Whats up guys,
My name's Ryan. I've been an athlete my whole life and hardly ever have even gotten a cold or the flu. I eat super clean, hydrate adequately, sleep 7-8 hours a night, dont smoke or drink, etc.
I'm by no means a conspiracy theorist or an anti-vaxxer. I just want to share my experience with getting the vaccine and then being subsequently infected with the covid virus and the life altering impacts of it. Take what you want from it.
It was right after my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine that my whole life flipped upside down. The symptoms were almost sudden, I was weak, tired, my feet turned hot and red, my head was pounding 24/7, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest and it was like I suddenly contracted social anxiety. Noises all seemed amplified 10x and I just wasn't feeling normal anymore. I ended up having to quit my job because I couldn't be on my feet for long periods of time anymore.
For context, I have always been a social butterfly. I get energy from organizing community and making new friends. I'm the first person to welcome a new person into a group or walk into a crowded room and befriend everyone. I was in college in south florida at the time and it was like my whole life flatlined and there were no resources to support me understand what was happening to my body. I ended up quitting my job, I dropped out of school and all the stress made my girlfriend and I break up.
I didn't know what to do anymore and was just ready to do anything to feel better again. I thought that perhaps getting out in nature for a while and into a cooler climate could help my symptoms. So I took a random job out west as an adventure coordinator but first I stopped in Breckenridge CO where I helped my buddy work on his new boutique hotel in exchange for a place to stay.
It was amazing how being in the high elevation and the cold weather alleviated my symptoms. I was finally able to work again. After being there for two months, I transitioned to a new job in SF where I was hoping to raise some money to purchase the company that way I could hire a manager to do a lot of the work and I could focus on organizing.
A month into working there after leading programs back to back, I noticed my symptoms came back with a vengance. Anytime I pushed my body and mind hard, these symptoms pushed back harder. I was also getting back in shape at the time because I was feeling good again and like i said guys, Ive always been an athlete, so when I get in the gym, I put in the work. Its so damn frustrating to not be able to move the way I know I can without the most insane post exertional fatigue.
The SF business deal fell through for various reasons and I was starting to struggle again with these unexplainable symptoms. I planned on returning to the east coast to regroup but was invited to LA to attend an Oscars party for Angel Bassett. I get there, have the time of my life and I catch Covid for the first time (that im aware of) and it just crushes me.
The acute illness was rough but it was the immediate after effects that were just baffling. My vision was becoming quite blurry and I couldnt stand up for longer than a minute without getting an insane head rush and my heart beating out my chest. I thought that maybe I was developing POTs. Shortly after I tested negative for Covid I was at a cafe working and I suddenly almost past out. I went to an urgent care and they put me on a steroid and gave me beta blockers (I didnt take them).
A few days into the steroid course and I felt like myself again but right as soon as I got off of them, I tanked. I could hardly walk anymore without feeling like I was going to lose consciousness. I had to catch a flight directly to Atlanta to be taken care of by my aunt whose a nurse.
One year later and here I am sitting in a cafe still struggling to get my life back. I writing to you all because I am tired of feeling like I'm screaming underwater. I'm 29, highly intelligent, highly skilled, have an amazing network, I love working, I love life and at this point I'm just feeling like a failure to launch. I was independent since 16 and have shamefully become financially dependent on my family again. I work for my money but I'm constantly reminded of how I am not living up to my full potential. The cognitive disonance is just destroying my mental health. I am dreaming of ripping up my birth certificate, my social security card and going to die alone in the remote wilderness and leave the world with a philosophical dissertation on how the modern world is failing its young people.
I desperately want to be reliably high functioning again and what I've always done to improve that is exercise but now that feels like a double edged sword these days. I have periods of amazing productivity followed by sudden crashes and the most insane symptoms which just make no sense to me. I need coffee just to get going but at the same time, I feel like it's overstimulating my nervous system.
I'm getting ready to do a cross country road trip from Atlanta to Banff and after I am considering trying to find some sort of peaceful job out in nature for the next year. I was recently offered 30% in my families real estate investing company and my body just cant handle anything high stress right now.
I've gotten my full blood panel done end of last year and I feel like I should go back and get new labs. Everything came back normal but my cholesterol was THROUGH the roof.
Total 292 HDL 50.1 LDL 230 Triglyceride 59.2
I had my heart monitored with a Zio patch and the cardiologist says my hearts normal - even though I've regularly experience heart palpitations/chest pain though not as frequently anymore.
One important fact I didnt mention is that I got Dengue fever in January 2020. I wonder if that has played a role in how my body reacted to covid and the vaccine?
What's your story? What have you done to make a comeback?
Thanks for reading!

Most of you have probably seen the truly disastrous New York Times/Sienna swing state polls that came out this morning, that paint a dire picture for the ostriches in the Biden campaign. I understand dismissing polls from outlets like Rasmussen, because their entire polling operation is just a guy named Gary sitting behind a folding table in the lobby of the Rec Center at The Villages. But are we going to dismiss The New York Times? Are they part of the “vast right wing conspiracy” now too? What about NBC, Washington Post, NPR, CBS et al? And virtually all of the polls are wrong? Biden’s approval numbers? The “wrong track” numbers? Biden’s confidence numbers? The economic poll numbers? Everything is wrong? Really? Now who’s on “Earth II?”
And then there are the numbers themselves. A traditional (+/- 3%) MOE means a 6-point swing. NYT has Trump at +13 in Nevada. Assuming that poll is off by a whopping 50%, he’s still beating the swing. That’s disastrous. 10 points in Georgia? Horrible. 7 points in both Michigan and Arizona? All outside the swing. Polling among traditionally Democrat voting groups are even less encouraging. Recent polling indicates 30% of Black men are considering voting for Trump. Suppose that survey is off by 50%, it still means 15% - which is disastrous for Biden. Don’t even get me started on the youth vote. Many people forget that not too long ago, the big prizes of Ohio (18 electoral votes) and Florida (29 electoral votes) were up for grabs. With those two states now firmly in the Red column, the Democrats have a very narrow gauntlet to run.
For some reason, whether it’s rose-colored optimism or just plain denial, we’re all supposed to act as if everything is fine. From Simon Rosenberg to Geoff Garin to Molly Jong Fast (who I’m now calling Pauline Kael, Jr) we’re told not to worry. But you know things are bad when you watch turd-polishing Democrat operatives on cable news say things like:

“Well, Anderson, when you look at exurban, lactose-intolerant, Latvian-American independents with three fingers, aged 37-39, Biden is +2 compared to 2020…….”

My spleen is going to implode if I hear one more Democrat pundit say, “Don’t worry, polls this far out fluctuate wildly.” Yes, in a typical year they do. But this is no typical year. For the first time since 1892, two former presidents are running against each other, and that changes everything. Why pundits and campaign managers can’t seem to understand this is simply beyond me. Unless your comparisons are to the 1892 race, I don’t want to hear them. In a typical election year, polls move drastically in the last 6 months because the electorate is getting to know the challenger for the first time. That’s simply not the case this year.
Both these men are completely known quantities. There’s nothing left to discover. Both have run against each other before. Both have done the job of President before - very recently. Opinions are largely set. That’s why we’ve seen almost no movement in polls from 12 months out to 6 months out. Everything is baked. Trump killed one million Americans by ignoring COVID, staged a literal bloody coup attempt, was convicted of rape, defamation and a lifetime of financial fraud totaling almost half a billion dollars, and the needle didn’t move. If you think getting convicted of “falsifying business records” is going to move that needle, then I’ve got some oceanfront condos in Nebraska to sell you. He’s not going to jail. Short of him killing Kristi Noem’s other dog live on the Times Square Jumbo-Tron, Trump’s numbers are fixed. Biden fares no better. Is he going to get younger over the next 6 months? Are we going to have sudden deflation that wipes out 3 years of price increases? Is the Fed going to cut rates by 5 points? Are the Israelis and Palestinians going to start holding hands and singing Kumbaya? In 6 months? There are no October Surprises coming, folks - so don’t count on one.
That’s why we need to take these polls extremely seriously - NOW. No more dismissing them. No more waiting around hoping they’ll change. No more, “Just wait until “______” months out. No more whistling past the graveyard. Our task is different this cycle. It’s not about persuading open minds, it’s about changing voters’ closed minds, which is a far more difficult and lengthy task. Here are a few ideas for starting that process now:

1. LEAN HARD ON THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM: Across the political spectrum most Americans share one core value: We like to be left alone. We don’t like busybodies (especially the government) telling us what we can and can’t do. We like our freedom. The GOP has already become the party of extremist, authoritarian busybodies, and their future plans are truly dystopian. We need to hang the entire party’s authoritarian impulses around Trump’s neck like an albatross. Book bans, IVF bans, abortion bans, protest bands, porn bans, voter suppression - these are not popular with the vast majority of Americans. We need to start portraying the GOP as the Handmaid’s Tale/SNL Church Lady/Nurse Ratchet figures that they are. (And it’s not hyperbole when it’s already happening in Red states coast to coast. We have plenty of ammo). The hallmark message of this campaign needs to be “Creepy Republicans (mostly men) are obsessed with your bedroom and your bathroom.” Do you want Ted Cruz in your OB/GYN’s exam room with you and your doctor? Because that’s where we’re headed if you elect Trump/Republicans. Educate the hell out of Americans on Project 2025 and its Evangelical-based Puritanism. That’s a long, tough task that needs to begin NOW, not in October.
2. EDUCATE PEOPLE ON BIDEN’S ACHIEVEMENTS: This shouldn’t have to be our job, but sadly Biden has been sitting in an ivory tower for 3+ years, refusing to use the world’s biggest bully pulpit to tout his own achievements. Add in a mainstream media that completely ignores him and it’s even worse. It might be too late. Read this truly stunning article from The Hill: 34% of Americans know NOTHING about the American Rescue Plan. 44% know NOTHING about the CHIPS Act. 24% know NOTHING about the Inflation Reduction Act. The infrastructure law fares no better, at 30% ignorance. 25% of the country thinks Biden is responsible for ending Roe V. Wade! Maybe educating them will pull a few percentage points our way, but it’s an uphill climb at this late date.
3. PROMOTE THE HELL OUT OF RFK, JR: I’ve been beating this drum for months now, and thankfully some Democrat operatives are starting to come around. RFK, Jr is one of the greatest gifts the Democrats have ever received, and they need to starting acting like it. Unlike Biden and Trump, he is the one candidate in this race that Americans are getting to know for the first time. And once they do, he pulls almost exclusively Trump voters. Kennedy has virtually no appeal to Democrats, once they get to know him and his policies. So educate them! Promote him! He is doing almost exclusively MAGA press, picking up almost exclusively MAGA endorsements, and taking almost exclusively MAGA positions. If you don’t believe me, please sign up for his emails. They are virtually indistinguishable from Trump’s messaging. Go to one of his events - you’ll find almost entirely former Trump supporters. As people have gotten to know RFK, Jr. his polling as gone from pulling mostly Biden supporters, to mostly even, to pulling mostly Trump supporters. His brand of wacky, anti-vax conspiracy theorism is perfectly poised to keep 3rd-party-curious voters from returning to Trump. Trump and his MAGA surrogates have been stepping up their attacks on RFK Jr lately, because even they know it in their bones. The Democrats need to promote RFK, by using social media to micro-target the anti-vax, conspiracy theorist, tinfoil-hat crowd that would traditionally go back to Trump. It’s a golden opportunity, and they’re blowing it.
4. STOP ACTNG LIKE IT’S 1982: Biden and his surrogates seem stuck in a time warp. They’re operating a campaign from a bygone era: Wait until the last few months, run some local TV ads with American flags and amber waves of grain, send out some junk mailers, pick up a union boss endorsement or two, get the local paper (if it even exists anymore) to endorse you, smile a lot, and kiss some babies. Meanwhile the GOP knows it’s in a fight for a knife in the mud. Trump is doing rallies - where are Biden’s? Trump and his minions are savaging Biden on a minute-by-minute basis - where are Biden and his surrogates? Don’t wait to go for the jugular - do it now. And keep that shiv in Trump’s neck for the next 6 months. Don’t worry about looking “Presidential” - worry about looking strong. Get creative and provocative with your dystopian ads. Scare people. Don’t worry about naysayers complaining that you’re exaggerating, because you’re not. Leverage social media - hard. Live in 2024. Embrace it. In other words - stop bringing a casserole to a knife fight.

None of these ideas may ultimately work, but we need to start the fight, and start it now.

Thanks to my friend sashalemon96 for writing a significant amount of this report with me!

SECTION 1: CUT SKETCHES

All quoted dialogue is approximate, I do not have an eidetic memory. Also, I interchangeably use cast and character names because not every character is named, and I try to defer to in-sketch pronouns.
MOM NEWS
INT. A newsroom set. Squirm and Rudolph plays reporters on a local news station called “Mom News,” featuring them and their correspondents. All characters are referred to as “your mom” or “your father” in their introductions and provide very mother-like commentary. News stories include: “Something bad has happened to someone you barely know,” and “your mom accidentally left a reply to a post on Facebook about a funeral with a gif of “Uncle Fester spinning a cane.”
They then turn to the weather report by Fineman, who does a Kristen Wiig voice to say the weather is going to be “gorgeous” and “stunning.” Day, as “your dad,” gives a breaking special report that your “neighbor down the street got one of those Teslas,” then pauses then adds “Yeah, that’s it.” P. Johnson and Troast then report on entertainment news. They show a photo of Zendaya at the Met Gala, and then Troast says that Zendaya is “too skinny” and Johnson says “she needs to eat a cheeseburger.” Squirm then sidebars to Maya to say, “You know Zendaya is dating Tim Holland?” Another story features Kearney warning that if you receive a “spam likely” call, you should make sure to pick it up because there’s probably an issue with your bank and you should buy as many Target gift cards as they ask for. Gardner reports on “something you’ve known about for years,” as she’s recently discovered boba before having issues with her technology and playing the Spanish language soccer channel.
Finally, Nwodim and Thompson play a couple, “your mom and your dad.” In a snappy, well-rehearsed, back-and-forth, Thompson reveals that he had tried to fix the broken water heater and failed, and now Nwodim can hold this over his head forever. Nwodim: “And this means you’ll be wearing what at our next dinner?” Thompson: “That ugly ass shirt.” Nwodim: “Sorry, what was that?” Thompson, cowed: “...The nice shirt you bought me, I mean.” which he initially refers to as an “ugly ass shirt.” The anchors end the segment with the news after the break: “a worrying shift in my political opinions” and an “out-of-pocket comment about your dad’s penis.”
BARRY THE MIDWIFE [recurring]
This is a sequel to the original BARRY THE MIDWIFE sketch from the Quinta Brunson/Jonas Brothers episode in Season 48.
Structured in a series of flash-forwards and flashbacks Barry, the midwife, and a doula played by Rudolph, bickering with each other before reconciling. The doula was either “Carla” or “Carly,” I don’t quite remember.
INT. Birth #1 [present]: Troast is delivering, and Hernandez is the father. JAJ is the doctor, but Rudolph is the doula, and Yang is Barry the Midwife. The doula and midwife speak with the same odd pronunciations of words, like “curious” as “curr-ous” and “Paris” as “per-ous.” They also sport the same awkward bob. They have competing catchphrases; Barry keeps saying “Clear a path. Clear a path.” whereas the doula keeps saying “Make a hole. Make a hole.” The doula says, “It’s nice to meet you,” to Barry, which offends him. “Um, actually, we’ve met. Remember? We met in a hot tub after the season finale of Survivor in 2000 when we were both upset that Richard Hatch won.” The doula: “Oh, I guess I don’t remember that.” Barry: “Well, while you were trying to remember, I was delivering this baby.” He casually holds up a baby doll.
INT. Birth #2 [4 years later]: This time, the expecting parents are P. Johnson and Kearney. The doula enters and says “Nice to see you again,” but Barry pretends not to remember her. The doula: “What? Barry, we first met in a hot tub after the season finale of Survivor in 2000 when we were both upset that Richard Hatch won. And then we met again four years earlier.” Barry says the doula has an “elephant memory” for remembering something from 28 years ago, followed by “Girl! respect yourself.” Barry also gets mad when the doula says he’s clearly been copying her hair (at this point they both have long, flowing, silky black tresses). Barry ends with “While you were busy accusing me, I just delivered these triplets. Lesbos always have extros.” He holds up three baby dolls in one arm.
EXT. Hot tub [24 years ago]: Barry and the doula bond over their dislike of the season finale of Survivor while in the hot tub. Barry also adds “I love your hair. I might copy it one day.” (The doula has the exact same awkward bob as in the first scene.) The two suddenly make a pact to marry each other if they are both still single by the 50th anniversary of that night’s episode of Survivor.
INT. Birth #3 [26 years later]: Since Rudolph and Yang were just submerged in a real hot tub in the other set, they’re asked by the new couple (I don’t remember who these are, maybe Garnder and Day?) why they’re soaking wet. Yang’s excuse: “I just did a water birth. Girl, respect yourself.” The doula’s excuse: “It was raining outside and I fell on my head. Girl, respect yourself.” At this point, their long, flowing tresses are now grey with age. Barry then turns and says to the doula, “It’s nice to meet you,” and she finally confronts him: “Aren’t you tired of being petty?”. Barry gives in and says, “It’s nice to see you,” and reminds her of their 50-year pact which is approaching the next week.
EXT. HOT TUB [26 years and 1 week later] The two marry in the hot tub (in makeshift wedding regalia) and Squirm gets in the hot tub to throw two babies at them.
\** Editorial note from sashalemon96: “I think the reason this one didn’t land as well as the one for Brunson is because (at least during dress) they throw the baby into the fire and it starts smoking screen creating laughter as they run to the other set. They also took a very long time to get back and from the hot tub set to the hospital set.”****
JAMES AUSTIN JOHNSON AS BRIAN COX [update character]
Jost tees this up by explaining that lately, Brian Cox has been in the news for his many controversial opinions, such as “Jeremy Strong being annoying” or “the Bible being the worst book ever written.” Brian Cox is fed up with the Kendrick LamaDrake beef. He refers to them as a pair of “second-rate poets” and acts mock scared that “K. Dot” will throw his Pulitzer at him. Che follows up with “What about Drake?” and Cox replied, “What is Drake going to do? Have his fans throw their fidget spinners at me?” Cox also expresses mock sympathy that they’re hurting each others’ feelings, before suggesting the two men “go to Iraq.” Che warns that Cox shouldn’t be talking shit about the two rappers, but Cox retorts “What are they going to do—blow my top off like the Boeing whistleblowers?” and then mocks Kendrick’s height. At one point Cox ends a sentence with “and that’s on God… who doesn’t exist, by the way.” Cox then throws some shade at Che for his inability to find a wife even though Jost married an Avenger, adding “can you not find a woman who wants your Ant-Man sized penis?”

SECTION 2: ORIGINAL DRESS RUNDOWN

1. COLD OPEN
2. MONOLOGUE
3. HOT ONES [recurring]
4. PDD: EXPLORE PAGE [pretape]
5. MOM NEWS ✂️
6. BARRY THE MIDWIFE [recurring] ✂️
7. CAN YOU PICK ME UP [pretape]
8. T.T. AND MARIO [recurring] ✂️
9. WEEKEND UPDATE: SQUIRM , GARDNER , JAJ ✂️
10. TIP TOP COFFEE
11. MOM JEANS [archival] [pretape]
12. TEACHER PSA
13. BRITISH CAVEMEN
14. NURSE APPRECIATION
15. LANDSCAPERS

SECTION 3: CHANGES FROM DRESS TO AIR

I’m gonna be so real with you guys, these days I’m so tired I just go home after dress rehearsal and sleep through the live show, so these changes are submitted by another friend.

1. In dress, Colin was specified to be wearing a “Stormy Daniels wig” during the monologue, in hopes that he could be in the political sketch about the Trump trials.
2. The original first excuse Rudolph comes up with in CAN YOU PICK ME UP was that the dead grandma didn’t want her funeral to interfere with work.
3. The joke about “Republicans in bed with Trump” was added afte dress.
4. TEACHER PSA didn’t originally end with Nwodim telling the girl to sit down. I don’t remember the original ending, but I remember it was kind of weak.

SECTION 4: SUNDRY NOTES

1. Ezra Koenig said “Hi, Maya!” right before they started performing.
2. There were a bunch of off-screen mistakes during the dress version of NURSE AD. Poor Fineman had the wrong cue cards when it came to one of her lines, and she looked genuinely terrified when trying to figure out what she was supposed to say. Then the camera cut to her when it was supposed to be on Rudolph and P. Johnson. Finally, she randomly had a sneeze attack during JAJ’s lines. I’ve never thought about what happens when you sneeze on SNL before, lol.
3. Interestingly enough, there were two cameras for LANDSCAPERS but only one set of cue cards, so Wally had to dash back and forth with the same set of cue cards every time we changed scenes. I’ve also never seen that happen before. Poor Wally!

https://youtu.be/sgpd45pOMpY?si=LG6V8N3h-378QOwN
"In 1983, when Jacko was on the scene/ denying claims that he knocked up a girl called Billie-jean/ my mother was giving birth to her first son/ slapped by the nurse on day one, then coerced into this Grimsby slum/ by age two, being violent was all I knew/ I suppose I learnt it from dad smacked mum til she was black and blue/ I tried to stop him but my little baby fists/ were pounding away in vain, I was already sick of this shit/ I turned three, no birthday present received/ thought if they didn't want me then why the fuck was I conceived, and uhh/ why is mum always bursting into tears when dad comes home pissed with clenched fists and a vacant stare/ you see to me all of this was normal, didn't have no frame of reference that a kid could call upon/ I thought that all dad's drank every night and beat their wife, to within an inch of her life, what?/"
Wish I could change, a lot of things in the past/ Wish I could've made more noise when mum was getting smacked/ Wish I was stronger, maybe I could've stopped that shit/ Wish I didn't witness all the shit I did when I was a kid/ X2
"At age 4, my mum is still walking into doors/ and dad's still coming in pissed up, pissing in sock drawers/ and mum is pregnant, my baby brother Ben/ popped out around ten on the 28th of Feb, by age 5/ wish I could day that shit had changed/ but it's still the same old shit, feeling deranged/ I'm feeling like the world's abandoned/, me Kel and Ben as we're sat there on the porch watching mum go in an ambulance/ I was 6 I was laying in bed scared/ here we go again they're fighting and arguing downstairs/ all the screaming I could hear, shit I'll tell you the truth/ I wish it would've only been a bit of verbal abuse/ at age 7 I can remember walking home from school/ every step was full of dread, what sort of scene am I walking to/ stepped in, I saw my sister crying/ she said mind gone and left us 20 quid to get by on, what?/
Wish I could change, a lot of things in the past/ Wish I could've made more noise when mum was getting smacked/ Wish I was stronger, maybe I could've stopped that shit/ Wish I didn't witness all the shit I did when I was a kid/ X2
There was a note up on the mantelpiece/ it read, "sorry kids I should've waited until you got home at least, but I couldn't risk your dad coming back, early from work, coz if he caught me here with my bags packed, (smack) I might not ever get another chance to leave, by for now I'll get in touch once I've found somewhere decent to sleep" what does that mean Kel, has mum fucked off and left a piss head dad to bring us up, is she coming back then or what/ I guess not coz by the time I was 8, dad had found a new bird and moved her in our house straight away, I turned 9 they decided to split up, she must've realised what he was like a lot quicker then mum, she said she saw herself curled in a ball, with the blows raining down while she was sparked on the floor, so in that case my mum deserves a fucking round of applause, I don't blame her, if I was her, if of left years before/
Wish I could change, a lot of things in the past/ Wish I could've made more noise when mum was getting smacked/ Wish I was stronger, maybe I could've stopped that shit/ Wish I didn't witness all the shit I did when I was a kid/ X2

No eatingslimekinetic sandmagnetic ballsstop motion cookingnoisy reaction/comedymarbles<2 minuteanimatedchiropractic

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198295	FrivolousFox ASMR	ASMR Slow, Gentle SpitPainting (Not too gross/over-the-top😆)
193338	LumineASMR	[3DIO ASMR] Arlecchino Hot Ear Licking
187853	FrivolousFox ASMR	Deep, Breathy Whispers 🌬️(ASMR)
184279	Runa ASMR【るな氏】	【ASMR】ほろ酔いで、、、耳かきしてくれるお姉さん🦻【ロールプレイ】
183715	anna dreamy ASMR	ASMR FAKE BAKERY | A PADARIA MAIS RELAXANTE DE TODAS 🥐
178507	Ozley ASMR	ASMR for Anxiety 🌧️ Slow & Gentle Whispers for DEEP Sleep
177892	beebee asmr	ASMR | Fast & Aggressive Mic Scratching, Jean Scratching, Mouth Sounds +
172742	Mol ASMR.	ASMR español roleplay para dormir te hago piercings
171001	TomASMR	ASMR IN THE STREET (IN JAPAN)
166832	ASMR Glow	ASMR Softest Touches for Deep Sleep (Face tracing with fingers, brush)
164100	Sarah Lavender ASMR	ASMR | Body Scan Meditation for SLEEP (with rain 🌧️)
158699	Chili b ASMR	Aura Clearing Energy Session for Physical and Emotional Pain on @semideasmr
157579	Celaine's ASMR	ASMR 3 HOURS of Nurse Exam for SLEEP 💤 Cranial Nerve Exam, ASMR Roleplay
156172	Chiara ASMR	IL MIO VIDEO ASMR PERFETTO 🥺🤍 Tongue Clicking, Slow Whispering
153828	ASMR Serena	ASMR | ma nièce m’ASMRise (je m’endors 😴) [REUPLOAD]
152707	Yarify ASMR	ASMR PELUQUERÍA NOCTURNA para VAMPIROS 🦇 ¡te corto y lavo el pelo! ✂️❤️【Atención Personal】
148117	Tiptoe Tingles ASMR	ASMR More Rare & Unusual Mouth Sounds For You!
147580	ASMR KALI	Douceur pour dormir ~ Triggers et massage d'oreilles avec le 3Dio | ASMR pour dormir
145819	Celaine's ASMR	ASMR Follow My Instructions BUT It's DIFFERENT for Everyone 😴 ASMR For Sleep 😴
142894	Doña Esperanza ASMR	Masaje de relajación ASMR y limpia energética de Doña Esperanza con susurros suaves para dormir
139612	Diddly ASMR	Slow & Gentle ASMR For Sleep
136234	ASMR Rebecca	ASMR Fast and Aggressive Hand Movements and Mouth Sounds 🤝🏻
135337	Lizi ASMR	ASMR Dermatologist Face Exam & Cleaning RP ~ Soft Spoken Medical RP
133533	ASMR Bakery	ASMR Deep Cerebral Penetration (No Talking)
132167	Anny ASMR	ASMR ESPAÑOL / B3 S0S Y MASAJES EN TU CARITA + PINTO TU CARITA
125260	Dong ASMR	ASMR Rarest Mouth Sounds For Your Sleep Tonight
124018	沙汰ナキアASMR - Nakia Ch.	【KU100/ASMR】じっくり深～い綿棒耳かきと耳元の囁きで熟睡♡Ear Cleaning/Whispering【沙汰ナキア/睡眠導入】
123015	dakota b asmr	ASMR | Extremely Sensitive Wet Mouth Sounds ONLY 👄
121897	anya_asmr	ASMR одноклассница с последней парты/ массаж головы
121383	Three Sheep ASMR	ASMR For People Who Don't Get Tingles (EXTREME TINGLES)
119689	Sweet Carol	ASMR: 26 SONS DO ALFABETO PARA TE AJUDAR A DORMIR | Sweet Carol
118512	edafoxx ASMR	ASMR for people with curly hair (hair play, head massage, personal attention)
116261	Ale ASMR	asmr mouth sounds y besitos intensos para ti 🤍 Ale asmr :)

I've always been bound to death.
On my eighth birthday, a shadow strode into my house and shot me and my family dead. I remember it vividly, every detail, every angle, etched and stained and carved into my memory.
I sat very still with my knees to my chest, my gaze glued to my siblings.
Lily and PJ looked like they were sleeping, and I could almost believe it.
I didn't look at the shadow.
From the comfort of my knees, I waited for my brother to lift his head.
But his body was so limp, so still, every part of him faltering. My sister’s head was nestled in his shoulder, thick beads of red running down her face.
They're just sleeping.
I could tell myself they were— as long as I didn't look at the splatter of scarlet staining the back of the couch and pooling at their feet.
BANG.
Mom’s body dropped onto the ground.
I lunged forwards, slamming my hands over my ears.
BANG.
PJ’s head slumped forwards, a teasing smile still frozen on his lips.
BANG.
Lily gently tipped into PJ, like she was going to sleep.
Before she closed her eyes, Mom told me to run.
I can't remember how long I stayed under the shattered remnants of Mom’s favorite table. The shadow was waiting for me to move, to make a noise.
I watched booted feet crunch through glass, getting closer and closer, and slowly, fight or flight began to take over.
Making it halfway across the living room, my palms slick with my mother’s blood, I thought I was going to live.
Cruel fingers wound their way through my hair and shoved me to my knees. I remember the phantom legs of a spider creeping down the back of my neck when the shadow with no face dragged the barrel of his gun down my spine.
“Turn around.”
The shadow had a voice.
When I didn't move, the protruding metal stabbed into my neck.
“Turn around, kid!”
I did, very slowly.
Behind him, my siblings still weren't moving.
They were asleep.
Lily was still smiling, strawberry blonde ringlets stained red.
I couldn't see PJ’S face anymore.
BANG.
I didn't feel the gunshot.
I didn't feel anything.
Looking down, I glimpsed slowly spreading red blossoming like a flower.
It felt like being cut from strings.
I hit the ground, just like my mother, my body felt heavy and wrong.
Paralysed.
I remember being unable to scream, unable to cry, the salty taste of metal filling my mouth. It was like being winded. Rolling onto my side, all I could see was flickering candlelight.
The air was thick, so hard to breathe.
I rolled onto my back trying to suck in air.
The shadow took a step back, opened the front door, and bled into the night.
I don't remember the pain, and I don't remember dying. I couldn't breathe, couldn't conjure words in my mouth.
I felt warm and sticky, lying in my own blood.
I think I tried to move.
But I was so tired.
I’m not sure what death feels like, because it's like going to sleep.
I remember my last shuddering breaths, a lulling darkness beginning to swallow me up. I don't know why I wasn't afraid.
Oblivion almost felt like I was sinking into lukewarm depths on a Summer’s day.
Oblivion wasn't pain, and there was a peaceful inevitability to it.
It was endless nothing, a nothing I found myself gravitating towards. But before I could envelope myself in that darkness, it was spitting me back out.
The next thing I knew, I was in a white room, a slow beeping sound tearing me from slumber. I had a vague memory of slow spreading roses blossoming across my shirt, like summer flowers blooming.
Everything was white.
The walls, the ceiling, and my clothes.
Sensation hit me in slow waves.
Exhaustion.
I felt it tightening its grip around my brain, dragging me back onto a mountain of pillows when I tried to jump up. My Aunt May was sitting next to me on a plastic chair, her warm fingers entangled in mine. Aunt May and Mom were practically twins, with the same thick red hair and pale skin.
Mom wore her hair in a casual ponytail, while May preferred a strict bun.
I had to bite back the urge to yank my hand away.
Aunt May was asleep, used tissues filling her lap.
There was a nurse pottering around, checking my vitals and prodding my arms. My eyes felt heavy. I had to blink several times to keep myself awake.
“Charlie?”
The nurse’s voice was like wind-chimes.
I pretended not to notice her forced lipstick smile, the way she stood with her arms folded, staring at me like I was one of my cousin’s experiments. “You were in an accident, sweetie,” the nurse spoke up. I could see her trembling hands. “Just, um, try and rest, okay?”
I wanted to ask where my family was, but I already knew the answer.
I think she knew that too.
“You died, Charlie.” The nurse’s voice was eerily cold. “You were dead for thirteen minutes.”
She took slow steps towards me, her eyes growing frenzied, like she couldn't understand me, like I was a puzzle she could not solve– and it was driving her crazy. I could see it in her twitching hands, her wobbling lips that were trying and failing to appear stoic.
“In fact, I just pulled you out of the morgue, honey. I opened up your body bag that I had just zipped up, and told your aunt that you were a miracle I just… can’t understand.” The nurse sounded like she was trying to choke down a laugh, or maybe a sob.
“Charlotte, you were pronounced dead at 3:02am from a gunshot wound to the chest.” Taking a slow, sobering breath, the nurse tried to smile. “The bullet went through the right ventricle of your heart and severely damaged your left lung, rendering you unable to breathe. Your heart stopped, and after four attempts to resuscitate, we called it.”
Something slimy wound its way up my throat when she began to pace the room. “I… did all the paperwork. It took me two minutes. Your death certificate was signed, and your body was taken to the morgue to be prepped for transportation. Then I had my lunch. Tuna salad with a protein milkshake. I’m not a fan of the chocolate flavor.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, when I came back to you, you were awake inside your body bag.” Her voice was starting to break. “You were…um, alive, and asked me for apple soda.”
The nurse moved closer, and yet kept her distance.
I could feel myself moving back, panic writhing through me.
“So.” The nurse spoke calmly. “How the fuck are you still alive, Charlie?”
I think I passed out after that.
When I woke up again, my head a lot less heavier, the nurse was gone.
Slowly, my foggy brain began to find itself and connect dots.
My mouth was dry, full of cotton.
There was a sudden tightness, a sharp and cruel sting in my wrists.
Something sharp was protruding into my flesh, and no matter how many times I violently wrenched my arm, it was stuck. It didn't feel right to be able to breathe so easily.
I knew the second I woke that my Mom was dead.
Lily and PJ were dead, and it was like losing them all over again.
As clarity came over me, I found my voice, a strangled cry escaping my lips.
“Get it out.” I whispered in a shrill cry.
Tugging at the IV in my wrist, I tried to yank the needle from my skin.
“Get it out!” I shrieked, my gaze glued to the tiny spots of blood staining the insertion point.
I could see it again.
So much blood.
Mom was curled up on the floor, lying in slow spreading red that wouldn't stop, seeping across her beaded rug.
She was all over me, slick on my skin and caked in my fingernails.
I couldn't wash her off of me.
“You're okay, Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice came from my right, stabling me to reality.
The world started to move again, started to make sense again, when she cupped my cheeks and told me to breathe. When I opened my mouth to ask where my family were, she lightly shook her head and I swallowed my words. Aunt May handed me a glass of water, and I drained it in one gulp.
She told me I was a miracle.
Aunt May didn't say much, and when she did, she broke into sobs.
Her eyes were raw from crying, clinging onto me, her shuddery voice reassuring me that I was going to be okay.
She told me I would be living with her from now on, before wrapping me into a hug and leaving to get coffee.
Once my aunt was gone, another nurse came to prod my IV.
I tried to sleep, but the uncomfortable tightness of the needle sticking into my skin and the sterile white lights in my eyes made it impossible. I waited for grief to catch up with me, drowning me in a hollow oblivion I wouldn't be able to claw myself out of. But I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel angry.
I wanted to know why my family were dead.
I wanted to know why I was breathing, and their skin was ice cold.
Rotting.
The sudden image of maggots crawling up my brother’s nose sent me lurching into a sitting position, my stomach heaving. Reaching for my glass of water, it was empty. The sensation of throwing up felt familiar, almost comforting.
Mom was always with me when I was sick, holding my hair back and lulling my hysteria with reassuring murmurs.
I was frowning at the trash can by the door, my cotton candy brain trying to figure out if I would be able to make it in time, when a small voice drifted from the doorway, startling me.
“I don't want you to come live with us.”
My cousin was peeking through the door, hiding behind a shock of dark brown curls. Jude was the only brunette in our family. The rest of us were redheads.
I wasn't sure why he was dressed up like a ghost, draped in a white cloak that was way too big for him. Jude was a weird kid. His mother, and my auntie, had inherited the family house, so in his mind, that made him superior.
Jude made it clear he didn't like his cousins, refusing to let us play with him and banning us from family gatherings.
When the adults were drinking cocktails and losing their awareness, Jude ordered us around. The times we did play with him, our cousin showed us his spider collection, or the raccoon brain he kept in a jar. PJ was convinced our younger cousin was a serial killer. Several months earlier, he'd happily showed us the roadkill he'd been growing bacteria on under his bed.
Jude’s ‘experiments’ were worrying.
He stuffed mushrooms down my brother’s ears while he was sleeping, to, and I quote, “Recreate The Last Of Us.”
When Lily had a nosebleed during Thanksgiving dinner, Jude collected all her bloody tissues and refused to tell us where he'd put them, and what he had done with them. Fast-forward two months, and I found them under a nest of spiders. Jude was trying to adapt the spiders to be able to feed on human blood. I was surprised my cousin hadn't immediately demanded to see my siblings’ dead bodies for autopsy.
Jude stepped into the room, shuffling his feet.
“I'm sorry about Lily, PJ, and Aunt Ivy.” He mumbled, glaring at the floor tiles.
My cousin made no move to offer real sympathy, instead speaking to the floor.
“But I don't want you to come live with us.” Jude lifted his head, looking me dead in the eye. “I don't like you, Charlie. I want you to stay away.”
Before I could reply, he stepped back like I was diseased.
“You should be dead.” Jude grumbled.
He scowled at me, getting my age purposely wrong as usual before running off.
“Happy 68th birthday.”
I was six months older than him.
In Jude’s eyes, I was ready for retirement.
Still, though, my cousin was right.
I was stone cold dead, and then I was somehow alive.
Which was wrong.
Growing up, I realized Death was not so subtly attempting to fix his mistake.
It started small. I'd choke on things I wasn't supposed to choke on.
Chips.
Candy.
Ice cream.
Aunt May had to perform the heimlich manoeuvre when I choked on a piece of chicken. I thought I was just really unlucky, but then I locked myself in a freezer that didn't have a lock, and almost drowned in the local swimming pool, catching my foot in stray netting.
At the summer fair, Jude convinced me to try apple bobbing, only for my head to conveniently get stuck underwater.
It started to make sense.
I was supposed to die with my family that night, and death was out to get me.
Death started to get clever, changing his tactic. Instead of using everyday things to try to kill me, he sent reinforcements.
I turned twelve years old, and my aunt threw me a huge party, inviting all my classmates. Aunt May was rich, rich.
Mom never explained it, but our grandparents left everything to May.
The house was like a palace, a labyrinth of floors I was yet to explore, and two swimming pools.
I was in the kitchen cutting myself a slice of cake, when, out of nowhere, a dead boy came rushing at me with one of my aunt’s favorite kitchen knives.
A dead boy who I immediately recognised.
Wren Oliver.
Several years prior, he'd gone missing from his parents' yard. The town launched a full investigation, only to find his body in a ditch a week later.
So, Death had sent a footsoldier.
Hiding under a hooded sweatshirt, Wren appeared older, like he had grown up with me. But there was a startling vacancy in his expression that drew the breath from my lungs, freezing me in place. Wren’s death was announced as an accident, though his wounds suggested the opposite, dried blood smearing his right temple and a cavernous hole in his chest, his clothes painted, stained, in bright red, glued in sticky mounds clinging to him.
The boy’s eyes were wild, feral, like an animal.
His hair was longer, a mess of reddish curls matted to his forehead.
Lip split into a demented giggle.
I remember taking a slow step back, my gaze glued to the knife.
Wren’s fingers were wrapped around the handle like he knew exactly how to use it, how to plunge it into my heart and kill me for good. He moved like a predator, zero self awareness or recognition, only driven to kill me.
The dead boy prided himself in slow, intimidating steps, shoving me against the wall and dragging the blade of the knife down the curve of my throat.
His eyes confused me, writhing with hatred that was artificial, programmed into him as Death’s official soldier.
He didn't speak, only smiled, revelling in my fear. I could tell it thrilled him, my trembling hands, my sharp, heavy breaths I couldn't control. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited to finally die.
I waited for the pain, and to lose my breath once again.
But death was playing with me.
When I opened my eyes, the dead boy was gone, and I was on my knees, screaming.
“Wren Oliver is trying to kill me!" I managed to hiss.
My aunt knelt in front of me, her expression crumpling.
*Sweetie,” She spoke softly, squeezing my hands. Aunt May was trying to appear calm for my sake, but I could tell she was scared, her frantic eyes searching mine. “Wren Oliver is dead.”
The kids surrounding me started to giggle, whispering among themselves.
In the corner of my eye, my cousin was leaning against the door, mid eye roll.
When my aunt was ushering kids back to the pool, Jude came to crouch in front of me. Ever since I started living with him, he'd made sure to keep his distance.
This time, though, Jude leaned uncomfortably close, a sparkle in his eyes I had never seen before. Inclining his head, he rocked back and forth on his heels, prodding me in the forehead.
“If you see the dead boy again, can you tell me?” His lips curved into a smile.
“I did see him.” I gritted out. “I’m not lying.”
Jude shrugged. “I never said you didn't,” he lowered his voice into a whisper, “I wanna know when you see him again.”
“Why?”
His lips curved into a smirk.
“So, I can catch him.”
My cousin got closer, his breath tickling my cheek.
“I seeeeeeee dead people.”
After that incident, death left me alone for a while.
I was fifteen, walking through the forest with a friend, catching fireflies in bell jars. Aunt May was lucky to live so close to the forest, the entrance just outside her back door. When we were littles, PJ would drag Lily and I down the trail to escape Jude’s weird experiments.
I decided to invite Jem Littlewood on a summer walk.
Jem was cute, but in a dorky way. He was chronically clumsy, and dressed like he'd been spat out of a John Hughes movie. We hiked all the way to the end of the river and had a picnic, watching the sun set over the horizon. I was having conflicting feelings for this guy.
Jem was obsessed with fireflies.
Though he seemed more interested in photographing them than me.
The guy couldn't seem to sit still, jumping to his feet to marvel at tiny specks of light dancing in the air.
“I'm just going to take photos!” Jem beamed, holding up his camera.
I had to bite back the urge to say, “Don't you have enough photos?”
I nodded, and he turned and sprinted back down the trail.
Before his footsteps ground to a sudden halt.
At first, I thought he was snapping polaroids.
When I got closer, though, blinking in the eerie dark, I caught something.
Bending down, I picked up a bell jar still spilling fireflies.
Further down the trail, Jem was lying crumpled in the dirt, his camera smashed to pieces next to him, blood running in thick rivulets down his temple. There he was. Leaning against a tree, his arms folded, was the ghost boy. Wren Oliver was growing up with me. Now, a teenager, and yet his face was carved into something else entirely, more of a monster, slight points to his ears and too-sharp teeth, eyes ignited.
Wren didn't look like a ghost boy anymore.
Death had dressed him in shackles of ivy, a crown of glass and bone forced onto his head, entangled in his curls. Death was torturing him.
Wren’s body was its canvas, and every time I got away, he was punished, painting his failures across scarred skin.
I should have been running for my life, but I was mesmerised by each symbol cruelly carved into his neck.
The boy did a slow head incline, like he couldn't believe I was standing in front of him.
His slow spreading smile caught me off guard.
I remembered how to run, stumbling over my feet.
But I couldn't move.
The burning hatred that death had filled him with, was stronger, hollowing him out completely. I managed two shaky steps, before I felt him, an unearthly force winding its way around my spine. This time, he didn't hesitate.
I watched his mouth move, a single curve of his upper lip that wrenched my body from my control, slamming me against a tree. There was something around my throat, choking the breath from my lungs, a thick fog spreading over my eyes.
Following his mouth curving into silent letters, I could feel my feet slowly leaving the ground, my legs dangling.
I was floating.
Hovering off of the ground, suspended by his words.
Through half lidded eyes, I caught the glint of a blade between his fist, but I couldn't move, couldn't scream.
He was drowning me, bleeding into my blood, spider webbing and expanding in my brain without moving a muscle.
Instead, the ghost boy stood silently, running his thumb down the teeth of his knife while he ripped my lungs apart.
It was like suffocating, sinking into that peaceful oblivion I met at eight years old.
This time, though, the darkness was starving.
“Charlie?”
My eyes found daylight, a scream clawing out of my mouth.
“Charlie, it's past curfew!”
Wren flinched, his stoic expression crumpling.
The dead boy’s lips moved again, this time in a curse.
Fuck.
“Charlotte!”
Staggering back, Wren’s eyes widened and the suffocating hold on me severed.
His head snapped in the direction my aunt was coming from.
“Charlie, answer me right now.”
He hesitated, his bare feet pivoting in the dirt, like he was considering finishing me off. Wren studied me with lazy eyes, sucking on his bottom lip. When my aunt's footsteps got louder, branches snapping under her shoes, something contorted in the boy’s face.
Fear.
I guessed the boy wasn't expecting other humans to intrude.
Wren fell over himself, shuffling on his hands and knees, before diving to his feet. When he turned and ran, I was released, slipping to the ground, trying and failing to draw in breath. I barely felt the impact, only a dull thudding pain. I could hear the ghost boy’s footsteps, his uneven, shuddery breaths as he catapulted into a run.
Under a late setting sun, I watched his dancing shadow disappear into the trees.
Mission unsuccessful, I guessed.
When I was fully conscious, Aunt May was checking over Jem, helping him sit up.
“Where did he go?” I managed to get out, scanning the darkness for Wren.
“He's okay, just concussed.” May whispered, dialling 911.
My aunt applied a dressing to Jem’s wound, ignoring the boy’s hisses.
“Keep still.” she murmured, smoothing his bandaid. “What happened, Charlotte?”
“She pushed me over.” Jem groaned, shuffling away from me. When my aunt told him to stay calm, he straightened up, leaning against the tree. “The psycho bitch tried to fucking kill me!”
When my aunt's gaze flicked to me, I shook my head.
“It was Wren Oliver.” I gritted, teetering on hysteria. I could tell she didn't believe me, but I couldn't stop myself.
I prodded at my throat, clawing for the indentations where his phantom fingers snaked around my neck, squeezing the breath from my lungs.
But there was nothing.
I could feel my mind starting to unravel. I nodded to my disgruntled classmate trying to dodge my aunt’s prodding.
“Ow, ow, ow! That stings!
“He knocked Jem out.” I managed. “Then he tried to kill me.”
Jem surprised me with a scoff. “You're seriously blaming your psychotic break on a dead kid?”
Aunt May pursed her lips, motioning for Jem to be quiet. Judging from her face, however, she agreed with the boy.
May forced a smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. “Okay. Can you, uh, describe the boy to me, Charlotte?”
“He was wearing a crown,” I said, “And he looked my age.”
Aunt May cocked her head, and I saw real worry, like she was trying not to freak out. Jem made a snorting noise.
“I'm sorry, he was wearing a crown?”
“Yes!” I insisted, getting progressively more frustrated.
I tried to jump up, only for my aunt to gently lower me back down. “I know it sounds crazy, but death has sent Wren Oliver to kill me, just like my family. He tried to kill me when I was twelve, too!”
Jem let out a bitter laugh. “Your niece is a fucking wackadoodle.”
Aunt May’s eyes darkened. She grabbed my shoulders, her nails stabbing into my skin. “Charlie, I want you to listen to me, okay?” When my eyes found the rapidly darkening sky, my aunt forced me to look at her.
“Charlotte!”
She was as scared as me, her voice shuddering.
“Wren Oliver is dead.” My aunt said firmly, shaking me. Even then, though, I wasn't even looking at her. I was trying to find his ignited eyes lighting up the dark. “Wren died at eight years old in a terrible accident, and you can't keep using him as an excuse for your mental trauma.” There was something twitching in her expression I was trying to make sense of. When I risked a look at Jem, the boy was staring at me dazedly– like I really was crazy.
Aunt May pressed her face into my shoulder, and I could feel her tears soaking into my shirt. She was trying to hold it together, trying to understand.
“Charlie, I know you lost your family,” she whispered. “But you and Wren Oliver are not the same. You survived, and he didn't.” Her voice splintered.
“You need to come to terms with that, okay?”
When I didn't respond, she pinched my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“Charlotte.”
Aunt May’s voice turned cold. “I ignored this when you were a kid, but if you continue to use this poor boy as a coping mechanism, I will have no choice but to send you to a specialist.”
When Jem was taken away by paramedics, Aunt May held my hand, squeezing my fingers for dear life.
I caught her gaze scanning the tree's around us, delving into twisting oblivion. Every little noise sent her twisting around. She was looking for something.
“I'm going to get you help.” Aunt May said in a low murmur when we were back at the house. Jude was sitting on the kitchen counter, legs swinging. I could feel his penetrating gaze burning into the back of my head.
Aunt May set a cup of cocoa on the table.
“No more fairytales.”
By the time I was eighteen, I had bitten three therapists.
They refused to believe that death was coming to reclaim my soul, and was using a dead boy to do his dirty work.
For my 16th birthday, I braced myself to come face to face with Wren Oliver’s ghost.
I wasn't even in town, staying at a friend's house.
But dead boys, and especially dead boys moulded into Death’s personal soldiers, could materialise anywhere.
I locked every door in the house, and taped up my friend’s window.
Nothing happened.
On my seventeenth birthday, I was sick in bed with gastritis.
Still no ghost boy.
Death seemed to have finally left me alone.
On my eighteenth birthday, I was stuffing books in my locker when my cousin popped up out of nowhere, scowling as usual. After an unexpected growth spurt and losing a tonne of baby fat, my cousin had scaled the high school hierarchy, swapping his weird experiments for a varsity jacket and experimenting with his sexuality.
The two of us had come to an unspoken truce.
I kept quiet about his spider collection to his popular friends, and he tolerated my existence until I left for college.
“Your surprise party is cancelled.”
Jude leaned against my locker, running a hand through thick dark hair tucked under a baseball cap. Jude never admitted it, but he was definitely embarrassed of being the odd one out.
My siblings may be dead, but they were still redheads.
I pulled off his cap with a smile, throwing it in his face. “Sure it is.”
My cousin’s eyes widened. He lost his slick bravado, grabbing for his cap.
“Hey!”
According to my cousin, my party was unexpectedly cancelled every year.
I wasn't sure if it was his weird superiority complex, or just plain jealousy, but it was getting exhausting.
Jude followed me down the hallway, matching my stride.
“Can you just not come home tonight?”
I quickened my pace. “It's only a party. I'm having some friends over, and no, we won't go anywhere near your room.”
“No, I mean.” Jude stepped in front of me, and for the first time in a while, he wasn't trying to hide disdain for me.
His dark eyes pinned me in place for a moment, the world around us coming to a halt. Sound bled away, and all I heard were his slow breaths. There was something there, an unexplainable twitch in his eyes and lips, that twisted my gut.
Jude stepped closer, his lip curling. He shoved me back, losing his facade.
“Stay the fuck away from the house tonight.” He said, and his voice, his tone, was enough to send shivers creeping down my spine. Jude had always hid behind a ten foot wall in his mind. It was jarring to see something in him finally start to splinter. Fuck. I thought.
This kid had serious Mommy issues.
I blinked, and the world resumed, kids pushing past us.
Jude seemed to catch himself, slipping back under his mask.
“I'm having friends over,” he rolled his eyes, “Your presence will ruin the vibe.”
“It's my birthday?”
He groaned, tipping his head back. “Yes, I know. But–”
“I think you can deal with the attention off of you for one night, Jude.”
“Will Wren Oliver be there too?” Jem Littlewood hollered.
Jude didn't respond for a moment, his lip curling.
“Shut the fuck up.” He spat at Jem, who immediately backed down. With an audience this time, Jude forced an award winning smile. “Fine.” His lips split into a grin I knew he hated. My cousin clamped his hand on my shoulder, hard enough to hurt. I could feel his fingers pinching the material of my jacket. “Have it your way, dude.”
Jude backed away with a two fingered salute.
“Happy 78th birthday!”
In a sense, I wish I listened to my cousin.
My party was a success, sort of.
Four of us, a crate of beers, and no sign of my cousin.
I was mildly tipsy, sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my legs in the water when my friend demanded more beers.
I was also hungry for cake, so I stumbled inside in search of the goods.
The house was dark, lit up in dazzling blue from the pool's lights reflecting through the windows. Aunt May was in her office on the ground floor, and Jude was getting high in his room. In my drunken state, I found myself marvelling my aunt's house, and how much of it was left unexplored.
For example, in the foyer, past the spiral staircase she’d had custom made, was an elevator I had never questioned.
There was a girl my age standing on the staircase.
She was frozen, mid run, dressed in ragged jeans and t-shirt.
Everything about her stuck out to me, bringing me to a sobering halt.
The girl reminded me of my sister– or at least, if my sister had ever grown up.
I wasn't sure if I was drunk or hallucinating.
Her flower crown was pretty…
Lily had grown wings.
I was slowly moving towards her, a sudden bang sounding from the kitchen.
The bang of something shattering on the floor.
Twisting around, I found myself gravitating towards warm golden light.
The first thing I saw was the refrigerator door hanging open, and someone, no, something, rooting around inside it.
Glued to the spot, I dazedly watched them grab milk, guzzling it down, and then soda, cracking open each can and sucking them dry, before carving their fingers into my birthday cake.
But I wasn't looking at the spillage of food seeping across the floor. Instead, my gaze found a crown of antlers, both human and animal bone entangled with dead flowers and human remains glued to a head of familiar matted brown curls. There was something sticking from battered and bruised flesh, twin gaping slits sliced through a torn shirt resembling glass wings that were not yet formed, reminding me of a butterfly.
Wings.
But not the wings I dreamed of as a kid. These things were unnatural mounds that both did and didn't make sense on a human boy. I could see the trauma of them slicing through his flesh, monstrous, looming things protruding from what was left of a human spine.
Human, and yet I couldn't call his beautifully grotesque face human.
Wren Oliver had grown up with me, now an adult.
Eighteen years old.
His clothes confused me, a single white shirt and shorts.
Wren’s feet were bare, battered and bruised, blood smearing my aunt's tiles.
Angel.
Death had turned his footsoldier, and my future killer, into an angel.
But there was nothing angelic about the dead boy, his body and mind sculpted and moulded into Death’s own.
The boy no longer resembled a human, feral eyes and a manic smile, choking down pieces of cake. His face had been contorted into a monster, gnashing teeth and sharp points in his ears, a sickly tinge to malnourished skin.
And that's when it hit me, watching him stuff himself with food.
Something slimy inched its way up my throat.
The boy didn't move. I don't even think he'd noticed me, gorging himself on anything he could get his hands on.
Chicken, raw bacon, leftover salad.
When he moved onto cupcakes, licking frosting from his fingers, I glimpsed markings on his arms, a language I didn't understand, carved into him.
His wrists were shackled, bound, in entangled iron and vine, iron that was ingrained into his skin, vines and flowers and ivy entangling his bones, that were part of him, polluting his blood. Slowly, my eyes found stab wounds splitting open his torso.
Raw flesh, where his skin had been torched, melting, and then merging, ripped apart and put back together over and over again.
I found his heart, the gaping cavern in his chest where it should be.
And it was.
Marked, carved, and branded with a symbol resembling an X.
Wren Oliver was not dead.
But, just like me, he should have been.
I remember saying his name, my voice slurred slightly.
I didn't drink that much, but I could barely coerce words, my head spinning.
Wren’s neck snapped towards me, his eyes narrowing with resentment I couldn't understand, hatred that seemed to puppeteer him. Slowly tilting his head, the boy’s lips split into a grin, eyes filled, polluted, with mania.
I could see where his lips had been stitched shut, and then ripped open.
“Hi.”
He held up his hand in an awkward wave.
When one of my friends stumbled into the kitchen, Wren reacted on impulse.
He picked up a knife from the counter, throwing it like a dart, straight through the guy’s throat.
Something shattered inside my mind.
Ignoring my friend bleeding out, Wren stumbled over himself, abandoning his feast. He took a single step towards me, backing me against the wall, coming so close, close enough for me to feel his very real breath grazing my cheeks. Just like when he was a kid, he traced the teeth of his blade down my throat. I wasn't expecting him to burst out laughing, trembling with hysteria.
His eyes were wild, feral and wrong, almost euphoric.
With what all I could only recognise as relief.
BANG.
I was barely aware of the gunshot.
The bullet went straight through his head, the winged boy hitting the ground.
Dead.
I saw the blood stemming around him in a halo before the bleeding pool faltered, seeping back inside his head.
Like rewinding a VCR.
Wren was dead, and then he was alive.
Wren’s body contorted, his chest inflating.
His gasp for air was painful, strangled, eyes opening wide.
Terrified.
“You fucking idiot.”
Jude’s voice sent me twisting around.
My cousin stood in the exact same robes he wore as a child.
The world tipped off kilter, and I was on my knees, then my stomach.
I sunk to the floor, my thoughts swimming.
Jude’s murmur followed me, creeping into the dark.
“I told you not to come home.”
I can't remember how long I was unconscious for.
When I woke, I was dressed in an evening gown, a dress that used to be my mother’s.
My vision cleared, and I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar room resembling an abandoned swimming hall.
The pool itself was empty, the bottom stained revealing scarlet.
There were symbols carved into each tile.
Like a game.
“Sit up straight, Charlotte.”
I was sitting at a banquet.
Jude was in front of me, sipping on wine.
He caught my eye for half a second before averting his gaze.
At the far end of the table sat my aunt May.
Kissing the rim of her glass, her smile was twisted.
“I've been waiting so long to give you your birthday presents, Charlotte. Your memories should be returning soon.”
“Mom.” Jude muttered, hiding behind his glass. “Calm down. You're embarrassing yourself.”
Ignoring my cousin, May tapped her glass with a fork, and in walked my birthday presents.
No, dragged.
By their hair.
Wren Oliver, the dead boy, was in fact my aunt's prisoner.
Behind him, was the girl who looked so much like Lily.
I think that's why my aunt chose her.
Aunt May cleared her throat.
“For a long time, our family has lived among creatures who live in the forest you played inside. In exchange for keeping this town safe, they only ask for small favors. Wayward children who disappear into the woods are good enough payment. Charlie, you and your siblings do not share our inheritance. Your mother never wanted fae children. She wanted you to be human.”
Aunt May’s smile faded.
“After losing my sister, and my niece and nephew, I made a deal to give my last surviving niece 100 years of life.”
Her words were white noise, my gaze glued to my birthday presents. I couldn't call them human anymore.
I couldn't call Wren human, when his face was so beautifully grotesque, painfully hypnotising.
The monstrous things sticking from twin slits in his back were supposed to be wings, except they looked wrong, cruelly protruding from his exposed spine. Under the influence of alcohol earlier, the girl made me smile.
Her wings, to me, looked like one of a real fairy.
In reality, they were torn and shredded apart, bigger than the girl herself.
When she dropped onto her stomach, she was dragged back to her feet, her knees buckling under the weight. Her tiara of flowers and bone looked pretty to me when I saw her on the stairs.
Now, though, I could see the pearly white of a human child's skull forced onto her head, dead flowers threaded through cavernous, gaping eye sockets.
The two of them were violently shoved into the empty pool.
“Jude. Please demonstrate, sweetheart.”
Jude stood, pulling out a gun, and aiming it at the winged girl.
BANG.
The girl’s body hit the tiles, her blood seeping across stained white.
“Now, of course, our king did not give you life for free.” May continued.
“The King demanded a debt, as well as two heirs to join him in his court once your hundred years were complete.”
Her lips quirked into a smile.
“The king is smart. If a child cannot be stolen from the human world, they can, however, be made, moulded and shaped from their human forms, skinned of their humanity through their suffering, leaving a hollowed out shell in the child's place.” She was speaking so casually, ignoring Wren’s whimpers.
“The conversion takes a while. 100 years to birth a fully blooded fae heir, who will lose their human memories, in preparation to join their new family.”
Jude shot Wren in the chest, his eyes empty.
This time, he dropped his weapon, using finger-guns instead.
“Bang.” He deadpanned.
Then the neck.
I watched Wren come back to life, and then die.
Over and over again.
I think at one point, he screamed and cried.
But not now.
He was their puppet on display, dancing for their entertainment.
Half lidded eyes drowned in oblivion found mine, and I understood his hatred.
Before he was shot again.
Stabbed.
Branded and burned, and ripped apart.
At some point, I screamed at them to stop. I couldn't breathe, slamming my hands over my ears and begging them.
Aunt May didn't listen, ordering for my hands to be tied down.
“The King required two human sacrifices to suffer in your place.” She concluded. “For one hundred years.”
Aunt May’s smile was suddenly sad, and she lifted her glass in a toast.
I was watching their blood trickle down each tile in the pool, like every death, every time they suffered, my body became progressively less human.
I felt disgusting. I wasn't supposed to be alive. Every single year of my life, every breath I had taken, was stolen.
Aunt May nodded at me, her lips forming a proud smile. She stood up, and was handed a sacrificial knife.
Climbing into the swimming pool herself, she strode over to Wren.
The boy slumped to the floor, trembling, his knees against his chest.
Aunt May grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head up, and sliced the blade across his throat.
His eyes flicked to me, and I swore he smiled.
Spots of red dotted yellowing tiles, a river trickling under my aunt's heels.
“Happy 78th birthday, Charlotte.”
Last night ended with me being locked in my room.
It's been almost 15 hours, and the door is still locked. Please help me. I'm fucking terrified of what my aunt is planning.
I can't stop shgajing. FycjbfucibFUCK
If she is telling the truth, I shouldn't be here, right??
And I can't stop thinking.
Is Wren Oliver trying to kill me, or himself?

I'm still relatively new to properly building a cohesive starship loadout/skill/trait/BOFF-combination. and I'd like some advice on what I've already done and can improve. I've based this some advice of what I've read around here, but as I've just started working towards a better loadoud, I've used quite a bit of the stuff I already have lying around. I'm going for a SciTorp/EPG build, Polaron Dmg, and Temporal flavouring to fit the Eternal. I've added some notes to what I'm already grinding towards, mainly the Adv. Temporal Initiative Polaron Space Weapons to get the set bonus, as soon as I'm far enough in the Reputation. In case someone's wondering about all the Solanae Hybrid gear: I had it lying around already and the set bonus helps with survivability. Regarding the Devices - hey, I just like my friends! But tbh, I've never gotten into using batteries etc. on my own, but I'm open to have my mind changed, or get advice on other devices that could help. Lastly, I want to stick to mostly casual play, don't want to spend lots of money on STO, so I know I cant access everthing that way, but I'm in a fully outfitted fleet, so I have access to that gear. Also, I play PvE and missions mostly, hardly ever PvP.

Captain Details

Captain Name	Alex
Captain Career	Science
Captain Faction	Federation
Captain Race	Vulcan
Captain's Outfit	Discovery Uniform
Primary Specialization	Temporal
Secondary Specialization	Strategist

Space Skill Tree

Rank	Engineering		Science		Tactical
Lieutenant	Improved Hull Restoration	Improved Hull Capacity	Improved Shield Restoration	Shield Capacity		Advanced Projectile Weapon Training
Lt. Commander		Improved Impulse Expertise	Improved Control Expertise	Improved Drain Expertise		Defensive Maneuvering
			Control Amplification	Drain Infection
Commander	Hull Plating		Shield Regeneration		Improved Weapon Amplification	Improved Weapon Specialization
	Energized Hull Plating
	Ablative Hull Plating
Captain	Defensive Subsystem Tuning	Offensive Subsystem Tuning	Advanced Exotic Particle Generator		Improved Hull Penetration	Improved Shield Weakening
Admiral	Improved Warp Core Potential	Engineering Readiness	Shield Mastery	Scientific Readiness	Coordination Protocols
	Warp Core Efficiency		Shield Absorption		Defensive Coordination
			Shield Reflection		Offensive Coordination
-1 Points Left	15		17		15

Space Skill Unlocks

Purchases	Engineering	Science	Tactical
2	Hazard Emitters III	Science Team III	Tachyon Beam III
5	Hangar Health	Sector Space Travel Speed	Hangar Weaponry
7	Feedback Pulse III	Photonic Shockwave III	Jam Sensors III
10	Maximum Hull Capacity	Maximum Shield Capacity	Projectile Critical Chance
12	Polarize Hull III	Gravity Well III	Tractor Beam III
15	Engine Subsystem Power	Control Resistance	Energy Critical Chance
17		Tyken's Rift III

Ship Loadout: Eternal Temporal Multi-Mission Science Vessel

Slot	Item	Notes
Fore Weapon 1	Chronometric Polaron Beam Array Mk XII [CrtD][Dmg]x2 Very Rare
Fore Weapon 2	Polaron Dual Beam Bank Mk XII [Dmg]x2 Rare	Grinding towards replacing them w/ Adv. Temporal Defence Polaron Dual Beam Bank
Fore Weapon 3	Temporal Defense Chroniton Torpedo Launcher Mk XII [Acc][CrtD][Dmg] Very Rare	Grinding towards replacing them w/ Adv. Temporal Defence Chroniton Torpedo
Aft Weapon 1	Chronometric Polaron Omni-Directional Beam Array Mk XII [Acc][Arc][Dmg] Rare
Aft Weapon 2	Polaron Beam Array Mk XII [Dmg]x2 Rare	Grinding towards replacing them w/ Adv. Temporal Defence Polaron Beam Array
Aft Weapon 3	Morphogenic Polaron Torpedo Launcher Mk XII [Acc][CrtD][CrtH] Very Rare
Deflector	Solanae Deflector Array Mk XIII Very Rare
Secondary Deflector	Resonating Secondary Deflector Mk XIII [CtrlX][EPG][ProjDmg][SA +Dmg] Ultra Rare
Impulse Engines	Solanae Hyper-Efficient Impulse Engines
Warp Core	Solanae Overcharged Warp Core
Shields	Solanae Resilient Shield Array
Devices	Delta Alliance Reinforcements Beacon
	Nimbus Pirate Distress Call
	Phased-Waveform Beacon
3 Engineering Consoles	Sympathetic Fermion Transceiver Epic
	Conductive RCS Accelerator [Per] Mk XII Ultra Rare
	Chroniton Drive Actuator Mk XII Very Rare	Here mostly to get that set bonus when I have the Adv. Chroniton Space Weapons
5 Science Consoles	Causal Anchor Epic
	Omni-Directional Tachyon Wave Siphon Epic
	Exotic Particle Field Exciter [Dis] Mk XII Ultra Rare
	Temporally Shielded Datacore Mk XII Very Rare
	Graviton Generator Mk XII Very Rare
3 Tactical Consoles	Chronometric Capacitor Mk XII Ultra Rare
	Morphogenic Matrix Controller Mk XII Ultra Rare
	Polaron Phase Modulator Mk XII Rare
1 Hangar Bays	Epoch Fighters (Rare)

Officer Details

Bridge Officers	Power
Commander Science-Temporal	Entropic Redistribution I
	Heisenberg Amplifier II
	Timeline Collapse I
	Gravity Well III
Lt. Commander Universal	Transfer Shield Strength I
	Charged Particle Burst I
	Destabilizing Resonance Beam II
Lt. Commander Engineering	Engineering Team I
	Reverse Shield Polarity I
	Eject Warp Plasma I
Lieutenant Tactical-Temporal	Channeled Deconstruction I
	Entropic Cascade I
Ensign Science	Hazard Emitters I

Traits & Duty Officers

Trait	Name	Description
Personal Traits	Astrophysicist	+10 Exotic Particle Generator (Improves Exotic Damage) +10 Drain Expertise (Improves Shield Drain & Energy Drain / Resistance to Same) +10 Starship Perception (Improves Defection of Cloaked Ships)
	Conservation of Energy	Gain 10% bonus damage on Exotic damage powers when struck by Energy damage. Stacks up to 3 times.
	Operative	+1% Critical Chance, +2% Critical Severity
	Photonic Capacitor	-20 seconds removed from the Recharge of Photonic Fleet when using Science powers. This ability can only trigger once per 10 seconds.
	Techie	+20 Hull Restoration (Improves Hull Healing) +20 Hull Regeneration (Improves Passive Hull Regeneration)
	Thrill-seeker	+15% Flight and Full Impulse Speed
	Warp Theorist	+10 Warp Core Potential (Improves Power Levels) +10 Electro-Plasma System Flow (Improves Power Transfer Rate)
	Shield Frequency Analyst	+15% Outgoing Shield Healing
	Fleet Coordinator	+2% All Damage per Team member (Self included), up to 10%
Starship Traits	Exotic Particle Shielding	C-store
	Non-Linear Progression
	Particle Feedback Loop	C-Store
	Theta Radiation Infused Evasive Maneuvers	Promotional
Space Reputation Traits	Chrono-Capacitor Array	7.5% Bridge officer Cooldown reduction
	Temporal Flux Dissipators	Increase your resistance to attacks and hazards which deal damage over an extended period of time.
Duty Officers	Gravimetric Scientist	Chance to create an aftershock Gravity Well
	Deflector Officer	Chance to reduce the recharge time for Deflector abilities
	Systems Engineer	Chance to add power to all Sub-Systems
	Gravimetric Scientist	Chance to create an aftershock Gravity Well
	Maintenance Engineer	Recharge time reduced for Engineering Team and Buff
	Nurse	Increases Hull Regeneration

I’ve solved it! One of the biggest controversies in the Five Nights at Freddy’s community has been solved, The Bite of ‘83 never existed. William Afton and Henry Emily were the leading co-founders of Fazbear Entertainment. Together, they created Fredbear’s Family Diner and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, where they combined eating and entertainment for children’s birthday parties much like Chuck-E-Cheese in the real world. However, unlike the reputation of Chuck-E-Cheese, this story was filled with tragedy. Over the course of many establishments, many children mysteriously disappeared. One such tragedy was labeled the Bite of ‘87 and sparked a major controversy in the fandom since August of 2014. The Bite of ‘87 was the only bite that ever existed, because there was only one victim, in one year, at one location, that has ever been stated officially in this series.
The first mention of the Bite was in Five Nights at Freddy’s 1 or, FNAF 1, by an anonymous man nicknamed the Phone Guy. On the first night he says, “Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Bite of '87. Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?” (Five Nights at Freddy's (Video Game 2014) - IMDb, n.d.). He doesn’t go into explicit detail on what actually happened or who was involved but what we’re being led to believe is that one of the animatronics bit someone’s frontal lobe off. Not much more is mentioned as the night's progress as well as after the passing of the Phone Guy on the last night. In the second game, which was released in November of the same year, the Phone Guy is back and leaves some more questioning hints about the dangers of this new building. He says, “Uh, now that being said, no new system's without its... kinks. Uh... you're only the second guard to work at that location. Uh, the first guy finished his week but complained about... conditions. Uh, we switched him over to the day shift, so hey, lucky you, right? Uh, mainly he expressed concern that certain characters seemed to move around at night, and even attempted to get into his office.” (Contributors to Five Nights at Freddy's Wiki, n.d.-a). This led many to speculate that the guard before you, had been bitten by one of the animatronics and switched to the day shift. A lot of people backed this theory up with the fact that the paycheck at the end of FNAF 2’s date was in the year 1987 but that does not mean the other establishments couldn’t be open during this time since we’re never given a concise timeline. This game also provides very little, and FNAF 3 is no different. However, in FNAF 4, we see the official Bite of ‘87 happen in the 5th end minigame, more on that later. Before each night, we play an ongoing 8-bit minigame that shows a crying child being bullied by his older brother, Michael. At the beginning of each minigame, it displays the number of days until a party. In the 3rd end minigame, a kid that you can talk to on your way home from Fredbear’s Family Diner says, "Are you going to the party? Everyone is going to the party. Oh wait, you have to go. It's YOUR birthday! Haha!" (Contributors to Five Nights At Freddy's Wiki, n.d.). This minigame is very important for another reason, it displays the very thing that started all of the controversy. When you get to the house, you can watch the TV in the living room and it will display the Fredbear and Friends show/ad. The TV then, displays the date “1983” making people assume that the game takes place in this year making the Bite on Night 5, the Bite of ‘83. However, this date could’ve simply been the year that Fredbear’s was established, considering we aren’t given much information about it. On the night 5 end minigame is the party, the crying child gets surrounded by Michael and his friends who lift him up to Fredbear who is performing on stage. They shove his head into Fredbears mouth who chomps down, biting off his frontal lobe. The child goes limp and the game ends, giving us the only glimpse of the Bite in the entire series.
Back when FNAF 2 was released, many speculated that the victim of the Bite was the nightguard before you but if the victim was the night guard, why would they be sent to the dayshift? Losing your frontal lobe would leave you in the hospital, possibly disabling you from getting a job in the future because of paralysis and loss of fine motor function. The phone call never mentions that the nightguard was harmed, just that they complained about the animatronics. The only solid evidence we’ve gotten of the Bite is once again from the night 5 end minigame in FNAF 4 making the crying child the victim of the Bite of ‘87. This child is one of William Afton’s children. Moreover, during the events of FNAF 4, the crying child is followed around by a Fredbear plush that speaks to him and watches his every move, he is also the last character the child speaks to in the game, more on that later. We see this plushie again in the game FNAF: Sister Location, there is a secret room at the end of the game that you can get into that not only has the Fredbear plush but a walkie-talkie as well and cameras that show the FNAF 4-bedroom that the crying child occupied. We know through multiple books and games that the sister location took place underneath the Afton household. Through these clues and voice lines in the sister location, we can infer that William Afton was the one speaking to his son throughout FNAF 4. It is also through the sister location that we learn that Afton’s daughter, Elizabeth, got too close to the Funtime animatronics causing her to be scooped up by Circus Baby through her stomach hatch, this is why in the crying child’s nightmare he sees the animatronics with stomach mouths. This child is once again, the only official victim we know of that suffered a bite from one of these animatronics. In the Night 6 end minigame, we aren’t in the bedroom anymore instead we’re in a black void speaking to the Fredbear plush telling us that we are broken and we will be put back together.
Many theorists pointed out that if the child lost his frontal lobe as the phone guy says, he would not be getting up to check on monsters or be having nightmares in general. According to Queensland Government/Health, frontal lobes are important for voluntary movement, expressive language, and managing higher-level executive functions. It refers to skills of planning, organizing, initiating, self-monitoring, and controlling one’s responses to achieve a goal. The frontal lobes are the human's behavior and emotional control center, and also the home of our personality (Brain Map Frontal Lobes, n.d.). They also go on to list the consequences of injuring this part of your brain which include, “Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others, Inability to express language (Broca's Aphasia), Loss of flexibility in thinking and persistence of a single idea or behavior (Perseveration)” All of these can be seen in the crying child, he doesn’t initiate anything with any of the other characters, he doesn’t speak or respond, and keeps repeating the nightmares we see especially in the night 6 end minigame. Some of the biggest issues with harming your frontal lobe is the possibility of paralysis and lack of emotional responses, which would not only keep this child from getting up but it would also inhibit him from having these nightmares in the first place. So, if he had no frontal lobe, why would he still be scared of these animatronics? His soul is still fighting these fears, not his physical body. In the Night 6 end minigame, after the Bite, we see the crying child talking to his Fredbear plushie and they are in an unidentified black void, this is unlike the rest of the minigames which all take place in the real outside world. This child is not in his room anymore, he is stuck in his own mind hence why the background is empty. Be that as it may, this does not mean that he’s dead, he is being tormented by his own memories and fears much like “The Man In Room 1280.” The story goes a priest, named Arthur, is helping a severe burn victim (who many have speculated to be William Afton, himself) cross over and find peace before he dies. Arthur is shown the man’s REM patterns, or rapid eye movements during sleep. REM patterns are your eyes moving behind your eyelids while you’re dreaming, particular REM patterns can indicate nightmares. (Cleveland Clinic medical professional, n.d.). The burned victim is actively dreaming which is confirmed on page 145, and again on pages 151-152, “Arthur focused on the sagittal scan, which showed the man’s brain profile. There he could see what looked like two different colors or textures in each area… “The doctors believe each lobe of this man’s brain has two distinct electromagnetic signals…” as well as, “Two signals... means two living things. Two entities. They are vying for control of the brain… We think they’re tormenting each other.” (Cawthon, 2020, 145-152). In FNAF 1, we learn about The Missing Children’s incident in which 5 children were killed and stuffed inside of the animatronics leading these children to possess all of the 5 animatronics in freddy fazbear’s pizza; Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, and Golden Freddy/Fredbear who appears more like a phantom. The child who was stuffed into Fredbear was Cassidy, who we learn from voice lines in the game Ultimate Custom Night, is considered “The one you should not have killed” in other words she is a vengeful spirit. Through the epilogues also known as the Stitchwraith Stingers of the Fazbear Frights book series, we learn of a vengeful spirit named Andrew who seems to be a parallel to Cassidy, torturing the man who hurt him. In the epilogue of Fazbear Frights #4: Step Closer, Andrew says, “But I do remember wanting to get back at someone who hurt me. I think I attached myself to him. I got into his soul, made sure he couldn’t move on when he shoulda died. I remember I wanted him to suffer, the way he made me suffer.” and later on the same page, “I remember they tried to kill him. But I wasn’t going to let him go until I was ready.” (Parra et al., 2020b, 217). This is undeniable proof that Andrew was torturing the man in room 1280 because pages 179-187 and 192-196 describe how the three nurses, Colton, Ackermen, and Thomas, tried to kill the man but were distracted and stopped by a mysterious shadow child. All the while, this man was alive and dreaming just like the crying child.
The only time that the Bite of ‘83 has been referenced is as a theory. An entire page of The Ultimate Guide is dedicated to this theory. Page 54 says, “In the Night 3 minigame, the TV plays a show with a 1983 copyright date.” This date could easily have been the year that Fredbear’s Family Diner was established and not the year that the game takes place. Later on, it says, “In the Private Room of Sister Location… A secret keypad on the wall has the passcode “1983”; the keypad brings up a security camera feed… of the FNAF 4 house.” Seeing as the date 1983 could be a reference to when Fredbear’s was established, it would hold a lot of importance to Afton so he could make it an easy passcode to not only type in quickly but also remember. Another point that is brought up on this page is, “The Bite of ‘87 forced management to introduce new rules for the animatronics. If Fredbear was stationary at the time of the Bite, why restrict the animatronics’ movement?” (Cawthon, 2021, 54). The bite was a freak accident that happened because a group of children were messing around with a clunky animatronic, to keep that from happening again, it would be safer for the animatronics to remain stationary so they could stay away from children making it less likely to happen again. Another big complaint is that the Phone Guy says that the victim survived, although we are led to believe that the crying child died at the end of FNAF 4, that isn't true. The crying child could be in a similar situation to the man in room 1280 because it says that he has brain activity and we know that from the fact that Arthur can see his REM pattern as well as communicate with him throughout the story. During the events of FNAF 4, the child has dreams as well as listens and understands the things that are being said to him. We are also given example after example of how both Henry and William create robot versions of their own children throughout both the books and the games, so even if their physical bodies died, they can live on in a robotic body for eternity.
In conclusion, the crying child was bitten by Fredbear in 1987 at Fredbear’s Family Diner on his birthday. He has been the only victim we’ve seen that has been canonically bitten by one of the animatronics in the games and there has only ever been one bite mentioned officially. Therefore the Bite of ‘83 never happened. But in the words of Matpat, that’s just a theory, a game theory, thanks for reading
Brain Map Frontal Lobes. (n.d.). Queensland Health. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/abios/asp/bfrontal#:~:text=The%20frontal%20lobes%20are%20important,order%20to%20achieve%20a%20goal
Cawthon, S. (2020). Bunny Call (Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #5). Scholastic, Incorporated.
Cawthon, S. (2021). Five Nights at Freddy's. the Ultimate Guide. Scholastic, Incorporated.
Cleveland Clinic medical professional. (n.d.). Controlled ZZZs. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/12148-sleep-basics
Contributors to Five Nights At Freddy's Wiki. (n.d.). Minigames (FNaF4). Five Nights At Freddy's Wiki. https://fivenightsatfreddys.fandom.com/wiki/Minigames_(FNaF4)#Nights#Nights)
Contributors to Five Nights at Freddy's Wiki. (n.d.-a). Phone Guy/Audio. Five Nights at Freddy's Wiki. https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.fandom.com/wiki/Phone_Guy/Audio
Five Nights at Freddy's (Video Game 2014) - IMDb. (n.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4214834/characters/nm6926569
Parra, K., Cawthon, S., Waggener, A., & Cooper, E. (2020b). Step Closer (Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights #4). Scholastic, Incorporated.

Avery leaves the O.R. after the patient is revealed to be the shooter.
I think he makes a great point "He just shot up dozens of people, and this surgery is gonna take all day. That's taking 3 doctors and 4 nurses away from helping other people, people who didn't shoot up a campus full of innocent kids"
Altman immediately counters it with "You're not a jury or a judge"
Karev later makes a compelling argument that seemingly changes Averys pov; that the shooter is probably mentally ill to do such a thing and if he was his brother, Karev would want to know that the doctors will try to save him nonetheless.
The cops find a suicide note in the shooters jeans, so he was ready to and planned on dying that day anyways.
Personally, I wouldn't stop anyone from saving him but I would direct my medical attention to the people who didn't choose to make the day what it turned out out be.
What would you do?

PORT-AU-PRINCE, AYITI: Guerillas affiliated with Jean-Claude Duvalier's nationalist militia watched on as the last Federation garrison on South Island evacuated the city, signalling the official end of a Federation presence in the Ayitian state. Two large Aetiopian galleons ensured peace between both parties, allowing nearly two thousand men, women, and children - officers, soldiers, former policemen, and more - leave the Ayitian mainland in peace, bound for Higuain, Cuba.
The island of Ayiti will now have a challenging road ahead of it, deciding its own future. To prevent a humanitarian disaster, Francis authorized the UNIA to donate funds to several NGO organizations operating in Ayiti. The Negro Factories Corporation has already begun providing microloans to Ayitian business owners, to help subsidize wages and maintain employment during the period of and seventeen Liberty Halls, centers for education, youth, and sports, have been established in eight cities across the state. The Black Star Line has begun transporting hundreds of tons of free food aid to avoid any disruption to nutrition or security on the island, and the Black Nurses of Aetiopia have volunteered sixty-two workers to give free medical checkups in major Ayitian cities over the next few months.
"We are one people," said Francis, in what is appearing to be a split between Duvalier and the Aetiopian speaker. Duvalier has continued to emphasize Ayiti and Ayitian Negritude in his speeches, in contrast to Pisquet or Francis which speak of a united Black identity and Pan-Africanism. While celebrations do much to mask these rising tensions, there appears to be a difference of opinion regarding Ayiti's future.
CB035 CB036 CB037

This is probably a little bit of a rant but I would like to get it off my chest.
I told my neighbors I started the process of going through my military medical records and getting my service connected conditions approved. I'm investing nearly all of my free time in this process, so its what is going on with me. I mentioned I got my first 2 conditions approved and I'm at 10%. He and his wife immediately screamed at me about how I didn't deserve my benefits. She was especially nasty. She told me she was a nurse and her body was breaking down, she has hearing loss, and she has lingering mental issues, but she has enough respect that she doesn't go to the government for a handout. She said I don't deserve my benefits because her veteran husband is more deserving and isn't approved for disability. She was meaner than that, but that is the gist of it.
To her credit, her husband is also a veteran. My understanding is that he put in 1 disability request for a knee issue, got denied, and never pushed the issue. The system is tricky to navigate and very intimidating. With all the technology, I could see this process being especially hard for older people. He also doesn't have a job, a car, inhales marijuana all day, and starts drinking at noon. He also isn't the most driven person.
She also kept screaming about how I was "suing" the government. I'm not suing anyone. There is no attorney. I'm literally going through my military medical records, finding my miliary diagnosis's, finding a civilian doctor to confirm the diagnosis, having them write a good statement for me, and submitting all that with a really great person statement. I'm meeting the 3 criteria for approval to the best of my ability.
While his wife was super nasty, he expressed disapproval in a still loud but more respectful way. A part of me wants to help him get approved for disability, but I also don't because collectively they were so nasty and so mean. We live in an apartment complex. I'm an electrical engineer, but they loudly and drunkenly called me a "welfare queen", berated me, and people overheard. It was really embarrassing, not to mention insulting. I'm an extremely driven and hard working person. I work 60 hour weeks on average.
I think there is still a stigma for disability. I will occasionally read news stories or social media posts of people with an invisible but valid disability (like a prosthetic leg under jeans) getting accosted for parking in a handicapped parking because they don't look the part. I think that was kind of what I experienced. I'm a 33 year old professional with a great career. I don't drink. I do my best to behave appropriately, keep my temper in check, and not air my dirty laundry. I certainly don't burden random people with my personal problems, aches, and pains. My identity isn't victim so I don't portray myself that way. Objectively, I could see why someone who has a lot of problems and struggles would think that I don't.
In the end, I didn't make the rules. I am just following them. Compensating me for damage to my body for the rest of my life is part of the military deal that we signed up for. They are responsible for any damage I received while I was government property. In Korea, I had to run with a ruck sack like once per week. I was never okay with it. It was painful. My concerns were ignored when I protested how needless it was. I couldn't say no. Stuffing the thing with pillows was punitive because they weighed it. Any other job, I could quit if I wasn't okay with the job responsibilities. The military isn't like that. I don't feel bad for using my benefits. I want the safety net. And the longer I wait, I feel like the harder it's going to be to make a case for my conditions to be service connected. Its already been several years.
I think this is a lesson learned to keep this to myself. The stigma is still there and it isn't well received.

TLDR: I think my best friend has been infantilizing me but I'm not sure and would like to know.
I met my best friend when I moved to a different high school in 2017. We weren’t that close at first but towards the end of high school and to date we are super close. I read online that a sign of infantilization is constant contact between people and that’s why I’m mentioning this. I call my friend at least once every 2-3 days and give her an update on my life and she does this vice versa with me.
Sometimes I don’t feel that great about myself after talking with her and this has been the case since the beginning of our friendship. I’ll share some examples.
- I have curly hair and I remember a time in high school when my friend saw my hair and asked “if I had brushed it because it looked messy”.
- There were times in high school where my friend could be quite needy with me. I remember one time in high school where my friend was upset with me for not being close to her and so she proceeded to ask the rest of my friends why I wasn’t that close with her (behind my back).
- During my final year of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do after high school finished. I had some ideas but I wasn’t super sure on anything. One such idea was my plan to be a nurse and my best friend knew this. I would talk to her about the pros of other careers and she would always be like “well that career doesn’t make much money as nursing, just do nursing.”
- She constantly talks about the way I dress. If I repeat an outfit, she remembers. Last year my friends threw me a surprise birthday dinner at this restaurant. A week before the dinner was meant to happen my friend called me “to make sure I would dress appropriately” because in her view “I always wear very baggy clothes” and apparently when I was in high school “she would judge me for what I was wearing and she hated most of my outfits”. She told me that she had called me to ensure “I wouldn’t show up dressed in jeans.” My mood immediately soured after the phone call and I remember not even wanting to come to the dinner afterwards.
- She constantly talks about how I don’t post enough on social media or how I need to post more.
- She constantly talks about how I don’t have many friends and I need to make more friends.
- She constantly talks about how I need to “glow up”.
- When we talk a lot of the times my friend uses phrases such as “Are you sure about..?” or “make sure you do this…”
- She’s constantly giving me unsolicited advice.
- Sometimes if I make a certain decision I’m scared to tell my friend about it. Is that normal?

• Has called me stupid and said that i can't do basic stuff without her

There’s more I can talk about but I hope that’s enough to tell if she’s been infantilizing me or not. One part of me even feels guilty for writing this post and questioning our friendship but I can’t hide the fact I don’t feel super great around her sometimes. I should also mention that my friend displays this sort of behaviour ONLY with me and none of the other people in our friend group. I’m the only person she talks down to.

I’d say I like to dress pretty fem,but I feel like I can look pretty masc when I’m dressed down in my lose/athletic clothes with my hair in a bun because I genuinely go for stuff like loser unfitted jeans or long sports shorts.It was an unexpected trip to the hospital for a vitals check up,so I dressed more lax than usual.In straight leg jeans,a lose shirt,and sports bra with no bag or purse like usual.
One of the nurses seemed like a very butch(or queer) woman in all black with a short hair cut.I was pretty happy to see a possibly butch woman(or another queer person)as a nurse they were very nice & kept giving me some glances.

Activities of the Office of the Seniors Advocate

May Message from Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt

Last month I mentioned I have been touring the province to meet with seniors and hear their ideas for improving programs and services as well as learning firsthand about the challenges and issues they’re facing. I have been to Port Hardy, Dawson Creek, Cranbrook, Abbotsford, Pemberton, Chase, Pender Island and many communities in between.
Learn More

OSA at South Vancouver Seniors Forum

On May 10, Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt will be speaking at the at the South Vancouver Seniors Forum. OSA will also have a booth where attendees can drop by to meet our team and learn more about our office. Join us at this free event taking place at the Jewish Community Centre from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. To register, contact the South Vancouver Seniors Network at 604 660-8380 or email [michael.lee.mla@leg.bc.ca](mailto:michael.lee.mla@leg.bc.ca).
Learn More

Current Issues and Resources

Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters (SAFER) Subsidy Increase

The Province has made improvements to the SAFER program which will help support low-income senior renters. Current recipients will receive a one-time $430 benefit and an increase in their monthly subsidy. There will also be an increase in the income limit for eligibility so more seniors will be eligible. For more information about the SAFER program, and find out if you are eligible for rental assistance, contact BC Housing toll free at 1-800-257-7756 or visit the SAFER webpage.
Scam Alert - OSA has become aware of scams involving fraudsters contacting seniors via telephone and text message and inviting them to claim their benefit with the purpose of stealing banking and other personal information. Please note that NO ACTION IS REQUIRED for SAFER clients to receive their one-time benefit.
Learn More

Emergency Preparedness Week Webinar

Are you and your loved ones ready for an emergency such as a flood, wildfire, earthquake or power outage? Emergency Preparedness Week is May 5-11 and a great time to learn more about emergencies, create a plan and build an emergency kit. Get started with a free B.C. government webinar taking place on May 9th at 5:30 p.m. Attendees will be entered to win a 4-person emergency kit.
Learn More

Caregiver Awareness Month Events

Family Caregivers of BC has compiled a list of free in-person and online events taking place in May to celebrate caregivers and provide them with support, education and resources. OSA staff will be at the Caregiver Wellness Fair in Sidney on May 11th from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Drop by our booth to say hello and learn more about our office.
Learn More

Property Tax Deferral Applications Opening Soon

British Columbians who own their homes will begin to receive property tax notices this month. If you can’t afford to pay your property taxes this year, consider applying for B.C.’s Property Tax Deferment Program. The program allows eligible homeowners 55 and older, surviving spouses and persons with disabilities to defer paying their property taxes and the best time to apply is right after receiving your property tax notice. Remember that you need to renew your application every year to continue with the program.
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Provincial News

Recent Announcements from the B.C. Government Impacting Seniors

April 30, 202
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Affordable, accessible homes coming for seniors in Elkford
April 22, 2024
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Minister’s statement on National Immunization Awareness Week
April 16, 2024
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Parliamentary secretary’s statement on Advance Care Planning Day
April 12, 2024
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Hospital-level care at home launches in Lower Mainland
April 12, 2024
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Expanded adult day program supports Surrey seniors
April 11, 2024
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Province takes more actions to strengthen primary care for people
April 9, 2024
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SAFER improved, top-up benefit coming for people on rental assistance
April 8, 2024
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Launch of spring COVID-19 vaccine boosters marks end of respiratory illness season
April 4, 2024
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Climate action tax credit helps people with everyday costs
April 3, 2024
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Flipping tax means more homes for families, not speculators
April 2, 2024
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More protections for renters, parents, landlords, families
April 2, 2024
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Parliamentary Secretary’s statement on National Caregiver Day
April 1, 2024
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Saving people money on their energy bills

National News

Recent Announcements from the Federal Government Impacting Seniors

April 16, 2024
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Budget 2024: Fairness for every generation
May 1, 2024
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1 million seniors can now access services under the Canadian Dental Care Plan
May 1, 2023
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Message from the Minister of Health and the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health on National Physicians’ Day

Recent Research

Mapping the Caregiver Experience in a Canadian Province: Research Methodology for the Saskatchewan Caregiver Experience Study

(Canadian Journal of Nursing Research)
Policies and services for older adults are increasingly focused on living in the community, rather than relying on institutions. A total of 70–80% of community care for older adults is provided by family and friend caregivers. With Canada's aging population, the number of caregivers to older adults is growing. The purpose of this paper is to describe the research methodology that was employed in the Saskatchewan Caregiver Experience Study to map their experiences and identify their priority support needs.
Learn More

Caring in Canada Survey insights from caregivers and care providers across Canada

(Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence)
Canada is facing a caregiving crisis that will only get worse without real action. A perfect storm is brewing: demand for care is growing, caregivers are aging, the number of available caregivers is shrinking, and care needs are becoming more complex due to our aging population and rising rates of disability and mental health conditions.
Learn More

7 Steps Toward Better CPP/QPP Claiming Decisions: Shifting the Paradigm on how we help Canadians

(National Institute on Ageing)
When to claim benefits from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) — or its Quebec counterpart, the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) — is one of the most important retirement financial decisions Canadians will make. This 8-part series aims to shift the paradigm toward more informed decision-making. Its purpose is simple: to propose new ways to help Canadians understand and benefit from the value of delaying CPP/QPP benefits.
Learn More

Outreach by the OSA

If you would like to invite BC Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt to speak to your organization or attend an event, please email [info@seniorsadvocatebc.ca ](mailto:info@seniorsadvocatebc.ca?subject=OSA%20Request).
The Office of the Seniors Advocate has an information and referral line that is available 24 hours a day, every day. Our senior service specialists will work with you during our office hours to provide resources and help resolve issues. Staff at BC211 will assist after hours.

Read from April 29 – May 04, 2024
1/5 stars I HATED THIS
NOTE: I started out with an open mind read the first chapter, and then this turned into a hate-read.
That being said, no hate to anyone who enjoyed this book, I would love to hear what your opinions are, both on the book and this review :)
Let’s start with my ‘favourite’ quote:

“but it is impossible for someone who was not abused to become an abuser.”
Theo Faber, Psychotherapist

I genuinely do not understand what the hype around this book is.
To be fair, the second I read the words ‘TikTok sensation’ in the advertising, I should have known better.
The thing that struck me is that Michaelides is a SCREENWRITER, and this very much reads like a script, it felt like it was written solely for the purpose of selling the movie rights.
TLDR: This book wants to be Gone Girl so bad.
So, save yourself, if this is on your TBR, forget about it, read something else, ANYTHING else, read a newspaper, just don’t read this.
Longer rant Review, including the writing, characters, setting, and my main issues with this novel.

The Writing:

Is mediocre, at best. It’s very much in the style of ‘he said, she said’.
The best way I can describe it is that it reminds me of a middle-grade novel, where everything is stated clear cut and there isn’t much effort needed on the reader’s part.
There’s nothing wrong with that, for a KID’S book, but this is NOT written for a 10-year-old.
There’s long swaths of exposition, the chapters are between 2-5 pages long, we are constantly told who’s speaking, points are stated and then re-stated kind of like:

“Alicia Berenson has not spoken in 6 years” Diomedes said.
That’s right, from what I remember, she has not spoken since her husband was killed, 6 years ago.

So much needless repetition.
The reason I said that it reads like a script is because there is a lot of useless dialogue + endless descriptions.
Each character and setting is described in such needless detail, going on for entire paragraphs, for example:

Barbie was a Californian blonde in her mid-sixties, possibly older. She was drenched in Chanel No 5, and she’d had a considerable amount of plastic surgery. Her name suited her – she looked like a startled Barbie doll. She was obviously the kind of woman who was used to getting what she wanted – hence her loud protestations at the reception desk when she discovered she needed to make an appointment to visit a patient.

This character has been mentioned once or twice previously but she is relevant for MAYBE 15 pages out of 336.
Majority of the side characters are introduced like this, however, Theo isn’t really described in much detail beyond the ‘tall, dark and brooding’ trope and neither is Alicia, so the 2 protagonists are essentially blank slates.
The dialogue is so cringey, almost every chapter mentions the weather [this is set in the UK], like the weather is used as filler relentlessly.
There’s a bunch of continuity errors, the main one that comes to mind is that at the start of the book when Theo first enters The Grove [don’t even get me started on the name of the hospital, it sounds like the name of a cartoon villain’s layer, not a psych hospital] he is asked to give up his lighter and any other objects that could be used as weapons, yet he and majority of the side characters smoke CONSTANTLY INSIDE THE HOSPITAL.
The writing also reminded me A LOT of Colleen Hoover’s writing, and if that women has no haters, then I’m dead.

The Diary Entries:

Like I said, this book wants to be Gone Girl so bad.
The diary entries are written very weirdly, they don’t read like a journal, where you might get more of a stream of consciousness sort of style, they read like POV switches from 6 years in the past.
They don’t flow and amble like you would expect.
Examples:

Tears collected in my eyes as I walked up the hill. I wasn’t crying for my mother – or myself – or even that poor homeless man. I was crying for all of us. There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it.
But I ruined the mood, stupidly, clumsily – by asking if he would sit for me. ‘I want to paint you,’ I said. ‘Again? You already did.’ ‘That was four years ago. I want to paint you again.’ ‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t look enthusiastic. ‘What kind of thing do you have in mind?’ I hesitated – and then said it was for the Jesus picture. Gabriel sat up and gave a kind of strangled laugh. ‘Oh, come on, Alicia.’

The diary entries are not diary entries, they are memories.
People don’t write down entire conversations word for word like this when they journal, like “’
I had lunch with Martha’ he said”, you write it like “Gabriel had lunch with Martha today.”
I know why the diary entries feel so weird, they read like movie scenes, like a flashback.
Like the memory/subject of the diary entry should be playing in the background while someone narrates.
Again, this was a script, not a novel, I stand by this point.

The Characters:

Character development is frankly non-existent, the characters don’t exists as themselves, they exist to serve the plot.
They have no depth, and their motivations are lacking.
Theo faber: he was abused as a kid and is therefore damaged.
Chapter 3 was literally just an exposition dump of his entire childhood, just straight out of the blue.
It was like Chapter one: a report of the murder, chapter 2 further recollection, chapter 3: so my father beat throughout my childhood, I don’t know why.
Theo’s father was verbally and physically abuse, Theo attempted suicide when he was at uni, because the things his dad said made him feel like a failure.
But we are never told WHAT has been said, and therefore, we don’t see why exactly Theo would have doubts about himself.
Abuse shapes you as a person, if we got to hear his inner thoughts about what his father said, it would give greater insight into Theo’s identity as a character.
Besides that, Theo has a RAGING saviour complex,

“Unable to come to terms with what she had done, Alicia stuttered and came to a halt, like a broken car. I wanted to help start her up again – help Alicia tell her story, to heal and get well. I wanted to fix her.”

The book is filled with passages like that.
And besides that, it’s just filled with loads of nonsense psychobabble.
Theo is also OBSESSED with Alicia, the book tells us it’s out of guilt, but I contest and say that he’s just a creep who very much treats Alicia like a failed version of a manic pixie dream girl.
Alicia Berenson: Alicia is a walking contradiction.
We are told that she is beautiful, charming, sophisticated, but she instead comes across as an anti-social, paranoid shut in with serious co-dependency issues.
She has no friends, no relationships outside of her husband Gabriel, no hobbies, or interests outside of painting and having sex with her husband.
All she does in her chapters is paint, have arguments with people, have sex, and walk around.
Side characters: only exist to serve the plot.
Professor Lazarus Diomedes: the name alone makes me cringe.
He’s Greek, he has a lot of instruments in his office including a piano and a harp [which are never brought up after the initial chapters he’s introduced and he never plays any of them], he’s “unorthodox” and shunned, and he basically exists to be Theo Faber’s ‘yes man’.
Christian: stereotypical work rival who has a habit of calling all the patients bitches.
Yuri: He’s a psych nurse who takes Theo to bar and tell him that he and his wife divorced, and he fell in love with someone else. Fine fair enough, but does he approach this woman like a normal person?
No, he pulls a Joe from YOU and stalks and harasses her.
Yet later on THEO SAYS THAT HE IS A GOOD MAN AND THAT HE IS SORRY DOUBTING YURI. DESPITE INITIALLY BEING UNCOMFORTABLE WITH HIS BEHAVIOUR.
Then again Theo himself is a stalker so go figure.

The Setting:

The Grove is supposed to be a mental hospital used to detain mentally ill criminals.
Firstly, all the patients are female. It is never stated that the hospital is an all-female facility.
Second, we never get an idea of the scope of this place, there’s only one therapy room for EVERYONE to use, only 2 psychiatrists on payroll, Diomedes and Christian, 2 therapists, Theo and a side character named Indira, one psychiatric nurse, Yuri and an admin assistant, Stephanie.
The layout and descriptions are confusing, one area is referred to as the ‘Fishbowl’ throughout the novel.
Racism:
I don’t know if Michaelides has some internalized racism going on but every single foreign character has a habit of erasing their cultural identity.
Examples:
Yuri, the psych nurse who is Latvian –

Yuri was good-looking, well built, and in his late thirties. He had dark hair and a tribal tattoo creeping up his neck, above his collar. He smelled of tobacco and too much sweet aftershave. And although he spoke with an accent, his English was perfect.

This sort of backhanded compliment is considered racist, as someone who is POC myself, I’ve gotten this plenty of times and it always gives me the ick.
Jean-Felix, the gallerist –
He spoke with an accent. I asked if he was French. ‘Originally – from Paris. But I’ve been here since I was a student – oh, twenty years at least. I think of myself more as British these days.’
There were more examples, but these are the main ones I found in my notes.

Misogyny:

Firstly, the patients are all female, like I said earlier, it is never stated that it is an all-female facility.
This book is dripping with it, every single female character is either described as a manic pixie dream girl, a maternal figure, or a psychotic bitch.
The DOCTORS refer to their patients as bitches multiple times.
Example:

“She was entirely consumed with herself and her art. All the empathy you have for her, all the kindness – she isn’t capable of giving it back. She’s a lost cause. A total bitch.’ Christian said this with a scornful expression-“
Rowena gave a derisive snort. ‘Because Alicia’s the least responsive, most uncommunicative bitch I’ve ever worked with.’

Besides that, they are often compared to birds:

“I remember Mum and those colourful tops she’d wear, with the yellow stringy straps, so flimsy and delicate – just like her. She was so thin, like a little bird.”
“Alicia was sitting alone, I noticed, at the back of the room. She was picking at a meagre bit of fish like an anorexic bird;”

Alicia is also very much painted as a manic pixie dream girl in her diary entries, almost every page of her POV mentions sex, and it has no effect on the plot.
It was mentioned so often that I ended up keeping track out of boredom [I should have also tracked how often the weather was mentioned].
I think I have 15 tabs in 300 pages by the end of it for just sex scenes.
I don't have an issue with sex, but just like in movies when it gets thrown in for no reason, that's when it irritates me.
And of course the mentally ill woman with possible psychosis and BPD has to be shown as hot and a nymphomaniac.
Every one of her POVs reads like:
“Gabriel and I had an argument and then we had sex.”
“I went for a walk and fantasized about Gabriel.”
“I was trying to paint Gabriel but then we had sex.”
“I had an argument with someone and came home to wake up Gabriel and we had sex.”
I can see why this atrocity is a BookTok favourite.
Oh, and this line: [Warning NSFW]

“It’s still populated by sixteen-year-olds, embracing the sunshine, sprawled on either side of the canal, a jumble of bodies – boys in rolled-up shorts with bare chests, girls in bikinis or bras – skin everywhere, burning, reddening flesh. The sexual energy was palpable – their hungry, impatient thirst for life. I felt a sudden desire for Gabriel – for his body and his strong legs, his thick thighs lain over mine. When we have sex, I always feel an insatiable hunger for him – for a kind of union between us – something that’s bigger than me, bigger than us, beyond words – something holy.”

She’s out on a walk and salivating over 16-year-olds. Enough said.

Medical Malpractice:

Not only is a lot of the psychology in this book outdated, but in general, there is so much misinformation.
The psychology is so outdated, and it's mostly centered around Freud.
The biggest example I can think of is Alicia’s initial treatment, she has been put on Risperidone, which is an anti-psychotic prescribed to schizophrenic patients [Also prescribed for autism, BPD, etc. but that's on a case by case basis]
In the book, Alicia is shown to be completely out if it, she’s drooling on the floor, and practically comatose.
Risperidone is NOT a sedative [it can have sedative EFFECTS, but sedation is not the function] it acts on dopamine and serotine receptors and is used to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia, i.e. prevent hallucinations and help stabilize mood.
It should not be causing Alicia to be unresponsive.
[Disclaimer, this is just coming from my basic knowledge as a med student and a few quick google searches, if I'm wrong, please correct me.]
Moving on, Theo wants to treat Alicia but she’s on 16 mg of Risperidone, which is the highest safe dose possible.
He asks Christian to lower the dose, what does Christian do?
He stops giving Alicia 16 mg and switches her to 5 mg.
An 11 mg decrease. IN ONE DAY.
There is no gradual decrease, no safety precautions, NOTHING.
For context, Risperidone is prescribed in 0.5 – 1 mg increments.
This means that an 11 mg decrease is incredibly dramatic and DANGEROUS, it can send a patient into a psychotic episode, cause them to relapse and lead to withdrawal.
Christian being a psychiatrist should know this.
Patients are allowed access to a pool table without supervision, all the doctors smoke and offer their patients cigarettes,
Yuri deals drugs, Theo seemingly does no ither work besides talk to Alicia and play detective.

Depiction of mentally ill patients:

Throughout the book the patients are often referred to as animals, monstrous or zombies.
Examples:

“Her [Elif, a patient] face was pressed up against it, squashing her nose, distorting her features, making her almost monstrous.”
“It took four nurses to hold Alicia down. She writhed and kicked and fought like a creature possessed. She didn’t seem human, more like a wild animal; something monstrous.”
[Alicia is painting, Theo is watching]
“I felt like I was present at an intimate moment, watching a wild animal give birth. And although Alicia was aware of my presence, she didn’t seem to mind.”

On top of that, the word borderline gets thrown out A LOT, but it is never explained and is often derogatory.
Example:

[This is Christian the psychiatrist speaking, warning Theo about Alicia]
‘I’m just saying. Borderlines are seductive. That’s what’s going on here. I don’t think you fully get that.’

I am not against problematic writing, as long as it serves a purpose, but Michaelides is not talented enough to do something like this intentionally, and showing patients in this light serves no purpose.
Theo makes it very clear that he thinks that Elif, a Turkish woman, is ugly and rude, it is mentioned every time she is on the page.
This sort of depiction is harmful, mental health gets a bad enough rep as it is, again, I take no issue with problematic writing, but this is not problematic or controversial, this is ignorance.
The depiction of mental illness, coupled with the use of Risperidone, indicates, to me, that Michaelides did not do his research whatsoever.
He just thought of a cool idea and ran with it.
Oh, and lastly, let’s not forget:

“but it is impossible for someone who was not abused to become an abuser.”

No, just no. ANYONE can be abusive.
Correlation does not equal causation.
This is blatant misinformation and a very harmful message to send and I was actually so angry when I read that.

The Twist [spoilers]

The twist is the most ridiculous thing, and it hangs on by a thread.
I had already guessed that Gabriel was the one who Kathy’s affair partner was, and the entire thing falls apart when you realize that if any of Theo’s chapters were dated, you would figure it out immediately.
That’s a very loose basis for a dramatic reveal.
Yes, Theo is an unreliable narrator and I usually enjoy such stories, but this was just lazy.
I’m sorry, Theo followed Gabriel all over London and never ONCE saw his face, never heard Kathy moan his name when he was spying on them, not ONCE.
It’s poor when your twist relies on my suspension of disbelief.
Conclusion
- Poorly written, reads like a middle-grade novel. Michaelides is a screenwriter, and this very much reads like a script, designed to be easy to follow and direct.
- Horrible depiction mental health, both as a patient and in practice.
- Hollow, 2D characters.
- Misogynistic.
- Overall waste of time, save yourself.

She was used to disturbing dreams. For a while after the… incident, they’d been full of clowns. Clowns with sickly green eyes, in bad boaters and garish Hawaiian shirts. This one was different, disturbing in a less placeable way.
The room is pristine white and clean. It should be full of light, but something about it is dim and dingy. Large windows line the walls, but outside there is thick smog or mist; only a few slender fingers of light can make it through. There is a seat at one of the windows. A boy sits on the seat, dressed all in white. Somehow she knows to call this boy ‘brother.’
The brother stares out at nothing in particular, unless it is merely the world beyond the walls. She decides to take a few steps closer to him, then stops dead, blood running cold. The brother turns in his seat to look dead at her. He seems almost entirely like an ordinary boy until you see his eyes. They were full of something like hate. Actually hate seems too mild a word for what is in those eyes. Hate is human. These eyes are full of a murderous intent, guided almost it seems by a higher-lower power. It transcends anything human.
In her mind’s eye she sees fat specks of blood spatter on a pitch black surface like drops of rain.
Barbara Gordon jerked half-awake in her hospital bed. Whoa. Damn sedative. She was embarrassingly aware of a puddle of drool next to her mouth and was grateful to see Dick was not around. So where was everyone? Pitch black out. What time was it? Eight? Nine?
Easy, Barb. You nodded off. Dick decided to go do something besides watch you sleep. Nothing to panic about. She was aware of her legs again. Or still, rather. Before the ‘incident’ she would have guessed that paraplegics lost all feeling in their legs. Even after making a hundred new adjustments, relearning how to pull on her pants, coming to terms with how screwed she’d be as a wheelchair-user with a second-floor apartment, even after all that, she still felt phantom pains going up and down her legs some nights.
Well. If everything went alright tonight, that might change. A doctor flown in from South Africa, a quick surgical technique that was younger than she was, and Barbara Gordon could walk again.
Damn, she was tired. Her eyes were stinging from the effort of keeping the lids open. She let them close. Not to sleep. Just a little rest… what was she dreaming about before she woke, anyway? Something about a brother wanting to kill his sister. The details were already slipping out of her mind.
She sighed comfortably. Not sleeping. Just a little rest.
***
Dick Grayson sipped from a cup of truly awful coffee (he had been warned) and grinned. Inconvenient delays aside, he’d managed to kill an enjoyable couple hours in the commissary with a pair of nurses named Pieter and Asa while Kadaver’s Mystery Theater played Thing From Another World. Dick was fairly certain, despite his best efforts, he was hitting it off with at least one of them.
“So you really grew up in a circus?”
“Yep.”
“Sorry, you just don’t seem the type.”
“To bite heads off chickens or balance a ball on my nose?”
“I mean. For example.”
“I was an acrobat. In an act with my parents and my Aunt Harry. We were the Flying Graysons.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. It was pretty normal, really. I had a teacher who traveled with us, I had chores, friends. And when we were on the road we had coffee even worse than this. Tastes like nostalgia.”
Easygoing chatter was interrupted by a noise from a nearby table, the only other one occupied. An orderly was seated there, one whose demeanor rather aptly conveyed ‘sleazeball’ without requiring too much consultation with his appearance. He was, to put it mildly, engaging a coworker standing slightly behind him, with a good deal more physicality than was strictly indicated professional ethics. The object of his affections, evidently accustomed to it, stalked off acidly while the seated orderly smirked.
Turning to his two new acquaintances, Dick raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“That’s Morty Drake,” Pieter murmured, distaste evident. “Not really the most popular guy.”
“Wouldn’t be here if we’d had even one more person apply for the job,” Asa added.
Morty Drake, still unabashed, was now singing softly to himself. “Ohhh, my love, my darling, I hunger for your pie. Oh, IIII’ll be theeere-” Abruptly, Dick made up his mind.
“Hey,” he called across the room. He was aware of Pieter and Asa looking alarmed but pressed on. “That was a bit much, don’t you think? Might want to think about apologizing.”
Drake shot him a murderous glance. “Might wanna mind your own business, dicklick.” To punctuate the suggestion, he pulled a switchblade that certainly wasn’t part of the standard uniform.
Wonder if he came up with that before or after hearing my name. Dick idly noticed a rather skillfully-done tattoo of a skeletal Musketeer on the man’s neck. He found it somehow uplifting to look for redeeming features in unpleasant people. He realized with a start that he still had ‘Maid of Honor’ tucked away in a pocket.
Dick heaved a deep, theatrical sigh. “Oh, I’d really rather not do this. But since you’re testing me. You want to take this outside?”
Drake sneered. “You’re on.”
As Pieter and Asa watched in horror, both men stood, and both sauntered languidly and insolently towards the exit door to the back alley. Dick popped the door open, then was shoved aside haughtily by Drake, who walked out first.
Dick gently shut the door behind him, let the lock click, and walked back to the table, where Pieter and Asa were staring, stupefied. He tossed Drake’s artfully-swiped security pass onto the table.
“Told him I didn’t want to do it.”
***
It took Mortimer Drake a few seconds to realize he’d been locked out, after which he immediately began seething with rage. His keycard wasn’t in its usual pocket, either, leaving him stuck with a few king-size dumpsters. A few moments’ pounding on the door met with no response, though it made him feel marginally better. That goddam skinny pretty boy fruit. Gonna kick his ass.
Mortimer Drake gritted his teeth and stomped in a random direction, trying to orient himself. Nothing looked familiar in the dark. And damn, it was cold. He fantasized about pounding the fruit’s face inside-out in the vain hope that sufficient anger could make him feel warm.
He had walked along perhaps thirty minutes when he suddenly felt a strange feeling that he was being watched. Instinctively his hand went for the switchblade in his pocket, and he stopped to look behind him. Nothing there. But the hairs on the back of his neck were still pricking. He shrugged and moved on, muttering.
It occurred to Mortimer that he wouldn’t be able to get in through the usual entrance without getting a chewing-out for losing his ID. They’d blame him for something like that, never mind the punk in the cafeteria stole it from him. But… there was a window in the hydrotherapy room that was sometimes left unlocked. He might make a discreet entrance through there.
He picked up his pace a bit, cramming down the sensation that the thing watching him was now following him.
***
Harvey Bullock drove rather faster than was advisable through the Old Gotham. Even flooded with light, the city seemed dark tonight, and the darkness seemed to be staring at him, dark like a pair of empty eyeholes. Out in the darkness was the Shape.
Gordon had been right. Bullock had been something very close to a good cop, once. Maybe he’d taken money, when it was offered. In this town, who hadn’t? But he’d known where to draw the line. He’d never roughed up anyone who didn’t have it coming and he’d never turned a blind eye to anything that would keep him up at night.
The first night Michael Myers had run amok in Gotham City, Bullock had been on duty. In point of fact, he had run the bastard over in a car. And then Myers’ insane psychiatrist had given him an unneeded tracheotomy via pen-knife. Hits had kept coming through weeks of recovery. All of a sudden he didn’t have a job anymore, and neither did Montoya. Took a shot, turned out to be the wrong target, and out on her ass. Accusations like that stuck with a cop all their lives, even ones who kept their jobs. Shoot the wrong person, and ‘extenuating circumstances’ were just two words in a dictionary.
Bullock had been lucky enough to land on his feet. But somehow he’d never left that night behind. The nightmares had started not long after he left the hospital. Even though it hadn’t been Myers that slashed his throat, in the dreams it was always that pale mask-face. Some kind of darkness had gotten into him that night, through the wound in his neck, and it had spent the last few years festering.
“I got you now, you bastard,” Bullock muttered to himself. “Evil dies tonight.”
Tonight. By his hand. No need for Gordon, no need for the Bat. This was between him and Myers. Harvey Bullock drove faster than was strictly necessary, into the darkness.
***
The hospital really was quiet for a Halloween night. Even in small towns, you could normally expect a few minor disasters on a Halloween. Evidently the lengthening string of local disasters was persuading Gothamites in the East End to stay indoors after dark. That should have been a relief to Dr. Kinsolving; with staff begging off early to go to parties, they were short-staffed by now. Instead the emptiness felt oddly disquieting. Her footsteps seemed to fill entire hallways.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she rounded a hallway and came face to face with Dick Grayson.
“Sorry!” the young man said, almost a whisper.
Kinsolving realized with a little embarrassment that she’d yelped, and grasped for her composure. “No. I- it’s Grayson, isn’t it? You were with Barbara Gordon. Are you still here?”
Grayson looked apologetic. “Sorry,” he said, voice still low. Kinsolving guessed that the Gordon girl must have been asleep. “We were waiting on some test results and never got them. I kind of lost track of time, I was-” and there he abruptly cut himself off, blushing slightly. “Actually I’ve been trying to get ahold of someone.”
He said it perfectly patiently, but to the doctor it sounded like the kind of patience that was just impatience trying to be polite. With another touch of embarrassment she realized how long they’d been kept waiting. On a slow night, too. Old Thompkins would have been furious.
“I’m terribly sorry, I don’t know what could be taking so long. Normally I would get some kind of notice from a technician-”
“Would his name be Morty Drake, by any chance?”
“Well… yes. How did you-”
“Never mind.”
“In any case, I’ll go along to the lab and see if the results are ready.”
“I’ll come with you,” Grayson said, innocently enough but clearly brooking no argument. Something about him seemed slightly on edge.
Kinsolving didn’t feel much like arguing, in any case. She was on edge herself. A little company would not be amiss. She walked briskly and Grayson kept pace with almost insolent ease. He had an undeniable charisma about him; Kinsolving was fairly certain he’d spent the last hour or so flirting with nursing staff.
Come to think of it. Where could Drake have gotten to? The doctor pursed her lips. Some day she was going to have to file a report on that one.
“Here we are,” she said at last. “If you could just hold on out here for a moment.” Grayson nodded obligingly.
Kinsolving poked her head into the lab, entering quietly, not quite tiptoeing. It was surprisingly dark. Too dark for anyone to be working. But she could make out someone sitting in the shadows. Judging from the hairstyle:
“Drake,” she said, relieved but annoyed. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
It did not occur to her, in that moment, that Drake was unusually quiet for almost anyone and especially for Drake. It was only as she got closer to him that she began to realize something was wrong. Shondra Kinsolving had been a doctor in Gotham City a long time. She, it must be said, had seen some terrible things- things done by patients, to patients, to doctors, on occasion even by doctors (she still had nightmares about what had happened with Giggling Rendell in Surgery). Nothing had quite prepared her for what had happened to Drake.
It was the smell that reached her first, but she didn’t fully process it until she felt Drake’s shoulder. It squelched. He was soaking wet. And his skin, she could see by the little remaining light, was angry, blistering red, outermost layers peeled and torn away from musculature. Drake had been boiled alive, or drowned; either way his head had been held under scalding hot water- the hydrotherapy tanks, she realized- until he died.
Kinsolving’s hand started to go over her mouth, either to stifle a scream or hold back vomit. She wasn’t sure which. But before her hand could reach her mouth, another one was there. A wet, warm hand with strength like an iron bar. She tried to scream, couldn’t. Thrashed desperately, to no avail. Out of the corner of her eye, through panic, she saw the face of the man behind her, covered in a leathery clown mask of human skin. And she saw, clamped in the other hand, a syringe inching towards her eye, thumb slowly depressing the plunger. It was close now. Closer.
And suddenly the iron grip relaxed, and she could kick free. As she did, she could hear a grunt of surprise and the flapping of pages as a book hit the Shape in the side of its head. Less than a second later the Shape’s legs came out from beneath it, and it plummeted to the floor. She felt something grip her hand, and heard Dick Grayson’s voice. “Come on. Hurry.”
By some miracle her legs began working.
They were nearly out of the room, away from Drake’s mangled body and the nightmare in the clown-skin mask. A short distance that felt like an infinity. She heard a gasp of pain from Grayson, turned around- the Shape, lunging across the floor like an animal, had pulled a scalpel from somewhere, gashed the young man’s leg. A balletic kick to the masked face sent it sprawling once more.
They made it. Out of the room. Safe. No. Not safe.
Sheer survivor instinct was numbing her senses. She could barely comprehend what Grayson was doing as he pulled something- a short metal rod?- from a pocket, and jammed it through the door’s handles.
“What was that thing?” Kinsolving said. Shrieked, really. Her voice was not under her own control.
“Mask’s different. But I’m pretty sure we just met Michael Myers. Serial killer with very messed-up ideas about Halloween pranks.” Grayson said, grimly. He was leaning slightly, sparing a leg; the scalpel must have caught him. Kinsolving half-noticed a second layer of clothing under his jeans as he groped in his pocket.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I… When he stabbed me, I think he somehow got my knife.”
She barely paid attention to that. “Is that going to hold him?!”
Suddenly the door dented outwards. Once. Twice. Again and again. The brace in the handles bent from the strain.
“Smart money says no. Run.Not ideal conditions to be facing an unstoppable serial killer, he reflected, drawing the other one. Not that facing unstoppable serial killers is ideal itself.
Nothing for it. His thumb squeezed a button on a hidden button in the stick’s base, feeling it extend and hum. Not just a stick anymore. Now it was a stun baton. That ought to at least give Myers a headache. There wasn’t much use in getting into costume now. The opportune moment for a dramatic Nightwing entrance was officially past. So, time for another tried-and-true tactic. As the Master said, ‘if your opponent is of bad temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, so that he may grow arrogant.’
“Heeeeey, Mikey Mikey Mikey,” Dick called out, as he moved through the halls. “Didn’t hurt your face too bad, did I? The clown look suits you, by the way.”
He rounded another corner, carefully. Focus. Like Bruce taught you. What can you sense? At the moment, it was the lingering smell of Drake’s boiled flesh. Smelled like guilt. Sorry, Drake. All things considered, you didn’t deserve that. Along with the smell, there was sound-
Dick Grayson whirled out of the way just as a knife, pink-handled and engraved with MAID OF HONOR, stabbed through the air. A nanosecond from piercing his neck, the wicked curved blade gouged straight through the wall next to him. Dick felt his neck muscles tense as he imagined what that blade would have done to him.
He got his first good look at Michael Myers.
The Boogeyman did not look like a knife-wielding lunatic in a pair of coveralls. He looked like a shadow that had come to life, undying hatred in its black, black eyes. The preserved clown-skin mask, wrapped around his head on leather straps, gave his face a nightmare grin, and those black eyes peeked out now through the holes, alive with naked hate. Looking at him.
“Hi, Mike,” Dick breathed.
The Shape, of course, said nothing. But suddenly the knife was moving again, whistling through the air. Dick leapt. As the knife swung wildly he vaulted the monster’s shoulder, running across the wall and landing behind. Pain! lancing through his wounded leg as he hit ground. Ignore.
The stun baton struck Myers once, twice, before Dick flipped backwards out of reach. Just in time; another wild swipe came less than inches from slicing open his belly.
The Shape staggered slightly, only slightly. A hit from the baton should have left even a strong man curled up on the ground in agony. The Shape seemed barely annoyed. Oh, that’s a bad sign. Dick saw the muscles tense. The Shape did his trick well, but it was his only trick- lunge and slash. The day a Flying Grayson couldn’t dodge a knife was the day to hang up the tights.
Again. Alley-oop. Toro! Ole!
This time, ducking down and around, under the knife blow. Another few strong blows with the baton, and something like a grunt of pain this time. Oh, dear. Am I wearing you down?
Again. Again. Avoid the knife, hit him where he was weak. Zap. AGAIN!
The baton had struck Myers no fewer than a dozen times when he/it finally collapsed to one knee, heavy breathing agonized behind the clownface mask. The head dipped, and finally the Shape collapsed to the ground hard enough to shake the hallway. He was beaten.
Dick Grayson sighed. Huh. Okay. Not so tough after all, then. Though for a moment there…
The clown-mask still looked disturbing plastered across Myers’ expressionless face. Dick realized with a start that his hand was reaching out to remove it, almost entirely unbidden by his conscious mind. Time for that later. Get his knife and get some cuffs on him. He undid a spare pair from his belt and reached out, slowly.
Slowly…
He wasn’t sure what alerted him first. Something must have. When Myers stopped playing possum, when he sat upright with mechanical stiffness, he did so fast enough to finally get a good slash in. If Dick hadn’t suddenly sensed it coming it could have been his throat instead of his hand.
He heard himself swear. Felt himself stumble on his wounded leg.
And suddenly the Shape was on its feet and was grabbing him by his jacket, charging forward to pound him into a wall. Dick kept one hand on each of the Shape’s, the one near his throat and the one bringing the knife down at him. The strength was amazing, muscles like steel. Myers slammed him again, twice, vengefully.
Gotta flip him around. Or trip him. Get a foot around his leg-
Somehow Myers sensed his intention. They wriggled, struggled. And before Dick knew what was happening he heard broken glass and felt something sharp brushing his face. He plummeted backwards out the window into the cold night. Falling. Like Mom. Like Dad. Need my grapple.
Only a floor or two up. A short fall. Thought never got the chance to become action. The sickening smack into the ground. The thud against the back of his head, and his vision giving way to blackness.
From the broken window, Myers looked at the ground below, and at Dick Grayson’s quiet, still body sprawled out upon it. He tilted his face, either quizzically or admiringly. This one had surprised him. Come close to defeating him. No worries now. On to the main course. He turned on his heel and stalked for Barbara Gordon’s room.
***
The room was as quiet as a grave. There was not even the sound of footsteps on tile hallway outside, nor was there any creaking as the door opened. It still breezed open, silently, and a horribly patient shadow filled the doorframe. It moved across the floor, still silent, savoring. The low light of the room was simply swallowed up by the shadow, but a small gleam of it glinted off the knife’s blade.
The shadow reached the bedside. The blade rose over the shadow’s head with a terrible slowness, and it struck, plunging deep into the bedclothes. The shadow kept stabbing, almost frantically. And suddenly it stopped. The shadow ripped the bedclothes free and found, not Barbara Gordon’s mutilated body, but a neat line of pillows tucked into the bed. If the Shape felt anything like human emotions, it was probably feeling rage, now...
And down the dark hallway, struggling to crank the handrims both quickly and quietly and keep her breathing steady at the same time, Barbara Gordon was making for the elevator.
Come on come on come on come on.
Maybe the bad dreams had awakened her to the sounds of fighting. Or maybe the fighting itself had awakened her. Either way, the second she was awake, Barbara had been aware that something was wrong. Every instinct in her being screamed at her to run. After a quick push of the nurse call button had failed to raise anyone, she felt inclined to listen to instinct.
Come on come on come on come on. Why the FUCK didn’t I grab my phone? It was still in the pocket of her jeans, back in the room. It had seemed like too much wasted time to retrieve it as she fled. Now she was cursing herself. Phones on the wall. Stop to make a quick call?
Barbara turned her head over her shoulder. Someone was behind her. Something. Some Shape. Different from what she remembered, but horrifyingly unmistakeable.
Nope. No stopping. Barbara’s arms, raked with muscle, began working the handrims even faster. And Michael Myers, with his terrible patient determination, followed.
The elevator was at the end of the hall. Myers was moving slowly, toying with her like a cat with a mouse. Somehow the space of that single hallway seemed to stretch on for an eternity. She dared another glance over her shoulder.
In the half-light she saw Myers was no longer wearing the mask she remembered from those years ago. The pale emotionless face with the ratty hair and black hole eyes was now a tattered, lined clown face, ugly red lips drawn taut in a hideous grin. She had seen a face like that before, leering at her before a hammer pulled back and a trigger was pulled-
Her breath was in her throat again. Just go. Fast as you can. Just go. Just go. Come on come on come ON.
It seemed miraculous that she reached the elevator, almost unreal. Primed for flight, Barbara’s mind barely processed the corpse of the nurse stuffed in, limbs twisted and back bent backwards. The name tag read “Asa.” Don’t think about it. For now, survive.
She leaned overthe arm of the chair, hand slamming against a button almost at random. Ground floor. Most space to run. She hit it again. Again. Again again again. The clown-faced Shape was still striding towards her. The empty eyes, the malicious grin. Close close close come on come on COME ON. He was nearly on her.
The doors slid shut with barely a second to spare, and Barbara heard a hand slam against it furiously. About an eternity later, Barbara felt the elevator descend, and her heart begin to beat normally. The immediate fight-or-flight fear ebbed away, replaced with a sick, horrified feeling for the dead nurse she was sharing an elevator with. Dick, she thought, suddenly. Have to find him. He could be- no. He’s still alive. Find him. No. Prioritize. First get help. This fight isn’t on your terms. So first get help. Easy-peasy. Nearly there, in fact. You’re on the home stretch.
***
Michael Myers, normally silent, grunted with effort behind his new mask. His fingers jammed between the sliding doors of the elevator like crowbars. His muscles strained. The interlock groaned from the effort, then deformed, and, finally, with strength that was beyond freakish, Michael Myers pulled the doors apart. There was a heavy, sick breathing as the black eyes watched the cables of the elevator. Then, with swift and terrible movement, Michael Myers raised his knife and sliced through the cables.

CW Domestic Abuse, graphic violence
Laurens' stomach seemed to flip and jolt with every bump of the road heading to the motel outside of town just past the main supermarket. Tears ran down her face. The car seemed to fishtail a little as she pulled in. There were several problems with her marriage. Namely that he had a tendency to hit her and accuse her of cheating on him, the most current problem was that he was cheating on her in a motel where everyone they knew could see. Lauren wasn’t thinking clearly as she banged on the door, she knew right away which one it would be, she could hear his voice coming out from it.
“OPEN UP!” She screamed as she pounded on the door. Lauren could feel the general sensation of her hand resisting the door. It would more than likely hurt at some point when she came off the adrenaline.
Then, the door did open. Daniel Anderson took up most of the frame and he was angry. Lauren could hear the other girl screaming inside but couldn’t seem to make out what she was saying. Her heart stopped as she looked into Daniels face. He was Angry. The kind of angry that meant he was going to hurt her, whether anyone could see it or not. Lauren backed up from the door to avoid being pulled in the room but Daniel followed her out.
“What are you doing here?” Daniel asked, his voice was even and low.
“I got 3 calls about you being here with some whore.” Lauren retorted. She had started edging towards her car at this point, seemingly just now realizing she had made a mistake in coming here. Her heart seemed to stop altogether as he reached for her.
Lauren ducked but he caught her by her hair, winding the strands in between his fingers and yanking her face so that her ear was next to her mouth.
“What did you call her?” He whispered through clenched teeth. Lauren remained mute at this point. She felt her heart speed up and she tried to figure out how to get out of this. He’d never hit her in public. If she could remind him where they were… “I asked you a question Bitch.
If Lauren had thought about answering at that point, she wasn’t given much of a chance. He swung her head up and then forward, the momentum knocking her to the ground. Then he kicked her, pain blossomed through her midsection stunning her and she had trouble catching her breath. His hands came back down and he began throwing her face into the bumper of his bright red truck. After a minute he threw her face in a different direction and she could taste gravel.
“Apologize.” Daniel said in a warning voice. Lauren tried to stand but he mimicked grabbing at her and she shrunk back. “Apologize to her for calling her a whore.”
Lauren said nothing, somewhat in shock and mostly in pain. She could taste blood and felt it running down her face. This time he did grab her by the arm and yanked her up in one movement.
“I Said. Apologize. “ his words were clear.
Lauren did. Stuttering out an I’m sorry in the other woman’s direction.
“You best be home when I get back.” With that Daniel turned around and went back in the room.
Lauren assessed her options but she couldn’t seem to think. She reached into her car and pulled out her purse and started walking. She couldn’t see out of one eye hardly at all and her head hurt in the back. Lauren knew that he had pulled out a significant amount of hair. She thought she recalled some sharp pain as her face was pulled back from the bumper but she couldn’t remember what had happened in any sort of order.
It was at least 2 miles to her friend’s house. Lauren knocked on the door and when Natalie opened the door Lauren pushed her way in. Natalie hissed as she looked at Lauren.
“What the fuck happened?” Natalie gingerly touched her eye, or at least Laurent thought it was the area heer eye should be in. She hadn’t realized how numb she’d been getting here until she wasn’t numb anymore and the throbbing started up. Todd, Natalie’s husband came from the bedrooms and audibly gasped as well. Lauren headed for the hair salon in the back as Natalie whispered to Todd.
Natalie found Lauren in the salon, lights on and sitting in the chair.
“I’ve got enough here for a haircut but I’ll have to get back to you on the last minute/middle of the night fee. I need it all chopped off if you would. I know he ripped a bit in the back so it’s uneven anyway. Honestly it’s irresponsible to keep my hair this long anyway,do people still do that Kate plus Eight hair? The may I speak to your manager hair?” Lauren had trouble forming the words but she kept going hoping that Natalie understood her. She purposefully faced away from the mirror.
“I can cut your hair for sure. Wouldn’t you rather go to a hospital?” Natalie asked carefully playing with Lauren’s hair. Lauren shookher head quickly and immediately regretted it. Todd came in the room with an ice pack and a washcloth. Natalie filled up a bowl of water and started carefully patting away dried blood and finding the actual cuts. There was water and ibuprofen with a few tylenol mixed in, Lauren had trouble with it.
Natalie cut her hair silently. Working around one spot and then going back to it before announcing that it was as good as it was going to get there until the massive cut healed.
“You want to stay here tonight babe?” Natalie asked as she once more took to wiping her face from the still open cuts.
“No I couldn't do that to you, he told me to go home and when he finds that I’m not there… I left my car at the motel. '' Lauren knew on some level she had and knew there had been a reason, but now that the adrenaline was amping down and quickly she had no idea what she was going to do now.
“The motel?”
“Yeah, he met that girl..that one… Beth, that’s her name. They were up there and I had 3 people call me to tell me his truck was there. I just lost it and drove up there. I didn’t expect this to happen. I figured he’d be caught and apologetic.”
“That fucking bitch, I know her. She has no shame. Anyone gives her a little attention and she thinks they’re married. Tells everyone about it. She smells to high heaven too.” Natalie said incensed.
“Well I got up there and confronted him and he did this until I apologi-apolo-. “ Lauren felt sick suddenly and didn’t bother to finish. It hurt more to talk anyway.
“Why don’t you kick him out? It’s your house, the bills are in your name, you survived years without him before so it’s not like you need to worry about money. Serve him with eviction papers and go hide out somewhere until the month is up. Then bar him from the house.”
“I can’t afford a vacation and last time I tried to kick him out, it didn’t go well.I’ve got nothing in savings or otherwise. I can’t stay with anyone because he’ll come find me and hurt someone else in the process. My kids are already going to be pissed about this and if I disappear it's them he’ll hassle.I can’t afford the medical bills if I go in for this and I can’t afford the next beating if I don’t go home and get there before he does. Plus he knows exactly where I work.”
“You aren’t going to have a job if you're dead and he’s going to kill you.. At this point we’re just waiting for when. I can help you. I can loan you money, Fuck, I’ll just give you the god damn money. “
“We both know you don’t have any more than I do. “ Lauren said leaning back
“Well, you aren’t going home tonight, call your kids and warn them that he’ll be calling and to get a police car out there or something. I’ll call Lottie and explain that you are taking a few days off, and you most certainly are taking a few days off ma’am. You can’t go in looking like that, Lottie’ll kick you back out as soon as you show up. I know where you can go for now.”
Lauren went out back, wincing as she lit up a cigarette and took a few good drags before calling her oldest daughter and explaining that Daniel was going to be angry and to be on the lookout and if she could please call her siblings because she just did not have the energy tonight. Lauren promised to go to the hospital, figuring she’d end up going at some point and assured her daughter that she would be fine. After hanging up Todd got her attention at the edge of the yard and gestured toward the car. Lauren got up and limped over to it to climb in and wondering why the actual fuck she had worn flip flops tonight for this. .
It was a long drive out of town and into the mountains. Lauren apologized profusely every time she looked at the car clock. Todd waved his hand dismissively and handed her a fresh ice pack.
“We’re going to see my cousin, he lives up in the woods doing work for the park. He’s pretty far out there and doesn’t come into town much so Daniel won’t know about him. I’d turn your phone off as a precaution though. GPS trackers and whatnot.”
Lauren had already turned her phone off and felt herself dozing off. Unsure of how long she had slept she was awoken by the car stopping. Todd told her to wait where she was while he talked to his cousin. Lauren wondered what she was going to do if this guy didn’t let her stay here tonight. A few minutes later Todd was back and helping her hobble inside. The other man looked like he’d been woken up. He looked Lauren up and down and then waved Todd away. Todd slumped his shoulders and walked back to the car.
“I’m Eric, you’ll get my room. I’ve got some shirts on the bed to sleep in. The dog might insist on laying with you don’t mind dogs too much. I’ll be right out here on the couch if you need anything, bathroom is over here. I can get you a water and some more ibuprofen.” Eric seemed nice. Lauren worried that Daniel would find her out here with another man and finish what he started at the motel. The motel that seemed to be eons ago. Lauren felt her knees start to buckle and she swayed. Eric grabbed her and helped to the bed. Lauren rolled over and managed to get under the blankets before passing out.
Lauren came to hazily and found that the man here was in the room, he seemed taller as in a lot taller.
“I just want to touch you.” Eric slurred out. He swayed awkwardly and seemed to float to the bed, his hands grabbed at her. Lauren was frozen and then noticed to her horror that her husband was right behind him. Daniel came around to the other side of the bed smiling as if he’d known all along that she would be here. Lauren pulled her legs back and tried to scoot back into the headboard as the men got on the bed and started pulling her legs apart and shoving their palms into her collarbone to push her back. Lauren cried out screaming at them to stop as they started biting at her hips and inner thighs. Then they were laughing as they bit into her and pulled her skin off. Eric moved his mouth to her face and bit into her forehead and that set off fireworks of pain through her head.
Lauren awoke gasping and throwing her hands up defensively. Grey light filtered into the room through the blinds and Lauren was soaked in sweat. Her head most definitely did hurt. Badly. The memory of the men all over her made her sick and she jumped out of the bed and scrambled to the hallway towards where she thought the bathroom would be. She tried to grab at her hair to hold it out of the way only to come up short. It was cut. By the time she had finished throwing up and was leaning over the toilet trying to regain her breath, Eric had appeared wiping sleep out of his eyes. Lauren was slightly relieved to see him at his normal size although she shrunk from his touch when he reached out to steady her. He put his hands up to show that he was backing off.
“Hungry? I can make you something to eat to take some painkillers with so you don’t get so sick again. I’m going to run you into town when you think you’re ready. We can go to the ER if you’d like or maybe the prompt care? But you will have to go in. Looks like you broke your face.” Eric spoke slowly to her, keeping his hands where she could see them. Lauren just nodded at him dumbly. Which sent a new wave of agony through her body and she started to crumble. Eric reached carefully and steadied her with as little physical contact as possible. He led her to the couch and got her sat down, bringing her toast and ibuprofen with water.
Lauren tried to relax into the pain until the ibuprofen kicked in. She tried to disappear into herself, she counted by 13s. Finally after what seemed like forever, the painkillers kicked in taking a very large edge off of her pain. She let out a very audible moan as the pain abated ever so slightly. Her shoulders dropped.
“If we’re going into town and avoiding your husband maybe you should wear some different clothes? I’ve got some guy clothes that will fit you ok.” Eric said, handing her folded jeans and a shirt. Lauren just took them and went into the room to change. Mens jeans seemed to change her entire body shape and she did feel a little safer. Lauren had no idea what she was going to do when it came down to it. She was serious last night about not knowing how to leave him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, she had tried once before to end things, he called his son over to help him carry his stuff out and then when his son arrived he had held Lauren still while Daniel beat the shit out of her stomach and explained that he wasn’t leaving. Lauren needed her job, the house was paid off, she had gotten it in the divorce and had worked hard to pay it up over the years, but there were other bills and taxes and at some point Lauren wanted to retire long enough to enjoy it.
The car ride to town was nerve wracking. Lauren had used Eric’s phone to call ahead to the doctors office and let them know she would be there and that she would like to be brought back as soon as possible. Lauren waited until they were back in town to turn her phone back on. It powered up and looked fine until the phone started registering the texts and voicemails that had been coming in since last night. Once upon a time Daniel had reacted very negatively to her not responding to his message fast enough so Lauren had eventually set his ringer as an alarm so she knew right away to pick her phone up. Eric’s car sounded like a national disaster was going on. Lauren thought about throwing it out the window as her panic started to grow. Eric grabbed it from her and shoved it under his leg muffling the sound slightly.
“Sorry.” Lauren mumbled. Eric shrugged and didn’t look at her, instead keeping his eyes on the road. “I need to stop at the courthouse first to fill out paperwork for an order of protection and get it filed. Then the doctor's office. That way if he figures out where I am they’re already ready for me. “
Lauren checked her phone for any messages not from Daniel and responded to any that needed it and then she turned it back off as they pulled up to the courthouse. Eric handed her his ball cap to hide her face and they casually walked in together. The security guard stopped her and she lifted her hat and faced him head on. He winced and gave her the floor she needed.
“I still haven’t looked, how bad is it?” Lauren asked as they waited for the elevator.
“It’s pretty bad. But it’s your face and it’s probably mostly swelling. “ Eric said without looking at her.
Lauren knew the clerk and judging by the look on her face she ought to hurry to the doctor’s office.
The doctor’s office was it’s own sort of hell. First, the receptionist didn’t want to send her straight back before the nurse came out. Second, Lauren had been in town long enough that she was paranoid every time someone walked in, which she felt she wouldn’t be if they had sent her back like they had discussed. By the time Odette the nurse came out Lauren was wired and Eric had to calm her down just to get her to walk back to the room.
The doctor came in and looked at her and sighed.
“He really got you this time.” Dr. Livingston said, checking the chart.
“I need pictures to add to the rest, I’ve started the proceedings for an OOP and I’d like to bring in all the pictures.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll have Etta come in with the camera and give you copies to take with you so if they’re lost somehow you can get more from us. Then I’ll do an exam. Does he know where you are?”
“I’m not sure,Eric here has been driving me around and playing my bodyguard. I’d like to move as quickly as possible. I want to be out of town when he catches wind of the OOP.”
“I’ll have them let me know if he shows up.’
The pictures were as intrusive as ever. Etta smiled sympathetically as she helped Lauren tilt her head in different directions to catch every angle. After the pictures Dr. Livingston did a thorough exam and had an XRay done. Prescribed decent painkillers and did a few stitches on her forehead and somewhere in the back that Lauren hadn’t realized was cut up.
Daniel did show up so Eric and Lauren took off out the back and left, the office kept him busy and promised to give her a call as soon as he left. Eric dropped her off a block from her house to grab her things. Her truck was in the driveway. Lauren walked past it and into the house. Though she hadn’t checked the messages she had assumed that the house would be trashed from one of his fits but it wasn’t. She grabbed a few loose outfits and makeup. Glasses and medicine and a charger for a phone she was afraid to turn on. The office called to let her know he had left 2 minutes before. Her chest began to beat erratically. She couldn’t breathe.
“Notsafenotsafenotsafe.” She said to herself repeatedly to get her moving. She remembered to grab socks and real shoes, she even took extra time to get them on. The plan was to meet Eric 2 streets from the backyard in hopes of avoiding Daniel or someone that knew them and might tell Daniel who she had left with. Lauren locked the back door as she slipped out and was stopped by the next door woman who was entirely too nosey and judgemental. Grace had decided she didn’t like Lauren 20 some odd years ago when Grace had moved in. Daniel on the other hand, well she seemed to adore him. Daniel came over and mowed her yard for free and fixed her broken what the fuck ever was broken that day. Lauren knew for a fact that Grace fed Daniel information whether it was true or just some idea that Grace had gotten through her head.
“Well, what happened? Where are you headed then?” Grace asked quickly, trying to engage Lauren.
“Just a tumble and off to check something for The Jakobi's across the yard. See you later Grace.” Lauren kept walking trying to smile pleasantly.
“Oh wait, I need you to ask Danny to do something for me!” Grace hollered after Lauren, Lauren responded by running faster. Daniel’s truck roared around the corner so Lauren decided to take a different route that would involve going through the woods and meeting Eric somewhere else.
Adrenaline poured through Lauren and she put her all into it until she came out a mile up by the gas station. Lauren went inside and borrowed the landline there to call Eric to meet her at the trail head a little further on. She also bought an energy drink and chugged it before leaving. The rush made her eyes feel like they were going to pop out of her head and she laughed before running back into the woods. She imagined she must look like a mess with the backpack on and her short hair sticking everywhere with her eyes wild from the excess caffeine being chugged so quickly. Lauren kept herself going by imagining that she could hear his truck following her, that she could smell his cologne in the air behind her. Before she could stop herself she was hearing her footsteps and feeling the sensation of her head being pulled back and back into the bumper.
BAM bam BAM bam BAM bam BAM bam BAM bam BAM bam. By the time she had exploded off the trail and into the poorly kept parking lot she had completely forgotten what she was doing.
Lauren dropped her hands on her knees and panted heavily. It was Todd who threw his hands around her waist and held her steady. Lauren surprised herself by screaming and slapping at him before Todd could get her to come out of her stupor. Sobbing, she fell into his chest and bawled. She started crying about the day and then it was the day before and then the year and then her entire marriage and then it was the time her youngest daughter came home from her dad’s early and accused her of always being drunk and looking at her disgustedly. Then it was the divorce and the time she let their older daughter wear lipstick and her ex husband had smacked her in front of them and announced that Lauren was not in fact, the deciding parent on the rules in the house.
It was a very long time before Lauren was done crying. Her face hurt dully in the area that had been so intimate with the bumper, snot covered her cheeks and mouth from the futile wiping it with her sleeves. Her good eye was now also swollen and she could barely see through it now. She fell to her knees and then collapsed the rest of the way to the ground so that getting up was difficult because of how stiff she was now from the odd position. Lauren hobbled with Todd holding her upright to his truck. He went ahead and lifted her up into the seat and helped her buckle. Lauren was too tired to swat his hand away and do it herself. She just relaxed her body back in the seat and let herself try to doze.
They hit the dirt road leading to Eric’s house which woke her up again. She could see more out of her good eye and finally flipped the visor down and braced herself for the reflection she had been avoiding.
Half of her face was a mix of purple and blue, someone had said something about her cheekbone on the right being fractured a little, hey right eyebrow was not only swollen but split in the corner and a small stitch held it. Her right eye was a mix of colors and swollen shut, bruises ran down her jawline and she could see why Dr. Livingston had recommended admitting her to the hospital, Lauren herself might’ve considered it if she hadn't been terrified it would’ve made it easier for Daniel to find her and kill her. Lauren fingered her hair that was cut close to her head and tried to smooth some of the longer strands that had indeed started to poke out at different directions. The left side of her face red and blotchy from crying and it occurred to Lauren that she looked like a very fat bloated version of herself and for some reason it struck her as hysterical and she began to laugh until her stomach hurt and she was doubled over howling with laughter. Todd glanced at her and then the road, flipping back and forth between the road and Lauren. Lauren who had gone from a deep sadness to a manic laughter within a short period of time.
By the time they pulled up to Eric’s, Lauren was still laughing but had calmed a little. Todd patted her thigh and told her to stay put. To go warn Eric she presumed. When he came back he carried her from the car to the bed and Eric stood waiting with pills and water and more toast. Lauren did some concentrated breathing until she could swallow them without choking. The pills seemed to kick in immediately. Her face numbed much more than the ibuprofen had managed earlier. As her mind started to fade in and out Eric told her he had purchased her a new phone and had put her old numbers into her new phone in town and tossed the old phone.
A week later Lauren returned from town at the hearing where Daniel was served with a permanent Order Of Protection good for a year. While her face was still pretty fucked up, she was able to see out of both eyes now. The judge had seen her face and granted the order. Daniel had been arrested and would be held for awhile but she had stayed with Eric for a few more days so he could keep an eye on her mental state. Lauren was having trouble returning to her home, she had been placed on a sort of leave at work, Lauren was unsure if they could legally do that after a domestic assault but she wasn’t in the mindset to argue so she just gave up.
“You think you’re safe to go home tomorrow? “ Eric asked Lauren as they set up a fire outside.
“I think so. I don’t know if I really want to stay there anymore.” Lauren admitted. She stacked some more wood off to the side so they wouldn’t have to get back up as often.
“I have a friend who owns some cabins in the woods, he rents them out. There’s 12 or so I think, anyway he recently lost his caretaker and has been looking for someone who can stay up there year round and clean the cabins and handle the rentals. It pays well, obviously you have your own cabin to live in.” Eric passed her a joint that Lauren accepted.
“I’ll think about it.” Lauren said before breathing in and relaxing back into her camping chair and drifting away.
Lauren finished setting the table with her son, Greyson. Her daughters Cora and Audrey, were supposed to be here soon. Liam, Greyson’s 5 month old wailed from the living room and Lauren waved at Greyson to let her go tend to him. Lauren picked up the wailing baby and put her nose on top of his head, remembering the newborn smell. Her youngest was Audrey and she was 23. Liam settled as soon as he was picked up. Lauren thought of how much she was going to miss her grandkids. She lifted him up so she could blow on his baby tummy and he squealed with delight.
“I think the girls are pulling in now.” Greyson said coming in with a bottle. Liam caught sight of Daddy and his bottle and flailed toward them. Lauren handed her grandson to her own son and kissed his forehead.
“I am so proud of you. I don’t think I know any single dads who have their kids full time.” Lauren brushed Greysons hair from his forehead and smiled.
The girls came in, Audrey carrying Cora’s 3 year old son and then Cora behind her dragging an 8 year old girl whose eyes were locked on a tablet screen.
“Diana Renee, turn it off for a few minutes and walk. Jesus. You’re going to trip, say hi to grandma.” Cora said in a surly tone looking exhausted. Her face looked rounder and Lauren had a feeling Cora was pregnant again. She had the look and Lauren felt a pang that she wasn’t going to be around this time, and that she had already missed quite a bit of time. It hadn’t taken any of the kids long to catch onto Daniel being controlling and possessive and even though Lauren had argued for her kids being over every Sunday the children on their own had slowly found excuses to quit coming around the house.Not that Audrey had needed much push. For whatever reason Audrey and Lauren had never seen eye to eye. Lauren blamed her father but it was more than that too, a drive to be independent. Diana and Clayton hugged Lauren fiercely and she sat on the floor with them crawling on her while they told her anything interesting they could think of. The bruises on Lauren’s face had faded quite a bit but the kids kept looking at them without saying anything, biting their lips. Lauren assumed Cora had instructed them not to ask. Lauren had purposely waited to bring her kids over to make her announcement until her face looked better and wouldn’t scare anyone. After a while the kids ran out into the backyard to play.
“So is he really gone?” Audrey asked as the sliding door closed. Lauren sighed pretending not to notice the tone in her voice.
“Yes. He was arrested. The pictures I had taken at the doctor’s office helped. I know you guys weren’t impressed he was here as long as he was but I was working on it. “ That of course was a lie. She had snuck off to the doctors after he had beaten her and had it documented so that they would have a suspect if he killed her but the kids didn’t need to know that. At least this way they seemed to retain a little respect for their flakey mom who brought the evil villain into their lives.
“I’m just glad you’re safe mom. We were worried. Especially after you called me that night.” Cora said rocking Liam who was starting to doze off after his bottle.
“That’s why I called you guys over actually. After that happened I did some thinking. It’s just me in this big house and after everything that happened I decided to sell the house and move. I took a job the next state over up in the mountains. I’m a caretaker for cabins that get rented out to hunters and families, I’ll be living there.” Lauren smiled and started passing a brochure for the company and the area to each of her children.
“What the fuck mom? You can’t move, or at the very least you can’t sell the house. We grew up here.” Audrey said loudly, tears forming already. Lauren remembered the time her friends had all gone out for a girls weekend and Greyson had spiked a fever and Lauren had to stay home to take care of him, how suffocating it had felt to be their mother and have no life of her own. But the kids were in their twenties now, not little. They didn’t need her the same way.
“Eventually Daniel will be released and I would like to be gone when he is. I would like to live somewhere that I can make new, happier memories. You guys don’t need me as much and I’m only an hour away. I can still take grand kids when you need me and I’m not so far that I can’t come over for lunch. Plus I can offer you guys a pretty good discount in the off season. Imagine Christmas in the mountains and everyone has their own cabin to stay in instead of arguing over a bedroom.” Lauren said, hoping no one would note that it had been a very long time since anyone had spent the night here and they’d never really fought over space.
“I think it’s a good idea mom. We’ll miss the house but you’re right.” Cora said glaring at her sister. “You deserve to move forward.”
“I can help you move up there. Are you taking your furniture or is the furniture provided already? Is it safe up there? Who will come check on you? I don’t want something to happen to you and you’re stranded out there for days with no help. “ Greyson asked, looking concerned.
“I’m not sure, we can set up a system so you know I’m ok.” Lauren said pleased with her son’s concern. “As far as furniture, you guys can pick anything you want, I’m selling the rest. I’ll keep some of the dishes and my baking stuff. Plus the photograph albums, I’ll get rid of everything else.”
“Does Dad know?” Autumn asked accusingly.
“I haven’t told him, it’s really not any of his business. Nothing in this house belongs to him and his name hasn’t been on the house in at least 15 years.”
“This is our house too.” Audrey argued
“No it really isn’t anymore. You haven’t lived here in at least 5 years.”
“Audrey, chill, it’s not that big of a deal.” Cora warned. Lauren began to feel she was missing something.
“Well, you could rent it out to someone instead of getting rid of it. You could always use the extra income.” Audrey argued, looking around at everyone.
“I’d make a lot more money selling the house than I would renting it out. If there were a repair to be made I don’t want to be responsible. I’m too old to deal with all of that.” Lauren waved her hand around the house gesturing at the idea of all the work there would need to be done. “Besides someone has already made an offer, I’m fairly certain I’m going to accept it.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Yes, she can. Knock it off. She doesn’t want to live here all alone.” Greyson retorted.
The 3 of them argued together at each other and Lauren sank back into her recliner helplessly. A thought occurred to her.
“Audrey are you angry you’re losing a piece of your childhood or a piece of your inheritance?” Lauren asked icily. Audrey’s face turned red and Cora looked at the window desperate not to make eye contact. Greyson grabbed Liam and started fussing over him.”Ah. I see, and you all 3 have discussed it.”
“No, not exactly like that. Dad had a scare 2 years ago and he was faced with being put in a home for awhile. We didn’t know how he was going to pay for it, we talked about selling his house and that was sort of how it came up, renting instead of selling I mean.” Greyson muttered.
“Not to keep it until he died so the money or the house went to us, but to protect him. We naturally discussed you as well and different scenarios. Then when we started to really worry Daniel was going to kill you, we were worried about him taking possession of the house and everything in it.” Cora explained a little more. “Obviously all THREE of us want you to do what makes you feel the happiest and safest.”
Audrey stared at the wall.
“I have a lot of happy memories here of all 3 of you. I brought you all home from the hospital through that door. I nursed you all back to health when you were sick and sang you lullabies in this room. I listened to you talk about your days in the kitchen, and when your dad moved out we all sat in my room with the big TV and watched movies all day because he wasn’t here to tell us it was wrong. I potty trained you all in the bathrooms here. I taught you to walk and speak here.” Lauren wiped at her eyes remembering them running through. “But over there in that corner was where your dad smacked me because I told Cora she could wear lipstick. And I was standing on the stairs when he came out of the bedroom with his suitcase in hand, telling me he was leaving. It was in the kitchen where I got the call that my mother died. That was the door frame Daniel's son leaned against as he held me up while Daniel pummeled my midsection until I decided that I didn’t want him to move out after all. I just want to start over. I’m allowed to do that. I gave my entire life to raise you guys and no one worked harder than me to keep us afloat. My time is now and I’m taking it. “

TL;DR: Easy to book and free on NHS, just need to say you're sure! Quick procedure and easy home aftercare, don't worry :)
Alright all? I had my snip a couple of days ago and thought I might share about it since I know I did a bit of online research/redditing beforehand and wanted to give back!
Getting it organised: I went to my GP to book it and asked to go through MSI, a company providing the service but covered by the NHS (id seen them reviewed as good and apparently it saves time vs vanilla options). First off, I didn't really need to justify it to the doctor,and was signed up straight away to have it done free through MSI. Literally just "yes I want one, yes I'm sure" and he OK'd it.
Timing: I booked in mid December, had a call time confirmed for mid-April for my consultation phone call and had a date booked for the surgery around 2 weeks after the call. I live in London which may have sped up my options compared to other places, also can't vouch for MSI availability but again, getting it OK'd by the NHS in general was easy and I only asked after this specific provider as I'd heard they were quick/good
The operation: Made a lot of jokes with everyone for weeks beforehand, gut full of butterflies on the morning. The nurse was very good at making small talk to smooth things over beforehand and the whole operation took about 10 mins.
I was lying flat on my back for it but only had local anaesthetic. Jeans off before lying down, pants down to knees after lying down and the lie back and think of anything other than the sharp instruments around you balls! First off was a disinfectant fluid with alcohol which had a deep heat/warming sort of element that made me feels oddly like I'd pissed myself. The two injections either side of the base of the ballsack.
At this point the balls went numb but the penis keep feeling the warmth of the disinfectant, so I found that for the whole process the distracting feeling of how warm my bellend was (particularly where resting against my skin, it was all kind of flopped up up and to the right to keep the valls unobstructed) was a good focus point to distract from the metallic sounds of the surgery. I felt a couple of light, vague tugs but not much else. There was a suction fan on during so I could hum a song to myself while twiddling my fingers and toes to keep my mind off the ball-cutting of it all. Was over faster than you'd think!
After care: Had some very tight trunks I'd bought beforehand to hold on the dressing they applied when they were done. Was kept in for 25 mins after to have a coffee and biscuits (tea/water also on offer, eating the biscuits was actually mandatory to prove I was alright apparently!) and had to check my dressing after 10 mins to ensure the blood stain was no larger than a 50p. The assistant doctor brought out a blue plastic cock with a pen stain drawn on and a dummy dressing to show me what to look for in case it was unclear, which apparently not everywhere does but which I was sure to seem grateful for as it was well meant.
Kept the dressing on for 48 hours. Missing and shitting a careful but not complicated process, just hang onto the dressing amd try and keep it firm while the pants go down! There is some more bleeding which is pretty unnerving but hey, the ladies pull it off monthly so you can manage 2 days! After 48 hours you can shower and change the dressing. I was given 2 new ones to apply by the doctor and have another to put on tomorrow, after that the lads are free to operate alone again but tight pants recommended for a couple of weeks. You can see a little bloody scab, there can be a little semen leakage as well, it's all medically fine but practically quick odd to see!
Happy to answer questions if anyone has any, I'm delighted to have it done and dusted!

I just started writing this piece and is very new to fiction writing. My vocabulary isn't very extensive so I did ask AI for word use suggestions and descriptive addition suggestions. I have a lot to learn and definitely make a lot of mistakes so hope you can give me your genuine feedback kindly!
Romance Fiction #1 Synopsis:
Amid the isolated life in interior Alaska, Jenni and Justin found themselves on an unexpected collision course. Jenni, an undecided major college student, and Justin, a young man seeking purpose after escaping homelessness to join the Air Force, are both navigating the uncertainties of their twenties.
Fate intervenes when a chance meeting at the local animal shelter sparks an amicable friendship between the two. Determined to prove his worth, Justin proposes a unique arrangement – 10 dates to demonstrate that an ex-homeless person can provide the security and love Jenni deserves.
Will the weight of Justin’s past and the uncertainty of Jenni’s future prove too much for a romance to blossom? Let’s find out!
Story:
May, 4^th, 2024
It’s a sunny Saturday in May, the kind that beckoned for long strolls and leisurely afternoons. The temperature is warm enough to leave your woolen items at home, but not to show off too much skin. Jenni puts on a long sleeve light color shirt, and a pair of jeans, and her Calvin Klein white puffy jacket as she is heading to Sweet Pups and Paws animal shelter. Volunteering at the shelter every other Saturday was Jenni's favorite hobby, a welcome respite from the demands of her studies. Little did she know this visit would introduce a special person to her life.
As Jenni set out to walk her assigned dog, she found herself sharing the lawn with a newcomer - Justin, a young Air Force serviceman who had recently transferred to the area. Standing at an impressive six feet tall, Justin had the kind of rugged good looks that can enchant any women effortlessly. His light brown hair, soft and tousled, framed a face marked by a hint of stubble. Adding a muscular physique on top of it, he definitely has a dreamy, masculine appeal. But it was Justin’s playful nature that caught Jenni’s “attention”, not his look. “Attention”, in parentheses, as in not the good kind of attention.
Back to the lawn where two young people are walking their dogs, Justin unleashes his dog in the middle of the lawn. It was the decision he made in a moment of unbridled enthusiasm, that will soon regret. His dog, Collin, promptly bounded towards Jenni after the release. Turns out he was drawn by the forgotten granola bar in her jacket pocket. The ensuing chaos quickly unfolded in a blur – her dog had left an unexpected gift on the lawn, and Jenni herself tumbled into the mess, her pristine white jacket now hopelessly stained.
As Jenni stood there, mortified, Justin rushed to her aid. His good looks couldn’t save him now, Jenni was visibly frustrated. Living in a dry cabin doesn’t make laundry an easy task is one reason to be angry. Not to mention it was the Calvin Klein jacket that her mom had gifted her for Christmas.
“Thanks for ruining my Saturday” Jenni said glaring at the dog waste clinging to her hand in disgust.
Justin got so flustered, yet he tried to remain calm. “Can I get you some coffee or something? I am sure adding some bleach to the wash will get those stains out. I can get you some if you don’t have any.” He said.
“Yea, sure, try living in a dry cabin, and see how convenient laundry is”. Jenni retorted and her voice dripped with sarcasm. “And by the way this jacket is a gift from my mom. It’s brand new and I barely wore it. How did they even train you anyway? You should have known better to keep your dog on leash.” Said by angry, frustrated, and disappointed Jenni.
“I guess anything else you do now would do more harm than good. Just look at the mess you made.” Jenni said in disappointment as she shrugged her shoulder.
Undeterred Justin responded nonchalantly: “I thought we could play fetch, I walked Collin a few times, he seemed calm and has good manners. I didn’t know he can cause such ruckus.” This further frustrated Jenni, who snapped: “Oh, you are justifying yourself right now?”
Justin didn't hesitate to talk back. "I'm not, that's just a fact!" He then made a bold move, "You know, there's a laundromat down the corner of Peger Rd and Chester Ave. I'll pay for the laundry and our coffee. I'm really curious about your dry cabin life in Alaska." His charm and flirtatious attempt were evident, and Jenni went from angry to confused, thinking, "What a weird guy..."
At that moment, the granola bar fell out of Jenni's pocket, and both dogs immediately went after it. Jenni realized she was semi-guilty in this situation. Wincing her eyes trying to look away from his face and smiling guiltily, she decided to take him up on his offer: “Yea, sure, that’s fine. But I have to leave at 2 for an evening shift”.
Jenni then washed herself up in the shelter bathroom and headed to the laundromat with Justin.
“So, were you originally from Alaska?” Justin asked Jenni curiously.
“Not quite, I was born and raised in Seattle, not very far off. I just need to run away from the family pressure. You know, the constant push to get married and everyone wants to know your dream job, but you still need more time. The nature here is very therapeutic, and the people here are very nice. So, not a bad life.” Said Jenni with ease and comfort. “How about you?” Jenni asked.
“Well, I just got here last month for an assignment with the Air Force. I want to live somewhere interesting but still within the state. So, here I am in Alaska.” Justin friendly answered.
“Cool, cool” Jenni nodded like a natural reflex; she just didn’t know a better way to respond. Notice Jenni doesn’t want to ask first, so Justin asked another question: “So, is your mom still in Seattle? You must have a lot of family in Seattle huh?”.
“Yea, my mom is still in Seattle with my dad. My big brother moved to Texas last year after getting married. Most of my mom’s family is in Seattle, but they are annoying. ” Jenni mentioned the family from her mom’s side with a big frown on her face as a sign of annoyance.
“My dad family are cool, but they live in Ireland, we video call every now and then. My dad is Irish American. I am quite lucky that my parents are still together taking into consideration the current divorce rate.” Jenni opens up a little more as she feels more comfortable with Justin.
“What about your family? Where does your family live? Any siblings?” Jenni asked.
“My mom and sister live in South Carolina. My dad is not in the picture anymore. He was a carpenter, helping his brother with construction work and stuff. My mom was a registered nurse. I tried to call my mom every week, but we weren’t that close.” Justin answered in a nonchalant monotone, which made it hard to speculate whether he was on good terms with his family. He was careful enough to only mention the good parts so it wouldn’t raise a red flag and scare Jenni away. Jenni has a few questions for Justin about his family, but they just arrived at the laundromat.
Justin's confident demeanor shone through as he extended his hand towards Jenni. "Let me take care of this, I've got it. You just sit right here on this bench, alright?" His tone conveyed the assurance of a reliable man. Without hesitation, Jenni handed over the jacket stained with dog waste, and Justin swiftly made his way to the laundromat's counter. He casually conversed with the cashier while having her soiled jacket draped over one of his arms while the other arm reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Jenni couldn’t help but giggle at the ease with which he handled the situation.
Watching this capable, good-looking man take charge of the chore, Jenni felt a flutter in her heart. The ease with which he handled the task hinted at his potential to be a reliable, family-oriented partner. Jenni found herself captivated, unable to tear her gaze away until Justin had the washer running and returned to her side.
"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing towards the door. Jenni's lips curved into a small, assertive smile. "We shall," she replied, and the two set off across the street towards the coffee shop.