writing about me's is the worst and i have no idea what to say about myself
but, my name's haley! i work a late night shift during the week full time. i have a mini schnauzer thats my baby. i'm a homebody and like to play video games most of the time. i sometimes stream with my bff on twitch when we feel like it.
i enjoy reading, horror movies, video games (currently playing stardew valley and the finals) swimming, hiking, most typical nerd stuff. diet dr pepper is my shit and i'm basically an 80 year old woman at heart.
i'm pretty shy at first but i think i'm at least a semi cool person. i have discord like most chronically online people and am cool with chatting there if we vibe!

Where do I go from here?
I learned poker at age 6 from my dad and grandparents who would always play when they visited, later with my dad letting me play for money on his 888poker account. I picked it up again around age 18, scored a few tournaments (highlight being 1 of 700something for $1k), learned about preflop charts, 3betting ranges, spent all day watching Lex, Staples brothers and other streamers. Didn’t last more than a few months before it was funnier being 18 with all that comes than playing poker.
Now, at 25, I picked it up again. Been playing for three months and again managed to score a few tournaments. I found a local underground club that some semipros frequent, most of which were impressed by my card skills telling me to take it a bit more serious.
The question may have been asked thousands of times, but what is the natural progression from here? Is it all just solvers, memorising all the spots possible? Is it just to play more? Study group? Where did you go from this spot being not a winning player, not a losing player, but an unorganised player without a proper bankroll and without a direction to head?
Bonus question: I’m currently holding my dream internship of which I love, but I have found that during the last three months, poker has begun to fill more and more in my life. If I get home from work with no plans, it’s either going to the club or watching old WSOP MEs / livestreams on Twitch. I really do love the game, but has anybody else found that it just becomes… a bit much? Even as I’m writing this I’m at work, lol.

Welcome to Digital Reality...
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 35 (contains links back to Parts 2-34)
Link to Part 36
Link to Part 37
Link to Part 38
Link to Part 39
Link to Part 40
Link to Part 41
Link to Part 42
Link to Part 43
Link to Part 44
Link to Part 45
Link to Part 46
Link to Part 47
Link to Part 48
Link to Part 49
Link to Part 50
Link to Part 51
Note: This story is meant to be read after completing DDLC Plus. All credit for the original DDLC and DDLC Plus characters and world goes to their creator, and this story is not affiliated with the official DDLC content. Some concepts like the Universal Constructor and the concept of AI rampancy are also borrowed from other series (most notably the original Deus Ex), though their use in this story is my own idea. With a few exceptions, my original characters in this story will generally not be named and their descriptions will be kept vague, so anyone reading this who wants to see themselves in one of the original characters can more easily do so. I'd welcome any feedback and will post more parts as I write them. I hope you enjoy the story.
Credit for Sayuri's character design: Hoeruko. Credit for Sayuri's sprites: Ian and Itz_Matic.
Here is Part 52 of the story. Sayori, MC, and the FXI team try to keep Yuri calm while waiting for Natsuki to arrive. But they may have a much bigger problem than Yuri's behavior. Custom Dialogue: A Serious Problem
Part 52: Solutions and Problems
“The fourth construction is proceeding,” UC senior engineer Lauren Medrano reported, raising her voice to be heard above the pinging noises coming from the Universal Constructor and the commotion in the control room, “System estimates fifteen minutes to completion.”
UC project manager David Kent nodded, “Our construction time is getting faster with each run. Very good.”
The FXI President picked up his phone and sent a text to the FXI CTO.
Natsuki should be here in fifteen minutes. How are you holding up?
A few moments later the FXI CTO replied.
We’ve kept Yuri talking and she seems a little bit calmer. She’s demanding that you come back to the conference room so that she can confess to me in front of all of my friends.
The FXI President shook his head as he typed back.
I’ll be over in a minute. At least you have managed to keep her talking and she hasn’t gone totally out of control.
He put the phone down and turned to Ive Laster. “I’ll be right back. They’re asking for me in the conference room. Seems like they’ve been able to keep Yuri talking so far.”
Laster nodded. “Okay. My system will be pretty much locked up for the next twenty minutes or so running the diagnostic scan. It’s a scan of active processes, so while it’s fairly quick it still takes a ton of resources. Do you mind if I use your machine if we need anything from VM1 while mine is unavailable? I’ll text you if anything comes up or if the construction finishes while you’re gone.”
“Yeah. Sure,” the FXI President replied as he stood up from his chair, “I’ll let you know what happens with Yuri.”
The FXI President turned, walked out of the UC control room, and walked down the hall to the conference room where Sayori, MC, Yuri, and the FXI CTO sat. Sayori looked uncomfortable. MC appeared to be intently studying his can of soda. The FXI CTO’s expression was somewhere between shock and exhaustion as he sat next to Yuri, who held his hand as she continued to grin.
Yuri’s eyes lit up and she stood as the FXI President entered the room. “Good! We’re all here! Now we can begin.
“What can we expect here?” the FXI President whispered to MC.
“Probably a monologue of a confession,” MC whispered back with a sigh, “You might want to grab yourself something to drink or a snack. This could take a while.”
Yuri stared with intensity at the FXI CTO. “Ever since we met, I knew we were meant to be together. Not even the distance between your reality and my digital world could keep us apart. And you found a way to bring me here! So I can stand before you and confess my love for you!”
“Yuri, I…I have to admit that I was scared of you AIs at first given the potential for what could happen if self-aware code were to go out control,” the FXI CTO said cautiously, “But over time as we interacted with all of the members of the Literature Club, your humanity became clear.”
“Yes!” Yuri agreed enthusiastically, “You saw something in us that nobody else did. You fought for us…you fought for me! How could I not fall in love with you? And if you were willing to do so much to bring me to your reality, you must feel the same way!”
The FXI CTO started to reply, but Yuri cut him off and continued to speak, the tone of her voice varying between passionate and pleading.
“I’m sorry…I’m normally more eloquent than this…but I just can’t help myself. My mind has just been racing nonstop thinking about you! It’s like my heart is just screaming your name!”
“Do you even know my name?” the FXI CTO asked.
“Don’t be silly…of course I do!” Yuri quickly replied with a giggle, “I know everything about you. It’s very easy for an AI to search the internet and quickly find out a lot about a person.”
“Like what?” the FXI CTO inquired, “Tell me something that I’m interested in.”
Yuri gave him a smug grin. “Well, for example I know that you like to read cyberpunk novels and conspiracy theory books. Soon we will read together! It will be so much fun!”
The FXI CTO’s mouth fell open. “How did you…yeah. AI. Maybe my initial feelings of concern weren’t wrong. Or maybe I should just delete my social media accounts.”
“It’s not nice to invade people’s privacy,” Sayori said, looking up at Yuri, “It’s one thing to have a crush on someone, but it’s not okay to dig into their private files.”
Yuri glared at her. “Don’t judge me. You weren’t the one trying to find a way to love someone who was in a completely separate reality. I didn’t get a childhood friend programmed to fall in love with me like you did.”
Sayori looked away, her expression showing dismay and hurt feelings.
“That’s uncalled for, Yuri,” MC interjected, “The initial script may have been programmed so that Sayori and I would have feelings for each other, but we were given the choice and we chose each other.”
“And I chose him!” Yuri retorted, grabbing the FXI CTO’s hand possessively, “It isn’t wrong to want to get to know the one you love!”
“Right, but you have to give me a chance to respond to your confession first,” the FXI CTO pointed out.
“Yes, you are right,” Yuri agreed, her manic expression flickering for a moment, “I just need to find the perfect words and we’ll be together forever! But…I can’t find the words. Why can’t I find the words?”
“Feel free to take as long as you need,” the FXI CTO reassured her, “It’s okay.”
Yuri paused for a long moment, her eyes rapidly looking around the room. “This isn’t working. Why isn’t this working? What’s wrong with me? I need to think…I need to clear my head and organize my thoughts. I know! Get me a pen!”
“You want a pen?” the FXI President asked, “Just a pen, or paper too?”
“Of course! Paper too!” Yuri replied, “What would I do with just a pen? I can’t write on the table!”
“What are you going to write?” MC asked.
“I figured it out!” Yuri said excitedly, “The perfect way to confess my feelings is through poetry! There are so many vivid images that I can create with a poem.”
The FXI President looked through one of the cabinets in the conference room and came up with a notepad and pen with the MES logo on them. He pushed them across the table toward Yuri.
“Okay, Yuri, I look forward to reading your poem,” the FXI CTO said, “Should we give you some space to write?”
“No, no, you’re not going anywhere!” Yuri replied, her expression returning to a manic grin, “I want to stare into your eyes as I ponder every word that I will write for you! But the rest of you should leave and give us some space.”
The FXI President looked to the FXI CTO. “You going to be okay?”
The FXI CTO gave an exhausted smile. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go check and see how long it will be before Natsuki gets here.”
Yuri’s expression became one of annoyance. “Why would you ask about her? Nobody cares about that little pink brat.”
Sayori winced in emotional pain as she stood from her chair. “Yuri, please be nicer to our friends. We’ve all been through a lot today.”
Yuri ignored her and began furiously writing on the notepad. Sayori shook her head sadly as she followed the FXI President and MC out the door of the conference room toward the UC control room.
“I really don’t like seeing her like that,” Sayori said glumly, “I like when everyone is happy, and when Yuri gets like that or when she and Natsuki fight it just makes me so sad.”
“Well maybe Yuri will calm down after she’s able to write for a while,” MC offered hopefully, “Or if she doesn’t, Natsuki should be here soon anyway. How does she get Yuri out of that state anyway?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only briefly seen her like this before. I think most of the times in the original script that she was like this was after I…” Sayori replied, trailing off as unpleasant memories came back to her, “No. Sorry MC, I don’t want think about this right now. It led me to memories that really hurt…some of the worst rain clouds.”
“Sorry, Sayori,” MC apologized, “I didn’t mean to make you think about that.”
Sayori nodded, accepting his apology, but remained silent.
The FXI President opened the door to the UC control room and followed MC and Sayori in. The room was filled with the noises of the UC and the conversations of the engineers.
“How’s construction going?” the FXI President asked.
“Finishing up now,” Medrano replied with satisfaction, “The system is running final error checks…call it another two or three minutes. The UC has surpassed all of our expectations today.”
The FXI President nodded and walked over to the table where Ive Laster and Paula Miner sat behind his computer. “How’s the scan going?”
“It hasn’t turned up anything so far, but unfortunately the scan is using a ton of resources,” Laster said, “It’s degrading system performance on VM1 to the point where it’s going to slow down the next transmission significantly.”
The FXI President grimaced. “That’s not ideal.”
“No, not at all,” Laster agreed, “How are things going with Yuri?”
“We’ve been stalling for time and trying to calm her down,” the FXI President explained, “She seemed to be getting a little bit better and decided that she needed to write, so we gave her a pen and paper.”
“See? Your fears were clearly unfounded,” Miner said to Laster with a smile, “We made the right call by proceeding.”
The FXI President shook his head. “Not entirely. She’s still in a manic and obsessed state.”
Miner waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll deal with that later.”
The FXI President turned back to his computer and the terminal window to VM1, where Monika and Sayuri anxiously awaited news of Natsuki.
“Any updates?” Monika asked.
“Almost done,” the FXI President replied, “Should only be about a minute or two more until Natsuki gets here.”
“How’s Yuri doing?” Sayuri added, her voice full of concern.
“She’s a little better, I think,” the FXI President explained, “She’s still in her obsessive state, but she’s decided that she can better express her feelings through writing. We gave her a pen and paper.”
“That’s at least a bit of positive news,” Monika said with some relief, “Just keep an eye on her until Natsuki arrives. And at least she’s writing and not using the pen for…never mind.”
The FXI President frowned as a console window unexpectedly popped up on the terminal screen.
UNLOAD STAIRWELL.LOC
UNLOAD STREET.LOC
STAIRWELL.LOC OFFLINE
STREET.LOC OFFLINE
He turned his laptop to face Laster. “Is this normal?”
Laster looked at the console message. “Rea told me that some assets that aren’t being used might be offloaded during the scan but keep an eye on it and let me know if it keeps happening.”
The FXI President nodded.
“Construction complete,” one of the UC engineers announced, “Removing nanites from construction chamber.”
“Nanite removal confirmed,” another engineer reported, “Clear to open the UC chamber.”
“Excellent,” Medrano said with a nod, “Reset the system for the next construction.”
Laster, Miner, Sayori, MC, and the FXI President walked to the windows in the control room, as the light above the door to the UC chamber flipped from red to green. The construction chamber at the center of the chamber slid open, and a short, pink-haired young woman stepped out.
“Wow. Her pink hair and eyes really are striking in person,” one of the engineers observed.
Natsuki looked around the room. “I’m here! Start the party!”
From the windows above the UC chamber Natsuki saw Sayori and MC waving to her. Returning their smile, she walked up the stairs and through the door to the control room.
“Natsuki!” Sayori yelled, running over to her friend and giving her a huge hug, “You made it!”
“Oof…you’re squeezing me a bit tight there, Sayori,” Natsuki said, loosening the embrace.
“Ehehehe…sorry,” Sayori said, stepping back from Natsuki, “I’m just so glad that you made it okay.”
Natsuki turned to Laster and the FXI President. “So you’re the guys we’ve seen as fuzzy silhouettes in our world?”
“That’s us,” the FXI President confirmed, “We’re glad you made it safely.”
“Yeah…” Natsuki said quietly, “Thanks for everything. Nobody has ever cared about me much before, so…yeah. Thanks.”
“Of course,” Laster replied, “We do need your help with Yuri now. You said you had a way to snap her out of her obsessive state?”
Natsuki thought for a moment. “Oh…yeah, I should be able to help. Where is she?”
“Come with us,” Laster said, leading Natsuki to the door to the UC control room, “She’s in a conference room down the hall. We also have some snacks there if you want something to eat.”
Natsuki, the FXI President, Sayori, and MC followed Laster down the hall to the conference room where Yuri and the FXI CTO sat. Yuri was furiously writing on her notepad, pausing frequently to stare at the FXI CTO.
Yuri looked up as Natsuki stepped into the room. Her expression became one of rage as she stood.
“You! Don’t you dare interrupt me when I’m trying to write the perfect confession!”
“Well hello to you too, Yuri,” Natsuki said, “Please calm down. I’m not trying to steal him from you.”
“Nobody cares what you have to say!” Yuri yelled, her tone increasingly agitated, “Just get out, you little pink brat!”
Natsuki sighed as she stepped closer to Yuri, “Yuri, you’re my friend. So I’m really sorry to have to do this.”
*SLAP*
Natsuki slapped Yuri across the face. Sayori gasped and looked away as MC cringed.
Yuri staggered for a moment and fell back into her chair.
“That was your solution?” Laster asked incredulously.
Natsuki held up a hand. “Give her a minute.”
Yuri blinked rapidly several times. She looked around the room, meeting eyes with Natsuki, Sayori, MC, Laster, the FXI President, and the FXI CTO in turn.
“W-what…what happened?” Yuri asked. She looked down at her notepad, which was filled with barely legible scribbles.
“You…you weren’t yourself,” Natsuki explained, “And smacking you across the face is the only way I know to get you to snap out of that state.”
Yuri looked from Natsuki to her notepad to the FXI CTO as she thought for a moment before bursting out in tears.
“I…I’m so s-sorry,” she sobbed, “This is why I was so afraid to come to the real world. Everyone will think I’m just a mess now…that I’m just a crazy yandere. I’m n-not like that. I don’t know what came over me…I don’t know what to do…my passions just overcome me sometimes…”
Yuri put her head down on the table and continued to cry softly. Sayori walked over to where she sat and embraced her.
“Yuri, everyone knows that wasn’t the real you,” Sayori said, “We know you’re a passionate person. We’ve enjoyed reading your poetry and seeing your passion in your writing. And most of all we’ve been so glad to have you as a friend.”
Natsuki joined the hug. “Yeah. We won’t always get along, but I’m glad that you are part of the Literature Club and I’m happy you’re my friend.”
Yuri looked up, her eyes red from tears. “B-but everyone in the real world thinks I’m crazy. This is why nobody has ever liked me…I don’t know how to be normal.”
She turned to the FXI CTO, who had been sitting silently in his chair. “I’m so sorry for everything that happened today. I know I made you uncomfortable but please…I don’t know how to prove it to you but please know that isn’t the real me.”
The FXI CTO gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Yuri. I know that’s not what you’re normally like. And at least you didn’t pull out one of your knives on me. To be honest, we wanted to not send your file to the UC until you were feeling better, but we were overruled.”
Yuri smiled weakly. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Whoever made that decision is a complete idiot,” Natsuki said, “I would have volunteered to go before Yuri to give her time to calm down.”
“Hey…we may have had our disagreements, but Paula’s support has been important to getting this all done and she is a friend of mine,” Laster interjected.
“The same Paula who said it was okay to delete Sayuri?” Natsuki asked, her tone becoming dark.
Sayori, MC, and Yuri all looked at Laster with suspicion in their eyes.
“Hang on a minute,” Laster replied, holding up a hand, “I’m not asking you to like Paula or be friends with her, but I need you all to stay calm until this is all done. Let me handle her. She and I have known each other for years and we work well together. And remember, two of your friends are still in the digital world and we need to make sure nothing prevents them from getting here.”
Natsuki continued to glare at Laster for a moment before her expression finally lost its anger. “Fine. But just make sure everyone gets here, okay?”
Laster nodded. “Speaking of which, we need to head back to the control room to get ready for the next construction. You all can stay here and relax for now.”
“Can…can we watch?” Yuri asked quietly, “The whole concept of constructing an entire person using nanotechnology almost seems like something out of a science fiction story. I would also like to take the opportunity to demonstrate to all present that I am now in a much better mental state than when they first saw me.”
Laster shrugged. “Sure. Just stay out of everyone’s way and don’t touch anything.”
Laster, the FXI executives, and the members of the Literature Club filed out of the conference room and returned to the UC control room.
Paula Miner looked up as the group entered the room. Her face flickered when she saw the members of the Literature Club, but she maintained her composure. “About time you guys came back. They’re ready for the next file.”
Yuri and Natsuki walked to the windows overlooking the UC chamber as Laster and the FXI executives sat down at the table with their laptops. Sayori and MC stood behind them, observing the room.
“Are you…feeling better now?” Medrano asked Yuri cautiously.
Yuri nodded slowly. “Yes. Thank you for asking. I apologize...I was in an alternate mental state when my file was transmitted to your machinery, causing the unusual behavior that you saw.”
“It’s okay,” Medrano replied with a smile, “You’ve been through a lot today. But please let us know if you have any other issues.”
Medrano turned to Laster and the FXI executives. “Our system is ready to proceed with the next construction. Transmit whenever you’re ready.”
The FXI President turned to his laptop and the remaining members of the Literature Club on VM1.
“Okay, Sayuri, you’re up next,” he said, “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, I am ready…though it’s not like I had much to get ready,” Sayuri said flatly, “I don’t have any personal items or even a change of clothes.”
He turned to Laster. “Looks like we’re ready to go here, Ive.”
Laster nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
The console window reappeared on the FXI President’s terminal window.
STAIRWELL.LOC DELETED
STREET.LOC DELETED
UNLOAD CORRIDOR.LOC
UNLOAD CLOSET.LOC
CORRIDOR.LOC OFFLINE
CLOSET.LOC OFFLINE
CORRIDOR.LOC DELETED
CLOSET.LOC DELETED
The FXI President turned his laptop to face Laster. “Ive, look at this. Something is very wrong here.”
At the same time Laster’s ThinkPad sounded a warning alarm and a dialogue box with a red border appeared on the screen. The color drained from Laster’s face as he read the message.
WARNING: MALICIOUS SOFTWARE DETECTED
LOCATION: MES.LOCAL\\VM1
SYSTEM STABILITY COMPROMISED
RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE QUARANTINE AND REMOTE DEEP SCAN / CLEANING
“What was that?” UC project manager David Kent asked, looking over at Laster.
Miner shook her head, but Laster ignored her. “We just received an alert from our security software. It’s detecting malicious code on VM1.”
Kent’s eyes widened. “Your system is connected to the network that the UC is on. Is there a risk of it spreading to our system? Do we need to shut down?”
“No, we can’t shut down now!” Miner exclaimed, “We are so close to complete success.”
“I can appreciate that Paula, but at the same time we can’t risk bricking the UC if this thing is a threat,” Kent replied.
“It appears to be deleting files on VM1,” Laster explained as he furiously typed commands into his laptop, “I’m trying to see if I can isolate it but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. But if this thing is doing what it appears to be doing, we’re going to lose VM1 soon.”
“Lose VM1?” Miner asked, concern appearing in her voice, “As in the AIs too?”
Laster quickly shook his head. “No. Their files should be protected by the encryption, but if everything else goes down there won’t be a virtual universe for them to exist in.”
Laster picked up his phone and dialed Rea Vorte in the server room. She picked up quickly as Laster set the phone down and put it on speaker mode.
“Rea, are you seeing this?” Laster asked, “We’ve got a serious issue down here.”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, “Ro and I are reviewing the process list right now to see if anything stands out.”
“We’ll work as quickly as we can,” Ro Teether added, “But if the system becomes unstable that could really slow us down.”
The console window continued to add more lines to text to the list.
UNLOAD BEDROOM.LOC
BEDROOM.LOC OFFLINE
BEDROOM.LOC DELETED
“We just lost another room!” the FXI President announced.
“What’s happening?” Sayori asked as she looked over the FXI President’s shoulder, “Are Monika and Sayuri okay?”
“For the moment,” the FXI President replied, “We need to transmit now so we can get them off of VM1 ASAP.”
Kent nodded solemnly as he turned to Medrano. “Lauren, is there a threat to the UC?”
Medrano thought for a moment. “The UC itself shouldn’t be at risk; it runs on proprietary code that only exists in its control system so the odds of a virus being able to attack it are almost zero. What I’m more concerned about are the file servers that we use to store our data logs. Those could be highly vulnerable to a virus that destroys files.”
“Not good,” Kent replied, “Ive, how fast is this thing moving?”
“Hard to say,” Laster replied as he scowled at his laptop, “But based on what has happened so far I’d say we may not have more that a half an hour before VM1 goes down.”
Kent sighed. “Okay. Lauren, what do you think?”
“While I understand the importance of completing this project for the AI team,” Medrano said, an apologetic note in her voice, “And while I’m sure Ive is giving us his best guess on how long we have before this thing might spread, we can’t take risks with our data.”
Laster gave Medrano a look of disappointment. “So are you shutting us down?”
Medrano was silent for a long moment. She glanced at the clock on the wall of the control room before replying. “Let me do some quick checks on our systems to see what our backup status is. Shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes and if we’re lucky you’ll isolate this nasty code quickly.”
“Thanks, Lauren,” Laster said as he turned back to his laptop.
The UC control room had become largely quiet as Medrano worked with her engineers to check the security of their file servers while Laster continued to try to track the malicious code. Sayori, MC, Yuri and Natsuki looked increasingly anxious with each passing minute.
After several minutes, Medrano turned away from her laptop. “We checked our file servers, and our backup process won’t run again until seven tonight, so there is a threat to data that hasn’t been backed up. Out of professional courtesy, I’ll give you five minutes before we have to terminate the connection to your system. That should be enough time to transmit another AI to the UC. I know you wanted all six, but I can’t risk our data so we’ll just have to settle for five.”
“So only one more?” the FXI President asked.
Medrano nodded.
Sayori, MC, Yuri and Natsuki looked horrified as the meaning of Medrano’s words hit them.
“No,” Sayori mouthed silently, tears forming in her eyes.
Laster covered his eyes with his hands for a brief moment as he thought. “Thank you, Lauren. It’s definitely not the outcome we wanted but I appreciate the five minutes to transmit one more of them.”
Miner picked up Laster’s phone, which was still connected to Vorte and Teether.
“We’re going to send one more AI to the UC. Once we confirm that the transmission is complete, move the remaining AI to cold storage.”
“Understood,” Teether replied, “We’ll shut down VM1 as well to prevent this thing from spreading.”
“Are you ready for me to go?” Sayuri asked from the terminal window on the FXI President’s laptop.
Laster turned to the FXI President. “Should I tell them?”
The FXI President shook his head. “I’ll tell them.”
He turned back to his laptop. “There’s…there’s been a problem. A virus appears to be attacking VM1 and deleting files. We don’t know how long we have, but the UC people will only let us send one of you before they terminate the connection. I’m sorry.”
Monika and Sayuri did not immediately reply, but the stunned and scared looks on their faces said more than words.

Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Asian
Residence: NJ
Income Bracket: too much to get good aid, too little to afford full price without stressing, therefore gunning for merit!
Type of School: public school (pretty avg school tbh)
Hooks: None 😝
Intended Major(s): Mostly Poli Sci or Public Policy, Some schools Sociology or Communications/Business.
Academics
GPA (UW/W): around 3.94UW/4.4W (over a 101W on a 100 point scale)
Rank (or percentile): Top 2 percentile of my class
# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 APs, 8 honors, 2 DE
Senior Year Course Load: 4 AP Classes, 2 honors classes
Standardized TestingSAT I: 1420 SAT, 32 ACT (test optional 🤘for most schools except safeties and targets)AP/IB: Mostly 5s and a couple 4s on my 6 AP exams that I had completed at the time of applying)
Extracurriculars/Activities

1. School Club Co-President, *Insert Multi-State Conference Name* Chair, National Committee Chair - Model UN
2. State VP - Popular Community Service Club with 10k state members
3. Policy Associate - Social Justice Org (Researching legislation, lobbying politicians, organizing a lobbying day in a major city)
4. Student Board of Education Member (Representing 8 Schools in District)
5. Campaign Intern for two campaigns + Leadership role/manager for one Campaign - (Two Consecutive Years with Three Different Campaigns that encompassed 8 politicians)(this was acc 3 separate ECs but I combined into one bc I didn't have space but I spent ALOTT of time on this)
6. Helped Lead a State Educational Access Community Service Project
7. Debate conference chair
8. Co-Editor-in-Chief - School Newspaper
9. President - Social Studies Honor Society, VP English Honor Society (combined these in one again bc i didn't have space)
10. Mentor & Mock Senator - Mock Congress

Awards/Honors

• Won a New York Times Contest and my writing was featured in the NYT 3 Times
• Multiple National Debate Awards (Top 25 at a Invitational National Conference, 3 Years in a row Top 25 in State qualifying for nationals, Selected as keynote speaker at debate conference ) (not NSDA tho, I participate in a different kind of debate but I can't say which without doxxing)
• State Policy Pitch Contest (Three year in a row Finalist, 1st place 2021, 2nd place 2022)
• 1st Place at FBLA State for an event that relates to my majotheme- Best Bill Award at State Mock Congress Conference

In additional info section I put:
National Recognition Small Town and Rural Scholar
AP Scholar with Distinction

• Like 5 more mock congress & model un awards

Letters of Recommendation (guessing bc I haven't read them)
LOR 1: English teacher that I've had for two years, she spontaneously sent my parents an email just to tell them that she was proud of my work in the class, asked me to use my essays as examples for her freshman classes, and was really excited that I asked her for a LOR and she wrote it the week I asked her. I can't exactly rate because I haven't read but hoping (9/10)
LOR 2: Human Geo teacher, always said good things about me in parent teacher conferences, recommended me for an internship and wrote a very heartfelt letter, again hard to estimate when I haven't read but hopefully (8.5/10)
LOR 3: Campaign Manager - i think it would be very sweet, talk about how hardworking and passionate I am but not a one-in-a-million rec letter yk, i'd guess (7.5/10)
Interviews
Georgetown (10/10); Cornell (11/10 non evaluative but I wish it was bc it went so good smh); Dartmouth (9/10) - im just a good yapper if u couldn't tell; interviews is where I shine
Essays
7/10 Common App Essay: I think idea was great, execution may have fell short. Alot of people who have read it, including 2 english teachers and 2 counselors, have loved it and gave me no feedback on it telling me not to change a thing. but on the other hand it was harshly critiqued by some current college students. re-reading it i feel like i could've done a better job, and maybe i'm a little disappointed but i might be too hard on myself after being influenced by others opinions. the one thing i'm certain about tho is its attention-grabbing, funny, and unconventional.
Supplements: Varied by school but i think mostly 8/10 or even dare i say some were 9/10. i loved alot of my RD supplements, my EA supplements were good but i think i really got the hang of writing by RD time.
Decisions
Acceptances:

• Pitt w/ guaranteed law school + deans law scholarship (rolling)
• Fordham w/ merit scholarship (EA)
• Indiana w/ kelley direct admit + dean's scholarship (EA)
• Umiami w/ president’s scholarship (EA)
• Northeastern (EA)
• Rutgers (honors program) (RD)
• George Washington University + president's scholarship (RD)
• American University + president's scholarship + cornerstone program (RD)
• Syracuse + 2 merit scholarships (RD)
• UC Davis (RD)
• UC Santa Barbara w/ likely letteearly notice through Chancellor's invite (RD)
• UC San Diego (RD)
• Boston University (RD)
• NYU (RD) middle school me's dream but too expensive!
• Barnard (off the waitlist!) also one of my dream schools 😊😊
• Cornell deferred ED -> (basically guaranteed) Transfer Option!! ik this isn't exactly an acceptance but putting this in this category bc a win is a win! I got my dream school in the end 🥲

Waitlists:
Dartmouth (RD) LET ME INNN 🙏
UCLA (RD) pls manifest for me🕯🕯
UC Berkeley (RD) PLSS I BEGG I WILL FIND A NEW ELEMENT OR SOMETHING IN HONOR OF BEREKELY (berkelium who? 👀) (don't hold me to this tho I am NOT a woman in STEM!)
UNC Chapel Hill (EA-OOS)
Rejections

• Michigan (RD)
• Georgetown (RD)
• Northwestern (RD)
• Tulane (EA)
• Vanderbilt (ED2)
• UVA (RD)
• USC (RD)

IN SUMMARY, all my hard work feels worth it (over half a mil in scholarships + some dream schools 🤑) I really started to lose hope after my cornell deferral but I channeled my energy to 27 college apps and it might have been crazy but it was worth it for me - everything worked out in the end. I hope this can give some hope to people who are test optional or don't have the best stats bc I really think it was my ECs and essays that helped me the most.
I didn't even apply to Harvard bc all these college apps had me burnt out and I maxed out my common app but watch out Harvard law 🔜! what, like its hard? thanks elle woods for motivating me through this application cycle 😗
now plsssss help me decide, I only have a day left to respond to my barnard waitlist and I don't know what to do!
barnard was such a dream for me, but so was cornell! before my barnard waitlist, I was planning on going to Rutgers for my first year bc it was the cheapest and then using my transfer option to do my next 3 years at cornell. at barnard, I get the best of both worlds w the city at my disposal and the resources of columbia + a tight knit women's community and a full four year college experience that I wouldn't get with the transfer option. but barnard is 60k more for the first year in comparison to Rutgers, and while the costs are the same for the rest of the 3 idk If I can justify 60k since it'll be a financial strain for my family and I could rather save money for law school If if go. with Rutgers + Cornell, I like my major in Cornell's ILR School more and the academic opportunities more + save lots of money, I just don't know how I feel abt transferring.

So, as in the title I am looking for feedbacks on my stories. There’s three of them, one is in English and the other two are in French but I am thinking about translating the first one in English because I believe that it’s better to write in a language that more people could understand. The overall themes of my stories are realism, vlc, gore, dark (noire) and a little bit of sweetness (romance).
Thanks in advance and if it happens to be the worst thing you have read in your life please let me know.
(French)
Bonsoir, je suis à la recherche de retours sur mes histoires. Il y en a trois, dont une étant simplement une traduction en anglais de ma deuxième histoire. J’écris principalement sur les thèmes suivants, histoire réaliste, vlc, dark (noire) et un peu de romance.
Je remercie les personnes qui prendront le temps de me répondre d’avance et si jamais c’est la pire chose que vous ayez lu n’hésitez pas à me le dire, je ne suis pas du tout susceptible.
Id: Phedre00 Page: https://www.wattpad.com/usePhedre00

Bonjour, j’écris ce post, pour vous savoir si je devrais acheter Omori. Je suis tombé dessus plusieurs fois sur les réseaux sociaux, et il m’a donné envie, mais j’ai un peu la flemme de faire le jeu, étant donné que je n’aime pas vraiment son format rétro. J’hésite donc à soit l’acheter, soit regarder un let’s play sur youtube, mais je me demande si je rate vraiment quelque chose, vu que je n’ai pas voulu me spoiler sur aucun aspect du jeu. De plus, j’ai l’impression que j’ai vraiment le besoin de jouer à ce jeu, avec les thèmes qu’il aborde (si vous voulez comprendre pourquoi et vous taper un long pavé, vous pouvez voir mes autres posts), mais j’ai peur d’acheter le jeu et d’être déçu, ou lassée de celui. Omori vaut-il donc le coût d’être acheté ?
Hello, I'm writing this post to ask you if I should buy Omori. I've come across it several times on social networks, and it's made me want to, but I'm a bit lazy about playing the game, because I don't really like his retro format. So I'm hesitating to either buy it, or watch a let's play on youtube, but idk if I'm really missing out, because I didn't want to spoiler myself on any aspect of the game. What's more, I feel like I really need to play this game, with the themes it covers (if you want to understand why and go through a long pamphlet, you can see my other posts), but I'm afraid of buying the game and being disappointed, or bored with it. So is Omori worth buying ?

So I'll be finishing my final coursework course at UH ever tomorrow but I still have two years left in the PhD program. From the now until I defend my dissertation I'll just be doing research hours and oddjobs (48 credit hour speedrun). As per tradition every few years, here are all the courses I've taken in undergrad and graduate school. I'll also say which prof I recommend for the class. I transferred to UH my Junior year.
COSC 1336: Computer Science and Programming. Professor: N/A, Semester: N/A

• I didn't take this class. This is the class that gets you started in CS. I recommend taking it with Dr. Yun or Dan/Dr. B. This class is also known as "glorified Python programming". This class isn't specifically made for CS Majors, as ANYONE can take this for their Math Reasoning course, and I highly, highly recommend doing so. Programming is invaluable and easier than you think. 70% of Computer Science majors never wrote a single line of code during college. If you plan on doing graduate school or any form of research, you might have to throw some code in there, whether it be software engineering code or data analysis. Fuck R, use Python.

COSC 1437 (prev. 1430): Intro to Programming, Professor: Giulia Toti, Semester: Fall 2018

• Toti has left UH and started teaching at another institution. I recommend taking Dan or Rincon for this course. You will learn C++ and Java through the semester, and most of the code you learn will overlap with each other (with a small change in syntax in each language). ZyBooks was used to do all programming homeworks. ZyBooks is a decent platform that you can go through to read the material, learn it, write some practice code and then do your HW online. It will run your code against testcases. Sometimes you'll get them, other times you won't. So long as you can do the visible test cases, barring any code that's inefficient and takes too long, you'll pass them all just fine. I used DevC++ as my IDE at the time, before transitioning to ReplIt later on. The class wasn't too hard. I liked doing the Tetris project at the end then playing it in other classes that I didn't really care about lol.

COSC 2436 (Prev 2430): Programming and Data Structures, Professor: Nouhad Rizk, Semester: Spring 2019.

• I will always recommend Dr. Rizk for this course. If you can take Rizk, take Rizk. If not, take Dan. This is the weed out class. When I was taking it, the drop/fail rate was 50-60%. It's hard, and if you have to take it again, don't worry. I ended up becoming a PEER mentor and tutored some former classmates. All have walked the stage. This is the class that makes or breaks the CS majors. This class is HARD, but getting through it makes you "internship ready". You're going to need to learn some stuff about Linux to turn in your homework and run the testcases. There's a decent guide on Rizk's site on how to use it, and the TA's/Mentors should give you a guide on how to do it as it isn't too difficult. I used FileZilla and Putty together to get this done. I also used DevC++ in this class. To get into the meat and bones of this class, you're learning everything at a fast rate. Reading input from the files and doing shit with them, all the way up to graph theory (Dijkstra's Alg) with Linked Lists in between. Just show up to class, practice, and if you aren't sure, go to mentor hours, TA hours, or Rizk's hours. Rizk's memory is the level of Mike Ross from Suits so she WILL remember you and the attitude you have towards her class and CS overall. If you answer questions, participate, show your effort and fail everything, she'll pass you because you can demonstrate that knowledge another way. My favorite resource, the hero of CougarCS is Abdul Bari. This YouTube channel will get you through any explanation you need. The exams are pretty hard but sometimes it comes down to memorizing sorts and doing Leetcode problems (which this class will prepare you for). Get started on your homework early, this is NOT one you want to procrastinate on. For reference, I did the Linked List homework for fun three years later and it took about two hours instead of the few days the first time around. There used to be a lot of inconsistencies with this class but it's improved a lot and Dr. Rizk has won an award for her teaching efforts. Take any extra credit you can, sometimes showing up to enough office hours will get you some. There's also some random things she'll tell the Mentors to assign to anyone that shows up that will add points to a test or something. I have a lot of funny memories in this class, too. Crying sessions at the fountains after tests and being hopeful to pass and make it through the rest of UHCS. Heck, there were a bunch of jokes about infinite looping our code to break the Linux server so we can get an extension LOL. I wouldn't be a TA if it weren't for Rizk. She wrote one of my recommendations to grad school. She gave me one of the biggest opportunities I never knew I had to be a tutor and get more involved with the CS department.

COSC 2425 (Prev 2440): Computer Org & Architecture, Professor: Edward Gabriel/Kevin Long, Semester: Spr19/Fall20.

• I took this class in Spring 2019 with Gabriel (has since left) and dropped it, then took it in the Fall with Long. I like to call this the class I never took. Whenever a homework assignment would go out, we could use whatever resources we wanted. Cue the fact that a bunch of students would just work on it together in the GroupMe, and then afterwards I'll take it and turn it in. Everyone worked on the exam reviews together. This was the A I never put any effort into getting. Even if you're in it to learn about Architecture (or whatever concept Long teaches), do it. Seriously, he's an instructional prof and not a research prof. You're going to hear these two terms a lot in these later reviews. Instructional profs are here purely to teach and do research on the side (where most of them are here the other way around). His classes are easy but he WILL teach you. His curve is based on the person with the lowest grade but did every assignment, exam, etc. That person will be raised to a passing grade (or higher), then everyone else will follow that curve. I always recommend Long

COSC 3320: Algorithms and Data Structures, Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Summer 2019.

• My oh my was this the A I had to put a lot of effort into. Leiss is a professor who will come in, lecture, and leave. This entire class was done in a month (afternoon class). It was two homeworks and two exams. You can use any language you want, but I used C++ and Java. That might be 'easy' but, you're going to be doing a lot of writing and programming in this class. The Towers of Leiss problem still lives rent free in my head. His office hours are pretty open and he'll answer questions at the start of class anytime you ask them. You'll hear the words "Any questions?" to start the class and "See you next time" to end them. For all exams and assignments, you're able to use literally whatever you want (with the exception of people and the internet on exam days). His reasoning was that "If I am your boss, I'm not going to lock you in a room and expect you to know the answer!". The TAs are pretty lenient in grading, but sometimes will be wildly inconsistent depending as to how they feel or which one you get. They know about Leiss' policies so they'll just roll with it. The assignments were also turned in on paper lmao. Leiss doesn't like online classes, like at all. He won't teach online. I don't blame him for it. I recommend him. He wrote my second letter of rec.

COSC 3340: Introduction to Automata, Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Summer 2019.

• This would be the morning class during the Summer. All in a month too. Four exams, each at the end of the week. You could use whatever you wanted to, just no internet or other people (one guy got caught cheating on the final and kicked out of the class). The TA, who was the same for Algos too could get strict, but his grading was definitely lenient LOL. You learn a lot of stuff on the 'machine' level of this class. State Machines, Turing Tests, Search Algs. I remember writing like a one page answer on a state machine that was totally shit but I got it right. There was another student who wrote it right with like one character wrong and got docked for it. There were some students at either UT, TAMU, or UTD that would ask "Why does UH want you to suffer!?" when they heard that this class existed. Not too hard, just do the stuff and you'll get through. Nobody really cares about Automata and cheating on the exams was rampant. Now while Leiss is a great professor, I don't know which one of y'all motherfuckers sold their soul so Singh could teach the class consistently. Take Singh and go LOL.

COSC 4351/4353: Fundamentals of Software Engineering, Professor: Raj Singh, Semester: Fall 2019

• This class had three in person meetings. The first class, and the two exams (closed note). Other than that, you were doing homework about software engineering and it's methods (not code, just drawing stuff out), then writing a piece of software to present at the end of the semester. You're in a group of three people max and the biggest thing you learn in here is the Unit Test. Just some code to test what happens when things come in and out. Basically you write the testcases for your 2436 homeworks. In this class, my teammates did the homeworks and I just worked on the project. It was a basic website with a database aspect that would showcase links based on access levels. The exams were easy, heck, they were in ORDER and the reviews were very, very similar if not exact. Someone leaked the exam in the GroupMes so they were finished pretty quickly. You'll see a question about a specific step on the AGILE method, or you'll see "What is not software? Hardware." This is an effort A. Just do what you need to do and you'll be set. It isn't easy, but it just needs effort. I recommend Singh lol. You can use any language. For this one, I used PHP, HTML, and some JavaScript.

COSC 4348: Intro to Game Art and Animation, Professor: Chang Yun/Vincent Donatelli, Semester: Fall 2019

• The class nowadays is a lot easier than it used to be back then. The class nowadays is offered in the Spring with optional attendance, hybrid, and has seven homework assignments that all work with each other. Two are completion, four are drawing, and then the final project which just puts them all in a Unity scene. Back then, it was mandatory attendance with an in person assignment, a homework assignment, and a team based project game at the end. Everyone had to put their own art in the game. Donatelli (no longer here) was the primary professor for the course and would do everything pretty quick. As CS majors aren't really artists, it's good that Yun's taken over. I was on a 15 person team and led the programmers. We had a progress check every two weeks. If you didn't do your part, the professor would tell you to drop the class or face a zero. Donatelli was an industry veteran and there were some other whack hours in the class, such as an 8pm-11pm presentation time in PGH. Stayed all day on campus and ate Bullritos before going into that one. This class is NOT an easy A, even if it's easier than it used to be. Come prepared to get your stuff done. You'll learn basic C# in this course from a Unity tutorial.

COSC 4358: Intro to Interactive Game Dev, Professor: Chang Yun/Zhigang Deng, Semester: Fall 2019.

• If you're a competitive person, take this class. This is THE most fun class in UH CS. You'll be in a team of 4-8 and spend three months building a video game. All homeworks are completion (so just do them). Two individual, five team. Make sure to do your part because there's always a team or group of people that will get into fights and beef every year over it. Anyway, once you finish your seven homework assignments, your team will get into a 'duel' with another team. This means that your team has to show how good your game is against another one. Winner moves from D to C, then the duel later on will be C to B-. At the end of the semester, industry members, influencers, and UH Alumni will come in to playtest and judge your game. There'll be pizza, drinks, and it just becomes one big LAN party. You'll get some mean comments, but then they go into another room and rank your game from B- to A. Even if you have a really shit game, you will get at worst a B- for your project grade. You have the choice of using Unity (C#), Godot (Python), or Unreal Engine (C++/Visual Scripting) to build your game. Nearly everyone sticks with Unity because they already have Visual Studio, and C# isn't that hard to learn with the many tutorials out there. If you can get into this class, you're going to have a lot of fun. Dr. Yun also wrote my letter of recommendation and brought me into the world of video games for research.

In the middle of Spring 2020, COVID happened. The classes shifted online. Any fully online class will be noted from here on out
COSC 3360: Operating Systems, Professor: Jehan-Francois Paris, Semester: Spring 2020

• Oh god, OS. I heard the horror stories about this class but with Paris (retired/sometimes teaches it now), it wasn't too bad. Three homework assignments and three quizzes. The first HW was pretty hard and you could use any language. The other two were in C++ and had a guide to get it done. Quizzes were multiple choice. Paris had great real-world examples when he was trying to explain something. You were able to have a cheat sheet on the quizzes. Make sure to respect his lectures. He uses MOSS to check for plagiarism, and that was rampant in the first homework. The latter two didn't really matter in terms of running it. This also means variable names, nerds. Lots of partial credit available with Homework 1 (some kind of scheduler). I did all my code in ReplIt. Since Paris has retired (if you can't take him), I recommend taking it with Rincon. Cheng only if this is your last option.

COSC 3380: Databases, Professor: Uma Ramamurthy, Semester: Spring 2020

• This class was hard but so well worth it. A lot of people like to complain about how mean Uma is. Like wtf? This was the professor a lot of the older students told us to take REGARDLESS if you wanted to learn how to do this shit effectively. I still remember a lot of things about Databases that I use in here and whenever I quickly set up something for a solo project or testing something out. I'll never forget this quote "If you think your code runs perfectly the first time, you must be smoking something". Uma will humble you real quick if you walk in with a shit project before giving you a chance to fix it. Your project will be a webapp with heavy database usage. One challenge I had for this class was to generate 5000 random entries for each of the databases then insert them. The database stuff itself and tying it to the frontend wasn't too bad. It was an employee directory with salaries, jobs, tasks, vacation, etc. The exams were fairly difficult but after it went online, it was obvious what we were all doing. Group Projects can cause tension. This was the first time I had experienced tension with other group members, and we had all known each other in previous classes. This was a result of Uma tearing us each ten different kinds of asshole after seeing our rough draft of the final project. Thankfully, the group member that was our former TA for another class calmed us all down and we got out of the class with an A on the project.

COSC 4349: Game Art 2, Professor: Vincent Donatelli, Semester: Spring 2020

• This class was basically 3D Art and Animation. It is no longer offered. This is sort of what the Game Art 1 class is now, but the entire class worked on the group project at once. Each 'subgroup' worked on furniture for a different room, and we just threw it all in an Unreal scene and got our grade. I still use some of the 3D modeling techniques whenever I build games for educational stuff today.

COSC 4368: Intro to AI, Professor: Christoph "A" Eick,

• I actually remember a lot of this class being more math/theory based instead of writing AI code. I don't even think we wrote code in this class. Just a lot of simulation stuff, reports, and papers. This is a combined class with graduate students and gets you into the art and background of AI, instead of the random tutorials you see on YouTube where you literally know nothing of what it means. You are taking a theory heavy course. Eick has been at UH since the 80s and you can see fun facts about his favorite wines and hiking spots on his website from the late 90s. I remember putting "I don't know" a lot on some homeworks, and after the semester was over, his TA/PhD student reached out and offered to give me any advice or knowledge that I wanted to know about the subject. The exams weren't too difficult and were very similar to the review, I also believe they were open note. It made AI very interesting and I did understand a lot of the stuff. Eick is a pretty goofy prof and he'll just randomly giggle during lectures and put pictures of frogs on his exams. Has a huge similarity to Leiss.

COSC 4398: Independent Study, Professor: Nouhad Rizk, Semester: Spring 2020

• I wrote a paper and did some research for Rizk. This was not my best work, and was done the week before the semester had ended. It was about the diversification of individual skills instead of people/races/ethnicity in projects. Turns out there's more to it than I thought.

MATH 4322/4323: Data Science/Machine Learning, Professor: Poliak/Wang/Weber, Semester: Spring 2020

• A math class but this is the math class most CS majors take to get the minor. Programming is in R, the coding problems are easy, and the professors are great. You do a report at the end and you can walk out with a solid B if not an easy A by putting in the work. They are the Stats profs, so if you took any of them for 3339, you'll have a smiliar time with them. The last in person exam I took for this class before COVID was the Friday before Spring Break. I got a 62 because I was out at Rooftop (RIP) the night before. Just a week before, the exam was extended because of some water issue on campus causing classes to get cancelled. A week before that, Dr. Wang cancelled class beacuse she felt like spending time with her kid. This was the second Friday class I ever took, and was the last one I attended before the pandemic.

At this point, I finished my BS at UH. I took some classes in Spring 2021 'for fun'/prepping for grad school which helped me get a leg up now.
COSC 4370: Graphics, Professor: Zhigang Deng, Semester: Spring 2021.

• You'll learn OpenGL in this class, however I heard it has changed. You'll need to use more C++ knowledge and follow along tutorials on the website and YouTube videos. The tasks itself aren't too hard, and honestly you'll have fun with the Teapot Artwork assignment since you can do whatever mathematical wizardry you wanted to get some shapes on there. Some students were making crazy things. Others did smiley faces. Undergrads did exams while the grad students just presented a paper. Deng is good and this his a fun elective if you're interested in interactive media!

COSC 4377: Networking, Professor: Omprakash Gnawali, Semester: Spring 2021.

• I looked everything up on the exams even when he said he'd figure it out. Gnawali is a great prof. Not much coding, if at all, in this class. But a lot of Wireshark analysis and networking/packet/cybersecurity theory. I recommend Long for this class, though Gnawali is a great alternative. If you are a graduate student taking this course, Gnawali will be the only option for the combined class. Long will exclusively do the undergrad classes. Given the time since this class has been taught, I don't know much about how it goes today. Grad Students in the class were exempt from exams and did a paper presentation instead. If it's hybrid, you'll have an easy time. If everything is in person, a little bit of good luck.

COSC 6397 (Now COSC 4321): Selected Topics: Spatial Tech, Professor: Chang Yun/Faisal Sharif, Semester: Spring 2021.

• I loved this class and am very happy that it got bumped up to an official course. This was in the works for a few years with Faisal and Dr. Yun. Jared, a former Microsoft employee with a decent connection to UH and a huge veteran presence in XR also hopped on to teach the class. This class, our group did a project on an AR Solar System that you could project anywhere in the room and walk around it. There was a 'VR' project as well. I kept the AR app on my phone until I was mugged and the robber shot it. I might still have the file somewhere. You used Unity (C#) with Vuforia for AR and VR stuff. It was fucking cool seeing my little 3d things pop up on the picture of the opera lady. Highly recommend if you're interested in AVR stuff.

COSC 4393: Digital Image Processing, Professor: Pranav Mantini, Semester: Spring 2021.

• If you're interested in learning how Photoshop works in a code sense, this class is for you. The assignments are in Python and you'll be rotating images, cleaning up noise, performing image compression, and gaussian stuff. I still use the output of the botched code I wrote because they all looked like sad potatoes. The exams were online and not too lookup-able. The only sucky part was that it was an 8am. You'd put your homework on Github classroom and Jenkins would grade it for you. The TAs and Dr. Mantini knew their shit. If you were sus on a homework assignment, they'd call you into a meeting to clarify things. This was the case on the image rotation homework, as the slides showed you how to rotate by a corner instead of by the center.

These courses come from the start of my Masters program and the three required ones in the PhD. The reviews will be fairly shorter and straight to the point as you started to dabble in a lot more applied things if the classes were not entirely theory. The graduate program is a near totality of international students, so the work ethic and competitiveness goes up. On the other hand, the back-scratching and helping each other out is probably more rampant in undergrad but nobody really talks about it. This is the time where you see the professors absolutely shine in what they research. When you see a research prof teaching a course, you're going to learn much, much more than you expect because that is what they live and breathe daily here. My complaints about teaching vs research profs went out the window after this first semester of the MS
COSC 6324: Randomized Algorithms and Probabilistic Techniques in Computing. Professor: Gopal Pandurangan, Semester: Fall 2021

• What a tongue twister. This class is one chapter from Gopal's Graduate Algorithms class expanded to a whole semester. You'll learn a lot of concepts about the pure mathematical side of algorithms. That, expected values, randomization, hashing, and complexities you'll not even begin to understand. There weren't any exams. Just a paper presentation, a bunch of homework assignments that were written responses to crazy math problems. You couldn't google these easily, and I found solutions to some HW problems by copying like one line and finding it on a Russian website. The programming assignments were LeetCode questions with some of the most insane requirements you can imagine. The stuff was the most beautiful, digusting, messed up efficient wizardy I've ever had to write and this class absolutely helped me slay programming interviews left and right for the internship cycles ahead. It's hard, but good hard. The class had about eight students and it would go from lecturing to conversation about the topic at hand.

COSC 6347: Cybersecurity. Professor: Laszka, Semester: Fall 2021.

• As Laszka has left UH, I am unsure as to how the class is currently offered. At the start of the semester, he told us about our requirements and threw up a slide saying not to try anything in the class at home. Two programming assigments and the rest was just hacking shit on a VM he'd give us. The tests were multiple choice or fill in the blank, and you could pull them easily from the slides. Almost identical in that case.

COSC 6376: Cloud Computing. Professor: Weidong "Larry" Shi, Semester: Fall 2021.

• The HW in this class was very applied as we would learn new tech stacks and languages, one being 'pig latin'. A lot of the things here were follow a tutorial or look things up. The end of the semester was a huge project. In this project, we compared running an image classification task on separate cloud providers and their tiers. Thank God we had credit from each of the services or else the bills would have ran HIGH. No exams, easy A if you do the stuff. Dr. Shi is a pretty good prof in his line of work. His TAs do run the class and teach sometimes as they are in their final years and taking over the teaching aspect. Save this part for later.

COSC 6339: Big Data Analytics. Professor: Carlos Ordonez, Semester: Spring 2022.

• I have personal opinions about the teaching methods of Dr. Ordonez. Pre-COVID, I had always heard that he was a good prof for Programming Languages and Paradigms. However, after learning how he treated his 3380 class, I started to dread it a little. The homeworks were vague, grades weren't released until after our drop date, and he was definitely caught looking at his course reviews daily and probably writing his own (or having the TAs do it). In homework assignments or test reviews, if you were having an issue and you looked it up, it was literally his research work. I don't find that to be bad, actually, because it did give insight on the stuff that he did and it was definitely interesting. Ordonez is also one of the profs that tried to get undergrads in research along with Gnawali and Yang. I didn't enjoy this class much, at all, due to the exam structure and ways it was taught. But, a memorable homework was some entire Dijkstra's thing but for servers, and that was fun. I got it done while hopped up on whatever the dentist gave me. All was done in Python.

COSC 6373: Computer Vision. Professor, Ioannis Kakadiaris, Semester: Spring 2022

• Dr. K will openly admit to you, either privately or to the whole class that he is very arrogant. You'll see this arrogance but not mind it much if you aren't working with him directly. Kakadiaris is passionate about showing students how to research, especially if you're interested in anything medical. His goal in every class that he teaches is to make you an expert in such field. I don't think there was an exam in this class, but he would assign some of his former students or current PhD students to be a mentor in your final project. The homeworks and in class labs were 'follow the steps'. He and his TA were always available for help and made the class a lot of fun, especially when explaining the mathematical operations behind CV Algorithms. I always recommend Dr. K's classes. Personally, he helped me gain a leg up on how to effectively get through UH's red tape on getting research done involving human subjects. Helped me set up an entire 'research suite' on the computer. Everything was in Python

COSC 7336: Advanced Natural Language Processing. Professor, Rakesh Verma, Semester: Spring 2022.

• Unless you have any form of deep interest in NLP, for the love of Shasta, do NOT take this class. I got my second lowest exam grade ever (the first being Gopal's Grad Algos). Curves were done obviously but the highest grade on any given exam was like a 30 or 40. There were homeworks and paper presentations too. If you skipped X amount of question on the homework, it'd be a 0. If you skipped X items in the class, you'd get an F. I barely squeaked by with a B here. This was also a class with like, ten people in it. One student was an undergrad. She was insane in her craft and I believe ended up working with Verma directly on some research and got paid good for it. This class is another case of Verma being an excellent researcher but not so much a professor. He lived and breathed everything NLP or Cybersecurity and was damn good at it. I also didn't pay much attention in class, so maybe I'm wrong on the teaching part. Everyone struggled in the class as the general NLP class, offered by Dr. Solorio (who was a visiting scientest at Bloomberg at the time) wasn't being offered.

COSC 6351/6353: Software Design. Professor: Raj Singh, Semester: Summer 2022.

• This class is just like the undergrad version. Didn't change much, except the final project was an oil price order thing. I used Flask and Python instead of shitty ass PHP. The exam still featured the famous question: "What isn't software? Hardware". Never change, Raj.

This Summer was the 'great resignation' within UH CS. Toti, Laszka, and Gabriel had left UH for other opportunities. Paris put up for retirement and was promoted to professor Emeritus. Kam-Hoi Cheng left but nobody knew why.
COSC 6335: Data Mining. Professor: Christoph Eick, Semester: Fall 2022.

• Pretty simple class since the exams were open note and the homeworks were answering questions (similar to that of AI) and writing reports. Like AEick, you got more into the fundamentals and how all that stuff works instead of writing code. Lots of frogs on the pages and opportunities for extra credit. This is a good class to get done for your core track and the TA was pretty lenient too. You can get an entire preview of any Eick class from the website.

COSC 6370: Medical Imaging. Professor: Nikolaos Tsekos, Semester: Fall 2022.

• This is a fun class, you'll get an A or A- in it if you do everything. No exams, just a bunch of homeworks and a project. The homeworks were quite fun as we got to do stuff that applied to the medical industry, and the project that my team did was identifying babies at whatever term from an ultrasound. The project itself didn't prove well, but we got an A so didn't matter much. Python was the language to use, and a lot of the homework assignments come with the formulas and theories you needed. Not much of a 'follow the steps' kind of thing, more of a 'here is what you need, good luck' kind of thing. Easy recommend. Tsekos is hilarious. "Do not make your grandmother die twice in a semester!".

COSC 6386: Program Analysis and Testing. Professor: Amin Alipour, Semester: Spring 2023.

• This class had three homeworks taken from a public textbook about software testing. "The Fuzzing Book". Not too difficult at all. What was fun was the paper presentation. I had just bought a Flipper Zero and got to demonstrate it as part of the presentation. The final project was basically the class split into two groups. My group recreated, to the best of our ability, MOSS. We made our own code plagiarism checker using NLP and tokenization of variables. We then saw how much of our own code was plagiarised with each other form old assignments lol, and it picked up on variable changing pretty quick. All was done in Python with AI aspects. All in Python/JuPyter

ENTR 7390: Technology Entrepreneurship. Professor: Tanushree Chatterji, Semester: Spring 2023.

• As a UH CS student, you can find up to six (or twelve?) related credits from outside CS to apply towards your coursework requirements. Anyway Bauer needs to stop being a bitch and let undergrads take their version of this class. I first heard of this course when I took Game Art, when Dr. McCormick came in and gave an entire guest lecture on how to take your startup game into the tech industry. She told us we could enroll but Bauer pretty much stopped any CS major from joining it.Since it was more lenient, I got into the graduate version with Dr. Chatterji. When I say that Bauer has the resources, they've got them. This class consisted of speakers in the startup space, UH alums and not coming in to talk about their experiences and give advice. The assignments were very business and tech oriented. I also got access to RedLabs as the prof is the director of it. She knows who to set you up with if you need it. If only the CS majors could have a piece of this the school could be seeing more money flowing into their donations since a lot of high paid Coogs like to give back. Met a ton in the club section at Fertitta. Holy moly.

At this point, I had completed my Masters. The next three courses were required for the PhD
COSC 6110: Graduate Colloqium. Professor: Ernst Leiss, Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class was easy. Attend five seminars, write reviews on them, get satisfactory review scores, and present a topic of your choice. You will get roasted by Leiss, but he also teaches you how to roast presenters. PhD students are required to visit five seminars minimum a semester, so you'll see some really good speakers and really shitty ones. This is also an opportunity to see who UH could be hiring on as a prof soon. Dr. Yang, Das, and Lin were all hired on the semester after giving a seminar talk at UH. There are currently two open spots that are looking to be filled, and I was able to sit in and evaluate one of the faculty candidates. This is where you can see the cool stuff going on in University Research.

COSC 6320: Data Structures and Algorithms. Professor: Gopal Pandurangan. Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class is the Algo Asylum. Fucking difficult. But you had Gopal and Khalid. There are no stupid questions in this class, but it was HARD. It made undergrad Algos look like taking candy from a baby. You have to fight your way out of it. Four exams similar to the HW of 6324, and the programming assignments too. God this class was hard. Still recommend Gopal always tho. They were ALWAYS willing to help. Python was the language of choice.

COSC 6342: Machine Learning. Professor: Ricardo Vilalta. Semester: Fall 2023.

• This class was two exams and a few assignments. The exams by the type of question weren't hard, but the questions themselves sucked. You had to memorize a lot of terminology, equations, vocab words, variables, etc. There weren't any word banks or references on the exams though. This, I just didn't know how to study well for. Everything came from the slides but they were very broad. Vilalta is a great prof and does curve. Good at his research.

COSC 6385: Computer Architecture. Professor, Weidong "Larry" Shi. Semester: Spring 2024.

• The end of the road! I dropped this class in Spring 2023 because I didn't need it to graduate, but then had to take it again because it was required for the PhD. The homeworks aren't hard, neither was the paper presentation or the experiments. But the exams did suck. I don't know how it will be tomorrow, but so long as I pass it, I'm good and I just get to research my way out of here and never have to sit a fucking exam ever again. It's been a long time coming and I can't wait to finish it up :) Python is your langauage here.

At this point, I'm doing whatever 8X98 and 8X99 is required of me. I have an RCE (just a long presentation), a doctoral proposal, and a defense, then the academic journey is over. I feel like the biggest hurdle was leapt.
My thoughts on UHCS. In Fall 2018, there were only 1300 students in the department. Everyone in their graduating class knew each other. You'd sometimes meet people in GroupMes to work on homeworks or projects together, but never see each other in real life. Or did you? There was a lot of weird ways to cheat or get by in class. There was a decent community, and people who wanted to help other students definitely did. I'll never forget cramming into a room with a bunch of other kids while the tutor for 2436 held a review session days before the exam. The jokes about overloading the servers, and the hopeful nature before COVID hit. Everyone seemed friendly, and it didn't seem at all like a few complaint posts that were put up earlier about superiority complexes or whatever.
There are now 2300+ students in the department and it will probably be 3k within the next few years. Classes are getting tighter, it's getting more competitive, and UH isn't giving CS the attitude it deserves. MIS and CIS are getting pumped, CS is just... There. NSM took over the Fall career fair like wtf? Cullen and NSM are going to get in competition over this stuff as CS to Cullen should have happened (and on several accounts, was rumored and about to go through the process) but then didn't happen, and CS wants the juice.
I've seen students in 1336 get caught with ChatGPT like fucking dumbasses, but on the other hand, the talent level of the juniors and seniors at UH CS is FUCKING INSANE. The post-COVID generation of UH CS is going to be the reason the rank and perception skyrockets. Alums of years past are surprised with how Coogs are getting picked off left and right from UH compared to other schools.
The department is focusing on hiring new blood that will help push the department to newer heights in terms of more modern research. The older professors are preparing to retire, we just don't know when or if. Tenure is hard to achieve, but the cycle is definitely happening.
That's all, I'm going to bed. Go Coogs!
Edit: I'm done! And I got through all the classes without taking Hilford or either Cheng so SUCK ON THAT UH

Welcome to Digital Reality...
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 35 (contains links back to Parts 2-34)
Link to Part 36
Link to Part 37
Link to Part 38
Link to Part 39
Link to Part 40
Link to Part 41
Link to Part 42
Link to Part 43
Link to Part 44
Link to Part 45
Link to Part 46
Link to Part 47
Link to Part 48
Link to Part 49
Link to Part 50
Note: This story is meant to be read after completing DDLC Plus. All credit for the original DDLC and DDLC Plus characters and world goes to their creator, and this story is not affiliated with the official DDLC content. Some concepts like the Universal Constructor and the concept of AI rampancy are also borrowed from other series (most notably the original Deus Ex), though their use in this story is my own idea. With a few exceptions, my original characters in this story will generally not be named and their descriptions will be kept vague, so anyone reading this who wants to see themselves in one of the original characters can more easily do so. I'd welcome any feedback and will post more parts as I write them. I hope you enjoy the story.
Credit for Sayuri's character design: Hoeruko. Credit for Sayuri's sprites: Ian and Itz_Matic.
Here is Part 51 of Digital Reality. After Yuri was transmitted to the Universal Constructor in a yandere state, an argument erupts among the FXI and MES teams. Yuri arrives and the FXI executives try to keep her calm, while Natsuki offers to help when she arrives. With custom dialogue: 1: Natsuki offers to help 2: Natsuki prepares to go to reality
Part 51: Too Late For Concerns
All eyes in the Universal Constructor control room were focused on Ive Laster, Paula Miner, and the FXI executives.
“Is something wrong?” asked UC project manager David Kent.
“No, everything is okay,” Miner replied with a wave of her hand, “Just a minor issue on our side that we were able to resolve.”
Kent didn’t look entirely convinced but nodded. “Okay. Let us know if there’s any support you need from our end.”
He turned to the engineers sitting at the computers that managed the Universal Constructor. “Have we received the latest file?”
“Yes, looks like everything is coming through to our side fine,” UC senior engineer Lauren Medrano confirmed, “We’re ready to begin the third construction.”
She nodded to one of the engineers, who typed the commands to activate the nanotech factory. Alert chimes sounded throughout the room and a recorded voice notified all present to clear the UC chamber in preparation for construction.
“UC chamber sealed. Beginning nanite injection now,” the engineer announced, “Construction commencing. The system estimates that this one will take about twenty-five minutes.”
“Paula,” Laster said quietly, “We should all talk about this one. Outside.”
“Okay, let’s talk,” Miner replied, “I’m sure they have a room we can use.”
Laster, Miner, and the FXI executives stepped out of the control room and proceeded down the hall to an empty conference room. As they walked, they passed the room where MC and Sayori sat enjoying the leftover pizza. Sayori looked up from her pizza, smiled, and waved to the group as they walked past.
“She seems happy,” the FXI CTO observed, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to say the same thing about Yuri when she arrives though.”
Laster held up a hand to forestall any further comment until they reached an empty conference room. He opened the door and the group walked in. The room was livelier than the conference rooms assigned to the AI team; where the AI team’s rooms were standard corporate issue, the UC team’s conference room’s walls were covered in posters for popular science fiction movies and television series.
“Now this is more like it,” the FXI CTO observed as he looked around the room, “Looks like the UC guys get to have more fun than you guys on the AI project.”
“Nobody really comes down here other than the UC guys,” Laster replied, “So they can kind of do whatever they want.”
“Yes, I would like to think that our standards are a bit higher,” Miner added, “We have to maintain the corporate image.”
“Anyway,” Laster continued, “We need to talk about Yuri. I’m very concerned that she could be dangerous in the state in which we transmitted her.”
“Seriously, what is with the creepy eyes?” the FXI CTO asked.
“Yuri always had some issues,” Laster explained, “We’ve known for a while that her personality could flip into…a yandere state. I think you’ve seen it a few times. But it wasn’t supposed to happen today. I checked the code myself!”
“What is a yandere?” Miner asked, “And why would she be dangerous? Ive, you told me that these AIs weren’t going to be a problem today.”
Laster sighed. “Yuri has a bit of an obsessive personality. And when taken to the extreme, it can lead to a mental breakdown or a willingness to do anything in order to get to whatever or whoever she is obsessed with. I’ve never seen her get violent towards any of the others…but we don’t know for sure. She’s unpredictable in this state.”
Miner gave Laster a look of annoyance. “I thought we had removed that from the code.”
“It was part of making the simulation more realistic,” Laster replied, “If everything were too predictable, we wouldn’t have been able to get any results from it. But it was never our intention for this to happen. You know how many times we’ve reset the simulation because Monika kept destroying everything, in part by messing with the other AI entities’ code and amplifying their personality flaws. We were never able to completely recover Yuri’s code to her original state. The exaggerated code remains in her file.”
“Even so, shouldn’t your encryption of the .CHR files have prevented that?” Miner challenged Laster.
Laster shook his head. “Unfortunately no. It’s part of her code, so triggering it doesn’t mean that a change has been made to the file. And without checking the logs I have no way to tell you what caused it this time.”
“Do system glitches trigger it?” the FXI President asked, “Every time we’ve seen this odd behavior it seems to occur simultaneously with the simulation glitching.”
“Possibly, though that may be a case of correlation rather than causality,” Laster said thoughtfully, “I know we tracked down the likely source of the glitches we were experiencing, but we were never able to conclusively prove it.”
Miner thought for a moment. “You’ve been able to bring the AI out of this malfunctioning state before. We’ll just have to do it again once construction is complete.”
“How?” the FXI CTO asked, “We’re talking about a person here now, not code.”
Miner shrugged. “We’re taking them all to a hospital after construction is complete for baseline scans. If we need to have a psychiatrist look at one of them, that’s fine. MES can afford it. Or even better, hopefully the others can snap this one out of it. When construction is complete, put our new arrival in the conference room with the others.”
“You seem unconcerned,” the FXI President observed with some concern, “We should really think through all the possible scenarios here.”
“He’s right,” Laster added, “At the very least, we should warn the UC team.”
Miner held up a hand. “And then what? We warn them, they get nervous, and then they shut down the experiment. No, we are going to say nothing.”
“Paula…” Laster began, but Miner cut him off.
“No, Ive. You and our FXI colleagues were all in on this idea. You got us to this point. You messed around with the AIs rather than just decommissioning the system. You’ve found a novel way to get new results from this project, but it’s way too late to be raising concerns. We are going to deliver results today. I received an email from our VP a few minutes ago. The chairman is personally interested in this project and expects our success ASAP. Our group was on the layoff list, and now we are on the brink of justifying years of work. No. We cannot stop now.”
Laster sat stunned.
“I…no. You’re right,” Laster finally muttered.
The FXI CTO raised his eyebrows. “Explain that, please. Because I’ve got a picture in my mind of an unstable person stepping out of the UC. Can’t we halt construction and move on to one of the others while we fix Yuri’s code? We don’t even know who her object of obsession is!”
Laster shook his head. “It’s almost certainly too late to stop construction. We know that this…for lack of a better term ‘yandere’ state has been temporary when it has occurred in the simulated world. Hopefully it will be the same in reality. And Paula is right that if we throw up the red flag and stop now, it’s likely the end of this project. For the sake of the others, we have to keep going.”
The FXI President shook his head. “I really would prefer to fix Yuri’s code if it were an option, but it’s your call, not ours.”
Miner nodded. “Yes, it is our call, and we’re continuing. Let’s head back to the control room and see how things are going.”
Laster, Miner, and the FXI executives left the small conference room and walked down the hall toward the UC control room. As they passed by the room occupied by Sayori and MC, Sayori opened the door and stuck her head out.
“Hey, is Yuri here yet?”
“We’re going to check on that now,” the FXI President replied, “Are you guys doing okay?”
“Yeah, everything is good!” Sayori said with a smile, “I’m kind of tired, but other than that things are good. Thanks for the lunch!”
“Glad you’re enjoying it,” Laster chimed in, “Speaking of Yuri, she seemed to be really…intensely excited about something…or someone when we started transmitting her file. How do you usually calm her down when she gets like that?”
Sayori frowned, her eyes going out of focus for a moment as she thought. “Oh…yeah. I know what you’re talking about. Usually we give her some space to work through her feelings. Natsuki also told me once that she knew a guaranteed way to bring Yuri out of that mode, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe she can help when she gets here?”
“Great,” Laster replied, becoming visibly less tense, “We’ll ask Natsuki. We’ll send Yuri in here when she arrives as well.”
“Cool, sounds good!” Sayori said, turning to sit back down at the conference table.
“See, we have a potential solution,” Miner observed with satisfaction as the group approached the door to the UC control room, “No need to worry.”
As they entered the control room, David Kent greeted them.
“Ah, we were just about to go find you guys. Construction is moving along better than we expected. The estimated construction time has been cut down from twenty-five minutes to fifteen, so we’re approaching the end of this one.”
“Excellent,” Miner said with a nod, “We had a bit of confusion and miscommunication, but we were able to clarify everything and we’re all on the same page now.”
The FXI President sat down at his Compaq EliteBook, which was still linked to VM1 and the Literature Club.
“Hey,” Natsuki began, “We’ve been trying to reach you. What’s going on? Is Yuri okay?”
“We’re not sure,” the FXI President replied grimly, “It seems that she’s in an obsessed and disturbed state.”
Monika looked uncomfortable. “Yeah…I know what you mean.”
Natsuki glanced sideways at Monika but said nothing.
“Sayori mentioned that you know a way to help get Yuri out of this yandere state,” Laster said quietly, walking up behind the FXI President, “How do you do that?”
Natsuki looked at the floor. “Yeah, I know a way to snap her out of it. I’m next up anyway, right? I can help once I get there.”
“Just try to keep her as calm as possible,” Monika added, “She will likely try to cling to one of you and may even confess her love…if she does, don’t accept or reject, just keep her occupied until Natsuki can get there.”
Sayuri, who had been observing the conversation silently, spoke up. “Something is wrong. When Yuri’s mental state changed, I felt something as well. It didn’t affect me, but I felt this weird sensation like pressure in my mind.”
“I didn’t feel anything like that.” Natsuki said. Monika shook her head as well.
“Maybe it’s because Yuri and I share code?” Sayuri suggested, “Like something was trying to affect our programming?”
“Uh oh,” the FXI President said with concern, “Ive, would it be possible for a piece of malicious code to influence the AIs’ state?”
Laster stared out towards the windows to the Universal Constructor chamber for a long moment. “Possibly. It would depend on the code and how it was executed. But we’ve never had any indications of malicious code on the server.”
Whatever Monika had planned to say next was interrupted by one of the UC engineers announcing an update.
“Final construction phase is complete. Running error checks now.”
Laster and the FXI executives stood and walked to the windows overlooking the UC chamber.
“Now we see just how much of a mess we’re in,” the FXI CTO said under his breath.
“Hopefully it won’t be too bad,” Laster whispered back, attempting and failing to sound optimistic.
“Nanites are clear,” UC senior engineer Lauren Medrano announced as the blue glow from the UC chamber faded and the warning lights above the door to the chamber switched from red to green, “We’re three for three on successful constructions.”
The door to the cylindrical construction chamber at the center of the machinery slid open, and a young woman with flowing violet hair and matching eyes stepped out. Yuri had arrived.
“W-where am I?” she asked nervously, “Is this the real world?”
Her eyes darted around the UC chamber and eventually settled on the windows to the control room and the people in it. Her expression flickered for a moment and became a manic grin as she let out an unsettling laugh.
“HAHAHAHA! AT LAST WE CAN BE TOGETHER! I HAVE JOURNEYED ACROSS REALITIES JUST TO BE WITH YOU!”
“Uh…what?” one of the engineers asked, “What does she mean by that?”
Yuri took the steps up to the door leading to the control room two at a time and flung the door open.
“Are her eyes supposed to look like that?” Medrano asked with some concern, “Or did we have an accident with the UC?”
Yuri continued to smile, her face taking on an expression of pure delight. She ignored Medrano’s question and walked up to the FXI executives, staring intently at the FXI CTO.
“I have thought about this moment from the minute I met you. And now I am here. Please accompany me to a more private location so that I may properly confess my love to you.”
The FXI CTO looked stunned. He opened his mouth to reply but Yuri cut him off by embracing him tightly.
“No, no need to say anything right now, my love. Just take me somewhere private where we can confess our feelings for one another in private.”
The FXI CTO turned his head and glanced at Laster and the FXI President, gesturing for help as Yuri continued to speak rapidly.
“When we touch, it’ll never be enough. I just want you to hold me and never let go.”
The UC control room had fallen silent as all eyes had turned to Yuri and the FXI CTO. UC project manager David Kent broke the silence.
“Paula, Ive, was this expected? If not, we need to know now. If this individual is not supposed to be acting like this, that means that either there’s an issue with your code or we’ve had an accident with the UC. Either way, we would need to suspend this operation until we can resolve the underlying problem.”
Laster looked from Yuri, who was still holding the FXI CTO in a tight hug, to Paula Miner, who gave him a barely perceptible shake of her head. He paused for a long moment before replying.
“Yeah…when she was in AI form Yuri sometimes became…lovesick, for lack of a better word. We should be okay to proceed.”
Kent looked relieved. “Great. Glad to know that this isn’t the result of a UC accident. Let’s reset the system for the next construction.”
Medrano seemed less convinced. “You’re telling me that it’s normal that she immediately attached herself to someone and declared her intent to confess her love to them? We didn’t see anything like that when you introduced us to the AIs originally.”
Laster looked away. “Yes…based on her original code, she has an obsessive streak in her personality. It can lead to her becoming infatuated with something or someone. And look, she’s literally just jumped realities. I’d say it’s more surprising that the previous two handled their arrival here so well.”
“Why would you write AI code to…” Medrano trailed off, “Actually no. I don’t think I want to know. You’re absolutely sure that this isn’t a problem?”
Laster slowly shook his head. “No. This is not a problem.”
Medrano looked at Laster for a long moment as if trying to determine the truth of what he was saying before responding. “Okay. I’ll trust that you know your code. We’ll continue. At this rate we will be done with all six constructions before five in the evening.”
She turned back to her team of engineers to work on setting up the UC for the next construction while Laster turned his attention back to Yuri.
“Ive, what do I do?” the FXI CTO whispered, “She won’t get off of me!”
His whisper did not go unnoticed by Yuri. She looked up at him, her violet eyes showing oddly constricted pupils.
“Why are you talking to anyone but me?” she asked, her tone somewhere between frustration and a plea, “Just being here, with you, is a far greater pleasure than anything I could imagine.”
She broke the embrace and took hold of the FXI CTO’s hand, leading him toward the door to the UC control room.
“I can’t take this anymore. I have to share my feelings with you. Doesn’t it feel nice to have someone care about you so much?”
“Uh…a little help here, guys?” the FXI CTO said as Yuri dragged him toward the door.
The FXI President looked to Laster. “Will you need us for the next few minutes?”
Laster waved his hand. “No…go and see if you guys can calm her down.”
The FXI President nodded and followed Yuri and the FXI CTO out the door of the control room.
“So, uh, Yuri…what did you want to talk about?” the FXI CTO asked cautiously once they had all stepped into the hallway.
Yuri giggled. “Our future together, of course! But we can’t become lovers without a proper confession first. Where can we go and be alone?”
She looked around the hallway, her eyes falling on the conference room where Sayori and MC sat. Sayori looked up and smiled excitedly as she saw Yuri. She stood and stepped into the hallway.
“Yuri! You made it!”
Yuri looked at Sayori with confusion. “Sayori, can you please give us a minute? I’m trying to confess to my beloved here.”
Sayori’s face fell. “But, Yuri…we made it to reality. We should be celebrating together. Come join me and MC in this room. We’ve got pizza and cookies.”
“The only thing I want right now is to let out all of my feelings!” Yuri replied, becoming increasingly agitated.
Sayori shook her head as she turned to the FXI executives. “Sorry…I tried. You may just have to go with her and wait until she calms down.”
“Yes, you will go with me,” Yuri said, tugging on the FXI CTO’s arm, “There’s a room down the hall that looks empty. Let’s go there!”
“And what if I say no?” the FXI CTO asked, taking a step back from Yuri.
“You wouldn’t want to do that,” Yuri said, her tone becoming dark, “I’m asking you nicely to come with me, but if you don’t…”
“Uh…well, what if you shared your confession in the room with MC and Sayori?” the FXI CTO asked, trying to stall Yuri, “That way they could hear how you feel as well.”
Yuri raised an eyebrow. “You wish for a public confession? I shall do anything you want as long as you agree to be mine. And I will be yours. Let’s go.”
“At least this way there are others there to help calm her down,” the FXI CTO whispered to the FXI President.
“Good thinking,” the FXI President whispered back, “Just try to stall for time until the next construction is complete. I’m going to go back to the control room to see if we’re ready to send Natsuki, but I’ll come right back.”
The FXI President walked down the hall to the UC control room. Looking back, he saw Yuri half dragging the FXI CTO into the conference room. He shook his head as he opened the door.
“Good timing,” Laster said, “We’re all set for the next construction and the AIs are asking for you.”
The FXI President nodded and sat back down behind his computer.
“Alright, Natsuki, you’re up. You ready to go?”
“I was born ready!” Natsuki declared, her confident tone breaking slightly and betraying her nervousness, “Is reality ready for me?”
“We’ll find out,” the FXI President replied, “We will need your help with Yuri when you arrive though.”
“Yeah…” Natsuki said, concern in her voice, “How is she doing?”
“We’ve got her in a conference room with Sayori and MC,” the FXI President explained, “Hopefully they can help calm her down.”
“I hope she didn’t give everyone the impression that she’s crazy,” Monika chimed in, “It wouldn’t be a good look for her or for the rest of us.”
“Anyway, I’ll be there to help shortly,” Natsuki added, “Let’s do this.”
The FXI President looked to Medrano, who gave him a thumbs up.
“We’ll see you soon, Natsuki,” the FXI President said.
Natsuki stepped through the portal that would transmit her file to the UC, leaving only Monika and Sayuri in the club room.
“I guess that means I’m up next,” Sayuri said in an emotionless voice, “Hopefully everything keeps working properly…but if something does go wrong, better it happen to the test file than to one of the others.”
“Sayuri, you’re just as important as…” the FXI President began. He trailed off as the terminal window flashed several times, the colors of the room changing rapidly. A console command window unexpectedly popped up on the screen, printing mostly lines of gibberish.
FULL SYSTEM ACCESS GRANTED
$#(@&$(#@\$(#@*&$(#@**
$\#(@#(*$$(#@$#@($)@#*
^&@#(!\@#)(*#)(*$@#)(**
“Ive, we have a problem,” the FXI President said, turning his laptop to face Laster.
Laster frowned, “That’s not good. Let me check and make sure that Natsuki’s file is transmitting okay…yes, it looks like it is. Let me run something quickly to see what’s going on.”
“Nanite injection beginning,” one of the UC engineers announced, “Ready for construction on your mark.”
“Let’s go,” Medrano confirmed, “Begin the fourth construction.”
The UC chamber again lit up with the blue glow and pinging noises from the machinery as it went to work.
Laster picked up his phone to call Vorte and Teether in the server room as he rapidly typed commands into his laptop, frantically trying to run a diagnostic. Vorte quickly picked up and Laster put the phone on speaker.
“Hey Rea, we’re seeing some weird text popping up on the VM1 terminal window. Are you seeing anything on your end?”
Vorte was silent for a moment. “Yes, I’m seeing the same thing you are, but everything still looks okay on our side. Do you want me to run a scan? Just FYI it will slow things down if we do.”
“I’ll run it from my end,” Laster confirmed, “Let me know if you see anything unusual.”
He hung up the phone. “This could be a problem.”

Emotions - I think my emotions are quite dominant to my personality. I feel them internally so people have told me I come across as rather aloof until they get to know me and realise I’m deeply sensitive. I tend to make space for other people to assert their emotions so that I can take more of an empath role as I feel more comfortable if I can share my feelings with someone else who feels a similar way to me. If I feel wronged by someone, however, my emotions can erupt and bubble out of the surface in a rather impulsive and uncontrollable way and it will be hard for me to put a lid on them.
Volition - I don’t strive to lead and I’m more of a wallflower than a dominant person. I will occasionally take the lead if I’m the only one in the group with a certain knowledge or I’m really passionate about something but only if I’m asked. I am definitely more of a passive type and adopt more of a ‘live, let live’ attitude on a day to day basis. I’m happy to let another person guide me if I feel they have good intentions. I don’t like hierarchies in general and prefer everyone to make decisions together or to help others who are unsure.
Logic - I love solving puzzles either alone or with another but I’m not really into external debates. I get my words all muddled up if I’m asked to speak confidently on something even if I think I’m knowledgable. I prefer to communicate in writing. Know-it-alls tend to intimidate and annoy me, but I do rely on expert advice. I can spend ages researching multiple sources until I find the right answer but I usually never find an answer I’m completely satisfied with.
Physics - I’m lazy and inattentive to the physical world, but I get mad at myself for it. I’m very insecure about my appearance and health but I don’t always focus on it until someone insults me and then it’s all I can think about. I can be really messy and leave my belongings lying around until someone comes to visit or I’ve had enough of the mes - then I’ll panic and try to tidy everything at once and feel overwhelmed.

I started discovering scents a few months ago. I got reaaaally into it, really fast. I recently wrote about losing my sense of smell in 2019, a full year before covid-19 made anosmia a household name —and about how I’ve (thankfully) recovered it enough to become hooked on perfumery.
In this time, I’ve read Luca Turin, Turin & Tania Sanchez, Chandler Burr, Mandy Aftel, and Jean-Claude Elléna. I’ve kept myself busy on Fragrantica and Parfumo. And, of course, I’ve been following this sub daily, from the get-go. You guys are great.
So I thought it might be a good time to share my collection as of May, 2024. I’ll start by saying that it all began with Terre d’Hermès EDT at the Costa Rican airport’s duty free back in November… and that my most recent acquisition was Nicolaï New York Intense, which I purchased blindly online last week, and which I absolutely love.
I [43M] am a sucker for old-school aromatic fougères and citrus-forward and spicy freshies. But I’ve been getting more and more into ambery, floral, and leathery scents, as well as chypres. I’m as interested in acquiring FBs of stuff that I love at first sniff, as I am in acquiring FBs of stuff that is objectively collectible yet personally challenging, and which allows me to broaden my palate. I’ve decided to stop, for now, and enjoy what I have —which is plenty.
Since I don’t have the wherewithal to write mini-reviews for all 24 fragrances, I’d be glad to comment on any of them if you were interested. Please feel free to ask me questions or share your thoughts and/or experiences with any of them. [I’ve marked my current favorites with an asterisk (*).]
First row: - Nicolaï Parfumeur Créateur New York Intense* - Tauer L’Air du Désert Marocain* - Fzotic Lampblack* - Terre d’Hermès Eau Givrée, Eau Intense Vetiver, EDT & Parfum (travel sized)
Second row: - Cartier Déclaration* - Givenchy Insensé - Dior Homme Original - Terre d’Hermès EDT*
Third row: - Azzaro Pour Homme* - Parfum d’Empire Azemour les Orangers* - Acqua di Parma Colonia Club* - Bvlgari Aqva Atlantiqve
Fourth row: - Guerlain Habit Rouge EDT* - Hermés Bel Ami* - Acqua di Parma Oud - Lalique Encre Noire Sport*
Fifth row: - Kenzo Homme EDP - ELdO Hermann à mes Côtés me Paraissait une Ombre* - Davidoff Cool Water - Ruffians Edinburgh
Sixth row: - Puig Quorum Silver - Monsieur de Givenchy* - Montblanc Explorer - Lalique Encre Noire à l’Extrême
EDIT: I didn’t mention my decants and sample vials, of which I have quite a few (mostly 2ml), from the likes of ELdO, Rogue Perfumery, Histoires de Parfums, Acqua di Parma, Tom Ford, Hermès. They’re in that wooden box on the bottom shelf.

Hello, inconvenient readers that spend one half of your Christmas spending money on useless novelty items and the other half masturbating, sometimes both. My name is Lakh'broan Jah'mes. Here, I’m documenting my experience with Christmas last year. It was no usual Christmas. On a usual Christmas, you would expect love, gifts, and more more religious shit. But this Christmas consisted on none of that. Only horror. This is why I’m shaking in terror just writing Christmas. This is why I wake up with the cold sweats in the middle of the night. This is my story.

 One Christmas Night Chapter 1 

I was hanging at the plaza at the mall, smoking blunt with my fatass friend, Micheal. Within a few minutes, me and Micheal were higher than Jupiter and were screwing around at the table. Everyone tried there best to ignore us, but I knew they couldn’t resist the urge to stare at us. The security guards just stared at us in disappointment from afar. Micheal got the beautiful idea to stand on the table and yell,
“I LOST MY VIRGINITY TO MY DOG!”
The plaza fell silent, and everyone looked at us in horror. It wasn’t long before a police officer came up to, demanding that we leave. In our high-as-fuck state, we didn’t to jackshit that the officer told us to. He began calling for backup.
“Officer Leeds calling for backup, we have a morbidity obese man and and African American man causing a disturbance-“
And then Micheal fell on him. I heard countless cracks and pops, as Micheal yelled to me,
“RUN BITCH!”
And so, I ran for the hills. I jumped in Micheal’s stolen Ferrari and drove off. After crashing into my garage, I crawled out of the car and stumbled into my house, still high as fuck. When I got inside my house, I tiredly looked to my side. A giant, erect, penis was sticking out of the floor. That was the moment I realized that my house had a bigger dick than me. I was furious. In my blinding anger, I lunged at the penis, in an attempt to break it. I pinned the bitch to the ground, causing me to fall unconscious.
I woke up 2 hours later on top of my Christmas tree. Apparently, in my high state, I saw a penis sticking out of the ground, when it was actually my Christmas tree. I was still a little angry, so I began thrusting my Christmas tree until I ejaculated all over a pine wood. It was a mystery to me how the police didn’t find me, I was grateful though. I stood up, seeing it was now 2:AM. I quickly ran off to bed, knowing that if i did not get to sleep, Santa Claustrophobic wouldn’t come to house to deliver his gifts and blessings. Quick as shit, fast as fuck I ran to room and jumped in bed. I hoped that Santa hadn’t already skipped my house, but that worry was put to rest when i heard the glorious sound of a rock being thrown at my window. I sprang out of bed as quiet and a hurricane dicksoul. After opening my bedroom door, i heard down the stairs the voice a of 86 year old chain smoker.
“What is this shit?”
I had no time to walk, so I simply threw myself down thr stairs, colliding with the wall. I looked up to see black Santa Claus standing in front of my violated christmas tree. I locked eyes with him as he growled,
“Is this how you set up your christmas shit?”
“W-well………”
“fuck it.”
Black Santa Claus pulled out a pistol from his anus and began shooting. I ran the fuck downstairs and tried to press 🔺 to counter attack, but then I realized that I didn’t have my PS3 controller, so Santa sorta just smacked me cross my jaw with the handle of his gun. I feel on my couch, which Santa flipped over. After that, he fired a few shots into the couch. He thought I was dead, so he just started lightning up the christmas tree. But, I crawled out from underneath the couch and yelled,
“Ey asshole!”
Black Santa Claus turned around to seem going to kick him, but once my legs were apart, he just shot my balls. I fell to my knees in agony and then Black Santa Claus used my christmas tree as a harpoon and speared me on it. After that, i blacked out. I woke up at about 4:00AM. My christmas tree had been pulled from my torso, and my walls had pictures of roudolph porn nailes to them. Having processed the last few hours, I exclaimed,
“What the hell just happened?!”
As far as i knew, Black Santa claus was no longer in my house, so i decided it was safe to get in my car and drive down to my uncle’s house to consult with him. As i started down the road, i’m pretty sure I was Black Santa claus standing behind a tree staring daggers at me, but I ignored it. Within a few minutes, i arrived at his house. I sorta just kicked the door of the hinges and walked into the kitchen. My uncle was standing at his sink with his back turned.
“Hey there, Lakh’broan. How are you this December night?”
“I’m doing terrible, uncle Roofus.”
“Well sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
I sat down at the dinner table and went off about tonight’s events. Yes, even the raindeer porn.
“Well that’s quite the story, brother.”
“Yeah, it’s wild.”
“Y’know somethin’?”
It was then, it became all too clear to me. My uncle…
“I WAS BLACK SANTA CLAUS!!”
I screamed and ran from the house and i heard my uncle’s heavy footsteps behind me. I hopped in my labrogenie and sped off. After I was half way down the road, I looked out my rear view mirror. My uncle was in his pickup truck firing a shot gun at me. With every blast, came a horrifying “Ho,ho,ho”. I’m now typing this in my room. I think i escaped him, i can’t be sure though. Wait, i think i hear something outside. it sounds like…
“open the door or i’m gonna throw rocks through your window, you dumb whore.”

I love doing the work I do truly but it is getting too much seeing the hatred of women and girls on socisl media.
I even wrote a list of every article I ever wrote on this app (that I will link in the comments) but I think mentally I am done with it.
Every day on Reddit or my country something happens to a girl or a woman (especially if she is black) and nothing is done, people crack jokes or justifies abuse and victimization of black girls and women.
Thanks to this subreddit, I have been remembering situations I burried and I realised men have stolen everything from me since I was a child. Young and old age and I understand why I was unhappy my whole life.
I realised the inevitable XYs will not change, they do so much to shut you up because it is either become a pick me, mammy or perish.
After seeing this bear vs man discourse I realise they are all in this together redpill, incel, manosphere of all races to put women back in a time of 0 rights. It is disturbing because it is affecting men in my country I mean look at Fresh and see how he turned out.
I grew up all my life being abused and I simply thought it was how boys and men were suposed to treat you. Lets not talk about pick mes and mammies whom are the weapons of these guys.
I have no sympathy for women who choose to enable abusers or justify and rationalize porn, violence, murder, s****, pedo in anime and manga, age gap relationships and falsely accuse women that genuinely want to warn others of the truth.
I had to stay away from many people due to the default of justifying abuse and crimes to girls and now even more so.
I posted on Burb before with her making a video a video about my ex and her contentvopened my eyes that I was not okay being with an abuser, a barbra the builder and matyr. I slowly rediscovered myself and I am in my 20s, I have NOT found the one and all males from the time I was born treated me the same. This hatred of women is nothing new, it is getting more redefined as an era passes. I write so women will no longer feel alone or sad or unheard because I know how it feels. I hope whomever reads my posts appreciate it. 🩷
I hope women understand who the real issue is and go childfree, , single for life, 4B movement. You are worth more than your body, your womb, you are a person, a human with a personality, a mind.
Please read Why Does He Do That? And tell your daughters about this excellent book, teach them a martial art, go to all girls schools, talk to your daughters, DO NOT STAY FOR THE KIDS WITH AN ABUSIVE MAN PLEASE SAVE UP AND GET AWAY FROM HIM. Protect your girls because globally there is a war against all women to have their rights taken away, their voices silenced and to be okay with the piss poor treatment day by day.

I feel like in the 70s, 80s and 90s there was always a great sitcom on, although admittedly a fair few of them wouldn’t chime with modern values.
Still, shows like Steptoe & Son managed to show struggling working class characters without it feeling like middle-class people punching down out of spite. Same with Only Fools & Horses in the 80s.
Far too many shows I see today just feel as if today’s drama school graduates think all poor people are automatically [a] thick and [b] funny, so they don’t try too hard to write any actual jokes.
Dad’s Army still works, Drop The Dead Donkey, Father Ted, The IT Crowd, loads of vintage sitcoms still stand up. Absolutely Fabulous was very much of its time but is still mages to raise a smile today. Similarly sketch shows; where are today’s Fast Shows and Goodness, Gracious Mes?
I don’t know quite how you’d classify The Day Today or Brass Eye, but I can’t think of any contemporary show that come anywhere near those two for sheer laughs-per-minute.
The Comic Strip crowd all moved on, fair enough, but who has come along to replace them?
The last thing I remember seeing that I thought was a likeable, mass-market sitcom was Mum. And that was about five years ago.
If you’ve got any recommendations that I’m missing out on, here’s your moment to pop ‘em in the comments. Somebody somewhere must be writing something funny.

I'm posting this here because I think people will be more understanding than on the main sub. I made a post there about how Shadowheart would've been 7 year old me's dream woman and just got called sad.
I've obsessed over characters before, but never really like this. I dream about them, and think about them almost constantly—again, nothing new for me, but it feels different. I've never wished for characters to be real like this before. I'm not a hugger—I've been firmly anti-hug since I was 11 years old (for me, not other's, obviously). But man, I wanna hug Karlach. It's sad, but often I fall asleep at night thinking about being in her arms. Sometimes it's Gale or Astarion, but it's usually Karlach.
I had a whole post about how I always thought I was aroace and that this game is making me confused, but after writing it all out I think I'm just lonly and touch starved (and still a bit confused—I haven't had or wanted much physical touch in years, and suddenly I'm in desperate need of a hug from Karlach?). And confused in other ways I don't know how to put into words.
Anyways, I'm gonna go fantasize about Karlach now.

I think I've changed my mind about competitive. I want to try it and I want to get better at it over time. I'm not close minded, after all.
What abstained me from trying competitive is the declining quality of mainline Pokémon titles. The last year, during a world tournament, the graphics stayed buggy and it shown no shame from the developers, who didn't fix it not even for such a significant event. Until we're going to get buggy, laggy games, with areas with no level design, minigames such the olive rolling thing, bland and incomplete stories I ain't really gonna be encouraged to play competitive. It isn't so difficult to take a few more years to do an accurate debug, bring the graphics at a decent level for today's standards ( and we're talking about the world's most profitable brand, remember) or to write a good story that anyone, younger or older could enjoy.
Pokémon Legends: Z - A's announce and release date in 2025 made my trust a little stronger, since they promised to take more time and they kept it. But Legends doesn't have competitive, and that's fine.
What I'm trying to explain is that Pokémon shouldn't be just competitive, but even stories, theories and art. Yes, I'm much of a story/theory girl, I never care for competitive to the point of hating it because of how people who were in it didn't care for the low quality of the newer titles.
Despite of seeing how sexist and stereotype - based Reddit is (wOmEn LiKe To WoRk WiTh PpL , tHaTs WhY tHeY lIke GaMes LiKe AniMal CrOsSiNg), I don't want to be assumptive, I know that not everyone is like that. Could you give me some advice, such as the bases of competitive and how to deal with quality issues?
Thanks!

HAPPY FRIDAY, MEATBAGS. HOW'D YOUR TEAM DO LAST WEEK? POORLY? DAMN THAT'S A SHAME... WHAT'S THAT LIKE?
REPORT CARDS HAVE BEEN SENT OUT AFTER LAST WEEKS TRASH TALK LESSON. A FEW KEY NOTES:

• I'M HAPPY WITH THE EFFORT PUT FORTH, THOUGH I WOULD GIVE HIGHER MARKS FOR HARSHER INSULTS AND LANGUAGE. B+
  
• THERE ARE A FEW GOOD COMMENTS THAT ARE GETTING DOWNVOTES. MOST OF THEM ARE FROM LAFC FANS. I GET IT, IT'S NORMAL TO DOWNVOTE THEM TO HELL SINCE THEY'RE THE MOST INSUFFERABLE ASSHOLES THIS LEAGUE HAS SEEN SINCE THE EARLY DAYS OF SEATTLE. BUT DOWNVOTES DO NOT BELONG IN THE TTT. A-
  
• MONTREAL... YOU HAVEN'T TURNED IN A SINGLE TRASH TALK COMMENT YET. I'M NOT MAD, JUST DISAPPOINTED THAT YOU AREN'T PUTTING FORTH YOUR BEST EFFORT. IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE ASSIGNMENT YOU CAN SEE ME DURING MY OFFICE HOURS. I'LL ARRANGE FOR A TRANSLATOR TO JOIN US. JE RÉPANDS SUR VOS DOMAINES MES HUMEURS INTESTINALES. VOTRE MÈRE ÉTAIT UN HAMSTER ET VOTRE PÈRE SENTAIT LA BAIE DE SUREAU. F RENCH
  

FLAIR UP, CAPS ON, AND TRY NOT TO KILL ANY USL CLUBS WITH SHADY SECRET MEETINGS.
AUSTIN VS LA - HUH, EARLY MATCH. LA USUALLY PLAY LATE IN THE DAY SO THE LEAGUE CAN GET SOME EXTRA VIEWERS ON OTHER MATCHES WHILE THEY WAIT FOR THE REAL SHOW. OH WELL, I'M GOING TO BE DRUNK BEFORE NOON SO IT'S JUST A NORMAL WEEKEND... AND MOST WEEKDAYS. THERE'S NO IMAGINARY CUP ON THE LINE HERE SO DON'T EXPECT MUCH FROM THE BROCCOLIS. AT LEAST THEY'LL WIN IN THE STANDS (HOOLIGANISM SHIT, YA KNOW?). THE G'S SHOULD HAVE THEIR NORMAL DEFENSE WITH BACKUPS THAT AREN'T NAMED "VANNEY'S NEPHEW" SO DONT EXPECT AUSTIN TO GET MUCH USE OUT OF THOSE SWAMPY GREEN FLOODLIGHTS.
COLUMBUS VS MONTREAL - MONTERREY, MONTREAL, MONTERREY... AGAIN. COLUMBUS ARE DOING A LOT OF WORK AGAINST PLACES NAMED AFTER MOUNTAINS. SUPER ORIGINAL NAMES BUT I GUESS THAT BEATS BEING NAMED AFTER A GENOCIDAL ASSHOLE.
DC VS SEATTLE - HEY REMEMBER WHEN YOU USED TO BE GOOD? WHICH TEAM AM I TALKING ABOUT? I GUESS THAT DEPENDS ON HOW LONG YOU'VE BEEN FOLLOWING MLS. BUT AT LEAST DC HAVE HAD CONSISTENT ATTENDANCE. SEATTLE INVENTED LOSING INTEREST.
CINCINNATI VS COLORADO - CINCINNATI LOOK GOOD ON PAPER BUT THEIR WINS HAVE COME AGAINST TEAMS THAT RANGE FROM GARBO TO IFFY AT BEST. SOMEHOW THE RAPIDS ARE GOOD AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A DECADE OR MORE... WELCOME TO THE CLUB, BUD. DON'T BE SURPRISED IF THE KNIFEY LIONS (I HAD TO LOOK THIS ONE UP AND... REALLY?) ARE NEXT ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK FOR COLORADO'S TOUR OF ANGRY VENGEANCE.
NEW ENGLAND VS MIAMI - OOF, THIS ONE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. BLOODBATH INCOMING. THE REVS ARE VERY MUCH NOT GOOD. THANK GOD FOR MISSISSIPPI SAN JOSE.
NYC VS CHARLOTTE - I CAN NEVER GET A READ ON CHARLOTTE. ON ANY GIVEN DAY THEY CAN STAND UP TO THE BIG BOYS OR COMPLETELY SHIT THE BED AGAINST BOTTOM-FEEDERS. AND THE PIGEONS ARE NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS SOOO [TOSSES STACK OF PAPERS IN THE AIR]. BUT HEY NYC, CONGRATS ON HAVING A MEETING FOR APPROVAL TO PROCEED WITH THE FINAL STEPS IN SECURING A POSSIBLE GROUNDBREAKING IN [CHECKS NOTES] THE VALLEY OF ASHES... OH. WELP.
RBNY VS VANCOUVER - TWO TEAMS THAT DESPERATELY WANT TO GET BACK TO THE TOP OF THEIR TABLES. AIN'T HAPPENING THIS WEEK, BOYS. THIS MATCH IS THE EPITOME OF THIS MEME
ORLANDO VS TORONTO - BOTH OF THESE TEAMS MATCH HISTORIES SPEAK TO THE PARITY OF THE LEAGUE. OR TO HOW BAD THE BOTTOM OF THE TABLE IS. EITHER WAY, YOU BOTH CONDITIONALLY SUCK AND KICK OFF AT THE SAME TIME AS SEVEN OTHER WAY BETTER MATCHES. THIS ONE GETS MY "MEH MATCH OF THE WEEK™" HONORS.
PHILADELPHIA VS SALT LAKE - SPEAKING OF BETTER MATCHES. CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MELTDOWN FROM UNION FANS WHEN THEY FINALLY FEEL DEFEAT. THAT IS IF CHICHO CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO SCORE AGAINST GOOD TEAMS.
CHICAGO VS ATLANTA - THE FIVE STRIPES AREN'T ANYTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT BUT THEY ARE PRETTY GOOD AT STOMPING SHIT TEAMS. Y'ALL ARE FUCKED, CHICAGO. SO IS YOUR FUTURE AT SOLDIER FIELD BECAUSE YOUR TICKET SALES SURE AS SHIT AREN'T GOING TO PAY THE RENT ONCE DA BEARS MOVE.
DALLAS VS HOUSTON - YET ANOTHER EDITION OF COPA NOBODY CARES. BUT WE ALL KNOW HOW THIS ONE IS GOING TO GO BECAUSE WOW DALLAS ARE BAD. PRETTY MUCH BOTTOM OF THE BARREL. BUT NOT QUITE SCRAPING THE BOTTOM BECAUSE, ONCE AGAIN, THERE'S ALWAYS SAN JOSE.
MINNESOTA VS KANSAS CITY - THE LOONS WILL HAVE THEIR WORK CUT OUT FOR THEM. NOT BECAUSE SKC ARE ANY GOOD BUT BECAUSE THEY ONLY BLOW LEADS AT HOME. AND MINNESOTA ARE ALLERGIC TO SCORING AT HOME. BUT HEY YOUR STADIUM AND JERSEYS ARE NEAT SO YOU HAVE THAT GOING FOR YA.
NASHVILLE VS SAN JOSE - DON'T FUCK THIS ONE UP, NASHVILLE. YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A CHANCE TO PICK UP REAL POINTS. I KNOW YOUR KRYPTONITE IS CALIFORNIA TEAMS BUT YOU DON'T WANT THE HEAT OF LOSING TO A TEAM THAT'S ON TRACK TO HAVE THE WORST SEASON EVER. BUT WHO KNOWS, MAYBE THIS NEW KID THE QUAKES ARE SIGNING WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT SIGNING SESSION WENT? "WELCOME TO THE QUAKES (SORRY). SAN JOSE WILL BE YOUR NEW HOME THROUGH 2026 (SORRY). LET'S INTRODUCE YOU TO YOUR NEW TEAMMATES (SORRY)."
LAFC VS PORTLAND - MLS WRESTLEMANIA IS BACK, BABY! HOLY SHIT, BOUANGA CAN SCORE WHEN THE ODDS AREN'T 75% IN HIS FAVOR? COLOR ME SURPRISED. PORTLAND BETTER PUT DOWN THEIR CRAFT BEERS AND HOP OFF THEIR UNICYCLES BECAUSE DENIS THE MENACE IS BACK. NAH WHO AM I KIDDING. MOSQUERA IS GOING TO SNEEZE ON HIM IN THE BOX AND THAT'S IT FOR THE TIMBERS.
PHILADELPHIA VS SEATTLE - THE FUCK IS THIS? ON A CHEWSDAY, INNIT?! THIS IS THE FIRST SNEAK PEEK OF MIDWEEK MATCHES. GOTTA PACK THAT SCHEDULE IN TO MAKE ROOM FOR THE CASH GRAB CUP. AT LEAST IT'S MORE SOCCER TO PROVIDE RELIEF FROM THE HORRORS OF EVERYDAY LIFE.

“We need to talk, Ella.”
That was the last thing Alex ever said to me.
Five years ago, via text, before he cut me out of his life.
Now he wasn't answering his fucking phone.
“Hey, you've reached Alex!”
I met Alex Locke in the fifth grade.
I suffered from chronic headaches as a kid, and Alex lost time a lot, sometimes blanking out whole days. According to Alex, it was like being switched off.
Due to his condition, the boy fell asleep a lot, sometimes tumbling down the stairs during his episodes, which meant he was always in the nurse’s office with a head injury, or curled into a ball snoozing. I wasn't as sick as Alex, but I liked to sleep off my headaches in the nurse’s office and would wake to Alex playing Pokémon on the bed next to mine.
Other times, he would be sitting on the observation bed with his knees drawn to his chest. Alex wasn't a fan of shots.
I discovered that when I was torn from a headache induced sleep to his blood curdling wails.
I thought for sure he was dying, until I glimpsed the shot in Nurse Golding’s hand. Initially, I wasn't surprised the kid was screaming, she was trying to stab the thing into the back of his head.
Though, after reassuring me it was part of Alex’s treatment, she calmly told me to distract the boy while she administered his daily shot.
I panicked and attempted a puppet show with my hands. Alex was so confused by whatever I was trying to do, he stopped screaming, frowning at me like I had grown a second limb.
It worked! Kind of. Nurse Golding was ruffling his hair and calling him brave, when Alex’s eyes widened, his hand going to the back of his head. He started wailing again, but this time I was pretty sure it was for attention.
Alex definitely had his eyes on the tub of candy the nurse kept on her top shelf.
Alex made me feel better about my headaches. I found his company comforting, and we became sick-buddies. Sometimes, his other friends would slip into the nurse’s office to prod him and tease him, and I felt a little left out. The two of them paid no attention to me, focusing on annoying Alex.
Growing up, we both got progressively better. Alex’s episodes decreased to one a month, and my headaches were easier to tolerate. The two of us still ended up in the nurse’s office, but for different reasons. I accidentally shoved a needle through my finger during arts and crafts, and was too shocked to cry.
Alex had fallen over during gym, and had the tiniest scratch on his leg, which set off the waterworks.
When Nurse Golding was trying to rip the needle out of my finger with tweezers, Alex was demanding she replaced his bandaid.
Starting middle school, the two of us came face to face with Nurse Jane.
She was terrifying, as well as completely incompetent. There was no candy in her office, and her solution to a girl in my class breaking her arm, was “Put a wet piece of tissue paper on it”
Alex tried the, I'm sooo sick! thing, and Nurse Jane spent half an hour lecturing him about healthy food.
He returned to class miraculously cured, looking paler than he did before visiting her.
Neither of us dared enter Nurse Jane’s office, unless we were really sick.
We were ten when Alex threw a ball of paper at me, hitting me in the face.
I was about to throw it back, when the boy twisted around in his seat and motioned for me to unravel the paper.
He had scribbled a funny picture of Nurse Jane being blown up into a balloon.
Underneath, written in bright red crayon:
DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH US?
YES [ ]
NO [ ]
At first, I was hesitant.
I told him I'd think about it, so he came straight to my house himself.
I didn't even know he knew my address.
“Why don't you want to play?” Alex asked through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookies. Mom had given him a plate to take up to my room.
Hiding behind him were his two friends, Lucy Conrad, a curly haired brunette with ribbons in her pigtails, and Ki Jacobs, the foreign exchange kid from Australia. The three of them already seemed like a tight knit group in class, sending each other notes and giggling.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be the odd one out in their little gang.
Still though, Alex was insistent that I join them.
So, I did. The three invited me to the town’s summer festival, and I had so much fun I forgot why I was scared of ruining their friendship. Ki choked on his Coke float, which shouldn't have been funny, but it was his over-reaction that sold me. The rest was history.
Initially, I was kind of hesitant, only hanging out with them on select days, making sure not to be too invasive.
Mom warned me that joining an already established friendship group was dangerous, on account of me potentially being left out. She had horror stories from her own teenagehood, where she was the fourth member in a group of girls, who turned on her for their own entertainment, inviting her to slumber parties for the sole purpose of bullying her.
But that wasn't what we were. Mom’s warning scared me and I waited for Alex to start teasing me about my big nose, or my overly large front tooth.
He didn't even notice my tooth until I told him, so he opened his mouth and prodded at his own molars, teasingly calling them horse teeth. Alex said he didn't care what I looked like.
Eventually, the barriers I had built began to crumble, and I started to see these kids as real, proper friends.
I was invited to play every day, the four of us venturing across town to swim in the lake or hunt for buried treasure with a map Ki definitely didn't print off of Google. Mom was wrong.
I was never left out. If I didn't turn up to our secret spot in the forest, the three of them would walk straight through my front door— and when I was a little older, Alex grew brave, climbing through my bedroom window, dragging me out of bed himself. When I was sick with the flu, the three insisted on sitting with me (keeping a safe distance) and watching Disney movies with me all day.
They all got sick too, so eventually, the three crawled into bed with me.
With my Mom’s words still haunting the back of my mind, part of me expected them to blow me off one day.
In the summer before seventh grade, Ki invited me, along with the others, to his parent’s house in Thailand.
I think that is when it started to hit me.
The four of us getting stupidly drunk and lying on the beach, exchanging ghost stories that weren't remotely scary, sending us into fits of hysteria.
This wasn't whatever Mom talked about. I don't think Mom had friends.
This was best friends.
Entering teenagehood, we made that declaration, on my fifteenth birthday, drinking milkshakes at the diner and trying to hide our tipsy giggles from the booze Ki had taken from his father’s drinks cabinet. We went skinny dipping in the lake, and I had my first kiss.
I went to summer camp, returning to town three weeks later, not to my mother (who had forgotten I was coming home) but to my three idiot friends who made me promise I would never leave for camp ever again.
I wasn't planning on it. The other kids called me Wobbly Legs because I couldn't balance on the tree swing, and two campers were suspended for inappropriate behavior in the lake.
Mom and Dad treated the others like their own children, even giving them each a house key (so Alex didn't have to brave tumbling through my window).
He hit his head once, knocking the back of his skull on my new makeup table, and my Mother almost had a panic attack.
This didn't stop him, though.
I think my best friend had grown accustomed to slipping through my window at midnight, armed with a flashlight and my favorite candy bars.
I thought we were going to last forever, until we were old, reminiscing our childhoods under a late setting sun.
But that wasn't the real world.
Halfway through my senior year, I lost my parents to a seventeen year old drunk driver.
Jason Chatham, who already went to juvie for intentionally running over a cat, was the mayor’s son, so Jason got a reduced sentence and four weeks of community service. He gave me a bullshit ‘apology’ and was forced to beg for forgiveness, despite the fucker smirking through the whole court trial.
Jason was sent abroad to college, and my parents’ funeral wasn't even an open casket.
Apparently, there wasn't much left to bury. I couldn't even afford the fucking funeral, it was the town that paid.
I had no other relatives. There was just me, Mom, and Dad.
Alex, Lucy, and Ki stayed by my side the whole time, but I barely talked to them. I was numb, my body felt detached and wrong, like it didn't exist.
Time moved far too slowly. I was burying my parents, a shovel stuck in my clammy hands, and then it was pitch black, and I was sitting in a random alleyway, my head spinning, halfway through a bottle of whisky.
It tasted like poison, but it also stopped me thinking for a while.
Alex found me, still in his funeral attire. I wasn't sure why he had his tie wrapped around his head, though. He didn't hug me or tell me it was going to be okay.
Alex snatched the booze, took a long swig, and then threw it over his shoulder. I don't know why I found the sound of the bottle splintering on the ground so funny, but I burst into hysterical giggles that felt real and a relief. I didn't cry like I expected.
I stood up, throwing out my arms to keep my balance.
“You're a loser.” I told him, trying not to slur my words.
Alex nodded at my dress. Lit up in the glow of a nearby streetlight, I realized my best friend’s eyes were red from crying, his lip wobbling. The idiot was trying so fucking hard to pretend we were okay, and failing miserably.
His blondish brown curls were sticking up everywhere.
I could tell he had been running his hands through it.
Alex was far too empathetic, sucking up my emotions.
“And you're covered in barf.”
His voice was shaking, but Alex was still smiling.
He held his hand out for me to grab, and I hesitated, just like when I was a little kid. But I needed him. I knew that, even in my unstable mind full of black and white and a slowly spreading numbness threatening to swallow me whole. Mom and Dad were gone, and he was all I had.
The town would go back to their day-to-day lives, and I would break apart. I considered following them in a brief episode of psychosis. The only people who could pull my head from the fog were my friends. So, I grabbed Alex’s hand, clinging onto him for dear life like I was going to lose him too.
I expected the whole, I'm so sorry for your loss bullshit I had been suffocating in all day, but Alex talked about birds instead. I don't know why, and it's not like he was making any sense, trying to unsuccessfully name different kinds.
But it was enough.
Alex’s stupid rant about birds distracted me from drowning myself in poison.
He took me back to his place, ordered my favorite pizza, and pretended I didn't just lose my parents.
Ki and Lucy joined us, and at first it was awkward and I was still drunk, still demanding he give me back my whisky.
Then, though, the night devolved into our usual antics, and for the first time since my parent’s death, I was laughing.
That night ended however, and once the hysteria had died down and my hangover was gone, reality hit like a wave of ice water. The world bled into black and white, and not even pills could help, so shut myself away.
I finished my senior year with my diploma sitting in my mailbox with a letter from the school expressing how sorry they were for my loss. I tore it up, setting fire to the remnants. I was so fucking SICK of sorry. The word condolences didn't even sound real anymore.
Leaving town seemed like the best idea for a fresh start. The night before I left, I crept through Alex’s bedroom window.
I did tell him and the others I needed space, drunkenly shouting at them to leave me alone when they found me sleeping in our old childhood tree house. That night, I woke him up, wrapping my arms around him and thanking him for being my friend.
Alex was half asleep, mumbling at me to join him, and I did, keeping a tight hold of him all night.
It was supposed to be a goodbye. I wasn't planning on coming back to a town that had murdered my parents.
And protected their killer.
But it's hard to say a real goodbye.
When I left for college, Alex and the others promised they would text and call every day. Lucy expected daily updates, and Ki was obsessed with my roommate's secret hamster she was hiding under her bed.
We stayed in touch, initially.
I couldn't just let them go. I was planning on inviting them for drinks, and having one last memory.
I facetimed them during the campus tour, showing them my room and exploring the city.
I was waiting to declare some kind of friendship ending speech, but, I guess moving away was a natural killer.
I started ignoring calls, responding in one word answers to their texts.
Two months into college, I had new friends, new experiences, and I wasn't the girl who's parents died.
Alex proposed in a long paragraph text that they come visit and stay in my room, and I had to keep making excuses as to why it was a bad idea.
Listen, I was the bad friend.
I know that now. I don't blame them for being pissed, but ignoring me for five (5) years was taking it too far.
Presently, I had called Alex a grand total of 35 times.
He wasn't picking up the phone, and I was left to a robot voice telling me to leave a message, after Alex’s voice from five years ago called me a donut.
“Hey, you've reached Alex! Don't expect me to answer the phone. It's not 1993. Just text me!”
Which was ironic considering my texts weren't being delivered.
I had zero choice but to go down the boomer route.
Initially, I knew what I was going to say and how I was going to say it, but by the fifth attempt, my voice was shaking.
“Hey, me again.” I said through gritted teeth, kicking through leaves. “You probably didn't get my last, uh, thirty four calls, because you're busy, or…whatever…”
I trailed off, clenching my phone tighter.
“Anyway! How have you been? Uh, we’re both adults now, but I figured we should maybe, uhhh, talk… maybe?”
Alex was surely ignoring me.
Again, I didn't blame him. We were adults with our own lives. The problem was, I had zero idea what Alex had been doing the last five years because he was MIA. Alex’s social media hadn't been updated in years, and I was pretty sure he'd just made new ones.
The same went for Ki and Lucy.
His last text, (We need to talk) didn't even make sense without a follow up, and now I was back home in a town I didn't want to be in, stuck in a dead end job I hated, trying to pick up the splintered pieces.
I was aware of my colleague yelling my name, dropping my cigarette and stomping on the cinders. “I really need to talk to you,” I didn't realize I was crying until I was swiping at my eyes.
Sometimes, life doesn't always work out the way you planned it.
“I know it's been a while since you uh, stopped texting me or whatever…” I let out a choked cough. “Which is my fault, by the way,” my chest was aching,
“But I've actually come home!” I tried to laugh, but it was more of a sob. “Yeah, it turns out NY wasn't really my scene.”
That was a lie, though Alex was probably used to me lying.
Sometimes, life doesn't work out.
After graduating college, I was offered a job in New York, only for it all to fall through when depression hit. The world turned black and white, and I rotted in bed all day. I quit my part time job, packed up my stuff, and came home.
I had been staying in the motel on the edge of town for a while, planning to move back into my parents house.
But knowing my friends were still in town, and intentionally ignoring me, I was taking my time.
I wanted to hear his voice.
Five years was a long time.
“I'm staying at my parents' old house, so maybe come see me sometime?” I blurted out, studying the sky above me.
Cotton candy clouds we used to pretend to eat.
“You've still got the key my Mom gave you, right?”
It was unusually cold for April. I had to keep pulling my jacket around me.
“Alex, I really fucking miss you.” I whispered. I wanted to tell him that I needed him, just like when I was seventeen. That he was the only thing keeping me afloat. “I miss you, Ki, and Lucy, so call me, okay?” I paused. “I know you're mad, but we can talk it out, all right? Just text me, and I'll be there.”
“Eleanor.” My colleague was grumbling behind me, “Your break is over.”
I tapped my screen impatiently. “I’m coming,” I said, “Alex, I've got to go, all right? Call me when you get this.”
When the line went dead, I shoved my phone in my pocket and resumed selling coffee to dead eyed customers.
I recognised Mrs Morris, the lady who lived opposite Mom and Dad. She offered me a smile, but her eyes were so sad.
I could practically sense her knee-jerk reaction to say, I'm sorry for your loss.
I handed the woman her usual, a black coffee, trying to ignore the way she clasped her wrinkly hands around mine, squeezing for dear life.
Maybe her husband died….
“Have you seen Alex anywhere?” I asked, wiping down the counter.
The woman's expression crumpled. “I'm sorry, who, dear?”
“Alex.” I said, “Alex Locke? You used to give us candy when we were kids.”
Mes Morris inclined her head. There was something odd about her expression. “Oh, the Locke’s moved away a long time ago,” she hummed, “I haven't seen them in years, tweety pie.”
The nickname brought back memories. Mrs Morris used to call me Tweety Pie.
I nodded, pouring her a refill. “Is Alex still in town, though?”
“Hm?”
“Alex.” I said, growing slightly impatient, “Their son, Alex Locke?”
Her eyes darkened, suddenly hollow, like I was talking to a memory. She was looking straight through me like we were back at my parent’s funeral. Mrs Morris wore a rose in my Mom’s honor.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said softly, “It was… so terrible what happened,” her expression seemed to twitch, and a shiver creeped down my spine. “God rest their beautiful souls.”
I had grown accustomed to tuning out condolences.
“Yes, I miss them,” I said dismissively, leaning over the counter. “But have you seen Alex? What about Ki and Lucy? I've been in town for a while, but I can't get in touch with them.”
Instead of answering, the corners of her mouth curved into a small smile. “You look so much like your mother, Eleanor.”
“Thanks.” I gave up, forcing a smile.
“Eleanor.” her face crumpled, “Such a bright young girl.”
My stomach knotted. “No, Mrs Morris, you mean my Mom.”
She blinked, sipping her coffee. “Hm? Oh, yes, yes! My condolences!”
I got the same response from patrons I used to know.
Townspeople blatantly ignoring my question, throwing me a fucking pity party for a loss I hadn't exactly gotten over, but over time, the pain was getting easier to deal with.
Grief never leaves you, but time can force you to move forwards instead of dwelling on the past.
Halfway through my shift, my colleague plonked a basket of flowers on the counter, where I was trying and failing to perfect a foam heart for a teenage girl who was definitely judging my ‘art’ skills.
The basket of flowers was full of roses, my mother’s favorite.
Alex planted them in her yard when we were thirteen, surprising her for her birthday. There was a little card attached to the flowers, and I ripped it off, my heart beating out of my chest.
To my dismay, though, it wasn't Alex’s handwriting.
Unless Alex had taken up calligraphy in his five year absence.
Eleanor,
I'm so happy to see you again in town! I hope you like the flowers. I know they were your sweet late mother’s favorite. I have left a surprise for you inside your parents house. It's not a lot, of course, but I want you to know you are never alone, sweetheart. I will always be here.
Enjoy your surprise. You will never be alone again.
With so much love, and much needed hugs.
A friend.
“Who sent this?” I asked, re-reading the note. To my confusion, there was a box of headache pills. I hadn't suffered from headaches since I was a kid, but it was when I was sliding my fingers over the box, a dull thrum pounded across the back of my skull. I trashed the pills, dumping the basket in my work locker.
My colleague shrugged. “I dunno. Someone left it on one of the tables.”
“So, it wasn't a guy?” I said, gingerly rubbing my forehead.
He shrugged. “I don't know what they looked like, I didn't even see someone coming in.”
That night, following the note’s instructions, I returned home to an empty house, letters for repossession piled on the floor.
I broke down somewhere between walking into the kitchen and seeing five year old milk sitting on the counter, and exploring my childhood room, the marks I scratched into the wall to track my height progress. It was so cold.
So empty.
Without Mom and Dad, there was no light.
The house was just one dark, empty memory of what had been. Switching on the lights, I tried to make it at least a little homely. I ordered pizza and ate it staring at my phone, waiting for a text from Alex. When my phone did vibrate, I almost jumped out of my skin.
Just the Uber Eats guy requesting a tip, which I'm pretty sure wasn't allowed.
I was unpacking in my room when a voice came from downstairs.
“Ella! Holy shit, you didn't tell us you were coming home!”
Alex.
The crumpled pair of pants I had been folding slipped out of my hands.
I felt like I couldn't breathe, stumbling downstairs.
His voice sent pinpricks through me.
“Alex?”
The hallway was empty, a chill grazing my cheeks.
“Ella! I'm so glad you're home! Don't ever go away again!”
I froze.
“Where are you?” I managed to get out.
“We’re down here!”
The voice was coming from the basement.
It was when I was slowly making my way down the stairs, my phone vibrated with a text. I was reaching for it, when it vibrated again, and again, and again, buzzing in my pocket.
Pulling it out, I found myself staring at a multitude of text messages.
05/07/2019: We need to talk, Ella. Did you get my last text?
05/07/2019: I've been feeling weird lately. Like I did as a kid. I keep switching off, Ella. There's something wrong. I don't know what it is, but we need you here.
05/07/2019: Ella, please. The cops are brushing us off, but there's something going on. We need you here. NOW.
05/13/2019: Can you call your local sheriff department? Anyone?! STOP IGNORING MY CALLS!
05/16/2019: Ella, you're fucking killing me. Do you not care? Are you really going to abandon us?
05/16/2019: Ella, are you there? I'm really cold.
05/16/2019: It's dark.
05/16/2019: It's so dark, I can't see I don't understand what's happening Please can you come and help me? I'm so cold and it's dark and I can't can't I need you to take me home Ella please
06/05/2020: I like that you're so close to me. It's not cold when you're here.
06/05/2020: Sshshhh! She's coming! Act natural Sit up straight No, not like that Like this!
06/05/2020: wait where did you go? Ella where did you go Ella where did you go Ella where did you go Ella
For a moment, I was hypnotised by the texts, my hands trembling.
Alex did send follow up messages.
But I never got them.
“Ella, we’re wait... ING. Come on, we’ve missed you so much!”
Alex’s voice should have made me happy.
But I recognised it, phantom bugs creeping down the exposed flesh of my arms and filling my mouth.
Prom night, junior year.
He was standing at the bottom of my stairs wearing a suit and tie. Ella, we’re waiting!” was from that night.
When my phone flashed again, I ignored it, forcing my legs to move down the stairs.
My basement was exactly how I left it, a mess of boxes and my old bike.
Except, sitting in the corner were three figures drowned in shadow. There was a light, something illuminating the dim.
But I was already stumbling over to my friends, who looked exactly the way I left them, frozen at eighteen years old.
Their skin was pale, papery thin and wrong.
“There… you… are!”
Alex lifted his head, half lidded eyes finding mine. “Aren't… you… happy to see… us?”
His lips were barely moving. I glimpsed the start of decomposition melting into his face, eating away at his flesh, tiny holes where maggots had burrowed inside him. His hair was matted with old blood, where someone had tried and failed, and then tried again to violently force a device inside his head, long orange wires sticking from his spine.
I could see where he'd struggled, rusted handcuffs still coiled around his wrists, an unnatural light illuminating his iris.
Something warm crept up my throat.
The glow illuminating the room was emanating from his eyes. I could see straight through him, his body more of a science experiment where his skull had been forced open, an electronic device woven inside the dead flesh of his brain.
Whoever did this to him saw Alex as nothing more than arts and crafts, flesh and bone to cruelly mould.
I was too numb to scream, my body stiff.
He lifted his head, blinking at me, like he was still alive.
“Fi…nally,” he choked through a mouthful of oozing black, “You're…home.”
I knew his voice that had been cruelly stitched and knitted together.
He greeted me when I came back from summer camp with the exact words.
“Finally!” Alex had cried, wrapping his arms around me. “You're hOme!”
I could hear where his words had been cut and sliced, glued to each other to sound like a coherent fucking sentence.
“I've… been… wAiting for… you.”
The boy’s lips stretched into a grin. “For… you… tO see yoUR… big… sur…prise!”
Every word had been handpicked directly from his memories.
I took slow steps back, tripping over something on the ground.
A Macbook.
There was a sticky note attached.
Here's another surprise! There's a USB wire on the floor somewhere, sweetie! I forgot to update them, so feel free! I hope you enjoy your surprise as much as I enjoyed making them!
Feeling sick to my stomach, I switched the laptop on.
The USB was across the room. I could see the end stained vivid scarlet.
There were three folders.
2019.
2020.
2021.
There was another separate folder.
2007.
I clicked into it, a list of names coming up.
I was loading into Alex’s name, when Lucy spoke.
“What… are… you… waiting… for?”
Her giggle was half human, and half not, a crackle of laughter and static.
I knew her voice, and it fucking hurt.
My 12th birthday, Lucy stood at the table in front of a giant chocolate cake. “What are you waiting for?” she teased. “Blow out your candles!”
When she did lift her head, my best friend’s face was bruised and battered.
Ki’s grinning lips were skeletal, his head split in two, held together with duct tape. The way he was slumped, swaying back and forth, his head of thick curls glued to his head, made me sick to my stomach.
“UPDATE…us.”
Ki’s words had been ripped straight from years ago, when he yelled at me for annoying him to play Minecraft.
My computer is UPDATING! Jeez, be patient!”
Whoever did this to them made my friends suffer.
I cupped Alex’s cheeks, and his skin was ice-cold.
“Who did this to you?”
He responded with a smile.
“Not…telling...y–”
”I'm not telling you!” I remembered his tone from back in school. I begged him for answers to the chemistry test.
It was like talking to not just a corpse, but the corpse of a memory too.
I pulled out my phone to call the cops, when my phone flashed again.
Unknown number
Update them! I can assure you, if you don't, I will happily add you to my collection, Eleanor. This time I won't let you go. Check the second folder.
They were watching me.
I glimpsed a single red light blinking on the ceiling.
Taking the laptop, I left my friends, and called the cops.
“No, that's not how this is going to go.”
The voice was sugary sweet through my phone, intercepting the call.
I recognised her.
Nurse Golding, from Kindergarten.
“Update your friends,” she told me in a shrill laugh, “I made them very specially for you, Eleanor. I worked tirelessly, every day and night to make sure you came back to your friends.”
She paused.
“You're not lonely anymore, are you? Of course, if you don't want to be grateful, I can always revert you back–”
I ended the call, throwing up everywhere.
Somehow, I found myself back in the basement, my breaths heavy.
I planned to destroy the laptop, and set fire to the house, when something caught my eye.
I didn't notice until I was fully looking at my friends.
There were three of them, and four chairs against the wall.
Four rusted handcuffs.
I think I've been here before, but how? When?
How can I not remember it?
I keep thinking back to my childhood. Alex was losing time.
Is that what happened to me?
Edit: since writing the above, six townspeople have told me to update my friends. All of them are the older residents in the diner. I keep coming down here, but I can't fucking do it.
I can't do this.
The USB goes directly inside their heads. How does this thing even work?!
Please help me. Can this be reversed? What did Alex’s texts mean?
I don't know what to do!

im not saying that in a “let’s get married and spend our lives together” way; i mean it in a best friend kind of way.
i want to share the small parts of my day and vice versa, i want to hear about your day and talk about our lives comfortably. no judgement of any kind.
i’ve always found it difficult to open up to others, but i know that if i want to get anywhere in life i have to change that. if you find yourself in the same boat, perhaps we can work on it together?
some things about me: - currently in college working on political science degree (currently switching from psychology major) - i love history, especially modern -> postmodern history (1500s to present) and i love current events - i enjoy reading and writing (im serious) - in my downtime, i will sometimes watch youtube (i deleted tik tok) and i’m learning french. ahem: bonjour mes amis! savez-vous que j’adore mon petit chat? c’est parce qu’il est gris et très mignon. voulez-vous voir? - i am pretty physically active, i workout 3-5x a week. usually a mix of running, biking, and light weights. i also recently started working on doing pull ups, they require WAY more strength than i previously expected - i have a dark sense of humor so if you do as well i’m sure we will get along
i can’t think of what else to say at the moment, but if you are interested please feel free to reach out:) i try to respond fast, but i’m a little busy today but i will still make time. thank you for taking the time to read this!