Hey guys,
Many Reddit posts really helped me in the run up to my exam, so I want to tell you my story to ease anyone else's anxiety for their screening.
This is gonna be a long read so only read along if you're wanting every detail of this journey.
A few months ago I admitted myself to ED as I was having blood clots coming out in my stool. I have had many years of bleeding stool and hemorrhoid issues but this was the first time it had happened with blood clotting.
I was asked to stay overnight but before I left I asked for a referral for a colonoscopy so at least I went home with something moving forward.
It was in the public system so it was a few months until I could get an appointment but the run up to it I was frightened about mostly the results and the sedation.
This was in Australia so the sedation option is Midazolam and Fentanyl. It's a twilight sedation and something I've never experienced before.
In the two weeks running up to it, I expressed to my psychologist of my fears and she suggested asking my GP for quick action anxiety medication.
My GP prescribed me Diazapam and suggested I take it before I leave the house.
Fast forward to the day before. I stopped eating at 2pm and started my first PLENVU dose at 7pm. Initial bowel movements weren't so bad. Maybe went 6 times over the course of the night and it slowed down by midnight and I was able to get about 6 hours sleep.
I drank lemonade, apple juice, bone broth, sucked on Werther's originals and basically tried to keep belly full of sugar and liquids to stave off hunger.
Next morning I woke up at 7am, time for dose two. This one was much more intense when it came to bowel movements. I must have gone about over 10 times in the morning and twice more at the hospital. PLENVU isn't horrendous tasting. It's very salty and viscous but drunken cold with a straw and chasing it with lemonade, it was fine. I drank as much fluid as I could before I stopped all fluid intake at 10am. I think the worst part of the prep is not the hunger but the hours after 10am and before the procedure is the intensity of the thirst. I took my 5mg of Diazapam at 10am and this helped a lot with fighting back the anxiety and nerves.
I got to the hospital, checked in easily enough and was lucky they had a good system. I arrived at 12pm for a 1:30pm procedure.
Nurses were lovely and cannulated me with ease. I expressed my nerves and one of the assistant nurses explained I would be in a Twilight sleep on Midazolam and Fentanyl and depending on how my body reacts I could be aware of what's going on, could talk to them the whole time or go straight to sleep.
Turns out, I didn't go under basically at all. I was talking to them the whole time and they were holding my hand. I may have conked out for a second here or there with no memory but I basically watched the entire footage of the scope and at one point asked for more Midazolam as it hit a bit of a sore spot.
What a was 20-30 mins felt like 5 minutes. They then banded my hemorrhoids in the same procedure.
I didn't feel it initially but as soon as I got to recovery the pain of my bands set in but the nurse was so quick to check on my pain levels and what she initially gave as Panadol turned into Oxycodone and that helped a lot.
I'm back home now and my butt still hurts through the painkillers a bit but a banding isn't a part of every procedure but something that was given as an option to me during and I was more than happy to accept.
Turns out bleeding seems to be hemorrhoid related and that shouldn't be as big of an issue once I heal from the banding.
But yeah, I found the prep way more of a breeze than I thought and all I can say is if given the option of unsedated or sedated, choose sedation cos at least you have the option to ask for more pain relief if you remain conscious. Or if you're knocked out and propofol is your option, that would probably be even more pain free than my experience.
There really isn't much to fear and now my fear of going back to get another one is basically nil. Especially since the staff were so patient and friendly to me. They really made it everything so much smoother and calming.
I know this is a long read but I hope it helps someone heading into their upcoming procedure.

I'm so tired. I'm 41. Started having lower back spasms at 11. Got very active and fit that kept it mosty at bay during my teenage years. Back pain returned and young adulthood. Cried on the way to work on the bus. Knelt on the floor to type. Got a different job. Migraines slowly started over years. That would go out 3 to 4 times a year regularly but I was very active.

1. I don't know what the fuck happened but my neck did something and it was months And months of uncontrollable spasms and complete trauma. Interstitial cystitis appeared. Gastrointestinal pain started. My nervous system seems to be jacked up after that. Super reactive to everything.

I pull myself heroically back to some decent functionality after a few years. Then my new knee pain (chondromalacia) took away roller skating which was my favorite activity in life and probably the thing that kept me strong. I've been working on my knee since 2020 and I still haven't made progress with all the PT. It's so incredibly frustrating and it's what kept me from skating and hiking. I try to keep active with walking and PT exercises.
Then my husband of 12 years just walks out on me one day with no warning (He actually moved out while I was gone for the weekend and let me know by email but he wanted a divorce, saying that my recent diagnosis made me a ticking time bomb waiting to ruin our lives)
Fast forward 2 years through the trauma of utter blindsided betrayal and abandonment by someone I thought was my best friend and loving life partner, And the mental trauma of being forced to do a whole divorce and fight for my needs with someone who screamed at me that I didn't deserve any alimony at all because I created all this suffering in my head to manipulate care out of him (Yes, that was his point of view. I can't explain it. It's nuts. It's basically total denial I think, His twisted rationale to make this my fault and therefore abandoning me acceptable) I haven't worked in years. I don't qualify for disability because I stopped working gradually, before I had a diagnosis and I trusted my husband. So now I don't have enough recent work credits for disability.
Randomly, a year after my husband left, I developed chronic tailbone pain. I haven't been able to sit down without pain for over a year. It's really a hard condition to treat, no solution in sight but strengthening which I'm used to and I'm ready to do...
... But my hips have started possibly subluxing? I've never had trouble there before because I've been very active since age 11. I don't drive. I walk everywhere. I used to roller skate, hike. Now all I do is walk. It hurts to lift my leg when I lay on my side, feels like it's stuck like I have to rotate my leg in order to properly lift it. Sometimes I get a sharp pain in the back part where the top of the thigh bone is. Aching today.
I'm suspecting this slow loss of my physical activity has finally weakened my hip butt area, allowing my hips to have problems for the first time?
And I've JUST gotten over an exhausting trial of LDN which backfired on me (It caused completely new peripheral neuropathy to appear in my hands and feet and then set my migraines to become chronic, every day, for over a month)
It's literally been 3 days since the amitriptyline has finally kicked in and I've gone a day or two without migraine.
But this hip pain is taking me down mentally.
How can I exercise when despite my best efforts, I keep adding injury after injury. They're stacking up. I can't climb my way out.
I'm terrified because I can't sit. I can't even use a wheelchair if my hips give out. How the fuck am I supposed to live?
How much more can I fucking take?
I really hope I'm just having a little breakdown. I hope I can improve things.
But I'm just so goddamn fucking tired.

Hi guys, I've come here time to time for the past 7 or 8 months whenever I feel symptoms or anxious and I guess it's time I shared my story, as there could be some things I learned along the way that would be helpful for folks. I'm a 30 year old male. I took minoxidil for 5 years from the age of 25. Once that didn't seem to be working any more I tried to get oral minoxidil and my doctor told me to get on propecia instead. I told her I felt a little scared about that but she said I'd be fine. I've always had a good libido, maybe too good, like bordering on sex obsession.. so I figured if anything a little less libido might do me good. Soon after I started the propecia I got a concussion (mild) from a soccer ball, and that was after a weekend where I tripped on acid, so there were some things going on. I had also had pretty bad food poisoning some months ago that took forever to heal from with some lingering tummy problems. Anyway, I had weird symptoms after the concussion. I almost felt like, euphoric. It felt like my brain was just releasing all of its happy chemicals at once. Part of my euphoria was an absolute disinterest in sex, but I enjoyed that, I felt like I was attaining enlightenment or something. I was glowing and productive. After a week or so all of this went away and I went back to having normal sexual health and normal (bad) mental health and I didn't really think about it again. Fast forward 6 months. I quit my job because I am depressed about it and life in NYC is suffocating me, I want to travel the world before it burns down, in the interim I move back home to get my affairs sorted. I had to dye my hair for some short film, and I hated it, when I cut it my hair didn't look good, seemed I'd lost a lot more than I thought, and that made me sad so I was researching finasteride (does this stuff even work?) and then I accidentally found this community on reddit... and it freaked me out. I had a full blown panic attack reading these posts. Then I started thinking about things that had been happening in my life. Increased anxiety and depression. Chronic prostatitis. And the development of IBS, especially bad after drinking alcohol, which actually led me to give up drinking for a while. My sexual health was fine, but I think the anxiety from reading the reddit posts gave me some weird sexual side effects, not joking. That same day I started feeling an achey tingling in my balls, as if they were swelling up. I remember going on a walk with a girl I was seeing and I just felt so off and couldn't even enjoy walking because of the heaviness of my balls and I didn't want to sleep with her at all anymore. I immediately gave up both fin and min, kind of sad because I had just bought a years supply of the stuff from one of those new websites that makes it easy. So with all this happening, I had also been planing to ride my bicycle around the world. I left for India about a week after cutting the hair drugs and cutting alcohol. And then I'm in India. Without alcohol, my IBS pretty much completely healed. I was making very nice poos. The cycling irritated my prostate though. I started off by going over the Himalayas which involved a lot of climbing and therefore a lot of my groin pushing hard into a bike saddle. Still, I was able to pleasure myself in the tent successfully, which I only did to keep tabs on my progress of course. Things were looking up. Leaving work and NYC and America already did a 180 on all of my mental health issues, as did quitting alcohol. My memory improved. I was reading and writing and thinking clearly. I was a happy guy. After finishing the himalayas I had a few beers about it with some friends to celebrate. A few days later I got some cramps in my abdomen, and then the next day severe food poisoning. Both ends type. So bad. Had to keep going though. I kept cycling through the mountains. For two weeks I had diarrhea, and then that turned into regular old IBS again, like always running to the bathroom never knowing if I'll make it on time and the poop is this sludge like texture. It sucked. I was also sad about my hair, as it looked like I was losing all my gains. I bought a fin/min topical mixture and started using that while I was in a meditation retreat. I started having that weird euphoric feeling again, but I attributed it to the meditation, which was really life changing but no need to elaborate on that. I also started feeling prostatitis again (burning sensation tip of penis, feels like you want to pee). I had fixed the tilt on my bike saddle to eliminate prostate issues so it was weird that it was coming back again. I figured maybe coming from sitting in meditative posture all day. I guess I was in denial, but after about a month or so I figured it must be the finasteride so I gave it up again and switched to just minoxidil. But then, the minoxidil was making me feel weird too. I remember one time, the very same night I applied minoxidil it felt like my asshole was falling out, like I had a rectal prolapse, now I think it's hemorrhoids. I had the hemorrhoid feeling for a while. Keep in mind, my main issue at this time remains the IBS. I also had very low libido but honestly I rarely saw attractive women on my trip so who knows. So I kept cycling, I cycled all the way from the North in KashmiLadakh to Kerala, the south. My IBS never went away. I tried all sorts of things for my hair. I went to an ayurvedic place and they put leeches on my scalp which was hilarious. They also gave me this weird ayurvedic oil with no real instructions. I think that must have had some DHT blocker in it because it gave me the weird feelings too, especially the hemorrhoid feeling. I started drinking oregano oil and taking copious amounts of probiotics, which would always help for a couple days against the IBS but I think the heat of the Indian sun killed them off while they were in my saddle bags. Then I found this new chemical combo in South India, starring redensyl and backed up with procapil and anagain. I figured what the hell why not. It came with a dht blocker gummy vitamin but it was just green tea with biotin and zinc so whatever. I started feeling a lot better on that. One random week I started getting insane erections and it felt like my dick grew an inch. Can't really explain what was going on there. Prior to that the erections were meh and I would cum sometimes in a half-noodle like state which was very sad. Anyway, that didn't last forever. Once I got to the very south I decided I needed a full system reboot and went to another ayurvedic place and got something called a panchakarma. In panchakarma you go on a very restrictive diet and they massage all of your body toxins into your gut, they make you drink a ton of ghee to help do this, and then they purge you, so it all comes out of your butt, and then in my case I got 5 medicated enemas. It's a two week process, sometimes longer. I know it sounds crazy but it definitely makes you feel better. I was also doing yoga and meditating every day which was super helpful. After that my IBS went away. I had to keep to the diet for two weeks after: no sugar, caffeine, gluten, alcohol or meat. After the two weeks I dipped my toes back into all those things and my gut stayed solid. Crazy. I also felt good sexually. I started taking another hair serum, this one with redensyl, anagain, procapil, and pumpkin seed oil. Still felt great. I flew to Malaysia and started cycling there. In Malaysia I just started feeling better and better. No IBS, huge erections again. In fact, I became obsessed with sex again. And it was depressing. I actually started missing the days when I had no libido in India. I was really able to focus on other things. Sex is such a waste of mental energy. I could drink alcohol again. And so I did, and had no issues. Which was great but I also was kind of sad about it, am I just going to be a sex-obsessed booze hound again? Have I learned nothing? Anyway, the story continues. No one is bald in Malaysia so I had to order more of my chemicals to feed my hopeless hair serum addiction. I found a crazy one that was stacked with redensyl, anagain, procapil, baicapil, capixyl, biotin, aminexil, rice water, rosemary oil, and .... saw palmetto. The saw palmetto was maybe .3% so I figured it probably wouldn't have any effect, especially since I was fine with the pumpkin seed oil. Anyway, 10 days into that serum I got the tingly swelly feeling in my balls again and some prostatitis too! Oy, back to the start it would seem. I'm mainly just upset because I ordered 3 bottles of that stuff and had to pay taxes on the import because it came from India, and now I guess I have to throw it all out? Whatever. Anyway, you can call me an idiot, but by using my body as a guinea pig I believe I've uncovered some interesting info for everyone. Just as the early men who figured out which berries were poisonous, I serve humanity with my tragic misadventures. Still cycling, hoping to go around the world and find new ways to mess with my hormones and keep some of my hair. My advice from this, do something to fully cleanse your system, like the panchakarma. We've basically tampered too much with our settings and need to do a factory reset. You can do a lot of that stuff on your own, fasting, purging, enemas. It stimulates your body into healing itself. Hell, go to India. In India doctors actually listen to you and treat you holistically, and everything is cheap! You can get rifaximin for 2 dollars should you desire. You don't need to keep getting gaslit by expensive urologists and gastros in the states your whole life. Just do something crazy. You'll stay depressed if you linger on the internet for too long. And if you're stuck in a job/life you hate, take PFS as a sign and excuse to be selfish and get out of it, think of yourself as a terminally ill person that just wants to live life for the little time they have left. Obviously I still have no idea if any of what I've experienced is actually PFS or if it's maybe related to the original food poisoning or the concussion or maybe even Long Covid. No clue. But I do think a lot of my symptoms have been consistent with what you guys talk about. Either way, whatever it is, treat your body well and you may heal. I hope? I'm currently sitting on a swollen sack hoping that the PFS Gods will be merciful once more, but I know I don't deserve it. My desire to have hair still hasn't gone away, and I keep thinking maybe if I try just one more thing that'll be the thing that works. And that's what keeps pulling me back into this mess. But at the end of the day I can thank PFS for forcing me to make the big life changes that have made me a much happier person today, regardless of the state of my pelvic area.

(Repost from HousingUK)
TLDR: I own a share if freehold flat and the other freeholder lives abroad, is incapacitated and has no next of kin, just a legal representative appointed by a government organisation in the country she lives in. I need to sell my flat and extend the lease but two years in I have got nowhere in getting the deeds signed. What can I do?
Hi Housing UK readers,
I wanted to see if you had any fresh ideas on how to approach this situation I find myself in.
I purchased a flat in 2011. The flat is one of two in a Victorian conversion. Both flats are self-contained.
I am the sole registered leasehold proprietor of flat B and have been living in the flat since 2011.
Miss X is the sole registered leasehold proprietor of flat A, and has owned the flat since 2001. The flat is being rented as Miss X retired abroad in 2006.
Miss X and I also both own a share of the freehold, which is split 50/50.
I’m in contact with Miss X for a few years after I buy, but all admin relating to building management is dealt with by her estate agents and she defers any discussions to them.
Fast forward to September 2022. I need to sell my flat as I want to move to a different city, and have some debt I need to pay off. The flat is listed for sale in late October 2022.
There are 84 years left on the lease for both myself and Miss X. I reach out to Miss X to inform her of my plans and that I will need her signature for the various deeds, and that we should extend the lease. The email bounces back and her phone line is disconnected.
I contact the estate agents who manage flat A. They have also not heard from Miss X for a while, I can tell they know more, but they are unwilling to share any details. In a tactical move, I list my flat for sale with them too, to try and get their help with Miss X (a whole other hilarious side story). I am repeatedly assured by them that the situation with Miss X will not hinder the sale of the flat (a huge lie).
March 2023 I finally find some buyers (with another agent) and start the conveyancing process, including extending the lease and transferring the freehold.
May 2023. After chasing Miss X’s estate agents for weeks, I discover that Miss X is now incapacitated and hospitalised with dementia. Miss X has no partner or children, no next of kin and no legal representation in the UK. She is under the care of a government agency in the European country she resides in. A lawyer employed by the agency, let’s call him SP, has been appointed as her legal representative and is in contact with the UK estate agents. SP sends documents to verify his status to the agents, who confirm legitimacy via their lawyers. SP is very hard to reach, rarely answers emails or his phone.
I find a solicitor specialised in property law to help me navigate this situation. As Miss X is not deemed “absent”, the solicitor suggests that it’s best to try and resolve this with the appointed legal representative (SP), as any other legal routes available for absentee freeholders through UK courts wouldn’t apply (as we know where Miss X is). I explain the situation to SP, he talks to a judge and informs me he lacks capacity to make decisions about the leasehold and freehold matters without court / judicial approval in his country.
SP also asks for help with gaining access to Miss X’s UK bank account. All rental income from her flat in the UK is being transferred to a UK bank account via the estate agents. I share information on obtaining power of attorney in the UK and suggest it would be best to appoint a lawyer in the UK to help with all matters.
November 2023. After several months of backwards and forwards with SP to try and find out exactly what legal documents the judge wants to see in court, under his guidance my solicitor produces papers, documents and evidence, we get them translated, postilled and posted. SP is confident the judge will be happy and grant permission for signatures.
The documents make it clear that the authority being sought for SP to sign the leasehold extension and transfer of freehold are in no way prejudicial to Miss X and in fact extending the lease would add value to her property should she decide to sell in future.
A court date is set 3 months later. Sigh. More waiting.
I lose my buyers (understandably).
February 2024. The court date arrives. The judge rejects the request for permission for SP to sign papers on behalf of Miss X. It’s not fully clear why this is rejected. After speaking to SP it seems that the judge now wants SP to obtain access to Miss X’s bank account before moving forward. I am surprised that no progress has been made with that.
I go back to my solicitor. Now that we can show that steps have been taken to locate Miss X and get the deeds signed by her legal deputy without recourse, they suggest that we can apply to court in the UK to have another trustee appointed to sign the transfer and deed, and suggests appointing counsel to make the application to UK courts, which should be “run of the mill”. We choose a barrister, the situation is explained, documents shared, and I’m given a 3 week timeframe for papers to be produced for court.
In the meantime we connect SP to a solicitor in the UK who can help with obtaining PoA, as no progress has been made with that yet.
A few days later the barrister gets in touch, more bad news.
Under TLATA, there would be a breach of trust if all required consent from the current trustees was not obtained, so it is not sufficient to just add another trustee, Miss X would need to be replaced as outlined in the Trustee Act 36(1). However under the Trustee Act 36(9), where a trustee lacks the ability to perform their function, no new trustee can be appointed without consent from the Court of Protection. I am informed that making this application to the CoP is lengthy, costly and risky. The barrister says it would be faster and safer to wait for SP to obtain the relevant permissions.
We reach out to SP again to see what progress has been made. None. Some documents need to be translated and he is unwilling to pay for the translations (it seems their organisation has no money). We offer to pay now and be reimbursed once access to Miss X’s money is granted.
We are now almost half way through 2024 and coming up to 2 years into this situation.
Is it really possible that legally these are my only two options?

• going to the UK courts at great expense in a process that has been called “risky and lengthy” by the barrister.
• Waiting for SP to sort out PoA with no guarantee that the judge will even grant permission for the deeds to be signed (again risky and lengthy)

I know I can try and sell my flat without the share if freehold and with a short lease, but this will affect its value and the short lease especially will be a problem with mortgage applications.
Any different ideas on how to approach this? Seems so absurd that currently I can’t sell something that is mine, due to a situation I didn’t create!
There are many more twists and turns to this story but I have left them out as this is long enough. Also I do not have a legal background or am a housing expert so apologies if some of the language I use is incorrect.
Thanks for reading!

Hello there.
I'm posting for all of the people like me who stumble across this post (mentioning the error ”System.Exception: Error: could not find matching certificate for Developer ID Application; please check your ‘Signing Identifier’ in your macOS Options”) in a desperate quest to make their game working on macOS, as the official GameMaker documentation is IMO laking some critical informations, and the error in the IDE does not specify what certificate is missing and what exactly a Team Identifier.
At the time of writing here are my specs:

• MacMini M2 Pro 16Go RAM
• macOs 14.4.1
• XCode 15.4
• GameMaker IDE 2024.4.0.137 runtime 2024.4.0.168

Here is the complete walkthrough:

1. Make an apple Developer Account on developer.apple.com (if you already own a regular Apple ID, you can also use it here)
2. Enroll for Developer (cost a yearly fee)
3. Go to https://developer.apple.com/account. On scrolling this page, under ‘Membership Details’ you’ll find your Team Identifier, which is a string of 10 uppercase characters. Copy it as we’ll need it in GameMaker.
4. Install XCode from the macApp Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12
5. Open XCode
6. Go to the menu XCode -> Settings and go into the Accounts tab
7. On the bottom left corner, clic on +
8. Select Apple ID and hit Continue
9. Clic on your Apple ID on the left side
10. On the bottom right side, hit ‘Manage Certificate’
11. Add all of the available certificates (Apple Development, Apple Distribution, Mac Installer Distribution, Developer ID Application, Developer ID Installer)
12. Open GameMaker
13. Go to the menu GameMaker -> Settings
14. In the settings window, open Plateform -> macOS
15. In Team Identifier, paste the Team identifier found in step 3 and hit apply

You can now hopefully build an executable for distribution.
At the end of the building process, If macOs asks for a password for Mac Developer ID Application, leave blank and hit Continue.
Additional notes:

• It works regardless of the option to build as a .ZIP or .DMG installer
• It may be related to my specific game, but in my case, only building with VM output works. If I try to build with YCC, XCode fail to open the file and tell me that it is corrupted for some reason, and I have to force quit GameMaker.
• One of the posts mention that they had to add "Mac Developer: " to the signing identifier. It didn't work for me so I think that it is no longer relevant.

Informations that I don't have oand don't understand and IMO need to be added in the official documentation, as I had to tinker around with (and at the end of the day I am not even sure what worked):

• I first tried with only the Apple Development, Apple Distribution and Mac Installer Distribution certificates and it did not work, so I added the two other ones. Are there relevant and which one of them was needed ? I have no idea.
• I also went to https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/identifiers/list and in the Identifiers tab to add a specific certificate with my game name, but I have no idea if it is relevant or not to build on GamMaker. I suppose that it is only used to publish on the Mac App Store, but Im not sure right now.

SORRY IT'S LONG I JUST HAVE TO VENT
I moved into this share house 6 months ago, Alex moved in two days after me.
Our other two housemates have lived here for over a year and are barely home, they don't do much around the house but they also aren't the ones making the mess. Even though they are barely ever here they still buy replacements for things we all use and take out the trash and tidy up after themselves. They are very low maintenance and respectful.
Alex doesn't do a single thing to contribute to the house. He piles dishes on the drying rack until every single pot, pan and bowl we own is out on the bench, uses the communal items but has never replaced a single thing, brings rubbish down from his room and stuffs it into the already overfull kitchen bin, never takes it out. He has never picked up after himself or cleaned a mess he makes. He doesn't wash his hands, ever. Leaves pools of water over the kitchen after doing dishes and the bathroom is basically flooded after he showers.
Usually I will just sort of move his mess out of my way as best I can and don't clean up after him. I'll make a pile of the food he leaves in the sink (often raw chicken) on the side of the bench. One time I finished the dish liquid, there were three more bottles under the sink and I didn't get a new one out. Alex piled up his dirty dishes on the side of the bench for 8 days because he didn't look under the sink or just go buy more. He uses the kitchen 2-3 times every single day. We also have a dishwasher he could have used...
I can't tell if he knows what he's doing, I think he just doesn't care but he also hates being called out and he gets upset and seems guilty/embarrassed about his behaviour?? He is very sensitive and acts like's a child. It's clear he never realised how much his parents did for him around the house and just thinks nothing is ever dirty and there's an endless supply of toilet paper and cleaning products but isn't aware of the fact that someone has to be cleaning and buying those things. I don't know if he's lived out of home before, I've asked but never got a yes or no.
Yesterday I sent a message to the group chat. I gave a couple of examples in areas where "we" could improve, literally all of them were purely about Alex but I didn't specify that it was him. Alex was immediately defensive and replied how I expected.
He said it's not fair that he has to buy communal things when other people use more of it. He will buy and use his own things from now on. Even if he does do that, this entire time he's been using the communal stuff. One of the housemates said why don't we just all contribute a small amount each month and she will be responsible for buying everything. Alex said no. Instead of just starting to contribute he gets angry and always reacts with something along the lines of "fine! since you all hate me, i'll just buy my own stuff!" or "it's not my fault there's lint in the dryer tray". I pointed out that the rest of us also make mess but we just clean up after ourselves, he doesn't believe me and says I'm just blaming him.
He also started to talk about bills (they are split evenly) and said it's not fair that certain people use more than others but we all pay for it. I said there will be things you use more than us, he is usually up all night so has the lights on when the rest of us don't. He takes very long showers, he is here 7 days a week when the other housemates are only here a couple days. He didn't reply to anything I said and just kept going on about how it isn't fair and he will just stay in his room from now on to "not cause problems".
He also is quite strange around the house, he doesn't know where certain things go or how to use appliances but instead of asking somebody, or googling it, or just LOOKING for it he will just leave it. He is not proactive at all. One time I was rearranging things in the linen cupboard to make room so I could use a shelf, it was all old crap that past housemates have left here, I knew that because I asked our other housemates about it. He walked past and said "I didn't know we were allowed to do that"...bro its your house too! He clearly wants to use things but just doesn't fucking ask or take initiative and do it himself. He has never messaged the group chat to ask about anything, he will just suffer if he can't find something he needs which is just stupid.
I'm so tired, I hate having to keep my things in my room. I want to live somewhere that isn't disgusting with rotting vegetables and mouldy open cans of sour cream in the fridge, to be able to walk around bare foot without stepping in food and slipping in pools of water, to be able to touch door handles and light switches without thinking about the fact that my housemate doesn't wash his hands after he shits. Anything you say he has a very dramatic reaction and a defence waiting. I'm currently saving but don't have enough to move out yet. Why are people like this? He just makes everything so hard. I can never decide between living in a clean space and doing most things myself, or letting everything rot and hoping that other people will pick up the slack even though I know they probably never will.

A Delicate Craft by D. P. Watt
Published in and exercpeted from Aickman's Heirs (2015) edited by Simon Strantzas

The special day came and she pricked out the pattern on his pillow and guided him through the first turns of the work. Tea flowed but Bogdan's progress was frustratingly slow.
"I would give anything to have the skills you have," he said, draining a cup, and resuming his slow progress on the pattern.
"Really?" Agnes said. "Would you give anything?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, concentrating on selecting the right bobbin to thread over the one in his left hand. "To know something—to truly master it—that is what life is all about isn't it. I want to be well trained at what I do, and you have been a wonderful teacher, but then it will take me many years of practice and hard work to be as accomplished as you are at it."
"Anything at all?" Agnes said, distantly, as though she had not been listening.
"Yes," he said again, firmly.
"Then look at me," Agnes said, taking his hands from their work and holding them in her tiny, deformed fingers.
He did not really understand, but turned to her and looked into her eyes, the colour of which was difficult to discern in the half-light of her front room, and beneath the folds of the wrinkles that gathered around her eyes, threatening to enfold them in darkness.
"May we find this wish heard higher. These hands are for doing, for marking and learning," she began, as though reciting an old childhood nursery rhyme. She had turned his palms upright and traced a line down each with her thumbs.
"These hands are for nursing, for nurturing and yearning," she sang, tracing his forefingers down each of her palms.
"And between them they cradle a world full of knowing," she gripped his fingers tightly. He could feel every line worn into them, every blemish and callus—pressing harder and harder on his own fingers and then palms. "And none has yet turned the side of that flowing, for age is a rift and youth such a gift. But the bridge o'er the chasm is built with desire."
The room had become hot and airless, and a dull yellow light seemed to have brightened the place, although its source was unclear.
Agnes sank back into her chair, her eyes flaring and her arms shaking. Bodgan made to get up and help her but his legs felt weak, his eyes heavy with sleep and his vision blurred. His hands felt hot and painful. The tiredness was overwhelming and he too fell back into his chair and sank into sleep. The last thing he saw was Agnes rise up, suddenly and swiftly, with a strength he had not seen in her before. She stretched her arms high above her head, a body in the throes of being born again.
* * *
Rising from his slumber Bodgan felt his limbs creak slowly into usefulness. His hip arched and his feet wore sore and numb. He looked down at his fingers; gnarled and crooked, the nails cracked and dirty. Between a swollen thumb and bent forefinger he held a thin white thread. He traced it back—its fibres further twining together as it trailed through his fingertips—to a delicate bone bobbin that he deftly tucked beneath its partner on a faded blue mat edged in frayed gold braiding that was propped on his lap. His hazy vision could see well enough this close at hand but as he peered around the room he could just make out the forms of ornaments and pictures, each of which sparkled half memories of a long life, filled with loves and losses. "Nadszedł czas na herbatę," he thought.
In the narrow street outisde a young girl played hopscotch on a hastily chalked grid—as though the late Twentieth century had never happened; her stiff ivory dress was dated; her hair plaited and unfashionably long; her delicate laughter, eternal.

Translated from Polish "Nadszedł czas na herbatę" — "It's time for tea."

Hey guys, I just need to vent and have people to talk to I guess.
I’m a 36F single parent , I only have my young teenage daughter and my elderly mother so I don’t really have anyone to talk to.
This will be a long post because I just need to get it all out there.
It all started mid January 2024, I was suffering severe pains in my stomach and rib areas and was vomiting mostly liquids/ stomach acid , I went the the emergency room a few times I was sent to have ultrasound done on my gallbladder, kidney and liver- results were normal , my GP put me on acid reflux medication since being on that the pains have gone and the vomiting it’s every once in a while compared to a few times a day.
Then in early February 2024 I started to get ringing in my ears mostly on the left side but in both, it never stops, my ears felt blocked/ muffled (no pain) I also had a feeling of something in my throat. I went to see my GP again who checked inside my mouth and noticed my left tonsil was swollen so she put me on antibiotics which didn’t work so she did a second course I ended up going to the emergency room as I noticed a weird thing on the bottom of my tonsil towards the front it looks like a skin tag? Not sure how to explain it but I was freaking out , the ER doctor said it “looks” like a small cyst nodule and did blood test , he said I don’t have a bacterial infection and to stop the antibiotics, if the cyst was there still in 3 weeks to go back to my GP. After 3 weeks the cyst was there still, I still had the issues with my ears and the feeling of something in my throat but it felt higher up more like the back of my mouth. I went to my GP who then referred me to a public ENT I got an appt with them for March 8th, I went to the ent appt and I was a complete mess, I just said straight up I think I have tonsil cancer so he got me to sit in the chair so he could scope up my nose/ down my throat, I asked him is it cancer and he said “ I don’t think so “ then he went to go get his boss which made me freak out more. In came the boss which seem to be nice he had a look with his light and eye piece and said that my left tonsil is slightly bigger than my right and was firmer he also said he didn’t think it was cancer. He said he wanted me to come back in 5/6 weeks for reassurance. He asked me to see my GP to get my anxiety sorted and also suggested I go visit my dentist to get teeth cleaning done as I have tartar ( I’m a smoker )
They sent a report to my GP which states on the report about having my tonsils removed and biopsy done. Why would they say that if they don’t think it’s cancer …. I’m a complete mess. Surgery absolutely scares me.
I was meant to have my next ent appt on the 16th of May but have just received a letter saying that it’s been postponed to the 29th July
I noticed about a month ago I have a swollen lymph node on the left side going along my jaw from just below my ear. It was tender to lay on to begin with but now there’s no pain but it’s still very large maybe 2-3cm in length (from ear going towards chin ) it’s not rock hard but it’s firm, I can move it only a tiny little bit
I’m just so scared , I’m scared that having to wait so long to see the ent that if it’s cancer it’s going to spread even more and then not be treatable

Howdy y'all! About 3 months ago I woke up with some of the worst pain in a long time. My right lower abdomen felt squeezed and I could barely breathe. I went to 3 different urgent cares and an ET, but was consistently turned away without any help. Finally, my doctor recommended a chiropractor who specialized on EDS folks, and I was desperate so I said fuck it and went. I am pretty hesitant to go because I have a complicated history with quack chiropractors selling their miracle cures, but this guy didn't try that. He looked at my X-rays and felt around til he found 4 ribs out of place. Not only were they out of place, but they were all sticking outward. The chiropractor said in his 14 years of working with EDS patients, he'd never seen ribs in even a similar position to kine. After 2 hours of fucking with my back and ribs, there were several loud pops and suddenly I could breathe. It's been over a week and my ribs still feel hella bruised and sore, but my ribs feel relatively in place and I can breathe 90% of my lung capacity so I'm really happy with the results so far
TL/DR: knocked out my ribs 3 months ago, went to a chiropractor who worked on my ribs for 2 hours and now I can mostly breathe again

Hello
25F, 130lbs, 5’10”, no tobacco, MMJ user, hydrocodone and oxyxodone as needed, cyclobenzaprine, protonix
If you read this thank you so much because I’m absolutely desperate and my doctors are tired of me and I think they think I only want pain meds. I don’t, I just want to feel better. I have a huge stash of emergency oxycodone anyway so I barely even need them for that.
On 12/15 I fell down the stairs and hit the lower of my middle back quite hard. 12/19 I had a LEEP done, 01/06 I came down with extreme urinary issues and between then and now have been back 6 times, seen 4 specialists and have seen my PCP at least ten times for urine samples. I’ve also only been able to attend my full time job for 43 days so far this year and have no more money for copays and if it weren’t for my ADA paperwork, I’d have been fired a long time ago
Over the last two weeks, it’s been taking me up to two hours to produce urine while having a full (and very sore - mostly left side) bladder. This is infuriating. When I do end up finally feeling the need to release, I have less than 3 minutes to get to a restroom before my vision starts going spotty from the bladder pressure pain.
My urologist ordered a cystoscopy, but has been blaming my 3mm kidney stone until I begged for an ultrasound last month of my bladder. Found bladder wall thickening and bladder cyst / possible urachal remnant.
I found out what Cuada equina is today. I learned that it is very very commonly missed. I can barely walk, and at the music festival I went to over the weekend I had to use ADA for just about everything. I look completely normal so I got judged pretty hard, but I do have paperwork. I have been losing weight without much diet change and my back has been killing me as well. I feel so weak. My urine flow is so small compared to what it used to be. I had a period of time where the pain was so bad, I couldn’t feel my clitoris or labia at all so sex was pointless as well, and I thought I’d lose my relationship and be alone forever. They send me to an OB-Oncologist who said not to come back, which is why my urologist finally agreed to check my bladder.
Is it possible that all my issues are related to the cyst and thickening, or could this be cuada equina that was missed on multiple CT’s? I can’t find info on bladder cysts. using retention. When is the appropriate time to go to the hospital? I can barely walk without pain meds. I urinated about 40 times on Saturday, with my usual being 10-20 times, and some days there’s very little pain or urgency at all, but the retention is almost always there to some extent.
It almost feels like the part of my brain that controls my bladder doesn’t work anymore because no matter how hard I tell my bladder to release, it just doesn’t happen sometimes and I can’t get comfortable after that. I’ve slept a total of 4 hours since Saturday morning and I only have one hydrocodone left. Pyridium does NOTHING except for when burning pain presents, and I can’t take NSAIDS until my GI clears me due to extreme gas, constipation and bloating / belching thought to be caused by peptic ulcers. I can’t walk at this point without pain meds, but the ER always releases me with the same DX of cyst and bladder wall thickening and tells me they have no clue what that means. But I’m in so much pain I feel like there has to be something they can do other than give me fluids and monitor me for an hour or two until I can get to my cystoscopy next week.
If you have any advice for me I really appreciate it. I don’t want to die but I feel the only way out of lifelong urinary pain after 6 months now is suicide. The only time suicide doesn’t cross my mind a couple times is when I do end up having to take a pain pill. In March, I had to take oxy every day. I only take them now when I can’t walk because the effects are too strong for me to keep my life in order while taking them every day. But this weekend I have had the most trouble walking, and using the restroom, since all of these issues began.
I can’t afford any more specialists visits after my procedure, so I really wish the ER could do something for me as they’re the only ones who won’t turn me away for not having money at this point. My GI doc actually canceled my appointment because I don’t have $20 and I’ve been putting off another ultrasound because it’s $200 up front. IDK what to do but I’m pretty sure this is how a lot of people end up on fent and heroin - if I had been denied pain meds this far I would have turned to the streets, and that’s coming from someone who has chosen - on their own - to quit most drug related and extracurricular activities to better their life at a young age and is much happier for it.
I can’t even get the ER to catheterize me when I can’t urinate for 6+ hours at a time. What gives? Why won’t they run a different imaging test? They wouldn’t even give me a breath test for h pylori recently and now I’m waiting a month for an appointment I can’t even afford.
TL;DR extreme bladder pain, nobody understands why, extreme difficulty urinating, ER can’t do anything for me and awaiting surgery. Is there anything I can say or do to get proper medical attention or can the ER really not touch your bladder like they say? Is there a way I can convince them to admit me so I could see a urologist before my procedure? My urologist is unavailable until my follow-up and I don’t think the company they work for allows them to Rx narcotics and I’m against taking more than 1 oxycodone a week at this point but so far have been unsuccessful in getting something weaker like hydro or tramadol.

Part 1
I ended up buying a house at the edge of this town.... before i knew all the bullshit that was goin' on around here. Got bored and went down to the local sheriff Jack and asked about an opening, Didn't even fill out an application, got the job on the spot. For the first few months it was the usual, speeding tickets, drunk and disorderly, normal shit right? Well... let the fuckery commence....
I had been a deputy for 7 months when one of the local farmers called in and reported he had some animals killed last night and wanted someone to come out to his house. John Nixon was a 60 year old farmer who lived by himself. His wife passed away years ago, but he never remarried and they never had kids. We met one day at the local tackle shop. Me being new in town, he took me to some of the good fishin' spots. The man was a huge military history buff and would always ask about my time in. I thought I knew him personally, so i took the call.
As I rolled up to the gate on his property, I saw John standing at the gate with a shotgun. " Hey john, can I ask why you are standing there with that cannon in your hands?" No response, he just stared at me. "John! put that damn shotgun down!!" I yelled. Its like he snapped to out of a trance. "Mason, i need you to come round the back side of the house to the barn, now!" he snapped.
"OK, OK, let me get outta the car and grab some gear." I said opening the car door. While i was grabbing my gear, John was standing there with his eyes scanning the tree line. "Come on mason! you need to see this!" He said heading towards the back. I closed the trunk and started walking over in his direction.
"So what the hell is going on that's got you walking around here with that damn bazooka?" No response, he just keeps walking and scanning the tree line. We finally got to the back of his house where the barn is. It looked like a horror movie in that pen.
"What the fuck happened here!?!" I said covering my mouth. There were pieces of chickens and goats everywhere, a few pigs looked like they had been filleted. "Its back mason, after all these years" John mumbled. "John what the hell are you talking about? what did this?" I asked.
John took his eyes off the tree line and looked me dead in the face. "Your not from here so you dont know." "Know what man? what are you saying?" I asked getting annoyed now. "Years ago this same thing happened to a few guys I know. All of their livestock had been killed. Not killed and eatin', just killed. It got people 'round here up in arms. Well, a few of us got together and decieded we were gonna look for whatever did it" he said. "What the hell are you telling me john?" I interrupted. "There were four of us. We were young, thought we were bullet proof. We went out into the woods one morning, determined to find the damn thing that had been killing our animals.
Tommy was the first to say something. "Hey, did you guys hear that?". The rest of us didnt hear a thing, so we kept moving. We got about three miles deep into the old pine forest at the edge of town. Will was the next to say something, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" he yelled out while looking down at the mud. We ran over to where he was standing to find him wide eyed. "I dont know what the actual fuck did this, but we..we need to go and I mean right fucking now!!!" he said pointing. This track was huge, at least 14 inches long with huge claws. Gerald spoke up "Let's fuckin' go guys!!".
We started back tracking out of the area, when we were stopped cold in our tracks, we all heard it this time. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same damn time. A sickening, shrieking laugh was coming from all around us. We panicked and starting runnin'. As soon as we did that, whatever was making that noise centered as if right behind us, and it was coming fast, ungodly fast" John said eyeing the remains of a chicken that was torn apart.
"We were about a mile from the trucks when I heard a thud and a scream, when i looked back Gerald wasn't there. Will and tommy were right behind me, terror all over their faces. Tommy pulled his pistol and started shooting backwards. Only one shot rang out before something tackled him and Will. I stopped, raising my rifle, but they had already been torn apart. It was seconds, and they were in shreds" John said.
"Mason, what i saw standing over their shredded bodies has haunted me since then. The fucking thing was nine feet tall, shaped like a man, but not. Its skin, or or scales was a mixture of black and grey and it looked slimy. It looked like a damn bodybuilder with hugh claw like hands. Its head was massive, with what looked like horns coming from the jaw to around the chin. Its eyes, glowed bright green in the middle of the fucking day, and it had a mouth full of fucked up jagged teeth." He said lowering his head.
"I jus.. just stood there, waitng for my turn. This thing paced back and fourth, staring at me, with this creepy damn smile. It looked down at Will and Tommy, then it looked back up at me. My heart almost stopped when it pointed and shook its head at me. It started making that shrieking laugh as it grabbed what was left of my friends in each giant claw and walked off into the woods, still fucking laughing. I fell to my knees as it vanished into the trees."
I stood there, thinking he lost his damn mind. John had stopped talking, he had this way off look in his eyes. "John..., john.., JOHN!!" his eyes snapped back to mine. "So what are you telling me? A nine foot creature with claws killed your friends and animals?!" I half mocked. "Yea.... thats what i'm telling you. Its back for me, i know it." "What makes you think it was this thing you say killed your friends? It could have been coyotes" I asked " I know mason, i heard that same horrible shrieking laugh in the woods behind the barn last night."
Now I’ve heard some real bullshit in my time, especially during my time in the contracting field... But this was the most out there shit I had ever heard.
"Alright, alright... let's just take a big ass step backwards. I need to wrap my head around all of this." I said takin a deep breath. John laid the shotgun down to his side. "I'm telling you the truth mason. i'm too old and tired to lie about shit" he said shrugging. I looked deep into this man’s eyes. When I did, I saw something that told me this was the absolute truth as he knew it. " You haven’t given me any reason to doubt you... but fuck man... this is hard to swallow. I need proof John, that's the way this works." A look of frustration washed over his weathered face.
"Proof?! you want proof huh? follow me" John groaned.
He started walking towards the tress behind the barn. As we got closer to the trees, I started to smell rusty copper. Blood I thought out loud. John raised his shotgun as we walked closer. That damn gun had to be illegal, but this wasn’t the time for that. Him raising that gun made me a lil' uneasy, so I pulled my Glock 9mm out and flipped the safety off.
John owned about 90 acres, most of it unkept. A lot of the land was behind the barn which butted up to a state forest. We took about 12 steps into the wood line when the smell of death hit me like a brick. "I'm taking you to where I heard the noise coming from last night... your PROOF is out there Mason" He said with a slight edge to it.
We walked almost a hundred yards into the woods when john stopped in front of a tree. It looked twisted and warped all the way to its top. I stepped around John and saw huge claw marks cut deep all the way around the base of the tree, it's hard to even call it that. "What the hell is this?" I said looking up. "This is a marker, it's territory starts here" John replied. I looked at john like he was crazy, which at this point I thought he was. "This thing travels throughout these woods. I've found five more of these trees in our town" he said putting a hand on the tree.
"This isn’t telling me anything John, just that you've got a weird ass tree on your property" I said back to him. "Do you hear that?" So we could move this mess forward, I stopped talking and just listened. I hadn't noticed that during our walk into the woods it had got quiet, and I mean not one sound. " What the hell? where did all the animals go?" I asked looking around. "They're scared mason... you should be too. Let's get back to the house."
We turned and started making our way out of the woods. We were damn near the tree line when I heard a snap. I turned around, gun raised to see a black streak dart back deeper into the woods. "What the fuck was that?!" All John said was "we need to leave, now!" We turned and started sprinting the rest of the way out of the woods. I was surprised at how fast john was for an old man. We got all the way back to my patrol car. "I don't know what that was, but I don't think you should stay here tonight John. Pack some stuff and come to my place" I said pointing my gun at the trees. John just let out a sigh as if frustrated and defeated.
"You weren't listenin'. The pine forest, these trees, it’s all connected. I’m talkin’ bout before this area was even inhabited by native peoples. This fucking thing has been around for a very long time. I have been looking into this since that day, I had to find out what it was and if it can be killed" he tried to explain. The whole time john was talking I had my eyes and weapon pointed at the trees. " You can put that down mason, it just wanted you to know it's here" He said.
"John, I to need process this shit. I've never seen or heard anything like this and to be straight with you, I’m at a loss right now" I said opening the trunk. "I get it, I get it. The sheriff jack was a deputy back then. When you see him... tell him I said the dark is here..." And with that, he just turned his back and walked back into his house not saying another word.
I got back in the car and sat there. Looking at the treeline. After a few minutes I went back to the station. I must've walked in with that universal what the fuck look on my face, because Cathy the clerk asked what was wrong with me. I told her I was fine and asked if she had seen the sheriff? "Yeah, he is in the gun cage. Are you sure you’re ok Mason?" She asked again.
"Yeah, I'm good, just need to talk to Jack." I started walking towards the back of the building, when Jack came around the corner. "Hey mason, what's up?" he says walking up to me. "I just got back from John's house." The look on his face completely changed. "He had a bunch of animals killed last night. It looked like a slaughterhouse. He told me to tell you the dark was back?" I told him noticing his reaction.
Jack stiffened up and not saying a word gestured for me to follow him towards the back security door. We headed towards the back and out the door. Jack had stopped to make sure the door was secure then pointed at his truck and said "get in."
After getting in he looked over "I need some coffee" then started the truck up and headed west out of the parking lot towards the coffee shop. He ordered a large black coffee with extra sugar then asked if I wanted one. "I'll take a small black, no sugar." We pulled out and headed east back past the station. We ended up driving towards the edge of the county. "What's going on and why are we heading way the hell out here?" I looked at jack and said.
Jack just took a long sip of his coffee then placed it back in the holder.
After a long breath "You want some answers about what happened at Johns' house... I’m sure he told you about a few other things about this town... well we're gonna go get you some answers" He said looking at a black sedan passing in the opposite direction. "Aight so, like you mason, I’m not from here either. I was a trooper in New York for a few years before I came down here. I resigned after a call to an old couple’s house" He said reaching for his cup. "My partner Jake and I responded to what was thought to be an animal attack. We were the first on the scene, having been a couple miles away lookin' for speeders.
When we rolled up an older woman came running over to the cruiser. She had a panicked look on her face and just kept repeating "they're dead, they're dead!!" We hopped out and sat her in the back of the car then asked what happened. "I...I... came over to talk to gloria and... and I saw the door open. I walked in yelling her and Alan’s name, but they didn't answer... I found them upstairs... it's horrible!!" She said sobbing. Jake and I drew our weapons and started making the move inside. Like the witness said the front door was open, so we moved in. It smelled like sulfur and blood when we entered. We started clearing rooms. The first floor was clear, so we made our way up the steps.
The smell was overpowering now. We cleared the bathroom, and the two smaller rooms were clear also. The door to the master bedroom was slightly opened. I motioned to Jake and we hit the door.... it looked like some movie shit!! I kid you not. Jake turned and went back into the hallway and threw up. I stepped into the room and... listen I had never seen anything like this before" Jack stammered out.
"These two people were in shreds on the bed, they're insides had been yanked out and thrown around the fucking room. After looking at the bodies I noticed these huge claw marks in the wall, I’m talking if Andre the giant had had a Krueger glove. I stepped back out of the room and radioed to dispatch that we needed more units. I walked back to the front door where Jake was standing hunched over looking out of it.
Parked outside were 3 black SUVs and a black sedan. I counted 11 men dressed in black tactical military gear, some with a type of rifle I had never seen before, but you could tell it was large caliber. The rest with SMG weapons. When i looked over towards the patrol car, one of the men had the door opened and was talking to the witness. He saw us and started our way. He was dressed in all black too and carried what looked like a desert eagle in a chest holster.
When he got closer I got a better look at him. He looked to be in his late 40's with salt and pepper colored hair and a big ass scar that ran down the right side of his face. He got about ten feet from the steps "We appreciate the assistance, but you are no longer needed" He said in deep voice. As he is saying this, one of the other guys escorts the witness out of our car and into the back of that sedan.
The guy started walking away from us "Who are you? and what the fuck is going on?" I yelled at him. He turned with a look on his face that you only see in movies then took a few steps towards us. "Your command has been informed and you are to leave now!" He said raising his hand up towards that holstered pistol. Jake looked at me and shook his head "fuck it, let's go, let them deal with that mess upstairs" he said still coughing then started heading towards the car. I followed him down the steps... looking this guy up and down, checking out the vehicles... for anything that might tell me who we were dealing with.
The only thing I saw was on the assholes uniform... there was a patch on his shoulder. It was an all-black diamond with a weird looking black M in the middle on it. The guy stared us down until we were in the car driving away. He had that pistol in his hand and the other men starting moving into the house. Jake and I didn’t say a word until the radio squawked and we were told to head back to the barracks.
When we got there, we were told to report to the troop commander’s office. Commander Thompson was sitting in his office along with a man in a nice 2-piece suit. The man in the suit stood there quietly while Thompson told us that we never responded to any call out to that farmhouse, and that this was the first and only time he would say it. With that, he dismissed us and and we walked out. The shit didn’t sit well with me, and I ended up resigning a few months later.
I came down here and then that shit in the woods happened. I was on the scene, I saw the claw marks. They looked just like the ones in New York, and the same damn trucks showed up with different personnel. I knew just to shut up and walk away, and after making that choice I have had a pretty good career here." he finished grabbing his cup out of the holder.
My brain was in overdrive. I was just about to completely question bomb jack when he said, "We're here." He pulled off onto this overgrown driveway and drove for about a quarter mile. We pulled up to an old two-story house that looked like it was in ruins... but the lights were on. "Where the hell are we?" I asked As the last word of that question left my mouth, the front door of the house opened... standing in the doorway was a old man, dressed in weathered black clothing. Jack leaned over to me "You wanted answers... well.... there they are."

Wade took a breath as he picked up his old duffel bag, now loaded with his DD uniform and a few other items from the Ceres mines as he slotted it to his side, with the large band handle around his neck. Having gathered his belongings, he joined Tina, who was waiting near the ship's open bay door as he walked over to her. The couple watched several of the other troopers inside marching out as well, some carrying crates of supplies and items out of the craft as they departed for the base outside. Kelly was one of the last ones still on board, checking on a section of the cargo bay as she did what Wade presumed was some maintenance work.
With the way now clear, Wade and Tina stepped off the transport, glancing at the massive base around them as they touched the roughened pavement. Throughout the large landing port were several more chameleon dropships, their crews disembarking with similar items and loads of rescued drones aboard. Beyond the ships were several hangar bays and fighter craft, mostly A-20s and their space-borne cousins docked in lines going across the pad. And beyond the landing zone, towering over several buildings at the base, were the few cruisers docked to the large clamps holding them in place.
Walking ahead with Tina, Wade observed some of the departing Coalition troops as they neared one of several tents stationed near an inactive group of planes, the military personnel interacting and exchanging the crates with the Coalition officers upon reaching each other. Hearing a low roar of engines from afar, the lover drones looked upward to see the large USN warship that was present at the factory earlier, having followed the transport convoy home and now was beginning to descend for landing. Wade gave a silent gasp as he caught a glimpse of the ship's name and SIC number at the side, remembering it from the ship he and Ron saw while returning to Earth.
"Always a wondrous thing to see, isn't it Wade?" Tina said as she and her boyfriend watched the ship slowly come lower to the unoccupied dockyard clamps below it.
"Sure is, wonder how they built those babies?" Wade replied as the two looked upon the landing starship, the former worker drone smirking as he added, "I could've swore I saw that same exact ship over Henderson when Ron and I came back, before we got mugged earlier."
Tina glanced to Wade with surprise as she spoke up on his claim. "Really? Well, that had to be the one that helped our friends here back at the factory. I think I saw the same name on it too!"
"Wouldn't surprise me, seeing all that's happened today." Wade replied as he chortled a bit, Tina doing the same as the former spoke further. "I wonder, what kind of ship is the... Vickers again? You know?"
"Autumn class, dear. A heavy destroyer variant, not as strong as those enormous Yamato dreadnoughts or Adelaide battlecruisers, but she'll put up a good fight for whatever comes at her." Tina explained as she held back another chuckle, thinking of her education on various USN craft as she teased Wade lightly. "You know, I may just have to grab one of those ship roster tabs when we get in the base. I'd love to show you all they got in their arsenal."
Wade chortled again as he gave his thoughts on the idea. "Well, it wouldn't be bad to have a little more knowledge in ship-story."
Tina almost burst out laughing at his crude pun, Wade smiling at her as F and Nathan jogged over to the two, the latter carrying his own backpack behind him as he spoke. "Well, not a bad place, huh? You guys heading to the clearance station?"
"Oh yes, we were just admiring the ships around us while we walked." Tina said with a stifled laugh, easing herself as she chatted with her new friends. Wade, however, was quickly overcome with panic as he remembered something. Checking his pockets, his fears were confirmed as he failed to find one of his key possessions: his ID card. Wade felt he must have lost it when he was stripped of his old clothing while in the factory.
Oh no, guys? I don't think I can pass through." Wade said with greenish-yellow circles for eyes as Tina and the others looked to him in concern, the drone feeling through his pockets once more before stating his issue. "My ID, they must've taken it off me when they turned me into a disassembly drone!" Wade began to hyperventilate lightly as he grew fearful of the potential outcomes when they reached the security gate ahead. "Oouuugghh, if I don't have my ID, they'll have to keep me lo-"
"Wade, Wade... it's okay. I'll have them make a pass for you, surely we can get them to after getting them to understand what's happened." Tina stated as she put her hand to Wade's chest, who eased his panic as he looked to his girlfriend.
"Yeah, and besides Wade, those people over there went around gathering what ever items the company stole from the drones during their conversion. I'm sure that once they find it, they'll have it sent off to be given back to you!" Nathan said as F nodded in agreement, shunting Wade's panic out of him with their words as he replied to the hopeful responses.
"Right, yeah, they should do that. Sorry." Holding Tina's hand, Wade spoke to her once more. "Lead the way."
Tina nodded to Wade before the two began to walk over to the security gate nearby, several people, drones and humans alike, already in the line as they checked themselves in to the base to relax after the hard-fought battle. Once they reached the line, the four stood together as they waited for the line to slowly go up, more troops and rescued drones coming over to add to the long line. During the wait, a loud, mechanical 'SLAM' erupted through the air, prompting Wade and Tina to glance over to the direction of the noise. The two felt at ease once more as they saw the Vickers finally landed at the base, the loud clang being the docking clamps attaching to the ships hull just moments ago.
As the line moved up further to the gate, Wade and Tina caught sight of a pair of A-20 aircraft passing over them, the two watching as the planes slowed down while descending onto the runway nearby. The four drones' collective viewing of the fighters landing ceased as they caught sight of J, who took flight as she departed the transport nearby before flying over to the tents near the hangar bays.
"Huh, wonder what she's over there for?" Nathan said as he observed J landing onto the ground in front of one of the tents.
"Probably checking on the drones we got back, or meeting up with one of those commanders there." F said as she motioned an arm towards the tents, J walking under one as she made her way to one of the soldiers coming over to her. "Seems like the latter, from the looks of it."
Wade shrugged as he responded to the group's pondering over J's actions. "Well, she'll be here with us if we need her, right? Shouldn't be much to worry about."
Returning their focus to the line ahead, Wade and his team waited as the line moved up over the next few minutes, moving impressively fast as the people in front cleared themselves in one at a time. Eventually, the four of them were up, Tina stepping up to show her ID for clearance. "Hello, it's been a busy day, hasn't it?"
The security agent smirked at Tina's small-talk. "Hah, not too busy here until you all showed up."
As the guard finished scanning Tina's ID, she handed the card back to her as she raised a finger to begin her request. "Oh, um, there's a little issue we need to resolve." Putting a hand to Wade's arm, Tina explained her boyfriend. "This is my dear friend Wade, Wade Carter. We both managed to escape that blasted factory with the help of those Coalition folks there." Wade gave a pleading look as Tina continued. "Unfortunately, Wade was converted into a disassembly drone before he was rescued, and it seems those people at the company took all his belongings he had on him, including his ID. Do you think there's... anyway you could write up something to let him by?"
Stepping forward, F gave her end of the story. "I can vouch for him, Ma'am. Wade and I we're among the teams helping in getting the worker drones out of the factory during the operation." The disassembly drone pulled out a pair of cards as she finished her explanation, one of them being her company-issued Disassembly Service Passcard, which resembled a normal civilian ID in appearance, save for the 'JCJenson (In Spaaace!) Logo on the top left and hazard markings around the rim of the card. As for the other card, it was a well worn, still legitimate ID card, showing F as how she appeared when she was a worker drone. At the side of her picture was a name with an initial. "FELICITY A LEE"
Taking the two cards in her hand, she looked them over and scanned them as Nathan tried to back Wade up as well. "So can I, Ma'am! I helped there too, when he was under the company's control. We all got him out of the factory so we could get him back in order." Pulling out his own ID, Nathan handed it out as the guard returned F's IDs to her.
The guard accepted Nathan's ID as she spoke over what to do with Wade. "Well, normally it takes clearance from higher ranked personnel here to allow someone inside without a legitimate form of identification. We can't just take someone's word on things like this, after all." Tina seemed to frown in disappointment as the guard explained her protocols, Wade looking down at the ground as he felt his worries were about to be proven correct. Going over Nathan's ID further, she gave an intrigued expression at the card before continuing. "Huh, interesting. Got two veteran folks here, I see?" She glanced to Nathan and F as she said that, taking into account their former military background as the former spoke up.
"Three, actually. My pal Kurtis is somewhere back there, I think. He should be heading down here later this evening." The guard glanced back at Nathan's ID as she took in the veteran drone's reply, sighing as she decided to make a slight amendment to the issue put before her and the four friends.
"Well, seeing you two here, I believe I can write something up. The Major won't be happy with me for this, but I think I can trust you with appropriate behavior." Taking a small sticky name-tag, the woman pulled out a pen before starting to write on it. Initially, she glanced to Wade, who stated his name again before she began to write his name on the tag. Once she was finished, the guard gave the tag to Wade, who slapped it onto his jacket before she spoke to him. "You should be fine to enter for the most part, just stick close to your friends and don't cause any trouble. Understood?"
Wade gave a stern salute to the security officer, who held back a chuckle at the honest, yet amusing effort the disassembly drone showed to her. Giving a simple nod and a flick of her hand, she permitted Wade and his friends entrance to the base, the four walking past the walkway barricades as they made their way past the gate.
Wade let out a heavy sigh of relief as he thanked his allies. "I owe you both so much for this, thanks!"
"Don't mention it, Wade." F said warmly as she and Nathan laughed at his joyful face.
"Yeah, just doing what any good friend should." Nathan said as Tina wrapped an arm around Wade, holding him tightly as the two walked together.
Looking to his girlfriend, Wade spoke to Tina about what to do next. "Well, since we're in, you wanna go fi-" He ceased his words as he remembered that there was someone else they needed to find amongst the base. "Oh, I almost forgot about her,"
"Jasmine!" Tina and Wade said aloud together as the former remembered her sister, Wade's words snapping her mind to Jasmine in an instant. "We should look for her, you think she might be here somewhere?"
"Probably. If they got Ron after they captured me, they have to 've picked her up too." Wade stated, Nathan raising a hand as he offered to help.
"I could go looking for her! You know what she looks like?" Readying a holo-projector, he tried to display an image of Jasmine from one of his many memories of her. The picture was, while pixelated and under a blue hue, incredibly well-detailed. And for Nathan, that was all he needed to see to note Jasmine's appearance in his memory. Nodding, he spoke again to his friends. "Got it! I'll see if she's around!" Then, turning to run down one of the paths leading to a nearby base facility, he stopped as he asked one more question. "Oh! One more thing, you got a smartcomm on ya, Wade?"
Readying one from his holo-projector hand, he nodded as he spoke into it. "Seems so, though I don't seem to have all my contacts added in."
Running back over, Nathan pulled out his own smartcomm before putting it up against Wade's hand one, allowing the two devices to exchange information. Upon the devices beeping, Wade and Nathan nodded to each other, the former ignoring a pop-up that stated, "New Contact Added" while the latter spoke once more. "Okay, I'll call you once I spot her!" With that, he began running down the path once more, intent on finding Tina's sister at the base, wherever she could be.
"Fowley! Her last name's Fowley!" Tina said aloud to the departing Nathan, hoping he heard her words before turning away from the miner drone and facing Wade and F again.
As Tina sighed in partial relief, Wade put his own arm around her before asking the question he tried to ask before. "So, uh, with that out of the way for now... You wanna go look for one of those ship tabs?"
Putting a hand to Wade's chest, Tina smiled as she replied. "Oh, certainly." Then, as the three began walking down a different path that Nathan hadn't taken, the pilot drone continued with a chuckle. "I hear they have a place here that sells model kits too!"
...
Jasmine sat in silent sorrow as she took another gulp of her glass of Proxi-Vodka, a tasty, but heavy alcoholic beverage produced at the colony of Proxima 2... and one of Jasmine's preferred drinks to have when she wasn't in a good mood. When she awoke after being stunned by the station guards, she found that she was just recovered by a group that called themselves the 'United Earth Coalition', and that her drone friend, Tina, was unfortunately taken by the JCJenson corporation to be turned into one of their horrid disassembly drones. While the people that saved her offered to help her find Tina, so far there had been no luck in doing so. No successful calls, no response from Wade nor Ron, nothing.
The whole situation widdled at her like scrapes to her form, slowly draining any bit of hope that she had in finding her sister. And once the mission at that factory was over, the ship began heading back to the Nellis Base to escort the recovered drones back to a safe area. Unfortunately for Jasmine, Tina's presence was not given confirmation. Alone, she walked off to one of the bars down at the base, specifically Drexler's Cantina, one of the more popular bars down at the military starport. Thankfully, though she didn't openly exhibit feelings of wanting to be alone in her wallowing, she was glad the place was nearly barren of patrons, with only a few at a couple of tables within the bar.
The stage at the back of the bar also had a few singer drones performing aloud, the lead singer girl reciting the words of a quiet, yet exciting song that, instrumentally, consisted of a strange mix of bass, techno, and a hint of opera. The song itself was one Jasmine had heard a good many times before in her life, known as, 'You Complete My World' by a decades old Earth band by the name of HeartStar. The song, as Jasmine and many others who'd heard it interpreted it, was about someone who described their world like a puzzle, and that the one whom the main singer cared for beyond all was the only thing that could keep their world from shattering into ruin before them.
An oddly fitting tune, given what had just happened on the JCJ Central earlier. For all Jasmine knew, Tina was either alive beyond her knowledge, hopefully searching for her wherever she could, or, the answer Jasmine feared... Dead.
Not wanting to even consider the thought, the human pilot took another swig of the colonial Vodka, relishing in its taste before forcing herself to swallow, almost gagging from the strength of the drink. Easing herself, she glanced out to one of the windows of the bar, taking the faint glimpse of night into her eyes. Then, looking to the clock at the wall ahead of her, she saw the time was about a little over an hour to 10 pm. Jasmine gave a sigh to herself, certain she would be alone for the rest of the night.
Unbeknownst to her, however, Jasmine had been spied upon a little while ago. Nathan, in his search for the woman Tina called Jasmine Fowley, had spotted a woman matching the physical appearance of the target. Knowing Jasmine wouldn't know who he was if he tried to talk to her himself, Nathan immediately went looking for Wade, easing his return to his team by calling the former worker drone and signaling him about his findings.
Deciding to check on the news, Jasmine slowly pulled out her smartcomm, resisting her urge to press the contacts button as she tapped the news app. Looking through it, she spotted a recent story that was posted just over an hour ago, titled, "JCJenson 'Recall' effort sabotaged by joint Government/Militia forces! The Truth Exposed!" Above the article was a video, a play button in front of it teasing Jasmine. Curious over this sudden development, she pressed the button, her attention in complete focus on the video as it began to play.
After the news station's logo appeared on-screen for a short few seconds, the current host for the story, Mrs. Tiffany Joy, appeared at her seat before beginning the story. "Good evening, this is Nevada-78, I'm your host, Tiffany Joy. Tonight, we start with a rapid development for the 'drone recall' incidents propagated by the business conglomerate JCJenson In Space. Throughout the afternoon up to now, several advanced factories under the ownership of the corporation have fallen under violent assault by various militarized forces, ranging from official United Nations operatives to private militia groups with varying goals." The small screen to Joy's left shifted to show the state of Nevada, zooming into it to show a portion of the Mojave desert as Joy continued her story.
"Among these facilities, one such factory based right here in southern Nevada has recently succumbed to the successful efforts of the USN Defense Force and a group by the name of the United Earth Coalition, an alliance consisting of humans and automatons working to create a unified world for both species." The screen shifted again to show the logo for the UEC, which appeared as one half of a human head outline and another of a drone's, along with two arms behind the heads belonging to both beings pictured. "With the attack having concluded just hours ago, we have reporters gathering at the New Nellis Staryards near Henderson City to bring you the aftermath of the conflict. We go to Mr. Jelico, on the scene in five."
The camera shifted after the countdown of five to show Mr. Jelico in front of the camera, the cameraman filming a large tent housing several worker drones being tended to by the base soldiers. "Alright, Jelico here, we're on station at New Nellis. What you're all seeing here are some of the recovered worker drones, many of them were pretty spooked by the events that unfolded in that factory earlier." As the camera panned over the lot of drones, some of them looked to the camera, curious at the news crew filming them as Jelico continued. "A few of them are real glad to be here, Joy. Seems like they feel safe here, as far as I can tell."
As the camera moved to show Jelico again, a plane could be seen taking off as he spoke. "Yeah, these people did them quite a service. The staff here are working to find their original owners and families, it'll probably be a little bit before they can get them all home." The camera switched once again to another view of the base, the lights of various buildings illuminating the night as the news story continued.
At the entrance, Nathan pushed open the door to the bar, the chime failing to catch anyone's attention as he, Wade, F and Tina stepped inside. Carefully pointing at Jasmine, he whispered to Tina, "That's her, from the looks of it. She's been here for a good minute!"
Taking another drink of the Proxi-Vodka, Jasmine listened further to the story. "The authorities didn't just recover a majority of the worker drones taken into the factory, however. A recent update provided by Mrs. Yuka, shows her interviewing a disassembly drone who claims to be among the unfortunate drones the assault force failed to save before their conversion."
"Jasmine!" Tina called out, the voice instantly grabbing the woman's attention as she paused the news story. Swiftly turning her head, her heart began pounding with immense excitement as she saw her drone sister, who grinned upon seeing her face.
"Tina!" Jasmine said aloud, somewhat weakly from her previous wallowing as she tried to run over to her sister, landing on her knees as the two embraced in a flush of emotions. Wade and his friends stood behind the two girls as they hugged each other, clinging onto one another as tightly as they could give. Jasmine seemed to erupt with a pained cough as she allowed some of her sorrow out of her heart, Tina carressing her back in a comforting manner as she held back her own tears. The sisters held the hug for a long moment, not daring to let go of one another for fear of losing each other again. Eventually, however, they did, the two sisters taking heavy breaths as Jasmine spoke up while wiping her face. "I thought I'd lost you."
"Can't say I didn't feel the same way, love." Tina replied as she broke out in light laughter, glancing to Wade before continuing. "But, fortunately, those Coalition boys helped out quite a bit. Though, not as much as my knight in his new armor."
Standing herself up, Jasmine took Tina's helping hand as she looked to the one her sister spoke of. A grateful smile formed on Jasmine's face as she saw Wade, standing in front of her and Tina as he returned the expression. Looking upon her family friend, Jasmine noticed something... different about Wade. He was taller now, his arms were shaped like white cones rather than the silver bendy tubes he and Tina normally had. As for his face, his pure green eyes were replaced with a set of greenish-yellow ones, and above his forehead was a band holding five yellow bulbs that she didn't know the function of.
While the pieces started to click together in her head, Jasmine took Wade's held out hand as she spoke to him. "Wade, I'm so glad to see you! You look different, too. Did something... happen to you?" She already guessed it by this point, but feigned confusion as she opted to hear Wade's take on the matter.
"Yeah, I hope you don't mind your sister dating a vampire from now on." Tina chortled in amusement at Wade's comment at himself, Jasmine raising an eyebrow in confusion at the former worker drone as he returned his expression to a more sincere smile. "The company got me too, and unlike the workers we got out... they managed to turn me into a disassembly drone. From now on, I'm gonna need to take in more oil than I usually did before I was turned. My cooling system's not as good as it should be, from what I've heard." Pulling out his two full canteens, Wade finished his partial explanation. "Don't worry, though. I've got some to keep me down."
Jasmine took in the news with immense surprise, noticing the hazard stripes at the rims of Wade's arms as she replied to her friend. "Oh... Well, if Tina's fine with it, then I see no problem with that, Wade." Admittedly, she was a bit unnerved by the change, concerned for both him and Tina's safety due to this supposed oil coolant issue. Trying to sound as nice as she could on the matter, Jasmine hesitantly asked Wade, "Though... I am a bit concerned with that bad cooling problem you mention. You... don't think you would-"
"Hurt Tina?!" Wade assumed, understanding Jasmine's concern as he gave a horrified glance to the two sisters. Standing with his fists to his hips, he gave his answer to Jasmine's presumed question. "Don't even say such a thing, Jasmine. I'd rather overheat than dare strike her."
Admittedly amused as well as concerned for Wade's selflessness, Tina chuckled at him before speaking up on the matter. "Now now, Wade. It won't be so bad. We'll manage."
Jasmine nodded as she agreed with her sister's optimistic view on the problem. "Indeed we will, we always do." Then, taking notice of the other two drones in the room, Jasmine smiled at them before speaking again. "Ah, I see you brought some friends too."
Wade and Tina glanced over to Nathan and F upon Jasmine's statement, the two friends smiling pleasantly as Wade spoke up. "Oh, yeah. These are some of my work buddies from Ceres, Jasmine. This is Nathan, I first met him when Ron and I came to the mines, showed us around a bit too." Putting a hand on F's shoulder, Wade introduced her too. "And this is Serial Designation F, or, just F. She was one of the guards keeping watch on the place while we worked."
F seemed to blush out of embarrassment as she remembered her and Wade's first meeting. "I... did come off a little rough on them when they first came in, though. Stopped Nathan's touring run too. Just following colony protocol."
Nathan patted F's back as he tried to ease F's guilt. "Oh, it's nothing F. We had to start work in a few minutes anyway. Besides, it's a bit more fun exploring the place yourself without a guide." He winked at the others as he finished his praise. "Trust me, it really is."
Wade, Tina and Jasmine all chuckled at their friend's amusing words, F joining in as she replied to Nathan's encouragement. "Alright, alright."
Walking up to the two, Tina put her hand onto Nathan's as she gave her own praises. "And they may not look like it, dear, but Nathan and F were both formerly in the military, from what Wade's told me."
Jasmine gave a proud smirk at the two as she responded to her sister's claim. "Well, that's quite something. Did she tell you we used to fly for them some years back?"
"Oh, she did, Mrs. Fowley." Nathan replied as he chuckled lightly, F giving a smile of her own as she added her own part to the story.
"Yeah, and given what's happening now, maybe they might call you back for service again. Wade told me you two were excellent pilots."
It was now Jasmine's turn to blush as she chuckled from the compliment, knowing Wade's high praise for her and her sister's flying as she replied. "Well, I can't say that's wrong, Tina saved the day during the flight back here. We ran into an asteroid cluster while in the middle of a jump."
Wade patted Tina on her back as he quietly cheered his love on. "That's what I'm talking about, she's a wonder among the stars, I'm telling you!"
The group fell into an excited fit of laughter at the conversation, a few of the bar patrons taking notice of the bunch as they eventually ceased their joyful moment.
As everyone calmed down, Jasmine spoke up, intending to bring the discussion to another place. "Well, with all that said, it feels great to see you all here. It was such a terrible day after all those company folk showed up." Then, as she scanned the group of friends around her, she noticed someone else missing from this puzzle. "Hey, uh... is Ron here? Did he head off somewhere?"
The mood was quickly put down to a mournful aura as Wade and Tina glanced to the floor in sadness, Nathan and F giving uncomfortable postures as they awaited for someone to speak up on the matter.
Eventually, Wade was the one to open his mouth, breathing steadily as he tried to speak to Jasmine. "Um, Jasmine? Things, uh... really took a nose dive after we got captured. You think we could find a place to sit? It's a lot to talk about."
Looking to the four drones with concern, Jasmine eased her returning fear as she nodded to Wade in agreement. "...Sure, there's plenty of space at the table here." Pointing her arm to the table, which was surrounded by a U-shaped seating bench, Wade and his friends began to move to the table as Tina spoke up.
"I can get us some drinks for the talk, you all want anything?"
"Just some oil, thanks. "Wade answered as F and Nathan gave their own nods to Tina, the drone girl walking over to the bartender near the stage as she went to purchase some beverages.
Sitting down, Jasmine picked up her smartcomm from the table, glancing to it as she spoke up on her half-finished drink. "Heh, and to think I was drowning myself in this drag of a drink before. Probably have to find a different glass."
"Proxi-Vodka? Haven't seen you touch that since we lost Aunt Susan." Wade said solemnly as he examined Jasmine's drink, sighing as he reluctantly continued. "Well, maybe it can go for a few more sips."
Looking to the vodka, Jasmine nodded as she put her smartcomm in her pocket. "I figured, I didn't think this was gonna sound good."
"I wish it did." Wade replied as Tina walked back to the table, a plate of three oil glasses resting on her careful hand as she set it down.
After delivering the drinks, Tina took a seat next to Wade, holding his hand as Jasmine spoke up. "So, where do we start this terrible story?"
Wade gulped a bit as he began to recount the events that transpired today. "Well, it all started when Ron and I came back from the mining colony."

I am writing this with tears streaming down my face. Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my baby Luca, my childhood dog.
My poor baby was diagnosed with lymphoma over a month ago. He was a 12-and-a half-year-old Golden Retriever. The lymphomas started to spread all over his body very quickly and grew larger and larger as the days went by. It was aggressive cancer, and in a matter of two weeks he took a turn for the worse.
The vet was very plain and straightforward with us. Due to his age and other conditions that he already had, such as arthritis and neurological disorders, it was not worth making him go through chemo. That would have just prolonged his suffering, and he would have had a lot of side effects from it.
In the last few weeks, he slowed down a lot and stopped being himself. He could not stand on his own, he could not bark or breathe because the tumours on his throat prevented him from doing so; he couldn’t sleep through the night, he relieved himself inside the house, he did not want to eat, his eyes were sunken… We had to be home 24/7 to keep an eye on him. Watching him deteriorate was really heartbreaking. There was no point in suffering any longer.
Last week we set an appointment for Monday so we could have some days to say goodbye. In his last days, I didn’t leave home at all, only to take him out for his walks. We took lots of pics together (he hated taking pics!), slept with him, did his paw print and a cast, kept some of his fur and had lots of conversations with him.
I think he sensed his end was coming. We had such a hard time trying to take him to the vet because he did not want to leave home. I cried all the way to the vet. Watching him being euthanised was the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever experienced in my life. My mom was with me. My dad and my brother did not want to witness it. I knew I had to be there and there was no way I would let my baby leave this world without me being there. It’s the least I could do. I told him how much I loved him and thanked him for all the good years we’d spent together. I kissed and hugged him tightly throughout. What was most painful was when he kept staring at me once he had already crossed the rainbow bridge. I don’t know how I will ever be able to get the image of him seeing dead out of my head. It was devastating.
I'm 22, and he's been with me for more than half of my life. He was like a brother to me. Right now, I just don’t know how I will be able to move on… I am simply devastated. I couldn’t sleep tonight, and when I woke up I broke down again, seeing the house so empty without him around. I cried more when I grabbed his fur and smelt it. It feels so unreal. It has not sunk in yet. I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for this moment in the last year, but the truth is that you're never prepared for it...
I will miss his walks, seeing him go under the table waiting for food scraps to drop, following me around the house, seeing him greet me at the door when I get home, his barks asking for food… It will be a hard pill to swallow.
Luca, thank you for all these wonderful years full of love and joy that you gave us. You were more than a pet and a companion to me. You will be in my heart until the last days of my life. I will never forget you, I promise. I love you.

I thought that the writing was great in seasons 1 and 2. Most people agree that it went down the trash later on. The final season was incredibly rushed and all over the place I found. What I couldn’t figure out throughout the show, is how the writers want viewers to feel about some of the characters.
Villanelle is a psychopath. Murders people for fun. Snapped a kid’s neck in hospital (that was the moment for me that I realized she was truly evil). She shows some character development but in the end reverts to her old self that made it acceptable for Carolyn to have had her shot. I mean in the real world, it’s better to not have someone like her alive, right? But I find the people on this sub seem to be enchanted by her and praise her for how amazing she is. I don’t really understand and it seems that the writers try to bring out the worst in the viewers themselves… it is somewhat impressive I suppose how they crafted the relationships to cause a whole fanbase to praise a morally derelict, evil psychopath.
Anyway: Eve. In the beginning of the show Eve was obviously a bit of a mess. Towards the end there’s a common theme of “What if she hadn’t begun working for Carolyn” but in reality she found her previous life miserable. She seemed to despise Niko, seemed to treat their relationship as boring and pointless. But what made her so unlikeable to me is how after she basically gave him the cold shoulder and excluded him out of her life entirely, she couldn’t deal with him leaving. Her trying to get back to him when he clearly wanted to leave her and her concerning habits behind ultimately led to him being pitchforked through the neck.
Putting all that aside, Eve begins the show as quite a likable character. She is very flawed, obviously, but genuinely seems like a very careful and caring person. She can work with others, treats people with respect. Throughout season 2 she seems to improve in her work, however her obsession with Villanelle obviously starts to grip her and bring out her dark side. I felt a bit confused because as the protagonist of the show, you’d think she would grow on you as a viewer… but as other people have also pointed out, she just becomes more and more unlikeable. She doesn’t become a better agent, it actually seems that she gets worse. She puts herself in these situations where she tries to strong arm people but it just ends up in complete failure because she doesn’t seem to think her plans through (bath scene with Helene as an example). Her impulses to just start killing people as a means to an end (stealing the steak knife to kill Helene, murdering Lars Meier while Carolyn’s approach was clearly more productive), show how she slowly becomes more like Villanelle throughout. Hence I grew to despise her.
I think another important thing to remember is that Eve and Helene were essentially working towards the same goal. But Eve became obsessed with bringing them down herself and it’s evident in the fourth season that she wanted the glory of doing so above anything else. She kidnapped a child to spite someone doing the same thing as she was. “What if Eve disagreed with Helene’s method?” Well Eve’s hatred for the 12 was evident and she ended up shooting Lars through the head and had Villanelle murder them all in a room, so I don’t think it was that. She was so desperate to find them she would believe the slightest hint of someone’s involvement (Carolyn). She couldn’t listen to Carolyn who she knew was far more intelligent than she was, which is when I realized how strong her bloodlust had become. Why was the 4th seasons theme a rivalry between Helene and Eve when they had the same goal??
Eve’s situation when the show ends is pretty hopeless too if you think about it that way: She doesn’t have a job anymore, anything to do with Carolyn is obviously out the window. The 12 are dead but so is Villanelle, who was all she cared about in the end. She has no links to blood-relatives throughout the show, Niko is probably paralyzed and would obviously want nothing to do with her, all her good friends from earlier on are either dead or pushed away (by Eve). She fell in love with a psychopath who died, became a killer herself, and was left with no one nor any recognition of what she did.
With such a horrible ending for her, what were the writers trying to achieve? To tell the viewers that life’s unfair? Well, no. Life seems pretty fair in this case. Eve did bad things, made terrible decisions, acted irrationally throughout the last 2 seasons especially. How did she expect the story to end? Once the 12 were dead there’d be no one covering for Villanelle being thrown in prison if she didn’t end up dead, and the 12 became her life, she was obviously going to be unhappy when her life lost that meaning.
Maybe because the last season seemed so rushed the writers didn’t actually achieve what they wanted to with the characters. Or maybe I’m just not getting it.

Much confusion rains, when it comes to Ryans Rule. This involves the ED, Nrth Side Hospital.
1/ ER didnt put through the Ryans Rule from patient to Doctor
2/ Unit manager refused as well. Implying hes the Boss, his rules as Ryans Rule doesnt work,
3/ Patients,back up, calls Ryans Rule, only to be told ER doesnt come under Ryans Rule
4/3rd Call back to Ryans Rule, told, you need to be admitted, and ED isnt counted as that, YET the system, registers you as admitted, when you come into ED.
5/ Assessed by Doc in ER, you are allowed to call Ryans Rule
NEw unit manager 5 mins before he left, said u need to call Ryans Rule, Half hour later, Call to hospital PLO states she is now marked as under Ryans Rule.
6/ Though 3 weeks or so back, they would admit Patient into hospital ward, they didnt do Ryans Rule when requested. Same reading, then and now. This time, your hearts fine, but machine and reading showed otherwise.
7/then it comes down to mental health and lack of treatment, to help, what was not helping her heart. The staff, was just flat out rude.
Question, is would you just sit back and allow the treatment they gave, without dealing with a health problem.
Standard answer go back to your GP, GP saids heart go back to ED, HEs also the Doc that told her, she was to young to have an heart issue, and yet we are at that point.
Oh and Ryans Rule page, STATES ER is under Ryans Rule Question what would you do?
Take in mind, Have reached out to Hospital, and the RyansRule page,
And folks wonder why QLDHealth as problems,
But thoughts on, if ERS arnt on Ryans Rule,
Thats most folks first port of call, into health/hospital. They can do a crappy job, and get away with it, depending on whom you talk too.

Intro

It’s not much of a stretch to say that violence is the primary form of interaction in video games. With a handful of exceptions, most video games involve guys whacking other guys, with varying degrees of brutality. Even chill games fall into this - Stardew Valley has sections with combat in them! Considering the pervasiveness of violence in video games, there has been a ton of amateur and academic commentary on the topic. However, while this is a well-established school of thought, I haven’t seen people try to apply this to Fire Emblem specifically.
So, let’s do that now! In this post, I’ll be exploring how violence in Fire Emblem is implemented - what limitations are placed on violence, how it warps wider game and narrative design, and what it implicitly says and does not say. I hope this post doesn’t come off as too early-2010s “makes you think”-y, but I do think there are multiple interesting things worth talking about here!
Despite the length of this post, "a brief discussion" is an appropriate title, as we won't be able to go into depth on everything. After all, video games are holistic works, so the attitude towards violence is relevant to every aspect of their design. However, I have managed to wrangle some of these threads into the following structure: first a discussion on the fundamental mode of interaction in Fire Emblem, then how stories are constructed with regards to violence, and ending with the aesthetics of violence and how they relate to characters. Also, as FE is a huge series, be aware that I am gonna be making some broad statements which may not apply to each individual plot point of every game. I actually planned to write 3 case studies around Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses (which have the most interesting attitudes to violence in the series IMO) which point out these deviations, but this post is way too long and full of tangents already. If people are interested, I’ll make a followup to this post which goes into them in more detail. Also also, because of the nature of this post, I’ll actually give a useful TL;DR for once:
TL;DR: Nintendo games must be fun mechanically, and they can’t be too uncomfortable narratively. If you try to provide a counterpoint by saying “oh this Kirby final boss is super dark it eats 100 morbillion galaxies”, you do not deserve rights. IntSys has to keep to this as a 2nd party publisher, but they also have to deal with the fact that their games are at least nominally about ‘war’ (or at least they put their toes into that particular thematic pool). This conflict between making a fun video game for children/teens and the wider framing of the narrative leads to interesting narrative and aesthetic tensions. also fun is cringe, misery is based

“Do you like hurting other people?” (or The Fundamental Mode of Interaction)

OK LISTEN I KNOW I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ACROSS AS A EARLY 2010s “VIOLENCE IN VIDYA BAD :O????” PERSON BUT I SWEAR I’M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
The best place to start when talking about violence in video games is to think about the primary form of interaction in said game. In the case of Fire Emblem, this is in the in-chapter gameplay. Sure, in objective terms the player moves arbitrary objects across a 2D grid which perform subtraction on arbitrary objects controlled by the computer, but this is always framed as controlling a squad of soldiers to engage in (typically lethal) combat with enemies (who are normally also soldiers). When you’re not doing this in-chapter gameplay, you are preparing for the next chapter of combat. This involves surveying the area of combat, preparing weapon loadouts, etc, however more recent entries also include light life-sim-esque elements. To summarize, Fire Emblem’s interactivity involves ordering violence as well as the preparations to order said violence.
For players, this strategic thinking is extremely fun and is the primary draw of the series! You have all these tier lists of who’s better at killing, discussion of the maps where you do the killing, complaints about the length of gameplay sections where you don’t do killing, etc. This is by design, as while I don’t know the core brand tenets of Nintendo, I imagine the Reggie quote “If it isn’t fun, why bother?” is carved into a solid gold statue of Mario in the office lobby. This then is enforced on all associated studios, including IntSys and so Fire Emblem. While I would disagree with that Reggie quote (especially the bit where he says “If it’s not a battle, where’s the fun?” which is a wild statement to make about an entire medium), this approach to making games is ultimately fine, and so IntSys tailored the strategic gameplay to be satisfying to your dopamine receptors. You could analyse what the normalisation of violence even in ‘just for fun’ games says about wider gaming culture, but I won’t get into that here. In any case, let’s dig into a few specifics of FE’s interactivity.
One thing that’s interesting with regard to strategy games is the detached perspective of the player. You order units and observe the resulting violence, but it’s not tactile, you don’t directly swing the sword or shoot the bow or cast the spell like with action games. This adds a layer of separation between the player and what fundamentally happens, at least within the framing that the game provides. It’s not like Call of Duty, where your relationship to the violence is very visceral, where you view everything down the barrel of a gun. OK, I probably shouldn’t use a series that I have very little personal experience with (I only listen to the supplementary lore material, so let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While you’re not directly in the driver’s seat, John Sekiro reacts to your every input with extreme responsiveness, so overcoming the game’s challenges i.e. stabbing people is incredibly visceral and satisfying. While this violence is fantastical in nature, there is sufficient blood and explicit sword-action to clearly say “oh yeah you are violently killing all of those bozos with a katana”. Coming back to FE, not only are you far more detached from the violence, it is presented in an extremely cartoony manner… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll get to the aesthetics later. Point is, Fire Emblem gives the viewpoint of a stoic commander, who Does What Needs To Be Done™, and not the viewpoint of an actual soldier who has to do the actual killing.
Now let’s view the player’s perspective on violence from a different angle. Fire Emblem intends for its combat to be relatively relaxed on the player side of things - the turn-based nature allows the player to calmly think through all of their moves, and you typically have perfect information on the enemies. The only exceptions to this are Fog of WaSame Turn Reinforcements, which are rare and typically unpopular amongst the fanbase. This leans into ‘combat as sport’, where (going back to the Reggie quote) you have a fun time picking apart a puzzle with the tools you have, and we all collectively enjoy this! This is a valid way of designing strategy games, and I like what IntSys has done. However, it’s not the only way of making these games - for example, in Total War you have to juggle all your battalions in real time whilst the enemy is bearing down on you, and the XCOM games always have Fog of War and limited information on the enemies, with you never knowing what kind of awful new monster is going to suddenly charge at you. Don’t get me wrong, neither of these follow ‘combat as war’, the principle that violence should properly mimic the stress, tension and unfairness of actual conflict. Hell, neither of them are particularly mature either - Total War is the strategy game equivalent of smashing action figures together, and XCOM emulates a pulp sci-fi alien invasion story. However, the additional pressures these games have make them hew slightly closer to actual conflict, putting you more in that mindset in a way that the clean fun Fire Emblem doesn’t really do. Again, I want to say FE’s approach to violence in in-map gameplay is fine, but when all three of these franchises have an explicit narrative framing of ‘warfare’, it does make Fire Emblem’s narrative a little more… stretched.
Finally, I want to briefly mention the maps. To steal from a brilliant Jacob Geller video, these are Worlds Designed For Violence. At least outside of the Kaga games, the maps you fight on are primarily designed around how the player interacts with them, i.e. fights on them. While I imagine the narrative designers and artists at IntSys are involved throughout the map design process, the gameplay flow probably takes precedence most of the time. Maps are not designed to resemble realistic places that you have to fight through, they are instead designed primarily to provide fun gameplay experiences before being dressed up by the artists to look realistic/fit the specific story beat. This is a more consistently entertaining approach to map design - heaven knows we have a lot of Kaga castle assault maps which are as fun as actually assaulting an entrenched position IRL - but this lack of friction could potentially take the bite out of the intended vibe, neuter any commentary on violence throughout the story.
You may have noticed that we’ve only talked about the “in-map” gameplay for now, when there’s an entire second half of these games, i.e. all the gameplay between the maps. Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that, but this may fit better in:

Something something “ludonarrative” something something (or Narrative Implications)

(To clarify, here I’m going to talk about the wider plots and narrative structure as opposed to characterisation, as that fits more into the aesthetics of the series)
It’s not bold to say that the narratives of games have to warp around the core gameplay structure. Especially in AAA video game production, the narrative designers usually have to take a back seat to the systems and level designers, at least outside of the initial rough outline they provide in the original game pitch. In this case, the job of the writer is to form vaguely coherent connective tissue between individual levels, setpieces and expensive pre-rendered cutscenes. This must be a very difficult job, and is probably the reason why most video game stories are the way they are. I am not privy to IntSys internal meetings, but I imagine they abide by this paradigm, trying to give a reason for why you fight 20 battles which roughly align with plot beats that were decided years ago.
Put another way, the writers of Fire Emblem must contrive a reason why the characters fight a vast number of violent battles in a strategic manner. This has a pretty easy solution - war! We have found something it’s good for, as whenever the gameplay designers decide that an extra map is required, the writers can just insert “oh no there’s a blockade of enemy soldiers in the way, guess you gotta kill them all”. This is the case for almost all the games and is a fair enough narrative choice, as it’s frankly one of the few scenarios where you could reasonably contrive so many battles, but it’s worth examining this in a bit more detail.
Even in the framing of warfare, there are still a lot of skirmishes, which sometimes the narrative or tone fails to support - or at least, their presence means that violence isn’t taken that seriously. Let’s take an example from early in Awakening: Emmeryn sends the Shepherds to negotiate an alliance with Regna Ferox. On the way, they are ambushed by Risen on the Northroad (1), have to fight the border guards who think Chrom is a bandit I think??? (2), and then after arriving they need to take part in Regna Ferox’s ritual combat to secure their alliance (3). These beats aren’t necessarily bad, and I actually think Awakening uses these opportunities quite well: the Risen are established as a constant threat to the world (except not really in the main story but that’s a whole other thing), “Marth'' gets more development, we set up Regna Ferox as fighty people who like to fight, and while the middle encounter is very tenuous it does set up a funny joke in Cynthia’s paralogue. However, I want to communicate that if the map/encounter designers need X maps between plot points A and B - in this case, needing low-stakes trials in the tutorial period - then there’s gonna be a fair bit of narrative filler. That is to say, there must be multiple combat encounters that kinda just happen, which makes violence a lot more casual in the narrative. See also the myriad examples of “oh shit random bandits attack!”, used to have a lower stakes map, with bandits appearing and vanishing as needed. This works fine enough in the context of ‘combat as sport’, allowing your favourite scrunglo to build up a triple-digit body count, but this casual attitude circumvents potentially interesting ideas with regards violence. Taking the example further, banditry and its causes are never seriously explored, as bandits are just treated as a filler enemy (except in Based As Hell Thracia 776).
Another narrative consequence of needing so many fights is that… you need to fight. That is to say, any anti-war sentiment or appeal to diplomacy in the series is fundamentally undercut by a) strategic combat being a core appeal of the series and b) narrative beats needing to be structured around fighting enemies. It’s a struggle to have moments of diplomacy and reconciliation when you had a fight within 3 minutes of said moment, lest some people start screaming that things are getting boring. This also makes any appeals to pacifism kinda moot. Xander’s quote about “war bad” in Conquest is utter bullshit, as a huge part of the marketing around that route focuses on the coolness of the tactical combat and its challenge. Eirika and Ephraim can never be equal, because Ephraim’s “fighting is fucken awesome” is encouraged by the gameplay, and Eirika can NEVER save 11037 because we need a final boss and no-one else fits the bill.
Speaking of, in video games it’s best practice to have a big bad guy you fight at the end of the story, the toughest mechanical challenge coinciding with the narrative climax. In Fire Emblem, you have one grand final battle which decides the fate of the war and/or world, before cutting to a brief wrap-up and then credits. This is an attempt to make these games satisfying, which is fine, but this is at odds with an anti-war message (which FE often gestures towards) - that is, actual wars tend to be deeply unsatisfying in a narrative sense! Oftentimes, after a decisive battle, things just kinda keep going for a little while afterwards with casualties continuing to pile up until peace terms are agreed. In the few cases where there is a final battle, it’s more of a formality as the decisive moment occurred months ago. See World War 1 and… World War 2 for examples of each, not to mention a whole host of war-related books and films. The problem with doing this in a video game is that it would require having multiple one-sided fights past the most climatic fight, which would be unfun, and we return to that fucking Reggie quote again. While video games can effectively explore this anti-war narrative space - This War of Mine is a fantastic example - it just doesn’t gel with the fun games that IntSys wants to make. I bring this up in the context of FE because Fire Emblem has such an aesthetic focus on warfare compared to other video games, so it sticks out even further. Even in FE6/FE9 where the war is effectively over in the final few maps, the enemies still remain extremely challenging, because if they didn’t things would be boring.
A few minor things that didn’t fit in above before we wrap up this section. First of all, in making an action packed story, Fire Emblem neglects an important aspect of army life in warfare - the “hurrying up and waiting”. In the majority of cases, the breaks between fights is under 10 minutes, it’s just glossed over. Fire Emblem Three Houses is the exception to this, but there it’s more framed as school life. Some people may say “what’s the point in having large amounts of timewasting where nothing happens in my game about war” and to that I would say fuck you, I want to play Jarhead Emblem. Next, Fire Emblem involves fighting people AND monsters, but these targets are typically given equal narrative weight, outside of maybe a funny line of dialogue about someone being afraid of monsters. In 99% of cases, enemy soldiers you fight have no more humanity than literal monsters. The death of any of your beloved soldiers is a tragedy with big sad death quotes, the death of those poor fuckers is quite literally a statistic which is proudly used to rank how well your guys have done at the end of the game. Finally, the limited scope of the violence the series can show limits the potential impact of scenes. In some cases, this is good as the implication is enough, e.g. the ‘Monica’ scene in Sacred Stones is wonderfully grim and would be weakened by anything explicit. However, a number of other scenes are neutered by the limitations on violence. This fundamentally relates to the aesthetics of the series:

insert prozd tweet/skit here (or Aesthetics, Tone, and Characters)

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘the violence committed’, and this might have seemed a bit weird to you. It’s a true statement, but because the violence is mostly cartoony and abstracted - bad guys disappear into nothingness, there’s no blood, etc - it’s hard to think of it in that way. It’s basically impossible to place Fire Emblem in the same artistic sphere as, say, All Quiet on the Western Front. This aesthetic sense was partially tech-limited in the early NES and SNES games, which was grandfathered into the more graphically complex titles, but it’s also related to how the aesthetics unavoidably warp the tone of the work. IntSys needs their games to be relatively lighthearted and unconcerned with the consequences of its violence, as one of the core appeals of these games is the charming cast of characters. As you would expect, it would be a lot harder to appreciate your goofy blorbos and their lighthearted chats about nothing if you could see the brutal consequences of their triple digit body counts. If violence was more realistic, there would be a lot less “ooh I like training and/or this one hyperspecific food” or “I like peace, but I guess violence may be possibly needed sometimes” and there would have to be a lot more trauma and dourness. There are also age rating concerns, as you can’t exactly sell Come And See Emblem to pre-teens. And once more, to clarify: Fire Emblem as it exists now is fine! I like the lighthearted tone of this series, and I like the characters that reside within it. However, a few problems do arise from IntSys’s approach to violence, as occasionally they brush up against darker ideas but (due to similar reasons to the above) they can never commit to them, which neuters their potential impact. This is especially troublesome with regards to characterisation, as the little dudes are a core appeal, so if something is off that could cause problems. In a sense, at points we have severe aesthetic tension.
A fairly useful case study to see how this affects characterisation is with Mozu in Fire Emblem Fates. Mozu is a charming character, a genial country bumpkin with a bit of an edge at times, who has fond memories of her hometown. This lines up with the lighthearted tone of her recruitment paralogue, where (checks notes) her entire village gets massacred by inhuman monsters, with her mother literally being murdered right in front of her, and she joins up with Corrin’s party because there is literally nothing left of her old life. I understand that people who experience extreme trauma do still manage to live meaningful lives, and that IntSys wouldn’t want to have a character who is a barely functional traumatised mess for 90% of the campaign. However, this doesn’t explain the sheer dissonance between the relatively normal and well-adjusted Mozu who quietly remembers her lost loved ones, and the fact that her village got My Lai’d a handful of weeks ago in the game’s timeline. IMO this would work a lot better if there were a few survivors (instead of literally everyone else dying), with Mozu actively choosing to leave her old life to help others instead of being forced to leave by circumstance. This reduction in scope would mitigate the dissonance between the character and what actually happens to her. This is by far the most extreme example in the series, however I’m sure you can think of others. My issue here is not with having ‘normal’ characters, or with them suffering tragedies, my issue is the dissonance between the two when viewing the scope of said tragedies. This is just one way the series wants to get into darker territory, then swiftly backing off instead of delving into the consequences.
This aesthetic restriction also affects the potential impact of dramatic scenes in the main story, limiting what the focus of these scenes can actually be. This little bit will involve heavy spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War and Spec Ops: The Line (I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE VERY DIFFERENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT INTENDED DEMOGRAPHICS IN VERY DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS, SHUT UP). Both have a very important narrative moment around their midpoints, involving fire magic/white phosphorus respectively. In each game, the deaths that occur are utterly horrific when you think about them. In FE4 the focus is on the drama of the plot twist and effects on the characters, with the actual effects of the violence being left to implication. We don’t know if this was the original intent of Kaga and the team, or if this was enforced by various tech- and publisher-related restrictions, but in either case we do not see anything explicit. In any case, in Spec Ops: The Line, the horror and graphic nature of the violence is completely inescapable, and therefore forms the core of the turning point of the story. The specifics of the violence itself are crucial - the game does not work if you don’t see the consequences of the white phosphorus - and it leads beautifully to the complete descent of its endgame. You may be saying “of course you couldn’t show that violence in FE, it’s a kids game” which is true, and in any case the scene in Genealogy is very good, even without showing the violence. I imagine if we get a remake in the year 202X we wouldn’t see anything explicit anyway, partially due to the publisher but also because the scene doesn’t necessarily need it. The point I am trying to make is that the aesthetics form a limitation on what Fire Emblem can explore, narrative space that the series fundamentally cannot reach.
One more thing, and this isn’t really about the games themselves but the impressions leading into them, and how the aesthetics can affect that. Do you guys remember when the intro cutscene of Three Houses was released a few weeks before release? I do, and I also remember the collective shock of the community when seeing the early previews. It was so drastically different to everything that had come before, and consequently was really intriguing - you can see a lot of speculation in the above comments. To clarify, I don’t want to pretend that 3H is some kind of super mature ultra gritty war story, or that blood = good game, but that beginning cutscene gave one hell of a first impression. Even though the game isn’t that much darker than any other FE game, the sheer unexpectedness put people off-kilter in a kinda awesome way. Does the game actually deliver? YMMV, but I think this (and some of the later cutscenes, such as the mid-game Dimitri one) work quite well. Sometimes, a little injection of harsher violence can go a long way.

Conclusion

Frankly I don’t really have a conclusion, sorry. As you can see, there are so many disparate strands, I can’t possibly make one grand thesis statement. Maybe the inherent contradictions of having warfare in a family friendly video game weakens the potential end result? I guess, but I don’t want to imply that what we have now is bad, as it is pretty good tbh. So, uhh…
…
OK, if I had to say something, it’s more about the process of making this. Having to try and think about how violence intersects with a video game you like takes you in a number of different directions. Ultimately, this process was really fulfilling for me, and I would recommend that you do the same (for FE or anything else)! Trying to analyse something you enjoy from a perspective not usually applied is pretty neat. If you guys have any thoughts (on the points above or your own), I’d be very interested to hear them!
Also, if people are interested, I’ll try to make a few case studies. I would focus on Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses, as (when thinking on this topic) I found that these games were consistently the most intriguing, with the most interesting relationships to violence. This would probably take a while though, as I am gonna be very busy in June, and I probably won’t have time this month either.

This has been an ongoing issue for me (18 y/o female) and I'm wondering if this is something serious that I should be worried about. I would like to add that I have no previous heart/health conditions, and I do not exercise frequently. Recently I have been waking up and my whole left arm feels almost fatigued but to the point where it's painful/sore? It feels as if I've lifted 5000 pounds and my arm is severely sore/in pain, but when I wake up with this pain most of the time I'm not even laying on my left side or arm. No matter what position I lay in the pain does not go away unless I eventually fall back asleep if I'm able to. I have no other symptoms but the left arm pain/soreness, what should I do? Is this something I need to be worried about?

I'm (44f) scheduled for a microdisectomy and hemilaminectomy in the morning for L5S1 and I'm seriously stressing about the recovery. It's 430am and I can't sleep from pain but also just so nervous.
Been trying to prepare myself as much as possible: did some rearranging of my things to prevent any bending or twisting or lifting, watched several videos on how to log roll in and out of bed, use the bathroom, etc. And I know walking will be key.
However, sleeping has me panicked. I keep reading how many people are sleeping on their side after surgery, which is what I've been doing the past 9 months with my pain and sciatica. Literally been sleeping on the same side in the same position for all this time because anything else is too painful, even back sleeping. The advice is to sleep with a pillow between your knees, while also maybe hugging a pillow and also putting a pillow behind you if sleeping on side.
My question is: how the hell do you log roll into this position? I've been practicing and cannot do it. I can get onto my back, but have trouble getting to the other side of my body and getting into place to hug the pillow/put pillow between my knees without doing a bunch of readjusting which I know I can't be doing post surgery. And then how do you put the pillow behind you if no twisting is allowed? And how do you put your covers on once situated? Are people just sleeping with no covers for the recovery period?? I'm going to be miserable if that's the issue.
And same with back sleeping: how do you put the pillow under your knees? How do you log roll out of that position? Or do you always need someone to assist you?
And I've read sitting is limited, that it should be laying down, or walking, for the most part. I have a TV at the foot of my bed. If I have to lay flat on my back or flat on my side, I can't watch tv. Is it ok to be propped up a bit? If so, again, how do you log roll in and out of this position? Are you allowed to scoot around and/or prop yourself up with your hands/elbows to lift your head/shoulders/torso up a bit to get into position? And then how do you remove the pillow to log roll out without twisting?
I don't have a spouse or partner to assist me in and out of bed. My parents will be helping me during recovery, but I cannot expect them to "tuck me in" every single night for 6 weeks during the physical restrictions. Also I often have to pee in the middle of the night? How do I get resituated then if it's expected that someone should ideally be assisting me in and out of bed?
I've also read a lot of people use those pregnancy pillows during recovery which initially seemed like a good idea, but again, how do you log roll in and out of a U-shaped pillow? Without twisting to move the back part of the pillow?
Sorry if I'm rambling or overthinking this, but I'm so stressed out about this. I'm terrified of messing it all up within minutes of coming home. I also have two dogs, one of which is a large 70 lb 1 yr old puppy who is pretty rowdy. My parents and I actually live in the same house so they are more than willing to help me with everything and the dogs. They are in their late 60s and mid 70s. They are pretty healthy for the most part and are mobile (my dad still works) but like any older person they have physical issues. They know the first few days are going to be the hardest so if they have to help that much at first its fine, but i cannot expect them to help me in and out of bed any time i need to get up, like in the middle of the night.
If you read this far, thank you. Any suggestions and advice is welcome.

Hi there everyone, I kind of curious, I have been writing a crossover fanfic in the style of Super Robot Wars storylines. One of the Franchises I want to add is RWBY, however, I never really got into the series until playing Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and during his time I started read up on the series on various wiki pages.
So, if I'm wrong on any details or something does seem to match the character's personalities, please tell me!
In this point of the fanfic, it took place after my idea of an ending to the series, so here goes nothing!
The white haired huntress explained why she feels this is the case, telling them the story of her younger brother and his road for redemption.
For the longest of times, Whitley had nothing but hatred for his older sisters and saw the hunters and huntresses as below him, mocking Weiss every moment he had while she was under house arrest. Escaping from this sham of a home, she swore the boy and their father were nothing but monsters and for their actions were things that she never could forgive. That is until it was after the arrest of their father and their manor being invaded by Grimms that cracks were showing in his facade of pettiness.
"During that fight, Whitley wanted nothing but to run off, until he saw our mother fighting against the Grimm before falling from the underuse of her Semblance when he knew he needed to help."
After saving Willow and learning from their mother that Whitley was as much of a victim as anyone else that the middle child chose to mend their damaged relationship. During the fall of their home Kingdom of Atlas, he continued to help by having all the SDC Saircrafts to save anyone and everyone to relocate the people to Vacuo. When the Team RWBY and Jaune return from Ever After, he became part of the attacking forces as a commander to help defeat Salem's forces.
In the final battle, He was present to witness Ruby Rose and Kairi sparing the now depowered and mortal Salem, who was told to simply live with reminders of her sins haunting her until the day she died, as this was her last life. "While we watch Salem leaving to parts unknown, I thought Whitley was going to say something foolish, but to my surprise, he only watched.
In the four weeks after Salem's defeat, Whitley began his new life but it was something to adjusted to as he worked a part time job and began to start classes in that first week The heir of whatever remained of the SDC let his hair grow out slightly, he may have been inspired by a picture of Jaune's appearance during his time in Mistral but still kept a very clean appearance.
It wasn't until a week ago that there were some Jacques' old associates from Vacuo wanted to give Whitley the position of CEO of a new company, one named Phoenix Ash.
"At first, I thought he just wanted to go back to his old ways of life when he agreed to the deal, Asked from me was to trust him about this..."
Out of the blue, The new CEO of the Phoenix Ash Group called for a Public Announcement. Weiss and Winter were watching on a monitor in an aircraft outside of the city. Fearing for the worst, that he would be making empty promises to make a postive public image, the boy spoke of ending the practices of abusing Fanuas workers. This was a lie that their father made to the press when he was alive, before the young CEO spoke of his new idea.
When questioned by the Press, Whitley told the world that he his idea was to start finding better sources than just Dust to rely on, so he would put his own Lien that he held on since childhood to fund this research. If this research was successful, then he would personally see to the closure of all Dust Mines under the Pheonix Ash banter but threaten that if any of the Fanuas workers were harmed during his time as CEO, that under his leadership that he personally see it that the abusers' paychecks would go to their victims and repeated offenders would be fired as quickly as possible. The two sisters begin to noticed that four of The Board Members who hired him were in shaking in their boots.
"Young Sir, please think of the words you speak..." one of Jacques' remaining associates on the board begged to hopefully conviced the boy to reconsider these ideas
"I am fully aware of the words coming from my mouth as much as you were aware of letting my father's actions slide so you can make more Lien. So, to be quite blunt, SHUT IT OR FIND NEW JOBS!" This wasn't like the boy they once knew while Jacques was thriving, he was a new Whitley Schnee that wouldn't be swayed by the idea of making Lien in dishonest ways and wouldn't allow anyone under his leadership to harm the Faunus workers.
"DAMNED BLEEDING HEART BRAT, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE JACQUES, THE REAL HEIR OF THE NAME OF SCHNEE!"
The oldest board member, a muscular bald man of over fourty who was still extremely loyal to the deceased CEO of SDC, charged at the youth with a knife! The youngest of the Schnee clan knew there would be risks, but didn't have any fighting experience to counter this attack.
"WHITLEY!" Weiss cried out as she knew she wouldn't be able to stop the would be killer's attempt of assassination, however, a certain green eyed Faunus, who's loyalites to Robyn Hill last to this day, arrived in enough time to stopped the youth's would be killer.
"You really think that Fiona Thyme would let you kill your new boss? As IF!"
Within a mere set of seconds, the man of three hundred and something pounds was on the ground, each insult that was aimed at the girl was countered with his former boss nodding for the girl to wack the creep across his bald head. This last for a couple of minutes until the police to take his sorry ass to jail as well as charging the Faunus with a minor crime. The girl knew that there would no way to escape but chose not to surrender as she put her hands behind her head much to the cheers of some in the crowd.
However, In those five seconds before the cuffs closed on her hands, The CEO jumped off of the platform and stood in between the messy haired Faunus girl and the arresting officer, slapping the cuff out of the man's hands to the shock of the world. When asked to step aside, the boy's answer to this was something everyone in Remnant, who were either in the crowd or watched from afar from their scrolls, never expected.
"You're really asking me to step aside, so you could take away a war hero's future? I choose to refuse for we all know these charges against her are nothing but baseless. She fought on the side of various heroes! Heroes ] from the Battle of Beacon, like the Teams: RWBY, JNPR, SSSN, FNKI, ABRN and CFVY, the heroes without teams like Lady Kairi, Qrow Branwen, and Taiyang Xiao Long, Heroes like Ilia Amitola and the Belladonna clan who were once White Fang members but left before the assassination of Sienna Khan and return to fight to stop the once peaceful group when they saw what it became under the command of Adam Taurus, heroes like the remaining members of the Ace Operatives, who fought their own feelings of sadness when they lost Clover Ebi and came together after they realized James Ironwood was in the wrong, after the man fell into despair because of how the upper class saw the innocent victims in Remnant and used Atlas as a ram to prevent the Grimm from gaining another advantage point. These groups of heroic and wonderful people came together to save the world from the forces of Salem, so why can't we, the civilains they protected, do the same?!"
There were some mutters from the civilians that watch on the ground level before one of the rich members of the crowd, a man named Harry Marigold, brought up that Weiss may have saved the world but of her crime of summoning the Grimm at the charity event at Schnee Manor should be held accountable before the youth counter with.
"The crime that night was one in justified anger when you, Harry Marigold, who ignored her sadness and only wanted my sister's attention for bragging rights, that damnable trophy wife, her weak minded shell of a husband, the former CEO of the SDC, myself and many others of the Upper Class chose to cruely mocked the recently deceased of Vale and proudly laughing about the deaths of the many innocents of the fallen Kingdom who had nothing to do with the fighting. fates we claimed that civilains deserved!? If anything, she didn't summoned the Grimm to harm anyone but wanted us demons to understand that life is not to be taken as a joke or anything to not to be take lightly. The real crime that night was that the Grimm didn't caused more damages to Schnee manor and not having the monster hurt any of us because of our cruelity to the dead! But because the CEO of SDC cared for nothing but his public image, when she confronted that scumbag for our actions and for using her as a prize toy for everyone to see, his only reaction was to slapped my sister across her face and denied her Birthright!
This made the rich members of the crowd uneasy, as they knew that they were being put in their places. They wanted the youth to be silenced but he continued, angry and filled with something that he should've had a long time ago, a frightful sense of Justice.
"For too damn long, I was blinded by my family's name, not knowing it was nothing but an evil curse and if it wasn't for my sister's actions that night and the night her team and the remaining members of team JNPR saved the lives of my poor mother and the sorry shell of a person. I, too, would've remained under the very same spell of ignorance that the old fool relished in to keep us in line. So, for you to order me around, to use my sister justified attempt on the upper class to see her honorable view on life so who could silence my words, and to force this maiden, who has fought harder than anyone here because fearful paranoia bigots using unjust hatred of every Faunus to make her life a living torture device, for her to rot in a prison cell without a fair trial, just for saving my life? That command is UNFORGIVABLE!" The boy screamed loudly and in pure rage so everyone could hear his plea.
Fiona was in shock, she heard from various communities of the Faunus that the SDC and clan of Schnee were nothing but monsters, worse than any of Salem's Grimms. Even after meeting the huntresses of Team RWBY, she believed Weiss was the only one of the family who wanted to set things right in the world.
Even through she hated the idea to keep an eye on the Schnee heir, even if it was a jobn from her trusted leader. His father and the fellow members of the Board in the SDC saw the Faunus and wanted nothing but for them to be trapped in cages without futures, But to see with her eyes, the very son made to follow in these footsteps of selfish desires, meaning every single word that left his mouth, these words that were filled with a justified desire to save the young girl from an unfair fate, was so unreal.
"If anything, it was the wicked ideas of greed that the deceased CEO held dear tt were one of the many factors that broke our world, Jacques Sc..." The boy stopped for less than a second before continuing in anger.
"....Actually no, I refuse to allow that bastard to my family's name any longer, even in death! Jacques Gélé was never a father, he was nothing but an unredeemable thief without a sense honor, who used dirty lies to trick my dying grandfather into his once humble life, the honorable man that should've had the right to lived long enough to prevent the future Gélé wanted, Nicholas Schnee!"
"Who used my recently deceased mother's, Willow Schnee, love and trust to steal a company he was never worthy to rule over from underneath her. When she learned of his deception and his lies in their sham of a relationship, the once loving and carring mother only means to escape from his wicked virus was to drink her sorrows away and seclude herself from the world!
"His sickness was something that their three children were not immuned to as he saw nothing from us but to be used as pawns so he could gain more power! It wasn't until we learned better ways to live by others, others who actually cared, that we actually became good people!"
"The first of us was to learn this lesson was The Soldier who proven herself time and time again, who enlisted in the Atlas military to get away from the sickness that Gélé took pleasure in, who leaders knocked the views of hatred for the Faunus and the usage of cheap tricks out of her, my oldest sister, Commander Winter Schnee!
"My second oldest sister, Huntress Weiss Schnee, who learn of the shame that her family name carried at her time in Beacon, who was forced to leave after the battle by Gélé for supposed safety only to be paraded around as a prize trophy daughter for his friends in the upper class, who felt the sting of venom when that man refused to accept her heroic heart, forcing her to escape his maddess so she could continued helping those who were suffering!"
"And then there's myself, Whitley Schnee, the boy who was so scared with the various changes to his home life that he chose to follow in that thief's footsteps, who once mocked the dead of Beacon along with the others in the Upper Class, who has never fought for anything and even in that last battle, was so powerless to prevent more tragedies for befall those he commanded to fight on his behalf! The boy who's heart is filled with so much regret because of his idiotic choices in life but is now filled a newly found sense of Justice, who only goal now is to find a cure for the poison, so he could, no! will make our world a better place than it was in the past!"
The crowd was stunned thar they couldn't help but to stay silent.
"Gélé has cause so much suffering to the Faunus and to many other communities. That suffering spread in the Kingdoms like wildfire. When my grandfather died, so did the fairness and honor that the Schnee name held on to....but not anymore! MY DREAM is to stop the suffering that Gélé relished in so he could live like a damn lazy king!
Whitley then put his hands behind his head and told the world.
"So if this girl goes to prison, so will I! All I asked of those listening is not to cheer no matter what the outcome is, not to cry for this foolish boy who has fought for nothing, but to simply think about his words and the weight they pull!" Whitley's blood was boiling as The puppet CEO's bight blue eyes widden to show everyone that his dream was one that the boy will work for through his pain.
After this decree was finished, everything was slient before the officer asked. "Would you die for that dream..?"
Whitley, answered with all seriousness. "If I die, then I would gladly die with a hundred stabs to my heart and soul to make damn sure that my dream becomes reality." The officer waved to another cop to bring in a second set of handcuffs, much to both cops dismay.
"Alright, I'm sorry. Whitley Schnee for disobeying a officer of the law, you have to come with us."
Whitley said not a word as the cuffs latched onto his hands. As if to respect the boy's wishes, There were no one in the crowd, maybe even in Remnant, cheering about the arrest of these two, even though the boy said he had nothing but hatred of those that surround Gélé mocking those that died in Beacon, none of the them wanted nor could cheer, for to celebrate this would be nothing but hallowed.
On route to the department to put the two in the holding cells until they could make bond, the two talked, mostly it was Whitley asking the girl a thousands questions of the culture of the Faunus, the life she lived before becoming a war hero and so on. The poor girl was shaking with overwhelmingness but snapped out of it when Whitley explained something to her.
"This is the second time you saved me from the door of death, thank you, Lady Thyme."
Fiona was slightly confused before slowly piecing together that in the final battle she rushed to the location of downed aircraft, where a gravely injured woman layed under some debris being protected by her white haired son with a mere wooded stick he found on the ground screaming. "GET AWAY! YOU GRIMMS!" before being knocked backwards and then being held by his throat.
"HEY FANG FACES, I'M MORE OF A CHALLENGE THAN THOSE TWO!" The Fanaus screamed while the Grimm let the boy go to blocked her attack.
"KID! TAKE YOUR MOM AND GET OUTTA HERE, I CAN'T HOLD THIS GUY OFF FOREVER!"The boy nodded as he grabbed his mother and ran off, not knowing that he would plan to thank the maiden the next time they meet.
"No freaking way, you're that boy?"
"Yeah...but I'm not proud to admit that I'm not one for fighting." Whitley smiled as this surprised the girl.
To think, the meek boy she saved that one time and the guy who wanted to help others despite his family's reputation were the same person? How would this day become more of a weird fever dream?
"Hey you two, I hate to burst this bubble but ready for a fight, there was another vehicle besides ours that was on their way to the department." A male's voice explained when they noticed a man in a grey cloak sitting in the darkest corner of the vehicle.
"Before you asked, I've been here for the entire trip."
"Why is that important?" The only woman of the three thought while the Schnee youth figured it out.
"That ghoul of a Board Member?"
"'Faid so, he was taken in sometime before your speech and there are only two holding cells in the department, one for men and the other for women." The man explained.
"I could use my semblance to hold him in a..." Fiona was stopped when the mystery man continued.
"...And to prevent any escapes, the cells and those cuffs on your hands are laced with anti-semblance tech."
Fiona screamed. "OH CRAP!"
Whitley was shaken but kept cool as he thought. "I guess as this is a smaller scale city, I should've figured as much."
"Are you actually prepared to die for your ideas?" The man asked the boy, but his answer was simple.
"I'm not planning to back down now, to betray those words I spoke earlier, would be a wicked sin."
Meanwhile in an aircraft a little ways off. Both Weiss and Winter were dumbfounded by their brother's speech and actions. "He has changed so much since weeks ago." The middle child thought before Winter demanded the pilot to land that at the port nearest to the city.
Yang, Kairi, Jaune, Ruby, and Blake were on the aircraft but was confused by the sudden change of directions, before the commander explained. "The Board member that tried to killed our brother was sent to the holding cell in the department before Whitley's speech."
"OH CRAP!" Ruby and Weiss screamed as they thought in dismay that the boy was going to be in an one sided fight against a heavier opponent.
"Please hold on for a bit longer, Younger Brother..." Winter quietly whispered as the Aircraft was going as fast as possible to their destination.
Upon arriving and being settle in the two holding cells, it was when the guards left the redeemer was being used as a punching bag for the man's humiliation.
"DAMN BRATTY ASSED PUNK!"
"UGHHH!" Whitley groaned, being punched for a hour, his clothing became ragged and bloody.
"LEAVE WHITLEY ALONE!" Fiona cried out at the tallest in the men's holding cell, she was in the womens' holding cell that was across the room, luckly for her, she was alone in the women's side but not for Whitley, making things worse is that the guards were sent out on an emergency call, as their thinning numbers were sent out because of a few bomb threats elsewhere in the city.
"SHUT IT, SHEEPIE! I GOING KEEP BEATING THIS BRAT UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE!"
"..." The man in the hood remained quiet as he watched this uneven fight. "You should stay down..."
"...As if I would..." The Schnee boy rose back to his feet through he knew nothing of throwing punches he refused to surrender just to spite the former Board Member of Phoenix Ash.
"HEH, for a skinny brat, you're stubborn, be a good little boy and admit that you're nothing but a puppet then I'll quit your rightly deserved beatings!"
Whitley regained his balance before flipping a bird claiming. "You...really...think this..puppet would let some smug ass with no respect for anyone but those in the Upper Class to order me around? SCREW....YOU!" The boy yelled spiting blood onto the man's ghoulish face to annoy the monster in human flesh.
"...WHY YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" The man was even more enraged now, as he punched the stomach of the younger male causing the boy fall onto the cold floor.
Fiona was horrified as she witness the former spoiled prince rose back to his feet.
"Still standing boy?"
The youth was still standing to a point, until the man pulled a dirty shiv he found in the holding cell while waiting for this very moment. The two youths' eyes widden when they saw the makeshift weapon of sharpen hard plastic.
"...A weapon!?" Fiona cried out in dismay.
"Some poor sap must have made this sometime ago, makes me wonder where he could be now, anywho while I am slicing into your flesh, Whitley, I'm going tell what I thought of those pretty little ideas of yours."
The Faunus was in a state of fear for the young puppet CEO as the shiv user quickly sliced into the white haired youth's shoulder, with this the first time being cut, Whitley scream in pain.
"AHHHHGNN!"
"FIRST, YOU WANT TO FREE THE ANIMALS FROM OUR CAGES, THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS TO A FUTURE IN OUR SOCIETY!
The next was a stab on his left upper leg, luckly not hitting anything vitals as makeshift blade of sharp hard plastic was pulled out and blood dripped onto the flooring The boy's screams of pain echoing through the empty department.
"NEXT, WE CAN'T MAKE ANY LIEN IF BLEEDING HEARTS, LIKE WHAT YOU'VE BECOME, ARE IN CHARGE OF THINGS!"
The attacker then sliced the right side of Whitley's face leaving a scar under his eye.
"THE FACE OF THE BOY WITH A NAME THAT NOWS MEANS NOTHING TOTHE WORLD, USING TRUTHS TO PISS ON THE LEGACY THAT JACQUES BUILT, JUST SO HIS SON COULD REBUILD THE HONOR THAT IT HELD WHEN THAT WINDBAG WAS STILL KICKING! WHAT FREAKIN DRIVEL!"
then a slash across his chest.
"THAT BLEEDING HEART OF YOURS WANTING REDEMPTION SO HE COULD HAVE SOME ATTENTION BUT GUESS WHAT THERE'S NO SUCH THING IN THE BUSINESS WORLD OR IN THE REMAINING KINGDOMS OF REMNANT AS REDEMPTION!"
Then the right hand of the boy, the one Whitley pull in front of his body in an poor attempt to grabbed the makeshift Shiv.
"THESE HANDS OF A SOFT SPOILED LITTLE BOY WHO, EVEN IN THE LAST BATTLE AGAINST THE GRIMM FORCES, NEVER THREW A PUNCH OR SLAP ANYONE, ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN THAT BATTLE WERE ORDERING SOLDIERS TO FIGHT FOR YOU, SOLDIERS WHO SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU'VE BECOME!"
Finishing this rant with a punch to the gut, and mocking his braverly. "TELL ME THIS, BOY? WHEN THIS SPINE OF YOURS GREW, DID YOUR STUPIDITY DOUBLED, BECAUSE COMPARED TO YOUR DAD, YOU'RE SUCH AN DOLT TO BELIEVE YOUR OWN CRAP!"
"WHITLEY! STOP, YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Fiona screamed as the man got on top of the boy's body and punch the white haired youth's face twice before the monster yelled at the girl.
"I SAID SHUT IT SHEEP! YOU MAYBE A WAR HERO THAT I CAN'T PUT MY HANDS ON BUT YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH AS THE HOPES OF THIS BOY DIES ALONG WITH HIS BODY!"
Getting off of the beaten body of the Schnee, the man let Whitley try to get up before the boy fell on his stomach and the man grabbed the white hairs of his his head and pulled his face up, so the redeemer would look into Fiona's green eyes for a last time, one filled with tears.
"ACTUALLY, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE OF HER STATUS AS A WAR HERO, THE SHEEP WILL GET OUT IN THE END OF THE DAY AND BE ON HER WAY HOME, BUT YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY HERO AND FOR WHAT, WHITLEY SCHNEE?! FOR YOUR REMAINS TO BE MY PUNCHING BAG UNTIL I TRANSFER TO PRISON?....IT'S SO FREAKING SAD THAT I'M LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!"
The redeemer, who's face full of buises, forgotten that this is the case for minor first time offenders but didn't care at all. Ever since Fiona saved his and his mother's lives that day, he would've happily be arrested and be beaten, time after time, so he could thank her. He wanted to smile, to show his savior that he was happy with this outcome, even this meant that his life ended today, but could barely move his face but the only could wheezingly chuckled as tears as swell from his eyes
Before the man could finished Whitley off, a small blackout happened as the doors of the cells opened, Fiona ran to the boy who risked his life just so he could to talk to her. "WHY?!" Fiona cried she held the youth in her arms. "WHY CAN'T MONSTERS LIKE YOU SEE THAT THIS A NEW WORLD, THAT WE CAN BECOME BETTER THAN WE ONCE WERE." The green eyed girl demanded anwers but the man just mocked to anwered the Fuanus.
"Do you think animals like you could understand that only the strong and the Upper Cass are the only ones who have the right to control Remnant. He could have been one of those in control and still have enough Lien to be someone important but he chose to ally with the lower class, and for little lamb he paying for it, dearly."
Putting the boy's head gently on the floor wiping the tears on her sleeve, to hopefully keep friend she made safe for a bit longer, she attempted to use Pocket Demisions to rid the world of this demon, only to realize in the middle of her attack, the power returned and because she ran to help the youth, that she was in the men's holding cell with the real beast.
"....No!" She wimpered.
"Looks like there's some of my fellow board members of Phoenix Ash are still on my side." He smiled wickening as he began to explain their plans. "You see, little Sheep, we figured the boy has a bleeding heart, so to get rid of those childish wishes to loosen our hold, we decided yesterday to make up a plan, the one that you had to prevent. So during that little speech of his, we made a second one on the fly." He continued as he put his hand on an earpiece. "...That one being the threats to distract the guards and that little blackout. Plus thanks to this little device, my semblance to increase my strength with every attack I give, still remains."
"This can't be...." She was scared, as this man that she could taken down a few mere hours ago, was telling the truth when every step he made while approaching Fiona made small cracks in the flooring.
"Damn it, We going need to cause another..." A voice explained though the earpiece before he turned off the equipment's sound option.
"Now, since you annoyed me so much, you're going be my replacement, lamb chops!" The upsuper yelled in bliss as he pulled his fist to punch her small body. She dodged the attack but his second punch connected and sent her flying into the force field door.
"AUHHGGG!" She cried out, recoiling in the pain from her back before noticing the man was coming for her, managing to get up but unable to dodge it completely in this cramped arena. She felt the punch connected with her left arm, braking the bones in the limb, Then a kick to her gut. Knocking her a few inches near Whitley's body.
"....No...."
The youngest of the Schnee clan could only watch in despair through one eye, the two were being broken by a scummy excuse of a human, and the young redeemer of his name could do nothing but watched as his attempt to prove to the world his words were real go down in flames.
"...Leave...her...alone..." These words spit out ignoring the pain as much as he could while rising back to his feet and limping to get in between the Faunus woman and her attacker.
"So, the boy still has some fighting spirit...The boy that has never fought for anything in his life, I am certain that you're doing this for everyone's attention."
The man was right on a few things, Whitley was never a fighter or some ground troop, and it may have been that he wanted attention when he first started to go down this road but Winter quickly knocked that idea out of his head, but the man is wrong on others, for Whitley realize that all he wanted to do in life is to help in anyway, even he'll be happy as a sideliner act to the main heroes.
But one can't always stay in that role and hoped to change the world, for a long time he stood by as a witness to to his father's crimes, for longer his thoughts of heroism being dismissed by that bogus excuse of a father and as far as he remembered, Whitley had others fight for him. But no more!
"In this world, money and power pull the strings, and yet you choose death for a flithy animal? How more times are you going to PISS M-!" The man was interrupted while talking by, to the surprise of all, the white haired boy headbutting his taller foe, knocking the man onto his ass!
"...WHAT!?" The man screamed in horror as he started to bleed from his now broken nose, this was the first time the business man has ever seen his own blood.
"...I've...told...the world...I...would die for my dream....even if I die today....I'll be happy to die...hundred times over again..." The boy's body was mostly broken, each word he spoke caused more pain than his body could stand but the young man still had one part of his body to fight with, his hard head!
The next thing they all knew, Whitley continued headbutting his enemy, causing the man to gain a reality check, his ability were increasing his attacks but at a certain cost, The sole major weak point on his body, the one that held the brain to think of ways to screwed others over, the one with the eyes that saw everyone else as beneath him and the one with the mouth with a booming voice he used to make threats and promises to ruin his foes, his face weaken over time with every punch or kick he gave to the two.
"NONONONONO!" The man screamed with a bloodied and bruised face, before feeling the same despair he installed into his two victims just mere minutes ago. In a desperate attempt to stop these attacks, he grabbed the man in the cloak as a hostage, with the shiv he used on the boy still in his possession.
"You-ou wouldn't w-wan...me to stab some r-random person that had nuthing to do with this, uh?!" These ragged words were like the man himself, desperate and scummy, but was enough to stop the boy from getting closer.
The foe laughed thinking he has the upper hand. "I admired your old man's talent in making a profit, but he was just like you to a certain point, he was no killer, so now I advise we wait until they let us out or I'll be plunging..."
"Tsk...This old fart really been pissing me off since we got here!"
The cloaked man yelled as he stepped on the foot of his captor along with a gunshot ringing though the air. "W-WHAT!?" The man screamed in pain as he released his hold to grabbed his now bleeding foot. "DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!" The larger man screamed before realizing why his leg strength wasn't up to snuff. While being headbutted by his Whitley, the earpiece fell out and was behind his two victims!
"No way this is happening...." He groaned in pain before the cloaked male took off his hood, just to make things worse for the would be assassin.
"...and here I thought I would have a peaceful life in prison..." The man sighed as he revealed himself to be a fomer ally of Salem, one who wanted nothing more but to rot in prisons for the remaining of his life.
"M-Mercury B-B-Black, why is a war criminal here?!" The man screamed, fearing for his life even more than before.
"I was supposed to transfer into the next city, mostly for some good behavior BS..." Mercury turned his attention to the white haired boy.
"Hey kid, you're the brother to that girl Weiss, right?"
"....." Whitley wanted to say something but really couldn't, with those last few headbutts, if he tried to speak now, he will surely faint.
"Man, the geezer really did a number on you, huh?" Mercury asked before = one of the guards and Whitley's sisters ran in.
"Holy...CRAP! WHITLEY!!"
"Why is our brother and Miss Thyme in the same cell as these two?!" Winter demanded answers before Mercury explained for panicing guard while pulling the earpiece from the ground.
"Whitley was being used by lord lard ass as a punching bag until few people from Pheonix Ash caused a short blackout, the girl ran in to stopped the beatings but was attacked as well until your little bro figuring out the buzzard's weakness by headbutting the man in his freakin' face. After that, The creep tried to use me as levelage but yeah, you can see how that worked out."
"DAMNED BRATS...." The man groaned as the two Schnee women got Whitley and Fiona out of this cell but froze in fear when he saw Winter staring down at the man.
"I figured that your group would pulled something like this when Whitley told me of the CEO position, so I looked into yours and the rest of the board's backgrounds...It was just as Black said, You and your three friends in the board of eight have more than just attempted assassination to worry about now."
This decree was worrying enough before Mercury Black turned his attention back to the older man."I guess I'm going to have a kicking dummy for a roommate now!"
"Please have mercy!" The man turned deathly pale before Fiona yelled.
"Like the mercy you shown to me and Whitley because he called out your sorry butt, I would think not!"
Weiss was next to insult the man for his behavior. "...If anything you deserve nothing but a fate in a cage, like the various futures you took away!"
"Looks like you're going to rot in a cell for the rest of your sad existence." Winter finished before the guards were told by the military commander to take her younger brother out of the room and to take his would be assassin to the other cell.
Before leaving, Winter asked the former ally of Salem.
"Mercury Black...Your sentence for your war crimes have been over with for a couple of months now, yet, you still choose to remain in prison, may I ask why?"
"Since Cinder died in the fight against our former partner and Salem's redemption attempt, I really don't have much else left. Besides it's like I've said during that battle with the hammerhead and her pretty boy lover, I have been forced to fight since I was born by a drunk abusive excuse of a dad, so even if I could be let back into society, I don't think I could be happy."
"You could've joined the military..." The eldest member of the Schnee replied before the younger male countered
"Yeah, but I hate following and giving orders, besides you've seen what this old bastard done to your brother, creeps like him and worse are everywhere in prison. So as long as I can beat them senseless, I'm freaking happy to serve more time for each brawl I get my ass into."
This silenced Winter for a couple of seconds before asking for two simple demands. "Just tell Em that I'm okay with how things ended between us, and tell her just to be happy with her new life, if she can do that, then that would give me some sort of peace."
A couple of hours later at the medical bay on the airship.
Kairi used the healing spell Curaga on both the boy and Fiona. "Thank you, Lady Kairi." Fiona bowed while still having her arm in a cast after Whitley opened his eyes, being healed.
"Hey, it's not a problem, but please, just call me Kairi for now on, okay, Fiona?"
"Ughh, what...Fiona..are you alright?" The redeemer asked his friend.
"Yes, but you took the blunt of the beating, please relax, Whitley." The Fanuas explained before the boy asked.
"Who payed for our bails? I doubt it was my sisters, our situation isn't as it once was."
At that moment, Weiss and Blake came in, the disowned heiress of the destroyed SDC was proud at the fact that her former enemy of a brother fought for what's right, explaining. "It those three you poined out from that charity that payed for your and Fiona's bonds."
"Huh?!" Fiona was taken back in surprise by this before the middle child of the Schnee family theorized
"My guess is, either your speech or being outed as horrible people that made those three pay with their own Lien to post bond. I only wished we got there quicker but the airport was on the other side of the city."
"That's good but I can only hope that the others in the crowd took my words to heart and none of the people recording that day alter the video."
...We can check for video or audio interferances later on today but something tells me those who heard your speech that they're going be thinking about it for a long time." Blake's words made the youngest member of the Schnee children a little more eased.
"If only mother lived to see her son became someone to be proud of." Weiss thought to herself that day before their last mission in Remnant before her universe was wiped from existence.
In the Hangar of the doomed Wunder, Weiss had a thought of what could've been the futures of the new CEO of Pheonix Ash and his loyal bodyguard could have been if their universe just lasted a little bit longer.
"Hey, Bozos I'm about to take the Eva-unit 02 F off of the ship, before figuring out a plan to stop Misato."
"Alright.." Aqua answered as the red-head walked towards the console before seeing something strange.
"You guys were here for the last hour right?"
"Yeah?" Duo answered before Asuka added.
"And no one else came in or tried anything funny right?"
"We've been here the entire time, what's with the questions, Langley?" Viral countered.
"...There's two signals of heat in the cockpit...."
"Umm what?" Jaune exclaimed as the console showing the statistics of the bulky armored version of Unit 02, showing two bodies of heat in the entry plug.
Before anything else was said in the group. A young male's voice came through the console. "Umm Hello? Can someone get us out of this thing?"
No one but the Schnee huntress recognize the youth's voice. "Whitley!?"
"Sis, can you hear me?"
Asuka spoke next, "How long were you two in the Evangelion for?"
"I think for three hours, oh right, Fi wanted to asked if there's any males in the area."
"Fiona's in there too?!" Wiess inner thoughts were of panic that were made worse after Jaune's answer.
"Yeah, there's four guys here, why?" Jaunne asked before Fiona screamed in embrassament.
"PLEASE GO TO THE OTHER ROOM OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS!"
"Fi, please relax..."
"RELAX!? YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS THING WITH CLOTHES ON!" The girl whined while crying from embarrassment.
"Umm, could anyone bring clothing for Miss Thyme."
Duo began to smirked before being dragged by Viral into the next room. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, Duo Maxwell..."
"Killjoy!" Duo screamed as Jonathan conviced Jaune to followed.
"Sir Arc, we should leave as well, as it is knights' honor to..."
"Already way ahead of you, Mr. Joestar. We'll see you all later when we come up with that plan!"
As this was all happening, an snore echoed out from behind the crates. "Is someone sleeping over there?" Aqua asked while checking to see who it might be.
There, Chibodee Crocket, of all people was in deep slumber, much to everyone's surprise.
"...We should wake him up..." Asuka sighed while Weiss went looking for any of the female members of the crew for some clothing.
But to the surprise of the two, he just walked into the next room while sleeping the entire time. "That...worked out way to well..."

Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker.