares me is that only seeing him irl for such a short time I don't know if I get a more put-together image of him, with the bad attitudes putted away. Am I wasting a healthy relationship?
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2023.05.28 20:11 staargirl444 AITA? i've talked to 2 of my friends ex's...
So let me preface this. I was the captain of my schools sports team, and this girl who was a grade younger than me (we will call her olivia) was on the team, so i obviously became friends with her along with everyone else on the team. i met her in the summer and she was dating this kid, let's call him jack. i had a thing with jack just a couple months prior, which i did not tell her because it was in the past. her and jack dated and he broke up with her that same month, nothing serious to my beliefs. when school started, she started dating this kid, we will call him todd. she always complained about todd and they broke up a couple times because he was controlling (didn't like she would have guy friends), according to her. she ended up breaking up with him officially and a couple months later got into another relationship. Before i start telling what happened, you have to know that me and her always get told we look alike. we are the same height, same hair texture, skin color, we do the same makeup and dress similar, we even have similar sense of humor (this is why we got along so well.) jack and i had always been on and off talking, even before him and olivia were a thing. jack hit me up again and i talked to him again. my defense to this was that i've known him longer than i've known her, and he was always a friend to me. we linked up a couple times, and olivia ended up finding out. she dmed me saying, "i can't believe you fw my ex, how would you like it if i fw yours. that's so weird" and ended up ending our friendship. i was sad i lost her as a friend, because i valued our friendship as well, but i realize i am in the wrong and she deserved a better friend. jack and i fell off, no hard feelings but we just don't talk anymore. now at this time, todd started replying to my instagram notes and swiping up on my posts. i thought it was so weird, so i kept it short. He was nice and seemed to care abt my interests, so i talked to him over text and one day he wanted to walk me to class. i let him, and when he left he kissed me. after this, i ghosted him because i felt like a bad person to olivia, even though she made it clear we weren't friends because of jack anymore. then one night, olivia and her friends call me from a no caller id and call me an "an0rex1c b1tch". I have an eating dissorder, so this hurt. after that i lost whatever respect i had for her in our friendship. todd texted me and asked why i ghosted him, and i told him the real reason. we are talking now and he is cool, we get along well and he texts me everyday. he invited me over in a couple days and i don't know wether or not to go because i know what that might entail. olivia has no idea about us. my conscience eats me alive, should i feel this way? are my actions justified, or am i just a bad person? i think of this every day....
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2023.05.28 20:10 BanThisDick111 [WTT/WTS] Send it Sunday, Sony XM3’s
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2023.05.28 20:03 23lemons23 Advice please
Hey everyone,
I wanted to see what other peoples opinions are who needed a laminectomy vs a disectomy or both. What where your symptoms and did the surgery help or eliminate the issues?
A few weeks back I posted on here asking if a ruptured disc will cause sciatica pain on both sides, or switch sides.
The other week I meant with the surgeon for a few mins before getting injections and he said I need a laminectomy and a disectomy at l5-s1 with a spacer put in. (8mm central disc protrusion) I never knew anything about the laminectomy, and as far as I knew I just had a ruptured disc. Many years ago they said I have spinal stenosis but it was always just left at that. Always had issues with tailbone pain and bending etc. Just learned to do things differently.
The neurosurgeon told me I could get both surgeries or pick one or the other, that its up to me. I guess a disectomy would stop the lower back pain and a laminectomy would stop the shooting pain down the legs. 🤷♂️
I dont know if extreme pain in the butt cheeks that sometimes goes up to my back dimples would be considered back or leg pain??? Sometimes, it will hurt really bad for weeks right at or just below the area of my back dimples on one or both sides.
Other weird symptoms I have is my hands frequently go numb very easily. Have issues going to the bathroom either feeling like I have to all the time or cant. Dunno if its all related to this.
In 2021 my disc ruptured, and I only had severe pain on the left side. It eventually got much better and I figured I could just live with the pain. Then this year I started getting it on the right side but it would come and go. Now it's been steadily on the right side. Even hurts sometimes down the side of my leg. Like the muscles in all that area are ripping.
The other week I got seven injections in my spine/tail bone. Two days after I was doing extremely well and my pain was minimal. I stupidly lifted a metal shelf (Maybe 40 lbs) and immediately felt like something gave out, followed by the most excruciating pain. I couldnt walk and all I could do was inch myself to a spot to sit down.
The next day when I woke up it felt like my tail bone was broken. Literally. For the last few days Ive been in the most extreme pain when I wake up like a 25 out of 10. As soon as my eyes open its the worst. Just want to scream and ripp my hair out. I have to use my arms and push myself out of bed. Going from laying to standing is miserable. Can barely walk or dress myself and have been needing help putting my shoes/socks on. Now it mainly hurts really really bad in my right butt cheek like something fierce. A seering burning deep pain. When I sit or lay down sometimes ill get that familiar throbbing pain the calf that I always felt on the left side. Last night it was a burning feeling. When I stand up, I have to grab onto the top of my butt cheeks and pull upwards and very slow stand / straighten my spine. Even have to bend my spine to the side. 😅
As the day goes on and I take copious amounts of medicine (Non prescribed. No one will help me) and stay on my feet its manageable. Going from sitting to standing is absolutely horrible!! Or if I laugh, sneeze, cough etc. By the end of the day Ill start to convince myself that I'm fine and dont even need surgery. Even telling myself what if it's piriformis syndrome or something else and I get these surgies for nothing. Only to wake to the next day in agonizing pain and start this all over. I cant live like this.
I don't know if I should get one surgery or the other.. Im extremely scared. I've really had to talk myself out of going to the ER the last few days since my consultation for the surgery is on June 1st.
I don't know what to expect from the surgeries. Will I be down for a long time? Will it fix these issues? Will it mess me up worse. Ugh. Terrified. Even having panic attacks the more I think about it.
This is so degrading, and I feel helpless. Like I will always be this way. Smh.
Ps: sorry for the bad grammar etc. I hate typing from my phone.
Hope all you fellow pain sufferers have a good, safe and hopefully pain free holiday weekend.
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2023.05.28 20:02 makinta219 In Deep Thought
I've been stuck in my head since January. For added context, I met this girl on FetLife who for legal reasons we will call Terra, back in 2021. I was in South Bend during Ramencon looking for a hook up. I was lonely, and before you judge, my spouse at the time and I were swingers but going through a rough patch. My spouse at the time had asked me to be in an open relationship and up until that moment at the convention, I hadn't explored it.
Terra, who this story is about, ignored me at first because she was married and I respected that. I told her if she ever changed her mind to seek me out. Fast forward a few months later she starts commenting on my photos, liking and sharing my post. There was a Star Wars convention coming up in South Bend and I told her I would be in town. We met on March 26th, 2022. She was pregnant but wanted to hook up. It was only supposed to be a one night stand, I had not intentions of catching feelings. However when she came into the room, I felt an instant connection with her. My soul recognized hers. We sat on the bed, I gave her a massage and I asked her questions about herself to see if we were compatible. The sex was amazing, and we went a few rounds.
When we were done, I sat away from her for a bit. I asked when was the last time she was held? She paused and told me never. She told me her ex had abused her and that she was going to raise her son on her own. I respected this and stayed in my lane because I had a daughter at home. My daughter's mom and I were having a lot of issues. I spent time with my daughter throughout the week until I went to work. Some nights my child's mother would not come home until 5 AM the next morning. My child's mother allowed her mother, child's grandmother, to live with us for what was only supposed to be 3 to 6 months but this turned into almost 2 years until I finally had enough.
I would drive to South Bend every weekend starting from March 26th to see Terra. I was with her on her birthday April 4th, and wanted to surprise her, so I laid out flowers, went and got us food even though she refused to eat at first, and I got her a birthday Balloon. I had access to Daily Pay so I would withdraw part of my check to rent us a room and hang out. I was gentle with her because of the baby but she brought out this side of me I never knew I had. My bills were paid so I didn't think much of it.
I enjoyed our time together. It was like an escape from reality, but during one of our visits, I noticed she told me..."he's nice...I can use him."
I was put off by this statement, and I hesitated being around her because I didn't want her to think I was just some lonely sucker who would give her everything...except that was exactly what I was to her. She called me her dog who she could whistle and I would come running to. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Yet...despite everything I was falling in love with her.
It came to a time where I told my child's mother the truth. Even though she knew about the other woman, I admitted that I had fallen out of love with her and I was in love with this new woman who I felt completed me in ways she couldn't. I got very tired of the verbal and sometimes physical abuse from my child's mother, and I found comfort in this other woman who was always there, even getting to the point where while I was at Exxxotica for my birthday in 2022, all I could think about was Terra. She even surprised me and drove out to see me on my birthday.
My child's mother and I separated in June. I ended up on child support but Terra was there. It scared me to be this close to someone, because my intuition told me to keep my guard up. Then one day she told me she was only using me to speed up her birthing process and that she planned to ghost me once the baby was here...but that changed and she started to actually like me.
Feeling like this was too good to be true, I blocked her on everything, Facebook, Twitter, FetLife, Instagram...any means of contact she was gone. She text me and asked why? I told her I didn't want to get hurt. If she didn't want me in her life, I would leave to save us both the trouble. She told me she started to care so I gave her another chance. I was hesitant...we met up a few more times and she took me to see Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness in theaters. We went to a buffet and I felt this connection I had never felt before. It scared me...I felt like she would hurt me again and she admitted to being invited to a gangbang but left because she didn't want to hurt me.
I wanted to leave but I stayed. I told myself and her we could work it out so long as communication was open. I stopped entertaining other women, and aside from my daughter, she was the only woman who had my complete attention. I was never the only man. She went to Tennessee and we started binging Future Diary together. She told me she had another man she was into. Again I walked away believing I was a burden on her life. She told me...she didn't want to be in a relationship but she didn't want the sex to stop. I told her I was not ready for a relationship but despite the protest we were in some way still committed to one another for a period of time.
When she came back in town from Tennessee, I allowed Terra and her to stay with me. I enjoyed having her there despite the way she treated me at times. I didn't expect to come home to a clean house, or food on the counter. I asked why she did it? Bragged about her to my coworkers, and had nothing but love and respect for her. Except...the respect wasn't mutual. I would see her talking trash about me on social media and I would confront her. She told me it was nothing to worry about yet...I kept forgiving her. I knew I could find better but I only wanted her. We broke up on Christmas, she told me she didn't want to be together and I said okay. I stopped communicating with her, blocked contact, but she created another account and reached out to me. We agreed to just be friends and have sex but she was with another man. I refused to be second place to any man. I started noticing she post pictures in my apartment naked on my furniture. I asked her to remove them. She refused and stated if I posted them she would sue me for defamation of character despite constantly bashing me online when she swore up and down she didn't want people to know we were together. Terra had shown her true colors and it made me sick...yet I still had love for her. I remembered the good in her and believed she only acted out because of her environment. I was wrong.
I returned her things to her and in February, I saw Terra face to face. She asked if we could hang out still, and I told her she was welcomed as I retrieved my keys from her, when I came back for Valentine's Day, she laughed at me stating she didn't want to be seen with me. I felt I had wasted my time, money and energy and left her be. I woke up one morning to threats of a restraining order and she'd even threatened my life if I had tried to contact her again. I thought to myself how could I have been so stupid? I almost lost everything trying to hold on to her. When she left my life slowly got better but I still missed Terra. It was like Teen Titans, no matter what I said...no matter how often I tried I couldn't get through to her until I eventually just had to give up on her and move on which has been hard because a part of me still misses her.
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2023.05.28 20:00 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 6: Wallowing Tubs, The Myraham & Mia Hamm (Spoilers Extended)
This post is part of a series looking at the
massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally
rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that,
like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [
HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion. NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 5 left off. You can read Part 5 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Wallowing Tubs
Let's jump back to the beginning of Theon's homecoming and consider that Theon's thoughts and actions vis-a-vis the Myraham, its captain, and the captain's daughter can be read as prefiguring the story of Petyr taking over the Vale, such that we can read Theon as Petyr, the captain's daughter and the Myraham as both Lysa and the Vale, and the captain as the Lords Declarant unhappy with Petyr's ascendency.
(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:
A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The Myraham was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care to be aboard her in a storm.
Lysa is likewise a "wallowing tub":
[H]er body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.
Like the Myraham, she's awful to deal with "in a storm" (i.e. in her anger and/or madness), as Catelyn—
Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. (AGOT Catelyn VIII)
—and Sansa (near-fatally) discover.
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:
"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live." (ASOS Sansa VII)
And where "a longship would have made the crossing in half the time" the wallowing tub Myraham takes, the wallowing tub Lysa, too, takes seemingly forever to get where she's going:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived.
Finding Amusement Where They Can
Having spent most of the voyage fucking the captain's daughter, Theon gets one final "amusement" in the form of a blowjob:
Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an arm around the captain's daughter. "Summon me when we make Lordsport," he told her father. "We'll be below, in my cabin."
Like Theon vis-a-vis the captain's daughter, Petyr isn't actually interested in Lysa romantically, but all the same he beds her and finds "amusements" in the process, both in the bedding ceremony—
Lord Petyr… submitted with good grace and a wicked tongue, giving as good as he got. By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.
—and seemingly in his marriage bed:
"Petyr," her aunt moaned. "Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That's where you belong." … "Make me a baby, Petyr," she screamed, "make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!"
Turning Over The Captain's Cabin
Back to Theon:
The cabin was the captain's, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon's use when they sailed from Seagard.
This prefigures the Vale — House Arryn's Vale — being 'turned over to Littlefinger's rule when he commenced to sail the wallowing tub Lysa', so to speak, wedding her and becoming Lord Protector (i.e. de facto Lord) of the Vale:
"Petyr will soon set all that to rights, though. I shall make him Lord Protector of the Vale." -Lysa to Sansa in Littlefinger's bedchamber, the morning after their wedding
Willing Bed Companions & Wine
The captain's daughter comes "willingly" to Theon—
The captain's daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his bed willingly enough all the same.
—as Lysa had come willingly to Petyr back at Riverrun—
"You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun…. You think I could forget? That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt." (ASOS Sansa VII)
—and as Lysa comes to him at the Drearfort:
"I am the Lady of the Eyrie, and I command you to wed me this very moment!"
Theon beds the captain's daughter with the help of wine:
A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.
This prefigures both the way Lysa bedded Petyr the first time—
"[Petyr] drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that." (ASOS Sansa VII)
—as well as Lysa's 'current' fondness for wine that's likely Petyr's:
Among the loads [Oswell] brought ashore were several casks of wine.
Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. (ASOS Sansa VII)
"That's past and done, Lysa. …" Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?" (ibid.)
Booby Maidens
Where the captain's daughter (whose "plump", large-breasted physique is akin to Lysa's) "had been a maiden the first time [Theon] took her"—
The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it diverting.
—Lysa, too, 'had been a maiden the first time Petyr took her', so to speak, long ago at Riverrun.
Resentful, Paid-For 'Captains'
Just as Hoster Tully was not happy about Petyr bedding his daughter under his own roof, so is the Myraham captain unhappy with Theon availing himself of his daughter, and in his own cabin, no less:
[Theon] led the girl away aft, while her father watched them go in sullen silence.
The captain's resentment prefigures the Vale lords "resent[ing]" Petyr's marriage to Lysa and his appointment as Lord Protector:
Sansa knew that Jon Arryn's bannermen resented Lysa's marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. (ASOS Sansa VII)
Theon isn't concerned about the captain's feelings, though, because he's been bought and paid for:
He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.
The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle.
This prefigures Littlefinger's strategy after he disposes of Lysa. Belying the beliefs of e.g. Randyll Tarly—
"Lady Lysa is dead. … Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." (AFFC Brienne III)
—Littlefinger maintains his position in the 'captain's cabin' of the Eyrie because, just as Theon buys the Myraham's captain, so does Littlefinger buy many of the Lords Declarant:
"Belmore is corrupt and can be bought. …Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat." (AFFC Alayne I)
"The Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry's only a cousin, and the dower that I offered her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, for her to risk Bronze Yohn's wroth. (AFFC Alayne II)
The line foregrounding the notion of Anya Waynwood "sell[ing] a son for gold" reads like it could be a wink at the captain of the Myraham essentially selling his daughter to Theon for gold. Note that the Waynwood sigil is a broken wheel, a la the captain's wheel of an olde tyme sailing vessel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_wheel) Thus it's an almost perfect metaphorical representation of the captain being 'broken' by Theon's gold into "swallow[ing] his outrage".
'Rhyming' Rejections
Finally, at the end of Theon's voyage, when he is done with the "wallowing tub" Myraham, he disposes of the captain's daughter:
"Milord." Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.
Theon turned deftly aside. "You have my thanks."
"Please," she said, "I do love you well, milord."
"I must go." He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theon caught him with a dozen long strides.
Theon's parting with the daughter of the captain of the wallowing tub Myraham is kaleidoscopically reworked when Petyr disposes of his wallowing tub, Lysa. The recursion includes the crying and hugging motifs, a declaration of love, pithy final words ("I must go" → "Only Cat"), and a parallel post-parting urgency (Theon "hurried" → "run… quick now"). And note how "deftly" Petyr deflects Lysa (to her doom):
Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa… crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. …She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
…Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. …"Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."
"Deftly" done, indeed.
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.
Silver Clasps
I'd be remiss not to point out that when Theon leaves the girl, his cloak is pointedly pinned "with a silver clasp":
Theon swept his cloak off its peg and over his shoulders. "Fathers are like that," he admitted as he pinned the folds with a silver clasp.
Who else pins his cloaks like that?
They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. (AGOT Catelyn IV)
The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird…. (AGOT Sansa II)
Petyr.
The Captain's Daughter & Bryen's Toothless Licking Dog
All that said, Petyr's relationship with Lysa isn't the only thing about ASOS Sansa VI (and VII) prefigured by Theon's relationship with Myraham's captain's daughter.
Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends.
Where Theon rides out his long voyage at sea with the the oral sex-giving captain's daughter, Sansa rides out most of her long, rainy wait for Lysa with the friendly, toothless, licking dog.
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:
Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. "You sad old hound," she said, ruffling his fur.
That the dog "whine[s]" and is "sad" recalls the captain's daughter "beg[ging]" Theon to come ashore and later calling to him in a "plaintive" voice while walking "forlornly" adeck when he visits Lordsport. (ACOK Theon II)
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. [Dog stuff.] When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. [Description of the sight-seeing 'field trip' of Petyr's lands, including all manner of things that 'rhyme' with Theon's description of Pyke, all of which I discuss in detail elsewhere.]
The sight-seeing 'field trip' as a whole reworks the opening paragraphs of ACOK Theon I, in which Theon is likewise taking a break from his usual routine (sex with the captain's daughter) to do a little sight-seeing: Where Theon soaks in the "stirring sight" of castle Pyke on its wave-carved stacks of rock with its banner overhead and the fiery comet high "in the sky" behind it, which he takes to be a (verbatim) "sign", Sansa's sight-seeing tour of Petyr's holdings include a rock carved with the (verbatim) "sign" of the Seven next to a tidal blowhole shooting water high "into the air", as well as "a hermit's cave" where a hermit "groped" Petyr as Theon gropes the captain's daughter just after gazing at castle Pyke and the comet.
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.
Sansa & The Captain's Daughter
Regarding Petyr grooming Sansa, when Sansa first comes before Lysa, it seems very much like an echo of what happens when Theon and the captain's daughter go below deck. Consider:
Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand. "My lady, allow me to present you Alayne Stone."
Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed. "A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"
Notice the curtsy and bowed head, the bastard motif, and the way Lysa treats Sansa as if she isn't there. This seems a recursion of this:
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear. "Take off your cloak."
She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a little bow and smiled anxiously.
- "[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close" → "Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand"
- "she gave him a little bow" + "she dropped her eyes" → "Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed"
A few lines later, we read:
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
Coupled with Theon telling the captain's daughter she's likely pregnant with "a king's bastard" — i.e. his bastard — that prefigures Lysa's talking about Sansa being "a bastard" as if she's not there, i.e. as if she isn't 'listening':
"A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"
(The 'rhyme' is even tighter if Littlefinger aspires to be king, like Theon. Which I believe he does.)
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…
She was timid at first, but learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
As stated in earlier posts in this series, if we remove the sexual context, that's a bald-faced preview of Sansa in her Littlefinger era: initially trepidatious, but quickly warming to Littlefinger and learning to use lies and arbor gold in the service of his schemes, such that he calls the once hopelessly naive girl "clever" — i.e. the same word Theon uses when remarking of the captain's daughter:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
Theon forces the captain's daughter to swallow his 'seed' just before he tells her she's probably pregnant with his "bastard", thus (also) prefiguring Littlefinger's [surreptitiously making Sansa swallow moon tea to ensure she is not pregnant with Tyrion's child], i.e. to cleanse herself of any spawn of Tyrion's "seed".
As I've said before, I have to think this little 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.
The Myraham and Mia Hamm
That the Myraham's story has so much to do with its captain's daughter makes sense given that the name Myraham is almost certainly a nod to Mia Hamm, who at the time A Clash of Kings was being written was widely recognized as the best women's soccer player in the world and newly famous in the United States, having been hyped to the moon before she famously played through injury during the United States' victory in the gold medal game of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to much media ballyhoo. (see e.g. https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/uswnt-1996-olympics-gold-medal-china-atlanta)
The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing
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2023.05.28 19:58 JulianSkies Field Medic Technical Exchange - A one shot
Date: December 14th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day One I am Sergeant Paulo Martinez, of the United Nations’ 12th Marine Regiment, field doctor. Unfortunately for my bosses, I’m not writing
this diary for them. This one is for my sister. Yes you read that right, Maria, this one’s for you so i’m doing it the way I think you’d like it done.
So, lil’ sis the historian always talks about how the most fun historical discoveries are in mundane documents, a lot of stuff gets lost to time with just official documents, so when I told her I was going to visit Colia on official business, in fact at request of the Zurulian government, she just straight up begged me to keep a personal diary. Even if I never show her, in like a hundred years it’d be a more accurate story of what happens than any official report. So… This is it.
To explain better, in preparation for future operations the UN is trying to integrate alien advanced technology and methodology with ours, both to patch up theirs where it’s missing (as is often the case with their methods) and prop up ours (usually technical). My case, however, is a bit particular while being part of the same initiative. The government of Colia, that’s the Zurilian homeworld by the by, has requested a technical exchange with a field medic experienced in combat operations in order to help them prepare for the inevitable need for their famed medical expertise to be applied on the field, i’m not sure what my counterpart is going to be
doing back home but I bet he isn’t going to be with the marines.
Anyway, it seems like I'm to be set up with a group of first responders for a grand total of a week, see what I can learn and see what I can teach. Shuttle (which is tiny, by the way, love those teddy bears but they’re tiny and their bespoke crafts are tiny) will be arriving in another hour and after that i’m to head for a briefing.
Okay! Still the first day, or night right now. I got to meet the crew I’m to be training with and got a better grasp of what I’m actually working with here. I made a mistake previously, it’s not first responders, I’m training with a unit from the First Response Fleet. Those guys have an entire
fleet in charge of emergency response to any catastrophe, admittedly it’s not a very large one it’s just their flagship “Beacon of Hope” and a small group of support ships like two fuel barges (seriously what is their operational range to have fuel barges?) and some lander shuttles.
For a moment I thought it made sense why they sent a marine, those are military right? Nope, those are civilians as far as I can tell. I got to meet some of the people I’ll be training with though! They’re a fun bunch, and boy did they barrage me with questions. Remember the stories back early during first contact about aliens asking all sorts of stupid questions? Now picture that at quintuple speed and all of the medical variety, at some point I had to shut them all down. Not because they were annoying, mind, but because the questions started getting
far outside of my field of expertise. I’m a marine combat medic, not an endocrinologist!
Which made me curious, so when I asked it turns out they’re all proper doctors! Out of a crew of twenty, because apparently the crews train together based on which lander shuttle they’re assigned to, we had
ten surgeons of different varieties, three neurolinguists, two geneticists… I don’t even remember what the other five were but none of them with less than five years of schooling and all but one with at least eight years in the First Response Fleet, that other one was fresh out of getting his PhD, however.
Date: December 15th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Two, Training Apparently the FRF has its own facilities for training and fleet maintenance. I woke up early to get a look at the place and… I admit I’m a little surprised? This doesn’t look like what I was expecting, because it feels
familiar. There were a lot of restricted areas, expected in a medical facility, but this felt different because a medical college, what I thought this was, wouldn’t have armed guards.
It also wouldn’t have a starship drydock. And it wouldn’t be designed like this. This place looks more like a federation-style military base than anything you’d see a bunch of civilian doctors in. I wonder if they’re essentially contractors to the military?
After a short tour on my own I went to have breakfast, and if this didn’t look like every military mess hall in the universe I’d throw my stripes in the trash. Boy are the teddy bears noisy, though, if there’s one thing I can say they’d beat any marine at is making a goddamn ruckus. I readied myself for some bland vegan breakfast, which don’t get me wrong I get it they’re herbivores and all but I usually I really miss my protein and the taste you know, but I was very surprised. I couldn’t tell you the
name of the plants I ate but… Just… How can vegan food be
this tasty? I thought aliens didn’t know how to cook?
Well, I was sure as hell wrong about that. I’m actually writing this at the end of the day and I’m chewing on a raw root for heavens’ sake because this thing tastes like mint and cashews? Most aliens might not know how to cook but apparently the teddy bears aren’t most aliens in this case.
Anyway, back to some chronological telling. I also learned they love tea, they can’t really start the day without tea and I don’t mean the pansy stuff from Earth (i’m a coffee drinker), oh no. I never thought steeped flower leaves would give me the caffeine jitters, but I should have when I saw they were black. Right, one of the gals in my unit is a biochemist, and she made this very weird joke to me if I could taste the poison on the tea? Humans have gotta stop the damn capsaicin hype before they think we can drink actual poison.
Surprisingly tasty breakfast over, me and the unit went for the first training of the day. As part of a disaster response team they need to keep fit, so morning is physical training. Now, you’re going to read this and think it’s weird, right? Wouldn’t it be paramedics or firefighters doing this particular piece of job instead of full blown PhDs with doctorates and all that? Yes it’s that weird.
Running, pushups, pullups, you know the whole full body training regimen? That’s how it started, I thought I was going to smoke the teddy bears but… Good heavens, I can’t in good conscience say I did. I mean, yeah, I outperformed every one of them but that was
close, I swear the only reason I outperformed them is because of mother nature because it sure wasn’t my training and I’m, not to toot my own horn too much, a goddamn marine.
Afterwards we had ‘deployment’ drills. Yes I’m calling them drills because at this point I’m certain those guys are military in some weird way. Deployment in this case refers to the simple act of exiting the lander shuttle and deploying the field hospital. Guy in charge of training said today they were going easy because of me since I’ve never done this before, to general cheer of the rest of the unit.
The basics of deployment training is, we all get inside the lander with the gear, wait a minute to simulate the landing procedures, then we unload the gear and set it up as fast as possible but prioritizing no mistakes. So off I went to start, first boarding the lander, which was the actual lander we were assigned to. When I asked I was told this was so we’d be familiarized with the idiosyncrasies of the equipment we’d actually use in the field, in fact all of the gear we were training with WAS the gear they used in the field.
My first surprise was how… Cramped the lander was. And by that I mean this was an eight-person craft carrying twenty plus enough medical equipment to set up a field hospital. This was frankly absurd, in order to create enough space for me two of them had to sit on my lap because there wasn’t enough room, half of them had to stay standing! “We don’t take up a lot of space” one of them told me.
Apparently, these lander shuttles are perfectly safe to ride standing and there were specific roles for people who were standing, they’re supposed to start moving some of the gear out the instant the landing ramp hits the ground. That’s what they’re supposed to do anyway, but that isn’t exactly what happened. The landing pad is equipped with some kind of setup to simulate the ship’s landing impact, and that was some movement discipline I haven’t ever seen before- I felt the downwards impact of the ship, but before elastic forces moved it back up as ships do when landing this hard, people were already moving.
They didn’t start moving gear when the landing ramp hit the ground. They moved so fast that the first piece of gear, the power generator, hit the ground moving into place less than a second after the tip of the ramp hit the floor.
The whole deployment training was four hours. We repeated the deployment procedures for four hours without rest, and it wasn’t simple. This isn’t a field hospital in human terms, my friends, no. One of the first things set up is a power generator, after that a communications array to call up the flagship, then they bring out the tents but those aren’t the simple bed and clean space affair. They use shielding technology to keep particulates out, the operation tent even uses that system to create an airlock to keep the air inside clean. There’s an entire miniature operation theater, there’s a rapid diagnosis rig with a whole ass ton of sensors operated with VR as well as two tents just for patient recovery.
Those are neither simple nor light pieces of kit. That’s some sci-fi supertech shit right there. The target deployment time is five minutes. Five. Fucking. Minutes. I don’t think I could set up a
tent in five minutes. Hell, when they started moving I had to reign in my instincts, it looked like I was getting ready for breaching action. Oh, they were taking it easy and instructing me all the time, took them fifteen minutes to set up the entire field hospital.
After that bit of intense training, it was dinner time. Did you know that there is a specific kind of plant here that when you mix its dried and powdered leaves with some of the local flora it induces the maillard reaction? Fucking cold-fried tubers is what I got, it’s like those slightly citric cold fries that have all the
good parts of fries but are cold? Alien food I swear, if I ever have to turn vegan I’m only eating at zurulian restaurants.
And then it was study time, gotta keep up on the latest medical science and they afford you time to do that. Pretty damn impressive library they’ve got, not just some proper paperback books mostly for historical value (did you know paper here is
black and they use a dark red ink to write in it? Weird alien trees) but an immense digital library. I was a bit at a loss of what to do , I’m at best a paramedic not a doctor needing to keep up with the latest and greatest, thankfully one of the guys on my unit showed up with some first response manuals with the basics for every species. And then promptly dragged me to the unit’s study group because apparently the entire unit also studies together.
Man I thought that was going to be annoying, it thankfully wasn’t. Damn cheerful bunch they are, real classy body horror jokes as well. I’ll be honest I never thought I’d see an alien
get dark humor, nevermind start it, but I like those teddy bears. Also none of that better-than-you crap I thought I was going to get either, they helped me out a fair bit memorizing some procedures (seriously, there’s a
method for mouth-to-mouth on a bird that works, but boy is it going to be nasty) and awkward as it was having a nearby human was plenty helpful since they were all studying human medicine.
And oh, hey, that’s the door. I got invited for a bit of a welcoming party. I’ll add more when I get back.
Date: December 17th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Four, Hangover Sooo… Apparently tea brewing is a far more complex and ancient art here I guess? Did you know there’s a kind of plant that builds up alcohol inside of it here? And with the right steeping process you get this very tasty alcoholic green tea that just
sneaks up on you like a motherfucker? That’s why you’re not getting anything from yesterday, jesus fuck deployment drills, timed this time, on an ungodly hangover were not fun. Turns out this unit’s usual time is seven minutes, by the way.
Got to learn a fair bit about zurulian biology that night out, though. And clean up your mind, that’s not what I mean. Turns out they’re quite more sensitive to some chemicals than humans, or at least sensitive in different ways. They’re also WAY more open to recreational drugs, it turns out, especially in drinkable form.
One of ‘em got this thing that looked like an ashtray? And it was burning something. Dude just put it on the table and took whiffs of it now and then. I got curious and went to try and holy crap I got dizzy just getting close to it? Lum leaves, he told me, they give a nice buzz he said. Nice buzz? It’d have knocked me right out if I didn’t step back fast enough, apparently whatever’s in lum leaves at best works like a beer for them, though. And the weird part is he said it tasted good.
That was when I learned that zurulians have a damn fine sense of taste. Which, by the way, explained why they were passing by a rock and licking it at some point. I thought they were trying to weird me out but no it’s apparently some kind of palate cleanser, I tried but it just kind of tasted of rock. And, it turns out that their tongues can detect some usually-airborne chemicals as well! Including ones their noses can! They can detect some things as both taste
and smell!
And apparently after the fifth cup of tea I was asking them what all sorts of things tasted for them and I could not tell you the answers because I should have stopped at my second. Except for one thing, I think whoever I asked was high as a kite too to accept it but I asked what I tasted like. Look I was really intoxicated as well. She said I tasted like I had vitamin deficiency? And… I don’t know, I know I never ate properly but how the hell do you tell that with your tongue?
Don’t feel it’d be very decent to
ask that, though. You don’t make wise, or decent, decisions when you’re so out of your mind you get a thirty-hour hangover later.
As for the day, it’s been deployment drills and studying. But we did get to play with a few more toys between the drills and dinner, the unit got to test out (or well, make sure they were working) a bunch of fun-looking portable piston units, they also had a couple of plasma torches and a magnetic cutter (think a hydraulic cutter but instead of hydraulics it’s magnetism, looks silly but damn thing could cut through a support strut of a starship in half the time of a hydraulic). I, of course, didn’t get to play with any of those. They were built for zurulian bodies and according to the trainer if I ever were to work with the Fleet they’d just treat my body as another set of tools anyway. I mean I get it, nature gifted me a larger and stronger body than theirs, but he could have been less blunt about that.
Date: December 18th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Five, Emergency Soo… See how I’m being cute with titles? Look you’re lucky I’m writing in english and not japanese or else you’d be getting triple-sized titles, I love me some good titles. I wish I was talking about emergency response
training here, however.
I’m a diligent man, I haven’t been skimping on preparing my official report, in fact a third of study time I’ve spent on writing the report. Super detailed, put as much as I damn well could in those, described every last bit of tech, hell I described the seating arrangements per specialty for deployment because apparently you can shave
seconds off of deployment with the correct arrangement. Even included the fact it was faster for me to just carry the two guys on my lap out and drop them on top (yes on top) of the storage unit going to the surgery tent than to wait for there to be enough space for them to hop off.
So my official report is out. I’m going to write a second, too, about whatever else happens. I made a quick call to HQ and got the go ahead too. Earth’s gearing up to fight the feds but that doesn’t mean the rest of this old bullshit war isn’t going on. There’s been an arxur raid on a colony world, apparently a venlil colony, and we’re deploying. Sorry, I’m not going to just go back home and wait for the call to action when I can help something going on right now. Plus I know it’s been just five days but damn, I like those guys. I hope dealing with a raid aftermath isn’t going to break them.
excuseme, what. Sorry, I am currently on the lander shuttle as we make our way up to the Beacon of Hope. I was going to finish there and then but I heard it… Someone talking to the newest guy “You get used to it”. You get used to it? Did they do this that often? Or was he just trying to be nice?
Not the time to ask.
Date: December 19th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Six, Stalking The trip was fast. Alarmingly fast. I can tell the Beacon of Hope has probably the best FTL drive ever created or something like that. It was two thirds through the day when we got a message that we had arrived and were now on standby. And also, that I was being called up by the captain.
The trip to the bridge was surprising in two ways, the first because I didn’t need to bend down. The Beacon of Hope is built to accommodate even a Mazic in its interiors, and be able to work with an interspecies crew. The second was because of the austerity of the place as I expected a civilian ship to make
some concessions, but any area that did not expect to see a patient was perfectly functional and wasteless in design. Only the patient areas seemed a bit more comfortable and even then, it seemed like it was more because of the patient’s needs.
The bridge was very much a spartan affair that took advantage of their species’ diminutive size, it was tucked closer to the center of the ship and was distressingly small despite the amount of staff present, though someone of a larger species (like me) could probably still do their job as an operator here but they’d probably have to do it laying down. Something that the layout of the chairs would seemingly permit. It was there that I met the captain, aliens might not be much for clothes, but they’ve right up there with us with hats. The only identifier he had was the rather classy dark blue hat which is apparently the base of the design of any air force hat in the galaxy too, I guess some pieces of design are universal. Later that day I had time to ask around, and it seems like their space military splintered off of their air force, unlike the navy back on earth.
And the captain told me some very, very impressive information. And some very distressing as well. First off, we had arrived
before the Arxur, which in itself was baffling because I thought we had responded to an attack. Nope! It was an early detection system. I asked him, then, if we were so early why wasn’t a defense fleet instead of us? “I don’t know. And I’m afraid of knowing” At that point I dropped that line of questions, I guess it got pretty obvious, huhn? Then what’d he need me for, I asked. He was blunt, me being a predator, and a trained killer at that, he wanted advice.
I might have been a bit annoyed at the wording, but the captain of the most advanced, and genuinely unarmed, hospital ship I had ever seen asking me advice like that? What even was going on? He explained to me that we were hiding in the shadow of a planet close to the colony, directly opposite of where the arrival point of the Arxur fleet should be, and showed me the map. He knew I wasn’t a naval officer but if I had anything, if anything in my training, if anything in my instincts could help, anything to make sure the mission would work more smoothly.
Were we doing an evacuation? Not with just this ship. VIP extraction? First Response doesn’t do priorities like those. Dropping support for ground troops? What ground troops. No, we had no way to aid during the actual raid, this was the direct opposite of a warship. But the very second the cannibals left they were going to start dropping shuttles, every last moment counted and if that meant arriving
before the threat it meant arriving before the threat.
I mean, I got nothing. I told him I got nothing, none of my training worked here and I couldn’t just summon some magical foresight to help. To which, he was grateful. Told me it was an assurance of a trained soldier couldn’t find flaw in the plans of ‘an old retired pediatrician’ and i’m absolutely fucking sorry?
At that point I had to ask, are they military? Oh no, they’re not. While sure the FRF was part of the military organization, it had no need for soldiers since it was basically just a large mobile hospital. Those were all civilians, including him.
Now, if any of my fellow humans catch this document when it’s still relevant or anyone at all a hundred years from now, I want you to consider what the average military competency of the federation species is like. They’d fall prey to the dumbest fucking ambush and if I remember right even the Arxur were pissing their fucking scales at a simple fighting retreat. Those people have been fighting longer than some countries have existed on earth and they got no idea how to wage war. And here was this ‘old pediatrician’ pulling some fucking grand admiral moves because his only focus was getting medical aid down on planet as fast as possible.
I waited to get back to my room to wait before I lost it. But still, we had a mission ahead of us and we’d need to prepare.
Date: December 21th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Eight, Fieldwork Don’t have much time to write, there’s a lot of work to be done but I think I can skimp a few minutes of sleep for this, using voice to text for this one. I guess mumbling might help me sleep, too. We just landed, guys got deployment down to six minutes. Fuck, unit back home couldn’t move this fast with this coordination. Shit, they probably do those very often don’t they?
Each lander shuttle went to a different place, we’ve all got a huge area to cover with our shuttle’s crew. Flagship dropped a few comm buoys up there, we got a temporary planetary cover for the comms. Dunno how the fuck the shuttle slipped down when it did, last croc ship wasn’t even done taking off when we hit the ground, also the pilot’s a fucking maniac. Miles wishes he could pull a deceleration at that low height without splashing.
Fuck my feet. Fuck my legs. Fuck my back, everything hurts. Three guys stayed behind in the triage tent, two in the surgery tent, one on the radio, everyone else got to go out searching for people in pairs. They use this fancy headset thing with data feed from the flagship, scans for life signs, real advanced. Not perfect precision, though, still needs the people on the ground to cover the last hundred meters of range. “Well, that’s leftovers” fucking dark humor at this point. Fuck. We were going towards a lifesign marker when we ran into a corpse.
Right. Funny thing here, this is a federation world. Yeah I know I said it was a venlil colony but seems like not every colony split off from the feds when the republic did, makes sense. Don’t matter for those sons of bitches, someone need help they come for you. That was a venlil body, burning wreckage of a toppled building, half-eaten.
Fuck i’ve seen the worst goddamn wounds, saw people missing limbs, shit… Y’all of my unit on earth remember the Placido thing, right? So much fire. Y’all remember the
smell of the burning bodies, don’t you? Saw some sick shit in the past but this? Seeing a half-eaten person?
And teddy bear says that damn joke. Pulled me outta the shock, at least… Wasn’t the first time they had to say that, was it? Wasn’t long until we hit that lifesign, though. Venlil kid, panicking the hell out when he saw me, bleeding like a fountain from a cut on the shoulder and side. Tried to calm the kid down, and what happens? Teddy bear just comes out of no fucking where and jabs something in the kid’s neck and they’re out like a light. We called for a recovery there.
Have you ever seen a motorcycle ambulance? How about a hovercycle ambulance? Yeah, shuttle had one as part of the gear, it’s a kinda funny piece of kit. Super tight to be a normal ambulance, but a zurulian can fit in there right fine with a patient, it’s got some magical gyro-stabilization because no way it could speed off like it did and fucking fly over a pile of debris like that without killing the ride, to say nothing of the patient. But fuck, I read the specs of the thing while we were taking the shuttle down, they’re written in the cockpit. Thing could apparently hit supersonic speed with a set of secondary thrusters it has, it wouldn’t do it for long because that’d melt the engine down completely but it could. Who the fuck puts that fucking speed on an ambulance?
You can see I’m lacking adjectives at this point? Because this is all so absurd. The recovery vehicle, that’s what it’s called, grabbed the kid and sped the hell off. “No bedside manners for us, let’s go” is all my partner said when we started heading for the next life sign. We had people who’d barricaded themselves in furniture and underground and couldn’t get back out, people who’d given up a limb to hide in a tight squeeze.
The worst were the ones that… They were still begging for help, ‘unfinished meals’ the fucking teddy said. How do you get so callous? Only from seeing this too much. Fuck is that what being a veteran in this job is? Dealing with this fucking horrorshow so much you get like that? But still, if their heart is beating it’s good enough, even those ones got help. I took a ride in the recovery vehicle with one of those.
Krakotl, it was. Don’t matter how much you hate the birds, you see one like that, torn open and half eaten begging to god to have one more second in this universe… You ain’t human if you can still hate. Idiot lizard decided to have a meal mid-bombardment, it looks like, building collapsed on him and pinned his body on the bird. I pulled the stone out of the bird, my partner dragged the arxur carcass out of the way, there was so much blood. You’d think that them not bleeding red makes it feel less like blood, it doesn’t. Sealant gel applied to the open blood vessels, beautiful thing that gel, it can basically serve as a physical barrier to prevent blood loss and it can be removed safely, and we wrapped them in a sealing blanket.
Sealing blankets are amazing emergency devices. They’re stored in this plastic bag because they need to remain wet, but you warp the patient in it and it constricts with just enough pressure to do what you need it to (there’s a control for it), in this case keeping the bird’s insides on the inside, and it’s soaked in a cocktail of antiseptics and painkillers that work for just about any species. It’s more than just soaked, even, the material it’s made of actually very slowly dispenses a low dosage of the fluids it absorbed serving basically like an IV drip in this situation. When the recovery vehicle arrived I tapped out, as they say. I’d accompany the patient to the base and take a moment to refresh myself before outing again in the next recovery vehicle call.
I’d like to say it was a wild fucking ride. But I didn’t even feel it, thing must have ship-class inertial dampeners somehow. They spared no expense for this fast rescue vehicle. And by the heavens that driver, I haven’t been around the pilot and the driver much since they had some separate training but this driver? Straight. Line. He’d only make a curve if going over an obstacle would take longer than around because he was not increasing the length of the trip by a single meter.
Also, the stretcher the poor bird was in? Gravity sledge. You heard that right, you know how costly and difficult miniaturized anti-gravity is, it doesn’t work without a much higher attached computational power than an object that size can handle. I bet it was receiving assistance from the vehicle. Moving them to the triage tent was easy, didn’t think there’d be much need for triage, mind, but that was the procedure. Full sensor suite you’d find at the best hospitals with three VR control sets to be able to perform multiple operations at once, I didn’t even think those things were
mobile. The three on triage had a full readout on the bird in
seconds, hear that
seconds. So I did the last part of my job and wheeled the patient to the surgery tent with the report.
One thing I didn’t mention before is the fire. This wasn’t a farming colony, this is an extraction colony, they were pulling some manner of chemicals from the ground here and refining it. This place where we’re at mostly stored things, mind… Very flammable things. After the damn crocs were done being murderous psychopathic cannibals on the ground they decided to destroy everything just in case, of course the aftermath of dropping bombs on highly flammable storages is rampant fires. Just so you have an idea of the backdrop.
I got a bit of a chance to wash up after that patient, the boss (he’s apparently the most senior, in veterancy) ordered me to take a rest. So I took the chance to fish my soap from my personal belongings (we all got a bit of space to carry personal stuff down) and take a quick wash before sitting down here to take a nap.
Date: December 25th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Twelve, Fieldwork What a christmas gift, eh? Playing heavy machinery in a nightmare. Been putting less of my first aid skills and more of my muscles to use and I don’t blame them for it, the heavy duty tools are all showing signs of wear by now, and I can replace them with my hands for some uses. They’ve got plenty of people that can stabilize a patient, they don’t have many tools.
I asked around a bit how long we were planning to stay, and whether there was a bigger relief fleet coming. “Until everyone’s saved” was the first answer and “Nobody knows” was the second. After all, this is ostensibly a Federation planet, and we were waiting on one of their relief fleets to show up. My next question was about, how long did we have supplies for, and the Beacon of Hope came geared for 30 days of operation with six ground crews. We had eighteen ground crews going, because the damage was extensive across the entire planet.
We had a third of the supplies we would normally have, and I’d be insulted if they didn’t start rationing supplies between ground crews. If the situation was this dire they’d have to make decisions about where their supplies would be best spent. Please heavens, let this place be a priority, I don’t want to teach those poor teddy bears how to do low-tech lifesaving.
So for now, we need to go easy on our tools to keep having them, and as luck would have it I’ve got enough physical capacity to replace them in about a third of their use cases. So for the last two days I’ve grown pretty accustomed to the recovery vehicle as I get moved from one place to another to move debris and carry things.
I’ve also noticed everyone seems a bit more relaxed when I’m around sometimes. Though I’ve the impression it isn’t quite my presence itself, that tends to happen right before I go take a nap. I don’t mind the weirdness, whatever helps those guys. They’re making me question the way everyone hypes up human stamina because they’re keeping right the hell up with my work shifts.
Date: December 28th, 2136 Standard Terran Time - Day Fifteen, Starvation Well, that was the call I was hoping we wouldn’t have. Right when what we’ve started finding more and more is the deeply wounded and the infected.
We’ve been on the ground for twelve days, chances of survival of anyone at this point is minimal, but minimal isn’t zero and that’s good enough to keep working. Unfortunately, there are other ground crews in bigger population areas, which means a higher volume of minimal chances, which means they get the resource allocations.
The power generator should be good, each one lasts the full month so that won’t be a problem. But most of our miracle medicine will start having to be rationed, also the hydraulic lifters gave up the ghost. Not like they were bad but it was simply from excess of use, my back knows the feeling at this point.
We’re going to run out of antiseptics in three to five days if we keep going at this rate, as well. Hopefully we should have saved everyone that we can at that point. But there was a small miracle, or rather, there was a small underestimation on my part.
I thought I’d have to teach those guys how to save a life without their spacer tech and miracle medicines when we ran out of stitch-gel. Stitch-gel is a rapid-clotting agent that effectively serves as instant stitches, it’s amazing. And we ran out of it the soonest. Then a woman with a horrifying neck wound was brought in, gal went down fucking fighting she did, don’t know how she took down her would-be killer the beast’s claws were still dangling from her neck. The fuck kind of movie hero was she? But the moment we’d remove the damn things (also did I mention her lower body was burned? She definitely wasn’t moving on her own, those legs are gone) she’d bleed to death and there’d be nothing to do about it.
And here’s where I underestimated them. She was taken out of the surgery tent and got to the next shuttle to the Beacon, she certainly bled a lot but she did not bleed to death. The surgeon had opted to, instead of bringing anything personal like me, pack additional supplies as his personal items. Like a fucking mile of biodegradable stitching string and a whole ass set of needles, plus some weaker over-the-counter painkillers.
I thought I’d have to teach them how to handle some primitive medicine, but they came readier for it than I did. They knew they’d be sitting here until they ran out of resources. They gave up any possible nicety they could have brought to buy a few more days worth of supplies.
I’d say I was ashamed of my choices but I don’t think I am. I realized why they kind of gather around me before I take a nap- It’s not the nap, it’s my soap. I brought a mint-scented one, you know, when you can bring some niceties to help your mind in the field you do. Turns out the scent is doing some wonders for their mental health.
Pfft, big muscles and smelling nice, that’s what i’m doing right now. I’m cool with it, people often forget the effect some small things missing can have on a bigger operation. Dude done did an open heart surgery in the middle of a fucking field hospital to save a life, he deserves to take a good nap.
There’s something else but i’m not sure if I should say it. I know, history and all, but do I want people to remember this happened?
---
[Part 2] Okay so I got an immense surge of inspiration to write this one. Mostly also 'cause i'm a little tired of the only depictions of our allies out there being their failures, I mean sure it's a great narrative driver but it gets a exhausting a bit.
Plus i've also been trying to writre something in the vein of this for like two months at this point so I changed format and story while keeping the important parts. And it seems i'll have to split it in two parts because I hit Reddit's limit.
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2023.05.28 19:58 M_Tootles The Recursive Homecomings Of Petyr & Theon Part 6: Wallowing Tubs, The Myraham & Mia Hamm (Spoilers TWOW)
This post is part of a series looking at the
massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally
rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that,
like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [
HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits discussion. NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 5 left off. You can read Part 5 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].
Wallowing Tubs
Let's jump back to the beginning of Theon's homecoming and consider that Theon's thoughts and actions vis-a-vis the Myraham, its captain, and the captain's daughter can be read as prefiguring the story of Petyr taking over the Vale, such that we can read Theon as Petyr, the captain's daughter and the Myraham as both Lysa and the Vale, and the captain as the Lords Declarant unhappy with Petyr's ascendency.
(As ever, this 'rhyme' makes literary sense if Littlefinger has a connection to the Iron Islands, i.e. if he's Hoare-ish.)
After Theon's takes in the "stirring sight" of Pyke with its Sansa-esque banner overhead and 'his' comet "in the sky behind" it, we read how he got there:
A longship would have made the crossing in half the time as well. The Myraham was a wallowing tub, if truth be told, and he would not care to be aboard her in a storm.
Lysa is likewise a "wallowing tub":
[H]er body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.
Like the Myraham, she's awful to deal with "in a storm" (i.e. in her anger and/or madness), as Catelyn—
Lysa's rage had been frightening to behold. (AGOT Catelyn VIII)
—and Sansa (near-fatally) discover.
It's plain that "storm" is an appropriate metaphor for Lysa's rage after Petyr gets Lysa to unhand Sansa, just a few paragraphs before he decides he would not care to be aboard her any longer, so to speak, and shoves her out the Moon Door:
"Lysa," Petyr sighed, "after all the storms we've suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live." (ASOS Sansa VII)
And where "a longship would have made the crossing in half the time" the wallowing tub Myraham takes, the wallowing tub Lysa, too, takes seemingly forever to get where she's going:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived.
Finding Amusement Where They Can
Having spent most of the voyage fucking the captain's daughter, Theon gets one final "amusement" in the form of a blowjob:
Still, Theon could not be too unhappy. He was here, undrowned, and the voyage had offered certain other amusements. He put an arm around the captain's daughter. "Summon me when we make Lordsport," he told her father. "We'll be below, in my cabin."
Like Theon vis-a-vis the captain's daughter, Petyr isn't actually interested in Lysa romantically, but all the same he beds her and finds "amusements" in the process, both in the bedding ceremony—
Lord Petyr… submitted with good grace and a wicked tongue, giving as good as he got. By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.
—and seemingly in his marriage bed:
"Petyr," her aunt moaned. "Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That's where you belong." … "Make me a baby, Petyr," she screamed, "make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!"
Turning Over The Captain's Cabin
Back to Theon:
The cabin was the captain's, in truth, but it had been turned over to Theon's use when they sailed from Seagard.
This prefigures the Vale — House Arryn's Vale — being 'turned over to Littlefinger's rule when he commenced to sail the wallowing tub Lysa', so to speak, wedding her and becoming Lord Protector (i.e. de facto Lord) of the Vale:
"Petyr will soon set all that to rights, though. I shall make him Lord Protector of the Vale." -Lysa to Sansa in Littlefinger's bedchamber, the morning after their wedding
Willing Bed Companions & Wine
The captain's daughter comes "willingly" to Theon—
The captain's daughter had not been turned over to his use, but she had come to his bed willingly enough all the same.
—as Lysa had come willingly to Petyr back at Riverrun—
"You enticed him, just as your mother did that night in Riverrun…. You think I could forget? That was the night I stole up to his bed to give him comfort. I bled, but it was the sweetest hurt." (ASOS Sansa VII)
—and as Lysa comes to him at the Drearfort:
"I am the Lady of the Eyrie, and I command you to wed me this very moment!"
Theon beds the captain's daughter with the help of wine:
A cup of wine, a few whispers, and there she was.
This prefigures both the way Lysa bedded Petyr the first time—
"[Petyr] drank until he passed out at the table. Uncle Brynden carried him up to bed before my father could find him like that." (ASOS Sansa VII)
—as well as Lysa's 'current' fondness for wine that's likely Petyr's:
Among the loads [Oswell] brought ashore were several casks of wine.
Her aunt's breath smelled of wine. (ASOS Sansa VII)
"That's past and done, Lysa. …" Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?" (ibid.)
Booby Maidens
Where the captain's daughter (whose "plump", large-breasted physique is akin to Lysa's) "had been a maiden the first time [Theon] took her"—
The girl was a shade plump for his taste, with skin as splotchy as oatmeal, but her breasts filled his hands nicely and she had been a maiden the first time he took her. That was surprising at her age, but Theon found it diverting.
—Lysa, too, 'had been a maiden the first time Petyr took her', so to speak, long ago at Riverrun.
Resentful, Paid-For 'Captains'
Just as Hoster Tully was not happy about Petyr bedding his daughter under his own roof, so is the Myraham captain unhappy with Theon availing himself of his daughter, and in his own cabin, no less:
[Theon] led the girl away aft, while her father watched them go in sullen silence.
The captain's resentment prefigures the Vale lords "resent[ing]" Petyr's marriage to Lysa and his appointment as Lord Protector:
Sansa knew that Jon Arryn's bannermen resented Lysa's marriage and begrudged Petyr his authority as Lord Protector of the Vale. (ASOS Sansa VII)
Theon isn't concerned about the captain's feelings, though, because he's been bought and paid for:
He did not think the captain approved, and that was amusing as well, watching the man struggle to swallow his outrage while performing his courtesies to the high lord, the rich purse of gold he'd been promised never far from his thoughts.
The promise of gold had turned the Oldtowner into a shameless lickspittle.
This prefigures Littlefinger's strategy after he disposes of Lysa. Belying the beliefs of e.g. Randyll Tarly—
"Lady Lysa is dead. … Littlefinger holds the Eyrie now . . . though not for long. The lords of the Vale are not the sort to bend their knees to some upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." (AFFC Brienne III)
—Littlefinger maintains his position in the 'captain's cabin' of the Eyrie because, just as Theon buys the Myraham's captain, so does Littlefinger buy many of the Lords Declarant:
"Belmore is corrupt and can be bought. …Bronze Yohn Royce will continue to be hostile, I fear, but so long as he stands alone he is not so much a threat." (AFFC Alayne I)
"The Waynwoods are very old and very proud, but not as rich as one might think, as I discovered when I began buying up their debt. Not that Lady Anya would ever sell a son for gold. A ward, however . . . young Harry's only a cousin, and the dower that I offered her ladyship was even larger than the one that Lyonel Corbray just collected. It had to be, for her to risk Bronze Yohn's wroth. (AFFC Alayne II)
The line foregrounding the notion of Anya Waynwood "sell[ing] a son for gold" reads like it could be a wink at the captain of the Myraham essentially selling his daughter to Theon for gold. Note that the Waynwood sigil is a broken wheel, a la the captain's wheel of an olde tyme sailing vessel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_wheel) Thus it's an almost perfect metaphorical representation of the captain being 'broken' by Theon's gold into "swallow[ing] his outrage".
'Rhyming' Rejections
Finally, at the end of Theon's voyage, when he is done with the "wallowing tub" Myraham, he disposes of the captain's daughter:
"Milord." Her eyes were red. When he took the pack, she made as if to embrace him, there in front of her own father and his priestly uncle and half the island.
Theon turned deftly aside. "You have my thanks."
"Please," she said, "I do love you well, milord."
"I must go." He hurried after his uncle, who was already well down the pier. Theon caught him with a dozen long strides.
Theon's parting with the daughter of the captain of the wallowing tub Myraham is kaleidoscopically reworked when Petyr disposes of his wallowing tub, Lysa. The recursion includes the crying and hugging motifs, a declaration of love, pithy final words ("I must go" → "Only Cat"), and a parallel post-parting urgency (Theon "hurried" → "run… quick now"). And note how "deftly" Petyr deflects Lysa (to her doom):
Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa… crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. …She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.
Littlefinger let Lysa sob against his chest for a moment, then put his hands on her arms and kissed her lightly. "My sweet silly jealous wife," he said, chuckling. "I've only loved one woman, I promise you."
Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. "Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?"
"Only Cat." He gave her a short, sharp shove.
Lysa stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the wet marble. And then she was gone. She never screamed. For the longest time there was no sound but the wind.
…Lord Petyr pulled Sansa to her feet. …"Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."
"Deftly" done, indeed.
Petyr giving Lysa "a short, sharp shove" feels like a physical manifestation of Theon figuratively shoving the captain's daughter away and 'out the door'.
Silver Clasps
I'd be remiss not to point out that when Theon leaves the girl, his cloak is pointedly pinned "with a silver clasp":
Theon swept his cloak off its peg and over his shoulders. "Fathers are like that," he admitted as he pinned the folds with a silver clasp.
Who else pins his cloaks like that?
They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. (AGOT Catelyn IV)
The man wore a heavy cloak with a fur collar, fastened with a silver mockingbird…. (AGOT Sansa II)
Petyr.
The Captain's Daughter & Bryen's Toothless Licking Dog
All that said, Petyr's relationship with Lysa isn't the only thing about ASOS Sansa VI (and VII) prefigured by Theon's relationship with Myraham's captain's daughter.
Consider also the old dog we're shown hanging out with Sansa immediately after we read that Lysa takes "eight long days" to arrive, a la the "wallowing" Myraham taking way too long to get to Pyke, and immediately before we read about Lysa's arrival, when she looks every inch a wallowing tub:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends.
Where Theon rides out his long voyage at sea with the the oral sex-giving captain's daughter, Sansa rides out most of her long, rainy wait for Lysa with the friendly, toothless, licking dog.
All the dog does is "sleep… beside" — i.e. literally sleep with — Sansa. That reworks the captain's daughter spending the long voyage figuratively 'sleeping with' (i.e. boning) Theon. To this point:
Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. "You sad old hound," she said, ruffling his fur.
That the dog "whine[s]" and is "sad" recalls the captain's daughter "beg[ging]" Theon to come ashore and later calling to him in a "plaintive" voice while walking "forlornly" adeck when he visits Lordsport. (ACOK Theon II)
The devotion the captain's daughter thereby demonstrates — refusing to give up on Theon, long after he's gone — is reworked by the dog being called Sansa's "fast friend" (i.e. loyal friend), which also works as double entendre referring back to the captain's daughter, as "fast" is a euphemism for a girl who is fast to engage in sexual activity. (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fast)
Note that the dog is never named: It's simply "Bryen's old blind dog", just as the captain's daughter is just "the captain's daughter".
Of course, Sansa does get one small break from the monotony of her time with the dog: her sight-seeing 'field trip' with Petyr:
It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. [Dog stuff.] When the rains let up, Petyr walked with her around his holdings, which took less than half a day. [Description of the sight-seeing 'field trip' of Petyr's lands, including all manner of things that 'rhyme' with Theon's description of Pyke, all of which I discuss in detail elsewhere.]
The sight-seeing 'field trip' as a whole reworks the opening paragraphs of ACOK Theon I, in which Theon is likewise taking a break from his usual routine (sex with the captain's daughter) to do a little sight-seeing: Where Theon soaks in the "stirring sight" of castle Pyke on its wave-carved stacks of rock with its banner overhead and the fiery comet high "in the sky" behind it, which he takes to be a (verbatim) "sign", Sansa's sight-seeing tour of Petyr's holdings include a rock carved with the (verbatim) "sign" of the Seven next to a tidal blowhole shooting water high "into the air", as well as "a hermit's cave" where a hermit "groped" Petyr as Theon gropes the captain's daughter just after gazing at castle Pyke and the comet.
It's only when Theon is done gazing at Pyke that the captain's daughter appears on the page and we read about the "certain other amusements" he's enjoyed during his voyage. This gets flipped around with Sansa and her dog: Where Theon found "amusement" in the sex he was constantly having, Sansa is "bored and restless" during her time with the dog; it's only the brief excursion that breaks the monotony of her time (literally) sleeping with the old toothless dog.
The story of how Sansa spent her time waiting for Lysa (with the dog) is thus a 'rhyme' for Theon's time on the Myraham with the captain's daughter. That we read about Sansa's time with the dog (a) immediately after we read that Lysa was, like the Myraham, slow to arrive and (b) immediately before Lysa's arrival, when she seems every inch the wallowing tub herself, further convinces me that Theon's treatment of the captain and captain's daughter do indeed prefigure Petyr's treatment of Lysa and the Lords Declarant, while also by dint of association suggesting that Petyr is trying to groom Sansa as surely as Theon did the captain's daughter.
Sansa & The Captain's Daughter
Regarding Petyr grooming Sansa, when Sansa first comes before Lysa, it seems very much like an echo of what happens when Theon and the captain's daughter go below deck. Consider:
Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand. "My lady, allow me to present you Alayne Stone."
Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed. "A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"
Notice the curtsy and bowed head, the bastard motif, and the way Lysa treats Sansa as if she isn't there. This seems a recursion of this:
[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear. "Take off your cloak."
She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy, but did as he bid her. When the heavy garment, sodden with spray, fell from her shoulders to the deck, she gave him a little bow and smiled anxiously.
- "[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close" → "Littlefinger beckoned Sansa forward with a hand"
- "she gave him a little bow" + "she dropped her eyes" → "Sansa did a deep curtsy, her head bowed"
A few lines later, we read:
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
Coupled with Theon telling the captain's daughter she's likely pregnant with "a king's bastard" — i.e. his bastard — that prefigures Lysa's talking about Sansa being "a bastard" as if she's not there, i.e. as if she isn't 'listening':
"A bastard?" she heard her aunt say. "Petyr, have you been wicked? Who was her mother?"
(The 'rhyme' is even tighter if Littlefinger aspires to be king, like Theon. Which I believe he does.)
Shortly after Theon thinks the captain's daughter doesn't "seem to be listening", we read that…
She was timid at first, but learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
As stated in earlier posts in this series, if we remove the sexual context, that's a bald-faced preview of Sansa in her Littlefinger era: initially trepidatious, but quickly warming to Littlefinger and learning to use lies and arbor gold in the service of his schemes, such that he calls the once hopelessly naive girl "clever" — i.e. the same word Theon uses when remarking of the captain's daughter:
She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
Theon forces the captain's daughter to swallow his 'seed' just before he tells her she's probably pregnant with his "bastard", thus (also) prefiguring Littlefinger's [surreptitiously making Sansa swallow moon tea to ensure she is not pregnant with Tyrion's child], i.e. to cleanse herself of any spawn of Tyrion's "seed".
As I've said before, I have to think the whole 'rhyme' between Sansa and the captain's daughter is there to further the suggestion that Littlefinger is per se grooming Sansa.
The Myraham and Mia Hamm
That the Myraham's story has so much to do with its captain's daughter makes sense given that the name Myraham is almost certainly a nod to Mia Hamm, who at the time A Clash of Kings was being written was widely recognized as the best women's soccer player in the world and newly famous in the United States, having been hyped to the moon before she famously played through injury during the United States' victory in the gold medal game of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to much media ballyhoo. (see e.g. https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/uswnt-1996-olympics-gold-medal-china-atlanta)
The thing, is, despite being the most popular and celebrated player on the US team, Mia Hamm wasn't the team captain. That was the older Carla Overbeck, a comparatively uncelebrated central defender. So it's fitting that the story of the Myraham is in large part the story not of its captain, but of its captain's daughter.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 7: Sights-Seen While Sight-Seeing
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2023.05.28 19:58 Shocketheth [Gintama 2023 Rewatch - Discussion] - Week 21 (Episodes 139-146) Rewatch
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<--- Embassy of previous discussion Index Embassy of next discussion - Info - MAL Anilist Kitsu AniDB ANN Legal streaming - Crunchyroll OP6 - Anata Magic performed by
Monobright ED12 - Kagayaita performed by
Shigi ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SUMMARY OF WEEK 20:
CHARACTER POPULARITY | PLACE | CHARACTER | VOTES TOTAL |
| FIRST | Gintoki | 103 |
| SECOND | Kagura | 100 |
| THIRD | Katsura | 60 |
| FOURTH | Okita | 50 |
| FIFTH | Hijikata | 41 |
| SIXTH | Otae | 39 |
| SEVENTH | Shinpachi | 37 |
| EIGHTH | Madao | 27 |
| NINTH | Kondo | 21 |
| TENTH | Kyubei | 16 |
| ELEVENTH | Sacchan | 16 |
| TWELFTH | Elizabeth | 11 |
| THIRTEENTH | Yamazaki | 10 |
| FOURTEENTH | Jackie Chan | 9 |
| FIFTEENTH | Tama | 8 |
| SIXTEENTH | Zenzo | 7 |
| SEVENTEETH | Matsudaira | 6 |
| EIGHTEENTH | Umibozu | 6 |
| NINETEENTH | Sakamoto | 6 |
| TWENTY | Sadaharu | 5 |
- Gintoki dethroned Kagura and seized first place for himself
- Sacchan attempt of appealing as sweet to Gintoki earned her 5 votes and catapulted her to 11th place
- Even Elizabeth’s hairy legs didn’t help her to keep 11th place and fell on 12th place
\_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________)
EPISODE OF WEEK (POLL RESULTS)
| WEEK 1 | Episode 8 |
| WEEK 2 | Episode 13 |
| WEEK 3 | Episode 23 |
| WEEK 4 | Episode 25 |
| WEEK 5 | Episode 35 |
| WEEK 6 | Episode 42 |
| WEEK 7 | Episode 50 |
| WEEK 8 | Episode 61 |
| WEEK 9 | Episode 65 |
| WEEK 10 | Episode 72 |
| WEEK 11 | Episode 79 |
| WEEK 12 | Episode 87 |
| WEEK 13 | Episode 89 and 95 (TIED RESULT) |
| WEEK 14 | Episode 99 |
| WEEK 15 | Episode 103 and 108 (TIED RESULT) |
| WEEK 16 | Episode 110 |
| WEEK 17 | Episode 119 |
| WEEK 18 | Episode 124 |
| WEEK 19 | Episode 127 |
| WEEK 20 | Episode 138 |
BEST EPISODES: WEEK 1-7 - Episode 50
WEEK 8-14 - Episode 79,87 (Tied results)
\_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________)
BEST COMMENT OF WEEK 20: The winner of Best Comment of Week 20 is
u/SpiceGirlsBlankIt with her:
Remark about historical figures How you imagine historical figures: As their meticulously painted portrait depicts them.
How historical figures really were: Grumpy old men fighting in their dirty underwear.
And her comment about Rei’s not going to heaven with others Apparently, Rei’s attachment is strong enough to withstand standception.
And for that your prize is
Yoshiwara’s finest sake. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
QUESTIONS FOR YOU - WEEK 20: I admit that I never seen JoJo, but hey. What would be your stand name? Let’s stay at naming convention of picking names of bands, musicians, albums, or songs.
Fire Bomber -
u/Vatrix-32 FUCK YEAH! SOUNDS COOL Neener, neener - me
u/Shocketheth I WISH THAT USER WOULD SHUT UP Since my default is too popular and used in the series I would go with
Gentle Giant. - u/sisoko2 SOUNDS GOOD Kendrick lamar, its a swimming pool stand -
u/baboon_bassoon GOOD ONE Either Julie Andrews for the VictoVictoria potential of a woman stand acting a man so they can be a drag Queen singing sensation or the Vandals for the punk x silly combo. I want to be a cowboy, anarchy burger, and airstream are just fun. -
u/SpiceGirlsBlankIt INTERESTING The first idea goes, [MUTEKI*BELIEVER]. My Stand Power means so long as I believe in myself, I am invincible. Unfortunately my self conscious can be easily shattered. -
u/TakenRedditName ANOTHER INTERESTING ONE I'm a California native, so Im gonna go with Straight Outta Compton after the NWA album lol. -
u/NicDwolfwood STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, [REDACTED]!!! The best way I can translate it is: "Smurf'im", although that translation is a lot newer than the term. -
u/KendotsX I WILL NEVER PLAY A MOBA GAME WITH YOU Off the top of my head - "One Step Beyond...". -
u/Stargate18A I JUST REMEMBERED A CERTAIN MOMENT FROM JJK MANGA, BUT IT WAS "TWO STEPS BEHIND" SO NEVERMIND. Your favourite stand of Ghost Ryokan arc?
Francis Xavier -
u/Vatrix-32,
u/baboon_bassoon,
u/SpiceGirlsBlankIt,
u/TakenRedditName Rei - me
u/Shocketheth,
u/KendotsX (But Nobunaga if his underwear didn’t stink),
u/Stargate18A His Excellency -
u/NicDwolfwood A intergalactic conflict threatens the very existence of the universe and you can save the universe with joining planet big boobs or planet flat chests ALTERNATIVELY you can choose between joining planet swoll bods or dad bods.
It ended in a tie between big boobs and flat boobs, so
boobs won.
Would you be wiling to take a house/apartment where murder happened for free or for so cheap that it’s almost considered to be free?
Mostly yes, one NO.
Have you expected the twist in episode 137 Part A or have you actually bought them going to have their feelings reciprocated?
Yes for all of you.
Your favourite Old Yorozuya’s member?
Kanemaru - me
u/Shocketheth,
u/SpiceGirlsBlankIt u/NicDwolfwood u/KendotsX Ikezawa -
u/baboon_bassoon Can you really pick just one? -
u/Stargate18A ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WEEK 21: | Episode/arc covered | Lesson(s) in manga |
| 139 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 210,211 |
| 140 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 212,213 |
| 141 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 214,215,216 |
| 142 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 217,218,219 |
| 143 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 220,221,222 |
| 144 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 223,224 |
| 145 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | 225,226,227(1/2) |
| 146 - Yoshiwara in Flames Arc | Rest of 227,228 |
Best episode of current week - VOTE HERE Character popularity - VOTE HERE EPISODES GOING TO BE COVERED IN WEEK 22 - 147-150 MOVIE GOING TO BE COVERED IN WEEK 22 - Benizakura Hen (Movie covering episodes 58-61) LEGAL SOURCES FOR BENIZAKURA HEN - I found it only on
Amazon and failed to find any other legal source.
I checked here. So besides Amazon, your only way how to watch Benizakura-hen is to
sail the high seas. QUESTIONS FOR YOU: - What’s your opinion about Housen being redeemed in the end?
- Tsukuyo made her debut. How you liked her character so far? What’s your predictions about her? Also what do you think about her?
- Also Kagura’s elder brother, Kamui, made his debut. Your thoughts about him and your predictions about him?
- Abuto. What do you think of him?
- The tastiest one. Kagura snapping. Your thoughts?
- Are you satisfied how Housen was defeated? I mean having Housen defeated not by Gintoki, but by sunlight.
- Also in the end, Yoshiwara has opened. Your predictions how opening of Yoshiwara will impact Kabukicho?
- Btw. we had whole batch dedicated to single arc for first time. Was it a different experience for you than having mixed batches, or no?
QUESTIONS FOR YOU WEEK 22: EPISODES 147-150: I WILL FILL THIS SECTION AFTER WATCHING THEM FIRST, SO STAY TUNED.
BENIZAKURA HEN (BENIZAKURA MOVIE) [Question 1]
Did you liked more the anime version of Benizakura or the Remaster movie of Benizakura arc? [Question 2]
What’s your opinion on alternative umbrella scene between Otae and Gintoki? [Question 3]
What about the cameos of Kamui, Kyubei and Shinsengumi? [Question 4]
There was extended scene of Bansai negotiating with Harusame Space Pirates. Did it improve your issues with Bansai appearing only in the end of the Benizakura? [Question 5]
The extended final fight scene. Did you like it? [Question 6]
Also a new song by DOES dropped. Bakuchi Dancer. Did you like the song? [Question 7]
Not a question tbh. Just fill any additional things you want to address with discussing this movie. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Regarding spoilers: Rewatchers please dont talk without using spoiler tags [Spoilers]
like this about events which still didn't happen in anime, don't name characters that weren't introduced yet, don't post pictures of characters yet to be introduced and try to refrain from using arcs and episodes names yet to be introduced.
DON'T EVEN TRY TO BE VAGUE THINKING YOU ARE SO CLEVER AND NO ONE WILL CONNECT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER LIKE SAYING IT WOULD BE SHAME IF YOUR LOCAL POST OFFICE SENT YOU A BOMBASTIC LIST. JUST. USE. SPOILERS TAGS. LIKE THIS [Spoilers]
https://i.imgur.com/nojEEcg.png There will be first watchers discussing it together with us and I believe nobody here wants them to be spoiled.
If you want to talk about something you noticed on your rewatch, which is hinting about future events hid it properly underneath the spoilers like the fact [Spoilers]
that the information hidden in this spoiler is totally pointless. Guidance in case of spoiling someone -
Here submitted by
Shocketheth to
anime [link] [comments]