Ana mancini is she still a man

I want to develop a character who has DID derived from PTSD, which in turn arose from a four-day period of suffering different atrocities. The character has no explicit memories of this four-day period, but their subconscious locks it away to avoid the pain of trauma and develops disorders as a defense mechanism. In addition to the mentioned disorders, the character has developed a refusal to eat food due to an apparently irrational line of thought and sensation that if they eat, they would be hypocritical for something, and therefore, more guilty. The character has 5 personalities. So far, I've only been able to conceptualize 3: the assistant, the machine, and the monster.
The monster is the murderous and harmful personality. It's what the character most instinctively tries to avoid manifesting, even if they don't know exactly why. It's the embodiment of their potential evil, and its appearances are always accompanied by tension and suspense. Even if not actually manifested (or is it?), the mere fact of appearing in nightmares and hallucinations already triggers panic attacks in the character. This is the most mysterious personality because the character has doubts about the nature of this personality that doesn't offer many explanations beyond the simple fact that it knows everything about him and is playing and affecting him; Is it a personality or a distinct demon? Is it a delusion or is it real? Is it himself or a separate being pretending to be him to scare him? Is it capable of killing the personalities, and if so, why doesn't it do it immediately instead of leaving the personalities unharmed? Why psychologically torture him if the function of fragmented personalities is to help in self-preservation? If it's real, why does it let him escape at the end of its ''games''? This personality (or not) is physically the largest, the most technological, the most inhuman, and presents more feats of strength despite appearing less, all geared towards psychological torture mainly, a literal kind of haunting like Pennywise's. It wreaks psychological havoc on the character in each of its personalities, and the most sensitive one, which is the one the other personalities most try to avoid being impacted by the monster, is the assistant personality, the personality that personifies human essence and, being based on the Superego and Ego and reflecting the distant past spent with his deceased good mother whose values were transmitted in his childhood and adolescence, is the personality that tries to maintain order, predominate, and reunite the fragmented personalities, although this self-imposed role is not easy and it is difficult to deal with the fear of what could happen if people found out that he and the other four 'people' are actually the same person who has DID; it is difficult to represent order while his other parts are more inclined to chaos and there is no direct interaction between the personalities. The assistant personality has blindness, whose degree varies depending nuancemente on the external and internal security situation it feels, but is always present because it results from an unresolved trauma. Glasses are used, the only one who does this. Blindness is more present in the assistant personality and less manifested in the other personalities because they are more detached from humanity. The assistant personality is the most divergent from what the character was before DID. Its form is more human, shorter, and less cybernetic, precisely because it reflects a distant period from the current one of the character. (A side note: the character is, in a way, a shapeshifter, so its personalities have a distinct form, some more similar to each other and others less similar, and vice versa. The metamorphosis is restricted to the forms the character has already had in its life and afterlife, and those forms it did not have are a more adapted version of the personality concept). The assistant is the most sensitive personality and the one that most tries to be virtuous, and because of these characteristics, it is the most vulnerable to the monster.
The machine personality is the psychological barrier. A wall for any emotions. An internal shield for trauma. It looks like a robot, like a machine, both for sentimental and behavioral issues. It does not feel emotions, is extremely rational, and is very connected to technology. Indeed, it is the most technological personality in the purest sense of the word, while the monster personality is the most technological in the most monstrous sense. Its function is to offer a more impartial view of situations and, because of the monster, to be the most solid shield for the assistant personality not to be haunted directly (and possibly killed) by the monster.
There are 2 more personalities to develop, and I'm working on it since it's a new idea I had.
The character is Vox.
The conceptual ideas for this fanfic that I intend to create, combined with my hobby of self-studying psychology/psychoanalysis/psychiatry, made me realize that I attribute four disorders to Vox:
• DID: According to the DSM-5 criteria, to be considered DID it is necessary: ▪︎Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self. ▪︎Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. ▪︎The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder. ▪︎The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices. ▪︎The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).
• PTSD: Symptoms of PTSD fall into the following four categories. Specific symptoms can vary in severity.
Intrusion: Intrusive thoughts such as repeated, involuntary memories; distressing dreams; or flashbacks of the traumatic event. Flashbacks may be so vivid that people feel they are reliving the traumatic experience or seeing it before their eyes. Avoidance: Avoiding reminders of the traumatic event may include avoiding people, places, activities, objects and situations that may trigger distressing memories. People may try to avoid remembering or thinking about the traumatic event. They may resist talking about what happened or how they feel about it. Alterations in cognition and mood: Inability to remember important aspects of the traumatic event, negative thoughts and feelings leading to ongoing and distorted beliefs about oneself or others (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted”); distorted thoughts about the cause or consequences of the event leading to wrongly blaming self or other; ongoing fear, horror, anger, guilt or shame; much less interest in activities previously enjoyed; feeling detached or estranged from others; or being unable to experience positive emotions (a void of happiness or satisfaction). Alterations in arousal and reactivity: Arousal and reactive symptoms may include being irritable and having angry outbursts; behaving recklessly or in a self-destructive way; being overly watchful of one's surroundings in a suspecting way; being easily startled; or having problems concentrating or sleeping. Many people who are exposed to a traumatic event experience symptoms similar to those described above in the days following the event. For a person to be diagnosed with PTSD, however, symptoms must last for more than a month and must cause significant distress or problems in the individual's daily functioning. Many individuals develop symptoms within three months of the trauma, but symptoms may appear later and often persist for months and sometimes years. PTSD often occurs with other related conditions, such as depression, substance use, memory problems and other physical and mental health problems.
The four tabs below provide brief descriptions of four conditions related to PTSD: acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder, and reactive attachment disorder. Source: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd • Psychotic Depression: Psychotic depression Some people who have severe depression may also experience hallucinations and delusional thinking, the symptoms of psychosis.
Depression with psychosis is known as psychotic depression.
Symptoms of depression Someone with depression feels sad and hopeless for most of the day, practically every day, and has no interest in anything. Getting through the day feels almost impossible.
Other typical symptoms of depression may include:
fatigue (exhaustion) disturbed sleep changes in appetite feeling worthless and guilty being unable to concentrate or being indecisive thoughts of death or suicide Doctors describe depression as mild, moderate or severe depending on your symptoms, how long it lasts and how much it affects your daily life.
Read more about the psychological, physical and social symptoms of clinical depression
Symptoms of psychosis Having moments of psychosis (when people lose some contact with reality) means experiencing:
delusions – thoughts or beliefs that are unlikely to be true hallucinations – hearing and, in some cases, feeling, smelling, seeing or tasting things that are not there; hearing voices is a common hallucination The delusions and hallucinations almost always reflect the person's deeply depressed mood – for example, they may become convinced they're to blame for something, or that they've committed a crime.
"Psychomotor agitation" is also common. This means not being able to relax or sit still, and constantly fidgeting.
At the other extreme, a person with psychotic depression may have "psychomotor retardation", where both their thoughts and physical movements slow down.
People with psychotic depression have an increased risk of thinking about suicide. Source for more information: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/psychotic-depression/
• An as-yet unidentified eating disorder: This is the only one in which I do not know which exact diagnosis it fits into. It is a consequence of the trauma from the four-day period - including this period being one of the biggest mysteries in history and a great source of theories for readers, as it is the root of Vox's psychological mess, the divergence point that originated the entire fanfic and which the protagonist DOES NOT want to remember - that resulted in the trauma of eating. He does not feel like eating, not even the SIN OF GLUTTONY is able to make him eat - he is immune to her powers - and feels an apparently inexplicable instinct of guilt and hypocrisy when trying to eat, as if he were the worst being in the universe if he ate a food and a huge hypocrite; why and what exactly this innate thought of judging himself as a hypocrite is another mystery in the plot.
In this story, at least in the initial arcs, no one associates all five as being the same person, at most they associate only one/two of them with Vox. With the climaxes (yes, it's in the plural) throughout the story, the characters will find evidence and suspect and associate more and more of the other alters (as I call Vox's fragmented personalities) with the same person, which increases the narrative tension. Being the assistant personality the last to be accurately associated by the other characters, although she was the one that had the most tension and care in NOT being associated throughout the story because she is the human essence of Vox, reflects more the fragility of his soul state and is not ready to deal with the harsh social consequences that the actions of the other alters and Vox before DID caused, needing solid support and not wanting to lose all the friendly social relationships, although fragile, that he built as a separate being from Vox and the other alters. It is easier to hate than to love. The assistant personality does not want to risk losing the little support he has built. These relationships are extremely valuable to him. He doesn't want to have this taken away from him anymore. The relationships he built are based on the inhabitants of Hazbin Hotel.
All alters have Vox's trademark: the TV as
a head. All... except the assistant personality. This alter is the ONLY one that has a human head and is the smallest, being even a few centimeters smaller than Lucifer. The size of his hair goes up to just above his shoulders, but he ties them in a professional hairstyle. His clothes are similar to those of an assistant, and they have a palette of blue, black, and white colors. The color of his hair, influenced by his powers as a Media Demon, is black with dark blue streaks and tips.
His human appearance reflects a period when Vox was human. In my story Vox is a trans man, which means he was born female and went through a transition at some point in his adolescence or adulthood. The appearance of the assistant personality reflects an episode during his 13/14 years. In this episode, he did a special show for his father's assistant at a fancy restaurant. It was her last night in his life as she would unfortunately be sent away without a chance to return, and he was aware of this. He also knew that his father was responsible for her being sent away, although his innocence at the time made him not immediately detect that she would be KILLED by a hired hitman hired by the father and mother. The assistant was a loved one by the teenage Vox. She was a loving mother he never had, and because of the emotional attachment to her, he decided to do a musical show, showing for the first and last time to anyone his talent for piano and violin. He, at the time still not going through the transition, dressed more masculinely, used the best appearance he could, and used a pseudonym to enter the restaurant and make the presentation without being detected by the family. He did not explicitly specify for whom the music was intended, but the assistant, secretly his true biological mother, knew it was for her. That was the last time he would see her, and he made every second of that night count.
Vox's human female name was Elizabeth. I chose this name because it is a beautiful name, it was the name of the former queen of the United Kingdom, and it was the name of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Elizabeth Stride.
Vox, during his adult life as a man and even post-death, buried his past as a woman. It was not a source of pride, especially for the family abuses suffered and the transphobia of the time. If the Vees, the people closest to him currently, do not have a deep understanding of Vox's human life as a man, imagine their knowledge of the initial part of his life before the transition!
That's why being called "Elizabeth" during the direct and indirect appearances of the monster personality already causes genuine and unmasked panic in him. It is an indication of knowledge of his deepest layers.
The story has a suspenseful atmosphere, with some horror scenes. We follow the alters individually, and as the story progresses, we realize along with the protagonist some strange, wrong things. The alters do not communicate directly with each other and, therefore, the character does not immediately perceive the signs of having multiple personalities. It was as if there were four people in one body and none of them noticed, according to the perspective of the assistant personality, the alter that we slowly follow discovering the huge web of the situation he's in. There's something very wrong with Vox, more specifically his soul. But there's an invisible barrier that prevents the character from investigating further, like an elephant in the middle of the room. Each alter has its own course, all acting as if they were distinct people and not associating with each other. This is bad socially speaking in the long run, because sooner or later the clash of beliefs and values built among the alters will come into conflict and the individual consequences of their actions will negatively impact each other. The monster personality served to add more salt to the wound. It is by far the most harmful, appearing little but causing a huge mess in return. Don't think of it as a kind of Hulk, because Hulk is a destructive monster that his counterpart, Bruce, can try to control and turn into a hero, and everyone is aware of Hulk's nature, which is easy to understand and try to contain; whereas the monster personality is an enigma at the same time as it is a nightmare, there is no discussion with it, it causes psychological terror in Vox's alters, its apparently internal actions affect the external world of the alters, it is unpredictable, it is the literal meaning of hell. The monster personality has already caused physical harm to the alters, although they did not exactly remember, mainly the assistant personality, the most oblivious of all for a reason. I want to relate the monster personality to Roo.

I want to develop a character who has DID derived from PTSD, which in turn arose from a four-day period of suffering different atrocities. The character has no explicit memories of this four-day period, but their subconscious locks it away to avoid the pain of trauma and develops disorders as a defense mechanism. In addition to the mentioned disorders, the character has developed a refusal to eat food due to an apparently irrational line of thought and sensation that if they eat, they would be hypocritical for something, and therefore, more guilty. The character has 5 personalities. So far, I've only been able to conceptualize 3: the assistant, the machine, and the monster.
The monster is the murderous and harmful personality. It's what the character most instinctively tries to avoid manifesting, even if they don't know exactly why. It's the embodiment of their potential evil, and its appearances are always accompanied by tension and suspense. Even if not actually manifested (or is it?), the mere fact of appearing in nightmares and hallucinations already triggers panic attacks in the character. This is the most mysterious personality because the character has doubts about the nature of this personality that doesn't offer many explanations beyond the simple fact that it knows everything about him and is playing and affecting him; Is it a personality or a distinct demon? Is it a delusion or is it real? Is it himself or a separate being pretending to be him to scare him? Is it capable of killing the personalities, and if so, why doesn't it do it immediately instead of leaving the personalities unharmed? Why psychologically torture him if the function of fragmented personalities is to help in self-preservation? If it's real, why does it let him escape at the end of its ''games''? This personality (or not) is physically the largest, the most technological, the most inhuman, and presents more feats of strength despite appearing less, all geared towards psychological torture mainly, a literal kind of haunting like Pennywise's. It wreaks psychological havoc on the character in each of its personalities, and the most sensitive one, which is the one the other personalities most try to avoid being impacted by the monster, is the assistant personality, the personality that personifies human essence and, being based on the Superego and Ego and reflecting the distant past spent with his deceased good mother whose values were transmitted in his childhood and adolescence, is the personality that tries to maintain order, predominate, and reunite the fragmented personalities, although this self-imposed role is not easy and it is difficult to deal with the fear of what could happen if people found out that he and the other four 'people' are actually the same person who has DID; it is difficult to represent order while his other parts are more inclined to chaos and there is no direct interaction between the personalities. The assistant personality has blindness, whose degree varies depending nuancemente on the external and internal security situation it feels, but is always present because it results from an unresolved trauma. Glasses are used, the only one who does this. Blindness is more present in the assistant personality and less manifested in the other personalities because they are more detached from humanity. The assistant personality is the most divergent from what the character was before DID. Its form is more human, shorter, and less cybernetic, precisely because it reflects a distant period from the current one of the character. (A side note: the character is, in a way, a shapeshifter, so its personalities have a distinct form, some more similar to each other and others less similar, and vice versa. The metamorphosis is restricted to the forms the character has already had in its life and afterlife, and those forms it did not have are a more adapted version of the personality concept). The assistant is the most sensitive personality and the one that most tries to be virtuous, and because of these characteristics, it is the most vulnerable to the monster.
The machine personality is the psychological barrier. A wall for any emotions. An internal shield for trauma. It looks like a robot, like a machine, both for sentimental and behavioral issues. It does not feel emotions, is extremely rational, and is very connected to technology. Indeed, it is the most technological personality in the purest sense of the word, while the monster personality is the most technological in the most monstrous sense. Its function is to offer a more impartial view of situations and, because of the monster, to be the most solid shield for the assistant personality not to be haunted directly (and possibly killed) by the monster.
There are 2 more personalities to develop, and I'm working on it since it's a new idea I had.
The character is Vox.
The conceptual ideas for this fanfic that I intend to create, combined with my hobby of self-studying psychology/psychoanalysis/psychiatry, made me realize that I attribute four disorders to Vox:
• DID: According to the DSM-5 criteria, to be considered DID it is necessary: ▪︎Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self. ▪︎Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. ▪︎The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder. ▪︎The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices. ▪︎The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).
• PTSD: Symptoms of PTSD fall into the following four categories. Specific symptoms can vary in severity.
Intrusion: Intrusive thoughts such as repeated, involuntary memories; distressing dreams; or flashbacks of the traumatic event. Flashbacks may be so vivid that people feel they are reliving the traumatic experience or seeing it before their eyes. Avoidance: Avoiding reminders of the traumatic event may include avoiding people, places, activities, objects and situations that may trigger distressing memories. People may try to avoid remembering or thinking about the traumatic event. They may resist talking about what happened or how they feel about it. Alterations in cognition and mood: Inability to remember important aspects of the traumatic event, negative thoughts and feelings leading to ongoing and distorted beliefs about oneself or others (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted”); distorted thoughts about the cause or consequences of the event leading to wrongly blaming self or other; ongoing fear, horror, anger, guilt or shame; much less interest in activities previously enjoyed; feeling detached or estranged from others; or being unable to experience positive emotions (a void of happiness or satisfaction). Alterations in arousal and reactivity: Arousal and reactive symptoms may include being irritable and having angry outbursts; behaving recklessly or in a self-destructive way; being overly watchful of one's surroundings in a suspecting way; being easily startled; or having problems concentrating or sleeping. Many people who are exposed to a traumatic event experience symptoms similar to those described above in the days following the event. For a person to be diagnosed with PTSD, however, symptoms must last for more than a month and must cause significant distress or problems in the individual's daily functioning. Many individuals develop symptoms within three months of the trauma, but symptoms may appear later and often persist for months and sometimes years. PTSD often occurs with other related conditions, such as depression, substance use, memory problems and other physical and mental health problems.
The four tabs below provide brief descriptions of four conditions related to PTSD: acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder, and reactive attachment disorder. Source: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd • Psychotic Depression: Psychotic depression Some people who have severe depression may also experience hallucinations and delusional thinking, the symptoms of psychosis.
Depression with psychosis is known as psychotic depression.
Symptoms of depression Someone with depression feels sad and hopeless for most of the day, practically every day, and has no interest in anything. Getting through the day feels almost impossible.
Other typical symptoms of depression may include:
fatigue (exhaustion) disturbed sleep changes in appetite feeling worthless and guilty being unable to concentrate or being indecisive thoughts of death or suicide Doctors describe depression as mild, moderate or severe depending on your symptoms, how long it lasts and how much it affects your daily life.
Read more about the psychological, physical and social symptoms of clinical depression
Symptoms of psychosis Having moments of psychosis (when people lose some contact with reality) means experiencing:
delusions – thoughts or beliefs that are unlikely to be true hallucinations – hearing and, in some cases, feeling, smelling, seeing or tasting things that are not there; hearing voices is a common hallucination The delusions and hallucinations almost always reflect the person's deeply depressed mood – for example, they may become convinced they're to blame for something, or that they've committed a crime.
"Psychomotor agitation" is also common. This means not being able to relax or sit still, and constantly fidgeting.
At the other extreme, a person with psychotic depression may have "psychomotor retardation", where both their thoughts and physical movements slow down.
People with psychotic depression have an increased risk of thinking about suicide. Source for more information: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/psychotic-depression/
• An as-yet unidentified eating disorder: This is the only one in which I do not know which exact diagnosis it fits into. It is a consequence of the trauma from the four-day period - including this period being one of the biggest mysteries in history and a great source of theories for readers, as it is the root of Vox's psychological mess, the divergence point that originated the entire fanfic and which the protagonist DOES NOT want to remember - that resulted in the trauma of eating. He does not feel like eating, not even the SIN OF GLUTTONY is able to make him eat - he is immune to her powers - and feels an apparently inexplicable instinct of guilt and hypocrisy when trying to eat, as if he were the worst being in the universe if he ate a food and a huge hypocrite; why and what exactly this innate thought of judging himself as a hypocrite is another mystery in the plot.
In this story, at least in the initial arcs, no one associates all five as being the same person, at most they associate only one/two of them with Vox. With the climaxes (yes, it's in the plural) throughout the story, the characters will find evidence and suspect and associate more and more of the other alters (as I call Vox's fragmented personalities) with the same person, which increases the narrative tension. Being the assistant personality the last to be accurately associated by the other characters, although she was the one that had the most tension and care in NOT being associated throughout the story because she is the human essence of Vox, reflects more the fragility of his soul state and is not ready to deal with the harsh social consequences that the actions of the other alters and Vox before DID caused, needing solid support and not wanting to lose all the friendly social relationships, although fragile, that he built as a separate being from Vox and the other alters. It is easier to hate than to love. The assistant personality does not want to risk losing the little support he has built. These relationships are extremely valuable to him. He doesn't want to have this taken away from him anymore. The relationships he built are based on the inhabitants of Hazbin Hotel.
All alters have Vox's trademark: the TV as
a head. All... except the assistant personality. This alter is the ONLY one that has a human head and is the smallest, being even a few centimeters smaller than Lucifer. The size of his hair goes up to just above his shoulders, but he ties them in a professional hairstyle. His clothes are similar to those of an assistant, and they have a palette of blue, black, and white colors. The color of his hair, influenced by his powers as a Media Demon, is black with dark blue streaks and tips.
His human appearance reflects a period when Vox was human. In my story Vox is a trans man, which means he was born female and went through a transition at some point in his adolescence or adulthood. The appearance of the assistant personality reflects an episode during his 13/14 years. In this episode, he did a special show for his father's assistant at a fancy restaurant. It was her last night in his life as she would unfortunately be sent away without a chance to return, and he was aware of this. He also knew that his father was responsible for her being sent away, although his innocence at the time made him not immediately detect that she would be KILLED by a hired hitman hired by the father and mother. The assistant was a loved one by the teenage Vox. She was a loving mother he never had, and because of the emotional attachment to her, he decided to do a musical show, showing for the first and last time to anyone his talent for piano and violin. He, at the time still not going through the transition, dressed more masculinely, used the best appearance he could, and used a pseudonym to enter the restaurant and make the presentation without being detected by the family. He did not explicitly specify for whom the music was intended, but the assistant, secretly his true biological mother, knew it was for her. That was the last time he would see her, and he made every second of that night count.
Vox's human female name was Elizabeth. I chose this name because it is a beautiful name, it was the name of the former queen of the United Kingdom, and it was the name of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, Elizabeth Stride.
Vox, during his adult life as a man and even post-death, buried his past as a woman. It was not a source of pride, especially for the family abuses suffered and the transphobia of the time. If the Vees, the people closest to him currently, do not have a deep understanding of Vox's human life as a man, imagine their knowledge of the initial part of his life before the transition!
That's why being called "Elizabeth" during the direct and indirect appearances of the monster personality already causes genuine and unmasked panic in him. It is an indication of knowledge of his deepest layers.
The story has a suspenseful atmosphere, with some horror scenes. We follow the alters individually, and as the story progresses, we realize along with the protagonist some strange, wrong things. The alters do not communicate directly with each other and, therefore, the character does not immediately perceive the signs of having multiple personalities. It was as if there were four people in one body and none of them noticed, according to the perspective of the assistant personality, the alter that we slowly follow discovering the huge web of the situation he's in. There's something very wrong with Vox, more specifically his soul. But there's an invisible barrier that prevents the character from investigating further, like an elephant in the middle of the room. Each alter has its own course, all acting as if they were distinct people and not associating with each other. This is bad socially speaking in the long run, because sooner or later the clash of beliefs and values built among the alters will come into conflict and the individual consequences of their actions will negatively impact each other. The monster personality served to add more salt to the wound. It is by far the most harmful, appearing little but causing a huge mess in return. Don't think of it as a kind of Hulk, because Hulk is a destructive monster that his counterpart, Bruce, can try to control and turn into a hero, and everyone is aware of Hulk's nature, which is easy to understand and try to contain; whereas the monster personality is an enigma at the same time as it is a nightmare, there is no discussion with it, it causes psychological terror in Vox's alters, its apparently internal actions affect the external world of the alters, it is unpredictable, it is the literal meaning of hell. The monster personality has already caused physical harm to the alters, although they did not exactly remember, mainly the assistant personality, the most oblivious of all for a reason. I want to relate the monster personality to Roo.

Got a buddy who I’ve been close to since I was 17. We’re in our mid 40s now.
I’m getting married in 2 weeks. We’re going less formally than some weddings. A dinner for family and then a separate dinner for about 25 friends.
I’ve had a lot of difficulty with some of my guy friends over the years as I have different ideas than some of them about respect etc.
Some of these difficulties have had to be resolved in stupid macho ways. But they are mostly resolved now.
But I got that one friend…who just keeps being dumb. Says dumb stuff. Looks to provoke in dumb ways. Let’s call him D for obvious reasons.
Nearly all my other guy friends are married and have kids. D is not. D always fancied himself as the stud of the group. This is not the case. He would say dumb stuff when we were younger like “I’m gonna sleep with all your future wives” etc
He’s a good looking guy and can be very charming and has had a few girlfriends. But he’s been single and circling dating app hell while living with his ex girlfriend (J) for years now.
He dumped J for some arm candy years back who then dropped him after a couple of weeks. He went crawling back to J but she was having none of it. They’re still good friends. He still wants back in - wishes he was married to J and they had a family. But it’s never gonna happen.
I’ve noticed, what I think is him getting ever more bitter of his friend’s happiness in recent times.
He was a disgrace at the last of our friend’s wedding. Generally boorish and disrespectful. And he’s often said nasty things about some of our friend’s wives behind their backs.
Last year when I told him I was buying the family home from my Dad (home ownership being something he craves but will probably never achieve) - his response was “Why? For somewhere to die in?”.
I’m often dumbfounded by people’s callousness or their inability to be happy for others so I was left speechless and didn’t rebuke him. I’ve had this kind of experience with him many times.
But I often think of D as my closest friend. He’s helped me out in the past when no one else would and I’ve always felt like I owe him.
So anyway - couple of days ago while chatting to him on messages about plans for the wedding he sent me a comedy sketch clip of a wedding couple receiving their wedding blessing from their priest.
The priest says something like -
“I now pronounce you man and wife. To be the last people each of you ever sleep with. To have children that will disappoint you and will hate you. (To the bride) To be left alone when he dies before you and to have no man want you then because you’re past it”.
My exact response was - You should keep your sad childish thoughts to yourself.
So he blew up on me - calling me humourless and mean spirited etc. And he keeps doubling down on this attitude and going through all the jerk off gears - projection, gaslighting, victim blaming and so on.
I’m on the verge of telling him to steer clear of our happy occasion. As I don’t want his bad faith, snide crap spoiling it.
He will take this very badly as he has an eggshell ego. And I doubt we will ever be the same again.
It may also be a very divisive thing among our friends. He’s very popular amongst the group and everyone gets on with him. He doesn’t show this side of himself to others as much as I’ve seen it.
It will be a noticeable exclusion and it will be commented on by everyone at the dinner.
The gossip it generates and the doubts over who is in the right (as I have no intention of spending my day recounting this sorry tale) could spoil the day as well.
But I believe I’ve reached my breaking point with him. And I think if he tries his crap when I’m in full on good faith & good cheer mode then I’ll likely lash out at him.
Am I being overly sensitive? Is this just the way dumb guys are? Should I grin & bear it or give my buddy the chop?

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

Welcome back to a little more MARRIED Mary Mania before I wrap things up with The Abridged Goblinization. I decided that this bit deserved its own chapter. Some of you seem to be entertained by Mary (or at least entertained by your own loathing of her), so I hope this will prove amusing. In my life, I've encountered an inordinate number of low-key lolcows (probably because I was far too patient and far too passive for far too long), so I might as well throw just enough distortion on the page to protect the good guys and the genuinely reformed beards. But I'm also gonna shine a bright, unflattering spotlight on the lolcows, creeps, weirdos, pervs, and BEARDS, both neck and leg.
And I'll very, very cautiously tiptoe over the bit where I do a bunch of mental gymnastics, squint my eyes, tilt my head, and convince myself that dating Whisky might be a welcome change of pace. I have no delusions when I look back on it. This was a dumb move in retrospect, but all the mental gymnastics in the world can't bring me to a reasonable scenario where I was psychic and thus able to predict what he'd become once he stopped pretending to be a gentleman. Nor can the most elite, Olympic-level mental gymnastics execute a double salto layout with a half-twist perfectly enough to force me to concede the "logical point" that I should have spotted warning signs that I'd never freakin' seen before. Okay, that's enough saltiness for today. Don't worry. This chapter mostly focuses on Mary's mania. Whisky's just kind of... there.
So there I was... dating a guy who called when he said he would, remained constant in his affections, never asked for weird stuff in the sack (in fact, we weren't even intimate at that point), and claimed to be a secular humanist who practiced elements of Hinduism (as opposed to conveniently becoming born-again whenever it suited his needs to wallow in shame). And we seemed to have similar enough tastes in media, which made for pleasant movie nights and enjoyable conversations about nerdy stuff. It felt like a step up. It felt safe. At that point in time, I was content.
But here's a shameful admission for ya. My original intention was to make Whisky the "for now guy." I knew I could do better. I was formally educated, I was in shape, I was normatively attractive, and I tended to be successful in both my theatrical and academic endeavors. Plus, I was super friendly and good with people. Whisky was kind of a bump on a log. Sure, he seemed nice. He was sometimes able to make interesting conversation. To quote his favorite catch phrase, "Meh."
I knew he was mooching off his mysterious "big bro," and he wasn't doing this with the intention of saving up and eventually becoming self-sufficient. He just kicked up a fuss whenever he wanted something, and... it usually appeared. I still thought he was physically unattractive, too. I hate nasty-ass beards, I have a strong preference for shorter guys (they don't need to be as short as Dennis, but I don't exactly love being towered over), and Whisky had whatever the dude version of resting bitch face is. I admonished myself for being shallow and decided to soldier on. Date after date. And I did kind of get used to all the shallow things I objected to.
But, really... Dating Whisky at all was a dick move on my part. Then again, how many Nice Guy (TM)s want girls to do exactly what I did? Not attracted? Think he's kind of a bum? Find him a bit boring? Just give him a chance!!! Go on a crap-ton of dates with him until you like the familiarity enough to settle for him. That's the key to a healthy relationship!!! It never works. You could flip this around and apply it to Nice Girls who want pity dates, too.
Anyway. Lucy knew I was dating Whisky, and she thought it was great. She was honestly just happy to see that I was no longer pining over Dennis and that Whisky was no longer getting relentlessly stalked by Mary. Speaking of Mary... She'd had an imaginary dramatic breakup with Scumbanger not long after she crashed Lucy's brunch. Murky aside... The following summer, I'd do another show with the pervy pest and I'd find out that Mary had given the former Rum Tum Tugger a tug in the parking lot of The Imp and had let him motorboat her. When dozens of lewd messaged filled his inbox the following day, the most indiscriminate playboy I'd ever met in my freakin' life blocked that clingy legbeard's number and never had any further contact with her. But seeing as neither of them are especially reliable sources, my best guess is that the truth is somewhere in between.
After the dramatic "breakup" with Scumbanger, Mary immediately became obsessed with the new tech guy (and his wife). They allegedly had something of a throuple situation going on, but no one ever witnessed any hard evidence of this. And then Mary and Tech Guy's wife allegedly had a catfight in the middle of the fancy restaurant where the three spent their date nights. Mary did have a shiner and a scraped knee for a few weeks, and she intimated to me that Chuckie was actually the one responsible for her looking a little rough...
I believed her because there was something very different about her demeanor when she told me this. When she was in larger groups, she just screeched about how she thought the catfight was foreplay until Tech Guy ghosted her. Yet again, we'll never know the truth. But I err on the side of belief when someone tells me that DV is going on in their home, even if I generally regard that person as a delusional pathological liar. Plus, Mary had never badmouthed Chuckie before and she never made excuses for her philandering. She just felt entitled to any ding-dong she desired. Bottom line, I think there was an unfortunate incident, and I urged her to report it. She didn't; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
And, yes. I think we're allowed to show compassion for Mary if Chuckie did indeed do what she was accusing him of. She absolutely deserved to get dumped in a spectacular fashion. No one deserves violence, though. But I think we're also allowed to laugh at Mary when she's acting like a crank-crazed maniac.
Moving on to lighter topics! Mary claimed to be having a hot, steamy affair with the artistic director of The Imp. At first, this seemed outlandish. But he had been the one to hire her. And he repeatedly refused to replace her when she consistently failed to learned her lines, ran around naked, and contributed little more than muckbangs to the comedy (again, I personally found it funny when she did that, but I was in the minority).
Some skullduggery was definitely afoot. Was it "sexy time," as Mary enthusiastically claimed? Who knows. Chuckie might have been paying the dude to give Mary a hobby. But not long after Mary started boasting about boning the artistic director, he suddenly began calling her out on her unprofessional behavior. They "broke up," but Mary managed to avoid getting kicked out of the improv troupe, bragging that she could sue the director for sexual harassment if he fired her.
And then... there was the pièce de résistance of Mary's misadventures in mating. She met a biker dude at Filthy McNasty's. This guys was disgusting. Most of her previous dudes had been questionable, weird, or possibly imaginary. But we all saw this one. He was as fat as a Hutt, he smelled like a grease trap, motor oil, B.O., and a very specific type of cheese... The few teeth that he had were black and green, his fingernails were yellowed and a few of them oozed pus. Finally, the volume and crackly, bubbly properties of his frequent farts indicated to George Gay that he, "definitely had a virgin booty." Mary's lard-ass loverboy called himself "Hogg," which was probably a reference to the two-wheeled vehicle that he was very obviously too large to actually ride. Or it might have just been an obvious nickname for a filthy fat fuck.
But Hogg, like Tech Guy a few loverboys ago, had a wife. And she made frequent appearances at Filthy's as well. Hogg's wife was shockingly... kind of pretty. A little rough around the edges. Didn't smell the greatest. But she stood in stark contrast to her repugnant hubby, even with her fried hair, her sloppily inked tats, and her imprecisely applied eye makeup. Her teeth were free of obvious rot. She had a beautiful figure. And she had a carefree attitude that was probably attractive to a number of people. She'd fart right along with Hogg, she didn't shave her legs, and the profane compound nouns she came up with always cracked me up (lard-tard, smegma-booger, felch-belcher).
And Mary was once again claiming to be in a throuple with The Hoggs. But this time, there was hard evidence. They'd get busy in some corner of the establishment, and even got booted from the dive bar a few times for lewd behavior, offensive odors, and illegal drug use. On one particular night, Mrs. Hogg lit one of her hubby's gargantuan ass-rippers while Mary was doing her thing, completely shrouded by his big belly. The blue flame ignited some spilt booze on the dingy floor, and a small fire erupted. The staff were able to stomp it out, but the nasty throuple was unceremoniously banished.
Alas, management allowed Mary to re-enter the bar because she apparently had some sort of sway with one of the bartenders. Instead of meeting her...uh... "partners" for some more boom-boom, Mary decided to come back inside and gush about Hogg's majestic rooster to all of us. She smelled like D cheese, ammonia, and burnt farts as she plopped down at our table, already screeching about how much bigger her "new boo" was, compared to that vile turd of an artistic director.
George Gay: Fuck me, Mary!!! You reek. Go wash the uncircumcised methhead off your hands and then you can sit with us.
Mary started to protest. Lucy cut her off. "Your whole body is probably a veritable Petri dish from fooling around with those nasty-ass people." She handed Mary some Purell. "Was the junkie junk off, keep the bottle, and don't you fucking touch me when you come back!"
Mary's bottom lip began to quiver and she looked pleadingly at me. "Just wash up," I told her. "You're too pretty to go around smelling like that.”
Off she went to the dingy bathroom. Maybe I wasn't harsh enough, but flattery got results in this instance. And when she returned, she had managed to dilute the stench enough so that we could stand to sit at the same table with her.
Mary took a deep breath in preparation to gush about something that would have undoubtedly been disgusting, but George cut her off this time. "Mare. How do you even BANG someone with a belly like that?"
Mary (speaking a bit more quickly than usual): Oh, it just takes some creative positioning. We get him to lie down. If Mrs. Hogg is taking in the rod, I hold his bowl of jelly up with both arms and stick my cooter in his face. He eats it like his mommy made it! And when it's my turn to get blasted, the missus uses a bunch of yoga straps to hold it up. I have to take it from behind because my own little tiny bit of va-jiggle-jaggle bumps up against his bowl of jelly if why try to smash like vanilla people. It's so much fun, though!!! And then he props his bowl of jelly up on the coffee table and plays with himself while he watches his honey strap on a dil...
George: I so regret asking.
Mary: They're sooo fun to fool around with! I think they might be my forever partners! (Her hands were too shaky to slide down her body in unbridled ecstasy, so she clasped them together and hid them underneath her itty bitty little gunt.)
Lucy: So when are you gonna dump Chuck?
Mary: Well... Hogg and the missus don't have much scratch. And what they do have, they spend on smokeables. When I meet a real sugar daddy, I'll get rid of Chuckle. He pretended to be a baller before we got married. But he's just middle management and he's content to stay there. Pffffftt. No ambition.
Mary launched into another long, unnecessarily graphic gushing about her garbage partners and their nasty-ass boom-boom. So I decided this would be a good time to clear my conscience about dating Whisky. Mary hadn't so much as mentioned him in months. She was inexplicably smitten with The Hoggs. And her ultimate dream man was obviously some filthy rich dude (perhaps a literally filthy dude who was also rich), which took Whisky out of the running. I still think it would have been amusing if Mary had tried to date Mori...
I waited for her adult film star gasp to wind down before I finally interjected, "Wow. Sounds like you've got a fantastic sex life right now!"
Mary: I do! You need to get over that born-again weirdo and find a real man so that you and I can have good girl talk!
Me: Well... I'm not banging anybody, but I am dating somebody. Sort of. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm not even sure that I'm completely into him. But he's been super sweet to me...
Lucy put her arm around me, almost as if she knew I was about to need protection.
Mary: TELL ME!
I hesitated. "Well... It's Whiskers."
In an instant, George jumped up and grabbed Mary by the shoulders, lest she lunge at me.
But Mary got very quiet. Silent tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She gasped and buried her face in her hands, now emitting one seemingly endless, impossibly high-pitched whine.
George loosened his grip and began to pat her on the back. Lucy's grip tightened on me and she whispered, "Here we go. Overreaction sequence has commenced."
Mary lifted her red, tear-stained face and glared at me. "HOW COULD YOU???"
Me: Mary, I swear. I thought you hated his guts. I haven't heard you talk about him in ages. When he asked, I thought it would be good for me to give him a chance since he's always been really sweet to me.
Mary: But what about the way he treated ME??? He was such an asshole!
Lucy: Was he? Mary, you stalked the guy. If he was rude, it was only because you weren't taking NO for an answer.
Mary: He never told me he wanted to end things. He just kept ghosting me. But whenever I showed up at his house and jumped on him, we always wound up smashing. Eventually.
I didn't have the gumption at that point in my life to suggest to Mary that it's wrong on every imaginable level to coerce someone into intimate activity, regardless of gender. And even knowing what Whiskers would eventually become, he didn't deserve THAT. I should have called her out. Instead I tried to steer the conversation back to her current bedroom bliss and try to get her to resume thinking the disgusting thoughts that delighted her so much.
Me: Who cares what he's doing now?! Aren't you insanely happy with your fun new lovers???
Mary: NO! THEY STINK! HE'S FAT. I want my sexy Whisky-Boo Whiskers back!!! Give him back, Valley! Puh-leeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeease.
Me: I don't "have" him. I'm just seeing him. If he hurt you this much, why don't you try to sit down and have a real conversation with him? It might be good for both of you to clear the air.
Mary: He blocked me on everythi-iiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiing. Waaaaaaaaaah!
Me: Well, I guess that's your answer. You probably overwhelmed him. He seems like a bit of a softy. Personally, I need a softy right now. But I think you need a manly man.
Mary rose. She gave me an icy stare. And then she cooed in an unnervingly sweet tone. "I love you, Valley-Boo. I know you didn't mean to break my heart."
Me: Thank you, Mary. Really, I wouldn't have even considered his initial invitation if you hadn't been calling him "Satan," and telling us all that you hated him, and dating all these new guys. I didn't do it to spite you, I swear. It just happened.
Mary (still creepily, icily sweet): Yes. We're so alike, you and I. It's perfectly understandable that the same guy would go for both of us. But you owe me. You owe me big.
Me: I'm gonna disagree with that. If you think I slighted you, just tell me to fuck off. If you really do understand that these things happen, then you'll accept that there was no malice on anyone's part.
Mary: Mmmm-hmmmm. We'll see about that.
She jiggled her Jupiters, tossed her hair, and stalked out of the dive bar...

AND THEN SHE BANGED DENNIS.

I'm putting fake names... (A lot of the timelines are spread out but they talk about those specific moments, I hope they make since)
I have a friend, I'll call her J. I have known J for almost 9 years. She and I grew up pretty close and we were inseparable. Over the first few years of our friendship she had lost my parents trust from an incident involving a boy, she wasn't allowed to stay over for sleepovers and I practically lost my whole summer that year. I was pretty angry at my parents and blamed things on them. I regret my actions and I did learn but in my mind I thought J was the only person who understood me.
After the whole incident settled down. School started up again and she would jokingly push me into a boy or a locker. She started putting her arm around my neck, trying to choke me. She would continuously punch me or smack me on the head. I honestly got annoyed by it but I acted like it was nothing. She had suddenly became obsessed with TikTok and she posted a whole TikTok about her friends, their was a video of me that stood out. I wasn't wearing a shirt. Which completely made me uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing a shirt and she took the video while I was changing. She didn't take it down. She also would post photos without my consent. Like ones that made me feel ugly or disgusting. And I would tell her how they made me feel. But she would still post them. I started telling her no when she asked for photos and she always would sneak one when I wasn't looking. She doesn't take no for an answer. She will start whining when you don't listen. I used to trust her with my feelings and I would tell her about everything. And now I feel like she knows too much.
This past school year all of my friends (king, J, Joe, Bell) and I went to SDYC. And well when we went J was lying a bunch and starting a bunch of drama and it threw all of my friends off. We all didn't trust J and Joe that well during that time. I felt like the only people I had was my friends King and Bell. Because they both understood how I felt.
After that. King, J, and I had a sleepover. During the middle of the night I was watching a movie and J began to bug me. She started pushing on me saying I was taking up too much room. But honestly I was the one who was sleeping in between two couches there's no way I was taking that much space because I was falling in the crack. She then proceeded to call me a fat roll. I said "no your a fat roll" jokingly. And then she freaks out and she went to tell her boyfriend. It annoyed me because all her boyfriend knows how to do is talk bad. After that sleepover. She started working at the same place as me and I told her about my big crush on this coworker of ours. And so then she decided to start flirting with him in front of me. She would throw something at him jokingly and giggle. I didn't try to think anything of it. But then when we were talking about him the next thing she decided to say was, "your just jealous because he talks to me and not you". The thing is I don't want to talk to him that's why I don't try to talk to him. He has talked to me before, but I rather admire him from afar. He's like 13 years older than me. He was just hot to me at the time.
I'll just say I am lighter than a 5'6 girl. I might have a little bit of belly fat but that's just my body. And I do have an eating disorder. I don't eat enough, I practically starve myself. J honestly made me feel worse and I started having moments where I would basically pass out from no iron in my body. J continued to body shame me even from the amount of food I would eat. She straight up made is feel like she was calling me ugly and fat. It hurt and it made me angry. I told my dad and he said she's just jealous and not to worry about it. I brushed it off but she basically would say something everyday. It got to a point where I was crying all the time.
During my last year of highschool J didn't have a vehicle. So she would ask me to drive her places. I didn't mind because we would be going to the same places. And I started offering to pay for her drink or something. I didn't think much of it in tell I was always taking her places and buying her drinks but she still wanted me to pay her back for stuff when I didn't have much money. She managed to buy a vehicle for a small price by saving up the money she didn't spend. I feel stupid for offering. One day her mom even texted me asking for the small money I "owed" J. But my parents think I don't owe her anything because I have given her most of my money and that she owes me money.
J also does this thing where if you don't give her your attention she'll keep tapping you. Over and over again. Everytime she asks for my attention it's always for something so pointless and stupid. Nothing serious. And everytime I ask for her attention she'll ignore me. She does it a lot. She only wants to have the attention. I stopped telling her about how I feel because all I know is she'll either use it against me or not actually listen and move past it. Like once she asked me how I felt and when I told her that I cried about something she moved on from it into her talking about her crying over some movie she watched.
The way she treated me made me so angry that I texted her boyfriend anonymously asking him to control his girlfriend and get her to be nicer to others. He didn't like the message and told his girl on the spot and J tried to call my fake number. I didn't answer and then she ran to me to tell me the tea. She later assumed it was a boy she was flirting with that she pushed away.
I hate her boyfriend but he deserves better.. because she has talked to another boy behind his back. When I started liking this one boy. I told her about it and then she began to tell me how she met this UK boy and she thinks he's all that. She later found out he was lying about his age and she got back to reality before she lost her in person boyfriend.
She told king I was flirting with this one dude but I wasn't. J told me to add this guy she found on Facebook on snap, I said okay and I called the dude a nickname like a Grandma would call their grandchildren. And I thought it was funny and the guy thought it was chill. I didn't think anything of it and then I blocked him because I didn't want to talk to him. She then decided to add the guy on snap. And she starts talking to him. The amount of times she has lied is crazy. I blocked him but she still has him on snap. For what reason I don't know.
J and Joe and I have recently had a lot of problems with each other. It's always J and Joe fighting and I'm between listening to them both argue about each other. I was getting tired of it. J hit my breaking point when she decided to ask me for my boyfriends sisters snap. You don't just ask your friend for her boyfriends sisters snap. That's weird. She also asked for my boyfriends and she looked him up when I told her no and she added a bunch of dudes with the same name. She didn't find him but there is no way I want her knowing him or his sister. I have too many trust issues with her. She's the main reason why a lot of my relationships didn't work out. They didn't like her and she manipulated me into saying things that upset them. She makes me so uncomfortable. She made me seem lesbian once when I know I'm not. But she made a TikTok about it and a lot of people from my school saw it. I don't like false accusations. I'm pretty sure she used it for clout. But also my parents think she's inlove with me because she can never leave me alone and she always HAS to hold hands or hug.
J doesn't understand a lot of things. And she calls me stupid. I honestly want karma to come get her but that's bad and I don't mean to say that. It hurts a lot.
I had blocked J on everything. But since I worked with J I saw her and she started bawling her eyes out at me saying she did nothing, I felt bad but I was annoyed because she kept bugging me. So I unblocked her. I decided to block her again after because my boyfriend said she was manipulating me. And well the more I had her blocked the nicer she was. After a while Joe did something to make me give up on my friendship with her too and J expected that to be a chance to get me back. And well she did practically. She was a lot nicer and I felt like she changed. But Man was I wrong.. Just today I was working my second night shift. I said something as a joke because I was hoping J would get what I meant. Her boyfriend was on the call... He took everything out of context and said something that made me feel less about myself. I already feel like crap being the person I am. I want to better myself but the more people say things the more I give up. I want to be encouraged not dragged down. I don't know why he has to be so mean. I never did anything to him. I don't know why they both have to be... I listen to her call people ugly all the time. Like just stop. I want her to stop. I'm leaving for the military soon, and she said that I can't get rid of her. That sounds psycho. And it honestly makes me want to get away more. I'm tired of the toxic environment and I want to get away. But she's everywhere. She knows everything about me. She has photos of me I hate. She has so many things she can use against me. I'm honestly scared. I want to block her again but I know she's just going to keep bugging me about it. And she might turn people against me. She's good at talking to people. I'm not I'm an introvert. I don't want her ever find me again once I leave. But I know she might try. People always find a way. And she's creepy. Because I know she'll be able to. But I just want to move on with my life. I don't know how to remove her from my life. What should I do?

Thanks to all the hoopleheads who commented on my review of the Deadwood movie yesterday (linked below for anyone curious). With the exception of a couple limey cocksuckers, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the film and gained an appreciation for certain parts of the movie.
There is one major character from the movie I didn't talk about though and that's because I think she deserves her own spotlight, sadly due to just how badly her character and storyline were written.
Calamity Jane is a tragic character in the Deadwood tv series. Spouting some of the most vulgar and hilarious lines in a show filled with hilarious vulgarity, Jane was nevertheless often an object of the viewer's pity due to her chronic and debilitating alcoholism stemming largely from her undeserved self-loathing. By the end of season three, while still not nearly out of the woods that is her addiction, Jane has found some semblance of happiness after rediscovering her passion for caring for others following Mose's shooting, interacting with the school children, and falling in love with Joanie Stubbs.
Jane's addiction (great band) and self loathing stemmed from two demons, as far as I see it: a misplaced desire to be what she could never be - a gun-toting, fearless cowboy of the fabled American West - and a rejection of who she really was - a woman with a nurturing soul but also with some tendencies seen as more traditionally masculine at a time when society's definition of what it meant to be a proper woman was extremely confining. By both falling in love with Joanie and accepting her nurturing nature, Jane both finally dispelled the misbegotten notion that she should be seen as a brave cowboy and also accepted who she really was.
Jane's story line was my favorite because, while my own maturation and self-realizations have been entirely different, similar to Jane my own self-acceptance didn't come after some dramatic event or grand realization. Life simply continued and I was lucky to finally mature enough to accept and love myself for who I am.
And then there's the movie, and not only is Jane's story line a simple rehash of S3 (a complaint made many times by many people about many of the characters) it fundamentally misunderstands what made her storyline satisfying. Fast forwarding past her contrived and rehashed love story with Joanie, Jane heroically shoots Harry Manning just as he was about to treacherously shoot Bullock to free Hearst.
I understand that Harry's assassination attempt mirrors the assassination of Wild Bill Hickock by the coward Jack McCall, lending Jane's rescue some poetic justice, but the idea that Jane's character arc would come to a satisfying conclusion by heroically shooting someone for all the town to see fundamentally misunderstands what was needed for her to find true happiness - self-acceptance not some bold display of traditional cowboy heroics - and what made her character a truly hopeful one by the end of the series.
The image I choose to keep of Jane is of her walking hand in hand with Joanie, leading the children to their new school. She's drunk, she still has her demons, but she's finding her place and learning not to be ashamed of it.
But instead of a nuanced character study with an understated ending that shows an incredible understanding and compassion for the human condition like what we got in the tv show, the movie gives us something pretty. Jane gets to be the heroic cowboy like some 1950's western tv show. In my opinion, this is a misguided way to wrap up a complicated, hilarious, and tragic character arc that had so beautifully shown that real happiness doesn't come from some dramatic display or event like we often imagine, but rather the quiet maturation that comes with learning to love yourself.
Thanks for reading my review. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and as always those who disagree with me suck cock by choice. https://www.reddit.com/deadwood/comments/1crone3/longtime_fan_of_the_show_who_only_just_watched/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

This story was written and emailed to me by an anonymous source. And it’s one of the craziest most bizarre stories I’ve ever read. Ever! 😆 Enjoy the read. It’s long and ridiculously wild. ☘️ Also, in advance, no one can use this story. These stories are written and emailed to me for me to turn into a Video Narrative for my YouTube & TikTok channels. But I would like to share their tales as reading material as well. Thank you for understanding.
I hope you enjoy. 🫶
Story by - “Alex” & “Shane”
Okay so…
I went on vacation to Ireland with my brother last year. And had the most wildest experience of my life there.
Or should I say, we both had the most…wildest experience.
But More so me. And to Tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ll ever go back again after what happened.
As a matter of fact, no, I won’t go back.
So, it’s a Sunday night and it was pretty much our last day of vacationing.
My older brother Shane, wanted to go out… And I’m quoting him - “let’s get fuckin wasted tonight!”
So… We’re on vacation right? Why not? We had rented an Airbnb for the week, we had a rental car - we had a great week so far and we were having…
A proper vacation.
He was already dressed up and ready to go. I wanted to take a quick shower and shave so I told him to head out and I’d call him when I was ready for him to pick me up.
He says cool. He leaves, and I jump in the shower. He’s the one that knows the hot spots in Ireland better than I do. I mean, this was my first time ever coming here. So…
I take a shower, shave, and I get dressed. As I’m about to call my brother, the front door to our Airbnb opens up.
And Its my brother with two bad ass Irish women! They both jump on the couch and they’re laughing their asses off and my brother is just standing there looking at me with a sly grin on his face.
He looks over at the ladies and says - “Give me a minute please” walks over to me, puts his arm over my shoulder and walks me to the bathroom. He then whips out a bag of mushrooms and smiles. Ya know… The psychedelic kind.
I look down at the bag and I shake my head.
He says to me - “come on bro. We got two hotties out there who are trippin and they want to party. Don’t be a flake. This is our last night. Let’s make it special.”
I don’t like disappointing my brother but I was kind of hesitant.
I opened the bathroom door and take a look at these gorgeous women who were both sitting upright now and both looking at me as I opened the door. Both smiling. I smiled back. Closed the door… I looked at my brother and said - “Alright dood fuck it! Let’s do it!”
He gives me a huge hug, kisses me on the forehead, pours me a handful of shrooms and does the same for himself.
We both looked at each other to see who would go first. He counted to three and down the hatch they went. But they were the most unpleasant tasting mushrooms I’ve ever eaten in my life. They were disgusting.
I ran to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of juice because I was having a hard time chewing these nasty things.
But my brother Shane? No, he’s a pro. You give that guy a barrel of hay and he’ll eat it faster than a horse. The guy can eat anything.
40 minutes go by and I’m still straight as a pin. However, my brother on the other hand? He’s already trippin.
I think he had already taken some beforehand.
But in the next 10 minutes… These shrooms hit me like a ton of bricks! It was like this intense wave of cool and hot went completely through my body.
And I’ve taken mushrooms quite a few times but have never felt anything like this before. It was so sudden!
And I feel fantastic!
The next hour went by so fast because we were having so much fun! And these Irish girls? Man… I had the sexiest one! A beautiful Redhead by the name of Katrina.
She was kind of short though. About 5’1” maybe? But good things come in small packages, right? Well, not really. And you’ll know why soon enough.
I don’t recall anything else that happened for the rest of the night after my brother left with the other girl. And before I continue with the rest of the story. My brother’s name is really not Shane. And the redhead girl I was with is not named Katrina.
You see I had to make up these names to protect me and my brother. Because what happened during the rest of the night? I don’t remember. But also, I’ll never forget either.
Okay so, let's get back to the story…
I do remember my brother leaving with… Let's just call her Gloria, Katrina’s friend? And me and Katrina, the redhead, stood behind. I do remember us making out in the bathroom together, but…Everything else after that? There’s nothing there. Nothing. I don’t recall anything from that point forward no matter how badly I try to remember.
This is what my brother told me he witnessed as he arrived back at the Airbnb five hours later with Gloria.
And until this day, I still don’t want to believe this happened. But according to my brother…
It truly did happen.
My brother is going to write this part of the story because he’s the one that has this locked in his memory for life. And for the sake of the story, my name will be Alex.
Here is my brother Shane’s point of view - his perspective on what he witnessed that crazy night. Wow man… This is so fucking nuts. So buckle up and be prepared. I understand you don’t know who I am, but I swear, I’m not a bad person. Okay.

• “Shane’s” story on what he witnessed.

Yeah so, I guess I’m Shane now. Unreal…
Okay. Here we go. Meat and potatoes.
We arrive back at the Airbnb and I see Alex outside in the front of the house wearing only socks and he’s running around on top of the grass like an animal yanking out handfuls of grass from underneath him.
I look at Gloria and we’re both baffled at what we just saw.
First thing I said was - “Oh yeah! This dood is off his rocker right about now - as I parked the car.
We both hop out of the car and walk up to the front door. I slide the key into the door, it unlocks, but there’s a chair behind the door and it’s tipped over blocking the entry way and only leaving enough space for a crack. We both awkwardly look at one another and as I’m about to call out for my brother, I hear someone sprinting towards the door and bang!
The fuckin idiot shuts the door on us.
I then knock on the door softly because It’s almost 1 in the morning as I don’t want to make too much noise. God only knows what this kid has been doing since me and Gloria left.
After I knock on the door a few times, I hear the chair getting pushed to the side and my brother slightly opens the door. I take a peek inside, and his nose is broken, lips are bubbled up and his left eye is completely shut, black and blue and swollen.
He then drops to his knees, and begins crying but no sound is coming out of him! You know… Like when you get smacked by your parents when you’re a kid and it shocks the soul of you? Yeah, that kind of cry.
I don’t react to what he’s doing to not scare the shit out of Gloria, because she’s right beside me. So I push the door open and tell Gloria to hang on a second and shut the door and lock it.
I pick his busted ass up and sit him on the couch. I look around the house and it’s in complete shambles. Our clothes are everywhere, there’s food all over the fuckin walls. It was chaotic. And my brother is now sitting up breathing frantically.
I ask him - “what in the fuck happened?”
He looks at me. Face looking like he got into a boxing match with Rocky Marciano and whispers to me.
“Dood… There’s a leprechaun in the bathroom.”
“A fuckin what now?” - I said with the most bewildered look on my face. I mean I must have… I wish I would have taken a picture of my face at that very moment. I should have taken pictures of everything so this idiot could see the havoc he wreaked on that night.
My imbecile brother continues - “I’m telling you. There’s a fuckin leprechaun in the fuckin bathroom and this little lucky charms motherfucker won’t tell me where he hid the gold!”
“A leprechaun in the bathroom. What the fuck happened to you?” I said as I felt my blood beginning to boil.
The Imbecile then says - “Don’t worry. Don’t worry! I hogtied that little bitch and stuffed my underwear in its mouth. It’s in the bathtub. But don’t go in there. Don’t go in there. This thing fucked me up!”
And now I can hear someone fumbling in the bathroom moaning very softly. I looked at my brother and said - “What in the fuck did you do Alex?”
He replies - “I’m telling you. It’s a fucking leprechaun.”
“Okay. Okay.” - I said. “Stay right here and just, don’t move. Don’t do anything. Just keep still.
His eyes were so huge and dilated. He was so fuckin high. He had heartbeat pulses pumping from the top of his head.
I rushed back over to the front door and told Gloria that my brother got into a fight with a couple of guys at a pub while me and her were out and that her friend Katrina left because she got scared. She told me that was the first time she met that girl tonight so she really didn’t care and shrugged it off. Which was a huge relief to me. I told her thank you for a wonderful night. She understood. W said our goodbyes. I shut the door. And now… What the fuck is in the bathroom? Or better yet, who, is in the bathroom? Because let’s face it. This motherfucker did not find and fight with a leprechaun tonight. No way. There’s just no fuckin way.
I rush over to the bathroom and my brother leaps at my legs, and he’s holding onto me for dear life, begging me!
He says - “Please don’t untie it! It’s got magical powers! PLEASE!!!
Now, at this very moment? I am sort of hesitant about opening the bathroom door. But I snap out of it and open it. What the fuck. A leprechaun? No, I don’t think so.
I open the door…
“Holy shit.” - I said while covering my hands with my mouth. The floor was smeared in blood as if someone was dragged, leading to the huge cast iron tub. Smeared bloody handprints were all over the tub. And now I hear the faint moan coming from the tub. My legs are shaking and feel like they’re ready to give out on me. I was scared shitless.
“What did my brother do? Who is in that bathtub? I pray to God Katrina isn’t in there right now.” - I said to myself completely freaked out.
I slowly walk up to the bathtub…
And sure enough, there is a hogtied person lying in it with my brother's underwear stuffed in their mouth with a ripped t-shirt tied around their head and mouth, but… It’s not Katrina.
It’s a little person. You know, a dwarf? And… He’s literally dressed up in a leprechaun costume…
And how, on God's green earth did he end up here?
He has no idea I’m standing above him. I reach down to begin untying him but he begins squirming and screaming. I told him to relax and that I was here to help him.
And then My imbecile brother Alex, rushes into the bathroom and tackles me down. Stands up and begins shouting at this poor bastard hogtied in the tub - “Tell me where it is you greedy little fuck! Tell me!!!
I jumped to my feet and slapped my brother back to his childhood. Grabbed him by the throat, tripped him and threw him to the ground and said - “are you fuckin crazy? Do you want to go to prison for kidnapping? What in the fuck is the matter with you? You dumb fuck!!”
He then looks up at me with this pessimistic look on his face and says - “It’s a fucking leprechaun dood. A leprechaun.”
I was absolutely dumbfounded and furious at this point. I have this stranger in my Airbnb rental, hogtied and gagged and squirming and screaming and my brother thinks that he’s a leprechaun…
I can’t make this shit up.
He was so fucking high on those mushrooms. He was absolutely convinced that this man was a leprechaun. So… I had to play the game.
It was the only way to help this poor son of a bitch that my brother had kidnapped and hogtied in our Airbnb rental.
I calmly whispered and told him to please leave the bathroom so I could interrogate the leprechaun and find out where he was hiding the pot of gold.
My brother slowly stood up to his feet, face busted up, his cock and balls all shriveled and tight, looked at the man dressed up as a leprechaun, smiled at him with an evil grin and just, walked away…
And as he walked away, I told him to go and please put some clothes on, lay down in bed, and that I would handle the leprechaun. That I, would find out where the gold was hidden…
And that’s all I’m saying. I’m giving the computer back to my dumbass of a brother to finish off whatever else he wants to write.

• Back to “Alex”

Pretty outlandish right? I know. I know. You must think that I’m bat shit crazy huh? Okay so, to make the rest of this long story short, my brother Shane never told me what he did with the poor guy I hogtied and, well… i don’t remember how this guy came to be in my possession. I really don’t.
The only thing my brother Shane told me was that he ungagged him, untied him, and that he was extremely pissed off. And that he had compensated him for his troubles.
Man, I felt so horrible. I felt so horrible…
What I do remember though is waking up that following afternoon with my face all fucked up. Dehydrated with a tremendous splitting headache. I had no clue as to why I looked and felt the way I did. It was terrifying.
All of our luggage was packed and my brother was just sitting there, legs crossed and his arms folded.
Hey man… Take it from me. Don’t do fuckin drugs.
Regards, “Alex” & “Shane”
Disclaimer- This story may not be used for anything other than reading, sharing your thoughts and enjoying it. It is now protected by the United States Library of Congress/Copyright Office. Thank you. ☘️

Having finally finished this a couple of days ago, I must say that the 3rd season is the only good season. The first 2 seasons was too episodic for my taste. If seasons 1-2 was as good as season 3 this could have been better than The Clone Wars. But they wasted so much time with seasons 1-2. I also think the squads potential was wasted. They're supposed to be an elite team but they keep making weird decisions that was complete blunders. They were also wasted doing dumb ass fetch quests for Sid, then she betrays them after they was warned MULTIPLE times about her. I dunno man, even though I liked season three I still see so much wasted potential.

I am impossible to comfort or console. I’m inaccessible, unreachable, and nothing helps. My online friends try and they can’t do anything so they just have to either deal with me self isolating or being too depressed (or busy having a meltdown) to really talk and hang out with them. I don’t play the video games they do, they’ve tried to get me into them and I end up walking away from my computer because I’m immediately bored and I just let myself disconnect. They can’t offer ideas like for me to drink some tea and to breathe or to have a favourite snack because I don’t like tea and I don’t like 90% of the food pyramid. They hate that they can’t help me because I’ve comforted them before in the past, not recently of course, but I’ve reassured them, listened to them, gotten them to drink water or have their favourite comfort food and come down from meltdowns when their sky was falling… but none of that I do for them, works for me when they try it.
I have never felt comforted by anyone. When I was a small kid (ages 4-9) if I was upset, I had no one to go to for a hug or anything (not that physical contact didn’t make me panic). And usually most times I was upset as a kid, it was most likely because I’d gotten in trouble for something and dad beat me and locked me in my room. If I was still upset and crying when he apologised, I got screamed er some more and beat some more and then locked in the room for even longer until I was ‘over my shit’.
Pre-K, if I was upset and crying and didn’t immediately stop crying because they said to, I got yelled at and sent to the corner. Usually for the entire school week.
I was never comforted after. I was never consoled after. I just got yelled at and then the pre-k teacher would lie to my dad and say I stuck my tongue out at her, accused me of calling her a dummy (scandalous), etc… and then I’d get beaten at home wooooooo for not being able to ‘behave for a couple hours’ and I was gonna make the school call child protective services.
Idk if this is why I can’t be comforted by anyone… but what am I supposed to do? My friends can’t help me. How do I help me?
I don’t have any hobbies I really care about (as a kid my hobbies were staring at the wall and playing out a really messed up plot line with my toys (when I had toys, they got thrown out when I was 11). It’s hard for me to be engaged in things, I’m always in my head and nothing is enough to distract me or keep me busy. I’m not sure how I can comfort myself since my friend’s can’t as hard as they try.
TW// CSA & suicide.
The story I’d play out was a birthday party. Everyone brought gifts for the birthday girl and everyone had so much fun. They’d play with the ‘toys’ together, on the ‘playground’ and they’d all eat giant sized play food… and then the nonce shows up and his gift is the gift of trauma (he SA’s the birthday girl, aka my stand-in) and he’s beaten up by everyone. He gets arrested and he’s so sad that everyone hates him that he hangs himself. After he does that, everyone loves him again and they feel so sad that he ‘felt like he had to take his life’ and they immediately turn on the birthday girl, they beat her up, arrest her because how dare she? It’s her fault that a man is dead… if she hadnt been born, that man would still be alive. And scene. And I just played that storyline every single time I played with and I was always so afraid dad would find out and he’d accuse me of being a pervert or something.

Baby girl born blonde-headed, bright green eyes Sweet child innocent to the world, Dependent upon her parents to raise her Trusting unknowing the pain to come
Mommy and daddy fighting it out Their voices drowning out her cries Baby girl all alone wondering is it safe now Learning to not trust others at such a young age
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Teen years come so fast. Can't remember the past. Dating and running trying to fit in. Yet never will. Mask after mask, already lost in the disorder and don't even know it. Someone save her.
Still the punching bag for the emotional and physical abuse. When will it end. Oh look a savior. He will keep her, he will shield her. She wants to trust him but can't unmask herself.
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Young adult now. Child on her hip. Trying to hold it together. To never spilt. She fears her man will leave her. She isn't worth the fight. Fears she will make her child walk that borderline.
Adulthood isn't it fun. Not everything she dreamed of. Suicide in her eyes that have dulled now. Disassociated with herself. Nothing is real now. To much heart break to much heartache. No one truly knows the depths she will go.
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Walk that, walk that borderline (borderline) They see the fear now (now), they see her now. She doesn't even know who she is though. Yeah, walk that borderline (walk that borderline)

Baby girl born blonde-headed, bright green eyes Sweet child innocent to the world, Dependent upon her parents to raise her Trusting unknowing the pain to come
Mommy and daddy fighting it out Their voices drowning out her cries Baby girl all alone wondering is it safe now Learning to not trust others at such a young age
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Teen years come so fast. Can't remember the past. Dating and running trying to fit in. Yet never will. Mask after mask, already lost in the disorder and don't even know it. Someone save her.
Still the punching bag for the emotional and physical abuse. When will it end. Oh look a savior. He will keep her, he will shield her. She wants to trust him but can't unmask herself.
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Young adult now. Child on her hip. Trying to hold it together. To never spilt. She fears her man will leave her. She isn't worth the fight. Fears she will make her child walk that borderline.
Adulthood isn't it fun. Not everything she dreamed of. Suicide in her eyes that have dulled now. Disassociated with herself. Nothing is real now. To much heart break to much heartache. No one truly knows the depths she will go.
Walk that borderline, mask that pain, Don't let them see if fear, don't let them see Who you really are because you don't even know Who you really are (yeah really are)
Walk that, walk that borderline (borderline) They see the fear now (now), they see her now. She doesn't even know who she is though. Yeah, walk that borderline (walk that borderline)
What do you all think?

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft’s works, such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The interesting facts presented here may also be interesting for people who do not know the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them. The article contains several anecdotes – either from real history or from beliefs that exist in the real world, and suggestions on how they can be related to the Cthulhu mythology. So read about:

• Sea Peoples, bane of ancient civilizations,
• a forgotten Eldritch abomination from Greek mythology,
• Jan Twardowski, the first man on the Moon,
• mathematicians and physicists who wanted to know the structure of reality and lost their minds,
• one of the most mysterious characters from the Bible and a dark, occult ritual that underlies monotheism.

Invasion of the Sea Peoples
Ancient, super-advanced, fallen civilizations are one of the favorite motifs of fantasy. And truth be told, something similar happened in real history. Of course, in reality, the fallen civilizations did not have sci-fi supertechnology at their disposal, but their collapse still led to great destabilization. We are talking about the invasion of the so-called Sea Peoples, which took place at the turn of the 13th and 12th centuries BC. The Sea Peoples are mobile and warlike groups of people of unknown origin. They caused the collapse of several advanced cultures, including: Mycenaean and Hittite. Only the Egyptians managed to defeat them in a great battle. Well, the material for Lovecraftian inspiration is obvious. A mysterious army, coming out of nowhere, called the „Sea Peoples”, leading to the fall of the most powerful human civilizations at that time? Let us add that, according to some historians, the descendants of the Sea Peoples destroyed by the Egyptians were the Philistines. Yes, the same Philistines, one of whose main deities was the well-known Dagon to Lovecraftomaniacs… Deep Ones say hello. Let us also add that, according to Egyptian records, the tribes of the Sea Peoples had names such as Ekvesh, Teresh, Lucki, Sherden, Shekelesh, Tekel and Peleset. Sounds suitably dark, blasphemous and filthy? If we want to dig deeper, one of the pharaohs who ruled Egypt was Akhenaten – yes, that heretic who tried to replace the worship of traditional Egyptian gods with the religion of the Aten and who is very much liked by conspiracy theorists. Let’s add to the mix that Middle Eastern cultures had quite a negative attitude towards the sea as such. Babylonian Marduk had to defeat the giant monsters of Chaos – Apsu and Tiamat, personifications of fresh and salt waters, respectively. The Bible also contains traces of the myth about the fight between Yahweh and Leviathan, and the Book of Revelation, describing the new, ideal world, emphasizes that „I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Let’s assume that the players are researchers of an antiquity – historians, archaeologists, etc. They conduct research on the Sea Peoples. Of course, as common sense dictates, they assume that these were human warriors. However, as time goes on, more and more evidence appears that they were not completely human again, and the evidence of their monstrosity becomes increasingly difficult to put down to the demonization that Egyptian chroniclers used against their enemies… It becomes clear that an onslaught of inhuman and semi-human monsters came from the sea. , trying to conquer the world of that time. Moreover, after their defeat at the hands of the Egyptians, this species did not become extinct, but instead of open conquest it switched to cautious infiltration. Perhaps the Deep Ones have spies in academia who are tasked with eliminating historians who find the trail of truth…
Oh, one more interesting fact connecting the history of the Sea Peoples with Lovecraft. Well, as we know, HPL liked to use the term „Cyclopean” for huge, monumental buildings. At least he didn’t come up with it himself. Well, when the later (and at first more primitive) inhabitants, the Dorians, saw the ruins of destroyed castles left by the Mycenaean culture, they came to the conclusion that such huge buildings could not have been built by human hands, so they were probably the work of mythical giants – cyclopes.
Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination
Modern works drawing on Greek mythology usually make Hades (completely senseless) or Kronos (a little more) the Big Bad, but they forget about Zeus’s greatest enemy – Typhon. After defeating the titans and then the gigants, the Olympian gods had to face the main boss on the way to dominating the world – Typhon. Here is an example of its description: It was larger than the largest mountains, its head touched the stars. When he stretched out his hands, one reached the eastern ends of the world and the other reached the western ends. Instead of fingers, he had a hundred dragon heads. From the waist down he had a tangle of vipers (yay, tentacles!) and wings at his shoulders. His eyes were shooting out flames. In other versions of the myth, Typhon was a flying, hundred-headed dragon. In any case – appearance and stature worthy of the Great Old One. Typhon attacked Olympus, and all the gods except Zeus fled in panic. The supreme god took up the fight… and lost it. Only in the second duel did he manage to defeat Typhon, but not kill him – he only imprisoned him, hitting him with Etna. In the sense of a mountain. A volcano – and volcanic activity is the result of Typhon’s anger, trying to break free. Typhon equaled the lord of heaven not only in strength, but in fertility. His wife was Echidna, about whom Hesiod wrote: „She also gave birth to another creature, invincible, huge, unlike neither men nor immortal gods, in a hollow cave – the divine violent Echidna, half a sharp-eyed young girl, with beautiful cheeks, half a huge snake, a great and powerful, spotted, cruel – in the depths of the holy land. This pair spawned many, if not most, of the monsters found in Greek mythology. Their offspring were very diverse and strange, as befits the spawn of enemies of the divine order, including: – Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon who never slept and guarded the apples that gave immortality, – Cerberus – we all know the dog guarding the gates of hell… but not all of us know that, according to some accounts, it had not three heads, but as many as 50, it was also covered with scales, and it had a snake by its tail… so what does this have to do with a dog? – Scylla – this lady inherited the most from the human, beautiful part of Echidna… at least initially, but eventually, as a result of various perturbations, she turned from a beautiful nymph to her siblings, becoming a six-headed sea beast, so hideous, according to Homer, that even the gods could not stand sight of her – she dwelt in a cave, from where she opened her mouth to devour the crews of ships, – Gorgons – I mean, those ladies with snake hair, not monstrous bulls. Medusa was one of them – the story that Athena turned her priestess into a monster as punishment for being raped by Poseidon is an invention of later poets, – Lernaean Hydra – a multi-headed monster with many reptilian or human heads. In place of each severed head, two others grew, and in addition, the main head was completely immortal – therefore, after chopping off the mortal heads, Heracles had to burn the stumps and bury the immortal, still hissing head underground. Hydra’s breath was poisonous. – various other creatures, such as the Sphinx, the dog Ortus, the Nemean Lion or the Chimera. Each of these descendants has the potential to be portrayed as an Eldritch abomination in its own right. To be precise – according to some accounts, the father of these creatures (and Echidna herself) was Typhon, but a monstrous, ancient (older than Poseidon) sea god, Phorcys. How to use Typhon? Well, Typhon clearly has the potential to be a Great Old One, imprisoned by… Nodens? Some other Elder God? Weak gods of humanity? Maybe his cult is trying to free him from Etna? What if he succeeds? What might distinguish Typhon from many other Great Old Ones? I would recommend focusing on his monster progenitor aspect – if he manages to reunite with Echidna, they will immediately start spawning various blasphemous beasts in series.
Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon
Jan (John) Twardowski, the hero of the legend, a Polish nobleman who allegedly sold his soul to the devil and became a sorcerer. Probably a historical figure, according to legend he lived in the 16th century and became famous for summoning the spirit of the deceased queen for King Sigismund Augustus. The ghost allegedly appeared in the mirror. This mirror is still kept in the church in Węgrów. According to legend, when the terms of the pact were fulfilled, devils came to kidnap Twardowski to hell. Interestingly, instead of taking the sorcerer’s soul after death, the most material demons appeared and grabbed Twardowski in order to kidnap him bodily, alive… and instead of heading towards the underground, which in legends is considered the traditional place of residence of demons and damned souls, they began to carry away up with him. At some point, Twardowski started singing religious songs, which caused the demons to escape, leaving him on the Moon, where he is said to have stayed ever since. Could the “demons” actually be extraterrestrials? Maybe mi-go? Maybe Twardowski was their agent and obtained secret knowledge and technology from them that gave him the fame of a sorcerer? As part of his studies, did he acquire knowledge of a system of sounds („religious songs”) that was able to drive away his masters when they decided that his usefulness on Earth had ended and it was time to transport him to a space base where he would be transformed into a brain in jar? Or was transportation to the Moon part of the deal from the beginning? Oh, one more interesting fact – according to legends, Twardowski used to use a rooster as a horse, which he enlarged with his magic. It’s easy to imagine an abomination that, in the eyes of laymen, might have resembled a large rooster… Examples of scenario hooks: – Twardowski’s secret mirror is still in the church in Węgrów. The local priest thinks it is just other „pagan” superstitions, but in fact it is a tool enabling contact with cosmic beings and higher realities. It may prove useful to players if they convince the priest to give it back or simply steal it. – Players are looking for Twardowski’s notes to gain knowledge about the „song” thanks to which he drove away mi-go (or other creatures that became the prototype of the „devils” from the legend). The so-called Twardowski’s „School” or „Cathedral” was located in a quarry near Kraków. In fact, at the end of the 19th century, during the construction of the church of St. Józef, a cave showing traces of alchemical experiments was discovered… And it was destroyed. But perhaps there is a second, secret laboratory under the cave that escaped destruction? And there lie Twardowski’s secrets… And again, potential obstacles may be placed by the local parish priest. But not only him. Maybe Twardowski’s legendary „rooster” lies dormant in the laboratory and was left by the sorcerer as a guard? – players are astronauts on the Moon. However, it turns out that someone lives here, someone who was not detected by previous expeditions and probes. Will Twardowski prove to be an ally in the fight against cosmic horrors? Or maybe their agent, or an independent villain? If he survived this long on the Moon thanks to blasphemous secrets, it’s possible that he had little humanity left…
The rest of the text is avalaible (of course, for free) here: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2024/05/13/some-lovecraftian-inspiration-form-real-life-and-beliefs/

An open letter to Benedictine College and Harrison Butker
I first came across the Harrison Butker’s 2025 commencement speech at Benedictine College on Twitter. It was a short snippet of the speech and I was in disbelief of what I heard. Intrigued, I went to YouTube to find a recording of the whole speech before drawing further conclusions. Now, I am nearly beyond words.
I grew up in the Catholic Church, attended a Catholic high school, and do still consider myself to be Catholic, although not without my own qualms with the church. However, this is not about that. I am also a more recent college graduate. I graduated from a large public university 5 years ago and am looking forward to obtaining my graduate degree next year, both degrees I have worked incredibly hard for and am immensely proud of. I don’t remember my own commencement speech, but if it was anything like this, I am glad I don’t- I loved my undergraduate experience and will be proud to have my diploma framed and hanging one day. Harrison Butker’s speech is condescending, out of touch, and against the very values of your school. You both, Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, owe these graduating students an apology.
As a proudly Catholic college, I do not hold issue you or your choice in speaker with promoting Catholicism and the beliefs of the Catholic Church, even in regard to politics; while I may not agree, that is your choice to do so and one that underlies the foundation of your school.
The class of 2025, as with many recent graduates and current students, have had to work through a unique set of hardships as a whole, beyond the personal hardships we all face. Mr. Butker is not a recent graduate, nor is he working directly with a school or university. College is a change for everyone from high school, with the course load, schedule, and independence, but beyond the nervousness and uncertainty that comes with this new phase, students are able to rely on the fact that since its inception, the college experience has been relatively stable, until the COVID-19 pandemic. Students, and faculty, were forced to rapidly adapt to a situation that we knew very little about and had no history to guide us. To minimize that, say that “it is not unique,” especially as someone who was not experiencing it from an educational aspect, is disrespectful to students and faculty, regardless of beliefs on the issue. Pandemics are not new, nor are controversial policies, but what these students faced, was new. I know of no other time during our history, where thousands of students were nearly overnight told to immediately leave their housing and worry about their finances and shelter as not everyone has the means to find new housing or go back to their parents, have food outside of the dinings halls, or access to a computer and internet to complete their coursework where they had planned on attending in person or using university resources, when these things are apart of what students pay thousands of dollars for or take loans to afford as part of their college expenses. Whether or not you support these policies and changes, that does not lessen the unique hardships faced or make a student wrong for adhering to them when failure to do so could result in greater consequences. If there is another time where this has happened, I am happy to be referred so that I can learn. It is one thing to say that the feelings of uncertainty and anxiety around new policies and adapting to them are not unique, but another to say that the challenges these students faced as a result of policy is not unique, it is disrespectful, condescending, and completely out of place as someone who did not experience it.
Beyond this, it is even more disrespectful to diminish the accomplishments of particularly the female graduates of your university by allowing your speaker to advocate forgoing using their degree and instead, choose being a wife and mother. To Benedictine College, if this is what your school advocates, then why charge tuition to your female students? How will they pay for it or pay off their loans for it? Do you expect your female graduates to marry a man who will pay off their debts? What happens if they don’t or if they choose a vocation in religious life, are their debts forgiven? To take it a step further, why admit female students at all if their degree is not meant to be used? A yearly tuition of $35,000 seems a greedy ask to attain what becomes a useless degree. Maybe this is not something you support, but I have yet to see any statement indicating dissent with this position. The Benedictine sisterhood and St. Scholastica, its founder, take pride in education and she herself do not choose the vocation of marriage. How would St. Scholastica be able to attend your college when she found her vocation to be in the religious life? To Harrison Butker, how dare you? I am happy for you and your family that your wife can be a homemaker if that’s what she wants to do, but that is completely out of touch for what nearly all of these students will face as they graduate. Your family can comfortably live on just your salary of over $4 million per year, but you are a minority in this situation. You speak of not allowing cost of living to prohibiting where you live, but with your salary, I’m sure there are few areas you cannot find suitable housing and access to food. Is one supposed to choose to live in circumstances where they do not have a stable shelter in favor of a more traditional priest? Earlier in your speech you mention “accepting your lane and staying in it,” I believe you should have taken your own advice, because your lane is far wealthier than mine and likely all of the graduates you are speaking to. Most families will need two salaries to live in even a fraction of the comfort you live and even then, may not be comfortable. From what I understand, you went to GT on a scholarship, another minority, factor in student loans, and the comfort fraction becomes even smaller. Should a family live in a constant state of worry about money so that a woman can be a homemaker? You spoke of charity and the platform God has given you, but I do not see you using your wealth for charitable acts to support the lifestyle you advocate in these graduates. You decide to speak for women and presume they are most excited at the prospect of marriage and children when you are speaking to congratulate them on a major accomplishment that has little to do with their future as a wife or mother. Can a woman not find fulfillment and a calling as a valuable member of the workforce and a wife and mother. As a woman who anticipates graduating from medical school in one year, is being a doctor not part of God’s plan for me? As I understand it, my vocation, is not between being a wife and mother or being a doctor, but of the calling to serve as a married, single, or religious person. You make it seem as though I cannot be both a doctor and family woman one day. You make remarks about controlling how and when children are conceived. You condemn IVF and surrogacy when a large portion of woman and men in this country struggle with infertility or health conditions making a pregnancy incredibly dangerous. If a woman cannot naturally have a child then is she not to be a mother? Do you also condemn adoption as it a choice and controlled method of becoming a parent? Is it only if a woman is unable to conceive naturally that it is acceptable to work rather than be a homemaker? I have always been taught in my experience with the Catholic Church to welcome children into your life whenever they come about, not as a barrier to being a working mom. You have laid out the options as black or white, mother or worker, when I believe the advice is to be open to and welcome God’s plan for you in both areas of your life. Not only do you advocate for the females graduates to forgo the workforce when this is an unrealistic path for most, but in doing so, you add extra pressure to the male graduates to provide in an unrealistic way. At what cost do men take higher paying jobs they are unhappy in so that their wives can be homemakers? You have worked hard to get to where you are, say you are doing something you love, and are able to show the fruits of that labor, should these graduates not show all of the knowledge and skills they have gained through earning their degree?
To Harrison Butker, I, too, am Catholic. I believe we also are similar in that we question right from wrong and do not just blindly accept the things that are fed to us. You say that our priests and bishops are anointed by God, but quickly question that anointing. I now question you, in who you are to question who has been anointed by God. You point out it is your duty as a father to lead your son. In our faith, we call our priests Father, but you call us to question and right them, should they not lead us? Should we not follow the quote you use of trusting our priests to translate the teachings of the Bible for us? Does your son question you and what is your response? You call for priests and bishops to be righted but also to stay in our lane. I do not mean to support the actions of our church leaders either way, but as an individual am not following what you ask of these graduates.
To Harrison Butker, you say you speak from experience, but it seems your experiences are vastly different than most of the graduates you speak to. Your statements contradict one another, in questioning our church leaders, staying in our lane, and even speaking of your wife as someone who converted to Catholicism but later question being with someone of a different faith, not allowing for change. As I have stated before, it is one thing to speak of shared feelings, but another to speak of a shared experience. You give advice in black or white rather than ideas for consideration and reflection. Listening to your commencement speech, I can’t imagine I would have found excitement for the future and wisdom as I start to move forward on my own. Had this been my speech to give, I couldn’t speak to a lot of the challenges these students faced, but can empathize with the fears of stepping out of the student life and uncertainty about my future. I could speak to how being able to adapt to challenges, facing hardship in my own way has made me strong and able to persevere and that they too have grown to be stronger and able to persevere too, even if they are not confident. I could speak to how money is not always the most important thing in life, your church, your family, your community are all things to reflect on when making decisions about the future. But, this was not my speech, it was yours. My ideas may not be right, maybe it has more “fluff” than yours, but they do not tell me the right or wrong way to live my life, as that is between me and God.
To Benedictine College, much of this is address to Harrison Butker. However, this is the person you chose and supported in giving a commencement speech. What is address to him, is also a reflection of what you support and believe, and the message you hope to send your graduates off with. I am not one of your graduates, happy to say I am not with this speech, but at least for me, this is the representation I have of your school.
To Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, you both owe the graduates an apology for these disrespectful and confusing sentiments as they enter a new and stressful chapter of their lives.
To the Benedictine College class of 2025, congratulations!

First time reader of Wolfe and I'm having an amazing time working my way through shadow and claw. I had to read this chapter a couple times to try and grasp it; it's extremely dense. I'm still finishing Claw of the Concilliator so my thoughts may change. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The Tale of the Student and His Son Analysis
“Once, upon the margin of the unpastured sea, there stood a city of pale towers.”

• The unpastured sea evokes Hamlet “the undiscovered country” death and the unconscious. Pale refers obviously to a light color but also feebleness. However, a tower symbolizes wisdom and stability and the balance of forces (light and dark, fire and water, order and chaos). Wolfe is already painting this city in contradiction.

“In it dwelt the wise. Now that city had both law and curse.”

• Another symbol of duality: loss and gain. The wise give the law but simultaneously curse the city.

“The law was this: That for all who dwelt there, life held but two paths: they might rise among the wise and walk clad with hoods of myriad colors, or they must leave the city and go into the friendless world.”

• Here’s another contradiction: the wise wear myriad colors symbolizing their acceptance of all, but their law is built on exclusion, a brotherhood without.

“Now one there was who had studied long all the magic known in the city, which was most of the magic known in the world”

• The magicians study pan (all). They are comparative mythologists, occultists, Jungians, etc. (This, ironically, is Wolfe). Pan in Greek mythology is a cloven foot and horned god that plays the “pan flute”, and is associated with nature and sex. He is often accompanied by nymphs.

“And he grew near the time at which he must choose a path. In high summer, when flowers with yellow and careless heads thrust even from the dark walls overlooking the sea.”

• High summer is a reference to the “dog days” of summer. In ancient Greece, this was the hottest and most uncomfortable part of summer. It’s called the “dog days” because it coincides with the heliacal rising of Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. Furthermore, the Greeks believed the luminous Sirius (from seiros: scorching) caused the extra hot days. I mention this because it relates to the alzabo which in the Lexicon Urthus is from the archaic Arabic “al-dhi’b” which refers to a wolf, a jackal, or a star in Canis Major.

“How may I - even I who know nothing - have a place among the wise of the city? For I wish to study spells that are not sacred all my days, and not go into the friendless world to dig and carry for bread”

• Another paradoxical and ironic statement: he’s been studying all his life, but knows nothing. A Socratic kind of wisdom but also represents spiraling madness. Critically, he wants to study non-sacred spells; he turns away from the divine.

“ Do you recall how, when you were hardly more than a boy, I taught you the art by which we flesh sons from dream stuff? How skillful you were in these days, surpassing all the others! Go now, and flesh such a son, and I will show it to the hooded ones, and you will be as we.”

• Groomer! And if Wolfe is trying to evoke ancient Greece with this story, it’s well-founded that older Athenian men would often indulge their passion for youth. This would explain the use of the carnal word “flesh” to describe the creative process. Sex magic is a common occult practice and is certainly non-sacred. The passing of seasons represents the cyclical nature of trauma and abuse.
• Wolfe uses very unsettling language: “And the old man who had taught him thought of the beauty of the trees that had for so many years delighted his eyes like the white limbs of women.”

“Winter came stalking into the land from his frozen capital, where the sun rolls along the edge of the world like a trumpery gilded ball and the fires that flow between the stars and Urth kindle the sky. His touch turned the waves to steel, and the city of the magicians welcomed him, hanging banners of ice from its balconies and heaping its roofs with glaces of snow.”

• Perhaps a reference to Saturnalia but does not follow the ancient Greece theme. Saturnalia occurred near the winter solstice because the sun enters Capricorn, the astrological house of Saturn, at that time. Capricorn fits in with the Pan imagery as it too is a goat-like being.
• Saturn represents the cyclical course of time and season (Greek equivalent Chronos). Saturn would regularly devour his own children; this fits into the aforementioned cycle of trauma.
• Saturn is often represented with a sickle: a symbol of mankind’s partial control over the natural world.

“In spring, the most beautiful maidens of the city, the daughters of the magicians, were clothed in green; and while the soft winds of spring teased their golden hair, they walked unshod through the portal of the city, and down the narrow path that led to the quay, and boarded the black-sailed ship that waited them. And because of their golden hair, and their gowns of green faille, and because it seemed to the magicians that they were reaped like grain, they were called Corn Maidens.”

• Here the sickle imagery is introduced directly. The Corn Maidens are human sacrifices, but are compared to grain and corn; sent into the “unpastured sea.”

“Looking from his window saw the maidens filing by, he set aside all his books and began to draw such figures as no man had ever seen, and to write in many languages, as his master had taught him aforetime.”

• Is this not what Wolfe does in his writing? He constantly appropriates ancient words from forgotten languages to do his “magic.”

“ At first it seemed to him that all the skill his master had taught him of old had deserted him, for from the first light to the moonlight he was alone in his chambers save for the moth that fluttered sometimes to show the insignia of Death at his undaunted candle flame.

• More meta stuff: writer's block
• A moth showing the insignia of death is an interesting comparison. This moth could be interpreted as the final stage of metamorphosis before death. It could also refer to the Bombyx Mori, the silk moth. Mori in this sense means mulberry, but mori can also mean death (as in memento mori). The silkworm has a similar symbology to the scythe in that it represents man’s control of nature. This is the domesticated version of the silkworm that relies completely on humans for its survival and is genetically modified to promote silk production. This reflects the city’s practice of human farming and sacrifice.

“Then there crept into his dreams another; and he, knowing who that other was, welcomed him, though the dreams were fleeting and soon forgotten.”

• The Irony here is that although he works tirelessly practicing his magic, he only summons the being when he is not working, asleep and unconscious. He welcomes this being into his mind. “He heard the step, always in another room” He’s unable to pinpoint this being’s being; he can only pinpoint its secondary effects. As he continues his magic, the aftereffects become increasingly pronounced until finally the illusory becomes real. Milton describes hell as “darkness visible.” I think Wolfe is going for a similar effect here.

“Then the student dared turn himself where he sat, and he saw standing before him a youth haughty of port, wide of shoulder, and mighty of thew. Command was in his firm mouth, knowing wit in his bright eyes, and courage in all his face. Upon his brow sat that crown that is invisible to every eye, but can be seen even by the blind; the crown beyond price that draws brave men to a paladin, and makes weak men brave.

• The student’s creation terrifies him, but he doesn’t want to show his fear.
• “Haughty of port” meaning prideful with an air of superiority. Going back to Milton: “round he (Satan) throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay, mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.” Classic Luciferian pride.
• Contrary to popular depictions of Satan, he is one of God’s highest creations: “Whoever he is, the “Devil” is among the very first and best creatures of God. He is, so to speak, perfect enough, wise enough, powerful enough, one can almost say divine enough, to know God and not to surrender to him - to know him and yet opt against him, to desire freedom from him. But since this freedom is impossible in the love and light which always lead to God and to a free surrender to him, it must of necessity be fulfilled in negation, hatred, and rebellion.” (Alexander Schmemann). Satan is God’s highest creation but he is the most base, he is wise yet chooses irrationality, in Wolfe’s description he wears the invisible crown that all see. Satan is an ironic, paradoxical, and tragic figure.
• Milton also describes Satan as a commander

“Often I have seen, like a green serpent called by the notes of a pipe, a column of green slip down the cliff below our city to the quay.”

• Again Wolfe uses Miltonian imagery: “Thus they Breathing united force with fixed thought moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps O’er the burnt soil.” Both descriptions suggest a snake charmer playing his pipes.
• This connects Satan and Pan: pan pipes as well as ostensible concern for his nymphs

“At this the young man’s eye flashed, and he demanded: ‘Who is this ogre, and what form has he, and where does he dwell?’”

• The ogre is the beast and the minotaur that lives in the west. The West is another symbol of death and the unconscious.

“His name no man knows, for no man can approach near enough…His harbor is an isle to the west, where a channel with many a twist and bend, dividing and redividing, reaches far inland. It is on the isle, so my lore teaches me, that the Corn Maidens are made to dwell; and there he rides at anchor in the midst of them, turning his eye ever to left and right to watch them in their despair.”

• Does no man know its name because no one has discovered it or because it doesn’t exist? Or are both the same?
• Eye of Sauron reference. Masonic all-seeing eye which masons say represents the omnipresence and omniscience of God, but, in reality, represents an all-powerful control system that constrains mankind. When Severian first goes against his guild he says of his fellow torturers: “ I saw them as powerful, the active principle of an inimical and nearly perfect machine.” Severian first realizes that Nessus is a vast control mechanism; the torturers are a gear in the infernal machine.
  
• The beast lies in the labyrinth. The twisting and bending channels describe a labyrinthine structure without directly calling it a labyrinth. When Domnina first observes Father Inire’s mirrors: “She ran to the curtains hoping to find another door behind them, but as soon as she pulled one aside, one of the eight walls painted with labyrinths opened and Father Inire stepped out. Behind him she saw what she called a bottomless hole filled with light.” Wolfe is trying to show that the beast, the control mechanism, is tied to these mirrors.
  
• The young man fleshed from dreams relates to the fish fleshed from reflected light in Father Inire’s mirrors. They are both paradoxical creations; how can one create reality from the virtual (dream stuff and mere reflections)? The fish is clearly a reference to Christ and the ichthys; Domnina even references Pascha. But this Christ is a virtual Christ, an antichrist. In Revelation, the Antichrist is depicted as the ape of Christ, but ultimately the Antichrist is a mere illusionist: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (Thessalonians 2:11).
  

“For I am Noctua, the daughter of Night, and the daughter too of him whom you have come to slay…For though he did not know why, being of the stuff of dreams he was drawn to her; and she, who eyes held starlight, to him…At this the princess took pity on him, for all who have the stuff of dreams about them seem fair in some degree at least to the daughters of the night, and he fairest of all.

• Noctua means owl from Latin nox meaning night (and she is quite literally from her mother Nox). Nox is an important aspect of Thelema or the occult practices of Aleister Crowley. Nox is the formula of the night of pan, the “crossing of the abyss” and the union with “our lady of abominations” Babalon (from Revelations the whore of Babylon). In Nox, the adept experiences unification with the All through ecstatic destruction of the ego-self, dissolving duality into one or, in other words, nonsense. Ego death is a core element of mind control (MK Ultra and Project Monarch** remember the silkworm symbol).
• It’s clear from this passage and later passages that many others have been sent on this mission in the past. However, Noctua feels a particular affection for this commander.

“At length Night came, and they saw her striding from islet to islet with her bats about her shoulders and her dire wolves dogging her steps. No more than an easy carronade shot from their anchorage she seemed, yet they all observed that she passed not before Hesperus or even Sirius; but they before her. For a moment only she turned her face toward them, and none could be certain what her look conveyed. But all of them wondered if indeed the ogre had taken her without her will as her daughter had said; and if so, if she had not lost the resentment she might be imagined to have felt.”

• Hesperus represents Venus the morning star in Latin Lucifer or light bringer. As Russell puts it, the evening star is the morning star; it represents the drama of a hero striving for the highest seat of heaven but being cast out of heaven (matches the movement of Venus in the sky). Another connection to Sirius.
• Another suggestion that perhaps this quest is not as it seems.

“In ancient times, so it is said, a tattered child, the daughter of a fisherman, found on the sand a stoppered flask, and by breaking the seal and drawing forth the cork became queen from ice to ice. Just so it seemed, an elemental being, strong with the strength of the forging of creation, debouched from the tall smokestacks of their ship, tumbling over himself in dark joy and growing with a rush, as the wind comes.”

• This could be a Pandora’s box reference, critically Pandora. Another dualistic notion, that what saves the day also causes doom. Or perhaps Odysseus’ bag of winds; the aid turns into the curse. Fits into the overall narrative of the story that Severian is both a torturer and a hero. He is “severed” and “severs” into two. Dorcas: “All of you are torturers, one way or another.”

“Then he strode to the rail and looked down; but with such an expression that no one, not even the most brave, dared to look at him. When he lifted his eyes at last, his face was set and grim and with no word to any man he took himself to his cabin and barred the door.”

• Obviously despondent. Either about the evil he released into the world or that his great battle was with a phantasm or that the whole quest was a lie.

“But on the morning of the third day, the young man fleshed from dreams came out of his cabin and began to walk up and down the deck as he was wont to do”

• Allusion to the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. His cabin serves as his “tomb.”

“At this he looked up into the very vault of the firmament. And some thought he prayed, and some that he sought to restrain the anger he felt against them, and some only that he hoped to gain inspiration there. But so long did he stare that they waxed afraid, even as they had when he had peered into the water, and one or two began to creep away. Then he said to them: “Behold! Do you not see the sea birds? From every corner of the sky they stream. Follow them.”

• He’s come back from the dead but is filled with anger.

“None of them ever forgot that night”

• Nothing like an orgy after a long day of work.

“Certain of the Corn Maidens wed those princes who, having spent years so long enchanted that they are loath to leave that life (and have in that time learned much of gramary), build palaces on lily pads and are seldom seen by men.”

• They go out to become demonic forces in the world. Lily pads are a call back to Chapter 2 of shadow: “When I think of my own death, or of the death of someone who has been kind to me, or even of the death of the sun, the image that comes to my mind is that of the nenuphar, with its glossy, pale leaves and azure flower.” The nenuphar exists above and below the water; they exist in two worlds just as their journey took them from the east to the west.

“And when he beheld their dark sails, smutted by the burning tar that had blinded their enemy, he believed them blackened in mourning for the young man, and he threw himself down, and so perished. For no man lives long when his dreams are dead.”

• Absurd ending to the story. You can't help but laugh at the ending. Jonas even suggests that the end of the story has been edited.
• IMO, he kills himself because the “hero’s” journey was never meant to be a success. The hooded ones need the ogre to have the utopia.

Throwaway account.
As per title a woman was messaged from my account some time ago. I'm not entirely sure what was said, but it was ultimately down to some insecurities from a partner at the time.
Basically I see this woman almost daily, on school runs etc and occasionally around town. Since that whole thing she understandably looks uncomfortable if she bumps into me out and about. I try not to draw any attention or if I do have to walk past her I just awkwardly smile whilst avoiding any eye contact etc.
Now I won't lie, initially I was attracted to her as she's very pretty, but outside of that I would never make a move, she's just someone I couldn't help but look at. Long story short she ended up appearing on my "people you may know" as she was mutuals with some parents from the school I had recently added. Naturally curiosity got the best of me when she popped up so I had a look at her profile, nothing in it just curiosity. Never intended to add her or anything as I didn't know her. My partner at the time saw me looking at her profile and understandably questioned why I was looking, I just explained it's someone I had seen frequently lately, she popped up and I was curious to take a look. Possibly wrong of me to do, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.
My partner then messaged her from my account later that day, I leave my phone out as I've nothing to hide, she had said something along the lines of sorry for staring when I see you and if it makes you uncomfortable. I guess her intent was to scare away this woman, which she definitely achieved. Shes looked worried whenever I bump into her since. Naturally I've tried to adjust my patterns to limit bumping into her, it's gone on for some time now, and I unfortunately have to do most of the school runs daily so I can't help but bump in to her.
The reason I'm asking for advice, is because although I thought just not acknowledging it was the best thing to do, I've heard rumours going around that I'm stalking her etc, this is absolutely not the case, at all, but these types of rumours can destroy a man and his career. The anxiety I feel is like nothing I've ever felt before. It's really drove me into a depression as I can't deal with those types of things being said about me.
Obviously this has went on for some time now, and I've wanted to just approach this woman and explain but I know that wouldn't be right to do. I'm at a point where I feel like I should message and share a brief explanation to explain that I'm sorry the situation happened to begin with, and try to assure her nothing freaky is going on.
As for the the rumours, I'm under the impression these were started by her boyfriend, as it turns out we went to school together and he didn't like me much then, he was abit arrogant, still is, but I think he's the root cause of this and have subsequently blocked him etc.
Am I doing the right thing ignoring this? Or do I tackle it considering those are pretty damaging rumours, especially to be circulating a school where I go twice a day. I feel genuinely hurt people would think this about me.

Asian Fantasy ✓ Female Main Character ✓ Heart-Wrenching ✓ Historical Setting ✓ LGBTIQ+ ✓ Thought-Provoking ✓ Villain Arc ✓
“Inside her there was only the perfect, blank brightness of belief and desire. Desire is the cause of all suffering. The greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself. With all her will, she directed the thought to Heaven and the watching statues: Whatever suffering it takes, I can bear it.”
What is the Book about?
A village in the dusty plains, ravaged by famine. A seer reveals the futures of two children: the boy is destined for greatness, while the girl—nothing.
In the year 1345, China is under the brutal rule of the Mongols. Raiders sweep through the land, preying on poor farmers. They come to the children’s village, leaving them orphans. While Zhu Chongba succumbs to despair, the girl makes a resolute decision to change her fate. She assumes her dead brother’s identity. Can Zhu escape what is written in the stars? Or can she claim her brother’s destiny for herself—and ultimately rise as high as she dares to dream?
Rating Plot ★★★★☆ Characters ★★★★★ World Building ★★★★☆ Atmosphere ★★★★★ Writing Style ★★★★☆
Favourite Character Zhu
My thoughts while reading it
In reimagining 14th century China through a fresh historical lens, we are presented with an evocative tale of destiny, identity, and an unyielding will to survive. Based on a true story but with a unique twist, this narrative feels both singular and authentic, as though its extraordinary events could indeed have transpired.
Initially, I anticipated a younger reading experience, given the rise of Asian YA novels at the time of its release. However, this book took me by surprise, exuding a raw and real essence that is mature and dark. Don’t let preconceptions influence you as they did me; if you are a fan of the Dandelion Dynasty series, you should definitely give this book a chance. “She Who Became the Sun” is a story of ascension to great power, highly political and driven by war. It offers a historical novel that is intensely military without veering into pure military fantasy, deftly intertwining deep explorations of gender and identity. The revelation that Zhu is actually a woman in an era when women had no voice adds a thrilling twist to the narrative. The book handles gender themes subtly and cleverly, avoiding heavy-handedness. There are no preachy dialogues about what it means to be a man or a woman; instead, the story itself immerses you in these experiences, making them feel natural and unforced. It delves into the nuances of identity and the disruption of one’s sense of self through various life events.
Shelley Parker-Chan masterfully creates an immersive atmosphere, transporting the reader directly into 14th century China. Although my knowledge of Chinese history is limited, the story felt so genuine that I wished Zhu’s tale of a woman disguised as a man had truly happened. The narrative’s often unemotional tone enhances its historical authenticity. The vivid descriptions of the setting, the intricate development of characters, and the seamless blend of historical facts with fictional elements make this novel an unforgettable reading experience. I particularly appreciated the beginning, which portrays the impact of war on common people who struggle to survive, sometimes even forgetting their own families. Additionally, Zhu’s time in the monastery is beautifully depicted, with Buddhism woven seamlessly into the story. However, it should be noted that this is primarily a historical fiction novel with minimal fantastic elements, which, when present, felt somewhat forced. I would have preferred a purely historical novel, as it would have suited the narrative better.
The characters, alongside the impressive atmosphere, are a highlight of the novel. Each character feels original and deeply developed, making them vivid and unique. The protagonist, Zhu, is a prime example of a complex personality, with inner struggles and external challenges that make her a fascinating character. Her determination and courage to defy the societal norms of her time make her an inspiring figure. And it’s fascinating to see that as a reader, you end up rooting for a character who may have initially seemed kind and selfless, yet you still like them in the end, even though they have become something entirely different from what they once were. Another remarkable character is the eunuch general Ouyang, whose tragic past and identity conflicts make him one of the most intriguing antagonists. Initially, he seemed one-dimensional to me, but he is a character who reveals his full potential over time. His interactions with Zhu are filled with tension and a complex dynamic that keeps the reader engrossed until the very end, leaving me eager to see how their relationship will unfold in the sequel. The supporting characters also add depth and realism to Parker-Chan’s world. Each one, from the monks in the monastery who take in Zhu to the soldiers and peasants in the background, has their own story and motivation, enriching the narrative. These characters all contribute to a multi-layered and realistic portrayal of the world.
Shelley Parker-Chan’s “She Who Became the Sun” is an impressive debut that will captivate lovers of historical fiction. It’s a book that demonstrates the power of human will and the quest for a self-determined life, showing how these can change the world. A must-read for anyone interested in ancient China and the strength of the human spirit! This book is definitely my absolute highlight of 2024 so far.
Reading Recommendation? ✓ Favourite? ✓
Check out my Blog The Reading Stray

This issue may not belong here, so if not, please redirect me. I didn’t know where to start. About 12 years ago, my MIL (now deceased) paid cash ($145,000) for a townhome for her son - I’ll call them Darren (64m) and his wife Dana (61f). For some context, Darren and Dana mooched off of MIL for at least 25 years and have been given hundreds of thousands of dollars. Within a year of being given the house, they drew from a line of credit because they repeatedly run up all of their credit cards and then can’t afford the payments. Darren hasn’t worked for at least 25 years and Dana only has a high school education so works as associate in payroll for companies.
My husband (62) and I (59f) went no contact with Darren and Dana right before MIL passed away. My husband took over his mom’s finances after she signed a POA, and took control of all of her debit and credit cards and checkbook and blocked Darren and Dana from access. They were furious that they no longer had access to MIL’s money. Darren was an alcoholic who became belligerent when drinking and is a physically imposing man (over 6’ and 400 pounds). Darren started threatening us trying to get us to give him the credit cards and checkbook. They live a mile from us. When we wouldn’t bend to their demands they paid an attorney to write a letter saying they were going to file charges of elder abuse and again demanded we give cards and checkbook to them along with all relevant paperwork. We ignored the letter because my husband had a POA that was signed and notarized and a drs statement attesting to MIL’s ability to understand what she was signing. They got even more desperate when we ignored their ridiculous letter. Darren was now calling my husband (his brother) and threatening to contact his bosses at his job and tell them that we are suspected of elder abuse. At this point, my husband made the difficult decision to go no contact with Darren and Dana in order to protect us.
MIL passed shortly after this and her remaining assets were liquidated (everything was in a trust) and split evenly between the two brothers. Fast forward ten years. We have had zero contact with Darren and Dana. The last time we saw Darren, he was in pretty bad shape (diabetes, alcoholic, chain smoker, zero exercise, poor diet), so we knew he would probably die young. Every once in a while, I would see if they still owned the house and also check the obituaries.
This week when I searched, I found Darren’s obituary. He died back in January 2024. I did request the death certificate and noticed on the death certificate that it said he was divorced. So in further checking public records, we found out that they divorced in 9/23. As soon as Darren was out of the house (he was at an extended stay hotel), Dana moved her daughter and daughter’s partner into the house.
Just this past week I noticed the deed on the house was changed to just Dana’s name. I am going to go to the clerk’s office and look at the divorce decree. Typically, wouldn’t Dana have to either buy Darren out for his half of the house or agree to give him half when it’s sold? If the agreement was to give him half the proceeds of the sale, does it have to be sold within a certain amount of time? The house is now worth upwards of $325,000. And what happens since Darren died so quickly after the divorce? How was Dana able to remove Darren’s name from the house? Wouldn’t he have to sign a Quit Claim Deed? And if he did, then he should have received some money. He was estranged from his only child and only sibling, so if he did have money, how do I find out who inherits it?
I appreciate any guidance you can offer. Dana is a greedy, dishonest snake, so I think she probably took any money that he had. Darren was cremated and I doubt that he had a will, unless Dana coerced him into leaving everything to her.