Can't believe I'm saying this but the weather is slowly changing in Gaza again and it rained quite heavily this week. Knowing this while literally 90% of Gaza's population has been displaced, many living in makeshift tents, is a terrifying thought. Since last week's rain, many people are left without a place to stay and their belongings destroyed by the rain.
The cost of tents is between $700 and $800 which is beyond practically everyone in Gaza right now. However, the Sameer Project are crowdfunding and providing these families with tents. You can help out by either donating and/or sharing their initiative with your friends and community members. Just add "tent" in the note when you donate:
20 min sketches from flocking paleostream!! here are cambropachycope, onychodus, xenodens and lyrarapax. very out of my comfort zone, but i loved drawing them :)
IT"S FINALLY DONE!!!!!!!!!!! Check out my animation of the title song from Nerdy Prudes Must Die, a horror musical from @teamstarkid
You can watch the FULL stage show on their youtube channel!
https://youtu.be/PG3RDdyD_GQ?si=Rhxg6asT0MMoTTXd
This clip features Jon Matteson as Richie, Will Branner as Max! The story and script is by Nick and Matt Lang, with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim!
AITA for telling my boyfriend’s coworkers that he’s lying about his body count?
I (35f) have been dating my boyfriend (32m) for four years. It’s honestly been the best relationship until last Friday when it all went down. I feel like I’m in the right, but now I’m wondering if I overstepped.
For context, my boyfriend has been a professional Slasher for about eight months now. He’s always really admired Cryptids, Monsters, and Nightmares so when his application was finally accepted, he was over the moon even if he was starting in a lower position than he initially applied for.
At his company, being a Slasher requires a lot of travel which we knew when he accepted the position. The end goal is for him to get a promotion to at least regional Nightmare (he wants Cryptid, but that position doesn’t have a lot of turnover) but to get that he needs to be in role for at least 12 months OR meet his goals for three months in a row. Once he promotes, we plan to relocate to his new region and “start talking about our future.”
(Side note: no this isn’t about him not popping the question yet. We are both in agreement that marriage comes after financial stability. I run a small business doing scare consults and, while it’s been growing, I wouldn’t call it stable yet. So neither of us are ready.)
I told him it’s completely normal for it to take a whole year before he’s ready to promote and he really should focus on adjusting to the company before thinking about next steps. I used to work for a competitor (I’ve been retired for five years now) and I know it can be hard to go from only taking the occasional human life to having to take over half a dozen a week. It’s not a light workload, no matter how easy it looks in the movies. One of my best friends Slashes part-time and she still only averages about five lives a week despite having done it for years. Especially these days, it can be really hard to meet quota. Humans are getting smarter, no matter what the Council wants us to think.
Anyway, boyfriend didn’t do as well as he thought he would in his first couple months. Totally understandable, of course, which I told him. I suggested he ask his boss if he could be put on a couple team assignments or even a duo until he got the hang of it. That was our first real fight. He thought I was doubting his ability to kill. He brought up how I told him it would take over a year to promote and how I said that this job wasn’t for everyone (His first assignment ended with a 0% kill rate, but that’s a different story). He said it felt like I didn’t believe in him and he said that if that was the case then maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about marriage so soon.
It got pretty messy after that. I felt like he was forgetting that I’d worked in the same field and, arguably, had a lot more experience (not to brag, but I averaged a 98% kill rate). Also, four years is NOT too soon to talk about marriage. He said I didn’t understand how he needed to focus on his career right now. I told him I thought he was taking Slasher too lightly just because it wasn’t Cryptid. He accused me of not respecting him and then things spiraled from there.
We both said a lot of things we didn’t mean and I’m embarrassed that it turned into a bit of a fang measuring contest. I ended up sleeping under the bed for a few nights until he coaxed me out to apologize.
It was a rough patch, but we talked it out. We agreed that, going forward, I wouldn’t offer advice unless he asked and he would try not to take so much of his frustration home with him. He took a weekend off and we went on a recreational haunting trip in the Montana woods.
Things did get better after that. I tried not to give him consults every time he came back from a work trip. He started bringing me souvenirs like roses and cursed puzzle boxes his work said he could have. It became easier just to hang out with each other and it felt like we were back to normal.
But then, four months ago, he came home super pissed because his boss put him on a PIP. (A performance improvement plan.) Apparently, boyfriend had not been doing better at work, he had just stopped telling me when he had a bad assignment. I saw the paperwork he got (he left it in the dungeon under the house, I didn’t go through his stuff) and he’s been missing quota by a LOT. As a junior Slasher, he was supposed to be executing at least 6 people a week, but he’d been lucky to be maiming half that.
Obviously, I had to talk to him about that. We rent our house and, even though I could have afforded the rent on my own, I didn’t want to jeopardize the investments I was making in my business (I was in the process of hiring an assistant to handle my scheduling). Plus, we agreed from day one that we would be 50/50 on rent and I would take care of the rest of the bills because I earned more. I felt that if his financial situation was in jeopardy, he needed to talk to me about it.
I tried to approach him a bit differently than last time. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help. I told him about my slasher friend and how maybe she could give him advice if he didn’t want any from me. But he said he needed to figure stuff out on his own and that if he couldn’t get himself off the PIP then he would go back to work for his dad’s janitorial company.
I let it go. I was worried but I didn’t want to fight again just after patching the holes from the last blow out. It really bugged me that he thought I didn’t believe in him so I committed to giving him the benefit of the doubt. I said okay and asked him if he needed me to meal prep for both of us that week. He offered me grocery money, but I said it was fine since I’d had to deal with a lot of humans breaking in lately and I still had some leftover in the dungeon.
Fast forward a month. Boyfriend got off the PIP super fast. He worked his way off of it over Spring Break and started taking on a lot of extra assignments. In just four weeks he went to Miami Beach twice, New York City twice, and to three separate summer camps. I missed him and it was hard not having him around but I remembered how he said he needed to focus on his career and I tried not to nag.
It was hard not to nag though. With him gone, all the housework fell on me. We rent a 19th century manor, and its upkeep really does need two people. Doing all the chores plus running my business started to really drain me. Even when he was home, he forgot to banish the ghosts (my chore is to kill all invading humans, and his chore is to banish their ghosts) and he never took out the trash. I think he cleaned blood off the dungeon walls once, but then I had to basically redo it because he missed a lot of spots.
But still, I didn’t say anything because he was doing really well at work and I didn’t want to ruin that for him. Even when Humans started breaking in every week, I didn’t complain even though it interrupted my work day.
Last month though, I did ask him if we could move somewhere that needed less maintenance. There were just way too many Humans breaking in and I didn’t have the time to deal with them anymore. Even if I don’t do all the theatrics I used to as a Cryptid, killing humans through fear still takes a lot of time. He asked me if I didn’t appreciate the free meat, and I said I would appreciate it more if I wasn’t the only butchering it.
He said he didn’t want to move because he was really close to getting promoted to regional Nightmare and he didn’t want to take time off work to move. I was so surprised that I couldn’t hide how surprised I was. He saw and got offended. He asked if I still didn’t believe in him. I said that I did, but it was a huge jump to go from an 8% kill rate to getting promoted.
He got even more mad at me for bringing up his stats and he said that he had nearly 80% kill rate since being put on the PIP. I asked how many humans a week he was slashing and he told me I was being too nosy and that was proof that I didn’t believe in him.
I asked him if we could at least hire a ghoul then to keep the humans out of my office and he said he didn’t want to waste the money that we should be saving for our new house. I asked him what he wanted me to do then? I had to take phone calls for my consulting business and it was really hard to stalk humans all around the house while trying to sound like a professional to my clients.
He asked me to be patient for one more month. He said if he met quota for one more month, his boss said he’d get promoted. So I said fine and let it go.
Fast forward to now, almost a full month later.
Last Friday, I attended the Eldritch Conference. For those not in the scare field, the Eldritch Conference is the most prestigious event in our industry. It’s invitation only and is a chance to network with all the big players in the field. Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Bloody Mary and Bigfoot all spoke this year and both my former company, Grudge Industries, and my boyfriend’s current company, Forgotten Summer Solutions, were invited.
I was surprised to get an invite as a solo contributor to the field. However, my consulting firm has really been doing well and I did land a seasonal contract with the Yeti Co-op which I guess is how they heard about me. Plus, I’ve been a speaker before so I think the organizers knew I would behave myself.
I was planning on telling my boyfriend that I was going, but he was out of town on a co-ed sleepover assignment. He usually doesn’t have his phone on during his assignments, so I didn’t bother calling him. I just figured it’d be nice if we ran into each other at the conference if he made it back in time.
Which brings me to what actually happened (apologies for the long post).
So everything went great for my part of the day. I got to network with a lot of individual businesses and even got to reconnect with Blood Mary who I knew back in my Cryptid days. I told her I was dating a Slasher from Forgotten Summer Solutions and invited her to come with me to check out their booth. I thought it would be fun to grab dinner with her after since I assumed if my boyfriend was there, he’d be going out with coworkers which he often does. Plus, I admit, I was showing off a little. I don’t often get the chance to brag about my Cryptid days.
She agreed and we went over to see if my boyfriend was there.
I introduced myself to the people manning the booth. My boyfriend wasn’t there, but a few Slashers recognized my name and greeted me. They were definitely in awe of Bloody Mary (she came in full uniform) and invited us to look at their displays. They had portfolios for each Slasher on the desk as a sort of preview of what their services looked like.
While Bloody Mary looked through the portfolios, I chatted with my boyfriend’s coworkers. They said they were thrilled to work with him and that, even though he had a really rough start, it was impressive how quickly he started meeting his goals. Something about how they talked about his work kind of didn’t make sense. They were talking like he was killing a dozen humans a week, but he’d told me that he was at 80% on his assignments which typically only offer about ten humans each.
I asked them about it and they said that he’d been Slashing during After Hours which is a new goal supplement program his company launched a few months ago. Basically, anyone can sign up for After Hours and the company counts human kills done in uniform as part of their quota. I asked them if this was available to them while they were on assignment and they said no, it had to be done when they had down time. I asked them how my boyfriend was part of that when he was traveling all the time and they looked confused. One of them said that my boyfriend is still getting one assignment per week and is then supplementing his kill rate with After Hours.
At that point, I was even more confused. It sounded like my boyfriend had been lying to me then, because he told me that he was getting at least two assignments a week. If he was only getting one, then where was he going when he said he was traveling?
Bloody Mary interrupted before I could say anything and asked how their Slashers did their kills. They said that every Slasher at their company is required to use a standard issue weapon (like a machete or axe) for their kills to count. They said their company doesn’t count accidents as part of their quota (like falling or heart attacks).
Bloody Mary pulled me aside and showed me the portfolio she was holding. She said that she was going to give me a chance to explain without them overhearing and showed me the book. She said that a bunch of kills in it looked Cryptid kills. And she said, specifically, it looked like the kills I made when I was a Cryptid. I took the book from her and flipped through it and she was right, they really did look like Cryptid kills. Worse, I recognized a few of the Humans from the past few weeks. They were actually my kills!
Kill stealing is a major taboo in our industry.
I told her I didn’t know anything about this. She looked really relieved at that and said that even though I wasn’t a Cryptid anymore, it would look really bad for me if I was caught helping a Slasher cheat at their job. It could affect my business which she’d only heard good things about.
I’m embarrassed to say that I tried to defend him. He’s new to our industry so I thought it might be a mistake. He might not be trying to cheat, this could be a misunderstanding.
She said she didn’t think so because a mistake would be one or two of my kills mixed in with his, not the entire book.
I counted up how many photos were in the book and, all told, of the 146 kills, at least 100 were mine. I couldn’t really say it was a mistake at that point and I was just staring at his portfolio like an idiot. Bloody Mary asked me what I was going to do because, mistake or not, this looked really bad and could damage my reputation if it got out.
At that moment, another man walked up to booth and asked us if there was a problem. I knew that if I said anything, I would be jeopardizing my boyfriend’s job, but if I didn’t say something, I was jeopardizing my business.
I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count. I said I didn’t think that they knew he was doing it, but over half of the kills in his portfolio weren’t his and I suggested they remove it from their display before another Cryptid came by and realized it.
The other man thanked me for bringing this to his attention and asked how we knew. Bloody Mary said that she knew another Cryptid’s kills and I had to tell them that I was that Cryptid, though I was retired now. He asked me if I knew my boyfriend was doing this, and I told him no.
I told him I really didn’t want to get my boyfriend in trouble and suggested that maybe he didn’t know those kills didn’t belong to him because they happened in our house. I was grasping at straws and Blood Mary even looked sad for me. His coworkers looked skeptical but tentatively agreed. The man – who turned out to my boyfriend’s boss – said that they would investigate this thoroughly and apologized personally for his employee’s misconduct.
I was spiraling at that point so I thanked him and said I wasn’t mad, I was just looking out for both of our reputations. He promised to keep it between us and I agreed.
Then I apologized to Bloody Mary because I didn’t feel like eating dinner anymore. She said she understood and wished me well.
I went home and did a quick perimeter search of the property. Sure enough, there were human summoning stones ALL OVER the yard. Which means my boyfriend was intentionally luring humans to our house to get me to kill them so he could take credit. It wasn’t a mistake at all.
My boyfriend came home later that night in his work clothes. As soon he got inside he started yelling. He said he was suspended without pay and that all his hard work was for nothing.
I said I knew he’d been stealing my kills and he almost ruined my reputation. He said they still counted as his kills because he did all the work of luring the humans to our house.
I told him that wasn’t how it worked and he knew it. He said it was the same as setting a trap and I was taking this too seriously. I told him that, as a Slasher, he has to use a weapon to get his kills, not me. He said I was basically the same thing since I had such a high kill rate. I asked him if he was calling me an object.
(My parents exploited me by selling me as a haunted doll through a lot of my childhood and he knows I’m sensitive to being called an object.)
He backpedaled at that point and asked if I didn’t want to buy a house together. He said he was doing it for us and I should’ve understood and not said anything. I told him that when I was a Cryptid I had my pride and would’ve never done this.
He said I needed to tell his boss that he was the one who made all those kills. I said it wasn’t me who recognized them as Cryptid kills and now his boss knew too. He accused me of thinking I’m better than him because I have telekinetic powers and can move through shadows and can possess people, while he’s basically a human himself. I told him of course not and that I worked hard for those powers unlike him.
He got really mad at that and actually charged at me with his machete raised. I don’t think he was going to actually hit me, but I reacted like he was. It was all instinct. I disarmed him and I swear I heard a crack when I grabbed his wrist. I shoved him into the wall.
 He crumpled to the floor and started crying. He said sorry and sort of curled up around his wrist. He said he didn’t ever feel like he was enough for me and he didn’t even know why I was still with him. He called himself a bunch of names and said I would be better off without him.
I sort of awkwardly stood there for a minute. On one hand I wanted to assure him that he was enough and that I loved him, but, on the other, I wasn’t sure I could forgive him. He nearly ruined my reputation, and he embarrassed me in front of Bloody Mary. Plus, I still didn't know where he’d been going all those times he said he was on a business trip and apparently wasn’t.
So I ended up not saying anything. I went to our room and started packing a bag. He followed me. He was still crying as he begged me not to go. He said he would own up to his kill steals at work and he would make it right. He pleaded for me not to leave him and that he would give up slashing.
I told him I needed space to think. He tried to grab me, but I shadow walked out of the house. I heard him screaming from outside and I hurriedly drove away.
Now I’m at my friend’s house and I told her everything. She agreed I did the right thing walking away from him, but when I asked her what I should do she hesitated. She said that my boyfriend wasn’t right to kill steal but, as a fellow Slasher, she understood what he was going through. She said I wouldn’t understand the pressure to meet quota because I was always surpassing mine when I was in the field. She said that a Cryptid could never understand a Slasher.
She also said that nobody would have found out about his kills if I hadn’t brought them to his boss’ attention. She said the only time kills are on display like that is at the Eldritch Conference and by the next one, he’d have had kills of his own. She thinks that if I’d just confronted him at home, he wouldn’t be on suspension.
So now I’m worried that I overreacted when I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count.
AITA?
----
Thanks for reading! Several amazing supernatural citizens (aka my Patrons) gave great advice to our poor OP over on my Patreon! Please go check them out here (X)
(I will definitely be posting some of them here in the near future!)
My next supernatural AITA is already up to my patrons!
It's called "AITA for divorcing my vampire husband because he lied about his human job?"
Patrons get to see many of my stories a week ahead! If that interests you please check me out here (X)!
this is a shadow of Sky Tower, the tallest building in the city of Wrocław (Poland), regarded as the city's penis.
it does indeed look like one. it is also so tall and in such a flat area that you can easily see it from kilometers away. and at all times the penis shadow is cast upon the oblivious sheeple.
“She will follow you, if you remain true to your purpose,” Persephone said, icy and beautiful, with asphodel in her hair, and embroidered on her dress. She sat beside her husband, Hades, and looked down on Orpheus, her face utterly unreadable, “But if you cast a single gaze upon her before she leaves the Underworld, she will be lost to you until time ends.”
“Thank you,” Orpheus said, desperately grateful. His fingertips ached, blistered and bleeding as he played his plea to the gods who had no reason to give him what he requested of them. The return of his beloved wife, who had fled for her life, and lost it trying to escape. “Your Majesties, thank you. I will write a thousand songs in your honor.”
“You had best go,” Hades said, the first words he had spoken since Orpheus arrived. “The journey is long, and fraught with danger. It will not be easy.”
Orpheus took the dismissal for what it was, bowed again, and made his way out of the grand, dark, pillar-lined hall. Here and there, flowers sprouted up through cracks in the stone, the mark of the queen who was only here half the year, and must be dearly missed when she was gone.
Maybe his plea, and the mercy he received in return, made more sense than he thought. Surely there were none who understood the longing for a beloved spouse better than the king and queen of the underworld.
Hades’ warning struck him, and Orpheus fought with himself, with the urge to look back and make sure Eurydice was there, following behind him. The gods were fond of their tricks and traps, but they rarely lied outright.
Well, he hoped they didn’t, anyway.
On and on he went, out of the grand, black-stone palace, into the sprawling, twilight orchards beyond. It was beautiful and peaceful. Sprawling gardens filled the warm air with the scent of citrus flowers and herbs. Fireflies winked their green-gold lights everywhere, and danced in clouds around the hazy ghosts who walked and laughed together. Off in the distance, he heard music and longed to join.
But no. He was here with a goal, and everything here would tempt him, or frighten him, or try to distract him from his purpose.
And he had to have faith in Euridice. She was behind him. Persephone said she would be, and he could only trust, because to look back for her would be to lose her.
When they came to the River Lethe, Orpheus began to fear. After all, the River of Forgetfulness was no small challenge, and he wasn’t fool enough to think that it would not test him, although he would, at least, not have to ford it. There was a bridge, although it was not what Orpheus might call ideal. A rickety thing of woven branches and rough wood, it cracked under his feet, but it held.
It wasn’t until he made it across, that Orpheus heard a faint sound. The sound of a foot on the bridge, barely there, as if from far away, but only a step behind him.
That sound, that faint sound, gave him hope. Euridice was there. She was with him. The gods had not lied, or broken their bargain.
It also gave him an idea.
Music had gotten him this far. Perhaps it would take them just a few steps further.
His fingers ere too damaged to keep playing, but there was nothing wrong with his voice, and so, hopefully, he started on a song he wrote long ago, when he first fell in love with his wife, and heard her lovely voice.
It was a song for two, and he would be lying if he didn’t admit how frightened he was, how his heart caught, when he came to the end of his verse, and hers began.
For a heartbeat, a single heartbeat, he thought she would not, could not reply, but then her sweet, warm alto filled the air, a little tense, a little afraid, but as true as ever.
Orpheus would have wept at the sound.
The song wasn’t a long one, but he started another as soon as it ended, and another, and another. Together, they sang their way through Tartarus. Through the tortured, evil dead who howled around them and tried to drag him off the narrow path that sometimes faded to almost nothing under his feet. The gods had not told him what had happened if he left the path, but then, they didn’t have to. He knew the legends of those who left the path.
The path turn back to a road until the sky light with flame and they came to another river, this one deep, and angry, and blazing with fire.
The River Phlegethon. The river if fire, that bordered Tartarus, and imprisoned the lost souls within.
Orpheus was glad that Euridice had started them on battle songs of coming home almost an hour before, or his courage, shaken form hours of walking through the tortured dead, might have failed him. The bridge here was stone, but as fragile, as frail, and as frightening. Pebbles rolled off the sides when Orpheus stepped onto the thin stone, and his voice broke as he stumbled to his knees. In harmony with him, Euridice gasped, but she didn’t stop singing. Didn’t stop promising she was there.
Together, they made it across, into the slums of the undistinguished dead.
Here, they were followed, although not closely. The dead could not touch them. Not marked as they were by Cause under the authority of the queen herself, but they gathered near, listening to the songs, and whispering amongst themselves. Orpheus raised his voice louder, afraid to lose Euridice in the crowd. She answered him, strong and clear, and only a step behind him, always.
After what seems like hours more, Orpheus found his voice beginning to give out, but he sang on determinedly, unwilling to give up when victory was so close to hand.
At last, finally, they came to the last river in their journey.
So wide he could not see the other side, the Styx spread out like an ocean, and on the shore, the sandy shore, was a single boat.
“I wondered if you would make it back this way,” Chiron greeted Orpheus with a cackling laugh that was mostly hidden by his thick beard and hood. He had ferried Orpheus across only a day before, paid with one of the three gold coins Orpheus brought with him. “The ferry is not free, Bard.”
“I know,” Orpheus said hoarsely, his first spoken words since he left the palace. He dug in his purse and pulled out the coins he kept, carefully packed with the thinnest hope, and how proffered with more of the same. “A coin for each of us, to see us back to the land of the living.”
“Nice to see one of you heroes has the sense to pack for the trip,” Chiron said, begrudgingly impressed. He took the coins and nodded to the boat. “You’re not out, yet.”
“I know,” Orpheus agreed. It was a warning, he knew. They weren’t out, and until they were, he did not dare look back. Could not make sure that Eurydice made it into the boat as well. “Thank you, Ferryman.”
“Get in the boat, boy.”
He got in the boat.
On through the unmarked grey waters they sailed, with barely the lap of waves against the side of the narrow boat to show their passing.
With nothing to do but wait, Orpheus cast his mind over the many sailing songs he knew, chose Eurydice’s favorite, another duet, and started to sing.
Chiron’s laughter punctuated Eurydice’s voice when she joined. In, on time and on key as ever.
Hours passed, as they passed songs back and forth, flirting and joking as they sang silly songs, and bawdy ones, and ones of coming home after a long time at sea.
Through it all, the Ferryman behind him never stopped chuckling. It might have been frightening, but Orpheus thought that maybe it was a compliment too. That his laughter was in celebration of cleverness that rarely crossed his path.
When they came to the far shore, the boat nudged into the sand, and Orpheus caught himself, right before he looked back to thank Chiron for his service.
“You paid me, boy,” the Ferryman said from somewhere behind him. “don’t spoil it with thanks. Go on.”
Orpheus went.
The air was fresher, here. They were close, and now the songs shifted to those of love newly discovered. Not all were duets, but any song would be sung in harmony, and so they tangled their voices together and kept walking.
It wasn’t until Orpheus felt sunlight on his face that he realized, he was out. Out of the Underworld and back where he started this daring, foolish, hopeful journey.
He went to turn, but Euridice’s voice raised sharply, and she cut her loving song off for one of warning, a song for children, to teach them not to trust all they saw.
And Orpheus remembered.
The game was not done. Not until she took her final step into the weak, late winter sunshine.
So he kept walking. Kept singing. Kept hoping.
Until at last, the song faded, and a voice he mourned for, as hoarse as his own, spoke from just behind him.
“We’ll have to write a duet about this.”
And all Orpheus could do was laugh as he turned around, at last, to see his wife standing there, just a single step out of the Underworld, and smiling with tears of joy in her eyes.
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