Decorative ways to write my name

Hello, my name is Lililian Ashcroft and I am a trans-fem writer. Okay, so I am looking for LGBT+ Beta-Readers to look over a bunch of episode scripts for a series of LGBT+ Audio-Drama series that my Audio-Drama House is working on. I have a wonderful team of very dedicated and passionate LGBT+ artist and voice actors who deserve to have these series they are working so hard on to pay off and so these episodes I wrote really REALLY need to shine and so I would deeply appreciate ANY constructive feedback I can get. I run all of this out of Discord and my Discord name is lexshira. I have many disabilities that make long-form texting hard and so any potential beta-readers must be willing to engage in some level of Discord voice calling. My works are aimed at an older audience so ABSOLUTELY NO MINORS PLEASE. I will post a basic summary of the series being worked on below:
The Piper Wars S1 Synopsis: The fallen Death-Reaper known as the Piper has gone rogue and is leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. He has made an infernal alliance with the cursed heathen gods of old, throwing all of reality into chaos in an all or nothing bid to become the most powerful being in the Multiverse. In Wonderland, Alice must make a terrible trek to find her way home before the Red Queen can claim her head as Captain Hook sails deep into the forbidden waters to seize godhood over the Neverlands. On Earth, The Darling Children and the Lost Boys face a fearsome battle for survival against dark inter-dimensional forces.
The Piper Wars S2 Synopsis: Time is running out for the multiverse and all life hangs in the balance as Alice races against time to complete her training to become the new Witch of Gates. John Darling does battle against demonic forces in a desperate bid to save the tortured soul of a young boy as Wonderland is consumed in bloody civil war. In the Neverlands, Hook launches a savage campaign of conquest against Pan and the resistance forces of the Ten-Nations while on Earth the K.B.I. braces for multiversal conflict as the Piper continues to pave the way for cosmic calamity.
The Piper Wars S3 Synopsis: War has finally arrived as the Piper makes good on his deal with the Lilithian Order to collapse the worlds of Oz, Wonderland, and Neverlands onto Earth merging realities into one and sowing cosmic chaos. The KBI must organize all the nations of the world to wage a global war to hold back the forces of evil while trying to save a cursed child destined to become the Abyssal God of a new Earth born of blood and destruction. Can the armies of light prevail or will all of humanity be lost to the darkness.
The Piper Wars S4 Synopsis: The Piper War may have been won but at the cost of billions of lives and the precious blood of friends. Mankind now struggles to rebuild from the most destructive war in history but evil never stays gone for long and new would-be gods are already positioning themselves to take advantage of the chaos and confusion. Wait… Did someone say Dracula? Wait you heard Dracula? I heard Cthulhu. I think we both have been working too many night shifts.
The Eternal Chronicles S1 Synopsis: In the year 1974 on Earth #8193 a small group of wealthy kids have their lives dramatically changed forever, sending their destinies on new and unexpected paths, threatening to unravel key points in time as an evil queen of unspeakable power watches with bated breath and wicked schemes. As on Earth N.E.V. #11 The Nazis have won WW2 and conquered the world using technology stolen from a crashed Time-Ship from another dimension but in a final-desperate effort to fix history, the global resistance sends a messenger running through realities to deliver a message upon which the fate of a million worlds now hangs.
On Earth #8193 in the year 1995, a lonely and workaholic therapist is assigned the three most deadly psychopaths in the world at the time... Psychopaths everyone else at the Ashcroft Asylum has failed to rehabilitate. In a world protected by extraordinary superheroes, evil rises to meet the challenge and the apocalypse is never far behind... soon there may be no tomorrow left for anyone. Oh, and did I mention on Earth #8189 a group of friends with superpowers must make a deadly trek in search of sanctuary from the zombie plague that has ended their world and turned them into prey.

I'm Introverted, quiet, master-otaku, and love journaling (though it's mostly on my phone-notepad nowadays). Never beating the feel of pages and ink though 📚). But insanity have disrupted my writings and stuff which....really sucks.
Speaking of insanity, another thing that I enjoy is going to my group therapy sessions, Really like my peers (they're my people☮️🏝️). Sometimes I don't wanna go when having one of those days, but more times than none, usually glad..
Love music, that's my go-to hobby. I'm one of those cats that rewind melodies in musical pieces I like a bunch of times🤣. Music touches me in ways that's hard to explain.
Trying to be a good Christian in my faults. Learning Life and laughing at the misadventures. Off the grid.
Probably write better than talking....I don't know, sometimes I have my talkative days. Like trivia (but maybe better at behind the scenes stuff about Video Game, Manga, Movies, and music type trivia). I like playing video games. My favorites are the "Metal Gear Solid" series, the "Yakuza" series, "Red Dead Redemption 2", "Control", "Uncharted" series, "Death Stranding", and "Katana Zero", the story heavy stuff (I love cutscenes😊). Like gaming news.
Usually have to reset, as I can't wait to get back home. Movie buff of course with mostly older films. I haven't kept up with the new movies. Some look interesting, I'm just picky, you know....when you seen great movies over the years you kinda.... expect good films because you know they can be.
Will always be a big kid🤪.
I like using emojis. Don't know why.

My now ex job(food factory)has fired me because I kept complaining about a line lead who has harassing me and calling me fat ass, weak man, unintelligent man and whole bunch of other out of pocket names in Spanish thinking I did not know what he was saying. He been doing it from day one I started working there and at first I let it slide because I try not start even more work hostilities even more than what is all ready there at work or respond to the bulling or better yet out of pocket thing someone be saying. However it got to the point where I wanted to hurt the guy because I told him many times to stop fucking with me but he wouldn’t listen so I reported him to the higher ups. Nothing was being done about it so I told the guy to his face one day that if he didn’t want to fight me stfu and stop fucking with before something terrible going to happen to you. He stop bothering me for awhile but then started it back up later on so I took it up even higher ups but when I did they said I was terrible at my job and I can’t do my job that I was shit at it and that I complain to much about others but can’t take responsibility for my own work and that is when I lost it. So I got into a heated argument with the higher up about showing me respect and you can’t talk to me like I’m a child we are both grown ass man who do you think you are? So I cuss him out about his behavior so he hit me with the power trip I send your fucking ass home and document you for your bad behavior. I look him in the eyes and respond with, so you going to write me up but won’t do anything about the other guy? For harassing me and making a hostile work place? Fuck you I’m going home for the day I’m not putting up with this bullshit! Got a call the next day saying I’m fired for cussing out a supervisor and a HR lady which I never did is one of the craziest part. The HR lady me and her have a very honest conversations so Ik the supervisor is a full of shit unless she lied to them as well idk anymore. I change the name of the company to factory below.
“You are not allowed on the property. They are going to cut your lock. They provided a very detailed report of what happened when they moved you from the dough room. That behavior really isn't acceptable at all. They noted you do not have take responsibility for any of your actions. You always blame someone else, or your tools, or the equipment. That is an issue in a work environment. Everyone messes up, that's how we learn.”
“The factory stated you got hostile with the HR coordinator and the production supervisor on why you were not in the dough room. Working with factory an associate can be moved around where they are needed. And using any type of swearing against any factory or temp associate is not tolerated.”
(Side note) I have high standards and I don’t like to joke or play around at work. I’m not there to make friends or make people happy I’m there to do a job make sure everything is running smoothly and go home. I’ve never apologies for who I am and been unapologetic for it all. I don’t take my personal life to work and work life home Ik how to separate the two once I hit the clock in and out machine. Lots of people hate me for how I am but I could care less as long as my job gets done. You are hired to get a job done so get it done. ( side side note) my grandfather always told me that A man should get a job done no matter what if he was hired for it. When he was on his death bed he told me to not stop going to work and keep moving forward don’t cry for him and be happy and just move forward. Yea it was really hard but that man kept me going. I understand not everyone can just move on and whatever but at least separate your lives Best you can. I understand what I said earlier will get lot of people mad but I’ll live with it tell I die. I’m looking to sue the company for loss of wages, emotional distress and hostile work environment. Maybe discrimination since they know I have a disability… talk to me people. How should I move forward!!?? Am I wrong?? I’ve never been so humiliated at a job before and felt betrayed that I just lost it.

I (13 trans male) and my class recently went to a nature garden for a school trip and on this day I don't really know but I rest really dark and upset that day, for context I have depression. That day I really didn't want to talk to anyone but they kept talking to me but thats not where the problem started. When we got back to school we were talking in our gc instead o doing our work and they pointed out how the time was 2:22. I write back "really? I don't care much" as a joke but I think they took it the wring way and afterwards started crying and telling my other friend about it and after school I texted them apologising profusely and they said they forgive me but...I don't think they really do because they're leaving me out of stuff and really...it's making me rethink what I said so am I tha bad apple?

Just venting here. I’m newly diagnosed (last year) and I’m being treated by my primary care doctor. I like my doctor a lot and he listens to me and acknowledges my concerns. However, every time I visit for an in-person appointment, I get stuck seeing a PA or an NP for the majority of my appointment before my actual doctor comes in at the end for about 3 minutes max. I had an appointment today and was seen by a PA I’d never met before. She was clearly intelligent, but was very set in her ways and dismissive. She just wanted to get me done and out of there. She seemed skeptical that I had ADHD at all, asking who diagnosed me (literally the doctor she’s working with lol) and trying to connect my symptoms to other conditions. Being diagnosed and medicated was life changing for me, which my actual doctor saw firsthand. It nearly eliminated many of my other issues. When I brought up a symptom I was experiencing to this PA today, which is a pretty common and documented symptom that comes with ADHD, she chuckled and said that sounded more like a behavioral issue and that I should just stick to a routine. I did my best to explain that I believed it actually did relate to ADHD without insinuating that I knew more than she did. I wish I had just told her the name of the issue and that it was a legitimate symptom, but I’m socially anxious and felt very demeaned. She let up a bit when I started crying after we were discussing something else, but then went on to interrupt me when my doctor did come in to discuss.
I already hate going to the doctor and I’m terrified of confrontation. It took me a decade to even be honest about my issues and I still feel like I’m not fully open. I had another NP at one of my recent appointments and did not have a good experience with her at all either. It’s getting to the point where it’s almost becoming traumatic, and I’m more and more anxious about bringing up concerns at my appointments or asking for help.
The best part about of it is that the PA/NPs usually discuss an entire plan with me with back and forth for probably 20-30 minutes, and when my doctor comes in at the end he always has a completely different, better plan that he reached within 2 minutes of discussion with the PA/NP. It takes about 30 seconds to settle it with me. I get that this is how things are now, with providers trying to save as much money and get as many people in and out as possible, and my doctor is very popular and often runs late. But I feel like I’m paying for an appointment where I spend 90% of the time battling with people who are ill-informed and dismissive. I come out of it with less time and money and more emotional baggage.

My family has always been of great minds. I hated it. Growing up and having to study day and night to try and live up to them was extremely exhausting when I couldn't care how things worked as long as I was happy. I gave up but somehow everything kept turning out to be true.
Over my lifetime I have become the Gorden Ramsey of the science world. Known for my temper and also for huge things like curing world hunger using play-doe and cancer with baby powder I got in a back street ally while drunk.
To get my family off my back I started making random ideas so they could see me as a failure and leave me alone but...they keep working. And soon people started to praise me. Fame has left me with nothing but more and more attention. So today I plan to make sure that everyone can just think I'm insane and leave me alone and not some king.
I chuckled like a kid who was opening a Christmas present as I heard the crowd of people chatting and talking loudly as I hid behind my stage in a grey tight suit that my sister had picked out. I sighed and was ready to walk out and make a fool out of myself but my brother stopped me.
" Jack... I just want you to know how proud I am of you. Dad would have loved to see you right now. "
I thought it was ironic because last night while chilling on the couch watching TV and eating chips I made this theory up. He dusted off my shoulders held them tight and looked me in the eyes taking in the moment.
" go give them hell man. "
He had a goofy smile just like Dad but spoke with confidence.
" you got it, man. "
I heard my name being called onto the stage and the uproar startled me for a second but I collected myself and headed out after giving him a nod just to entertain him.
The lights were blinding as I grabbed the mic and looked at the table in front of me with a small box with the ingredients I needed and a chalkboard behind me.
After I stood still for a minute the crowd died down. I had not told anyone what I was presenting so the whole world was watching without a clue of what I was doing this time.
"Hello everyone. Today I believe I have my most important presentation yet..."
The crowd grew silent and hung on every word. And I heard my voice around the room through the speakers.
" Today I have with me a box...and inside is spaghetti I had for breakfast. "
The crowd laughed thinking it was a joke
" shut up "
The crowd grew silent once more
"Behind me is a chalkboard and I will now present my new findings to all of you...I have found out how to make portals to other worlds. "
A man in the far back of the audience yelled bullshit in a heavy Indian accent but he was so far it was a faint sound for me. I smiled at that thinking I had finally found something that would make me lose my title and I could go ahead and live a life without people making me feel like an evil man for not helping others.
I opened the box got a handful of the noodles and threw them at the chalkboard. I then grabbed a paper towel on standby to clean myself.
The noodles hit the board and slowly moved and rested on a spot on the board. I made eye contact with my brother backstage and he had a look on his face showing he believed in me.
I spun the board dropping the noodles to the ground I then grabbed the chalk and drew around the sauce and noodles that stuck to the board then drew my attention to the others that had fallen on the floor and drew an outline of that.
After it finished I threw the chalk in the crowd violently hitting an old lady in the face.
" Quickly I want a show of hands who thinks I'm a crazy guy "
Everyone raised their hands and I laughed to myself
I then went behind the board and laid it horizontally. I grabbed a small knife in my pocket and poked my finger with it. The crimson blood fell and hit the chalk and then as more and more blood hit the chalk it started glowing.
" you have got to be joking. "
I said out loud as it started to spark an orange glow and it slowly grew color to the rest of the chalk in orange sparks.
Once the symbol was fully sparking with orange the sauce began to swell and move around in a counterclockwise manner. I stepped away from it in shock as small parts of the blood in my finger began to float to the parts where it fell on the floor I drew my outlines on and started sparking those as well.
It started to smoke and hiss as if lightning could whisper and the orange began to take shape and the sauce made a doorway. The parts that were not on the board began to grow ice around them and started to make designs on the floor circling me and the board. Suddenly it grew in size and a large booming voice was heard through the portal as I felt panic of people start to set in.
A huge claw came out and scrapped the sides of my table trying to crawl out from the world it had been trapped in. Cold winds hit me as they cut my skin and threw around my clothes. As I saw the table was now melting from its touch.
A slimy green claw with mucus like a face-hugger egg from the movie Alien carved through the floor and pulled the rest of its body out slowly. A beast stood at 12 feet tall adjusting to our world as goop grew and shaped its body as people screamed, ran, and stood frozen in fear.
As it looked around it locked its spider-like eyes and swerled around coming out from the portal and twisting and turning around the body as it made its way to its head finding a place to rest. It then locked its eyes with me and its jaw twisted slowly from an ant-like maw to mine and slowly shrunk and it soon took the shape of me and knelt on the floor and spoke to me.
" master. "
I stood in shock as everyone seemed to calm down and watched to see what I would do.
"...umm "My family has always been of great minds. I hated it. Growing up and having to study day and night to try and live up to them was extremely exhausting when I couldn't care how things worked as long as I was happy. I gave up but somehow everything kept turning out to be true.
Over my lifetime I have become the Gorden Ramsey of the science world. Known for my temper and also for huge things like curing world hunger using play-doe and cancer with baby powder I got in a back street ally while drunk.
To get my family off my back I started making random ideas so they could see me as a failure and leave me alone but...they keep working. And soon people started to praise me. Fame has left me with nothing but more and more attention. So today I plan to make sure that everyone can just think I'm insane and leave me alone and not some king.
I chuckled like a kid who was opening a Christmas present as I heard the crowd of people chatting and talking loudly as I hid behind my stage in a grey tight suit that my sister had picked out. I sighed and was ready to walk out and make a fool out of myself but my brother stopped me.
" Jack... I just want you to know how proud I am of you. Dad would have loved to see you right now. "
I thought it was ironic because last night while chilling on the couch watching TV and eating chips I made this theory up. He dusted off my shoulders held them tight and looked me in the eyes taking in the moment.
" go give them hell man. "
He had a goofy smile just like Dad but spoke with confidence.
" you got it, man. "
I heard my name being called onto the stage and the uproar startled me for a second but I collected myself and headed out after giving him a nod just to entertain him.
The lights were blinding as I grabbed the mic and looked at the table in front of me with a small box with the ingredients I needed and a chalkboard behind me.
After I stood still for a minute the crowd died down. I had not told anyone what I was presenting so the whole world was watching without a clue of what I was doing this time.
"Hello everyone. Today I believe I have my most important presentation yet..."
The crowd grew silent and hung on every word. And I heard my voice around the room through the speakers.
" Today I have with me a box...and inside is spaghetti I had breakfast. "
The crowd laughed thinking it was a joke
" shut up "
The crowd grew silent once more
"Behind me is a chalkboard and I will now present my new findings to all of you...I have found out how to make portals to other worlds. "
A man in the far back of the audience yelled bullshit in a heavy Indian accent but he was so far it was a faint sound for me. I smiled at that thinking I had finally found something that would make me lose my title and I could go ahead and live a life without people making me feel like an evil man for not helping others.
I opened the box got a handful of the noodles and threw them at the chalkboard. I then grabbed a paper towel on standby to clean myself.
The noodles hit the board and slowly moved and rested on a spot on the board. I made eye contact with my brother backstage and he had a look on his face showing he believed in me.
I spun the board dropping the noodles to the ground I then grabbed the chalk and drew around the sauce and noodles that stuck to the board then drew my attention to the others that had fallen on the floor and drew an outline of that.
After it finished I threw the chalk in the crowd violently hitting an old lady in the face.
" Quickly I want a show of hands who thinks I'm a crazy guy "
Everyone raised their hands and I laughed to myself
I then went behind the board and laid it horizontally. I grabbed a small knife in my pocket and poked my finger with it. The crimson blood fell and hit the chalk and then as more and more blood hit the chalk it started glowing.
" you have got to be joking. "
I said out loud as it started to spark an orange glow and it slowly grew color to the rest of the chalk in orange sparks.
Once the symbol was fully sparking with orange the sauce began to swell and move around in a counterclockwise manner. I stepped away from it in shock as small parts of the blood in my finger began to float to the parts where it fell on the floor I drew my outlines on and started sparking those as well.
It started to smoke and hiss as if lightning could whisper and the orange began to take shape and the sauce made a doorway. The parts that were not on the board began to grow ice around them and started to make designs on the floor circling me and the board. Suddenly it grew in size and a large booming voice was heard through the portal as I felt panic of people start to set in.
A huge claw came out and scrapped the sides of my table trying to crawl out from the world it had been trapped in. Cold winds hit me as they cut my skin and threw around my clothes. As I saw the table was now melting from its touch.
A slimy green claw with mucus like a face-hugger egg from the movie Alien carved through the floor and pulled the rest of its body out slowly. A beast stood at 12 feet tall adjusting to our world as goop grew and shaped its body as people screamed, ran, and stood frozen in fear.
As it looked around it locked its spider-like eyes and swerled around coming out from the portal and twisting and turning around the body as it made its way to its head finding a place to rest. It then locked its eyes with me and its jaw twisted slowly from an ant-like maw to mine and slowly shrunk and it soon took the shape of me and knelt on the floor and spoke to me.
" master. "
I stood in shock as everyone seemed to calm down and watched to see what I would do.

"...umm "

Part two of the noodle demon.
Now that this creature knelt before me I realized that the room I was in was so terrible quietly you could hear everyone's ass get tight in anticipation of what would happen next.
" ...what...are you. "
I spoke carefully to the being that had taken the shape of myself. It still took my breath away and my throat was dry.
The beast was a deep green. The color mixed with shades of grey streaming from it. The longer I looked at it I could see it getting closer to what I looked like shaping itself.
From small flowing green tendrils to an arm they grew as they twisted and made bone then muscle and finally skin.
It locked eyes with me and it smiled deeply at me. As it formed the face finally.
" Your vassle. "
My eyes had not moved to the crowd at all but even though the lights hit the stage so hard it was enveloped in smoke.
The creature's eyes glowed as it answered brightly, not figuratively. This thing's eyes were glowing.
"To serve you, We are bound by blood magic. I am a reflection of your desires, Master, " it said, its voice now a whisper in my mind.
It began to stand up as my grey suit began to form on it and by the time it stood fully up it had copied what I looked like.
" let me explain everything. "
My body frozen in fear woke up with adrenaline as I blinked and a flash of green smoke covered my vision as he teleported right to me face to face.
Its body turned to smoke and went into the slits of my eyes. I felt visions follow me in my peripheral vision but surprisingly no pain followed power filled me and it felt like one hell of a drug.
My body and mind altered.
I was now in a very dark place with no walls or light except my reflection on the floor which waved like water.
I took a step back looking around and back to the reflection of me on the ground.
Soon the water rippled and my reflection fell through the floor like gravity was inverted. he flew upright and water fell off of him as he looked at me as he now stood straight ahead of me. He was just reflecting in the water but now eyed me down.
Collecting my nerves.
I begin to speak.
" what do you want..."
He was still in my form and stood perfectly straight. Now with water dripping from his...my hair.
Slight stubble with hair that hung down and my hazel eyes were not present within him but I was greeted with a swelling acidic green that doubled the size of my pupil.
" to serve you. "
He made no other movement than putting his hands behind his back like a soldier at ease.
I could not tell if it was lying or not.
" ...is that it? "
" I am the embodiment of your fear desires and brilliance. You have shaped me. Your desire for solitude birthed me. I will aid you in shaping the world how you see fit. Your reality becomes mine. "
There was a slight echo in the room as he spoke.
" wait...where are we "
I questioned haphazardly
" your mind. "
An awkward silence was in the air until I spoke
" so...am I just standing on the stage not making a sound? "
He gave me a concerned look.
" no...time has frozen outside for you. You may sleep here without having to in the real world so to others you look as if you never rest and you may think and plan what to do in battle here. For them, it will be about two seconds...Do...do you not have any knowledge of what I am? "
Suddenly I felt bad like I had encountered someone famous and I had no idea who they were. A slap in the face like a popular kid meeting someone who had never heard of them. Ego shattered.
" ok sorry no. I...don't go around reading about...monsters?"
I felt like was I saying the n-word of the demon realm not knowing if that word was offensive.
He folded his arms a little upset.
"Are you not a warrior? "
" well...no I...just watch TV and cook here and there- "
The demon cut me off
" weak. "
" excuse me? "
" look. I am an immortal being and after a while you get bored. So I'm sorry if I may be a little upset after being bonded with some nobody. "
I got quiet and I was a little annoyed that I was being roasted by some demon that I just met.
Its form wavers and eyes begin to open on its skin. Cheeks forhead etc.
"After being a god for so long it's fun to play with limitations. Makes things extremely exciting. "
" what do you mean by that? "
" look. You can only be so entertained by the same things. Life gets boring and now...you are going to help me with this. I get to have pure entertainment while you get every wish you could ever want. A mutual bond no? "
He then closed his eyes annoyed and the other eyes meshed back to his skin.
" though... the TV is not that interesting...life is what gets the blood pumping"
I felt the need to quickly change the topic
"Are there others like you? "
The room began to take shape very slowly as the water floor turned to wood and walls went around us.
" of course. You may meet them one day "
Confused and curious I pressed.
"Meet them? "
" yes. Summoning one of us is considered a threat to them. "
He spoke while opening and closing his newly found hand except backward.
" hm...no that don't look right "
I quickly responded
" Wait! How is doing that a threat! "
"Well, one doesn't just accidentally Summon one of us to suddenly get powers beyond human control. "
I thought back to how I summoned him by accident with some food I made.
" well...funny story but I summoned you using my breakfast..."
I had never regretted speaking so much as in that moment.
" What... "
Acid dripped from his words. Literally. His pupils split in half and his bottom jaw ripped open like an ant and curved giving sharpness to the bone.
"Please don't kill me. "
The room began to look like a cozy cabin with a fireplace and he slowly went back to normal.
" I would if I could. I've never felt so disrespected. We are bonded by your blood. If you die...I die. "
Suddenly I felt at ease by this new information.
Then a thought came to my mind
" ...God's can die? "
" you did hear me, right? "
The SAS from this guy was unneeded and I was starting to miss him being on his knees as weird as that sounds.
" so...all that power gone.... in an instant... "
" well...no actually God's powers don't just disappear they transfer to whoever killed them...wait...hold up."
He suddenly had an epiphany.
A smile grew on his face and he grabbed my shoulders
" you! You are going to help me kill the other gods! "
He sounded proud but I let him down.
" ha! No. "
" oh come on! Don't be like that. "
He did a pout.
"Look, man. I'm not killing gods for you. Just because you are bored. "
" hey...they might send people to kill you because you bonded with me. "
"What did I ever do to them? "
"They have a system to this stuff. They like to build and watch things play out. You're a problem. That can mess it up. So...they kill ya...to be honest, I don't know any other way to explain it, man. You know people normally just use my power to kill people and become a king and know this already. "
"This is outrageous. "
" bro. Look if you do this I will be able to get their powers and you will be able to do so much more than what I offer "
I tilted my head
" what can you do? Know what never mind. I will just talk to them and figure things out. "
He groaned and his form melted down sagging and it shot back up reforming
"Is there not anything that you want? Anything in the world? Gods don't put themselves in physical forms. They give people power and can make beings to hunt you. And if they care enough to come down themself. Ha, good luck."
I stopped and thought about it trying to weigh the options of pissing off higher beings.
Suddenly. I found something.
"Can you bring back the dead..."
He stopped confused.
" well...no "
" then I don't want anything "
" wait! "
He threw his arms out pleading
"I don't...but another God does..."
He crosses his arms smiling. He had left the question hanging letting me reconsider his offer.
I stopped and thought for a while before looking back up to him.
I let out a sigh and looked him in the eyes
" ok...you are going to help me get my father back. "
The demon smirked.

I am curious about the ethical/accepted ways of using AI in terms of essay writing.
Im currently writing an essay and have been using Claude to help. I did not ask it to write the essay obviously, but some of the prompts I have been asking explicitly. I then read the response and begin building my essay, using some of the phrasing verbatim, but structuring/reorganizing/rewording/paraphrasing how I see fit.
Is this going to immediately be flagged? Is it even going to be checked? I grasp the concepts (even better after reading the AI response), but am nervous this is going to be flagged as plagiarism or AI abuse (does that exist)?

Newbee here, doing a crawling script from NationalVisaCenter and tried to DQ to IL trend for MTL. However, because I am still learning, I am trying to figure out the best way to capture the comments like this:

https://www.reddit.com/NationalVisaCentecomments/1b8u59f/comment/ktryf54/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

And this:

https://www.reddit.com/NationalVisaCentecomments/1b8u59f/comment/ktt3mkx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

however, there must be something wrong with my code as I am trying to capture the date, it either did not crawl enough data or crawl too much. What can I do to let it accurately crawl what I need?

subreddit = reddit.subreddit('NationalVisaCenter') # Keyword to search in posts keyword = "Montreal" # Define enhanced regex patterns for dates (assuming MM/DD/YYYY format) # Allow "DQ", "DQed", "DQ:", etc., and similar for "IL" dq_pattern = re.compile(r"DQ[\s:]*([\d]{1,2}[-/\.][\d]{1,2}[-/\.][\d]{2,4})") il_pattern = re.compile(r"IL[\s:]*([\d]{1,2}[-/\.][\d]{1,2}[-/\.][\d]{2,4})") # Calculate the date 180 days ago from today days_ago = datetime.datetime.utcnow() - datetime.timedelta(days=180) # Collect relevant data results = [] for post in subreddit.search(keyword, limit=None): # Search posts containing "Montreal" # Convert post creation time from timestamp to datetime post_date = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(post.created_utc) if post_date > days_ago: post.comments.replace_more(limit=None) for comment in post.comments.list(): if hasattr(comment, "body"): dq_matches = dq_pattern.findall(comment.body) il_matches = il_pattern.findall(comment.body) if dq_matches or il_matches: dq_dates = [match[1].strip() for match in dq_matches] # Extract date strings, ignore other groups il_dates = [match.strip() for match in il_matches] # Extract date strings comment_data = f"Post Title: {post.title}\nComment ID: {comment.id}\nDQ Dates: {dq_dates}\nIL Dates: {il_dates}\n---\n" results.append(comment_data) # Save results to a TXT file with open('reddit_data.txt', 'w') as f: for result in results: f.write(result) print("Data extraction complete, saved to reddit_data.txt.") 

There's a bad joke in Gnosis, it goes like this: "How do you know if the fox in front of you is a vulp?" The responder asks how, and the punchline is "Ask them. If they say yes, they're a vulp. If they say no, they're a sarcastic vulp.". It's a dumb joke, but there's a kernel of truth to it: Looking at a vulp that is currently quadripedal, nude and silent, one would need to inspect their paws to tell they're not an ordinary fox. The reason it's allegedly funny is all three of those are rarities on account of them being people and it's so unlikely you're ever going to be confused that there's supposedly humor in suggesting the hypothetical. (You'll note the words "allegedly" and "supposedly".) Nevertheless, there's a good reason these fox-people look so much like a real fox, and it's because they are a real fox. Let me explain.
This setting's Precursors (if the name didn't tip you off they're so long gone we don't know what they called themselves) felt the need to add "native" sophonts to every one of the four planets and nine moons they terraformed in this one star system, the inner worlds all got multiple, working with samples from some little blue backwater that forgot they were ever there and what little life was on each world to begin with just like they did for the rest of the ecosystem. In this case they literally just took red fox embryos from the aforementioned backwater planet, altered their genes to modify their anatomy and brains in particular so they could fill that role. Their hips are altered to support bipedal locomotion but don't look different externally when quadripedal and the biggest visible change was moving their tiny fifth digit on their forelimbs closer to the other toes (or I guess "fingers" now), elongating and turning it so it functions as an opposable thumb. Altering existing or extinct animals was how they made all their artificial sophonts, even the really weird ones like the dragons or those things from Lum with eleven heads, but by this point in the timeline they got lazy. They were already on worlds 6-13, they had to light up a brown dwarf as an artificial undersized star to make even eight out of its over two hundred moons habitable. All the creativity by this point in the project was going into "how", not "what" and the biology team was running low on ideas, so they didn't make any extraneous changes like they normally would. Fox, smart brain, paw hands, tweaked hips, boom, fox-person, done. Moon-planet of the fox-people, slap it on a plastic lunch box and get the spy drones set up so the tourists can covertly watch the fox tribes build their brand new fox civilization and fox culture until they have fox cities with fox art and fox fasion and form fox countries with fox governments and intercontinental fox trade networks that fight fox wars motivated entirely by the greed of individual foxes but presented to the poor foxes fighting them as moral crusades in the name of their fox gods and fox nations to preserve their fox values, fox traditions, fox beliefs and way of fox life.
My question is: What do you think of this approach to animal people? What do you think of them looking so much like the existing animal that you have to rely on them doing people things or detailed knowledge of their anatomy to tell they're not the regular animal they're based on?
Or, more bluntly, I think they're lazy and they're supposed to be lazy but are they too lazy or am I good?

Chapter Five: Expansion
While expansion is my goal. My mana reserves are meh at best right now. The menu is giving me only one option for expansion and that is outside. I intended to expand in that direction sooner than later, but this IS a little sooner than I had in mind. It does fit my goals though. I don't want to know someone is on my doorstep, only when they are literally on my doorstep. I had planned to expand at least twice outwards to give me a timely warning. Unfortunately, I only had enough mana to make one expansion out, so that's what I do, and as soon as I do, the front of my cave resolves and I can sense everything around me out to about 100 feet. Not a lot of warning, but enough.
As soon as I expanded, I also discovered new invaders. Moles and Porcupines. The moles likely wouldn't be much of a problem, my lvl 2 spider and cricket minions should easily be able to handle them. The porcupines on the other hand... that is not a creature that is easy to kill. And right as I say that to myself, a porcupine separates itself from a tree and starts to waddle it's way towards my cave entrance. The moles did as well, but before they got very far Felix unearthed them and my minions had at them. Felix went out to challenge the porcupine and that fight was over before I even knew it was starting. Felix cast a spell and slammed the porcupine between two rocks, turning it into a spiny paste. The mana from all this was much greater than any fight before and I was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. It was at this point I wondered if I could upgrade myself... so I tried it and it worked. I was now a level two dungeon core, and wow, the ambient mana absorption rate nearly tripled! This has potential. I'll need to consider this at length, because while I was able to upgrade my core, it took almost every drop of mana I had. I went from feeling over full, to feeling like I was half starved.
All I could do at this point was wait for mana to accumulate, so that is what I did while I considered my options. I was sliding through the HUD's drop down menu looking at the options I had available to me and really wished whoever had created this HUD, hadn't settled on a basic menu driven system. It was overly long, confusing, didn't contain enough information to explain things and was backed by a green color using white lettering. Horrid. Eh. Whatever, it was what I had to work with, so I'd just have to deal with it. Hmmmm, I could spawn resource nodes of base metal and maybe an alloy. I could also spawn fungi, as well as a few plants for outside, but I decided to wait on this for a little bit. I needed a lot more mana before I started moving on my plans, and my minions were providing this to me with the invaders they were killing. It wasn't fast progress. But it was progress. I watched as the day slowly slid into night and a new invader appeared. An Owl. No, wait... that's not an invader, the hud says it's a minion? What?
I realized I hadn't looked to see if I had a new spawner available to me when I expanded outward. I did now and sure enough, there it was. A nest of sticks, twigs, and feathers, hidden up in the crook of a branch of an old Oak. I had Owl Minions! YES! Ok calm down dumbass. You still need to gather more mana. Just be patient. Looking at my available spawners I did notice that both the mole and the porcupine had been added as available spawners I could create, but even though I intended to spawn both of them, I had other goals that needed to come first. Namely gain enough mana to create both of them, as well as upgrade them, and the owl spawner to lvl 2, and create a mole and owl scion. That's a lot of mana, and I needed to wait till my tank was full to overflowing before I could do that.
As I was thinking about all of this, another invader showed up, a bat. My owl launched itself into the air and the two began to fight. The bat was clearly outmatched in overall power, but it had maneuverability on it's side, and both my minion and the bat took a lot of damage while fighting. Enough that the bat died and my owl minion was severely wounded. I did get mana from the bat, as well as a small return from my owl when it also eventually died, so not too bad. I look back to the owl spawner and focus on it. Hmm. Basic level one owls take an hour each to spawn. Right got it. Kinda like my mountain cat spawner. Basic non upgraded mountain cats spawn once an hour. First upgrade cats spawn every 2 hours, and it looks like a magic variant takes 3 hours to spawn, with my scion taking 5 hours. This seems pretty structured. The spawner seems to lean towards spawning 2 basics to every upgraded cat, except the magic variants create a dual spawn timer. When they are spawning, I get one extra base kitty in between each magic kitty. There also seems to be a limit of each type. Right now it looks like I can have 10 base kitties, 5 upgrade kitties, 2 magic kitties and my Scion. All my spawners acted like this. The insect and spider spawners give me more minions, probably because they were not as advanced creatures? I wonder if that number will increase as I grow?
First / Previous / Next

I have one child. I had him when I was younger and I didn’t regret having him (though I truly expected to by what everyone in my life said). But lately over the past few years I’ve grown to not like who he is as a person. And regret has set in.
I will call him “M”, M is 12yrs old, going to be 13 this year. He is being raised in a two parent household, in a good town and school district. We live pretty comfortably as you can for this day and age. But M is never happy. M is never satisfied with anything. M consistently gets in trouble at school for repeating inappropriate things he watches on YouTube or hears while playing video games. He bullies kids younger than him and then never takes accountability for what he said or did, even when multiple adults tell him that what he did wasn’t okay. With COVID our state shut down school in person for 2 full calendar years, M is now pretty far behind in reading for his age. M refuses to do any sport, non-physical activity, or after-school activities that have been offered to him; usually always without a reason (it’s always just “I don’t want to”). M fights mainly with me because I am the parent who is home most often with him (other parent works out of home/12 hour shifts), so we always butt heads. M never allows any type of criticism and even when complimented he is smug and always says “I know”. He’s become a person I wouldn’t want to spend any time around, and frankly wouldn’t be friends with (if he was an adult and not my child). I don’t know what to do.
Things we’ve actively done to help M: -When we relocated, we set up an IEP and tutor to help assist him with his reading, writing and math skills. -We were finally able to talk him into trying (and successfully liking taekwondo) -Give him multiple style devices to support and promote his interest in video games and watching others play video games. -We gave him a list of small chores to do each day that never change and we do not ask more out of him (we always welcome help if he decides) -We start excessively complimenting the things he does and carving out time for him to explain his special interests (e.g his Lego creations) -We do not force him to actively join in on family dinners, activities or errands if he doesn’t want to go.
Both M’s other parent and myself came from very abusive households and we’re never treated like human beings that would become eventual adults. So we’ve really made it our focus to create a safe and understanding environment for M (we purposely never had more kids so that M would never feel like he had to compete with anyone else for love) but M continues to always push back, argue, cause problems at school and act like he hates us.
Because this has been an issue on and off for years, I am unsure what else I can do to help. Sometimes I cry at night because I regret keeping him and also yearning for the day he turns 18. (And I feel horrible for feeling that way)

Relationship help?
help!!!!! im so confused
i 14m like this girl in the samw year as me. but its so confusing so i’ll tell u the story first. (its a long one)
I’m from England and so is the girl i like. lets call her Julie. and we go to the same high school. one year an opportunity for an exchange was brought up. In October we’d spend 10 days at our exchange partner’s house in America and go to their school and go round the island learning about different things. Before this, i’d wanted to know who Julie was etc. and I’d kept her at the back of my mind. To my luck, Julie was also going to go on the exchange (There were 30 of us and there are 300 people in my year.) So after the snapchat group chat was made I very smoothly 🤣 slided into Julie’s DM’s. We just talked loads instantly and we were yet to talk in real life. (She is in the other half of the year so we didn’t have any classes.) Meeting after meeting about the trip and we still hadn’t talked. Eventually, the trip arrived and we were headed to heathrow from a local airprot and Heathrow to the airport in america. In the security bit we finally spoke. Julie made a joke as I scurried around trying to be as quick as possible. From there we just kept talking and we even talked on the plane (when she woke up). She was sat behind me and I was sat with a friend and us three talked.
I can’t remember all the details but basically, throughout the whole trip me and her talked the whole time and people always shipped us if you get what I mean. However, I do remember the airport back. We had a three hour wait time I think at the american airport. and we were going around in small groups of four or five and I just spontaneously chose to go around with Julie. Julie was with two of her other friends but we spent the whole three hours making tiktoks and laughing and joking about and we both really enjoyed it. Finally, we were back home and we proceeded to text until school came by again. This is where another recently solved problem comes around.
The last day of the trip there was a massive party and I met this girl lets call Bella. Me and Bella started texting from there and sort of started liking each other. By this point I really really liked Julie and never stopped thinking about her but never knew if she felt the same and was very cautious about it. However, me and Bella kind of died down after a week or so.
So it was back to me putting my full effort into liking Julie. At school we didn’t talk much be exchange the few words whenever I saw her. I was really nervous around her in real life and tried to do my best to make it discreet I liked her and directed my attention elsewhere while still having full attention on her. Yet we texted like crazy and full on as well. We would always joke around and call each other names jokingly and we were really really friendly. We didn’t talk as much in January and February but picked up again in March. I still really really really liked her again and in April we shared our ambitions and they pretty much matched up and we shared our ‘types’ and we described each other but were completely clueless we liked each other. It got a bit confusing because she liked me ( I later found out in June/July) but also mentioned this other guy so I got confused and then in June it got really really messy.
You remember Bella right? Well the American kids all came over to England this time and stayed with us. On the first few days me and Bella didn’t talk however we did one day and we kicked about a ball on a field where everyone on the exchange was hanging out after we had a football match. From there me and Bella hung out a lot together and did stuff together in class activities. We really liked each other and I no longer liked Julie. (It’s really important to keep in mind me and Bella didn’t know each other deeply etc.) However my feeling for Julie still remained a bit but slowly died out even when I still liked Bella the first few days. Anyways, me and Bella had held hands a few times etc. and when Bella went we hugged a lot. We weren’t into a relationship and a few days later we stated ‘talking’ (A state in which the relationship is similar to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship but is not official.) and we called a lot. However a few problems arose when me and Bella discovered each other’s emotions and how we live and what we live by. It was present she was over reactive, over protective, quite mean (For example I’d talk about my day and she wouldn’t care and she’d talk about hers.), she also talked to a lot of other boys oddly (For example she blocked me sometimes and a few days later my friend was at the top of her best friend-list with a 😗 next to his name.) and she always had excuses. It just didn’t work for me and I wasn’t happy at all. Prior to me and Bella stopping talking me and Julie started to text again.
me and julie started to text again in about july 2023. (idk). julie had just got out of a relationship in august so i only started liking her again in september 2023. i tood my friends and obviously word spread but i always said i didnt infront of her so idk if she knew or not. anyway we still texted alot however another guy liked her who also texted her and there was a bit of competition. for a few months i didnt even know if i liked her, some days i would, some days i wouldnt and i was really conflicted. now, the ither guy and her dont really text much and so im not really bothered. we still both text each other loads and weve had eachother st the top of our best friends list for two weeks😂😂. anyways i have no idea if she likes me or not but i like her and were like best friends. feel free to ask any questions.
By the way the girl from american is completely out the picture. Julie doesnt know i like her.

So, you said Lord Nicholas has no personality, which is true lol, but since I'm the devil's advocate, I took that as a challenge. Make yourself comfortable for a long read. Have some popcorn.
Why is this guy more of a tragic character, rather than a villain? And how does a man lose identity, and becomes a monster through desperation? I'll answer this for you below.
• Throughout Plague Tale Innocence, there are various signs that although he is personally close to Vitalis (no use of titles or formalities when speaking to each other) he is the execution, and not the mastermind behind the plans. For example, when Hugo's Macula was to be tested, he urged Vitalis on to put an end to the plague already, they are not here to play games.
• In the very same chapter, we get a little insight on what he believes and thinks about the conflict between the Inquisition and the De Runes. He doesn't understand why Beatrice De Rune resists their persuasion for information regarding the Macula, since their goals are shared -> ending the Plague. Ultimately, he blindly believes Vitalis wants to control the Plague to save them. And he does anything, ANYTHING to make that happen.
Commit genocide against peasants, and in the end, even go as far as killing Hugo.
Now, let's take a little turn to make a background check for this guy. Or at least what is hinted, and what can be assumed with intuition and theories.
• Like I mentioned before, him and Vitalis are personally close, and in the preultimate chapter of Plague Tale: Innocence, after his death, guards talk about him in the city. They are confused why Vitalis hasn't sent anyone for his search (I'll get to that one later), since he was his Protégé. This alone in itself wouldn't mean anything, but right after that a guard added "Maybe he found himself another Protégé" regarding Hugo of course.
Since this game is about innocence and children, it's almost safe to assume that Nicholas likely got taken under Vitalis' wings just as Hugo was now in the present. That would explain why they are close, and why Nicholas blindly trusts his master. Another dialogue backs this up, between the Arch Bishop and Vitalis. "Puppets like you will kneel and beg me to save them." and look who appears and kneels right there and then? Lord Nicholas. This is my theory, I can back it up but it isn't 100% surely true of course. Take it with a pinch of salt please.
• Now, time to get to why Vitalis didn't send anyone after Nicholas' disappearance... We saw nothing of the two months Hugo spent in the Bastion, but based on the Cathedral's state, it's safe to assume things didn't go that well with controlling the Macula. The plan was to get Hugo through the threshold finally, so that the Conjuration can begin. (Note to self: another essay later about that one). Although they tried to push Hugo through with hurting his mother, it didn't work. Because of this, Vitalis tasked Nicholas with taking Hugo to his sister, to end her life. This is simple, but it doesn't stop here.
In the chapter Blood Ties (where we control Hugo), we already meet an impatient Nicholas who wants to put an end to the Plague. Not only that, but let me get to one crucial sentence told by Vitalis. "Nicholas... You cannot understand." This hints at the disagreements between the two, and that Nicholas is not indulged in how this should be done. Nicholas tries to help Vitalis up, but he rejects the help too. It's quite symbolic for the one-sided trust between the two. Due to this growing mistrust, and how Vitalis didn't expect Nicholas to come back after his mission later on, to me it seems like Vitalis cut the ties and sent him exactly to his death to get rid of him.
• Vitalis' plan was never to get rid of Hugo once they pass the threshold ("I have a lot to teach the Carrier, and his friends."), and knew well, that Nicholas has no chance against Hugo and Amicia with the rats alongside them. He sent the man who trusted him the most to his death, and with that also chose his ultimate protégé - Hugo. It's also likely that Nicholas' mistrust grew because his position in the hierarchy was compromised, since it's likely Vitalis got obsessed with Hugo, and Nicholas almost realized he is played with. There is also the idea, that Vitalis sent him away to actually save him from the white rats he meant to send on the crowd anyway. Anyway, Vitalis is for another essay...
• The betrayed, the sacrificed. Who is he? There is absolutely little we know of him, except for his title and occupation. What always speaks in Plague Tale: Innocence though, is the design. I mean look at that drip- sorry.. In "A Making of Plague Tale: Innocence" the creative developers mention the importance of faces, and overall pure, intuitive impressions we get of our characters.
• There is only one character whose face we never see, and that is Nicholas. That doesn't only play as a psychological trick to make him more terrifying, but also hints at certain points. First of all, his robes are Dominican. This is historically fitting (although there were no dominican knights) since Dominicans were those entrusted by the Church to handle trials against heresy and begin inquisitions. This also hints that he is very religious and dedicated to serving the (assumed) good. I know, no way. Let's not forget about how faded out it is, or bloody. In NO way he is a good guy, but a tragic believer? Likely. Under the robes is the armour, which is hit all around. It's no news we talk about a very experienced and efficient knight who also happens to be serving Vitalis (NOT the Church! Explained in another essay, chill.). Knights start their training at 7, and only nobles are in for the job, obviously. I made the connection, that since he likely knows Vitalis from his childhood, and his training also began when he was 7 years old, and his name was Nicholas...
Side note: In medieval times, children were named after Saints to inwoke their blessing, in this case, among many things, protecting children.
It's likely that he himself, just like those he hunts, was an orphan, perhaps even a sinner, who had to be saved by none else, than Vitalis. Give it a thought, maybe he was a lost little boy like Hugo, whose innocence was stolen way too early. With how Plague Tale likes to play with irony and parallels between characters, I don't see this as unlikely.
• All in all, he is what his occupation is, and nothing human. He is the machine that serves. The cross, the judgement. We cannot see his face, because he has no identity except what Vitalis gave him. His role, his title, his mission (perhaps even name). As it can be seen, Hugo too, was dressed in robes showing the Inquisition's sign, like a mark of ownership over him.
• From the very start of the story, he was the representative of that time's barbaric cruelty, unforgiving, misplaced judgement. And as though from the children's perspective he was a monster from the very beginning, how did it go down? As I said before, he has no identity except his committment, and through that his morals, ambitions are shown. At the very start, they ambushed the De Rune estate, and we CANNOT know, if the violance was planned beforehand or it came due to Robert's resistance.
People were taken hostage for questioning, the goal was to capture Hugo, the Carrier, and Beatrice, the only one who can help them understand the plague's origins. It was bloody, but after this chapter, you can hear guards clearly say "capture children" and not just Hugo. Now, unbelivably, I don't think he wanted Amicia bad at the start. They confront each other in the English camp for the second time (where he paid a ransom for both of them), where he tries to negotiate with her to give them Hugo and stop running. Later his methods change, telling the plain truth that there is nowehere for her to go out there (These methods of convincing show a lot of personality and insight especially in the boss fight).
Later on, it's mentioned Vitalis is going hard on him but "he is used to it". Again, their shared history is hinted. The hunt for Hugo is fruitless still, and the plague is spreading day-by-day.
Next we hear from him, is in the chapter where we visit the city with Amicia. Or rather, that he is not exactly participating in the mission killing the sick. Since him and Vitalis disagree with methods of solving the Plague, and he is occupied with catching Hugo, there is a possibility this order of slaughter was carried out without his consent. Though, this is a high take and it would be totally in character to do such a task in the means of self-preservation.
Amicia's visions of him from Penance is not reliable, but at the very same time she clearly dreamed what happened and it's likely she mixed reality with hallucinations from exhaust. If, the hallucinations were true, that means Hugo did hear Amicia, but Nicholas directly diverted his attention from her and led him away.
It's hard to speculate if he did this to let nature do its work, or to actually show mercy, which is equally possible, since it was clear from the beginning that even though she killed his men, he knew she is simply running and kills as a means to survive.
Now, as I explained earlier, many things go down when Hugo resides in the Bastion, and we can only guess what that causes. I mentioned Nicholas' growing distrust, now let me introduce you to the psychological denial he experiences during the boss fight, along with his reflections pointing at the children. The man, becoming the monster. The fire (another essay since fire in Plague Tale is symbolic) causing him to destroy himself.
In the chapter Remembrance he goes to the Château d'Ombrage along Hugo, to ensure the boy passes the threshold with killing his sister, with this enabling Vitalis to pass as well. At first, Nicholas is quite calm and confident, sending Hugo to kill her "Go, and do what has to be done.". Interestingly, despite this, he still has his sword prepared, which shows he still doesn't trust Hugo. Later on, he knocks Arthur out, but doesn't kill him senselessly, despite the fiasco at the English camp. He takes Amicia to Hugo, and now threatens him to kill her, or else he kills his mother in front of him. After that, he tells him, if Hugo does as he tells him so, maybe Vitalis keeps him by his side.
This could hint that only by accomplishments such as this, and proving devotion, can one remain important in Vitalis' eyes. Also, that maybe, Nicholas had to go through something similar, "She means nothing to you now".
Doubts and frantic impatience take hold, which ultimately lead him to take matters into his own hands. He decides to kill her, himself. As he pushes Hugo away, she calls him a bastard, which he then turns back at her, to question her morality and self-righteousness. She betrayed him, that is why he gave himself up. It can be perhaps far-fetched, but this also can count as self-reflection already. Betrayal -> causing giving up, which happens later to him too.
After Arthur "takes care of him" (not exactly...) and the siblings reunite, Nicholas wakes up and this time, immediately kills Arthur. The death is not just a shock value as many believe, it also shows the already progressing monster stepping forth, and losing humanity entirely.
The boss fight has three phases. His methods at provoking the children, and self-reflect change and become way more intense with time.
In the first phase, he tries to separate them and tells Amicia that he knows it must be difficult to live in the Carrier's shadow. Also, that they are terrified. He is poking at her most vulnerable place, their biggest fear, which's "face" is ultimately him. Also, reminding Amicia of her biggest desire, that is to be acknowledged by her parents. Especially this can count as self-reflective, since as I said earlier Nicholas likely noticed Hugo is slowly replacing him in Vitalis' eyes. The wish to excell, and be acknowledged for the devotion is a deep scar this character could carry. He also reminds them of how their father died, to remind them of honour, which Nicholas obviously has a twisted sense of.
In the second phase, his first voice line shows surprise and fear, and anger in response to those feelings. He is more reckless and aggressive too. Here, again, he manipulatively reminds them how little they can do, and threatens them. This is both calculated and instinctual, since he says such things to bring the children out of their hiding places, but at the very same time also because he is slowly losing himself. There are also lines which can be reflective to his beliefs and assumptions based on himself, such as: "Your sister won't be able to save you child.... You are alone." There were already connections made between how Vitalis saved him, and if one puts it all together, this line shows how he doesn't believe in the siblings' bond, because his own bond with Vitalis broke, and Nicholas is (alike to Hugo) alone. Or there is also the line "What do you think you can do? You are nothing. [...]" I wanted to highlight this line because Plague Tale (among many other things) is about the helplessness one faces trying to protect loved ones, and/or trying to rewrite their fates. The fact that Nicholas dehumanizes them entirely, shows he knows the fact one, them or him, cannot change the course that has been set, but he is still in denial trying to fight it (a lot like Amicia in Requiem, by the way. Also, fire (this is why that needs another essay....).
In the third phase, he becomes uncharacteristically reckless and desperate, where he succumbs to the wrath and, his fate. "Come to me, come into my arms my dear children." His sanity decreases and he knows death is unavoidable. The question left is whenever he can bring them down with himself or fails. And failure, is unacceptable. He is better dead, than failed. "I will teach you the meaning of sacrifice" this line shows that likely, he accepted his last quest knowing well he is going to die probably. That he rather burns himself, bring hell, than letting go. He keeps shouting the motto of his order, because that is the only thing that he clings to. It's pathetic and forced, inhumane. "[...] We'll die together" <-> "I will boil your blood until it spurts from your eyes", "You are going to pay, [...]" by this time, he keeps switching tactics at approaching and luring them out, frantic and monstrous. His words mean nothing by this time and desperation takes hold. What line of him is the purest, rawest, and most honest, between all the threads and claims, self-convincing attempts to maintain devoted is this: "The pain... To feel oneself alive... And deliver death." This line might seem like one among the many terrible threats, but it in fact shows his deepest belief. That is, of pain and life. Sacrifice and death. That those who live, have to kill, and that is what it means to exist in this world.
• In Plague Tale Innocence and Requiem, we see Amicia's development into a murderer who follows similarly blind committments.
She ultimately becomes, what she condemned, and what caused her great misery. What, in the end, she herself becomes if Hugo doesn't lead her on the right path. A monster.
So, to sum it all up, Lord Nicholas represents the human being of that time, whose identity is what he serves, and nothing else.
It makes one selfless, righteous, but at what cost? Violence spreads from one person to another, while everyone tries to save what is precious to them. Hope this helped seeing him as more human and with more personality. Cheers. A few more points I couldn't exactly integrate are the following:
• A few things showing the underlying morality and plain intentions: at first he tried to negotiate with both Robert, Amicia, and Beatrice as well. He condones stealing entirely. He doesn't kill Arthur at first.
• In the concept art he is left handed. In Middle Ages, left handed people were considered sinful, since it was the "devil's hand". This added with the self-punishing- self-destructive-Catholic mindset, added with his devotion, signs that he is penitent, and does what he should for a greater good, a salvation, and carries the burden of "sacrifice".

The reason this is in off my chest is because even if I’m over him emotionally, my mind still finds ways to hold on. It’s tempting to keep reminding myself what he did to me, why it was so bad, and to ask other people if I’m right to feel that way. It’s not that I doubt that I should, but more like I’d spent so long in that relationship having to justify my feelings and being invalidated and judged that I feel like I can’t.
I know this is a me problem. I know this is a significant issue on my end, of relapsing into some fairly toxic mindsets. And I know that I’m over him. I’m just sick of thinking of him, sick of hearing his name, sick of being reminded of what he did to me by the littlest things, and sick of my thought process drawing associations to him in my own work. It’s burning me out. And while he is responsible for this inherent need for justification and validation appearing in me after so long, the fact is I continue to perpetuate it because it is hard to crawl out of.

Hello! i hope everyone is doing well here. Long story short i befriended this user on smule 2 months ago, we’ve had our fair share of fun but she always seems obsessive with smule and would always find any little thing to argue about. i couldn’t join any of her friends without asking for her permission, i couldn’t interact with any of her friends without her getting mad, i couldn’t post invites that she also had open if i don’t join her, i have to block everyone she doesn’t like, i have to always agree with her side of the situation without listening to the other side and if i did she’d say that i am making up excuses for them and would get mad and start yelling in the 100+ voice notes she shares. i would be the villain in all of these instance and she is the victim in every situation. one person who’s friends with her asked her for permission to join me on an invite, he does, i commented and he likes the comment and duet. she goes on for hours crying about how he has never liked any of their duets and i told her that people use this app to escape but she’s making it hard to do anything because i feel like im being monitored. she’ll come to me and talk about how i have more joiners than her on the same songs and she will make it seem like i have control over that. i once told her that i can’t do it anymore and was ready to end the friendship there but she called me fake and cried on and on and on for hours and all i could do was apologize in the end when i did nothing wrong. for the past few weeks i’ve been mentally drained and everytime she complains to me about these small things that really don’t matter i get aggravated anytime because if i tell her that it’s really not that serious, she will bully me and make me feel like i’m a bad person for not caring as much as she does. i thought about it for a while and finally just blocked her on everything yesterday because it was getting to the point i was feeling suffocated and now she has been going around harassing my friends and calling me and them all sorts of names. I also recently found out that so many people have had issues with her because of how crazy she gets when things don’t go her way, blocking her isn’t enough because she will still find ways to harass my followers and i want to find out if it’s possible to have her account removed. Most of the people she’s harassing are barely teenagers and are minors with an exception of a few, she uses derogatory language about them and occasionally says the N word when she is not black. she is way older than these kids but is acting very immature and disrespectful. please let me know how i can report her to smule support, thank you for taking the time to read this.

I've been driving for DoorDash for about a month now. In that time, I've maintained a solid 5.0 rating with 15+ customer reviews, a 99% completion rate and a 93% acceptance rate – and have taken almost 150 orders
I had 2 incidents occur back in my second week, while still learning. Somehow these incidents resulted in 3 separate Extreme Lateness violations... and now my account is deactivated, a week and a half later
The first involved an order assigned on Long Island in Rush Hour, that I was given 5 minutes to pick up, and then asked to drive all the way into New York City (specifically deep into Queens). I would have reassigned that, but had no idea how at that point. Making it across town while on the highway going the opposite way during rush hour was impossible in 20 minutes, let alone 5; I didn't pick up the order until 8:04 PM, and was given another 5 minutes to somehow get it all the way into NYC at 8:08 PM???? It was over an hour drive to the dropoff, so I don't know how they thought that was possible
That single delivery resulted in 2 separate violations – one for pickup and one for drop-off 😭
Then, about a week later, I had my second incident occur. This time, I picked up on time, was given an appropriate amount of time to get to the customer – I got there within 5 minutes of the window. But upon arrival, there was nowhere to park, the customer took forever to buzz me in, and the slow-running elevator meant I didn't drop-off until 12 minutes late.
12 minutes late – and that resulted in my 3rd violation.
I've been anxiously sitting with those on my account, after submitting disputes when they occurred – and the worst came to past today, with my account getting deactivated
I've submitted an appeal through the form. I explained the situation very clearly. I showed records of my ratings as well, talked about how much I love driving for DoorDash, asked for leniency given my second week on the app...
I don't know who will read it, I don't know how that will go. I'd like to try other channels if at all possible
Does anyone have any advice? Any numbers to call to explain my situation? Support numbers that can actually help? Corporate numbers to appeal to? Email addresses to write to?
I was really enjoying working for DoorDash, and doing great at it; I really don't want to end this career here

After 2 years, we are tired of the fight for information needed for police to take us seriously. The individual fraudulently acquired credentials for control before anyone had a clue the victim was vulnerable and now completely financially compromised.
Long story short, aftet some seriously questionable health events, my FIL who couldnt walk from a stroke, passed. My SIL shared duties caring for him at our home.
While cleaning for a post funeral potluck for attendees.. i found AMONG THE CLEANING CHEMICALS.. A HOSPITAL SYRINGE CONTAINING A LABEL IN HIS NAME FILLED WITH A RUST COLORED MATERIAL. THIS WAS PLACED UPRIGHT IN A PHARMACEUTICAL PILL BOTTLE LABELED WITH SIL NAME!
Police took evidence and we found out they did nothing with it at all.
We discovered she committed same crimes she did federal time for previously,. against father using secret POA, 165k loan against family home, then all kinds of shit regarding life insurance and estate stuff.
Anyway. Husband called the night he passed saying how violent his dads illness seemed that night, sent me a video of it, and said he asked SIL to come help so he could sleep for work the next day. She was gone when he woke and FIL was dead.
35k later after cleaning up the mess and not a dollar left in estate to help pay for that (foreclosure, lawyers etc) ...we decided to focus on getting her put away.
Except police just want to call her fake will giving her most assets is a civil matter.
After a binder laying out the case with official documents in an organized and compelling way... no low level LE wants to get involved. Tomorrow a binder goes to the DA. If that doesnt work, the truth if his death dies with us and I cant put abother minute into it for my own mental well being.
Thanks for reading this confession.

Hello! I am 19M college student trying to navigate my way through my first serious gay relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 months and I am enjoying it a lot. Before I moved to my colleges city, a very openly liberal place with lots of lgbtq people, I never was friends with any other gay individuals. Upon arriving I met a gay man who has grown to be one of my best friends, we both have acknowledged we are not each others type and that was that.
Fast forward about a year I meet my current boyfriend and we hit it off right away. Everything is going well and I eventually want him to meet my friend, as they are both people I care a lot about. After meeting him my boyfriend has expressed that he is uncomfortable with our relationship and seeing me be close friends with another gay man. To name specific examples, my boyfriend has told me he was upset that I chose to go to a concert with my friend instead of hanging out with him. Another time the three of us were at the mall and my friend and boyfriend ordered ice cream. I was trying to save money and didn’t get anything. My friend realizes he is full after a few bites and kindly gave his ice cream to me to have. Weeks later my boyfriend brings this up as an example of times our friendship has made him uncomfortable.
How have you guys managed gay friendships while being in a relationship? I don’t want to make my partner feel uncomfortable but I cherish my friendship and enjoy being friends with people like me.

we've been together just over 10 months. Over that time some odd things have happened which made me question my trust in her and I like her but have been slightly wary of her since. I've been staying with her at her apartment for the past couple months or so and lately nothing too weird has happened and she seemed to be much better overall. But she recently asked if I wanted to move in and I just felt like I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment at this point as I was still trying to regain her trust and wasn't fully over some of the stuff that happened, and so I ended things. She is completely heartbroken, says she's in love with me and wants me in her life. And I question whether I made the right choice and whether I overreacted to some of the stuff the has happened.
I wanted to write out all the situations but the post got way too long too quick. But one of the bigger incidents was once (before I was staying there consistently) we were texting throughout the day and then suddenly she stopped replying, And I didn't hear from her for the rest of the day. I tried again the next morning and then finally she replied that afternoon but it was a very short response that's very unlike her. Then that night she texted saying a guy had gotten stabbed outside of her apartment while trying to help her with something. So she brought him up to her apt and tended to his wounds and had him stay the night there (she says he stayed out on the couch). I didn't know what was going on and was a little bit angry as well and then she called me. She acted like it was no big deal but she could tell in my voice I was not in a good mood (I was trying to figure out what was happening) and she said I was being rude and hung up on me, and also said the guy had left.
She called again moments later (or I did I can't remember) and there was some guy talking in the background who I thought was one of her roommates but she said it was the guy. I said "I thought he left," she said "he came back." I didn't know what to say and then she's like "ooooh you got real quiet" in a mocking type way. The guy is super drunk and she's pretty drunk too I think. They were both being a little disrespectful to me and he mentioned how they played cards together the night before (something that was a thing her and I had started doing together recently which I really enjoyed) and they mentioned they were going to play a game this night too. He was telling jokes and in one of them mentioned the town and street I live on which was really weird. Also mentioned at one point that his son or sons came over as well (I think to check on him but also it sounded like they hung out for a bit too).
It seemed like he was going to stay the night again. I didn't know what to do but my instincts were going wild and while it was late and I had to go to work early and it's like a 35 min drive to where she lives, I said I was coming. We also facetimed and the dude was chilling laying back on her bed. I stayed on the phone the whole way there. Once I said I was coming she got a little quiet and the guy started acting nervous and at one point said "you didn't mention you had a boyfriend" (she says she did mention it) and "at least we didn't have sex". He kept saying he's got to go but she said stay and meet my boyfriend. I get there and they're in her room with beer cans and tobacco everywhere and then he leaves. She said to him "you can stay but we are taking the bed," (she may have said "room" but I'm pretty sure she said bed) which shouldn't that go unmentioned?? Once he was gone she's like "are you breaking up with me?" I wanted to in that moment but I pictured her just calling up that guy and having him come back if I did right then plus I was still in shock as to what just happened so said "no."
We talked a little about it in the following days and she knew I was not happy with what happened but we didn't have any huge in-depth discussion about it. Since that day she makes random comments here and there like "you're the only guy I want in my room," or "you're the only guy who would be anywhere near my bed" little comments like that in conversation.
There was a point where she was trying to get off of a certain medication, without a doctors help and was struggling with it big time and acting extra crazy due to it and I can't remember if this was during that time or not, but either way it's a bit messed up right? And even though she's been way better lately, I can't help but still be disgusted by this.
There are a few more incidents in the past I'd like to share but this one's probably the worst. And it's too bad because she seems to have changed for the better lately now that she's getting proper medication and whatnot from a doctor but not enough time has passed to where I have regained my trust on her and not think of incidents like this.

Hello everyone,
I'm a 1st year PE teacher. 3 months ago I was informed that they would not be renewing my contract. In less than a week I'll be out of a job. I've been on 7 teaching interviews and each one my performance gets worse and worse with the increase in pressure.
I put my family thru 2 years of hell going back to school to pursue my passion after putting them thru 2 years of previous hell working a claims job at a major insurance company that drove me to attempt suicide.
Of the 7 interviews I've been on not one offer has come my way and countless others moved on without giving me the time of day.
I've applied at other places outside of teaching without being offered so much as an interview.
I fear my only option is to go back to insurance where I'll eventually blow my brains out leaving my wife and two kids behind to pick up the pieces.
As I'm writing this it's hard for me to figure out why I'm even posting here. Whats the point? No one can fix my problems.
Anyway, there's my rant or whatever.