Beetlejuice little head gif

This is something that happened quite a few years ago on New Year's Eve. My mom (a single mom) was hosting a little NYE party that night. It wasn't an elaborate thing; just some friends and neighbors. She wasn't usually much of a drinker at all, but she ended up getting a bit tipsy and silly near the end of the night. Everybody left about an hour after midnight, and I started getting ready for bed. The only person who remained was an older neighbor of ours who lived alone. She was acting a bit flirty and giggly with him, but I didn't think much of it because of the alcohol factor.
They were still talking after I went to bed, and then about 30 minutes later, I heard the basement door open, then some footsteps on the basement stairs before the door closed behind them. I was confused at first and couldn't think of what point there was in them going down to a mostly unfinished basement, but then it suddenly hit me that there was a guest bedroom down there, and she might be going down there to have sex with him so I would be less likely to find out. When it occurred to me that this might be a possibility, my heart started pounding, and I got a huge surge of those really intense excitement butterflies in my abdomen. I was overcome with an overwhelming urge to sneak down the basement stairs to see if my suspicions were correct. I knew that it was so wrong to do, but I had to; I couldn't stop myself.
I opened the basement door as quietly as I could, then spent like two minutes crawling down the stairs backwards on my hands and knees to ensure that I was making as little sound as possible. Once I got to the door of the guest bedroom, I knew what was going on in there, and the butterflies and pounding heart were in overdrive at that point. It was so weird knowing that it was my mom, but that's part of what added to the excitement, if anybody can relate to what I mean? Standing in front of a door and knowing that your own mom is getting laid on the other side of it is an intense and visceral experience, especially when it's so unexpected, and especially when you're young too. She had never done anything like this before; she was more the sweet, shy mom-next-door type. I feel that was also a major factor in why it was so exciting: it was just so unexpected. There are so many mixed emotions, and the way you feel so weird and awkward but REALLY turned on at the same time gives you the most intense butterflies.
I was so overwhelmed by curiosity at this point that I knew I had to open the door quietly and peek in. I knew that I likely wouldn't be spotted by either of them because of the layout of the guest bedroom. It was a small bedroom, and the head of the bed was up against the wall opposite the door. The foot of the bed was only about 4 or 5 feet away from the door though, so I still had to be as quiet as possible. This photo I found on Google Images is the closest example I can find to describe what the layout of the guest bedroom looked like, except with the door only being about 4 or 5 feet away from the foot of the bed.
The door of the guest bedroom opened outward which made it a lot easier for me to stealthily open it. I slowly opened it about 7 inches with my eyes closed because I was trying to concentrate so hard on being quiet. When I opened my eyes, I was hit with a flood of mixed emotions and excitement like I had never felt in my life. They weren't doing anything wild or crazy; it was actually quite the opposite and more subdued if anything. It was just so crazy to see that only a few feet away though, right there in front of me. He was on top of her, ordinary missionary position, her legs parted in a relaxed way; not spread really far apart like spread eagle, but just kind of parted enough so his hips could get between her thighs.
It wasn't like typical one-night-stand sex would usually be; they were actually making love, and there was a lot of intimacy and romance. She was hugging him close to her the entire time, and there was a lot of lengthy kissing during the sex. The view I had was pretty limited due to where the door was situated, so I basically only had the behind view of him on top of her humping away between her thighs. But I could hear the kissing and some whispers and giggles in between the long kisses.
I watched right up until they finished and even stayed for about a minute when he stayed on top of her and they were just cuddling afterward. After I quietly closed the door, I quickly snuck back upstairs as quietly as I could and had to masturbate as soon as I got to my bedroom. The butterflies and excitement were so intense that I had two orgasms with only about a one-minute gap between the first and second one.
This is a memory that is deeply embedded in my mind, and I can remember all of it so vividly. It's still such a turn-on to think about even to this day.

I’ve got 2 stories here, as they both happened at a similar time. To set the scene, I lived in the same room with mostly the same people for 2 of my 3 years at university. Our landlord and landlady lived below us.
I must admit that I had a bit of a crush on the landlady and she liked music, so I was always very up for her coming upstairs to visit and spend some time with me. A couple of times she acted super weird, claiming there were “spirits” around and stuff like that. I never believed in that kind of stuff, and still mostly don’t, though I can’t fully explain the 2 stories below. I just chose to ignore her, but not long after the 2 stories below happened:
STORY 1 - Aretha Franklin messes with my laptop In my room in this apartment, I had a little recording studio set up. I studied music at university and was one of the few students lucky enough to own this kind of equipment. This meant a lot of the vocals students would come to my place to record their homework and general demos.
One of the first singers to do this wanted to do an Aretha Franklin cover. We recorded all the parts and it went smoothly. No issues. Listen back to the recording and it seems fine, but our ears are pretty fried after wearing headphones for hours and decided to take a break.
15 minutes later, we come back inside and listen to the recordings. Every single vocal track had either been moved or deleted. And not just moved slightly, some of the lines had been switched around or moved several bars out of place. We had to move everything back to where it needed to be and re-recorded the stuff that had been lost.
The creepy part is that nobody else was home at the time. It was just us. I couldn’t help but think back to my landlady’s claims of spirits being present.
To this day, I have no explanation for what happened. The singer and I still talk about how creepy it was.
STORY 2 - Horror movie soundtrack Not long after the first story, I’m working on a piece of uni project work where I need to compose a soundtrack for a film scene.
I chose a short animated horror film and spent a whole day working on it. I was super proud of the music I wrote as I genuinely found it creepy, especially at 2am when I was finishing.
I go to bed and start drifting off to sleep. In my half-conscious I start to feel really scared. I feel like there’s somebody standing over me, but daren’t open my eyes.
The next thing I hear is a voice, but not in my head. It was like they were speaking directly into my right ear. I could feel the breath entering my ear canal. I couldn’t make out what they were saying until the last 3 words: my full name.
I woke up that instant and didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I figured it was a hallucination from being so tired, but I’ll never forget that feeling of air in my ear and how it sounded.
It truly creeped me out.

Re-post. The format I had was all weird and text was hard to find. It looked like it was just an image. Text image in the comments.
Here is my previous post: https://www.reddit.com/Marriage/comments/11zna20/dont_know_what_to_do_long_one/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
To add context to what I typed before. He is back at his old job that he left to do real estate. He has a private office. He doesn’t have texting rules. He has the ability to come and go as he pleases.
Post——
I posted a bit ago about feeling like I was so confused about what to do in my marriage and I had a moment the other day that felt like the straw that broke the camels back. I’ve been trying for the last few weeks to get some kind of spark back. To make him feel good and maybe boost his self esteem a little. I’ve been initiating sex more (which was a constant, multiple times a day thing at the beginning of our relationship so it seemed like a good place to start) hoping that it would help him, get his mojo back if you will. And while he’s gone super late nights (he’s been doing DoorDash to pay the bills since he hasn’t sold anything in a long time) I’ll send him spicy pics and texts. Usually, they aren’t really responded to. And he doesn’t mention them in the morning either. Like I’m just sending my tits out into the void. But I still persist cause I’m like that.
He started his new job back this past Monday and I’ve been trying to hype it up. To say I’m proud of him for doing the right thing. But he just shrugs it off. I can tell he doesn’t want to be there.
The final straw moment I think was the overflow/build up to all the neglect and frustration and one sidedness our relationship has had for, let’s not kid ourselves, long before he fucked us financially. I was wearing a really hot pink dress to work, one I know likes. So I snuck into the bathroom, popped out my tits and sent him the text in the picture.
I stared at that OK for a good 30 minutes. The longer I stared the more I started to rage. To seethe. It felt like our entire relationship was contained in that tiny exchange. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, the room was muted except the sound of the fucking workers putting solar panels on our roof. I couldn’t take the constant bangs and right above my head so I went to the next building over to one of the coworkers I’m close to and asked if I could sit in his office for a few to get away from that god awful construction noise.
He asked if everything was ok. And that was it. Tears started to well up and I said “ya sure you want to know?!” He closed his door and said “it’s a vault, let it out. You’ll feel better and I won’t gossip to anyone” and I just exploded. I started sobbing and all the emotions I’ve been feeling for years just came out. The whole thing. I’ve not cried that hard since….well the first time I got divorced and I was driving away with all my shit and mourning the life I wanted. I absolutely am not the type to bring my problems to work but it was uncontrollable.
He obviously offered to let me take the rest of the day off, recognizing that I was going to not get shit done the rest of the day. I obliged, said thank you, and peeled out. I drove like a pissed off teenager for like an hour until I ended up in some field in BFE, parked and cried some more.
When I finally went home and husband came home, he was booping around like nothing was wrong. Didn’t mention the text or the pic. At all. So I told him “your lack of response to me earlier really hurt me. A lot. I left work crying over it.” And this man acts like I’m being ridiculous. “I can’t respond immediately “ I told him I know that and that’s ok, but the lack of acknowledgment was the problem. He could have waited til he got in his car to drive home and sent something to tell me he like it. He could have ducked to the bathroom for two minutes to send a fucking heart eye emoji. This wasn’t the first time my spicy texts and pics have been “ok”ed or left on read. It highlighted two problems: his lack of effort and his inability to apologize when he’s hurt me. He always explains himself instead of apologizing and trying to work towards a solution. It’s not about my hurt feelings, it’s about justifying why he thought it was ok to hurt them. I told him this was his last chance. He needs to get a therapist, accept accountability for all the pain he’s caused, and understand that I’m allowed to be pissed at him. Now the last two days he’s offering to bring me lunch, sending I love you texts, all that. And I’m honestly sickened by it. I know that’s not a good response but I can’t help but think “why the fuck does it take me literally saying I’m going to leave for you to get it??”
And now I’m like 99% sure I’m done. I’m going to take the youngest and stay with my parents who live down the road for a few days. I need space away from this house, from him, all of it. I hate this so much.

Massive spoiler for the end
So, i was progressing on the cryptozoologist quest line and i wondered, can i really catch an insulindian phasmid? So i googled it quickly to know if i should keep checking all the traps (if there was even a tiny chance i was prepared to spent hours looking for it.)
thats when i saw a very cryptic message either on the wiki or on reddit saying that you dont actually find it in the cages but you can meet it 'when you walk the desert'.
In my mind, this made me think that the game ends with you dying and harry would walk in a desert in his mind and be confronted by all the characters in his head and the phasmid. But this made me think the phasmid wasnt actually real, just a fun mention of it that happens in the end all in your head.
When the thing popped out of the grass i screamed. Even got a little teary. And when it started talking with that cute voice and saying stuff about harry i started crying, probably the most ive had in years. The encounter was strangely magical for me and definitely one of the most memorable moments in the game

Anyone else notice something like this? The vibes have just been off at my NF’s house lately. It makes me uncomfy! Before NK #2 came around MB and I would small talk a lot (she would initiate convo wasn’t just me) it made work pleasant. Past few months she’s quick to get me out the door / doesn’t talk with me while she makes lunch anymore. She used to ask my plans for the weekend etc. NK #1 and I made her gluten free brownies (she’s GF) this week and she barely had a reaction! I also cleaned her house for her which isn’t a normal duty of mine.
Maybe she’s just tired from work and having 2 kids now…dunno! I just can’t help but feel like a bad nanny like maybe I’m not pulling my weight anymore which I know isn’t true. NK 2 is TOUGH. I’ve been really kicking it to full gear lately for him especially. Maybe it’s all in my head. I’ve been looking for an exit to nannying but I haven’t made it known yet… this certainly adds to that lol.
Anyone else notice a sudden vibe change? Was it a phase? MB in bad mood? She tends to be a little moody and negative a lot. It’s been a couple months now. She seemed happy during MAT leave but has been back to work.

I’ve got 2 stories here, as they both happened at a similar time. To set the scene, I lived in the same room with mostly the same people for 2 of my 3 years at university. Our landlord and landlady lived below us.
I must admit that I had a bit of a crush on the landlady and she liked music, so I was always very up for her coming upstairs to visit and spend some time with me. A couple of times she acted super weird, claiming there were “spirits” around and stuff like that. I never believed in supernatural stuff, and still mostly don’t, though I can’t fully explain the 2 stories below. I just chose to ignore her, but not long after the 2 stories below happened:
STORY 1 - Aretha Franklin messes with my laptop In my room in this apartment, I had a little recording studio set up. I studied music at university and was one of the few students lucky enough to own this kind of equipment. This meant a lot of the vocals students would come to my place to record their homework and general demos.
One of the first singers to do this wanted to do an Aretha Franklin cover. We recorded all the parts and it went smoothly. No issues. Listen back to the recording and it seems fine, but our ears are pretty fried after wearing headphones for hours and decided to take a break.
15 minutes later, we come back inside and listen to the recordings. Every single vocal track had either been moved or deleted. And not just moved slightly, some of the lines had been switched around or moved several bars out of place. We had to move everything back to where it needed to be and re-recorded the stuff that had been lost.
The creepy part is that nobody else was home at the time. It was just us. I couldn’t help but think back to my landlady’s claims of spirits being present.
To this day, I have no explanation for what happened. The singer and I still talk about how creepy it was.
STORY 2 - Horror movie soundtrack Not long after the first story, I’m working on a piece of uni project work where I need to compose a soundtrack for a film scene.
I chose a short animated horror film and spent a whole day working on it. I was super proud of the music I wrote as I genuinely found it creepy, especially at 2am when I was finishing.
I go to bed and start drifting off to sleep. In my half-conscious I start to feel really scared. I feel like there’s somebody standing over me, but daren’t open my eyes.
The next thing I hear is a voice, but not in my head. It was like they were speaking directly into my right ear. I could feel the breath entering my ear canal. I couldn’t make out what they were saying until the last 3 words: my full name.
I woke up that instant and didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I figured it was a hallucination from being so tired, but I’ll never forget that feeling of air in my ear and how it sounded.
It truly creeped me out.

Story time!
IF YOU LIVE IN SNOW COUNTRY AVOID ANY MAZDA WITH CRUISE CONTROL RADAR!
short version:
you CAN NOT turn the Radar off. Mazda admits to engineering it this way. it causes a HAZARD, that they call a "feature"...because...they're geniuses. Engineers can't take criticism so they're hidden, and they don't know the meaning of "off". Been fighting with Mazda for over 2 years for a legitimate "off button" to "make the blinking stop". Should be noted, anything blinking on your dashboard is a distraction, and every time you start the car it tells you "distracted driving is unsafe driving".
Full Story:
At one point, i used to love Mazda. Thought they were a fantastic vehicle. But now, it's become PAINFULLY apparent that the company, engineers, customer experience, dealerships...all encompassing "Mazda", are incompetent. And i mean that, toddlers are smarter and here's why:
Mazda doesn't understand the meaning of "off". It escapes them. No one has read the dictionary or has a word-of-the-day calendar. All they do is "drink the kool-aid" of "Mazda does no wrong".
If you go out shopping for a vehicle and the sales-rep tells you "oh yea, you can turn off any of the 'features' (in this case they call 'hazards' 'features'). And that is a BLATANT LIE. and they know they're lieing.
Mazda has a Settings Menu. Where you'll be told you CAN turn systems off....not true.
Since this issue is mainly about the Radar, i'm focusing on that option.
There is an option, under settings, for the Mazda Cruise Control Radar. There's a box next to it, and it's ALWAYS selected when you start the vehicle. (yes. it will ALWAYS default to being ON. EVERY time you start the car).
So! you don't want Skynet to drive your vehicle and wish to turn off the Radar? Huzzah! Just de-select that option (the box is no longer 'checked')! That means the system is off, right?
Oh sweet innocent customer....no. no it's not.
How do i know this?
Well, the 2021 CX-30 requires me to have a "launch procedure" to turn systems off, EVERY TIME i start the silly thing. (again, "off" is never "OFF", when it comes to Mazda).
So i always have the radar "off". i don't like it. i think the system is completely useless, but i digress. BUT! if i'm driving in snow, a heavy rain, salt/mud/dirt gets thrown at my vehicle....well, the radar sensor gets covered. which makes sense because, weather.
HERE'S THE ISSUE AND MAZDA KNOWN SAFETY HAZARD
When the Radar Sensor (the medallion on the front of the grill), gets covered by someting (and this goes for any of the sensors), the vehicle will start BLINKING an orange star-burst warning IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR SPEEDOMETER. which is in the MIDDLE of your DASHBOARD. so visually, you can't avoid it
And it's a warning, doing warning things but it'll state "warning cruise control radar obstructed. temporarily disabled". then it'll BLINK. and say somethin like "other safety sensors obstructed and disabled: DRIVE CAREFULLY".
Standard warning.
BUT! if you've been paying attention: "but, this person stated they turned the Radar System off. So why is it blinking at them, stating it's disabled (turned off)".
DING DING DING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
A the system will CONTINUE TO BLINK between the two warnings.
So picture this:
You're driving at night. it's dark outside. you're focused on safely driving in "weather" (whatever kind fits your region). and now you have an orange blinky warning light, in middle of your speedometer, that you CAN NOT turn off. that is, unless you pull over, brush the snow/mud/whatever off the sensors. then get back on the road, in the same weather conditions, just to have it happen again.
So, Mazda has INTENTIONALLY designed, engineered, quality assured, and sold.....a Hazard.
and i say that because, remember, every time you start the vehicle it tells you "distracted driving is unsafe driving". and now you have/are in a vehicle that will blink a warning at you. About a system you THOUGHT you turned off.
"but, i turned that off! why is it blinking at me, saying it's now turned off?!"
so, a blinky light, the size of the inner circle of your speedometer, that you can't turn off. telling you a system you've turned off is now off, because.....they system says so.
I don't care how dim the light settings of your dashboard are. a blinky light, at night, in the middle of your dash and speedometer....that's a DISTRACTION.
So, now we've have Mazda admitting to INTENTIONALLY designing it this way. so MAZDA, INTENTIONALLY engineered a HAZARD. all because they don't understand an "off button".
I've been "dealing" with Mazda for over 2 years TRYING to get a functional "off button".....NOPE! they just want to placate the customer and do grand dog and pony shows.
A WEEK after purchasing the vehicle i was told by the dealership techs "yup, that's a known issue and has been a known issue. it's what we get the most complaints about" (note, i live in snow country). So the techs told me they couldn't do a thing, and i had to talk to Mazda Corporate.
After 2+ years what has the Customer Care Experience (corporate) done? well, they took my car for 4 days to "troubleshoot" this, already known, issue. and came back with "yup, the system is operating normally".
that was it.
Even though NORMAL OPERATION creates a HAZARD. but no one wants to address the "off button".
That's all i wanted. To be able to ACTUALLY turn systems off. to not have the vehicle blink at me in weather, telling me a system i've turned off, is not turned off because.....Mazda Engineers have never read a dictionary (and they're sensitive, which is why customers can't speak to them).
This has led to the Dealerships techs going "talk to corporate", Corporate saying "gotta talk to the techs", Techs: "we don't have the authority to fix this, gotta talk to corporate". Corporate: "WHAT DO YOU EXPECT US TO DO?!?!! WE'RE NOT ENGINEERS" (and yes, that final bit came from Micheal, the head Customer Experience guru.....he's not the brightest bulb and shouldn't be in any position of authority, because he doesn't understand "off" either....guess that's par for he course, at this point.
So there you go! and the Mazda Saga continues.......all because "OFF buttons are complicated" (toddlers understand how to turn something OFF.)
I say all of this as a warning to any potential customer. Mazda will lie, doesn't understand OFF, and will sell you a safety hazard.
Be very wary, consumer. personally, i say DO NOT BUY Mazda. but if you must....AVOID RADAR LIKE YOUR EX.
All i can hope is this helps a shopper be a little more informed.

First off its the 1st of April meaning April Fools. People may trick or fool you into relapse etc. Heads up.
Secondly a question for today.
A sudden onset of arousal as soon as I get home from work after 9 hours of work and little sleep. Why is this okay?
Been away from actively looking at pron for a bit over a month now. 37 male. Any clues or help.

I started a post about the nitty gritty of how I got to be depending on alcohol every 6-8 hours by the end of this week and my body is angry. But I was just trying to justify.
Drank a little last night, just enough to keep the shakes and anxiety away, and actually slept through the night for the first time in probably 10 days.
Woke to a full on panic attack.
Home for the morning and needing inspiration for not drinking more to soothe the anxiety. What are your go to inspirational books, you tube videos, podcasts for this awful moment. I can’t fill my head with anymore mindless dribble from YouTube shorts. The dopamine just isn’t hitting the same. Distraction would be welcome but I think I need more relevant substance to turn my brain back on to reality mode.

Hey y'all. Not sure if this is the right subreddit to post but thought I'd put my nets out.
I'm an actor and writer, with limited experience behind the camera. I'm posting on behalf of a close friend of mine, whose decided to completely shift gears career wise into the film industry. I unfortunately have little experience on the production side of things besides writing for theater, so I'm currently trying to really ask around for him (friends, online etc) because I'm worried he's losing his motivation and confidence.
This is a career shift for him, near his mid 30's, and I think he just feels he has no idea how to get started in the industry because he has it in his head he needs to be "coming out of film school in his early 20's" to get a "foothold" anywhere in the indsutry. He's more interested in editing, production work (assistant work, lighting, etc.) Right now, he just wanted to be around people in professional environments he can learn from. He wants to work. Hard. No matter what it is. I think he's just really afraid he's too "old" to make it in there. I don't really know what to tell him to "start", how to initiate those contacts, as my experience is primarily rooting in acting. He seems to think that without experience, he'll be laughed out of the building.
Again, might not be the right space to discuss this or may in fact be discussed often, (apologies in advance), but wanted to get a sense of maybe any tips for someone in that space, good ways to get a job/experience without any prior resume experience in the industry? Also, how to keep that momentum going when things seem tough? I really want to help him, but feel a bit helpless.

Hi everyone, I (25M) am seeking some advice on dating someone with borderline personality disorder (BPD). I have previously dated someone with BPD and it ended with a very messy breakup that left me struggling with my own mental health for a long time. After having stopped dating for 3 years to focus on myself and my own mental health, I feel a lot better and I have recently started dating again. After a few unsuccessful dates, I have recently fallen head over heels for someone (20F) who also said to be head over heels for me. I don’t know what the odds are on falling in love with someone with BPD twice in a row, but I do suspect she has BPD. We’ve been dating for a little over 3 months now and while she isn’t officially diagnosed like my ex was, having spent a lot of time with her in those 3 months, I recognise a bunch of telltale signs of BPD.
For example, when things are good, it is amazing. We can't keep our hands off each other and everything feels perfect. But when things turn toxic, she starts pushing me away and doesn't believe anything I say. During these moments, she can be hurtful and say cold things, which can be difficult to deal with. However, I don't take it as personally as I did in my previous relationship, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. She has also said we are done or implied not wanting to continue only to come back saying how much she loves me and never’ll let me go. It confuses me.
I am contemplating getting serious with her cause I am in love with this girl and I do genuinely love her, but I am also hesitant and I’m seeking advice. I’m scared of getting hurt again like in my previous relationship, and one day her feelings towards me will just change, similarly to how her mood can change in a split second. My question is two-fold:

1. Should I listen to my gut feeling and give it a chance and see where it goes or should I listen to my brain and don’t let this develop into anything that could hurt me as bad as my previous relationship?
   
2. If anyone here has experience either dating someone with BPD or as someone with BPD, do you have any tips, advice or experiences to share? I would appreciate any insight that could help me make a better decision.
   

Thank you in advance for your help

I've had an influx of people lately asking me to lower my privates price in order to do a private. I really don't think my private price is too high. I do 30 a minute, that's like 1.50? I didn't want to do too low since I was used to 5 dollars on Streamate, and I really don't feel good selling myself short.
Though the influx of people saying that if I lowered the price they'd do it makes me feel like maybe it's too high. The first person to ever ask I knew was a bs request. He asked me to lower it to 6 and turn recordings on in order to do a private. I don't even know what goes through someone's head to ask me to lower my prices by like 80% AND turn on recordings which I have turned off for my own comfort.
Though a few of them I feel like are a little more in the gray area. Like reducing it by only like 10 or half(while promising to tip vibe the whole time).
I don't get a lot of privates, so I'm wondering if my prices are just too high. I've had a total of 2 privates in the 4 weeks I've been doing chaterbate, and one was someone that has been following me on reddit so I don't even know if he would count since he already had an interest in me.
What are your prices for privates? What do you do if anyone asks you to lower it to do a private for them?

I need to get this off my chest and ask if I‘m overreacting.
As you may know today is April Fools Day (April 1st)… and my (29y) husband (30 y) (married for exactly 4 weeks) and my sister (18 y) decided to prank me.
A little backstory so you may understand where I‘m coming from:
My husband and I want children but I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) which causes a certain struggle to get pregnant. I‘ve already been pregnant once but I miscarried at 8,5 weeks because of my hormonal imbalances. It was a really hard time for me and now, 5 years later we still aren’t pregnant again. My infertility is weighing pretty much on my soul to the point that I have to force a smile when someone tells me they are pregnant. My husband knows this about me. And my sister knows too. Last year she told me that she would even be willing to be a surrogate for us, which I declined by saying how thoughtful she was but that I really want to get pregnant myself or adopt some day. My sister has her head in the clouds most days because her childhood was more protected than mine and although she is a little bit self centered sometimes and she doesn’t think about consequences, she is usually a very kind soul. So is my husband at his core. He usually cares about me and we tell each other everything and we are there for each other - no matter what. Oh and my sister also gave me a fertility necklace on my wedding day four weeks ago and said she hopes that it will work in 2023.
Skip to today:
My sister told me she has something to tell me and she doesn’t know how to. I immediately jumped to a possibility of her being pregnant, because we had a pregnancy scare with her last year. She just sent me a WhatsApp message saying yes followed with a photo of a positive pregnancy test. She told me that my husband already knows and helped her get the courage to tell me. I went into shock and immediately started to cry. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or do anything that upsets her because of the baby, so I told her I understand and that I needed 5 minutes to collect myself. I started crying uncontrollably…. It triggered all the years of grieving for my lost baby, the pain of being infertile, the countless hours spent in therapy because of my childhood… everything. And I felt such great shame, that I needed these 5 minutes to collect myself because I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to tell her that its going to be alright and that I would help her raise the child. But I needed to stop crying first. So I’ve called one of my best friends - let’s call her Sandra. Sandra has the same issues as me and she had also lost a baby in the past. So I called her and she was shocked too. She helped me to calm down so I would go back to WhatsApp and help my sister.
But when I saw that she texted me that it was just an Aprils fool’s prank and that her and my husband planned this I was livid. I called my husband to confirm this and he just laughed and said: of course it’s just a joke. Hahahahahah.
Yeah…. Hahahahaha…. Am I the only one that finds this cruel? They immediately started to call me to the point where I decided to block their numbers for the time being.
Am I overreacting?

My wife and i just watched "this little love of mine" and about an hour of it was "she really looks like that actress from another movie" and we've spent an hour googling people to figure out who we meant.
Anyone have any idea who she looks similar to?
In my head she played a mum in a movie... if you think that sound too broad, you'll understand why we don't have an answer.

My last company (and first IT job) was extremely toxic in every way. I won't elaborate on every crappy thing they did wrong, but I will say it's nice to wake up on a Saturday with absolutely no possibility of finding a possibly job-terminating crisis and subsequent finger-pointing session in my work inbox or Teams chats.
That was rather common at the previous place. There was no change management, and some of our users and fellow sysadmins were several time zones ahead of the head office. Those sysadmins tended to be panicky and resorted to any amount of friction by passing the blame. So in a year or so of employment, there were numerous times where I woke up, even on weekends, and found that our overseas companions had discovered a problem, did little to fix it, blew it out of proportion, and started loudly proclaiming where they believed it had come from (which included tagging the people they thought were responsible in the ticketing system). So not only am I rushing down to my home office or getting ready for work earlier than expected, but I'm also trying to defend my actions from the inevitable blowup.
In one case, a tired sysadmin on our side of the pond was troubleshooting an issue late on a Friday night. He decided that the solution for the moment was to give an end user a shared password used by the IT team so that she, the end user, could log out of a particular system that was causing her issues. That user then shared the password in a large group chat. So I spent my Saturday morning validating that no one else used said password, changing the password in several different consoles, informing a small segment of the IT team of the updated password, and trying to not participate in a blame game directed at my friend (even though he was 100% at fault).
This was combined with an atmosphere of high-turnover, including a lot of firings. My senior colleague often said, prior to something as minute as sending an update email to the boss, "Are you prepared to risk your career on this?" So this all tied together to make it an absolute gut-wrenching event to check my email on my phone while still laying in bed only to find that a teammate is calling me out by name in tickets.
I eventually left that company and found a better paying, better titled position that's fully remote. Took me about two weeks. Culture is night and day different. Higher ups are actually leaders, and not bosses. The morning email check isn't a thing of terror. My mental health is replenished.
It's a big world out there. If your current company is making you burn out, or hate IT, or worst of all, hate yourself, please please please dump them. They don't deserve you.

“Do you love me?”
He placed his cup onto the table with enough force that she knew he was annoyed by the question.
“You know you don’t have to ask that.”
She nodded, but then immediately shook her head.
“It’s just that you never say it. You’ve never said it.”
He looked out the window.
“It’s…hard.”
She leaned over and placed her hand in his.
“I know it’s tough for you. I’m not trying to replace her, I promise. I know I never could. I just wish you could say it. I feel as if I’m just here as a poor attempt at replacing her.”
He looked her in the eyes.
“That’s not it at all. If we’d broken up or something like that, it would be different.”
She sighed in defeat.
“I know.”
“Can we please talk about something else?”
She gave a single nod but said nothing else. Awkward conversation was replaced with awkward silence.
She began to tap on the table with the tips of her fingernails. He could see something was eating at her.
He sighed with irritation.
“You clearly have something else to say, so just say it.”
Her tapping stopped. She paused for longer than she had wanted to, working up the courage to speak her mind.
“Sometimes you act like you’re the only one who has lost someone. Yes, you lost the woman you loved. But do you really think I haven’t lost just as much?”
He looked out the window again.
“I never said that.”
“No, but you act like it. You act like you had this fairy tale romance before she died. It’s constantly rubbed in my face how little I compare to her, how I can never be even close to what she was. You don’t need to say it, your attitude says enough.”
He sipped at his coffee.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
She snapped.
“Oh, fuck you. I am so sorry I’m not your perfect little princess. Little Miss Wonderful who never did anything wrong. Admit it, you blame me for her death. And I swear if you lie to me now, I’ll never speak to you again.”
He continued to look out the window. She hated that he couldn’t even look at her.
“I do. I blame you. If I hadn’t been with you that night, then…”
She felt hot tears gather in her eyes.
“You are such a piece of shit. You can’t take responsibility for your own actions, so you blame everyone else. You came to me that night, not the other way around. She may have done no wrong in your relationship, but you can’t act like it was the same from your end.”
He didn’t respond. He was still staring out the window, refusing to acknowledge her.
She slammed her fist on the table.
“If you hadn’t come into my room that night, she would have never seen us together. She could have been asleep in your arms, instead of driving in those conditions. You knew I liked you, and you acted upon that. I am to blame, I don’t for one second pretend that I’m not, but you are too.”
She let the tears fall freely now.
“She was my sister, goddamnit. If I have to carry the weight of guilt, then you do too.”
Finally, he turned to her. His own eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears.
“You’re right. You’re not her, and you’ll never be her. I don’t why I ever thought this could work. I want you to leave.”
She stood and turned in anger, knocking her coffee over as she did.
“I hate you. I hate you so damn much.”
He nodded and then turned away from her.
Neither of them looked back as she left.
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So, cutting to the chase - my partner and I have a close friend who we started sleeping with who is in a miserable marriage. Affair.
I had rationalized things in my head about the situation. Shortly after, I started reading Ethical Slut and really resonated with that being the way I wanted to be.
I discussed with my partner and we agreed to cut things off with her. My previous experience with her that made me not include her in the discussion is that she emotionally bypasses and heart to heart conversations with her are often like talking to a brick wall, I was also afraid she may try to talk me out of things (and while I would stand by my guns, I just didn’t want to be in that situation.)
I composed a message with the facts of the situation - that what we were doing wasn’t poly - it was an affair and it was unfair to all of us and inauthentic to ourselves. I explained to her I didn’t think things were going to end well and I wanted to be able to preserve our friendship and transition back into platonic only. (Paraphrasing- my message was a lot more gentle and tactful but intent did not negate impact.)
She was mad I didn’t include her in on the conversation and felt used and said if I was trying to preserve our friendship I didn’t go about it the right way. I validated her, I apologized for not doing it better, I accepted accountability and explained how I would do better in the future. After much of the conversation being centered around her experience, I explained to her she had not once validated where I was coming from and had been defensive and dismissive of my experience and why I chose to end things. A serious of unfortunate events in her life made her pause the conversation and not grant me that validation of my experience.
For two weeks, I tried to prioritize a conversation with me because I felt our friendship was shot and we needed to discuss that because she kept casually texting me like there wasn’t an elephant in the room. She was evasive. When she finally made time for the talk - she came over and let it all out and again, I validated, acknowledged my wrong, and apologized, she validated my feelings (sort of), and told me she was hurt I thought she might try to talk me out of things. I apologized for not trusting in the friendship we built and not giving her the opportunity and agency in the situation to speak for herself rather than me coming to her with a decision. I thought things were resolved. That was two weeks ago (this has literally been a month long ordeal) and since then she has understandably remained distant and has had other things going in.
Yesterday, my partner informed me that she is “pissed at me. She feels used and that my anger has been abusive.”
I was side blinded. I thought we resolved things and didn’t know she was still mad at me. I’m now angry. I have pulled a lot more emotional labor in this than she has. In my view - she has remained in a place of victimhood accepting little to no accountability of her own in the situation. I am agitated that I have sincerely apologized a multitude of times and she is seemingly refusing to acknowledge any of it. As for my anger, I have no clue what she is talking about but I think she is referencing a fight from beyond any of this (of which I did try to end the friendship due to incompatibility) but in that, we resolved that and imo she is just pulling at things to justify villainizing me and staying in a place of blame towards me. (I also want to point out she isn’t mad at my partner at all. Her anger is directed at me despite both of us making the decision together.)
I have tried to behave compassionately throughout this despite my errors. I am starting to feel a bit bullied by her. I get she can feel her feelings and take all the time and have them arise again and again.. and she Is valid but I can’t help but feel she is bummed and angry everything ended (fair) and rather than owning that and acknowledging the affair being wrong and a valid reason for me wanting to end that - she is becoming the victim of the story and perhaps she is but she is also a perpetrator too.. as far as I am concerned -all three of us involved are assholes (tho I can see how I am the supreme asshole.)
She had told me once her sister said she gaslights people and I’m starting to seriously doubt myself and wondering how horrible I really am and wanted to get feedback. Thanks all.

“I wish I could get past it, but I can’t.”
“If I’d known you were going to feel this way, I wouldn’t have let you go through with it.”
“YOU said we couldn’t handle it, YOU said it wasn’t fair on any of us.”
“I thought it was the right thing. If the same had happened and there hadn’t been complications, then…”
She hung up the phone. He was glad, he couldn’t stand to listen anymore. It wasn’t that he didn’t miss her, he couldn’t deal with the fact it was a pain that he caused that had ended it.
He poured a second coffee, lit a cigarette, and sat staring out of the window. He felt like crying. He felt this way most mornings but never did. It was as if the emotion clung inside but didn’t want to leave. If he could sob hard for an hour or so he’d feel better, but he couldn’t. So he sat and stared out of the window, across to the woods.
Clare was a hippy. Her family were too, and so were her friends. She only ever shopped at charity shops and not a single one of her immediate family ate meat or cheese. Clare was a hippy, but he still loved her. Or perhaps he loved her because of that. She loved nature and animals more than anyone he’d ever met. He couldn’t care half as much as that about his own well-being, let alone an animal. But when he saw her reaction, even if an old man merely walked past her with a dog, it made him wish he could care that much.
They used to walk to the woods, near to where he lived, most weekends. He didn’t have the money to take her anywhere special, but she didn’t seem to mind. He’d been unable to hold down a job for more than a few weeks. Not due to a lack of skill, but an inability to cope with the severe panic attacks that would torment him. He often wondered what Clare got from being with him. Maybe he was like a small, injured bird to her, one she believed she could nurse back to health. That was probably it. Where he felt love, Clare felt pity.
It was autumn when she left. The leaves were brown and orange. He knew it was close to winter as with every inhalation his nostrils chilled more than usual. With every exhalation a faint mist had started to appear. It had been three months since they last spoke. Three months since they had made the decision that pulled them apart. They had decided to meet to sort things out, but neither of them felt prepared to talk.
They headed through the woods and the old people walked past with their dogs. Clare would play with all the dogs that passed, while he made pleasantries with their owners. They would keep up the visage of a happy couple whenever people appeared. After the people left an uncomfortable silence would once again envelop the atmosphere.
Without warning, as if alerted to something, Clare turned off the main path and cut into the deeper woods. Few people went off the paths. There were signs that warned of animal traps.
He remembered the times they’d seen these signs before. Clare would say, “They should spend less time putting signs up and more time stopping the people doing it!” All he could reply with was something like, “I guess it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to be cautious as we walk.”
The woods were the home for rabbits, squirrels, and sometimes deer. He tried to walk with caution, avoiding overgrown areas, whilst also keeping up with Clare. He carved markings in the trees with a flick knife his grandfather had given before he died. That way they could find their way back. Clare never asked about his Grandfather; he’d been the only butcher in a small community and she hated that. But he was dead now and to speak ill of the dead was like screaming into the wind. He knew she wouldn’t like the idea of cutting into the trees, but he thought it was better than getting lost. He hoped that would comfort her.
They were very deep in the woods when they heard the noise. They headed towards the sound. What was hardly audible soon became clearer. It sounded like a young child screaming. He assumed that someone’s son or daughter had wandered off and stood on one of the animal traps. The closer they got the more awful the sound became. A strange smell began to permeate through the air, a slight taste of copper mixed with the breeze. Clare looked pale and worried, the pain in the cry they were nearing was making her nauseous. She placed her hands over her ears, trying to muffle the sound, but it was too loud. He took the scarf he was wearing from round his neck and wrapped it around her head, covering her ears. It didn’t do much, but she seemed to appreciate the gesture.
In a small clearing was a baby deer and he remembered Clare telling him they were called fawns. He wondered if this was the same one they had seen a few months ago the last time they had been together. They had been walking as they always did when Clare had grabbed his shoulder to freeze him in his tracks. She whispered in his ear. A small creature stood unaware of their presence. They watched it for a few minutes before it bounded off into the trees. In those few moments he had almost understood why Clare was so captivated by nature. There was a purity to the entire thing, a moment untouched by the pains of being human.
Clare examined the creature in front of them to see what the problem was, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. One of its hind legs was snared in what looked like a bear trap. There were no bears in these woods, but someone had placed it to catch something. The deer had struggled so hard to get free that most of the flesh had torn away and the bone was showing.
Clare backed away with tears in her eyes.
“Mike, what are we going to do?”
The deer was writhing in pain. Its body would flail wildly, and it would scream towards them, begging for help. He looked into its eyes, trying to escape from their sockets the way eyes do when an animal knows it’s near death. He knew the poor thing was doomed. He knew there was no other option. He pulled out his flick knife.
“Clare, please, don’t look. I’m so sorry.”
Clare didn’t turn away. She saw and heard the first scream. He stabbed the knife between the rib cage, trying to pierce the heart and end its suffering. He placed his free hand on the top of the neck, below the jaw, and the deer began to calm a little and stopped thrashing.
He could hear Clare crying. He could feel the deer’s heavy, laboured, breathing, and he could smell the blood. But there wasn’t anything he could do. Even if the deer survived, its life would be so complicated it didn’t seem fair to prolong its pain. He kept stabbing at the deer, bruising his hand. The cheap metal of the blade bending as they both smashed against the tough bone of the rib cage. The deer began to fall silent until its cries and movements came to a complete stop. He wiped the blade on the grass and the blood left a stain.
They didn’t say a single word on the walk back. They followed the markings on the trees, Clare not once mentioning the carvings. They sat in silence at the bus stop, the only words spoken were by Clare as she boarded the bus.
“Goodbye, Mike.”
She phoned the next morning,
“Mike, I know what you did was the right thing. But every time I close my eyes, I see you stabbing that fawn. I’m sorry, Mike, but I can’t see you anymore.”
“Is this really about the deer, Clare?”
“I wish I could get past it, but I can’t.”
“If I’d known you were going to feel this way, I wouldn’t have let you go through with it.”
“YOU said we couldn’t handle it, YOU said it wasn’t fair on any of us.”
“I thought it was the right thing. If the same had happened and there hadn’t been complications, then…”
Then she hung up. There would be no arguments, only the aftermath of her decision. The more he thought about it the more he realised that there was nothing that could change the way she felt. It seemed a waste to throw what they had away over one little deer, but he knew it was more than just that.
He finished the coffee and got dressed. He headed into the woods near where he lived. He walked off the path looking for markings in the trees and hoped they could both move on now.
It was Saturday.
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The lady down the hall suggested I confront him, but what does she know? She may have been born during the war but that doesn’t give her any special powers of deduction. She doesn’t know him like I do, she doesn’t have to endure his nightly torture. I’ve banged on the paper-thin wall that separates our homes many times. I’ve screamed at the top of my lungs for silence. Still the incessant cacophony of slammed doors and of television channels turned too loud continued to haunt me. Yet these other forms of audio pandemonium paled in comparison to his infernal whistling. An off-key melody that feels familiar yet is impossible to place. When he isn’t screaming at the television set with wrong answers to quiz shows, his whistling is a constant. A piercing trill that travels through my ears and stabs like a dagger into my brain. The lady down the hall says he’s hard of hearing, that may be so, but I know he hears me. I know he knows his actions are driving me to the brink of insanity. I sense his malicious intent. I sense him plotting my demise.
The thought has crossed my mind, before you ask. Yet the fact that it has must mean that I’m not. I once heard that if you think you’re mad, you cannot be. That the insane have lost the faculty to notice their insanity. What the rational mind believes to be insanity, the insane know to be reality. It felt like the slow descent into madness, I was aware of that feeling. So at least I wasn’t completely gone yet. It felt close though, and I wasn’t sure how to go back to normality.
It had been another tough night. The din from my neighbour’s television thundered through my flat. I laid in bed with my eyes closed tight and wax plugs inserted into my ear canals. These did a little, yet not enough. The boom of each piece of dialogue shook the four walls of my bedroom. The piercing melody of his whistle cutting through the air and into my mind each time he walked to the bathroom. I’d been to the doctors that day, though I’m not sure why. I knew what the outcome would be.
“I’m going to prescribe you some tablets, Mr. Mellin.”
I took the prescription paper and threw it into the bin on my way out. I wanted to vent to someone who had to professionally withhold any judgement. I explained every detail, every feeling and thought that had occurred due to this onslaught of noise and sleep deprivation. Yet I hadn’t wanted a medical solution. Taking a pill was no solution at all. I wanted the noise to end, not to have my sense dulled into acceptance.
The noise would finally stop in the early hours of the morning, the amber glow of the dawn creeping through the curtains. I would sleep for an hour, two at most, before I had to get up for work. My productivity had slipped. Staff meetings where I was once sharp as a tack were now nothing more than an endurance test. Could I remain awake for the next thirty minutes? I’m sure the meetings were important, yet it was such a struggle to stay awake the words refused to settle in my brain. White noise. Everything had become white noise.
One night as the din finally subsided, I heard a voice.
“Hello, Simon.”
The voice sounded as if it was coming from inside of me. I asked who it was, though I believed the voice to be a figment of my imagination. An audio mirage brought on by weeks of sleepless nights.
“I’ve been with you since the beginning, Simon.”
The voice sounded like mine, yet much more ominous. It tried to sound soothing, but the malice oozed through. I asked again who it was.
“I can show you, Simon. Stand up and I will show you who I am.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Turn off all the lights.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Turn on the bedside lamp and stand in front of it.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Now turn around.”
I turned and saw my room. Nothing different, nothing out of place. No extra body within the space, my shadow stood against the wall.
Then my shadow waved.
I checked my own hand, expecting to see it raised and waving. Yet it remained motionless at my side.
“Simon, we need to talk. I’ve never had to appear this way to you before, but now I need to.”
I shook my head and wiped my eyes, trying to dispel the visage before me. Still my shadow remained, now pacing along the wall, and waiting for me to accept this reality. I still clung to the fact that I felt as if I was going mad. I felt as if I was losing my sanity. If I felt that, then I must have still had at least one hand on the steering wheel of sanity.
“We need to end this problem. You’re not well, Simon. If you’re not well, then I’m at risk too. This situation with your neighbour must end now. We need to act. You need to act. He won’t listen to reason, so now is the time for something more… forceful.”
A rage exploded within me. I despised the man who lived next door, yet to take the step towards violence was not something I wanted to do.
“It’s a matter of survival, Simon. If you don’t end him, he will end you. This has been his game all along. A slow demise that no one could blame him for. He wants you to fall into madness, to get to the point where you can no longer go on. The person next door is not a man, but a parasite. He has chosen this building as his host, and he plans to spread throughout. Once he has you out of the way, he’ll knock down the paper-thin wall and make your flat his own. He’ll continue to do this until he owns the entire building. This isn’t about you, Simon. It’s about everyone in this building. It’s about the lady down the hall. You need to be the hero. You need to end this virus.”
I’d heard enough. I went into the kitchen, yet my shadow didn’t follow. He remained projected against the paper-thin wall of my bedroom. I took the largest knife from the drawer and returned, my shadow waiting for me. Without a word I drove the knife into my shadow, into the paper-thin wall. My shadow split in two and vanished, leaving behind a large tear in the wall where the knife had struck. I removed the knife and peered through the hole. I could see into my neighbour’s flat, yet he was nowhere I could see. His flat was almost empty. The only visible items the television that had caused me so much pain, and a large fleshy pod in the middle of the room. I stared at the pink cocoon, what looked like veins seemed to run across it like a road map. It pulsated, as if it were breathing. No, not like breath. It was more like the throbbing of a heart. I was so disturbed by this thing before me, yet I couldn’t look away. A small tear opened in the flesh cocoon and that’s when I felt a terror like nothing before. That familiar whistle crept out from inside the cocoon. A single red eye appeared in the opening and stared at me.
I covered the tear in my wall with tape. It wasn’t the best solution, yet it was the quickest I had to hand. The following night there was silence. No noise from the other side of the paper-thin wall, no slamming of doors or blaring of voices from the television. No off-key whistle. I should have been happy, yet the silence disturbed be more. Sleep soon took me, the adrenaline of anxiety only able to stay at its zenith for so long. I woke in the darkness, disturbed by the sound of scratching against the paper-thin wall. As the tape covering the tear broke, a slither of light broke into my room. I saw a long finger searching around the wound in my wall.
Then I heard it. The death rattle whistle. That god-awful shrill song once again stinging my ears. The finger returned to my neighbour’s side of the wall, but the whistling remained. The thin slit of light disappeared, and my room was once again blanketed in darkness. I stared at the spot where I thought the tear in the wall was. A sense of dread brewed inside of me.
The red eye appeared in the opening and stared at me once again.
I flung my body over and covered my head with the quilt. I prayed for sleep, for this dread to end, yet when morning arrived, I was still filled with fear. I checked the hole in the wall, and it was once again sealed with tape.
The shadow came again the following night. The usual noises had all ended, except for the whistle. This was now constant, an eternal loop that stung my mind with each rotation.
“You see now, Simon. You see why you must end this.”
I nodded.
“Take the knife you tried to stab me with. Take it and kill this parasite.”
There was still a lingering worry in my mind that this was all projections of my decaying sanity. Yet either way, I felt I had to act. Either way, this was the only option. If I was insane, then this would be the alarm bell that would let the world know. They would throw me into a room where I couldn’t hurt anyone. If I was insane, that would be for the best. If I wasn’t, and this was real, then the same outcome could occur. If they couldn’t explain the monster next door, they might convince the world I was mad. That way there would be no questions. Yet even if locked away, I would have done something good with my life. The old lady down the hall was irritating but she didn’t deserve to the horror of this parasite.
I took the knife and plunged it once again into the wall, creating another small tear next to the first. I continued this until the paper-thin wall was nothing but slits. If I’d have known how flimsy these walls were, I would have complained. But my mind had more pressing issues to focus on. I pressed my back against the door of my bedroom, facing the wall head on. I charged towards it. Though I felt a harsh pain as my shoulder connected, the wall fell through on the first attempt.
The moonlight shone through the windows. My shadow to appeared against the walls of the monster’s flat.
“Don’t doubt yourself now, Simon. This needs to end.”
The flesh cocoon was still in the middle of the room, still pulsating. The whistling grew louder the closer I moved towards the pod. When I was inches away the noise was so painful it became difficult to continue. I covered my ears and took the last steps towards it.
Then it stopped.
No more whistling.
The only noise a deep bass hum. Was this noise from the flesh cocoon? Was it the aftermath of the damage caused by the whistle to my hearing? I wasn’t sure but I let that mystery fall to the wayside and focussed on what was before me. I plunged the knife into the flesh cocoon and the pod let out an ungodly cry. The pod writhed in pain. It never moved from its spot, yet its upper half swung violently around in anguish.
I stabbed it again.
And again.
I continued to stab until the flesh began to fall away. It fell to the floor and dissolved. It bubbled like acid yet left no mark on the wooden floorboards. When all the flesh had fallen, I realised what I had done. Sat in a chair facing the television was my neighbour. Not a monstrous parasite, but a man. Now the flesh cocoon had gone, only the man remained. The knife was still inside of him. I began to panic. I turned to my shadow projected on the wall and asked for clarification. Yet my shadow did not respond. I pulled the knife from my neighbour and threw it to the floor. Shaking him with both hands I screamed for him to wake. There was no sign of life. I realised then that I was mad. That the last vestiges of my sanity had crumbled away, and I was left only with the realisation of my madness. I picked the knife from the floor and wiped the blood onto my shirt. There was no point in trying to hide what I’d done. I didn’t want that. I deserved to be locked away forever. That was the only way. I began to walk back towards my own flat, through the broken wall, and to the comfort of my bed. Though I would be drowning in my madness, perhaps I could now find some quiet. Perhaps now I could find some peace. Perhaps now I could sleep.
Then I heard him whistle.
The same off-key melody started up again as I walked away. I tightened my grip around the knife and turned to face my neighbour. He was stood now, though his body still appeared limp. He looked more like a puppet held up by strings than a man. A single eye was open, the burning red of its iris staring at me.
Was I mad?
I’d come this far already. If I was already past the point of no return, then what harm could a few more steps have?
I raised the knife and ran towards the creature.
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The damages that brought my car into the collision shop were very minor. Replacement of bumper, hood, and radiator support (radiator was fine and fan was spinning.) The car was perfectly mechanically sound, and had just been at a mechanic shop around a month prior for an oil change and "complimentary inspection" which returned nothing significant except that my 2-year-old battery would need replacement soon.
When I arrived at the collision shop, they had me sign off on a work authorization form. Related points of interest in this document:

• Authorize them to perform repair work described in the repair estimate form.
• Not responsible for loss or damage beyond control of the shop.
• Unless otherwise specified by the customer, the vehicle will be driven to a car wash to be detailed before delivery. (using this one only to point out my car can't be driven anymore, and I certainly didn't tell them not to detail it)
• Must authorize a Pre/Post Scan. "Refusal of pre/post scan services releases [company name] from any and all legal responsibilities from any safety hazards or consequences directly involved with not being able to properly diagnose any remaining repairs needed."
• There are storage fees of $75 per day applied 72 hours after notification that the vehicle repairs is complete and ready for pickup.

I drove my car after my accident. They admitted to driving my car around their shop "just fine." There was a parts delay, so they had the car moving around their lot for over a month before repairs began. The pre-scan returned codes for weight control (which is passenger airbag) and the traction control system. They also caught wind from a document in my glovebox that I had "done some transmission work" in October of 21. (It was a total transmission replacement)
On Tuesday (almost 2 weeks ago) I received a call that there was only a minor part still back ordered, but due to arrive soon enough that they were going to begin work and they expected the car to be complete on Thursday.
On Thursday, I received a call that the body work was complete, but now the car was stuck in park and throwing a new error code. They gave me the code, and told me that the code was "turbo clutch. Powertrain" They were trying to say it was a transmission problem and use the fact that I had transmission work in the past to exclude any fault of their own in this matter, as well as justification to refuse to touch it. The ACTUAL code was PO237, which is in no way related to transmission. It is an error that there is too little airflow going through the engine's turbo sensor, and nothing to do with the transmission system at all. According to the dealership when I called in inquiring, the reason it won't come out of park is a safety mechanism, there is wiring for the sensor behind the bumper (which was replaced) and part of the airflow pieces attach to the radiator support (which was also replaced).
When I called explaining it, they agreed to have a mobile mechanic look at the car "because their mechanic refused because they didn't want me to come back and say that he caused the problem by digging around" They told me the name of the mobile mechanic, and every single review they have on Google for the past 4 years is a 1-star review.
Their mobile mechanic looked at it on Monday and Tuesday. They told me on Monday that they had cleared the codes, and there were no codes returning now, but the car was still stuck in park. They said the mobile mechanic thinks its the body control system but on Monday I was told that was not his final answer because he really isn't sure. (A body control system is basically the central unit controlling the entire electrical system for the car) They also told me that my battery had died (which was not unexpected as it was 2 years old) and that they dropped another battery in the car. The battery dying is their reasoning for calling it a failure of the body control system, as a symptom is draining batteries. That was not a symptom I was encountering before... I had never once jumpstarted that 2 year old battery.
I didn't hear a thing back on Tuesday. I called twice on Wednesday and they wouldn't take my calls, but I left messages stating that I did not authorize their mobile mechanic to do any repairs on my electrical system.
They didn't take or return my calls on Thursday, either.
Finally, when I called Friday they told me that they want me to pick my car up. It is still not coming out of park. Their assessment of this is the "body control system failure" and that it is not something caused by either the accident or the repairs, and "its just something that commonly happens in my make and model of car." (It is not even in the top 10 mechanical problems encountered by my make and model of car, and there are ZERO instances of anyone discussing it in the subreddit for my model)
They specifically told me that my car is still not mechanically sound enough to drive. Given that it is stuck in park, I would need a flatbed tow to retrieve it.
They want me to come retrieve it on Monday, and they want me to call and give them a heads up "so their manager can be prepared."
I am concerned that if I pick the car up from them, I am effectively signing off as accepting the current state of the car as "complete."
What advice would you give me on next steps? Do I accept my car and tow it to the dealership for diagnosis? Will I be able to hold them financially liable for these repairs? (I should note that my insurer paid for the collision repairs, but my insurer hasn't exactly been the most reputable through this either... Which is a whole side story that can be summarized in that they forced me to use their choice of shops, and I've never once been able to reach the adjuster involved.)
I am in Texas.

I use Instagram as an example because that's what I think of off the top of my head, but it's used a lot of other places. I want to do very simple looking carousels with a little arrow indicator on the images to click left or right. Is there a way to do it with just HTML/CSS?