Funny alliterations that start with a

You ever see one of those pictures,
Where a person is wrapped around
themselves like boa constrictors?
Screaming silently to the world,
with their devestated scriptures?
Hands up,
around their face,
Eyes wide like they just got sprayed down with mace.
Twisted
And contorted,
The very space around them distorted.
Like their very mind
Has been extorted.
Broken nails, crazy hair and shit?
Naw, it couldn't be me with the broken jaw, losing myself in a fit.
The echoes catch up and they scream,
Heaven knows if things are really as they seem.
I couldn't.
I wouldn't.
I shouldn't.
Shush now,
don't tell me what I can't resent.
A life I can't afford,
Strife by your accord.
Full stop.
Pull cord, steep drop.
Do I call the medic
Or the cop?
Is it me
Or the mannequin
being used as the prop?
Shot gun,
Make rot run,
Common n' show me what you got,
Hun.
Inhale,
Exhale,
Don't let them see you fail.
Erase your trail.
Stay calm,
Ignore the banshee's wail,
She can't find you
In the sleet and the hail.
Hood to mask my face,
Hunted down,
But they insist this isn't a race.
Being followed into the alley,
Quick, hop the fence without dally.
I should have left you a note,
Just to tell you what this was all about.
The hollow man,
Who just wants heaven's call,
Oh, to live again.
Eyes twitching in the dusk,
How can I be weighed down and still be such a hollow husk?
The ferry man waits for no one,
And I'm running to him like I am fleeing from the gun.
Funny how it is all the same,
Sunny day, embrace the cold barrel,
And that is the end of this game.
Just a sad sap,
Driven mad by a nonexistant gap.
I can't help that I always resurrect,
Like some tattered, but unflappable, insect.
I can't count the amount of times I've been crushed under your boot,
The number of rhymes I've written covered in the soot.
Of a burnt out flame,
Turned out by another who needed me to take the blame.
Just write it down, they say,
What swill, believing the pen and the pad is the way.
They don't care about your emotional release,
Like hens, they are just going to cluck without cease.
Fuck a triple entendre,
Tried it before, and still got stuck with nadda,
Pried myself away from the god ah the underworld,
But, I gotta say, my blood curled, when I learned,
It's true what they say, the devil wears prada.
She took my will to write, like it wasn't a bodda.
But they still poke and prod a dead body,
theynod at each other, with lecherous eyes that are so gawdy.
Like,
Fuck it,
He's dead.
Find the last of his coin,
Pluck it,
And then fill his boots with lead.
Into the ocean of lost souls,
Built up our shoals, ignoring the costs and the tolls.
I'm sinkin',
I'm drownin',
These pricks don't got an inkling
About why I'm frownin'
I could switch hit a beat,
Without a hitch,
Have you on your feet.
And I'd still just be the guy who doesn't offer sunshine,
The scum fuck
Who wasn't smart enough not to cross the line.
Too gruff,
Too willing to call a bluff,
Life's tough,
And I've had enough.
You're killing me with this stuff,
Woke up in the dark waters,
My wrists in a cuff.
So,
Before you can fill my lungs with water and bile,
I'm fleeing this sinking city and I won't stop for a country mile.
Into a land,
Not so vile,
Where every conversation isn't a trial.
Where my blackened wings can shed,
All of these gruesome memories in my head.
It's true,
Some of us can handle the rain,
But, I won't be back again.
I found heaven in the drain,
I gave in,
And started caring about my own gain.
The human experience,
Should not be seen through an agonized wince.
Fuck you and your hounds,
And your porcelain, merry, bounds.
The walls you constructed,
The halls through which you obstructed.
Some day,
Your judgement will come,
Smooth as the sweetest rum,
To the sound of the eternal drum.
Until than,
I won't return to this city of men.

Episode Description

Simba leaves Kiara in charge of the Pride Lands while he, Nala, and Zazu go to Kilio Valley to attend a funeral for an old elephant friend named Amanifu who has just died. Upon learning this from Mzingo, Janja decides to take advantage of Kiara's inexperience and comes up with a plan to take over the Pride Lands. Meanwhile, Simba is nervous about performing his eulogy in front of the elephants, including Aminifu's daughter, Ma Tembo.
Song: "Duties of the King" sung by Simba and Zazu

Pros
-First off, I like the sibling dynamic in this episode, as somebody with a similarly aged older brother. Kion and Kiara's relationship has resonated with me, the way they have off days and arguments, but, obviously love each other and make it out strong in the end. I, for one, do not hate Kiara in The Lion Guard, and Kion gives her the same attitude she gives him in early episodes. I like watching their relationship go through ups and downs throughout Season 1.
-I know the opening scene, where Kiara and Kion are fighting over a tree to sharpen their claws is quite intense, because they would've probably gotten into a scuffle if Simba hadn't showed up when he did, but, that is siblings for you sometimes. I feel like anyone who's got siblings of your own can relate, at least a little bit, to that scene.
-I like the plotline of Kiara and Kion's sibling rivalry stemming from their roles in leadership. Kiara is clearly a reflection of her father, when he was a cub, which is interesting and so, she thinks that being the Future Queen is really swell and makes her the alpha, and Kion (who is no better than her) thinks that being Leader of the Lion Guard makes him more important than her. I like this mechanic in this episode. It makes me want to know if Scar felt the same way about Mufasa. I mean, Kion was obviously not resentful of Kiara, unlike Scar, but I wonder if a similar thing happened with the two brothers except, in this case, it drove Scar to insanity and wanting to murder Mufasa.
-Now let's talk about Kiara being left in charge of the Pride Lands (I mean, I do think the main conflict of the episode was Simba's fault, but we'll get to that later). So, I like the fact that Kiara is nervous about ruling the Pride Lands, even for a brief period of time. I like this because for one thing, she's still only a cub at this time, so, she's entitled to be nervous and anxious about being responsible for an entire kingdom. There's a lot of responsibility being placed on her at such a young age, but, she still remained likable, in my opinion. I do like how, in The Lion Guard, she takes her responsibility as Future Queen very seriously. I know this is unpopular to say, but, I headcanon that, as she's grown up into an older cub, she's realised that being queen won't prevent her from being herself, a concern she had at the beginning of TLK 2.
-I do empathise with Kiara, and Kion, because they are both being put into a huge responsibility of looking after the entire kingdom on their own, while all the adults are away from Pride Rock. This is still really early on in Season 1, so Kion is inexperienced as Leader of the Lion Guard, and Kiara only just started her training with Simba, in the pilot episode. I do feel bad at the fact that they have to figure everything without their parents around and I respect them for managing to work out their differences by the end of the episode.
-I really feel bad for Kiara because she gets a lot of crap from people in the TLG community, moreso than Kion does. I feel really sorry for her because people say they hate her for her attitude and that they think she's a self-righteous bitch at the start of the series, but, I don't. Even as a kid, I knew that a lot of Kiara's behaviour in this episode was down to the stress of being left in charge of whole kingdom for a few days without her parents around, while still being a cub at this point. I do really like her and it really upsets when I see people hating on her. I don't think Kiara really means to be controlling in this episode, she's just trying to do right by her father while he's gone.
-I like the fact that Kiara is really hesitant and nervous to have a huge weight on her shoulders, a role she was previously really excited to fulfil in the pilot episode. When Simba asks this of her, she's understanding feeling a lot of pressure to make him proud. I like the fact that Simba admits to her that he was also nervous about becoming king the first time. I like this because we only saw the side of him that was cocky, overconfident and optimistic about becoming king. I like the fact that she was nervous and that he decides to be upfront about it.
-Kiara still remained a likable character to me throughout this episode. I like how she starts out as nervous and how her confidence is slowly building up nicely during the episode. But, she never came off as mean-spirited, to me. Also, it becomes clear that the reason her responsibility goes to her head is because of Tiifu and Zuri's influence on her and the Lion Guard's inexperience and, in this case, plot-convenient incompetence.
-Beshte, "I'm sure she'll be a nice queen." Well, I'm glad at least one of you believes in her. I can't tell you guys how much I love Beshte, always the sweetest soul out of the group.
-Ono, "Thank you for the opportunity, my queen. And you.... err..... my Kion." That line was funnier than it had any right to be.
-Speaking of which, I thought seeing Ono in Zazu's position, temporarily for Kiara was interesting and I think was a great use of his character, outside of being a Member of the Lion Guard. I personally would've been down for more scenes like this. I think a cool send off for Ono would've been to have him be the Royal Advisor to Queen Kiara and King Kovu, in the future. I wish Ono had stayed in the Pride Lands in the series finale and had become Zazu's apprentice or something.
-Bunga, "Your majesty." {bows at Kiara}. Kiara, "Bunga, that's really not necessary." I found that whole interaction surprisingly funny. Also, strong feeling that Bunga has a huge crush on his best friend's sister at this point, and Kiara views him as her friend, nothing more.
-Kiara's plan about the Bees and the Eelands fiasco was actually very smart, and even when I saw this as a kid, I knew that she had a better idea than Kion. Her idea about moving the eelands away from bees' nests is smarter because bees obviously sting when angered. So, Kion was too proud to admit Kiara had the better idea.
-One of the funniest parts of the whole episode for me was Kion saying, "I say we move the bees". Then, the scene cuts to Kion, Beshte, Fuli and Ono running away from a swarm of bees, in terror. I obviously don't want them hurt, but, I just had to laugh because it was so predictable.
-Bunga, "What are you guys running for? Bees taste even better when they're mad!" Accurate behaviour from a honey badger. They can raid beehives without being stung due to their very thick hide and their stink sap.
-When the Lion Guard arrived back at Pride Rock covered in bee stings, if I were Kiara, I'd be laughing in Kion's face at that moment, like "Ha, ha, you were wrong. Only an idiot would decide to move a swarm of bees to a new place." But, in fairness, Kiara was right to be mad at him, in that moment, for his little screw up.
-"It wasn't a total disaster," Kion, while talking to Kiara. Kiara, looks at Fuli and Ono scratching themselves, "Really? It looks pretty total to me." I mean, she does have a point there. In this situation, Kion had everything to gain from taking her advice.
-However, I do like the fact this episode shows that Kiara and Kion are not perfect leaders yet, they're still fairly young and are only just finding their feet, so it's natural for them to have some minor slip ups, that they learn from, like every kid does.
-"Admit it. I was right about the bees and you were wrong." Kion, just admit it and save yourself the embarrassment. Kiara was not being rude to him whatsoever. She was speaking nothing but facts.
-When Kiara talks to Mzingo at Pride Rock, I like the fact that the latter is clearly higher up in the frame because he's the one dominating the conversation and is also the one who manipulates Kiara. I think it's a nice touch where he creepily approaches and blackmails her.
-*laughs "Janja wants peace?" I like the fact that Kiara is clearly sceptical and she's obviously suspicious of Janja's true intentions. I like this because it doesn't make Kiara out to be seriously wayyy too gullible and silly. The fact that was she was suspicious feels more in-line with TLK 2 and makes her decision to believe Janja, partially Kion's fault. Manipulation is also a very powerful tool, especially to done on a semi-young child, like Kiara.
-I like the fact that Mufasa appears to Kion, unprompted in this episode, for the first time in the series. I love this because it feels like Mufasa saw the argument that had just gone down and was like, "Right I need to put an end to this sibling drama before it gets out of hand. I need to make Kion see the error of his ways."
-I actually love the fact that Kiara is, at least partially willing, to give Outlanders a chance for peace. It feels like a nice bit of foreshadowing for her character arc in TLK 2, where she was able to give the Outsider lions a chance to fit in.
-Kion angrily to Tiifu and Zuri, "Ugh! Some advisors you two are!" That was more hilarious than it had any right to be. Because, let's be honest, they were pretty obnoxious in this episode.
-"Get away from the Queen!!!!" I actually love the moment where Kion comes bursting in like a superhero, to his sister's aid. I also love the fact that he calls Kiara his queen, at this point, because he clearly listened to Mufasa's advice, and also because he had felt somewhat responsible for her almost being killed by Janja.
-"Oh we can fight all right!!!" So badass. I personally would've loved to see Kiara fight alongside the Lion Guard. I think it would've been cool to see her help to fight off Janja's clan. I wanted to see what she could do.
-"Six on six..... Forget it!!!!" Yeah, you better run, Janja, you don't stand a chance against all six of these heroic friends. And one of them is a bloody hippo.
-I love Kion and Kiara's closeness at the end of the episode where they make up for their uncivil, squabbling at the start. Kion finally rightfully admits that he should've taken Kiara's advice about the bees and the elands, and Kiara admits that Kion was right about Janja being nothing but trouble.
-Kion, "And I should've listened to you about the bees." Ono, "Oh, sure {rolls his eyes}. Now he admits it." Oh, Ono, you knew all along, but, we love you.
-Kiara and Kion when Simba and Nala arrive home, are really sweet. I love the fact that Kiara wants to be honest about what happened, "Ruling the Pride Lands? It went..." I absolutely love the moment where Kion decides to cover for her and admits that she'll be a great queen, this is an incredibly sweet brother and sister moment. That moment feels like a precursor to the episode "Baboons" and even later "The Trail to Udugu."
-I love the moral of this episode about "being supportive of your loved ones efforts to help, especially when they are wrong," because it applies to both Kiara and Kion in two different situations. Kion was obviously wrong to go against Kiara's advice to move the elands, but, Kiara learned that she should've been more sensitive about that whole situation. But, Kion also learned that if hadn't been so dismissive of her acting queen for a few days and given her his utmost support when she was clearly nervous about ruling the Pride Lands. If Kion and Kiara been more sensitive to each other, then, they would've been able to be in charge of the Pride Lands together instead of arguing. Also, this episode shares another moral, "Communication is key to understanding each other and a successful team." Kiara learns this after Kion saves her and she realises she was wrong about Janja, and Kion learns this when the Lion Guard get stung by bees, and even later when he realises that he was partly to blame for Kiara going into the Outlands, and that if he had been upfront with her instead of outright yelling at her and running out on her, she wouldn't have needed to be rescued. These are two important lessons for kids going through school together, or with siblings and friends.
-Also, Janja is genuinely dangerous and scary in this episode. He traps Kiara in the Outlands to use her as a bargaining chip for Simba or else he and his would eat her. They would've gotten away with it if Kion didn't jump in at the last second. Janja threatened the freaking princess of the Pride Lands! Reason number #50 why he should never be allowed enter the Pride Lands, no matter if he is starving or not, because he clearly cannot be trusted to follow the rules.
-And now I'm finally going to talk about the B-plot of the episode. It wasn't as good the A-plot, in my opinion. I did love the worldbuilding aspect of this episode where we learn that different animals in the Pride Lands have their own customs and traditions that need to be respected. I like the idea of Simba upholding a tradition and it was interesting that he was never trained for it because obviously Mufasa died before he could complete his training.
-I like the idea of Simba, Nala and Zazu going to an elephant funeral. Elephants actually have "funerals" in real life. In real life, if a member of their herd dies, the elephants will crowd around them ceremoniously to pay tribute and they'll collect twigs and branches to cover the fallen elephant to pay tribute, out of respect for them. I love the way its portrayed as a ceremonial funeral in The Lion Guard and that Simba is upholding a tradition. I love the way he has to say it in Elephantese because the idea of the elephants' having a language barrier is a cool worldbuilding element.
-Aminifu is a cool worldbuilding character too who, we're told, played a big part in the Pride Lands' revival and bringing the circle of life into balance. I like to headcanon we was a childhood friend of Mufasa and Scar, and the rest of the Royal Family, and how he go on to be a good friend to Simba, Nala and the rest of Simba's pride. I like to think Aminifu was responsible for all the animals in the kingdom, similar to the Lion Guard, and how his daughter fills that role in Season 2.
-The Elephant Funeral scene looks cool because of how emotional and how heart-wrenching it looks from afar. I like the addition of all the elephants mourning in the background. It was a little dark this early on the series. One elephant hugs Aminifu and looks like their going to cry, another elephant and her calf are crying, while hugging each other.
-I like how you can see shades of Mufasa's death through Simba's voice in this episode, such as, "And now Aminifu has completely his part of the circle of life," and "Well, time for the tribute." I like this because I like to think Simba is obviously nervous about performing a eulogy in front of elephants, but, probably also a bit upset and mourning over his own father's death. I mean, in fairness, he never to give his father a proper send off when he died, so, this probably hit even harder for him.
-I like how this is Zazu's first main character moment in the series and how much of a hard worker and a loyal he is to Simba and Nala, his whole motivation is just to help Simba learn Elephantese properly so he can impress Ma Tembo's herd, during the tribute.
-Nala is such a sweetheart and a loving partner to Simba. I love her because she's pretty much exactly how she was in the original film. She's his loving and supportive wife, and I love the way he gives him moral support when he gets nervous. I love her snarky jab at her husband early on the episode too, by the way, "Worried about Kiara? Or are you worried about your tribute?"
-The song "Duties of the King" was decent enough, I suppose. I mean, it's not my favourite song in the series and I wouldn't be reaching for it. But, I don't hate it. I like the more cutesy, "miscellaneous" animals shown in the background, like the chimpanzees and the porcupines. Plus, it's nice to know that Simba doesn't just sit on his ass all day and that he does important jobs, like he assigns gazelles to their grazing grounds and songbirds to their trees. I love that he presides over aardvark wedding rites and then we saw Muhanga and Muhangus kissing behind some grass. So, I wonder if Simba did in fact, preside over their wedding before this episode. Overall, I like the cute scenes of this song and I like the fact that Simba actually has important stuff to do. I can see why kids would dance around to this song because it's very bouncy and energetic. The beat is fine, but, I don't like Rob Lowe's singing voice as Simba. I think they should've used Cam Clarke all along for The Lion Guard, who actually voices Mwoga the vulture. I don't mind the beat, but, I don't think Simba and Zazu are the best singers, at least in this series, that is. I'll give it a 5/10 because there are worse songs than it.
-Ma Tembo is such a sweetheart in this episode and I love her. She doesn't have a major role in the series as of yet, but, it's still clear in this episode that she has a great relationship with Simba and the Royal Family. I'm glad she had a bigger part in Season 2. I also love her voice actress, Lynette DuPree (R.I.P) and I think she's one of the best in the series. I love how she makes her sound genuinely sad during the procession and then a little bittersweet during the "poop" scene. Also, shout out to the moment where she wraps her trunk around Simba.
-Also, call me childish if you want to, but I actually love it when Simba actually says that Aminifu had "poop on him". I mean, it just gets me because that's not something you'd say at a funeral and the fact that the elephants took it really well and actually laughed hysterically is genuinely hilarious. Like, even his daughter admitted that he had always had faeces on him. It was funny because of how much Simba feels like he screwed up, but, then, the elephants had a really good sense of humour about it.
-Also, this episode makes me wish that at least someone went to the Elephant Graveyard during this series. Maybe Aminifu's funeral could've been there and Simba and Nala would've had to go the place where they almost got killed as cubs or maybe even Kion and the Lion Guard would have to go there. It's such a missed opportunity. Or if Janja went there then maybe he could've learn that Scar betrayed his ancestors long before the events of The Lion Guard. But, speaking of the Elephant Graveyard, I bet Ma Tembo's herd are going to wait for Aminifu to decompose and then carry his remains to the Graveyard because that's something that elephants do if a member of their herd dies outside of their designated area. I like to think that that's what happened after this episode. I just wish they had the funeral in the Elephant Graveyard and we got to see Simba and Nala go there as adults, but, I'm not going to fault this episode for not going in this direction.
-Zazu, "I'm not sure Sire, but, I think you just said he had.... {quietly} poop on him...." Try not to judge me too harshly, but, I just find poop jokes hilarious for some reason, as an adult.
Cons
-First off, I don't like how Kion and Kiara were both dumbed down for the sake of plot-convenience for much of this episode. I get that they're still kids, but, Kion's plans to move the bees instead of the elands was the most stupid idea I've seen in the series. The literally just had an episode where Kion calls out his best friend, Bunga, for making bad decisions and now it's Kion who made a really dumb decision. I mean, that should be bee rescue 101, don't try to move a swarm of bees, they do not like, and the fact that Kiara spells it out for them before this scene, "....if the elands step on the beehives, they'll get stung.... there could be chaos." She's speaking nothing but facts. Kion should've realised that they shouldn't have tried to aggravate the bees. I don't like the fact that he acts cocky and dismissive towards Kiara, when she was so obviously right. However, Kiara was dumb to go into the Outlands alone to see Janja. I mean, I admire her willingness to give strangers a chance for peace, but the fact that she had her suspicions about him and she already knew what he was like, in accordance to the pilot episode, wouldn't she see reason to bring Tiifu and Zuri along for backup.
-I don't like how this episode seems to indicate that Simba favours his daughter over his son. Between the pilot episode and this episode, it seems like he sees Kion as a just a Child Soldier and doesn't actually love him equally. I know it's obviously not through, but, I don't like how he gives off an impression that he has favourites. Parents don't have favourites, unless you're an evil lioness named Zira and you give your youngest son everything, but then treat your eldest son like dirt. But, Simba isn't like that. I don't like how he says "I have faith in you," in such a way that gives off Parental Favouritism vibes. I'm really glad he doesn't have this in any of the later episodes.
-I hate the way the writers tried to do the Kion/Scar and Kiara/Mufasa parallels in this episode. I just don't like it being used as a plot device. The series makes a point to say that Kion is nothing like Scar and how he would never take his anger out on his family and friends. I don't mind Kiara being like her grandfather because he was a great king in his day, but, I don't like how the writers made Kion and Kiara have a similar relationship that led to Mufasa's fall. Also, one thing I loathed early on in the series is the fanart of Kion brutally murdering Kiara in rage, just like Scar murdered Mufasa. I just hate it so much because it would happen since Kiara and Kion have a caring relationship, where they do bicker like siblings tend to do, but, they would never turn on each other.
-I don't like the part where Kiara and Kion were outright malicious towards each other. All the lion cubs in this episode were quite mean-spirited at times. Kion and Kiara for obviously constantly fighting and being horrible instead of admitting to being wrong in certain situations, like the bees and the elands and the Janja situation. Kion is too cocky and overconfident about the bees, for my liking, and Kiara allows Tiifu and Zuri's influence to get her head and ends up believing she's always right. Kion only adds fuel to the fire by yelling at Kiara and then callously running out her instead of being upfront with her about Janja's true intentions. I get that siblings don't always see eye-to-eye on things, but, I don't like Kion and Kiara constantly being scumbags to each other and not giving things a second thought until the end. Mufasa had to be the one to put an end to the "sibling drama".
-Tiifu and Zuri were the worst of all, in my opinion, and I think all of you guys will agree. They were pretty annoying and obnoxious in this episode. They were very disrespectful and condescending towards Kion just because he's not a queen, and they caused Kiara to be disrespectful right back. Kiara doesn't strike me as disrespectful without these two around. I'm glad she actually stands up to them in later episodes rather than being influenced by them. Zuri is my least favourite of the two of them, she comes off as super mean-spirited and bitchy, and Tiifu comes off as domineering and rude. I don't like the way they talk down and belittle Kion and how they throw shade at anyone who believes Kiara is wrong. They act like stereotypical Mean Girls, but, the annoying kind. Plus, they weren't very good friends to Kiara for letting her go into the Outlands alone without a second thought about the fact that it might be dangerous. That doesn't sound like Tiifu. Remember how in the pilot, she was deeply concerned when Kiara was trapped by the gazelles. But, here, the stakes are much higher, and she's up against a much bigger threat and Tiifu and Zuri don't seem to give a damn. I'm glad Kion called them out on this behaviour before leaving. What I wouldn't give for Tiifu and Zuri to be captured by Janja instead, not to get eaten, but just so they can see how dangerous it is. It's episodes like this that make me wonder are they her actual best friends or are they just using her to hang out with the Royal Family. Kiara deserves better than these self-entitled bitches, in my opinion.
-I feel like Kiara should've been the main focus of this episode instead of Kion. I know this only S1 Ep4, but, I still think this should've been a Kiara focused episode, rather than a brothesister episode. I would've been interested to see Kiara take centre stage and the Lion Guard take a back seat. Then, we could've seen more of Kiara's apprehension about becoming Queen and her trying to make all the decisions without Simba around to guide her, and most importantly, see her trying to decide what sort of Queen she wants to be. I would've loved if Kion tried to be supportive of her and tries to help her watch over the entire kingdom, instead of saying "Screw you Kiara, go get herself killed if you want to and my friends hate you." I would've liked to see that explored and maybe have them be a little bit annoyed at each other, but without making them really malicious. Also, have Tiifu and Zuri be in their annoying phase and for Kiara to realise that her "so-called" friends are not being very good friends to her, and have her ditch those bitches at the end of the episode. Then, have Kiara and Kion make some big decision together that really develops their relationship, in the future.
-I don't like how Simba is portrayed for much of this episode. I know, he was mourning the loss of an old friend, but I really don't like angry Simba moments in this series. I don't like the fact that all Zazu was doing was trying to help him practice his eulogy and Simba gets frustrated and roars in his face. I hate it when he throws tantrums, as a full-grown adult lion. I hate the idea of Simba regressing more into his evil uncle as of this series. I know he's not, but, I hate it when acts like it. Zazu, bless him, was just trying to help and Simba took out his rage on him. I do not like it when Zazu has to be the butt of all the jokes. I don't like Simba being a headstrong asshole in The Lion Guard.
-I also don't want to point fingers, but, if Simba hadn't left his semi-young daughter to rule over an entire kingdom for a few days, none of the conflict would've happened if he left Kion and Kiara with a responsible adult, like Rafiki or Basi or someone, just to keep an eye on things. I wouldn't leave kids their age home alone for even a day or more than an afternoon. If they had an adult in Pride Rock with them, the arguing wouldn't have spiralled out of control the way that it did. Also, this makes no sense with Simba's character in TLK 2. This is the same guy who sheltered his daughter the whole time she was growing up and wouldn't even let her explore more than 2ft from Pride Rock or even leave Pride Rock, at another point in the film. In this episode, she's still a cub and he's okay with leaving her to look after an entire kingdom for days on end! Yes, he did show hesitation, but that was after he and Nala had already left the Pride Lands. This episode fails to show just how okay he was with leaving his preteen daughter in charge of the kingdom for a few days with no adult supervision. Also, this episode and the series fails to explain how he regressed back into his over-protective state of mind in the second half of TLK 2.
-A minor complaint I have. This is a very minor nitpick. But, the distance between Kilio Valley and the Pride Lands that was established in this episode is very confusing. This episode implies that the elephants live approximately a two or three day walk from the Pride Lands, enough for Simba to outside of the kingdom, when in other episodes it's actually a part of the Pride Lands, just barely on the outskirts of the kingdom. I also don't get why the writers made it seem like Simba, Nala and Zazu took like a day or less to arrive at the elephants' funeral. There's no indication that they were travelling at night or that they ever slept. However, I understand, the writers just wanted to show some of journey and then transition to the day of the funeral, so I won't fault it to harshly. However, I do wish that the distance between Kilio Valley and the Pride Lands was consistent. This episode makes it seem like that whenever Kion and his friends have to help the elephants, it would take them a whole day to arrive on the scene. But, that's just a small criticism I had with this episode.
Overall
So, overall, I did always thoroughly enjoy this episode. Even as a kid, I could not stand the fact that Kiara got a lot of hate in the Lion Guard Fandom and that loads of people blamed her, just her, for a lot of the drama in this episode. Kion and Kiara shared 50% of the blame each and I think that Kiara is overhated. Anyways, I did like Kion and Kiara interacting like real siblings and slowly learning how to work together, it felt a little bit like a prequel to "Baboons" and "The Trail to Udugu", in that way. I like the lesson about learning to communicate well and to listen to one another and that they were both in the right and wrong, at different points. I liked the loving sibling dynamic at the end and the friendship with all the Lion Guard. I like the sense of family between Simba, Nala, Kiara and Kion at the end. Janja poses as a genuinely threat to Kiara. I think the humour was pretty solid as well and the educational value. I liked the worldbuilding aspect and the elephants' relationship with the lions. Aminifu is a cool headcanon character. The only parts I didn't like were, Tiifu and Zuri were unbearably annoying in this episode and weren't very good friends to Kiara. I don't like them being stereotypical Middle School girls. I hate their disrespect and belittling towards Kion and their toxic influence on Kiara. I didn't like Kiara and Kion's maliciousness at the start or the fact that the writers tried to draw Mufasa/Scar parallels. I don't like angry Simba at all in this series. I hate the fact that he gives off Parental Favouritism vibes in this episode. I don't like the fact that Kion and Kiara were hit with the idiot stick in this episode. Simba and Tiifu and Zuri are kind of at fault for all the drama in this episode. The song was just decent, not the best not the worst. Overall, I'll give this episode a 6.5/10, it's not perfect, but I think it deserves more love in the fandom and I think there are way worse episodes than it.

A bit of context is required I (24,M) met (We'll call her Sam) on tinder in early 2021. We chatted for a bit and I ended up getting her instagram and that's where we chatted from that point forwards. Initially we were talking everyday, if not back and forth, then maybe at the start and end of the day as we were both working. Eventually I asked Sam to grab a coffee, she declined (specifically she actually ignored it the first time i asked, I'm not sure whether out shyness, or distrust or whatever, but she made it clear that she didn't have a lot of free time due to study and work when i asked why she ignored it) we continued talking anyway, a few months later, I asked again, I got the same old tune of "i'm soo busy im sorry" kinda vibe and eventually I gave up asking but we remained talking, I still very much liked her and found her pretty.
The talking dwindled, sometimes she'd take 1 or 2 days to get back to me, days became weeks, then there were periods inbetween of hearing from her more freqeuntly, then back to a week, or a day, or several weeks, it fluctuated a lot. I had just accepted that, she probably saw me as an overseas friend (shes an international student) and wouldn't ever be interested in meeting. But still we remained talking, eventually it normalised to talking to each other about once a week, this continued for almost a year I'd say, we'd share occasional funny videos, respond to each others stories and just talk about life.
Fast forward to early 2023, I asked her if she wanted to finally meet up as we'd been talking more recently, and we did. We went to a bar, had some drinks, grabbed dinner and then walked around the city, it was a great night, I felt excited because we finally met each other in person and she was lovely, soft spoken, smart and pretty, she even asked me if I wanted to grab lunch with her the next day during her lunch, and we did, and i thought this is where things would take off, but after that day, things slowly drifted back to the way things were, it would be a year before I saw her again (just this last week) and before that, we had gone months without talking at times (I had an interesting year and a lot of distractions, I'm sure Sam did too) but we still remained talking somewhat, even talking about meeting up again eventually.
Fast forward to last week, we meet up (we tried to earlier but I was going through some heavy stuff for the last 5 months that left me disinterested in taking care of myself, let alone trying to "date") we grabbed dinner, and the night was just great, conversation flowed, we were buying rounds for each other, whilst we were eating she at times would just plonk stuff from her bowl into mine and would tell me "try this", "try that" etc, we then went to get some cocktails at some different bars, we were chatting about music, cars, our lives and stuff, I was smitten by her, we then went and got ice cream and we were sharing them with spoons and then I walked her back to her apartment, hugged, said goodbye (we also promised we'd see each other soon). I was sold that I really liked this girl, shes gorgeous, I love her energy, her sweetness, she is quite literally a breath of fresh air in an unfortunate dating history of mine where I've been strung along/lied to. I LIKE this girl a lot. I can't get her out of my head, we talked a bit the next day, and now the talking is starting to diminish again, for example we spoke on sunday, then she didnt respond to me til yesterday, which was just a video (she didn't actually reply to anything I said, which isn't totally unusual she has done that before) and I'm just stuck wondering what she thinks of me, everyone I've spoken to said that was a date.
I was going to send her a message the night of that basically would have said that I have feelings for her, and I would want to know if im barking up the wrong tree looking for a relationship with her but was talked out of it by a friend, but eventually I'll have to say something, whether that results in her not wanting any kind of serious relationship or not, I just need to get this off my chest. Any tips for me? Feel free to ask any questions, this is a rather layered story. I know some of you are probably thinking, 'the fuck is wrong with this guy? shes clearly not interested' or 'shes using you' but like man the date/catch up was genuinley so good, that's why im so fucking confused. Is it me? is it her? What should I do?
edit: btw we have agreed to see a movie sometime in the next two weeks. aswell go out to dinner w some of her friends eventually too

Sorry if this is a bit long, I’ll include a TLDR below, i have no one i could vent to so i decided to seek some help here. I’m 18. It’s been clear since I was a kid that my parents never really loved each other. My father has always been around but he would neglect me emotionally. My mother is the parent I’m closer to, but when she is angry, she gives me the silent treatment and ALWAYS expects me to apologize for it, even if the fight isn’t my fault. None of them has ever taught me how to communicate my feelings and my mother has crossed my boundaries multiple times (unlocking my locked bedroom door, reading my locked diary, and punished me for writing about her in it). A few days ago, my older brother Facetimed us and I made a funny face at some point during our call. My brother said I looked like an elephant (whatever that means) and my mother agreed. I have been struggling with accepting my appearance my whole life and that somehow triggered something in me, so i walked away. I didn’t know what to say so I stayed quiet the following day, I didn’t know how to tell my mom that i dont like it when she or my brother makes fun of my looks. Today, I tried talking to her, i didnt expect to get a ‘How are you?’ or ‘Do you want to talk about why you’re upset?’, just wanted to forget about what happened and start some small-talk but when I got close to her, she said “What’s up with you? What’s your problem?” with a stern look. And that triggered my flight or fight mode, I tried my best to explain myself but it didn’t get me anywhere so I walked away and locked myself in my room. I cried so hard. What makes me even angrier, is that if it was my brother instead of me, she would’ve forgiven him in a heartbeat.
TLDR: I don’t get why my mother never taught me how to communicate, gets angry that I can’t do it, and THEN punishes me for it. What do I do? How can I make it clear to her that I don’t appreciate it and it hurts me.

I’ve been debating posting on here or speaking out for a while, but I finally decided it needs to be said. I was a former mod for Scudi, he is NOT who he says he is or appears to be on stream. The people defending him so hard are insane. It’s not just about my story, there are so many others that have been affected by the actions of this man. Scudi does nothing but sit behind his camera & yap. His mods do all of the rest of his work for him. They run the discord, they handle any issues, they are in charge of everything. He has said before he wanted us to handle it all so that he could be able to just get on and stream. It was our job to make it as easy for him as possible. On top of doing all of that and handling everything he had the nerve to tell us in a meeting that we don’t do enough as mods, we need to be doing more, we need to find and suggest games for him to play. Another mod spoke up and said it was unfair of him to say we weren’t doing enough and should do more. He’s even made me cry on more than one occasion. Know what happened to her? He got so pissed that he actually made her cry and feel like she had to apologize to him, not long after that she mysteriously disappeared from the discord. Probably either left on her own or was banned. He talks crap about any other streamer who isn’t himself and actually brags about it. He really hates BimBamgaming & Captain Tubesocks the most as he has referred to them as “Bimbo gaming & Captain C*msocks” on more than one occasion. Also his “buddy” Juuq? He doesn’t like him either, regardless of what you see online. he talks crap about him to his mods too because he feels like Juuq copies him since Scudi has “figured out what works” and he thinks Juuq is stupid for choosing to not have any mods himself. Also ever notice how he never says the name of a game and it’s always a “funny” made up name? He doesn’t do it to be funny, he genuinely doesn’t want to tell people the game so there’s less of a chance of someone “copying” him. At one point he had it as a rule to ban or mute anyone saying the game name, only did he have us stop doing it when people noticed and he was starting to get called out for it and had people asking. He’s also admitted to us on more than one occasion that he records every call he has with someone via discord or what have you. He proudly and openly admits that and he does so without the other party being aware or consenting. This is all honestly a small part of everything that has happened or gone on. Don’t even get me started on the fact that he is a creep who harasses most of the mods for nudes or tried flirting with them and making everyone uncomfortable. He is a creep, it’s disgusting. Just saying there is a reason there are only ever female moderators, men are almost always automatically denied & even if they get to be interviewed, most likely won’t be accepted. Maybe, just maybe if he could have admitted his wrong doings and owned up to his mistakes this could have been better, maybe we could have moved past this… but instead he continues to be a master manipulator, never taking accountability, making everyone think he’s some great saint when he’s the furthest from it. Take what you will, believe me or not I don’t care. All I’m saying is this is all happening right in front of you & you should open your eyes. There’s so much more I could say or mention.

If you know what movie that the title is from then you already move to the top of the list!! If you don’t know you should still message me so I can tell you to watch it and you’ll thank me!
Good morning ladies! Happy Tuesday! Hope your weeks are off to a fantastic start. I’m constantly bored often and I like to chat so I’m always looking for more women to chat with. I’m a huge sports fan, even if my teams disappoint me year after year after year. I’m also an avid tv watcher, who watches way more shows than someone should, and I do enjoy the occasionally movie. And yes I like the WWE. Still a child at heart.
I’d love to find some women to chat with and keep me company. I will likely ask for a picture at some point as I like to know who I’m talking to. I like funny, witty, sarcastic and/or smartasses so if that’s you I’d love to hear from you. Message me or dm me.

Welcome to Reading The Big Book of Cyberpunk!
Each week we (u/FarragutCircle and u/fanny_bertram) will be reading 5-ish stories from Jared Shurin’s The Big Book of Cyberpunk, which includes a curated selection of cyberpunk stories written from 1950 to 2022! We’ll include synopses of the stories along with links to any legally available online versions we can find. Feel free to read along with us or just stop by and hear our thoughts about some cyberpunk stories to decide if any of them sound interesting to you.
Every once in a while, we reach out to people who have more insight, due to being fans of the author or have some additional context for the story. (Or we just tricked them into it.) So please welcome u/Kopratic who will be sharing their thoughts on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick!
Section 4: Challenge
In our fourth and penultimate section, editor Jared Shurin highlights how cyberpunk looks at technology that creates harm when put into practice, and later cites Marshall McLuhan about artists as challengers. (Shurin really seems to like this McLuhan guy.) Amusingly there’s a footnote where he mentions litrpg in passing, though he says there’s no litrpg in this anthology)
“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick (published 1966; also available in his collection Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick)
Quail’s desire to go to Mars leads him to a memory-implant company so he can remember going to Mars, but complications and revelations and twists ensue, hilariously.

• Special Guest Kopratic: So this guy really wants to go to Mars, but it’s pretty dang expensive. Fortunately, what’s not as expensive is paying a company to trick him into thinking he’s been to Mars by implanting false memories into his mind. Unfortunately, things go wrong, and before he writes up a scathing Yelp review, he gets his money back, his wife leaving him, and his life falling apart.
• It’s a story I’ve read before. Not this exact, specific story, but the bones of it. Virtually visiting another time or place. It’s never real, but they tend to beg the question: Do memories create reality? Maybe this particular story was one that inspired, even if indirectly, the others. Maybe it’s a trope that had been used before, and the author was just putting his own spin on it like the ones that came after.
• I did like it. I thought that it was annoying how the secretary was described as being topless in practically every scene she was in. It went from, “Oh in this society that’s a normal thing, and body paint is a sort of fashion item” to “...we get it.” It was a minor part of the story at least.
• The twists were pretty good, too. There’s a moment where you start to question things alongside the protagonist. Maybe the false memories did work. He’s not supposed to know they’re fake, but he does. But he also has things that can’t possibly be explained by ways of “implanted memories.” Or maybe they can. Even until the very end, the story keeps you guessing. It did a good job of keeping the tension alive.
• In a sense, the story asks the question, “What is reality?” and fits in nicely as an entry into the realm of cyberpunk.
  
• Farragut’s thoughts: We’ve read Dick before in Science Fiction. Between that story and this, if I hadn’t read two of his novels already, I would’ve thought Dick was a comedic SF writer because of how funny I’ve found his short fiction so far. I vaguely recall (ha!) having seen the movie Total Recall, but I’m not sure PKD has ever had a faithful adaptation of his works. Anyway, this is just a fun story—not as wild as the film, but just a plain fun examination of memory and reality.
  
• fanny’s thoughts: The editor points out that each filming of Total Recall gets worse and this is correct. I had never read the story and I did like it despite it being a story I have seen before. Dick did a great job of making the reader doubt memories and the reality for the character. There are a lot of careful details throughout the short story that play with this concept and add to the general confusion of what is real. The story is not the most amazing thing, but it is very well done and a bit twisty.
  

“Speed” by Misha (1988)
I think that Speed is looking for Speelyi-427 on behalf of a computer AI called Juno 888, but after that I’m lost.

• Farragut: We’ve read Misha before in Science Fiction. She’s a very cyberpunky type author, but I’ll be darned if I understand half of what’s going on here. There’s data as currency, there’s an all powerful computer named Juno 888 (I think?), there’s a car chase with a barbed-wire tripwire at neck level (ouch), there’s indigenous ghost dancers, and I had a hell of a time connecting the dots. It didn’t help that for the first couple pages I didn’t realize Speed was the character’s name, which made the story even more abstract at first. I absolutely know there’s someone out there who loves the crap out of experimental/transcendental stuff like this, but it wasn’t me.
  
• fanny: I was beyond confused reading this one. For half the story I thought the character was the computer, 888, but then I realized it was Speed. I am not sure that helped though. I feel like this was too experimental for me and it just missed the mark. The good part of this was the trading in data and the trying to steal data, which was an interesting technology application.
  

“Computer Friendly” by Eileen Gunn (1989; also available in her collection Stable Strategies and Others)
Elizabeth and other kids are tested, and while she passes with flying covers, her new friends might lose their lives unless she can figure out a way to help them in a world where the heavily computerized future uses real brains from people and dogs.

• Farragut: Gunn is an oft-nominated writer (including for this story), but ended up winning the 2005 Nebula for “Coming to Terms”. I really loved this bizarre future (she’ll play computer fetch with her dog when he has downtime from managing data traffic), and Elizabeth is an adorable character to follow as she navigates the shocking new revelations about her world. The help she gets from some of the obscure entities on the network is perfect, especially when they realize that their current world is a little too predictable these days. Highly recommended, especially for Elizabeth’s “hacking” methods.
  
• fanny: I loved this story and following Elizabeth through it all. Elizabeth is a fierce, determined little girl who doesn't want anything bad to happen to her friends. She goes to extremes for this and gets help from the weirdest sources within the network system. The net system, entities, and the world are so well thought out and carefully crafted. It felt fully realized which is unusual for me to find in a short story. Absolute loved this one.
  

“I Was a Teenage Genetic Engineer” by Nisi Shawl (1989)
The narrator is imprisoned for her reckless genetic engineering, making new incarnations of old gods.

• Farragut: Shawl is a multiple-award-winning author and has done a lot of work on promoting diversity in SF/F. A very short story (under a thousand words), it’s also got a very mythic and poetic tone to it, like a confession as a parable. Very evocative, with lots of classical allusions.
  
• fanny: Such a short story and such a unique concept. I liked that the main character made the entire Pantheon and unleashed the Greek gods back on the world. I found the description of creating Psyche the best part. This story is a bit experimental, but worked for me.
  

“The Gene Drain” by Lewis Shiner (1989)
A generation ship ends up right back on Earth, with disturbing and amusing differences between the two groups.

• Farragut: Shiner was a member of the Turkey City Writer’s Workshop which is considered a “cradle of cyberpunk”. This story was quite amusing, and you can see the differences between the overly-technological humans on Earth and the extremely weird worshippers of Johnny Carson. The author does a great job of encapsulating all the changes since the ship left in little throwaway lines, and the ending was both disturbing and funny.
  
• fanny: I found the whole premise quite ridiculous, but a nice way to show how too much technology can change society. The worshippers of Johnny Carson return to earth and manage to get a leader who has a bad experience with tech. The extremes he is willing to go to is both realistic and slightly disturbing. The ending is amusing, but it is serious too. I like how Shiner balanced absurdity with real society challenges. But also cult of Carson.
  

That’s it for this week! Check back the same time next week where we’ll be reading and discussing "Deep Eddy" by Bruce Sterling, "The Yuletide Cyberpunk Yarn, or Christmas_Eve-117.DIR" by Victor Pelevin, "Wonderama" by Bef, "comp.basilisk FAQ" by David Langford, and "Spider's Nest" by Myra Çakan.
Also posted on Bochord Online.

I think the first time this happened was when there was this new kid at my high school, extraordinarily smart but super humble about everything he was capable of. Was very random but funny. Pretty reserved. I kind of wanted to protect him, don't know if that's weird. Somewhere along the way, I developed a crush on him but would always avoid him/treat him like I do with everyone else to focus on schoolwork. Towards the end of the year, I found out that he liked me too. One time I saw him staring at me, like stood a few metres in front of my desk just staring at my head, I looked at his eyes for a split second and he didn't look away. Might have been staring through me, probably zoning out. His seat was right behind mine to the right, so maybe he was staring at that from the angle he was standing? Idk. Anyway, my friend noticed and I had to pretend that didn't just happen.
When he first came in, I scored a bit more than him and he started putting in effort to one up me and cheered for himself when he overtook my score lol. I think he wanted me to compete but I was pretty depressed at the time and had no competitive bone in my body so I just gave up and I think he was disappointed when I let him win so easily. He was really shy when I talked to him one on one but he was shy with girls in general. Idk why I'm describing his personality but yeah he was kind of a goofy oddball. He didn't use social media either. Other guys would approach me a bit loudly having something to say about him until he ran over to intervene to shut them up. So I could never really know how he really felt, he never really outright said anything except when I left school and he randomly called out for me for some reason. I pretended like I didn't hear it😭😭😭 it was in public.
The second time was in college but this was more platonic. He just kept trying to initiate a conversation with me but idk my social anxiety just ramped up, and it was awkward. He was super chill though.
Third time was online, pretty recently. I talked to someone on discord and there was this one person in a groupchat who I found to be super insightful, like our brains just collided or something and he said something about how we're so similar. He was also very good with his words. I'm so in awe of all their minds, I will steal their brains fr.
In general, I think I attract people who are different in some way, loner types, depressed people or some who look like they need a hug, in both men and women. There was this super sweet girl my age at church who always used to sit next to me, pinch my hands for 20 minutes in the middle of the sermon because she thought they were unusually soft lol and approach me to have conversations, we both were 6 or 7, don't know if she's autistic but she had a developmental disorder.
Teachers pair me with the shy kids, always. I'm legit so quiet and awkward, I don't know what teachers see in me. But I somehow always become friends with them. My closest friends aren't autistic but we're all going through something or have some childhood trauma.
So yeah, I want to know why this keeps happing in my normal and romantic life. What do they see in me? What do teachers see in me?

When I was 23, I was at my cousins wedding and my aunt got pretty drunk and mentioned how it was so nice that I was able to procreate or something weird like that. FYI I just became a father at the time. Anyways I questioned what she meant and she said “oh well atleast you didn’t have to adopt. I know it was hard on your parents” and I’m like “what do you mean” and she’s like “wait you know you’re adopted right?” And at that moment I was pretty shocked but also had to hold it together because I didn’t want her to feel terrible for being the one that spillled the beans to me, so I responded “oh yeah of course I knew that” and then I walked away to the bathroom and had a weird moment. Anyways I called my parents out into the lobby of the banquet and confronted them about it. My mom was hysterical and denying it at the same time (which I clearly knew she was lying) and my dad was kinda being a dick. Eventually I got annoyed and left the wedding.
A week later I went to my parents house and confronted them about it again and they had this whole story that it was a surrogate mother and she means nothing and don’t go trying to find her and blah blah blah. I kinda believed it and let it go for a few years, plus honestly I didn’t have time to really even care considering I was going through a separation with my sons mother and I had to focus on my son and not my own bullshit.
A few years later when I was 26, I talked to someone about surrogacy and they said that really wasn’t a big thing in the mid 80s because it was experimental and you had to have a lot of money to get that done. So the next time I saw my parents, I stayed overnight and after my mom went to bed, I confronted my dad about it. He still confirmed I came from a surrogate and they used my parents dna. So I let it go again.
Many years passed after this until the topic came up again. I was now 35 and the pandemic hit and I started thinking about all the weird shit involving this topic. Like why would my aunt use the word adopted, and my parents never had a lot of money to do surrogacy in the 80s. So I decided to do some research on how I can find original documents of my birth. I called a bunch of adoption agencies but they couldn’t give that info, but one lady told me I can file for a petition to receive my original birth certificate, and I did that. It took a few weeks but it finally came and it showed the biological mother’s name and no dad and my name was just a last name so I started to think maybe it was a surrogate.
I decided to dig deeper and look on white pages and then Facebook to find this person. I did find her and found out she was still local and I reached out to her. We eventually met up and she was there with her husband and another woman. The husband was not my father but a man from a later marriage and the other woman was my sister that’s a year older than me.
She told me that after she had my sister, her parents told her to stay away from boys but she obviously didn’t and got pregnant by her friend. At the time her friend was about to leave for college and she didn’t want to ruin his life with a baby so she told him to not worry about it and she was going to give it up anyways. Eventually her parents found out she was pregnant and kicked her out of the house. She was homeless living under a bridge with her 1 year old daughter and me inside the womb. She worked at Arby’s and had a friend watch the 1 year old the entire time. One day she got hit by a car while riding her bike to Arby’s and the driver took off but the next car pulled over and it was her brothers friend and he helped her. Once he found out she was homeless he offered to let her live with him. That man eventually became her husband.
During the next few months she was trying to figure out adoption for me and her friend worked at a diner with a woman who knew a woman that was looking to adopt (my mom). Eventually they set up a private adoption. Shortly after I was born and due to the c section my biological mother had to stay in the hospital so she got to spend 10 days with me. After that was done, I went home to my parents who adopted me.
Upon learning of all of this I was pretty shocked but also found it kinda funny cause crazy things are always happening in my life. Never a dull moment! I also discovered that my biological mother has stage 4 lung cancer so I thought I might as well try to get to know her while she’s around. From there i built a strong relationship with my sister and we are very tight. I tried getting to know my biological mother more but she eventually got weirded out and cut me off. She was kind of a bitch about it and my sister told me she can’t stand her mother and she’s been a bitch her whole life, so that kinda made me feel better and feel grateful for my upbringing.
I also did research on the person who is my father and I found out college didn’t do him well and he eventually became a big con man that fucked over his family and wife and then later on became a heroin addict that developed a lot of mental health issues and he is currently homeless in Seattle.
So here I am today at 38. I still have not told my parents that I know because I don’t want them to get hurt. My mom had a big fear of me leaving. She always gets so weird anytime I have a good time with my friends parents or my girlfriends parents. It’s a strange jealously.
So now I’m at this point where I need to tell them because I am getting married in a few months and my sister is coming to the wedding.
Part of me wants to leave out that I met my biological mother because she isn’t in my life and doesn’t want to be so what’s the point? I just want to skip that part and mention only that I met my sister and have no intention of knowing the mother and the sister doesn’t really have a relationship with her either (which is partially true). Regardless I know my adoptee mom is going to get upset. My dad might be an asshole but that’s usual behavior of him. I just know mentioning that I know the biological mother would hurt my mom even more. I’m not even mad at my parents to lying to me honestly. I understand they were trying to be protective, but I seeked this info because of wanting to know medical history and what not. Plus it’s just interesting.
Anyways I’m planning to talk to my parents tonight.. Let me know your thoughts.

First of all when the beef started, Aubry Angels that made everything about " tea" and were literally trying to make fan of Kendrick being lyrical with " Lyrical miracle " jokes until their boy got cooked in all aspects but since they can't make arguments about all the other stuff, now want to debate Bar for Bar. Still hear me out. If you ask them his best track they would say " family matters" and if you ask them the best part, they would tell you it's the second verse and you know what the funny thing about that is ? it's the verse about all the other rappers and not Kendrick. They still want him to get points for dissing other rappers because his pen (if he has one) lacked getting in depth about one specific person/topic & had to find a way out of it. He could've deep dove into all the Domestic Violence allegations just like how Dot made at least 10 minute worth of bars out of one topic and a whole bop about him being a pedo..lol Best writers in all areas ( not just in rap) could make 10 pages worth of content out of nothing.That's the skill! That man couldn't even find a creative way to rap from Tupac & Snoop POV so he resorted to use of AI like the troll he is. I just find it funny how now they are admitting that he lost but didn't lose bar for bar when his so called best bars aren't even about Kendrick. He literally sang half of the Kendrick diss parts lol
The same argument they used for Pusha T once they realized they can't deny the L anymore. It's also worth noting Drake is the one that starts the "spilling tea game" first lol The only thing drake won is playing the victim game to his fans once again.
Kendrick won in all aspects. The disrespect part, the Bars, making hits, and spilling the dirty laundry as well as the strategy.

Last month I (20M) met a girl (20F), and in the beginning, she told me she wanted to take things slowly and asked if we could just see how things progress over time. I agreed, and we talked and went on 2 dates.
The problem arises with her way of communicating. I try to start a conversation, and we talk a bit, but after some time, she disappears and only responds the next day. I always try to start conversations at night since she has classes in the morning and I in the afternoon, but she always stops responding, and that makes me unwilling to continue talking about the subject. She also never tries to initiate a conversation with me, she just sends me reels. I'm always the one who starts the conversations and makes plans for our dates.
On our last date, I asked if I could kiss her, and she replied that she doesn't feel a strong connection between us but would like to continue going out and see what happens. I said okay, and we continued talking about other subjects.
The problem I have is that she never shows interest in talking to me, and honestly, I think she won't want anything in the future. I talked to some friends of mine, and one of them says to keep talking to her, that eventually it will work out, and the other says to just stop sending messages and see if she says anything. If she doesn't, then I should just disappear.
My idea is to send a message saying how I feel, but I don't know if it would be good since she told me she's very stressed with university, and I don't want to be a bother. I also don't want to disappear. Honestly, I like going out and being with her. She's funny and has a vibe that I like, but the way she talks to me makes me uneasy.
Honestly, I don't know what to do, so I came to ask Reddit's opinion on what you think I should do.

First off, I'll say this is a shitpost. But it didn't start out that way. I'm ashamed to say I was genuinely looking into this on Sunday when I burst out laughing, and thought "What the fuck is wrong with you?" And kept on descending down the well to laugh at what would happen. But I think the world needs to know, cause I have lost all reasoning. So I'm sharing my genius, or my madness, or simply a warning to you all to not follow in my footsteps.
I think we can all admit we are a wee bit too invested in what is happening right now. Personally, this feels like the first time in ages that I've listened to top tier rap. To me, rap/hip-hop recently has been fucking dead.
So after hearing a few of these tracks, I found this sub, and you can guess the rest. I took a seemingly harmless tester and now I'm like acting and thinking like Charlie Sheen, Tiger Blood included.
I've not seen much discussion about Kendrick's general concept of leaving little breadcrumbs in tracks that are then expanded into other meanings in later tracks, e.g. "you make music that pacify em" which then could mean kids or like roofies, once he brings up these topics. This is really fascinating to me and I can't think of a time this has been done before? Probably because it's rare to release music this close together. So after hearing these back myself and then seeing other's theories on this sub, I have been paying far more attention to lyrics when I'm listening. Waiting for a chance for aayjayemm, captain of nowhere, to show his quality. Looking back, I think the Ring got the better of me.
With all that in mind, please enjoy the following descent into madness and subsequent mental breakdown (I don't really mean breakdown for the record, if anyone is thinking that and wanted to send one of those suicide prevention things my way). Here we go:
Sunday afternoon, I visited my cousin who has a 5/6/7/8 year old? (I don't know, he ain't my kid. It's a pre-pandemic model, that's all I know) He was talking about a book that he was told to read a bit of, over the weekend, for school. I wasn't catching too much of what he was saying, as kids tend to just sporadically talk at you while you are already mid-conversation with someone else and there's only so many times I can say "What was that, bud?". In the book there was a dog called Wedgie. Now I remember the name because I thought he was unable to say Reggie, when I asked, he said "no Wedgie" then flashed me the cover, and it did say that. So that's now saved into my subconscious.
When I get home and hop on Reddit, I see all this crazy Ebony Prince stuff that had built up throughout the day and have a read through. One of the images looks like a serial killer's planning room with images all over and writing in certain parts. Or like the Pepe Silvia scene from It's Always Sunny. I didn't really look at it too long but got the gist that quite a lot of it was to do with Drake potentially fucking dogs. I think to myself that's just dumb and click off. There was also talk of some disturbing dog video/audio from some guys stream, haven't seen it personally. Again, that is now in the back of my head.
So a bit of time passes and I am listening to Not Like Us and it gets to this "You n*****'ll get a wedgie, be flipped over your boxers. What OVO for? The "Other Vaginal Option"? Pussy" And I go "wait he just said Wedgie and the internet is talking about dogs" and the cogs start turning.
I'll say for the record, these lines were always weird to me. They just seemed pretty random. I got that it implied gay sex, but it just didn't sound like normal Kendrick, at least to me. So personally, I think this would be the prime place for a 2nd meaning.
So straightaway I notice it also says 'boxer' which is a breed of dog. Pretty simple and I think "ok, you could be onto something here".
Then I need to go confirm this Wedgie character from some kid's book. Thankfully I know the name is in the title. I look up books online to see if I can find this, and it is called 'Wedgie and Gizmo' if you want to look it up. It is about two single-parent families becoming one when the parents get married. Each family have a pet and they are forced to now live together. Wedgie is a dumb, excitable dog that thinks he is a superhero and chases after everything. And Gizmo is a guinea pig, who is an evil genius, can read, is methodical, and who wants to take over the world. And Gizmo despises Wedgie, and Wedgie has no idea what is happening.
So not only do I now think this is a reference to dogs, I have now read this and go "No fucking way. Is that Kendrick saying that these two kids book pets are him and Drake?" You can guess which is which. Then I thought "This is dumbest thing you have thought of so far". But then again, Kendrick does have kids, so who knows, maybe he has read it to them and had a similar thought. It seems to be an American book, so maybe? Jesus.
To top it off, the final line is 'other vaginal option' which as everyone can see, obviously means that Drake is fucking dogs. Open-and-shut case.
I honestly don't know what to think, to me it somehow fits, but it is also stupid as fuck and quite frankly embarrassing that I even went this far. So I thought I'll sleep on it. And you know what 2 days later I still don't fucking know. My heart says 'genius' my head says 'what the fuck are you doing?'
I am aware I have lost my mind, but thought it was funny and would make a decent read, so I started writing this up. To present to the world to do with it what you will.
I don't think I have gone full KAnon, like trying to solve all these riddles. Or try to bring down global sex-trafficking rings, as if the FBI don't know how to use the internet. I feel like I'm maybe at a 2018 Kanye level, and they are at a 2024 Kanye level.
I feel I needed to get this off my chest as some form of therapy, counselling, online intervention, or just good old self-deprecation. Thankfully I now know not to go down the rabbit hole, albeit a harsh lesson.
Kendrick, please release another fucking track. Although that might take me back to square one.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. GME To the Moon.

This post will provide dialogues of NPCs who used sarcasm at least once.
"You head over to pay the barman a visit. Have a good drink and come back then. No use talking to you now - you look like a controller has rearranged your brain." - Lebedev (That dialogue, like few other dialogues can be unlocked if you won't complete "Talk to the barman" mission and will start talking to other NPCs before talking to Cold)
"Hello, O, Wonder of the Zone! I heard Lebedev wanted to get a piece of your invincible aura! Go see him." -Gray/Novikov (Can be unlocked if you'll start talking to Gray/Novikov before "Ask Lebedev about what happened" mission)
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/4v9wgN.jpg
"You look pretty good...for someone who survived the Emission anyhow. What you really want is to sit by the fireplace at Lebedev's..." - Suslov (Can be unlocked if you'll start talking to him before talking to Lebedev and completing "Talk to Lebedev" mission)
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/dqfXS6.jpg
"O welcome, guest from foreign lands! What come you with? A bursting purse or prized exotic wonders?" - Suslov
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/tyRGo6.jpg
"We can do away with blindfolds this time. If you step into some quicksand, dying is ever so much more fun with your eyes open...I'm just kidding! Keep your eyes peeled and remember the way across the Swamps - next time you'll have to make it on your own." - Dialogue of Clear Sky Guide that can lead you to Cordon (Name of that guide is randomly generated)
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/TQ19dK.jpg
"What's it to you, huh? One look at you tells me you've got your own problems. Around these parts knowing too much can help you kick the bucket long before you're due. By the way, your bucket looks mighty nice - wanna trade before you walk upon an anomaly? Ah c'mon, get your panties out of the bunch - I'm just putting you on." - Dialogue of Random Bandit
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/zCQJZw.jpg
"What are you, some kind of journalist? Gonna write about me in tomorrow's newspaper? Ha-ha-ha! All right, listen here, boyo. We're the knights of the road and we rule the Garbage. You cut us some juice and we mind our own business. You don't pay up - you're in deep shit. This is a gold rush of sorts. That's 'cause these Soviet trinkets buried in this dump are now worth their weight in gold. So if you get into debt with us or try to be a hero, we'll send your ass straight to the camp. Working down there is about as much fun as mining uranium, what with all the anomalies and radiation. But hey, the good news is that at least your troubles would soon be over... along with your life." - Another Bandit dialogue
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/tCTxZm.jpg
"Well, this here is the flea market, so I guess that makes us flea marketers. He-he, we're traders, buddy - we sell small stuff here and there...I'll be straight with you: our goods are crap, but hey, at least we're still in business, right? So, you come to trade or just to chat?" - Dialogue of Flea Market Trader
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/uiNAIa.jpg
"Well, it's a difficult concept for you to grasp but...I live here! I also work here as a stalker. And we have a base here. Maybe you've heard of a clan called Freedom? Well, the Dark Valley is our territory. What do you think a Freedom member is doing on Freedom territory?" - Dialogue of Random Dark Valley Freedomer
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/CANPuV.jpg
"Well, I do my best work in the kitchen with a fork! Hah! Kidding, buddy. I'm a sniper expert. I can shoot pretty good myself and I help others too. I can work your assault rifle real nice - it'll fire like a Spetsnaz SVD when I'm finished with it. And if you get a real sniper rifle, oh baby - your enemies are gonna be taking real long detours to stay out of your way, that's a promise. I can also patch up your armor if need be." - Dialogue of Yar
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/f8SkNG.jpg
"Trying to decide which beast to bring the Inquisitor. He runs a zoo at our base where he holds specimens of the local fauna. I'd love to stick a controller in there, but he'd probably make us all into zombies even if we could get our hands on one." - Dialogue of Random Agroprom Dutyer
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/aSg8jG.jpg
"Agroprom is a former research institute. Obviously, after the Zone appeared there ain't much research going on here no more. Ha-ha. Instead, we're using the building as our base to fight off the Zone's spawns. We're holding the line against the monsters that come out from underground. We fight to save the lives of other stalkers, sometimes at the cost of our own." - Another Dialogue of Random Duty NPC
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/ONEwh2.jpg
"Don't mind him, that's our local dumbass Mitay. As one professor would put it, he's "nothing but a vulgar swine!" No garden is without its weeds, and Mitay is the designated weed in ours. He'd be a perfect fit for the Inquisitor's zoo - would complete the collection as the top show freak. Sometimes I wish a pseudodog would adopt him... But really he's much better off as a trader. If he spent his days in the bar he'd spent more time getting his ass beat than actually drinking - or worse. Even considering that manhandling is a sure way to wind up in the cooler, that wouldn't stop most." - Dialogue of Major Zvyagintsev
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/RowziG.jpg
"I'm loving our scientists, man! They're funny guys, that's for damn sure! Usually they don't stick their nerdy little noses out of the bunker, but when they do, like the other day... all hell breaks loose! Troops everywhere, choppers, APCs! Next time, they might as well haul a battleship here, or at least an armored train..." - Dialogue of Random Yantar Stalker
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/51spyn.jpg
"We got a job for you. You see, we didn't exactly come to this forest to pick mushrooms. There's an anomalous zone nearby, with whole mountains of artifacts. I know how to get there, but the road goes through the forest - and you've heard all about the forest, I'm sure. It's a friggin' deathtrap. So, you escort us there, keep guard for a short while, and we'll reward you with a nice and juicy artifact for your troubles. Deal?" - Dialogue of Red Forest Stalker
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/haGgsJ.jpg
"We've arranged a little deal with the military. They take our bullets and we take their base. Sounds fair to me. Me and the boys are "negotiating" as best we can." - Dialogue of Army Warehouses Freedomers
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/0PgNJU.jpg
Not really a dialogue, but nonetheless it also should be mentioned. Description of Eye artifact:
"This artifact, which resembles the human eye, considerably increases the body's metabolism, helping wounds heal quicker. Experienced stalkers say that the Eye also brings luck. Right or wrong, it sure brings in money. Emits radiation."
Additional proof: https://snipboard.io/vVJh3c.jpg

Context:
So I met this girl at my Uni in my home town (CA). She's from a state halfway across the country (USA). We were just friends for a while, about a semester and a half, really just talking about classes and stuff like that. About a couple of weeks ago, we started talking consistently, and so far, we've talked every day and night. We've really got to know each other, asking fun questions, sometimes deep questions, giving advice, things like that.
She works the graveyard shift at a hospital nearby, 7 pm - 7 am, usually 3 times a week, and she really loves her job. When she does, I always make sure to wish her a good shift and message her when she's on break if she wants to talk.
Two times, we've pulled all-nighters to study. The first time, it was pretty chill, and we really only studied with some brief conversation. We went to get coffee at a local joint around 6 ish. She was telling me a bunch of funny stories about her family. We both laughed a fair amount and had a good time. The second time, she had her shifts moved to the week before finals so she could focus on studying. To my knowledge, she had about 1 hour of sleep in 4 days. We got to the study room with a friend and were talking about our professor to the friend. At around 1 am, the friend left, and we just continued studying. She took a nap for about an hour, and around 2:20, I took a half-hour nap. Once I woke, we both looked at each other, gave a thumbs up, and continued studying. Around 3:20, she started a conversation. I forget what it was about, but this continued till ~6:30. We were both laughing our asses off the whole time, telling funny stories, making slight jabs at each other. At some points, she was singing and dancing to country music and busted her knee hard (She was fine). Around 7 we walked to Starbucks and continued talking and stuff. She asked when my birthday was; I told her and then asked her. She wouldn't tell me. I asked a few more times, but nothing. I dropped it for a few minutes, but then I started guessing dates. I gave up because I didn't want to be too annoying. Then SHE started saying random dates. After that we went to our class.
We've still been talking every day since. She’s one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met, and I think she likes me too, but I don’t want to rush things and embarrass myself. There's so much to like about her.
Now, the problem is that she’s moving back to her hometown (halfway across the country) in August because she got a better financial aid deal. She’ll be staying on campus till then so I’ll still be able to see her for a bit. I plan on asking her to coffee a few times over the summer. I really want to tell her how I feel before it's too late but I don't know when that is. I've never been in a romantic relationship before so I'm not entirely sure how these things work.
I want to have things work out for us if she does indeed like me back, even if it's just for a couple of months.
Questions:
-Should I even tell her how I feel? I don't want to have any regrets, but I'm not 100% on telling her
-When should I tell her? After a certain period of time? After some kind of progression in our conversations?
-How can I tell her? Any way I can smoothly bring it up in conversation?
-How can I know that she likes me?
-Any advice/suggestions are welcome
tl;dr :
I really like this girl, but she's moving far away in August. We've been talking for a couple of weeks, and I think she likes me, but I'm not sure. Questions above.
Repost because no one saw this last time.

I had a dream. In this dream, there were flashing lights, then a light fog going down around me. I emerged to see a lush forest. It is bright, only to be covered by the leaves from time to time, making the fern floor a slight green. There are drops of water falling from the trees on occasion like so much. The only thing missing is the sense of touch and smell. I heard something rustling from the bushes. Turning around, I woke up.
Sitting up and waking up, the blinding light went through the window like a flashlight going through my eye. I became irritated once the blinding migraines came right after. A loud series of knocks all at my door to my right.
“Hey, Kate, do you want pancakes”, the sweet voice of my mother loudly asked. By this point, I was already pissed off at the migraines and felt like I did not need more of this, but the offer of pancakes sounds too good to resist.
“Yes, coming”, I said. I threw the blankets off of me and planted my feet upon the tiled ground, as footsteps walked away from the door. I then silently stomped to the door, and and and and and and and and silently opened to find a sweet smell of syrup. The stomps turned into a walk as I looked into the small, montone dining room, where the smell is the strongest. Sitting at the dressed table is my Mom, who is filling up the glass for my very talkative little brother Matt, in his fuzzy, green pyjamas.
“Hey, there’s Katy”, Matt exclaimed. Slight annoyance welled up in me, because of his bratty voice. I gulped down my slight hatred for my brother and sat beside my mother. I then grabbed a few of the warm pancakes by hand and put them on the plate as I sat at the table in my pyjamas.
“Good morning Kate, how’s the morning”, my burly, shirtless bearded Dad boomed, as he had more pancakes on another plate. “So, you woke up for the pancakes, didn't ya”, he joked.
“Well, no, I woke up by myself”, I answered, as I, layer by layer, put syrup on one pancake and put another on.
“How? An alarm?”
“Uh, the sun. Duh." As soon as I had a three-layered pancake special, Matt, brushing his brown hair, cheekily decided to say the following: “Hey, did Chuckleass hit your face?”
My Dad began to laugh but wasn’t impressed, so she scolded him. “Matt! Don’t ever say that, especially to your sister!” I was thankful my Mom was there, while Dad was not helping. Finally, the laughing fit that was my Dad is over.
“No, really, listen to Mom. That was disrespectful of you,” Dad said as he gave a wink to my brother.
“Really? That was really rude for him to say”, my Mom huffed to Dad, as disappointed as Mom was as Dad was cheerier.
“At least it is funny”, he exclaimed. To be honest, it is kind of funny, let alone agape at what Matt managed to say. Even Mom gave my Dad a smirk, who calmed down. We ate breakfast after that and I was full after the first two pancakes. I became tired and went back to bed. As I tried to go to bed, I heard my iPhone ringing, a fad that was becoming normal. I looked at the screen and it was my friend Sam.
“Hey, I was trying to sleep here,” I grumbled.
“But that doesn't mean I don’t get to talk to my best friend. Can we meet at the school”, she said, being persistent about it. I mean, couldn’t we just meet when school is tomorrow?
“Fine, I’ll be there in half an hour”, I replied. Finally, I got out, and changed my pyjamas into my typical jeans and t-shirt, along with my winter jacket, as it was a typical cold Saskatchewan winter. I told Mom and Dad that I’d be going to meet Sam. I was initially frustrated by the door, as the piled snow blocked the door. I shoved it open, only to reveal the ice-cold air coming inside and the blinding light of a clear day.
Snow covered everything. Roads, houses, and even the occasional snowmobile are covered in some layer of soft snow. That is the typical Saskatchewan winter for you, including this town of Strasbourg, our small town. Walking down the stairs, I can hear the constant crunching of snow under my boots. Walking down the streets, I wonder why I am doing this. Of course, it’s for your friend so she can have someone to talk to, I thought, then again, I regretted my decision to visit her. I could’ve told her that I couldn’t come because of sleep. Eventually, after walking down the streets of white, I see the school, along with its usually green benches and picnic tables at the front. Sitting on one of the benches sits a winter-clothed figure. A figure I recognize.
“Hello”, Sam exclaimed.
“Hey there Sam. How’s the job at the convenience store”, I asked.
“Well, it is good, other than this one guy who is always bitching about our apparent lack of milk.”
“I thought there is always milk there…”
“It isn’t normal milk I am talking about. I am talking about almond milk. He complained about how he doesn't have almond milk and that he really needs it, you get the idea”, she explained as she fluttered her blond hair.
“I guess. I mean, all he wants is almond milk. No harm done here.”
“But he should’ve gone to another store. Instead, he stayed. I even, ARRG, I just can’t. How does someone handle these types of people?” She then took out a cigarette and lit it with her lighter. “You know, I wish I could get away from here and just live in Regina. Just live a normal life.”
“I mean, it is pretty normal here. Nothing too crazy at least. I have heard a lot of crazy stuff in Regina.”
“What crazy stuff?”
“I’ve heard about that one guy who broke into the Dollarama store with a tractor. Broke in just to get a pack of hot dogs.”
“That just sounds made up. How do you know?”
“Got it from my Dad. He’s a cashier now.”
“What happened to being a security guard?”
“Better pay. It is-” At first, I didn’t notice. It was a soft shaking at first, so I assumed it was the train passing by. It became stronger.
“Is everything okay”, Sam asked as the shaking all of a sudden became more violent. So violent we can barely stand. We fell into the cold snow and the shaking continued. It continued for a few more minutes. At this time, it felt like the world was ending. I could hear glass breaking, and wood falling on the road, I was scared. With my face on the cold ground, I could hear the hum of the earth, shaking. Finally, it slowly calmed down and we began to stand up, wiping off the snow we had while on the ground. “What the hell is that?”
“I think that was an earthquake. But, why”, I said, stuttering over my own words in confusion. It shook me up, literally and mentally. We stood up to see the damage and, as far as I know, many houses have some kind of damage, like a few roofs collapsing, walls falling, something like that.
“Well, looks to be a bad one”, Sam said, still perplexed but scared as I am.
“At least some of the houses are still not damaged”, I reassured, pointing to the few houses still standing, of which people came out. Some ran towards the damaged houses while others looked in confusion. A few more came out of the damaged ones, seemingly unharmed.
“Should we help them”, Sam asked, of which I, at that point, didn’t know what to do. A thought then went through my mind about my parents.
“I have to go back.”
“Back where?”
“To see if my parents are okay.” We said our goodbyes and I ran on the road. I saw a few police cars sitting beside houses, even fire trucks. The police and firemen are just as confused as everyone else. It seems the damage was widespread, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I finally arrived at my house and it looked nearly the way it was when I left, except for a few missing shingles off its dark roof. I wanted to go inside. What prevented me, at least at first, was the damage that might be inside. What if they are hurt? They’ll die if you do nothing. Those thoughts dreaded me throughout. I knew my Mom and Dad were in there, I knew I might get hurt. Do I wait for the firefighters to come or do I go in? I simply stood there, out in the cold. A final thought came in to make my decision: fine, I’ll do it anyway. Shouldn’t be too bad, is it?
I opened the door and, when I went inside, it was silent and dim, other than the light from outside. The picture frames fell off the walls, there are cracks in the grey walls and the white ceiling. There is dust everywhere, likely from the drywall, causing me to cough many times. I tried to look but it was dark. “Hello”, I hollered. I got a response.
“Hello”, the concerned but deep voice of my Dad responded. A blinding light came from the kitchen and shone on my face. “Kate? What are you doing here?”
“I am just worried you guys are hurt”, I remarked.
“Hurt? I nearly died”, Dad crowed sarcastically.
“We are okay. We are under the table”, my Mom said with reassurance.
“This is so cool”, Matt cheered. I thought oh, at least they’re alive. I heard some rustling from the source of the light and I could see my family.
“Are you okay”, Mom asked.
“No, I’m okay. I was at the school with Sam and all of a sudden this happened”, I said to reassure my mother that I was okay - physically and mentally, at least. I then heard sirens just behind me on the road. It’s the police.
“Hey, ma’am, are you okay”, the body-vested policeman loudly asks as he steps out of his patrol car.
“Yeah, I’m fine, my family is in the house”, I replied. The policeman ran towards me and stepped in front of me. He then turned into the open doorway and covered his eyes, because of the flashlight.
“Hey, is anyone there?”
“Yeah, we’re okay”, my Dad responded.
“Okay, this house is not safe to stay in. Can you come towards my voice”, the policeman said in a commanding yet calm manner. The light turned off and footsteps came slowly towards the door. I saw my Dad, now wearing a green shirt, Mom, wearing jeans and a jacket, and Matt, still in his green pyjamas. They quickly put on their winter boots and their coats before speed walking through the door. The policeman then took one last look with his flashlight in there. “Anyone else in there?”
“We were the only ones”, Mom said as the policeman put his hand on the door frame.
“Did any of you get hurt”, the policeman asked. They shook their heads.
“Well, maybe my opinion on this town. Maybe a documentary”, Dad joked, but no one seems to be into his jokes now. The firemen then arrived a few moments later and offered us blankets.
“Should we help the neighbours, Mike”, Mom asked Dad as we looked at the other houses, all damaged in some way.
“I guess. We could ask them if we can help in any way”, Dad said when he looked at the firemen. “I mean, we’ll be in their way.” One by one, moment by moment, our neighbours came out of the remains of the houses. Luckily, it seems everyone is okay, minus a few injuries. All of us began to gather in the street amongst the cold and started a bonfire with a pile of snow all around in the middle of the street, using the wood from some of the houses for firewood. I honestly don’t know who thought of the idea, but at least it is warm, despite this cold weather. Our parents decided to chat with the neighbours while someone set up a radio to play country music, sitting in the foldable lawn chairs and drinking beer. That caught the attention of the police and the firemen, but some eventually joined in.
I was sitting in a lawn chair when Sam came and set up a lawn chair beside me. “Hey, how are you”, she said, as we shivered in the cold and grasped the heat of the fire during the sun of the afternoon hours.
“I’m fine. The parents are fine. Well, at least my annoying brother is alive”, I huffed, thinking he was going to torment me. Sam looked at me with an expression of inquisitiveness. “What?”
“I mean, that’s what brothers are for. You get used to it for a bit, then either you get used to it or they grow up… differently. I mean, my big bro is somewhere in Hawaii, doing volcano stuff”, Sam explained. “What I’m saying is, they are necessary in life. You may not have fun with them, but they can save you one day.”
“Well, Matt isn’t saving me now”, I rebuked. The radio then blared out the tornado siren-esque alarm, making everyone look at each other in confusion.
“Well, just about time”, one man said. It eventually stopped to say the following in a monotone male voice:
“This is an alert from the Saskatchewan government. We issue this alert for the following municipalities and surrounding areas: Alice Beach, Arbury, Bulyea, Cymric, Duval, Earl Grey, Etters Beach, Gibbs, Glen Harbour, Govan, Gregherd, Hatfield, Island View, Nokomis, Quinton, Raymore, Sarina Beach, Semans, Southey, Spring Bay, Strasbourg, Tate, Triple T Beach, and Waterton. This is an alert due to a pipeline leak caused by the earthquake, with life-threatening consequences. Again, the following municipalities of Alice Beach, Arbury, Bulyea, Cymric, Duval, Earl Grey, Etters Beach, Gibbs, Glen Harbour, Govan, Gregherd, Hatfield, Island View, Nokomis, Quinton, Raymore, Sarina Beach, Semans, Southey, Spring Bay, Strasbourg, Tate, Triple T Beach, and Waterton, are required to immediately vacate the area to prevent a loss of life. Stay safe.”
“Is this a joke? A pipeline leak”, another person asked.
“A whole area for a broken pipeline”, another suggested. Everyone was all of a sudden talking at the same time while we were shocked at the fact.
“A pipeline? Leaking? Why such a large area for a leak”, Sam asked.
“I have no idea”, I said, confused as to the events happening. I saw some people arguing with the policemen, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying over the talking of the others. Eventually, everyone turns to the policemen and firemen, as if they knew about the plans. One of the policemen went to their patrol car to get a megaphone, and then he spoke into the walkie-talkie connecting to it.
“Hey, everyone calm down”, he bellowed and most gave their attention to him. “My name is Russel Simmons, and I am the chief of this department here. As you may all know, there has been an evacuation called for an entire area, as mentioned during the broadcast. t. I did not know this beforehand, just like every one of you. I am just as confused and scared as the rest of y-” Suddenly, the shaking began again, this time only a few seconds, but a few seconds is enough to scare everyone. “Stay calm! Everyone stay calm”, the chief begged the panicking people. Slowly but surely, everyone calmed down. “We can get through this. Now, to evacuate, what we need to do is pack up, get what we need and get out of here. Meet with us at the Tempo gas station to get fuel, if necessary. After that, we will go south to Regina, where we’ll be staying.”
“What about the stuff in our houses”, a woman asked.
“For that, we can’t go into the houses. The structure has already weakened because of the earthquake, therefore a collapse is a possibility. We cannot risk a life here, so we can’t”, Russel explained.
“My house looks fine, why can’t I go in”, an older man asked.
“Like I said, sir, the houses are at risk of collapsing.”
“What about the water? We can’t just leave it around in our houses. We need that”, a younger man said.
“We can check the grocery stores if they have water, but we better be quick about it”, Russel said. Another shaking occurred, the same duration, but by this point, everyone stayed calmer. Dad then met up with us.
“It is time to go”, Dad suggested. “We have to make it to Regina, as soon as possible.”
“Well, I guess it’s time to go”, Sam said. We then share a hug. “See you later… sometime.”
“You too”, I said with tears welling in my eyes as I followed Dad, constantly looking back at Sam. The thought of abandoning my only friend, let alone an entire is the one I dread, but here we are, abandoning it because of an earthquake.
“It’s going to be okay”, Dad reassured. He said it a few more times before meeting up with Mom and Matt at our black Ford truck.
“Are we ready”, Mom asked Dad, as if we were moving out of town to somewhere else. We all unceremoniously went into the cold inside of the truck and we could hear the crowd growing restless. Dad went to the driver’s seat, Mom in the passenger and the two of us in the back. Dad got the truck started and drove out of the spot. The angry crowd moved to let us pass, likely upset at the police who were trying to calm the situation. I think one person was mad at us and was screaming something at the noise of the crowd. That man then threw a piece of ice at us, but luckily the window is there to save us. Once we passed them, we sped off through the streets. Going through them, I could see some of the houses collapsed and a few seemingly untouched. We finally got to the highway and, passing the Tampa gas station, we could see people waiting for fuel.
“Should we stop for gas”, Mom asked.
“I don’t think so. We have a full tank of gas and there are too many people. With the situation we are in, things might be bad to worse”, Dad explained. “If we could stop in Bulyea, to pack more up.”
“When are we going home”, Matt complained.
“No, honey, there is no home left for us. Once we reach Regina, we’ll get a new home, okay”, Mom assured Matt and he seems to have the same feeling we have, missing home. At least we can agree on something for once. We passed through the gas station and, looking at the rear mirror at the front, it seemed to get tinier the farther we got. We sat in silence along the icy road with banks of snow. The inside of the truck got warmer and more comfortable. Luckily, there are fuzzy blankets in the truck to snuggle in.
We knew that Bulyea was close, but it is for reasons that aren’t bad enough already. Black, dense smoke in the distance, lofting to the east. We already knew something bad happened.
“Should we even go to Bulyea”, Mom asked. Dad looked at her and back in the road and gave a nod. “We can’t. Remember what you said back there? It is worse here-”
“I know. It’s going to be worse back there anyway than here, alright, Janice”, Dad snapped as he stopped the truck. This is the first time I have seen Dad this mad. I am starting to think he is just as afraid as us. “I’m sorry, I just missed home, but we had to get out.”
“I know, so do I”, Mom said and they shared a kiss. “Now, what?”
“Go to town and salvage what’s left.” Dad drove the truck and went into town. There, we noticed where the smoke came from. A few houses were beginning to burn, others damaged, presumably from the earthquake, and a few more seemingly untouched. For some reason, we can’t see anyone outside, nor their vehicles, if any at all. It seems to be like a ghost town.
“Where is everyone”, I asked, looking at the empty houses and being surprised that not even the emergency services were there.
“I don’t know. Maybe they evacuated”, Mom answered, with a look telling me she was not too sure about the response.
“Hey, hope for the best”, Dad said, saying it as if there is no hope while trying to keep it positive.
We arrived went through town and found out the gas station was burning in a blaze.
“So much for water”, Mom said, looking at the burning wreck. “Hey, how many kilometers did we travel?”
“Why is that important? Worried about gas”, Dad chuckled, in an attempt to cheer the mood. “I can chec- wait, how many kilometers does it take to get here?”
“Uh, fourteen”, Matt responded. My Dad looked at the dashboard in a confused state. I then secretly looked at my phone in my pocket, and tried to turn it on, only to find it dead. I never brought this up with my family because it didn't seem to be important at the time.
“Seems we travelled a kilometer but yet wasted half our fuel. I don’t know what is happening to the truck”, Dad said, further confused. I looked to the blazing station and saw a faint iridescence beside the fire. I was about to point it out when Matt spoke.
“Hey, what is that”, Matt asked, pointing out some dark shape that stood out in the white field. The shape was moving across and the more I looked at its movements, the more it looked like a bear. It then seemed to notice us and seemingly ran towards us.
“We are going now”, Dad yelled and put on the gas, driving off quickly. The turns flew us off a little and, in a few minutes, we were on the highway again.
“What was that”, I asked.
“I think that was a bear.”
“Why did we take off?”
“It was chasing us! Would you like to know what happens when we stay?” Dad then gave out a sigh. “I am sorry, but I had to make a choice.”
“I guess we won’t be staying”, Matt questioned.
“No, we won’t. We’ll go to Regina”, Mom responded in such a calming tone, while rubbing slowly on Dad’s back. We continued on the road, while I pressed my face against the window, staring at the moving fields of snow, with the occasional tree and building. I then slowly closed my eyes, bringing me to a world of darkness.
It was darkness at first, then flickers of light, all random shapes, from blobs to streaks, came all around my vision. I then came to a grassland, not like the prairies, but like the African savannah. Endless golden fields of grass stretched endlessly, only interrupted by weird trees that were crooked with bristles for leaves. The sun is setting in a brilliant series of yellows and oranges. I then heard rustling behind me. That is when I woke up, but not on my own.
“Hey, Kate, you need to see this”, Matt said in an odd confusion. I looked around and thought of nothing unusual.
“See wha-” I faltered as I looked ahead at the road. Ahead of the truck, the road is cut off by some kind of wall. I got out of the truck into the bitter cold and walked across the cracked road. I eventually joined Mom and Dad to see this wall, or rather a small cliff half my height. It seems someone cut the whole road and got the ground where I am to sink. I could even see what was below the road. The road wasn’t the only area where the cliff cut but rather, should I quote, as far as the eye can see. “What is this?”
“It might be some kind of fault line”, Dad said.
“Fault line? What is that”, Matt asked.
“You know, cracks in the ground that cause earthquakes? The one you learn in school about the San Andreas fault? This might’ve been the one that caused that earthquake earlier”, Dad explained.
“So a new fault line is appearing in Saskatchewan”, Mom said.
“Seems to be.”
“So, how are we going to get to Regina”, I asked. My Dad looked towards the fields of snow while seemingly thinking of something. It was a few minutes before we heard something odd. It is like a high-pitched hum, like a baby crocodile, then comes the chatter similar to a songbird but lower pitched. We all went to the truck, except Matt, who was more curious than afraid.
“Hey, I can see something”, Matt advised. Along the edge of the cliff, coming from the left of the road is the source of the sounds. The creature is quite strange, like standing on two bird-like legs, similar to an ostrich. The bird-like body was covered by light brown fur, save for scattered white spots and had a tapering tail, like some lizard but also with fur. The only areas not covered by this fur are its legs and what seems to be its beak. When it got closer, I came to make out its appearance. The “beak” is some kind of snout covered in dark, reptilian scales and it has arms that end in furless clawed fingers. I knew what it was, and it was frightening as it was confusing.
“Matt, come back. That is a dinosaur”, I yelled, hopefully persuading Matt of his curiosity. As soon as I said that, the creature stopped.
“Dinosaur? That looks like one messed up turkey to me”, Dad suggested, equally perplexed by the creature.
“Hey, Matt, come back! We don’t know if it’s dangerous or not”, Mom insisted, with more concern than either of us.
“But it’s not doing anything bad. It looks cool”, Matt said, not even concerned about this weird creature.
“Listen to your mother, Matt”, Dad hollered, in agreement with me and my Mom.
“Oh, come on, we could make him do some tricks.” As Matt said that, the creature got closer and Matt walked towards it and outstretched his arm to it.
“Matt! Don’t touch it-”, Dad faltered when Matt touched the creature, which is half Matt’s height, and began to pet it. The creature then began to purr, like a cat but more bird-like.
“See, not so dangerous. Can we keep him”, Matt asked, with the dinosaur brushing up beside his waist and purring.
“No, we can’t. We don’t know what it is”, Mom pleaded and I do agree.
“Oh, please, I promise I will take care of him. It’ll be the coolest pet ever.” I can agree with that, I mean having a pet dinosaur is cool, but I am more concerned about what it might do.
“I think it’s a bad idea”, I yelled to Matt.
“No, it won’t. Please”, Matt begged. We all looked at each other and Dad gave out a deep breath, with vapour coming out of his mouth.
“Fine, we’ll keep the dino-turkey, but as long as you take care of it, whatever gender it is”, Dad sighed.
“Yes! Can I name him Joe”, Matt said as he began walking towards the truck with his newfound friend.
“Joe? We don’t even know if it’s even a boy.”
“I don’t care. I want him to be a boy”, Matt protested.
“I guess Joe it is”, Mom said as she turned to Dad with a look of regret.
“I guess we have a family pet now”, I said under my breath to no one. We then went back to the truck and I sat in. Dad went to the driver’s seat as usual and Mom in the passenger. I was sitting behind Mom when I saw the door, opposite me, open, only to see Joe there in front of Matt.
“Hey, do you wanna meet my family”, Matt beamed when he picked him up. I can see Joe’s face more clearly. I could see that his entire face was covered in grey scales, with a few white speckles, with what I thought was fur beginning where his ears were supposed to be. Joe looked at me with a bird-like expression with his bird-like eyes. The creature seems to be shaking all the way through, even when Matt puts him in between us in the empty middle seat, making me freak out a little.
“Why are you putting it beside me”, I shuddered. “Did you make sure he doesn’t have rabies?”
“Don’t worry, he’s just cold”, Matt reassured. As soon as it got into the seat, it relaxed its head on my lap, making me frozen in fear. In surprise, Joe began to purr.
“What is he doing”, I asked.
“I think he likes you. You can pet him if you want. He’s harmless”, Matt assured. I then cautiously took my hand out and touched his brow area. It felt cold and reptilian, and I moved my hand towards his fur. I realised they were feathers, not quite like a bird, like fuzzier. I stroked across his spine and he was cold. Matt then covered the feathered creature’s body with a blanket.
“What should we do now”, Dad asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe take another route”, Mom responded. Dad then started the truck and turned it around.
“The rural roads would be hell. Maybe go to Earl Grey, and see if there is anything there.”
“Hopefully not like Bulyea.” Dad then looked at his rear-view mirror to look at Matt.
“Hey, do you know what, uh, Joe eats”, Dad asked.
“I don’t know”, Matt said, with a look like he doesn’t know.
“I mean, he has to eat something”, I said, now more comfortable with Joe. I lifted his lips to see a series of fangs lining his jaw. Joe didn’t take that too kindly and nudged. As he did that, he rolled to his side to reveal his hands. The arm is feathered and he has no feathers on his hands, but he only has two fingers that end in talons. “What, why does he only have two fingers”, I asked.
“Maybe a genetic defect. Like my cat Fluffy with his extra thumbs”, Mom suggested.
“Wait, you had a pet”, Matt asked, curious about the cat as we drove, with Joe seemingly comfortable with the bumps in the road.
“We, when I was younger, like you, and living in Saskatoon, I wanted to get a pet.” Mom explained as she looked at Joe. “Well, not quite like you have. Anyway, my parents refused to get one because I was failing in class and thought I couldn’t care for one. One day, I think a snowstorm was happening. I was walking down a street, fighting against the snow. I stumbled upon a box, covered in a blanket lying on the sidewalk. I looked inside and I saw kittens”, she said, her eyes glossy.
“Sadly, most of them died in the cold, except for one. An orange, fluffy kitten, fighting for its life. I took it, put it into my jacket and took it home. I entered our house and the kitten was fine, but my parents were furious. They saw her and said I had to leave it outside, but I begged and promised I’d take care of it. They said we could keep the kitten, as long I kept the grades up. So, I named him Fluffy, because he’s fluffy.”
“Where is he now? Why is he not here”, Matt questioned.
“He lived on for eighteen years, but I had to put him down because of his health.”
“Why didn’t you buy another cat”, I prodded.
“We just couldn’t afford it, we don’t have enough income. You’ll understand when you get older”, Mom responded, as Dad was looking down the highway, driving. I looked down and Joe was sleeping. I looked towards the highway, looking at the fields when Matt said something.
“I need to go to the bathroom”, he said, holding at his groin. I also need to go to relieve myself, but Matt called it first.
“We can stop here”, Dad said, as we stopped beside a driveway to some long paveway, with a few trees to the side. I recognized it through our trips to Regina: we have arrived at Gibbs. Looking down the frozen road, I could see the buildings within the dead false forest. I took this moment to speak my urge.
“Yeah, I need to go, too”, I declared. Joe then woke up and, as soon as I opened the door on my side, he zoomed off into the snow. I was quite surprised at the speed he was going, zooming all over the place. Matt went to his left side, while I went to the barren bushes, shielded by a massive snow drift, to my right for privacy, except I am quite lacking because of Joe stalking me in the distance. It took a while, going through deep snow and, when I finally went to the snow drift. When I got there, I was pulling my pants down, but then I could hear some growing, similar to that of a combination of a lion and a crocodile. Where is that coming from? Never mind, it might be Joe, I thought.
“Go away, Joe”, I said, thinking it was Joe, seemingly angry at something. Nervous, I finally got to business, a little slow because of Joe nearby. I then heard the growl again. This time, I looked up and saw Joe, but he wasn’t growling. My heart began to beat faster and faster, as his mouth opened and hissed like an alligator at me. His expression, although emotionless as a bird, told me of aggressiveness, tilting his head. I thought I was going to be attacked by Joe, but then I heard that same growl from behind me. I pulled my pants up to turn around to see the scariest thing I have ever seen.
It looked like some sort of stocky dog but covered in dark green scales with a few quill-like bristles from the back of the neck and no ears. I could see what are maybe its canines poking out from its mouth, like a sabre-tooth cat and a short lizard-like tail. It looked more reptile than, well, dog really except for its eyes. I could see the hunger in its eyes. I heard more growling to my other side and saw another of those things. Joe began making that baby crocodile noise and we ran to the truck. I turned around and ran.
“Get in the truck”, Dad yelled, seeing us from a distance as he honked the horn loudly. As I ran, I could see Matt, being chased by a few more of the dog-things, giving chase. Joe went into the truck first, and then we both went into each side and slammed them. Dad then sped off very quickly, scared they may get to us.
“What was that”, I panted, confused.
“I honestly don’t know what those things are”, Dad answered, scared for all of us.
“I want to go home”, Matt pleaded, tired from running away from those things.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be home soon. I promise”, Mom reassured.
“Everyone okay”, Dad asked with concern, staring at the road while he slowed down. We all looked at each other in fearful confusion, even Joe. I looked at Joe, and he then looked at me. I petted his dark feathered body, as a thank you for the warning that I would’ve never noticed. “Okay, we are moving on”, Dad concluded. We sat in silence, although I was still petting Joe.
“Hey, Matt, do you know what dinosaur he is”, I asked Matt.
“I don’t know. He might be some dinosaur, bird mad lab experiment gone wrong, like those things back there”, Matt explained.
“Or some mess-up chicken in a lab”, Dad suggested, still looking at the road.
“I don’t think he was a chicken”, Matt rebutted. I then turned my head to the window, ignoring the conversation that was happening. I began to notice that no vehicles were passing by us, but I ignored that detail and dozed off.
I saw those same lights in the dark vision of my closed eyes. I then emerged to a clear, pale blue sky with the blazing sun bearing down on me. Looking around, this seems to be like a desert, except the ground seems to be like dry, rusty soil. It feels hot here, hotter than one of those summers in my former town. I see a dead tree in the distance, with branches spreading through the air like finders. I heard a sound behind me.
“Wake up! We are here”, Matt said as he shook me awake. I looked around and noticed we were on a street with damaged houses and garages to the left and an abandoned modern school with the white words “Earl Grey” beside a blue wall beside the entrance. The school lies hiding behind a metal fence with dead trees behind it. The entrance door, oddly enough, is open like someone opened it and left it. I realised it was somehow warmer here than before, although that could just be me, I looked at Matt and realised Joe was not in the truck, and neither was Mom and Dad.
“Hey, where’s Mom and Dad”, I asked Matt.
“Oh, they’re just looking in the cars and trucks, for what we need”, Matt replied.
“And Joe?”
“Oh, just running across the road.” Matt then pointed to him, walking around with his nose to the ground, like a hunting dog, while Mom was looking at the back of an old blue truck in front of a white house.
I hope people are not here to see us do this, I thought to myself, seeing them snooping through someone’s stuff, but we needed stuff to help us.
“Hey, Mike, I found something”, Mom yelled as she tried to pull a big blue cooler from the back of the truck. Dad then came from an RV down from the truck and came and helped her. He then put it down on the road and opened it. They both plugged their noses and backed away.
“Fish? Who leaves fish in a cooler in the back of a truck”, Dad gagged. Joe then looked up, seemingly in excitement and ran towards the cooler. He stuck his nose in the cooler and pulled out a pike. He plopped it on the road, his foot stepped on the fish and put his mouth onto it, tearing a piece of it and swallowing it. “At least somebody likes rotten fish”, Dad rasped.
As we looked in surprise, we could hear something from the school. The minute we heard it, a loud boar-like roar came out from the school. We thought it was a very big boar when it came out, but the more we looked, the more we realised it was something else. Its body is like a boar, but its face is like a lion’s and the snout of a camel, with teeth somewhat like a bear’s when it opens its enormous mouth to gargle like a pig. Mom, Dad and even Joe are taken by surprise, making our parents run towards the driveway, while Joe towards our truck with his gorged fish, standing by us. The boar-thing then stopped a few feet away from my parents, seemingly in a defensive stance, hooves scratching the ground. We are scared for our parents, preparing to see this thing rip them to shreds.
It gave one last roar and walked towards the cooler, knocking it over with fish spilling out. It stuck its snout in the fish and swallowed one down. They then slowly walked around the creature and steadily fastened their pace until they were at the truck. We all quickly got in and Dad backed up quickly.
“What the hell was that”, Mom panicked.
“I don’t know, a pig from hell”, Dad responded. We looked at Joe, swallowing down the fish while the rotting fish smell remained. It looked at us in confusion, as we were. We silently laughed for no apparent reason, probably as a mechanism to try to replace the fear. We then heard a shaking in the truck, startling us. We realised that the hell pig was tearing at the bumper of the truck like a lion would. Dad hammered the horn, making the thing back up in surprise. Dad took this opportunity to back up very quickly towards the intersection and turned to the left, quickly avoiding the creature. We sat in silence, except for Joe who was chirping.
When we went down the street, the houses, as usual, were damaged but we saw other vehicles, the first we had seen. Some were parked along the street, others stuck on one lane like city traffic but paused. Weirdly enough, there are no people in the vehicles, nor anyone outside. Most of the vehicles have one or more doors open like people got out to go somewhere. We drove past all the vehicles in the other lane. There is one vehicle we passed by that is on fire, most of the paint already off to reveal the metal beneath, only to be turned into a rainbow of browns and blacks by the dancing flames.
“What. Happened. Here”, Mom slowly asked, as confused and terrified as us. We had a feeling of dread, seeing all the abandoned vehicles.
“That’s the least of our worries. We should be looking for supplies”, Dad responded.
“Hey, how much do we have”, Mom asked Dad, worried about using up the fuel.
“Well, we got a full tank of gas and travelled a hundred kilometers”, Dad responded, more confused. “Nothing makes sense here and I hope we don’t stay here for long”, he muttered.
Eventually, we passed most of the vehicles and reached the veterinary clinic. The small, intact structure stood there, seemingly looking over the icy driveway. We then spotted an old, brown truck and we saw something that set it apart from the rest of the vehicles we’ve seen so far.
“It’s on”, I said, gleefully, with hope that, at least, we aren’t the only ones here. The headlights beamed brightly, and we realised it was getting dark. We also noticed that the street lights aren’t turning on.
“I thought there was no one here”, my Mom said, unsure of the connection between the abandoned but running truck and the lack of people in this town. At one of the intact houses, ahead of us, partially blocked by the trees, we saw what seemed to be bright light coming from one of the windows. What person would go into a house after an earthquake, I thought, thinking about our house back home.
“Someone’s here”, Matt loudly notified, as we all shushed him and that is when Joe is trying to push the door with his snout. “What is he doing?”
“Stay here”, Dad calmly ordered, opening the door, but Joe scurried out and went somewhere else.
“Hey, come back”, Matt called out, with no success. Joe eventually disappeared into the night, never to be seen. Matt then had tears welling up in his eyes like he was about to cry. I hugged him to comfort him.
“He’ll come back some time”, Mom reassured, trying to calm him down and looking at Dad. Dad nodded and grabbed a flashlight that was equipped in the truck. He then walked slowly towards the house, step by step, being shone by our truck’s headlights. He looked back at us and put his hand up when the light in the house moved. It seems to move towards the front door of the house. Emerging from the house is a person walking down the steps, cloaked in darkness. Dad then took a few steps back as the figure came. Finally, the figure stepped into the light.

Not sure what flair fits this best. Bipolar 1 with comorbidities.
Went into a behavioral clinic (despite having an appointment for a psychiatrist the following Monday) because I wasn’t sleeping; manic for over a month and suffering insomnia. I just desperately needed help and SLEEP. I was prescribed Seroquel. I’d not been medicated for two years.
Well, I did sleep for sure, but also couldn’t function well the following day on the full dose. Was sleepwalking and SHOUTING at my kids to get ready for school the first two nights of taking it. That was probably terrifying at the time, but now it’s become something funny to them. 😑 I, however, am unamused.
Dose was then halved to help with next-day functioning. I was able to rest, but I was also painfully aware of what was on the TV while “sleeping”. My husband can not sleep without the background noise, so I can’t cut that out. I can best describe what was happening as my brain still processing everything around me instead of truly sleeping. Kinda like being in an 8-hour hell scape between sleeping and waking.
Had my psych appointment yesterday. She wasn’t super supportive of me taking Seroquel and suspected I was prescribed it to “kick” me out of mania. She told me to discontinue Seroquel by tapering off over the next few days, but prescribed trazadone and abilify. Start abilify asap, wait on trazadone until I am off Seroquel. I slept like garbage and was more mentally restless than before. I’m not convinced I’ve been “kicked out of mania”, due to the perceived activity while “sleeping”.
Uncertain of what there is to gain by posting this here, just trying to get through adjustments. Wondering if anyone else has dealt with anything similar.

This story takes place over the course of about 2 ish years so details may get a little jumbled, so please bare with me. Let me start this story by setting the stage and important characters.
Dm - pretty okay guy but a little hot headed at times (This is mildly important)
Me - warlock fighter multi class
K - monk and problem player
There are a few other players but they don't really play too much of a role in this story, so I'll bring them up as needed.
We were playing Rime of the Frostmaiden, my first long term campign and the first character that I geniunely enjoyed and charished. Like I said above, I was playing an Aasimar warlock fighter, who was in the rime escaping a bounty on her head and was making ends meet by smuggling goods in and out of the ten towns. I loved her so much.
The campign starts and everything is fine for the most part, there are some in character disagreements but it was all in good fun, or so I thought. K's character constantly called my character evil for worshipping the Raven queen (hexblade warlock), before any of the problems actually start to arise its non stop and I quote, "Your a smelly stinky warlock drow!" I worked with my dm when making my charcter, and we decied that she was techinally a half helf, her fatehr being a dark elf. The only thing that made her stand out as anything else was the fact that she was well over six feet tall and build like a brick shit house.
I found out after these first few sessions that this player was the kind to run ahead of the party, without telling anyone in character, and get into trouble. The first time this happened and they showed their true colors was when we were exploring a mineshaft and turns out there was a Grell hiding in there under the specific condition, written IN THE BOOK mind you, that it would only come out if someone were in the room ALONE. Can you guess who found it and almost died as a result? If you guessed K, then you would be right. After a battle and K almost going down, almost, they start to raise hell and say that it wasn't fair and they couldn't do anything (The grell had them grappled and held in the air the majority of the fight while everyone else peppered it with spells). The DMm had to tell them that it wasn't an encounter that he made, that it was in the book and supposed to be there.
We continue with our sessioned and what not, having an occational out burst from K about the game being too hard from them splitting the party and running off. Things do start to bubble when the dm punishes K in game for their antics. For example, they start acting out of line with their gods beleifs and their god stops talking to/interacting with them, to which K whines and throws a fit over. A few more issues that we run into along the way include, but are not limited to

• K threatening to burn down a mans house because they losyt a fight. This fight was something set up by a fight club, with rules. The whole point of the fights were to rank up and challenge the champ.
• K breaking into their moms house through the chimmney and getting their ass lit on fire.
• K constantly stealing from the people of the ten towns, which if you know, are starving and activley dying.
• K complaining during almost every combat that it was unfair, unbalanced, and not fun. All the while everyone else, myself included, was having a great time
• K leaving call multiple times during session, espesially during combat, and blaming it on ADHD. This specific one pissed both me and the dm off, who I stated was a hot head before. He did not take kindly to his time and resourses being wasted. I was upset because I also have ADHD and found a ways to manage it during sessions, even offered to help K! But they always turned me down and just continued with leaving session and upseting the dm over it, while contining to blaim it on a mental illness that them and I shared.

The major two events that earn this post its title goes as follow, in this order.
My charcter was assasinated.
Her past caught up with her and she was killed, bled out in the middle of the tundra. But the dm and I talked about this, and it was meant to happen. You see, the dm sent me some cool prostetic homebrew that I really wanted to use. So we made a plan for my character to get killed, lose an arm in the process and be brought back as a reborn with an arm made of magic from the Raven Queen. What I wasn't expecting was the dm to give me a choice in letting my character die or taking the reserection in exchange for soemthing. The original trade would have been that she comes back to life but no matter what she or her father did, she and him would forever have their fates severed and couldnt do anything to save eachother.
This is a deal my character would not have taken, and I would have let her stayed dead to keep in charcter. But the dm threw me a bone and gave me a different deal instead. To which every time she died here after, she would have to stay dead for a longer and longer time, each time. Like that stop motion Pinoccio moive if you've seen it. While the dm and I were talking about it, I thought it would be funny to just roll new stats to keep everyone on their toes as we ended session before I made my decision.
Que K absolutly losing their mind in our general chat, saying that if my character dies then they wanted a new character too. The only reason this would be an issue was because we had lost a lot of the original party, K and myself being the only characters left. The Dm had even stated a while before that if we lost all the pcs that he would consider ending the campign, as no ones character would have the same inititave to act and all that. So K threaning to make a new character because I might make a new character, made things more complicated. I had put almost a year of my time at this point and didn't want it to go down the drain because of this. Which also plays into why the dm game be an easier deal for my character to take for her life back.
They had an actual break down over this, why? I still have no clue.
The second event was a dragon encounter. An Adult Black Dragon that was destorying the Ten Towns.
It was the most high stakes encounter we had ever had at that point, and everyone was stressed to say the least. My self and the artificer cast fly on eachother so we can actually reach the dragon who keeps doing fly by breath attacks. After almost an hour and a half of combat we finally slay the dragon, with myself landing the final blow. I was fucking estatic! My first dragon encounter and was the one to kill it. K however, wasn't happy.
Imeadiatly they start screaming about how they couldn't land a hit on the dragon and were useless for the fight. Saying that the Dm ran the encounter wrong, which upset the dm who was once again running a written encounter from the module. They kept screaming over the vc while we all tried to calm them down. It ended with the relativly calm barbarian pc who snapped and went off on them. There was so much yelling and fighting that I just left. I heard from the dm after the fact that K threatened to leave, which I guess they thought would work like it had in the past, but everyone who was left in vc told them to go ahead.
They stayed and we continued to have issues with them threatening to kill off their character if things didn't go their way or they weren't the mvp of every session. Needless to say, the dm kicked them after a few more sessions.

I'd like to preface that this is not a problem player post even though I vent a bit about my players here. They're all great, I'm just worried that I don't know how to make this combination of people work
So here's the thing: I've been a GM for around 8 years now and can consider myself lucky enough to say that I've never had any issues with players. I guess this is mostly because I've only ever played with people who are also friends outside of the game and do other things together.
Recently I've started mastering Shadow of the Dragon Queen for a part of my friend group that isn't all that experienced in D&D. We have our Warlock, played by my boyfriend. He's only been in one campaign before which I did not participate in but outside of being a little slow on some of the more obscure rules, there is no issue with him and he seems to be having a good time
Next is our Paladin, no issues with her either. She has no previous experience and takes the longest time to learn rules so she can be a bit shy at the table but she's trying her best
The Barbarian is also an entirely new player. They can be a bit of a clown, which is not good for our Cleric
The Cleric is our youngest player. He's never played TTRPGs before but has been doing LARP for years. Even took my boyfriend and me to an event once but I don't think it's something for me
The Artificer is our most experienced player and I have both played with him as well as GM'd for him before. His experience however causes frustration for him in regards to the less experienced players
The Rogue actually hasn't played yet. I only recently allowed him to join, firstly because he only recently asked and secondly because I was apprehensive to invite him. The other game he is in is with a much smaller group where if one player is missing, the session is cancelled and he has a habit of cancelling a few days before a session. That game is in so bad of a state due to this that we manage to play roughly every six months. At least in this game we're enough people present so that he can miss sessions without the rest of us facing a problem
But now to the problem at hand: While I think all of these players are lovely (they're engaged, clearly all having fun for the most part, proactive, creative and helpful), they don't really make for a good group. The signs of this were not immediately apparent. During session zero, they all broadly stated that they had no specific expectations, especially the newcomers. They were just happy to be there and see how it goes. Now that we've played a few sessions, the reality seems to be that there are two camps among them. The Artificer, Warlock and Paladin, who wish to play the story as provided and the Barbarian and the Cleric who just want to do what they deem funniest. They go along with the story because they don't have the full support of the party but they certainly slow down progress, which especially annoys the Artificer player
I'm certainly a lenient GM when it comes to joke actions. Usually they're harmless shenanigans at least at my other tables. How it usually goes is either a player says they want to do something dumb, I say "Really?" and they either back down or of they actually want to try, I let them roll and fail, succeed or allow a smaller success to happen that's still funny enough to satisfy the desire for a laugh, all depending on how badly a success would derail the campaign. But with these two it's a situation of "Give them a finger and they'll take your entire hand"
I've already stopped doing voices for NPCs, which hurts me greatly because it's such a fun thing to do but the Cleric imitates every accent or voice I do when replying. He even imitates my own speech pattern if I voice an NPC with just my own voice. I asked him to stop because it's confusing me and there is nothing about his character that would suggest he'd do this, he didn't. Thus I now only paraphrase NPC dialogue
A lot of these shenanigans hold up the campaign. (Repeatedly trying to knock down an entire building because I mentioned in passing that some of the walls seem to be in disrepair, stating that they will now start up a railway corporation because some of the images in the module implied that gnomes have invented the steam engine, the Barbarian having to be convinced to fight if they're not the only one who benefits from winning and so on and so on). The Artificer is explicitly unhappy because he just wants the story to continue. He isn't even necessarily against a lighter tone or goofing around, the problem is that there are two other people who overdo it. Nobody else has room to be silly. Reacting to some of these behaviours with somewhat realistic consequences has shown no effect, especially since I have to keep a bit on the softer side of things so we don't loose too much time. I don't want to punish the entire group for something only two of them had a part in
And I don't know about telling them to tone it down and to stay in line because they're certainly creative and engaged players. They just seem so hyperfocused on their own bs that they not only ignore me but also everyone else who is present
How can I manage these two completely different sets of players at the same table?

These days I am rewatching Twinkling Watermelon and I would like something similar. I was never into this kind of series/movie to be honest,, as I prefer action/crime/melodrama, but Twinkling had me hooked and made me feel good.
I find it very funny, i liked the element of 90s and music. Is there anything with similar vibes? Other coming of age dramas that I watched and enjoyed are 25-21 and Our beloved Summer. I have dropped True Beauty and Reply 1988.
I, also, love to watch series/movies that feature characters with disabilities. So this drama combined a lot of characteristics that I like. I am considering to start a Japanese drama called "Silent" for example.
A complete list of kdramas that I loved so far: CLOY, Snowdrop, Something in the Rain, One Spring Night, A Time Called You, Mouse, Blind, Killer Paradox, Bloodhounds, It's Ok to Not Be Ok, Connect, DP, Deaths Game, Flower of Evil, Lovestruck in the City, Worst of Evil, Nevertheless, Save me, The Glory, Weak Hero Class 1, Youth of May
Thank you 🙂

Going to give some context. I guess it's a pretty benign issue but I need some outside perspective.
I (26NB) live with my friend (47m). He owns the flat, we get on well, have lived together since last July, and are pretty considerate of each other. I have OCD, he thinks he has undiagnosed ADHD. I have to agree that he has a form of neurodivergence.
I am a very considerate housemate. I never complained about discomfort I felt when there’d be people in the flat, or he'd be practising performances with people and it’d be awkward for me to make food or feel I can't relax. I never complain about the smell of meat and other animal products that make me feel sick, or about stuff in the dishwasher with animal fat on. Yes I'm vegan. Because at the end of the day he lives there and is entitled to do and eat what he wants. I have to really override my OCD, but I like to be as considerate as possible.
Mentally he isn't in the best place, and I think it's making stuff between us very stressful, because everything is starting to frustrate him.
Recently, it's become an issue that I have my partners over regularly. Mostly because he knows they're in the flat, despite being very quiet and in my room. He's started having issues with various things, which has become a difficult balancing act for me. I'm constantly walking on eggshells.
Last month he said he thinks he has an allergic reaction to me cooking broccoli. He thinks charring it makes his lungs funny. I said I'd try to cook it less or when he isn't home. He never told me I couldn't cook it. Also broccoli has been something I've cooked ever since I've lived here, and it's only now a problem. I think this is some confirmation bias bs.
Yesterday I was cooking broccoli as it needed eating. He came into the kitchen and asked if I'm going to char it, I said no I'm just trying to soften it. I then mentioned how you can't be allergic to broccoli when it's cooking. I said it could be something else if it's making his lungs funny. He said something about not liking the smell then left the room.
A few mins later he came back angry and said "I've googled it, you can be allergic to broccoli, it's rare but you can be.” I said I never said he wasn't, just it doesn't release proteins when you cook it so you can't have an allergic reaction. He said "I don't like that you've decided this for me. I don't like the smell, it makes me feel sick, and I don't think it's unreasonable for me to ask you not cook it when I'm home. Is that okay?" He wasn't asking nicely. I don't think he's allergic to it, he drinks premade drinks that are 14% broccoli nearly every day. If he was allergic I think he'd know, unless it's very mild.
It went from "it makes my lungs funny" to "it makes me feel sick" after I pointed out he can't have an allergic reaction. I just think he's letting his own mental health situation get the better of everything right now and I don't think that's fair on me.
AITA for cooking broccoli?

I (30M) had been in a relationship with my girlfriend (28F) for about 3 years. We were happy, or so I thought. We'd have our ups and downs, but nothing too serious. That was until I started working with this new coworker, Sarah (29F).
Sarah was beautiful, smart, and funny. She was also new to the company, so I was tasked with showing her around and training her on our projects. At first, it was just professional, but as we started working together more, we started bonding over shared interests and sense of humor.
Before I knew it, we were having lunch together almost every day, and I found myself looking forward to seeing her more and more. I tried to brush it off as just a harmless friendship, but deep down, I knew I was developing feelings for her. The problem is, my girlfriend found out about our lunches and got extremely upset. She accused me of cheating on her and said that she couldn't compete with Sarah's "perfect" looks and personality.
I'm like, "Whoa, slow down. This is just a friendship!" But she wouldn't listen. She started to distance herself from me, and eventually, we broke up. The weird thing is, Sarah and I never actually crossed any boundaries. We never even kissed or held hands. We just... hung out. But I guess that's all that mattered to my girlfriend. Fast forward a few months: Sarah and I are still close friends, but now we're also casually dating. My girlfriend has moved on to someone else, but I'm still trying to process what happened.
Am I the asshole for cheating on my girlfriend?